ented to go with Philippus and Thyone that evening,
in order, after offering sacrifice together to Selene, to sail for
Pelusium, Althea requested the grammateus to take her, into the open
air.

Before leaving the tent, however, she dropped her ostrich-feather fan
as she passed Hermon, and, when he picked it up, whispered with a
significant glance at Daphne, "I see that what was learned of her heart
is turned to account promptly enough."

Then, laughing gaily, she continued loudly enough to be heard by her
companion also: "Yesterday our young artist maintained that the
Muse shunned abundance; but the works of his wealthy friend Myrtilus
contradicted him, and he changed his view with the speed of lightning."

"Would that this swift alteration had concerned the direction of his
art," replied Proclus in a tone audible to her alone.

Both left the tent as he spoke, and Hermon uttered a sigh of relief
as he looked after them. She attributed the basest motives to him, and
Daphne's opinion of her was scarcely too severe.

He no longer needed to fear her power of attraction, though, now that he
had seen her again, he better understood the spell which she had exerted
over him. Every movement of her lithe figure had an exquisite grace,
whose charm was soothing to the artist's eye. Only there was something
piercing in her gaze when it did not woo love, and, while making the
base charge, her extremely thin lips had showed her sharp teeth in a
manner that reminded him of the way the she-wolf among the King's wild
beasts in the Paneum gardens raised her lips when any one went near her
cage.

Daphne was right. Ledscha would have been infinitely better as a model
for the Arachne. Everything in this proud creature was genuine and
original, which was certainly not the case with Althea. Besides, stern
austerity was as much a part of the Biamite as her hair and her hands,
yet what ardent passion he had seen glow in her eyes! The model so
long sought in vain he had found in Ledscha, who in so many respects
resembled Arachne. Fool that he was to have yielded to a swift and false
ebullition of feeling!

Since Myrtilus was again near him Hermon had devoted himself with fresh
eagerness to his artistic task, while a voice within cried more and more
loudly that the success of his new work depended entirely upon Ledscha.
He must try to regain her as a model for the Arachne! But while
pondering over the "how," he felt a rare sense of pleasur