ich would convey it with him to the capital the next
day.

While this arrangement called forth loud expressions of regret from
Daphne and the vivacious matron, Hermon assented to it, for it would
at least secure the ladies, until their arrival in Alexandria, from a
painful disappointment.

"Rather," Proclus protested with firm dissent, "it will rob you for some
time of a great pleasure, and you, noble daughter of Archias, probably
of the deepest emotion of gratitude with which the favour of the
immortals has hitherto rendered you happy; yet the master who created
this genuine goddess owes the best part of it to your own face."

"He told me himself that he thought of me while at work," Daphne
admitted, and a flood of the warmest love reached Hermon's ears in her
agitated tones, while, greatly perplexed, he wondered with increasing
anxiety whether the stern critic Proclus had really been serious in the
extravagant eulogium, so alien to his reputation in the city.

Myrtilus, too, had admired the head of his Demeter, and--this he himself
might admit--he had succeeded in it, and yet ought not the figure, with
its too pronounced inclination forward, which, it is true, corresponded
with Daphne's usual bearing, and the somewhat angular bend of the arms,
have induced this keen-sighted connoisseur to moderate the exalted
strain of his praise? Or was the whole really so admirable that it would
have seemed petty to find fault with the less successful details? At any
rate, Proclus's eulogy ought to give him twofold pleasure, because his
art had formerly repelled him, and Hermon tried to let it produce this
effect upon him. But it would not do; he was continually overpowered by
the feeling that under the enthusiastic homage of the intriguing Queen
Arsinoe's favourite lurked a sting which he should some day feel. Or
could Proclus have been persuaded by Thyone and Daphne to help them
reconcile the hapless blind man to his hard fate?

Hermon's every movement betrayed the great anxiety which filled his
mind, and it by no means escaped Proclus's attention, but he attributed
it to the blinded sculptor's anguish in being prevented, after so great
a success, from pursuing his art further.

Sincerely touched, he laid his slender hand on the sufferer's muscular
arm, saying: "A more severe trial than yours, my young friend, can
scarcely be imposed upon the artist who has just attained the highest
goal, but three things warrant you to hope