nce among the members of his profession;
nay, he would speedily have reached the head of their leaders had not
the passionate impetuosity of his warlike nature led the more cautious
to seek to restrain the powerful enthusiast.

Archias's wealthy friends had no such apprehension. To them the lauded
blind artist was not much more than a costly dish certain to please
their guests; yet this, too, was no trifle in social circles which spent
small fortunes for a rare fish.

At the banquets of these princes of commerce he often met Daphne, still
more frequently the beautiful Glycera, whose husband, an old ship-owner
of regal wealth, was pleased to see famous men harnessed to his young
wife's chariot of victory. Hermon's heart had little to do with the
flirtation to which Glycera encouraged him at every new meeting, and the
Thracian Althea only served to train his intellect to sharp debates. But
in this manner he so admirably fulfilled her desire to attract attention
that she more than once pointed out to the Queen, her relative, the
remarkably handsome blind man whose acquaintance she had made on a night
of mad revel during the last Dionysia but one. Althea even thought
it necessary to win him, in whom she saw the future son-in-law of the
wealthy Archias, for through the graminateus Proclus the merchant had
been persuaded to advance the King's wife hundreds of talents, and
Arsinoe cherished plans which threatened to consume other large sums.

Thyrone watched Hermon's conduct with increasing indignation, while
Daphne perceived that these women had no more power to estrange her
lover from her than the bedizened beauties who were never absent from
the artists' festivals. How totally different was his intercourse
with her! His love and respect were hers alone; yet she saw in him a
soul-sick man, and persistently rejected Philotas, who wooed her with
the same zeal as before, and the other suitors who were striving to win
the wealthy heiress. She had confessed her feelings to her father, her
best friend, and persuaded him to have patience a little longer, and
wait for the change which he himself expected in his nephew.

This had not been difficult, for Archias loved Hermon, in spite of the
many anxieties he had caused him, as if he were his own son and, knowing
his daughter, he was aware that she could be happy with the man who
possessed her heart though he was deprived of sight.

The fame which Hermon had won by great genius an