“It is beautiful.  It is triumphant.  Endymion is a trifle too old, perhaps.  But Diana’s face is so noble, and her glance so tenderly earnest, that it would surely rouse him if he were not dead.”

“Dead!” returned Arthur; “why you know he is only sleeping.”

“No, no,” said Lawrence, gently, “dead; utterly dead—­to her.  If he were not, it would be simply impossible not to awake and love her.  Who’s that old gentleman on the wall over there?”

Lawrence Newt asked the same question of all the portraits so persistently that Arthur could not return to his Diana.  When he had satisfied his curiosity—­a curiosity which he had never shown before—­the merchant rose and said good-by.

“Stop, stop!”

Lawrence Newt turned, with his hand upon the door.

“You like my picture—­”

“Immensely.  But if she looks forever she’ll never waken him.  Poor Endymion! he’s dead to all that heavenly splendor.”

He was about closing the door.

“Hallo!” cried Arthur.

Lawrence Newt put his head into the room.

“It’s fortunate that he’s dead!” said the painter.

“Why so?”

“Because goddesses never marry.”

Lawrence Newt’s head disappeared.

CHAPTER LXIV.

DIANA.

“Good-morning, Miss Hope.”

“Good-morning, Mr. Merlin.”

He bowed and seated himself, and the conversation seemed to have terminated.  Hope Wayne was embroidering.  The moment she perceived that there was silence she found it very hard to break it.

“Are you busy now?” said she.

“Very busy.”

“As long as men and women are vain, so long your profession will flourish, I suppose,” she replied, lifting her eyes and smiling.

“I like it because it tells the truth,” replied Arthur, crushing his hat.

“It omitted Alexander’s wry neck,” said Hope.

“It put in Cromwell’s pimple,” answered Arthur.

They both smiled.

“However, that is not the kind of truth I mean—­I mean poetic truth.  Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment shows the whole Catholic Church.”

Hope Wayne felt relieved, and looked interested.  She did not feel so much afraid of the silence, now that Arthur seemed entering upon a disquisition.  But he stopped and said,

“I’ve painted a picture.”

“Full of poetic truth, I suppose,” rejoined Hope, still smiling.

“I’ve come to ask you to go and see that for yourself.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

She laid aside her embroidery, and in a little while they had reached his studio.  As Hope Wayne entered she was impressed by the spaciousness of the room, the chastened light, and the coruscations of rich color hanging upon the walls.

“It’s like the garden of the Hesperides,” she said, gayly—­“such mellow shadows, and such gorgeous colors, like those of celestial fruits.  I don’t wonder you paint poetic truth.”