TEE ADVICE OF HOTEP

If Mentu, looking up from the old murkets, noted that the face of his son was weary and sad, he laid it to the sudden heat of the spring; for now it was the middle of March and Ra had grown ardent and the marshes malarious.  The old housekeeper, to whom the great artist mentioned his son’s indisposition, glanced sharply at the young master, touched his hand when she served him at table, and felt his forehead when she pretended to smooth his hair.  And having made her furtive examination, the astute old servant told the great artist that the young master was not ill.  If she had further information to impart, Mentu did not give her the opportunity, for had she not said that Kenkenes was well?  So he fell to his work again.

Senci noted it, and sorrowful Io, but they, like Mentu, ascribed it to the miasmas and said nothing to the young man about himself.

But Hotep was a penetrative man, and more hidden things than his friend’s ailment had been an open secret to his keen eye.  He did not care to know which one of the butterflies was the fluttering object of Kenkenes’ bounteous love, for Hotep knew that those high-born Memphian women, who were openly partial to the handsome young sculptor, loved him for his comeliness and his silken tongue alone.  It would take a profounder soul than any they had displayed to understand and sympathize with the restive genius hidden under the smooth exterior they saw.

Therefore, with some impatience, Hotep conceded that his friend was in love, and presumably throwing himself away.  So the scribe purposed, even though the attempt were inevitably fruitless, to win Kenkenes out of his dream.

One faint dawn he entered the temple to pray for his own cause at the shrine of the lovers’ goddess.

In the half-night of the vast interior, at the foot of the sumptuous pedestal of Athor, he distinguished another supplicant, kneeling.  But there was a hopelessness in the droop of the bowed head and a tenseness in the interlaced fingers of the clasped hands, which proved that Athor’s answer had not been propitious.

Hotep knew at once who besought the goddess.  Setting his offering of silver and crystal on the altar, the scribe departed with silent step.  But without, he ground his teeth and execrated the giver of pain to Kenkenes.

In mid-afternoon of the same day Hotep’s chariot drew up at the portals of Mentu’s house, and the scribe in his most splendid raiment was conducted to Kenkenes.  The young sculptor was alone.

“What was it, a palsy or the sun which kept thee at home this day?” was Hotep’s greeting.  “Nine is a mystic number and is fruitful of much gain.  Eight times within a month have I come for thee.  The ninth did supply thee.  Blessed be the number.”

Kenkenes smiled.  “But there are seven Hathors, and five days in the epact—­and the Radiant Three.  To me it seemeth there are many good numbers.”