In the portrait-forms the limits were less severely drawn.  There were a dozen permissible attitudes, and, the characteristic features might be represented with all fidelity; but there were boundaries that might not be overstepped.  The result was an artistic perversion that well-nigh perpetrated a grotesque slander on the personal appearance of the race.

After the manner of Egyptians it was understood that Kenkenes was to follow his father’s calling, and ahead of him were years of labor laid in narrow lines.  If he rebelled, he incurred infinite difficulty and opposition, and yet he could not wholly submit.  He had been an apt and able pupil during the long process of his instruction, but when the moment of actual practice of his art arrived, he had rebelled.  His first work had been his last and, in the estimation of his father, had entailed a grievous loss.  Thereafter he had been limited to copying the great sculptor’s plans, the work of scribes and underlings.

Thus, he had passed three years that chafed him because of their comparative idleness and their implied rebuke.  The pressure finally became too great, and he began to weigh the matter of compromise.  If he could secretly satisfy his own sense of the beautiful he might follow the ritual with grace.

His cogitations, as he sat before his table, assumed form and purpose.

Presently Mentu, raising his head, noted that the shadows were falling aslant the court.  With an interested but inarticulate remark, he dropped his pen among its fellows in an earthenware tray, his plans into an open chest, and went out across the court, entering an opposite door.

With his father’s exit, Kenkenes shifted his position, and the expression of deep thought grew on his face.  After a long interval of motionless absorption he sprang to his feet and, catching a wallet of stamped and dyed leather from the wall, spread it open on the table.  Chisel, mallet, tape and knife, he put into it, and dropped wallet and all into a box near-by at the sound of the sculptor’s footsteps.

The great artist reentered in court robes of creamy linen, stiff with embroidery and gold stitching.

“Har-hat passes through Memphis to-day on his way to Tape, where he is to be installed as bearer of the king’s fan on the right hand.  He is at the palace, and nobles of the city go thither to wait upon him.”

“The king was not long in choosing a successor to the lamented Amset,” Kenkenes observed.  “Har-hat vaults loftily from the nomarchship of Bubastis to an advisership to the Pharaoh.”

“Rather hath his ascent been slower than his deserts.  How had the Rebu war ended had it not been for Har-hat?  He is a great warrior, hath won honor for Egypt and for Meneptah.  The army would follow him into the jaws of Tuat,[4] and Rameses, the heir, need never take up arms, so long as Har-hat commands the legions of Egypt.  But how the warrior will serve as minister is yet to be seen.”