“Sixteen!  What, little Arsinoe!  Why, how long then is it since your mother died?”

“Four years and eight months.”

“You remember the date very exactly; such a mother is not easily forgotten, indeed.  She was a good woman and a kinder I never met.  I know, too, that she tried to mollify your father’s feeling, but she could not succeed, and then she need must die!”

“Yes,” said Selene gloomily.  “How could the gods decree it!  They are often more cruel than the hardest hearted man.”

“Your poor little brothers and sisters!”

The girl bowed her head sadly and Pollux stood for some time with his eyes fixed on the ground.  Then he raised his head and exclaimed: 

“I have something for you that will please you.”

“Nothing ever pleases me now she is dead.”

“Yes, yes indeed,” replied the young sculptor eagerly.  “I could not forget the good soul, and once in my idle moments I modelled her bust from memory.  To-morrow I will bring it to you.”

“Oh!” cried Selene, and her large heavy eyes brightened with a sunny gleam.

“Now, is not it true, you are pleased?”

“Yes indeed, very much.  But when my father learns that it is you who have given me the portrait—­”

“Is he capable of destroying it?”

“If he does not destroy it, he will not suffer it in the house as soon as he knows that you made it.”  Pollux took the handkerchief from the steward’s head, moistened it afresh, and exclaimed as he rearranged it on the forehead of the sleeping man: 

“I have an idea.  All that matters is that my bust should serve to remind you often of your mother; the bust need not stand in your rooms.  The busts of the women of the house of Ptolemy stand on the rotunda, which you can see from your balcony, and which you can pass whenever you please; some of them are badly mutilated and must be got rid of.  I will undertake to restore the Berenice and put your mother’s head on her shoulders.  Then you have only to go out and look at her.  Will that do?”

“Yes, Pollux; you are a good man.”

“So I told you just now.  I am beginning to improve.  But time—­time! if I am to undertake to repair Berenice I must begin by saving the minutes.”

“Go back to your work now; I know how to apply a wet compress only too well.”

With these words Selene threw back her mantle over her shoulders so as to leave her hands free for use, and stood with her slender figure, her pale face, and the fine broadly-flowing folds of rich stuff, like a statue in the eyes of the young sculptor.

“Stop—­stay so—­just so,” cried Pollux to the astonished girl, so loudly and eagerly that she was startled.