“Or rather we found them,” cried Hermon, interrupting his companion with angry positiveness.  “The city of Alexandria, which is growing with unprecedented vigour, is their home.  There, the place to which every race on earth sends a representative, the pulse of the whole world is throbbing.  There, whoever does not run with the rest is run over; there, but one thing is important—­actual life.  Science has undertaken to fathom it, and the results which it gains with measures and numbers is of a different value and more lasting than that which the idle sport of the intellects of the older philosophers obtained.  But art, her nobler sister, must pursue the same paths.  To copy life as it is, to reproduce the real as it presents itself, not as it might or must be, is the task which I set myself.  If you would have me carve gods, whom man can not represent to himself except in his own form, allow me also to represent them as reality shows me mortals.  I will form them after the models of the greatest, highest, and best, and also, when the subject permits, in powerful action in accordance with my own power, but always as real men from head to foot.  We must also cling to the old symbols which those who order demand, because they serve as signs of recognition, and my Demeter, too, received the bundle of wheat.”

As the excited artist uttered this challenge a defiant glance rested upon his comrade and Daphne.  But Myrtilus, with a soothing gesture of the hand, answered:  “What is the cause of this heat?  I at least watch your work with interest, and do not dispute your art so long as it does not cross the boundaries of the beautiful, which to me are those of art.”

Here the conversation was interrupted; the steward Gras brought a letter which a courier from Pelusium had just delivered.

Thyone, the wife of Philippus, the commander of the strong border fortress of Pelusium, near Tennis, had written it.  She and her husband had been intimate friends of Hermon’s father, who had served under the old general as hipparch, and through him had become well acquainted with his wealthy brother Archias and his relatives.

The Alexandrian merchant had informed Philippus—­whom, like all the world, he held in the highest honour as one of the former companions of Alexander the Great—­of his daughter’s journey, and his wife now announced her visit to Daphne.  She expected to reach Tennis that evening with her husband and several friends, and mentioned especially her anticipation of meeting Hermon, the son of her beloved Erigone and her husband’s brave companion in arms.

Daphne and Myrtilus received the announcement with pleasure; but Hermon, who only the day before had spoken of the old couple with great affection, seemed disturbed by the arrival of the unexpected guests.  To avoid them entirely appeared impossible even to him, but he declared in an embarrassed tone, and without giving any reason, that he should scarcely be able to devote the entire evening to Daphne and the Pelusinians.