This reflection flashed through her mind with the speed of lightning while she was listening to Althea’s conversation with the sculptor.

“The question here can be no clever play upon the name and the nature of the daughter of Erebus and Night,” said the Thracian gravely.  “I will remind you that there is another Nemesis besides the just being who drives from his stolen ease the unworthy mortal who suns himself in good fortune.  The Nemesis whom I will recall to-day, while angry Zeus is hurling his thunderbolts, is the other, who chastises sacrilege—­Ate, the swiftest and most terrible of the Erinyes.  I will invoke her wrath upon you in this hour if you do not confess the truth to me fully and entirely.”

“Ask,” Hermon interrupted in a hollow tone.  “Only, you strange woman—­”

“Only,” she hastily broke in, “whatever the answer may be, I must pose to you as the model for your Arachne—­and perhaps it may come to that—­ but first I must know, briefly and quickly, for they will be looking for me immediately.  Do you love Daphne?”

“No,” he answered positively.  “True, she has been dear to me from childhood—­”

“And,” Althea added, completing the sentence, “you owe her father a debt of gratitude.  But that is not new to me; I know also how little reason you gave her for loving you.  Yet her heart belongs neither to Philotas, the great lord with the little brain, nor to the famous sculptor Myrtilus, whose body is really too delicate to bear all the laurels with which he is overloaded, but to you, and you alone—­I know it.”

Hermon tried to contradict her, but Althea, without allowing him to speak, went on hurriedly:  “No matter!  I wished to know whether you loved her.  True, according to appearances, your heart does not glow for her, and hitherto you have disdained to transform by her aid, at a single stroke, the poverty which ill suits you into wealth.  But it was not merely to speak of the daughter of Archias that I accompanied you into this tempest, from which I would fain escape as quickly as possible.  So speak quickly.  I am to serve you in your art, and yet, if I understood you correctly, you have already found here another excellent model.”

“A native of the country,” answered Hermon in an embarrassed tone.

“And for my sake you allowed her to wait for you in vain?”

“It is as you say.”

“And you had promised to seek her?”

“Certainly; but before the appointed hour came I met you.  You rose before me like a new sun, shedding a new light that was full of promise.  Everything else sank into darkness, and, if you will fulfil the hope which you awakened in this heart—­”

Just at that moment another flash of lightning blazed, and, while the thunder still shook the air, Althea continued his interrupted protestation:  “Then you will give yourself to me, body and soul—­but Zeus, who hears oaths, is reminding us of his presence—­and what will await you if the Biamite whom you betrayed invokes the wrath of Nemesis against you?”