“The Arachne?” asked the King.

“Yes, my lord,” cried Hermon ardently.  “With its completion I expected to render the greatest service, not only to myself, but to the cause of truth.”

Here Ptolemy interrupted with icy coldness:  “Yet you were certainly wrong; at least, if the Thracian Althea, who is the personification of falsehood, had continued to be the model.”  Then he changed his tone, and with the exclamation:  “You are protected from the needs of life, unless your rich uncle throws his property into the most insatiable of gulfs.  May Straton’s philosophy help you better to sustain your courage in the darkness which surrounds you than it has aided me to bear other trials!” he left the room.

Thus ended the artist’s conversation with the King, from which Hermon had expected such great results and, deeply agitated, he ordered the driver of his horses to take him to Daphne.  She was the only person to whom he could confide what disappointment this interview had caused him.

Others had previously reproached him, as the King had just done, with having, in the Demeter, become faithless to his artistic past.  How false and foolish this was!  Many a remark from the critics would have been better suited to Myrtilus’s work than to his.  Yet his fear in Tennis had not been true.  Only Daphne’s sweet face did not suit his more vigorous method of emphasizing distinctions.

What a many-hued chameleon was the verdict upon works of plastic art!  Once—­on his return to the capital—­thousands had united in the same one, and now how widely they differed again!

His earlier works, which were now lauded to the skies, had formerly invited censure and vehement attacks.

What would he not have given for the possibility of seeing his admired work once more!

As his way led past the Temple of Demeter, he stopped near it and was guided to the sanctuary.

It was filled with worshippers, and when, in his resolute manner, he told the curator and the officiating priest that he wished to enter the cella, and asked for a ladder to feel the goddess, he was most positively refused.

What he requested seemed a profanation of the sacred image, and it would not do to disturb the devout throng.  His desire to lower the pedestal could not be gratified.

The high priest who came forward upheld his subordinates and, after a short dispute, Hermon left the sanctuary with his wish unfulfilled.

Never had he so keenly lamented his lost vision as during the remainder of the drive, and when Daphne received him he described with passionate lamentation how terribly blindness embittered his life, and declared himself ready to submit to the severest suffering to regain his sight.

She earnestly entreated him to apply to the great physician Erasistratus again, and Hermon willingly consented.  He had promised to attend a banquet given that day by the wealthy ship-owner Archon.  The feast lasted until early morning, but toward noon Hermon again appeared in his uncle’s house, and met Daphne full of joyous confidence, as if he were completely transformed.