On the third day after his arrival he left Tennis and sailed from Tanis for Alexandria.  He had had little time to attend to Thyone and her guests.

Proclus, too, could not devote himself to them until after the departure of the epistrategus, since he had gone immediately to Tanis, where, as head of the Dionysian artists of all Egypt, he had been occupied in attending to the affairs of the newly established theatre.

On his return to Tennis he had instantly requested to be conducted to the Temple of Demeter, to inspect the blinded Hermon’s rescued work.

He had entered the cella of the sanctuary with the expectation of finding a peculiar, probably a powerful work, but one repugnant to his taste, and left it fairly overpowered by the beauty of this noble work of art.

What he had formerly seen of Hermon’s productions had prejudiced him against the artist, whose talent was great, but who, instead of dedicating it to the service of the beautiful and the sublime, chose subjects which, to Proclus, did not seem worthy of artistic treatment, or, when they were, sedulously deprived them of that by which, in his eyes, they gained genuine value.  In Hermon’s Olympian Banquet he—­who also held the office of a high priest of Apollo in Alexandria—­had even seen an insult to the dignity of the deity.  In the Street Boy Eating Figs, the connoisseur’s eye had recognised a peculiar masterpiece, but he had been repelled by this also; for, instead of a handsome boy, it represented a starving, emaciated vagabond.

True to life as this figure might be, it seemed to him reprehensible, for it had already induced others to choose similar vulgar subjects.

When recently at Althea’s performance he had met Hermon and saw how quickly his beautiful travelling companion allowed herself to be induced to bestow the wreath on the handsome, black-bearded fellow, it vexed him, and he had therefore treated him with distant coldness, and allowed him to perceive the disapproval which the direction taken by his art had awakened in his mind.

In the presence of Hermon’s Demeter, the opinion of the experienced man and intelligent connoisseur had suddenly changed.

The creator of this work was not only one of the foremost artists of his day, nay, he had also been permitted to fathom the nature of the deity and to bestow upon it a perfect form.

This Demeter was the most successful personification of the divine goodness which rewards the sowing of seed with the harvest.  When Hermon created it, Daphne’s image had hovered before his mind, even if he had not been permitted to use her as a model, and of all the maidens whom he knew there was scarcely one better suited to serve as the type for the Demeter.

So what he had seen in Pelusium, and learned from women, was true.  The heart and mind of the artist who had created this work were not filled with the image of Althea—­who during the journey had bestowed many a mark of favour upon the aging man, and with whom he was obliged to work hand in hand for Queen Arsinoe’s plans—­but the daughter of Archias, and this circumstance also aided in producing his change of view.