“Then your father must be satisfied with the good effect which our residence here has exerted upon me,” replied Myrtilus.  “I know that he was thinking of my illness when he proposed to us to complete his commissions here.  Hermon—­the good fellow!—­could never have been induced to leave his Alexandria, had not the hope of thereby doing me a kindness induced him to follow me.  I will add it to the many for which I am already indebted to his friendship.  As for art, he will go his own way, and any opposition would be futile.  A goddess—­he perceives it himself—­was certainly the most unfortunate subject possible for his—­”

“Is his Demeter a complete failure?” asked Daphne anxiously.

“Certainly not,” replied Myrtilus eagerly.

“The head is even one of his very best.  Only the figure awakens grave doubts.  In the effort to be faithful to reality, the fear of making concessions to beauty, he lapsed into ungraceful angularity and a sturdiness which, in my opinion, would be unpleasing even in a mortal woman.  The excess of unbridled power again makes it self visible in the wonderfully gifted man.  Many things reached him too late, and others too soon.”

Daphne eagerly asked what he meant by these words, and Myrtilus replied:  “Surely you know how he became a sculptor.  Your father had intended him to be his successor in business, but Hermon felt the vocation to become an artist—­probably first in my studio—­awake with intense force.  While I early placed myself under the instruction of the great Bryaxis, he was being trained for a merchant’s life.  When he was to guide the reed in the counting-house, he sketched; when he was sent to the harbour to direct the loading of the ships, he became absorbed in gazing at the statues placed there.  In the warehouse he secretly modelled, instead of attending to the bales of goods.  You are certainly aware what a sad breach occurred then, and how long Hermon was restrained before he succeeded in turning his back upon trade.”

“My father meant so kindly toward him,” Daphne protested.  “He was appointed guardian to you both.  You are rich, and therefore he aided in every possible way your taste for art; but Hermon did not inherit from his parents a single drachm, and so my father saw the most serious struggles awaiting him if he devoted himself to sculpture.  And, besides, he had destined his nephew to become his successor, the head of one of the largest commercial houses in the city.”

“And in doing so,” Myrtilus responded, “he believed he had made the best provision for his happiness.  But there is something peculiar in art.  I know from your father himself how kind his intentions were when he withdrew his assistance from Hermon, and when he had escaped to the island of Rhodes, left him to make his own way during the first period of apprenticeship through which he passed there.  Necessity, he thought, would bring him back to where he had a life free from anxiety awaiting him.  But the result was different.  Far be it from me to blame the admirable Archias, yet had he permitted his ward to follow his true vocation earlier, it would have been better for him.”