“O Myrtilus,” the girl interrupted, “how terribly I suffered in those days!  For the first time the gods made me experience that there are black clouds, as well as bright sunshine, in the human soul.  For weeks an impassable gulf separated me from my father, with whom I had always had one heart and soul.  But I never saw him as he was then.  The first prize had been awarded to you for your Aphrodite, radiant in marvellous beauty, and your brow had also been already crowned for your statue of Alexander, when Hermon stepped forward with his works.  They were at the same time the first which were to show what he believed to be the true mission of art—­a hideous hawker, hide in hand, praising his wares with open mouth, and the struggling Maenads.  Surely you know the horrible women who throw one another on the ground, tearing and rending with bestial fury.  The spectacle of these fruits of the industry of one dear to me grieved me also, and I could not understand how you and the others saw anything to admire in them.  And my father!  At the sight of these things the colour faded from his cheeks and lips, and, as if by virtue of his guardianship he had a right to direct Hermon in the paths of art also, he forbade his ward to waste any more time in such horrible scarecrows, and awaken loathing and wrath instead of gratification, exultation, and joy.  You know the consequences, but you do not know how my heart ached when Hermon, frantic with wounded pride and indignation, turned his back upon my father and severed every tie that united him to us.  In spite of his deep vexation and the unbridled violence with which the nephew had allowed himself to address his uncle, my father did not dream of withholding his assistance from him.  But Hermon no longer came to our house, and when I sent for him to bring him to reason, he positively declared that he would not accept another obolus from my father—­he would rather starve than permit any one to dictate to him in the choice of his subjects.  Liberty was worth more than his uncle’s gold.  Yet my father sent him his annual allowance.”

“But he refused it,” added Myrtilus.  “I remember that day well, how I tried to persuade him, and, when he persisted in his intention, besought him to accept from my abundance what he needed.  But this, too, he resolutely refused, though at that time I was already so deeply in his debt that I could not repay him at all with paltry money.”

“You are thinking of the devotion with which he nursed you when you were so ill?” asked Daphne.

“Certainly; yet not of that alone,” was the reply.  “You do not know how he stood by me in the worst days.  Who was it that after my first great successes, when base envy clouded many an hour of my life, rejoiced with me as though he himself had won the laurel?  It was he, the ambitious artist, though recognition held even farther aloof from his creations than success.  And when, just at that time, the insidious disease attacked me more