What could the others, or she herself, be to him, since he loved the rich foreigner in the tent outside, and her alone?  How firmly her image must have been impressed upon his soul, that he could reproduce the features of the absent one with such lifelike fidelity!

Yet with what bold assurance he had protested that his heart belonged solely to her.  But she thought that she now perceived his purpose.  If the slave was right, it was done that she might permit him to model what he admired in her figure, only not the head and face, whose beauty, nevertheless, he praised so extravagantly.

Had he attracted Gula and her sister with similar sweet flatteries?  Had the promise to bestow their charms upon a goddess been made to them also?

The swift throbbing of her indignant heart made it impossible for her to think calmly, but its vehement pulsation reminded her of the object of her presence here.

She had come to obtain a clear understanding between him and herself.

She stood here as a judge.

She must know whether she had been betrayed or deceived.

He should confess what his intentions toward her were.  The next moments must decide the fate of her life, and she added, drawing a long breath, perhaps of his also.

Suddenly Ledscha started.  She had not heard Hermon enter the studio, and was now startled by his greeting.

It was not positively unkind, but certainly not a lover’s.

Perhaps the words might have been warmer, but for his annoyance at the insolent boldness with which she had removed the coverings from his works.  He restrained himself from openly blaming her, it is true, but he exclaimed, with a tinge of gay sarcasm:  “You seem to feel very much at home here already, fairest of the fair.  Or was it the goddess herself who removed the curtain from her image in order to show herself to her successor upon this pedestal?”

But the question was to remain unanswered, for under the spell of the resentment which filled her heart, and in the effort not to lose sight of the object that brought her here, Ledscha had only half understood its meaning, and pointing her slender forefinger at the face of his completed work, she demanded to know whom she recognised in this statue.

“The goddess Demeter,” he answered quietly; “but if it pleases you better, as you seem to be on the right track, also the daughter of Archias.”

Then, angered by the wrathful glance she cast at him, he added more sternly:  “She is kind-hearted, free from disagreeable whims and the disposition to torture others who are kindly disposed toward her.  So I adorned the goddess with her pleasant features.”

“Mine, you mean to say,” Ledscha answered bitterly, “would be less suitable for this purpose.  Yet they, too, can wear a different expression from the present one.  You, I think, have learned this.  Only I shall never acquire the art of dissimulation, not even in your society.”