The latter turned toward him, exclaiming:  Daphne!  As in the case of yonder bust, you have succeeded most perfectly with this dear face—­only—­”

“Only,” Hermon repeated slowly; “I am familiar with that evil word.  Doubts knock at the door with it.  Out with them honestly.  I gave up my last hope of the prize yesterday while looking at your Demeter.  Besides, careful scrutiny has just destroyed the last gleam of satisfaction with my own work.  But if you like the head, what seem to you the greatest defects in the figure?”

“It has nothing to do with defects, which, with your rare ability, can scarcely exist,” replied the other, the faint pink flush in his beardless cheeks deepening to a more vivid hue.  “It refers rather to the expression which you have given the divinity in yonder statue.”  Here Myrtilus hesitated, and, turning so that he stood face to face with Hermon, asked frankly, “Did you ever seek the goddess and, when you found her, did you feel any supernatural power and beauty?”

“What a question!” exclaimed Hermon in astonishment.  “A pupil of Straton, and go in search of beings and powers whose existence he denies!  What my mother instilled into my heart I lost with my childhood, and you address your question only to the artist who holds his own ground, not to the boy.  The power that calls creation to life, and maintains it, has for me long had nothing in common with those beings like mortals whom the multitude designates by the name of divinities.”

“I think differently,” replied Myrtilus.  “While I numbered myself among the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm for me, I nevertheless shared the master’s opinion that it is insulting the gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the sake of us insignificant mortals.  Now my mind and my experience rebel against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you, that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will.”

“And yet,” said Hermon, “you expect me to trouble myself about those who are as powerless as myself!”

“I only wished that you might do so,” answered Myrtilus; “for they are not powerless to those who from the first assumed that they can do nothing in opposition to those changeless laws.  The state, too, rules according to them, and the wise king who refrains from interfering with them in the smallest trifle can therefore wield the sceptre with mighty power.  So, in my opinion, it is perfectly allowable to expect aid from the gods.  But we will let that pass.  A healthy man, full of exuberant vigour like yourself, rarely learns early what they can bestow in suffering and misfortune; yet where the great majority believe in them, he, too, will be unable to help forming some idea of them; nay, even you and I have experienced it.  By a thousand phenomena they force themselves into the world which surrounds us and our emotional life.  Epicurus,