“Of course!” he replied in an irritated tone.  “The thirst for beauty, to which you all succumb, would not have much satisfaction to expect from this work.”

“No, no, no!” Daphne interrupted in a louder tone than usual, and with the earnest desire to convince him.  “Precisely because I transported myself into your tendency, your aspirations, I recognised the danger.  O Hermon! what produced so sinister an effect by the wavering light of the lamps and torches, while the thunderstorm was rising—­the strands of hair, the outspread fingers, the bewildered, staring blue eyes—­do you not feel yourself how artificial, how unnatural it all was?  This transformation was only a clever trick of acting, nothing more.  Before a quiet spectator, in the pure, truthful light of Apollo, the foe of all deception, what would this Arachne probably become?  Even now—­I have already said so—­when I imagine her executed in marble or in gold and ivory!  Beauty?  Who would expect to find in the active, constantly toiling weaver, the mortal daughter of an industrious dyer in purple, the calm, refreshing charm of divine women?  I at least am neither foolish nor unjust enough to do so.  The degree of beauty Althea possesses would entirely satisfy me for the Arachne.  But when I imagine a plastic work faithful to the model of yesterday evening—­though I have seen a great deal with my own eyes, and am always ready to defer to riper judgment—­I would think, while looking at it:  This statue came to the artist from the stage, but never from Nature.  Such would be my view, and I am not one of the initiated.  But the adepts!  The King, with his thorough connoisseurship and fine taste, my father, and the other famous judges, how much more keenly they would perceive and define it!”

Here she hesitated, for the blood had left Hermon’s cheeks, and she saw with surprise the deep impression which the candid expression of her opinion had produced upon the artist, usually so independent and disposed to contradiction.  Her judgment had undoubtedly disturbed, nay, perhaps convinced him; but at the same time his features revealed such deep depression that, far from rejoicing in so rare a success, she patted his arm like an affectionate sister, saying:  “You have not yet found time to realize calmly what yesterday dazzled us all—­and you,” she added in a lower tone, “the most strongly.”

“But now,” he murmured sadly, half to himself, half to, her, “my vision is doubly clear.  Close before the success of which I dreamed failure and bitter disappointment.”

“If this ‘doubly’ refers to your completed work, and also to the Arachne,” cried Daphne in the affectionate desire to soothe him, “a pleasant surprise will perhaps soon await you, for Myrtilus judges your Demeter much more favourably than you yourself do, and he also betrayed to me whom it resembles.”