“Impossible!” Althea eagerly interrupted; “nothing else was talked of for weeks in the royal palace.  Queen Arsinoe—­you might be jealous, Lady Thyone—­has been fairly in love with your hero ever since her last stay in your house on her way home from Thrace, and she has not yet given up her desire to see him in the capital as priest of Alexander.  It seems to her just and fair that the old companion of the greatest of the great should have the highest place, next to her husband’s, in the city whose foundation he witnessed.  Arsinoe speaks of you also with all the affection natural to her feeling heart.”

“This is as flattering as it is surprising,” replied Thyone.  “The attention we showed her in Pelusium was nothing more than we owed to the wife of the sovereign.  But the court is not the principal attraction that draws me to the capital.  It would make Philippus happy—­you have just heard him say so—­to remember his old master beside the tomb of Alexander.”

“And,” added Daphne, “how amazed you will be when you see the present form of the ‘Soma’, in which rests the golden coffin with the body of the divine hero whom the fortunate Philippus aided to conquer the world!”

“You are jesting,” interrupted the old warrior.  “I aided him only as the drops in the stream help to turn the wheel of the mill.  As to his body, true, I marched at the head of the procession which bore it to Memphis and thence to Alexandria.  In the Soma I was permitted to think of him with devout reverence, and meantime I felt as if I had again seen him with these eyes—­exactly as he looked in the Egyptian fishing village of Rhacotis, which he transformed into your magnificent Alexandria.  What a youth he was!  Even what would have been a defect in others became a beauty in him.  The powerful neck which supported his divine head was a little crooked; but what grace it lent him when he turned kindly to any one!  One scarcely noticed it, and yet it was like the bend of a petitioner, and gave the wish which he expressed resistless power.  When he stood erect, the sharpest eye could not detect it.  Would that he could appear before me thus once more!  Besides, the buildings which surrounded the golden coffin were nearly completed at the time of our departure.”

“But the statues, reliefs, and mosaic work were lacking,” said Hermon.  “They were executed by Lysippus, Euphranor, and others of our greatest artists; the paintings by Apelles himself, Antiphilus, and Nicias.  Only those who had won renown were permitted to take part in this work, and the Ares rushing to battle, created by our Myrtilus, can be seen among the others.  The tomb of Alexander was not entirely completed until three years ago.”

“At the same time as the Paneum,” added Philotas, completing the sentence; and Althea, waving her beaker toward the old hero, remarked:  “When you have your quarters in the royal palace with your crowned admirer, Arsinoe—­which, I hope, will be very soon—­I will be your guide.”