ad taken
Ledscha. He also made him aware that he feared some evil from her, and
that, in an alarming vision, she had appeared to him as a hideous spider.

Hermon laughed softly. "As a spider? The omen is appropriate. We will
make her a woman spider--an Arachne that is worth looking at. But this
strange beauty is one of the most obstinate of her sex, and if I let her
carry out her bold visit in broad daylight she will get the better of me
completely. The blood must first be washed from my hands here. The
wounded sea eagle tore the skin with its claw, and I concealed the
scratch from Daphne. A strip of linen to bandage it! Meanwhile, let the
impatient intruder learn that her sign is not enough to open every door."

Then he entered his sitting room, greeted Ledscha curtly, invited her to
go into the studio, unlocked it, and left her there alone while he went
to his chamber with the slave and had the slight wound bandaged
comfortably.

While Bias was helping his master he repeated with sincere anxiety his
warning against the dangerous beauty whose eyebrows, which had grown
together, proved that she was possessed by the demons of the nether
world.

"Yet they increase the austere beauty of her face," assented the artist.
"I should not want to omit them in modelling Arachne while the goddess is
transforming her into a spider! What a subject! A bolder one was scarcely
ever attempted and, like you, I already see before me the coming spider."

Then, without the slightest haste, he exchanged the huntsman's chiton for
the white chlamys, which was extremely becoming to his long, waving
beard, and at last, exclaiming gaily, "If I stay any longer, she will
transform herself into empty air instead of the spider," he went to her.

CHAPTER VIII.

While waiting in the studio Ledscha had used the time to satisfy her
curiosity.

What was there not to be seen!

On pedestals and upon the boards of the floor, on boxes, racks, and along
the wall, stood, lay, or hung the greatest variety of articles: plaster
casts of human limbs and parts of the bodies of animals, male and female,
of clay and wax, withered garlands, all sorts of sculptor's tools, a
ladder, vases, cups and jars for wine and water, a frame over which linen
and soft woollen materials were spread, a lute and a zither, several
seats, an armchair, and in one corner a small table with three
dilapidated book rolls, writing tablets, metal styluses, and reed pens.

All t