this I might remedy by the help of my art, so I painted on
with increasing zeal; and at last her lamentations ceased to trouble me,
for she fell asleep, and her handsome head sank on her breast. The
watchers, too, had dropped asleep, and only their deep breathing broke
the stillness.

"Suddenly it flashed upon me that I was alone with Korinna, and the
feeling grew stronger and stronger; I fancied her lovely lips had moved,
that a smile gently parted them, inviting me to kiss them. As often as I
looked at them--and they bewitched me--I saw and felt the same, and at
last every impulse within me drove me toward her, and I could no longer
resist: my lips pressed hers in a kiss!"

Melissa softly sighed, but the artist did not hear; he went on: "And in
that kiss I became hers; she took the heart and soul of me. I can no
longer escape from her; awake or asleep, her image is before my eyes, and
my spirit is in her power."

Again he drank, emptying the cup at one deep gulp. Then he went on: "So
be it! Who sees a god, they say, must die. And it is well, for he has
known something more glorious than other men. Our brother Philip, too,
lives with his heart in bonds to that one alone, unless a demon has
cheated his senses. I am troubled about him, and you must help me."

He sprang up, pacing the room again with long strides, but his sister
clung to his arm and besought him to shake off the bewitching vision. How
earnest was her prayer, what eager tenderness rang in her every word, as
she entreated him to tell her when and where her elder brother, too, had
met the daughter of Seleukus!

The artist's soft heart was easily moved. Stroking the hair of the loving
creature at his side--so helpful as a rule, but now bewildered--he tried
to calm her by affecting a lighter mood than he really felt, assuring her
that he should soon recover his usual good spirits. She knew full well,
he said, that his living loves changed in frequent succession, and it
would be strange indeed if a dead one could bind him any longer. And his
adventure, so far as it concerned the house of Seleukus, ended with that
kiss; for the lady Berenike had presently waked, and urged him to finish
the portrait at his own house.

Next morning he had completed it with the help of the Galatea in the
villa at Kanopus, and he had heard a great deal about the dead maiden. A
young woman who was left in charge of the villa had supplied him with
whatever he needed. Her pretty