e wax
and the smaller implements which belonged to himself and which he had
brought home last evening. His heart ached, and his nerves were in a
painful state of tension as he began his work. All sorts of anxious
thoughts disturbed his spirit, and yet he knew that if he put his whole
soul into it he could do something good. Now, if ever, he must put forth
his best powers, and he dreaded failure as an utter catastrophe, for on
the face of the whole earth there was no second model to compare with
this that stood before him.

But he did not take long to collect himself for the Bithynian's beauty
filled him with profound feeling and it was with a sort of pious
exaltation that he grasped the plastic material and moulded it into a
form resembling his sitter. For a whole hour not a word passed between
them, but Pollux often sighed deeply and now then a groan of painful
anxiety escaped him.

Antinous broke the silence to ask Pollux about Selene. His heart was
full of her, and there was no other man who knew her, and whom he could
venture to entrust with his secret. Indeed it was only to speak to
her that he had come to the artist so early. While Pollux modelled and
scraped Antinous told him of all that had happened the previous night.
He lamented having lost the silver quiver when he was upset into the
water and regretted that the rose-colored chiton should afterwards
have suffered a reduction in length at the hands of his pursuer. An
exclamation of surprise, a word of sympathy, a short pause in the
movement of his hand and tool, were all the demonstration on the
artist's part, to which the story of Selene's adventure and the loss of
his master's costly property gave rise; his whole attention was absorbed
in his occupation. The farther his work progressed the higher rose his
admiration for his model. He felt as if intoxicated with noble wine
as he worked to reproduce this incarnation of the ideal of umblemished
youthful and manly beauty. The passion of artistic procreation fired
his blood, and threw every thing else--even the history of Selene's fall
into the sea, and her subsequent rescue--into the region of commonplace.
Still he had not been inattentive, and what he heard must have had some
effect in his mind; for long after Antinous had ended his narrative, he
said in a low voice and as if speaking to the bust, which was already
assuming definite form:

"It is a wonderful thing!" and again a little later; "There was alway