“He certainly did right that time,” I said. “The Queen was merely mocking him all the while.” “Well, on the way home, as he passed near the port, he saw a mariner whom some one had told him the Queen had given herself to--though there was no proof of it. The man was Glaucon--you know him well by sight. Clesides got the fellow to come home with him, and pose for four days. At the end of that time he had finished painting two scandalous little pictures, representing the Queen in the arms of the sailor, firstly facing the beholder, and then with the back showing. These pictures he fastened at night to the wall of the Palace of Seleucus. He then doubtless fled, after this public vengeance, on some vessel, for there is said to be no trace of him. The Queen knows of it already, and if she is furious at heart she hides it marvellously. “During the whole of the morning an enormous crowd defiled before these scandalous paintings. Stratonice was told of it, and desired to see them herself. Accompanied by twenty-five people of her court, she stopped before the two subjects, approaching and then retreating as though the better to judge of their artistic or truthful aspect in detail and in general. I was there, and as I followed her glances with a feeling of horror, wondering whom she was going to slay when her anger reached its highest point, she said: “I do not know which is the best; both are excellent!” * * * * * Bryaxis, in the midst of our exultation, lifted merely his eyebrows, and so gave to his face the fine old lines that denoted surprise. “She proved that she is not less witty than impudent,” said he. “The whole story is very curious; but why do you seem to be so proud of or pleased with its hero? It seems to me that the part played by the model is a very important one.” “If the Queen had dared,” said Ophelion, “she would have pursued Clesides even to the far-off seas, and there have had him killed as one might kill a dog. But then, through all the violet land of Greece she would have been considered none other than a barbarian woman--she who wishes to be thought a thorough Athenian. Stratonice holds Asia in her hand as though it were a fly, and she has drawn back before a man who has for weapon only a tablet and stylus.... Hereafter the Artist is the king of kings, the sole inviolable being living under the sun. Now you see why it is that we are so proud!” The elder man made a very disdainful movement of the mouth.