Certainly Maurice felt in a somewhat embarrassing position, on hearing of Justinian’s offer to instal him as future King of Melnos, and he hardly knew what decision to make in the matter. At present the affair was so unexpected and bewildering that he hardly grasped the fact of its reality, and remained where he was, leaning against a pillar, wondering if he was asleep or awake. He had come to an unknown island of the Ægean Sea, and therein had beheld a miniature civilization of a most unique character, which in itself by its very fancifulness was enough to unsettle his calm reasoning powers, when lo! the man who had created this vision of dead classicism proposed to bestow it on him as a gift. There was something singularly tempting in this offer, especially to a man of Roylands’ artistic temperament; for here, in this sea-girt island, he could lead a life of dreamy seclusion, and work at his art amid these rejuvenated Hellenic times, which breathed all the serenity and calm necessary to foster the craving soul of genius. In the riotous modern world of England he had often felt like an alien, and his work, imbued with modernisms, seemed feeble and meretricious after those masterpieces of Greek art which still remain to remind us of the supremacy of Attic sculptors in delineating the human figure. Devoted to his art, had Maurice been asked by some fairy to name his desire, he would certainly have demanded to be placed in kindred circumstances, calm, untroubled, serene, to those masterly Athenian creators who adorned the Parthenon with god-like forms. Lo! without the intervention of an unseen power, his wish had been unexpectedly gratified, yet, now that the boon long dreamed of was gratified, he hesitated as to the advisability of accepting it.