The new scene which would result from this change had been conjured
before the Queen's mental vision with marvellous celerity, and she
described it in brief, vivid language to the architect. The garden
should remain, but must be enlarged from the Lochias to the bridge.
Thence a covered colonnade would lead to the palace. After Gorgias had
assured her that all this could easily be arranged, she gazed
thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then gave orders that the work
should be commenced at once, and requested him to spare neither means nor
men.

Gorgias foresaw a period of feverish toil, but it did not daunt him.
With such a master builder he was ready to roof the whole city. Besides,
the commission delighted him because it proved that the woman whose
mausoleum was to rise from the earth so swiftly still thought of
enhancing the pleasures of existence; for, though she wished the garden
to remain unchanged, she desired to see the colonnade and the remainder
of the work constructed of costly materials and in beautiful forms. When
she bade him farewell, Gorgias kissed her robe with ardent enthusiasm.

What a woman! True, she had not even raised her veil, and was attired in
plain dark clothing, but every gesture revealed the most perfect grace.

The arm and hand with which she pointed now here, now there, again seemed
to him fairly instinct with life; and he, who deemed perfection of form
of so much value, found it difficult to avert his eyes from her
marvellous symmetry. And her whole figure! What lines, what genuine
aristocratic elegance, and warm, throbbing life!

That morning when Helena, now an inmate of his own home, greeted him,