impetuosity of his warlike nature led the more cautious to seek to
restrain the powerful enthusiast.

Archias's wealthy friends had no such apprehension. To them the lauded
blind artist was not much more than a costly dish certain to please their
guests; yet this, too, was no trifle in social circles which spent small
fortunes for a rare fish.

At the banquets of these princes of commerce he often met Daphne, still
more frequently the beautiful Glycera, whose husband, an old ship-owner
of regal wealth, was pleased to see famous men harnessed to his young
wife's chariot of victory. Hermon's heart had little to do with the
flirtation to which Glycera encouraged him at every new meeting, and the
Thracian Althea only served to train his intellect to sharp debates. But
in this manner he so admirably fulfilled her desire to attract attention
that she more than once pointed out to the Queen, her relative, the
remarkably handsome blind man whose acquaintance she had made on a night
of mad revel during the last Dionysia but one. Althea even thought it
necessary to win him, in whom she saw the future son-in-law of the
wealthy Archias, for through the graminateus Proclus the merchant had
been persuaded to advance the King's wife hundreds of talents, and
Arsinoe cherished plans which threatened to consume other large sums.

Thyrone watched Hermon's conduct with increasing indignation, while
Daphne perceived that these women had no more power to estrange her lover
from her than the bedizened beauties who were never absent from the
artists' festivals. How totally different was his intercourse with her!
His love and respect were hers alone; yet she saw in him a soul-sick man,
and persistently rejected Philotas, who wooed her with the same zeal as
before, and the other suitors who were striving to win the wealthy