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250 ARIADNE.that purple darkness of sweet shade: but thatdid not matter to me;it would harm me nomorethan it woulcl harm the infant Herakles smilingin his lion's skin: when life isno longer a desireto us,it will stay with us faithfully.Isat and thought,not of the bronzes or themarbles,butof themanwhohad come tomethere,onthat clay of my dream, with thesunlight shininginhis brave brown eyes, and smiling said: " stillbefore your Ariadne ? And if it be an Ariadne,who cares for her ? she couldbe consoled."But this my Ariadne had refused all consolation,and he — the man to whom Fortunehadbeengood for five and twenty years — was dead.Isat weary and stupid in the grey sultry air,before the feet of the white Dionysos, thinkingonly of the great hfe that had gone out like theflame of a lamp, and of the young life that wasfading slowly, dying as the summer died, unreconciledand unconsoled, though the hoarySilenus of the world had brought her thefoaming wine of fame, and the god that is arthad descended to her.Ifelt weary and stupid: a step came to me