Inarime took the Austrian Embassy by storm. That evening Rudolph

returned from a short absence at Vienna, where he had been bound

on pre-nuptial affairs, intending to startle his family by the

announcement of his engagement to Andromache and his determination to

marry immediately. Tongues were already set wagging, and vague and

disconcerting reports had reached the baron and baroness. But their

faith was built on the genius of Mademoiselle Veritassi. Rudolph might

waver and glory in other chains of captivity, but he would end by

sullenly admitting the superlative charm and conquering force of the

girl of fashion.

He came back, saw Inarime, fell prostrate in new adoration, tugged

with feeble heart-strings by the soft glimmer of the March violets he

remorsefully shrank from seeking.

The diplomatic baron, too, stumbled into captivity, assisted in his

fall by the baroness, herself under the spell of Inarime’s beauty.

Indeed, not one of the three had shown a spark of resistance.

The heavy ambassador danced hourly attendance upon the young goddess,

and under her glance, sparkled, astounded spectators by feats of

chivalry and semi-veiled gallantry that turned the clock of time for

him back by twenty years. Ah, but his enslavement was not a serious

defection. There was the wretched Rudolph, held breathless by his own

faithlessness and variable heart-beats. The feeling he gave Andromache

was but a rushlight, compared with this blaze of fire. He slept not,

nor did he eat. Life died within him out of Inarime’s presence, and was

flame in his members when she was near him. The old fancy dropped from

him like a toy; this was a consuming need, a poignant hunger with his

uprising, and a hunger with added thirst upon his lying down.

To Inarime he was merely a dull and pretty boy to whom it behoved her

to show some kindness and forbearance. His gloomy blue eyes fixed

silently upon her, vaguely irritated her, and she put command into

hers to check their persistent following. Still she preferred him to

his uncle, whose gallant attentions and man-of-the-world deference

vexed and fretted her. His was a novel language to her, and she

hesitated to read it lest there might be studied insult beneath it.

From the baroness she heard of Rudolph’s unfortunate entanglement

with Andromache, and upon pressure of confidence, admitted her

father’s desire to see her married to Oïdas, whom she did not like

or even moderately esteem. She imagined Rudolph forcibly separated

from Andromache, and read in that fact his evident unhappiness,

which appealed to her for sympathy and touched her with the wand of

brotherhood.

Photini was invited to play for her pleasure, and this introduction to

the highest music was astonishment to her. Her fine nature recognised

mastery, though the riddle was unexplained to her senses. She could

not at a leap mount such heights of sound, where the melodies seemed

to disport in waves and thunder, with sprays of foam and the facets of

jewels. She approached Photini for help.

Photini measured her mercilessly with her formidable gaze,--dwelt on

her physical exquisiteness, and smiled sardonically.

“You have beauty, mademoiselle. Be thankful for that, and leave art to

those who have souls to comprehend it.”

“Finger-tips as well, and perseverance,” said Inarime, archly.

“Oh, I see. You are not a doll. Well, come to see me any morning, and

I’ll play till your ears ache.”

Photini turned on her heel, and beckoned to Rudolph, who gloomily

trotted after her into the conservatory.

Selaka returned to Athens for the meeting of German archæologists, and

was cordially invited to stay for a few days at the Austrian Embassy.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A MEETING ON THE ACROPOLIS.

March came and went in a whirlwind of storm and rain that lasted a

fortnight. Every one susceptible to atmospheric influences was ill and

unhappy, and the wind sobbed and shrieked like the ghosts of centuries

crying to be laid. And now, on this first evening, the storm went down,

with a little sigh running through the quieted air, like a child’s

remembered sob in dreaming. The orange and lemon trees were in full

blossom, and the Palace gardens wore “the glory and the freshness of a

dream.”

Gustav Reineke stood between the pillars of the Parthenon and watched

the sky after sunset. The zenith was clear purple upon which light

clouds traced along milky way with edges torn into threadlets of white

that curled and lost themselves, shading off to rose upon the eastern

horizon. He watched cream deepen into orange, and spread a mist upon

the blue, and the azure faint into pearly grey, while the cirrhus arch

shifted itself slowly, and dropped behind the hills. The west was a

lake of unsullied gold, so pure that the eye could follow the birth of

cloud-stains upon it and the flames of crimson and orange striking fire

from its heart. Over Lycabettus shone a tremulous radiance, half pink,

half opal, and above the blue was shot with silver and green. Upon the

hills the shadows were sharply defined by broken lines of light, and

the sea under Salamis was a waveless blue gloom.

Gustav had done brave battle with woe, and wore his sorrow nobly.

There was nothing of the crushed air of the love-sick swain about

him. He stood up straight, and faced the light of day with mournful

calm eyes and strong lips, patiently awaiting the revocation of his

sentence or its confirmation, and for the moment gave himself entirely

up to the study of archæology. He had come that morning to Athens upon

invitation, to attend the meeting of the German School of Archæology.

While Gustav is sky-gazing with an open volume of Pausanias in his

hand, another young friend of ours is crossing Constitution Square

with the intention of strolling towards the Acropolis. Ten days back

in Athens, and not one glimpse of Andromache! Very unlike a lover

restored to the arms of his mistress does he look, sauntering along

with his hands in his pockets and an expression of miserable perplexity

on his face. An airy, wide-awake individual, with an anemone in his

button-hole, and a glass in his eye, accosts him noisily, and quickly

scanning him, remarks aloud upon the utter dejection of his air.

“Ah, Tonton, je suis épris--cette fois pour de bon,” cried Rudolph,

desirous of horrifying somebody else as well as himself.

“Encore? Est-ce possible? Vrai?” ejaculated Agiropoulos.

“C’est très vrai.”

“Allons donc, mon cher! Faut-il te féliciter? Epris pour la troisième

fois dans autant de mois! Mais c’est effrayant!”

Rudolph’s eyes swept the landscape in dreary assent. He thought it very

frightful indeed.

“Pauvre Photini! Pauvre Andromaque,” cried Agiropoulos, taking off his

hat and running his plump hand over his well-shorn head, “et pauvre--la

dernière. Elle sera toujours à plaindre, celle-là.”

“Dis plutôt, pauvre Rudolph!” said Ehrenstein, ruefully.

“Eh, je le dis, mon cher, de bon cœur,” said Agiropoulos, with a

reassuring nod and an enigmatic smile, as he turned on his heel, and

stopped to discuss Ehrenstein’s lamentable susceptibility with his next

acquaintance.

Can this really be our fastidious Rudolph, who has held the above

indelicate dialogue with a man he hitherto professed to despise? Has

he grown in a few months both cynical and hardened? But the cynicism

was only surface deep. This search for an anchor to his affections

and the discovery he had made that his emotions and his judgment were

unreliable, his heart as unstable as water, wrecked all self-esteem,

and left him in a battered condition of mind. He felt as if he had been

morally whipped by scorpions, and every nerve within him was bruised.

First Photini, then Andromache, dear, sweet Andromache! how his heart

bled for her! that he should be so unworthy of her! And She? the other

She! the final, unattainable She, whose looks ran fire through his

veins and held him in humble unexacting servitude?

He came out to walk and meditate. Could he have chosen a more

favourable road for meditation than the wide avenue of pepper-trees,

that leads by a gentle upward slope to the cactus-bordered hill, upon

which the glorious Parthenon rests? Of the nature of his reflections,

as he strolled along that famous route, I cannot say much. I imagine

they were hazy, like the inarticulate speech of an infant. He wanted

something, but for the life of him he could not have put that something

into shape or definite speech. Like Hercules, his way was barred by

two female forms--only one of whom, however, offered him a direct

invitation. And Photini?

And thus these two met, and falling into accidental conversation, which

resulted in an exchange of cards, Rudolph learnt that this was Herr

Reineke, the distinguished Greek scholar, whose card his aunt had found

awaiting her on her return from a drive that morning. Anything was

better to Rudolph than that meditation in pursuit of which he had come

out expressly, so he warmly pressed Reineke to come back to the Embassy

with him. Reineke took a fancy to the frank and high-bred lad, and

gladly consented to do so.

On their way he learnt some very original and curious views upon the

Ancient Greeks, and his national vanity was flattered by hearing this

discontented youth describe the Modern Greeks as worse than the Jews,

and express his entire sympathy with the Turks--a thorough gentlemanly

race in his opinion. Gustav assented, but claimed an exception for one

or two of the modern Greeks, and at this point they reached the Embassy.

The young man found everybody out, so Rudolph carried off Reineke

to a little salon only used in private life. Here the baroness wrote

her letters, and here Inarime had sat that morning with a book and a

pencil in her hand. Rudolph ordered coffee and cigars, and selected for

himself Inarime’s seat. He took up her book, and remembered enough of

his Greek to know that it was a volume of the Sicilian Idyllists. He

recognised the names Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, but the rest was a

blank to him. In turning over the leaves, a sheet of paper dropped out,

and this contained writing. He examined it carefully, and was struck

with its exquisite caligraphy.

“Can you read Greek--modern?” he asked of Gustav, who was looking idly

out of the window.

“Yes,” he answered, turning his face round.

“Please translate that for me,” cried Rudolph excitedly. Gustav

extended his hand for the paper, glanced at it carelessly, and read

half-finished verses in classical Greek, which baldly translated read

something like this:--

“O let me not in this grief fail.

Dear Gods, upon me glance!

For hearts with troubles slowly veil

Hope in remembrance.

“I would not that thy life were sad

Because of our drear fate,

Nor would I have thee wholly glad

While I am forced to wait.”

The lines ended here, and Gustav read them over again, a dim

presentiment quickening his pulses. Selaka had shown him Inarime’s

writing, beautiful, finished, like those delicate manuscripts which we

have inherited from the old days of cloistered leisure. Surely this was

the work of the same hand, and the quiet sadness of the verses swept

him like a message from the dead.

“Do you know who wrote this?” he asked slowly.

“Yes,” Rudolph answered, indisposed to be communicative.

“A lady?”

“You think the handwriting a lady’s?”

“I do. I fancy I have seen it before.”

“Let me see. Were you not staying for a short time on one of the Greek

islands?”

“Yes; Tenos.”

“Then you perhaps met her. Oh, I am sure of it now,” cried Rudolph,

springing up and glaring into Reineke’s face.

Reineke said nothing, but bent his eyes reverently upon the sheet of

paper. Might he steal it? If he had been alone he would have kissed it.

“Why don’t you answer me, Herr Reineke?” Rudolph persisted.

“Answer you? What?”

“There is somebody else, I know. I learnt it the other night. Tell me.

Is it you?” he demanded.

“Herr Ehrenstein, is it too much to beg an explanation of these

somewhat enigmatic questions?” retorted Gustav.

But Ehrenstein eagerly noted that his eyes never once left the piece of

paper in his hand.

“It is unworthy to trifle with me in this way. I see that you know her,

and that you understand too well the meaning of those lines. They are

perhaps addressed to you.”

“And if it were so?” said Gustav, coldly.

“It would be better to know it at once. Anything would be better than

this suspense. Listen, I will tell you something I overheard one night

in a conversation between my uncle and her father.”

“Her father? Is Selaka here?” cried Gustav.

“He is. And so is she.”

“She! here? In this house? Now?” exclaimed Gustav, jumping up.

“She is out now with my aunt. They will be back soon.”

“Good God!” muttered Reineke, sitting down, and holding his head in his

hands. “Should I go--or shall I stay?”

“Then you are the man. Listen to what I heard last night. My uncle told

Selaka that he would be glad to see his daughter my wife--oh, don’t

fly into a rage, we are not engaged, and I see by your angry smile you

don’t think it likely to come to pass. Well, Selaka said he liked me,

and in his estimation, my birth and social position were a set-off

against my deficiencies in classical lore. But there is an impediment.

His daughter has recently made the heaviest sacrifice a woman can make

for her father, and he could not pain her by asking her to choose a

successor to the lover she gave up for him. You are the lover, I know.

Why did she give you up?”

“Because I am a Turk.”

“A Turk! You!”

Rudolph burst into a harsh laugh, and stopped suddenly when his ear

caught the sound of a carriage drawn up outside. He glanced quickly out

of the window.

“She has come, Monsieur le Sultan,” he announced, sarcastically.

Both men stood still, and rapid steps approached. Through the half-open

door the flutter of silken raiment was heard brushing the floor, and

the baroness stood before them, looking courteous interrogation.

“This is Herr Reineke,” said Rudolph, in German.

“Oh, M. Reineke,” the baroness exclaimed, in French. “This is indeed

a pleasure. You will stay and dine with us in a friendly way. No

ceremony. The baron will keep you company in morning attire. It will be

delightful, as the unexpected always is.”

Gustav declined politely, and glanced beyond her. There stood Inarime

with a look of unmistakable rapture and alarm upon her face.

The baroness introduced them; they bowed, but did not dare trust

themselves to speech or hand-clasp.

“Must you go at once, Herr Reineke?” asked the baroness, remarking the

glory on his face.

“Madame, I must,” he said, and Rudolph saw that Inarime started

violently, as if the sound of his voice thrilled her like pain.

Reineke shook hands with the baroness, not conscious that he was making

all sorts of impossible promises, and then turned silently to the

mute, harrowing eloquence of Inarime’s gaze, with one as unbearable in

its piercing tenderness. Rudolph accompanied him downstairs and said

nothing until Reineke held out his hand at the door.

“No, I cannot touch your hand, Herr Reineke. We must not meet again,”

he said, grimly.

“As you wish, Herr Ehrenstein. I am sorry for you, but, as you see, I

have not much cause for self-congratulation for myself.”

Rudolph said nothing, and flung away from him.

In the little salon he found Inarime alone, with her head bent down

upon the table over her folded arms.

“You love that man, Fraulein?” he asked in German, which she spoke more

fluently than French.

“I do,” she said, simply, hardly troubled by the impertinence of the

question.

“And there is no chance--none--for me?”

“I do not understand you, Herr Ehrenstein.”

Did she even hear him, as she stared out with that intense look

strained beyond her prison through the bright streets traversed by

Gustav?

“I, too, love you, Fraulein. I would die for you. You have taken from

me my rest, my happiness, my self-respect. Everything I yield to

you--honour, manhood, independence. Gladly will I accept slavery at

your bidding. I care for nothing but you. Is there no hope for me? Your

father will approve my suit.--_He_ is banished.”

Inarime gazed scorn and loathing upon him. There were hardly words

strong enough with which to reject such an offer, so made and at such a

time.

“Leave me, Herr Ehrenstein. You force me abruptly to terminate my stay

under your uncle’s roof.”

She turned her back upon him, and when he broke out into fierce and

incoherent apologies, she swept past him out of the room.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A DRAUGHT FROM CIRCE’S CUP.

There was no hope for it. Harmony fled the Austrian Embassy. It had

already been bruited that young Ehrenstein was inconveniently demanded

by a bloodthirsty warrior, whose sister he had jilted in a scandalous

way. The report reached Selaka’s ear, and he looked askance upon the

perfidious youth. At first the baron dismissed the affair with a laugh,

then, upon scandal mounting higher, and taking a shriller tone, he

questioned Rudolph, and being a gentleman, expressed himself in very

strong terms upon the young reprobate’s conduct.

Rudolph had sulked and fretted and made everybody around him only a

degree less uncomfortable than himself. Twice he had started to go to

Andromache and confess the full extent of his iniquity, but he had not

had the courage to face the ordeal. If she should cry, or reproach

him, or meet him with sad silence! it would be equally unbearable, and

there would be nothing left for him but to go away and cut his throat.

What was the good of anything? Life was a blunder, a fret, a torment.

Without any evil in him, kindly, pure, sweet natured, here was he

involved in a mesh of inextricable troubles, behaving to a dear and

innocent child like an arrant villain. And all the while his heart

bled for her, and in any moment left him by the haunting thought of

Inarime, he was pursued by the soft pain of Andromache’s pretty eyes.

But every one blamed him, and all Athens spoke of him as a heartless

scoundrel. The baroness, who was coldly condemnatory, suggested a

return to Austria. The baron, sarcastic, plagued him in the “I warned

you” tone.

“You are much too sentimental and susceptible, Rudolph, for a life of

idleness. You have yet to learn the art of trifling gracefully and

uncompromisingly. Remember, a man has not to choose between being

a victim or a brute. You have proved yourself both to that little

Athenian--first the victim and then the brute. Now, my advice to

you is, go back to Rapoldenkirchen. Meditate instructively upon the

excellent advantages you have had here, and resolve to continue your

education in matters feminine with the married ladies. Avoid girls

as you would avoid poison, until you are ready to fix yourself in

reasonable harness with one particular girl, whom I advise you to

choose as little as possible like yourself. Vienna or Paris will be

of infinite service to you just now, and if you like, I could use

my influence to obtain you a diplomatic post. As long as you remain

in this state of lamentable idleness, so long will your life be

precarious.”

But this excellent counsel had fallen on dull ears. An hour after

Inarime’s rejection, Rudolph started to go to Andromache, and instead

of cutting through Academy Street, as he should have done, he turned up

towards the barrack, and before even he was aware of the propelling

instinct that pushed him, he was knocking at Photini’s door.

“Is Mademoiselle Natzelhuber visible?” he asked of Polyxena, with an

indifference of look and tone not at all assumed.

“She is upstairs, if that is what you mean,” cried Polyxena, and left

him to shut the door behind him.

He walked up the steep stone stairs without a sign of hurry or purpose,

and rapped listlessly at Photini’s door. In response to a loud “Come

in,” he entered, and found Photini in the midst of her cats and dogs,

reading the “Palingenesia.” She threw away the shabby little newspaper,

and made room for him on the sofa beside her, eyeing him with a look of

sharp scrutiny.

“Well?” she said.

“I am most abjectly miserable, Photini,” he said, and sat down beside

her, staring at the floor.

“You look it, my friend.”

“I suppose so. Photini, I want you to let me stay with you.”

“Stay with me! What the deuce do you mean?”

“Just what I say. There are no words to describe my wretchedness. I am

sick of everything and everybody. You, at least, won’t criticise or

blame. Your own life has not been so successful that you need censure

very harshly the blunders of mine.”

He looked at her drearily, unnotingly, and yet he felt drawn to her by

an immense personal sympathy and a kind of remembered affection that

nothing could ever quite obliterate.

“Oh, for that, I am not disposed to censure any one but the smug

hypocrites, who talk religion and virtue until one longs to fling

something in their faces. For the idiots I have a tremendous weakness,

I confess.”

“You care a little for me, don’t you, Photini?” Rudolph cried, like a

forsaken child.

Photini moved towards him, and gathered him into her arms.

“I love you furiously, you wretched boy,” she exclaimed, and held him

to her. “But just because you are an idiot, you are not to pay any heed

to it.”

Rudolph for answer flung his arms round her, laid his head upon her

bosom, and burst into wild hysteric sobs.

“Oh, you baby!” shouted Photini, trying to shake him off, but he only

clung to her the more convulsively, and tightened his clasp of her

until she could hardly breathe.

“Finish! this is absurd. What has happened to you, child?”

“Everybody is against me,” he said, striving hard to choke back his

tears. “I hate myself. I have made a mess of everything, and I wish I

were dead.”

“That is why you have come to me, I suppose. If you are destined to be

damned in the next world, you are willing to begin the operation in

this,” said Photini, drily.

“I want to stay with you. If you repulse me, Photini, I swear I’ll go

straightway and blow my brains out.”

“It would not be much worse.”

“Than staying with you?”

“Yes, than staying with me. The one would be followed by an inquest

and a funeral--and behold a swift and respectable end. The other--my

friend, have you measured its consequences?”

“Yes; we should have a great deal of music all to ourselves. We might

go away to France or Algiers, and I should forget Athens.”

“No, you would not. There is no such thing as forgetfulness until you

take to drink, and then you only forget when you are drunk. The instant

you become sober, memory probes your empty heart more strongly than

ever.”

“Then we will drink together, Photini,” cried Rudolph, recklessly.

“Give me some brandy.”

“I will not. I insist on your going back to that silly chit you’ve

treated so badly. Dry her eyes--they are very pretty eyes, my friend

Rudolph, and a man might be less agreeably employed. She’ll soon

forgive you if you manage to look penitent enough. I boxed her ears

once, and I like her all the better for it. Tell her an old woman who

loves you sent you back to her.”

“Photini, you are not old,” protested Rudolph, disinclined to speak of

Andromache to her. “Come back to the point. Will you have me? You say

you love me.”

“Rudolph, you are an ass. Don’t you see that I am trying to save you?

What does it matter for myself? You, Agiropoulos, another,--it is all

the same. My life is blotted, ruined, disfigured past redemption.

One _liaison_ more or less cannot practically affect me. But with

you it is different. You are a delicately-trained boy, of fastidious

tastes. You are unfit to battle with the coarser elements of life. A

robuster _morale_ and a less dainty nature than yours can buffet and

wrestle with brutal conditions, and be none the worse for a hundred

false steps, but you will sink irretrievably upon the first. Vice

sits indifferently well on some of us, and on others most deplorably.

That is why women sink so much more rapidly than men. Despair and

self-contempt are stones that hang fatally round their necks, and

this,” she said, pointing to a flask of brandy, “helps them to carry

the weight until they are crushed by it.”

“It will help me, too, I’ve no doubt,” said Rudolph.

“It is from that I would save you, and from the rest. It is not my

habit to express my opinions. I despise people too much to talk

seriously to them, but I am not only a musical machine in the lucid

pauses of a toper. I have thought a little, too, and I know what I have

lost.”

She was walking up and down the room with her hands joined behind her,

and there was a glow upon her strange face that made it almost noble.

When she had finished, she stood in front of Rudolph, scanned him

closely, and asked:

“Are you going? I have had quite enough of this sort of thing.”

“I am not going, Photini. My mind is made up. I will stay with you. Be

kind to me. Say you want me.”

“I must not, for then I could not bring myself to give you up. Go away,

and think over it. Mind, I would far rather you did not come back, and

I think I should be able to kiss with gratitude a note from you telling

me you had gone back to that girl.”

“You will get no such note from me, for I am going to stay now,”

Rudolph exclaimed, impetuously.

“You are a fool. There, I would have saved you--now, it is as heaven

wills it. But please remember this. When you come to repent this step,

as you will surely in a week, a month, or a year, have the goodness not

to bluster and expend your rage on me, or lay your folly to my account.”

Rudolph laughed bitterly.

“I think, mademoiselle, you would very soon make short work of me and

my bluster and rage,” he said.

“Well, yes, I believe I should be able for that emergency.”

“Photini, will you play me the ‘Barcarolle’?” Rudolph asked, as he

rubbed his cheek caressingly against her arm.

She stooped over him, kissed his hair and forehead, and their lips met

in a burning kiss--Rudolph’s first.

CHAPTER XXV.

AGAMEMNON AND IPHIGENIA.

We can imagine how the fabric, sedulously raised by Constantine’s

pursuit of his family’s fortune and advancement, tottered, shook, and

fell utterly to pieces upon that one exchanged look between Inarime

and Gustav. He in the world, and she the wife of another man! She

loathed herself that such should have been deemed possible of her. She

acknowledged her father’s right to her obedience, and it was difficult

for her to imagine her will in disjunction from his. But surely there

are limits to a daughter’s obligations--most wise limits set by nature,

whose laws are still more imperative than man’s. We may defy the laws

of man, and sometimes their defiance is proof of nobler instinct. But

the laws of nature--these are inexorable, and her punishments are

fatally swift. Body and mind were set in revolution against this cold

commercial alliance. Her soul in arms told her that it would be a

bodily degradation under which her mind would inevitably sink.

She had been trained to reason and to think, to hold her words in

subjection to her reason, and restrain the impulsiveness of her sex.

Expediency, she had been taught, may be a qualified virtue, though

founded on the meanest basis, and she had been recommended to weigh

its component parts in particular cases, before pronouncing judgment.

Hitherto she had been wise to detect the logical issues of any

situation presented to her for the reading, and thus had gained, in the

mind of the villagers, the reputation of a wise young counsellor, whose

head was filled with all the natural precepts of sagacity. But that

swift, immediate contact with flame and fire, the frantic surrender to

an untried glance, threw her back upon herself, with shaken faith, in

the grasp of wavering moods of stupefaction and self-contempt lit by

the lamp of burning bliss.

She saw her folly but did not repudiate it--the goddesses of old had

yielded to the sovereign passion upon as little pressure. One of the

features of Immortality is its royal dispensation with the tedious

form of wooing invented by the weak mortals. Nineteen years of a

purity as glacial as Artemis’ before she had given that one kiss to

the sleeping boy, were as an unremembered dream, blotted from her mind

without regret or shame, upon meeting of eyes that held her own in

glad subjection. The thrill of captured maidenhood was still upon her,

and O, faithlessness most grievous to the noble captor! she had half

pledged herself to take a husband.

“I cannot!” she cried aloud, stung keenly by the horror and the

gracelessness of such submission.

And then, to accentuate her anguish, the figure of Oïdas for the first

time rose sharp and distinct upon her vision, to fix her in the travail

of repugnance. Until now he had passed before her, a scarce-recognised

nonentity, wafted past her upon sugary strains of Verdi and Bellini,

through the odours of many flowers. Now he stood out in cruel relief

against the background of a holy memory. She saw his high shoulders,

with a slight outward droop curving suddenly inward, and making a

grotesque narrowness of chest, like a bird of prey curved in upon its

wings, and she caught herself smiling at the picture. She detected the

material contentions of the oily simper and too affable expression in

the small black eyes, noted ruthlessly the uncertainty of the spindle

shanks that did lean duty for legs, and the ungraceful flow of the long

loose frock coat.

It was borne in then upon her that she unconquerably disliked Oïdas,

and that pressure would change that dislike to positive and passionate

aversion. Does not youth demand youth for its mate? strength and

beauty their like? Was she to stand tamely by, and let her youth and

strength and beauty be given away to mean and dwindling age such as

his? He had not even the godlike attribute of power upon which she

could let herself be whirled into possession, shutting her eyes in the

make-believe of fatality. Theseus may carry off an unloving Helen,

but at least he is a hero. Helen may repine and revolt, but she feels

that the arms that imprison her are strong and conquering arms. She

may hate, but she will not despise,--and contempt is the one thing

women will not endure. Let the ravisher but possess superb qualities,

and pardon may eventually be his. Pride, sitting apart, is nourished

on their contemplation though the heart be starving, and it is a fine

thing to be able to sustain alien pride in a woman. But a man like

Oïdas, the epitome of male commonplace, held out no future hope of an

honourable compromise between pride and the heart’s exactions. Tied

to him, she would pass through life a mean and pitiable figure, read

in the light of her ignoble choice. It is not given to many women to

wed romance, and the curious want of fastidiousness with which the

sex may be charged, its readiness to take shabby and uninteresting

mates, is one of the best proofs that any man can get a wife. But if

a woman once let her glance dwell upon a live figure of a romance, it

is astonishing how complete will be her discovery of the general ill

looks and unattractiveness of men. Until Inarime had seen Gustav, she

had not remarked whether nature favoured men physically or not. But now

it was the appearance of Oïdas that told most emphatically against him.

Nature had shown her what she could do for a man when she chose to be

in a poetic mood, and she was not disposed to accept the exchange of a

monkey shivering in a frock-coat.

The warm blood running fire through her now petulant veins taught her

how mad was her former belief that she could meet the sacrifice her

father proposed with resigned endurance. The revolt of her body was

as fierce as that of her soul. Marriage was not like a commercial

partnership in which each party lives on certain ground a life apart.

It was the complete enslavement of an existence, the surrendering of

private thought, of the sanctuaries of mind and person. No escape.

Concealment would be subterfuge, the man’s dishonour the wife’s. Habit

would be tyranny, the faintest demonstration of an unshared affection

an oppression. She rose up at this thought with cheeks dyed scarlet,

so acute was her apprehension of its meaning, and then dropped among

her pillows, and hurried to hide from the shame of it under the

protecting sheets.

No, she could not! Less cruel far was the old sacrifice at Aulis.

Iphigenia might well bow to her father’s awful decision while her

soul was unscourged by the scorpion whips of such degradation. The

fire in her brain and the burn of hot dry eyelids kept her awake all

night, pursued by terrible images of an unholy future, and her first

thought, when the dawn touched light upon the window-panes, was to

seek her father and intercept him before he left the Embassy. She knew

he purposed going out early, intending to add to his notes at the

University library, for the German meeting.

“Father,” she cried, in a voice of resolution he was quick to feel

there was no shaking, “I must leave this house at once. You will go and

make my excuses to the baron, while I will knock at the baroness’ door.”

“What has happened, child? You look disturbed and ill,” Selaka

exclaimed, in wonderment.

“I will tell you when we are gone,” she said, growing whiter at the

prospect of giving voice to the night’s sufferings. “Go now, dear

father, and wait for me in the courtyard.”

“I did believe my daughter was not capricious.”

“Papa,” she pleaded, childishly, “love me a little, be kind to me. Do

what I ask.”

Selaka mused half-angrily, as he went in search of the baron, so

thoroughly mystified that he almost apprehended being unfitted for

learned society that morning:

“Ah, why are these explosive engines, known as daughters, born to

poor harassed man? We idly propagate them as candles to attract the

moths around us; to dismay us with their flutter and impertinent

importunities;--magnets to attract violent impulses, and run them

cantering in rivalry.”

Wrapped up in his own vexed thoughts, he had long been perceived by

Reineke at the German school before he recognised the fatal Turk. He

bowed coldly, flushed perceptibly under the eyes. The fellow was a

man to be proud of, he felt, a man in a million, an ideal son-in-law,

and hotly rebuked himself for thinking it. He moved as far away from

Reineke as possible, and fell into eager conversation with a Russian

professor.

The Russian informed him that the French school had curtly declined to

attend, with the added discourtesy of offering no excuse whatsoever.

“Ye gods! Is not the ground of archæology even to be neutral?”

thundered Selaka. “Must politics here be thrust upon us, and have us by

the ears in a fret of jarring and wrangling? It is not a question of

marriage. If civility did not suggest it, policy ought to teach them to

take what Germany, with her science and perseverance has to offer them,

and be thankful for the gift. Let them sulk, and it will do nobody any

harm but themselves.”

“The French minister’s nephew, a very charming young fellow, has sent

an unofficial letter of apology on his own behalf. He was invited

because of a couple of interesting and graceful articles he wrote for

the _Revue des deux Mondes_. It is known that he received orders to

stay away.”

It was an imposing assembly. The nations of the civilised world were

represented by their Embassies and schools, all except sulking France.

The blooming half of humanity was present in a dozen or so of choice

souls, to deck the scene with their flowery robes and bright hues. The

loud murmur of mingled tongues was stopped by Herr Julius Dünckler

stepping forward to open the proceedings formally by a neat little

speech announcing that the paper of the day would be read by his very

youthful but learned colleague, Herr Gustav Reineke. The theme was the

everlasting Theatre, a theme happily not exhausted, and matter still

for research. Herr Reineke had visited every spot of ground that could

be of use to him in the patient analysis of his subject, and his views

were so forcibly put forward, his erudition was so minute and vast at

the same time, that it seemed to him, the director of the German School

of Archæology, that it would be a pleasure and a gain for other workers

like himself in that wide field, to assemble and amicably discuss Herr

Reineke’s paper. The paper, he stated, was translated into English and

French for those present who could not understand German.

Upon invitation, Gustav took his place upon the platform and the

ladies at least were unanimous in their admiration of his handsome and

distinguished presence.

“He looks a scholar and a gentleman to boot,” murmured Mrs.

Mowbray-Thomas.

His voice was grave and musically measured, with an Oriental soft

sonorousness which captivated his hearers. His face was impassive in

its noble earnestness, its strength toned by delicate beauty, lit with

the fine glow of intellect. When he came to the end of his reading, he

bowed in acknowledgment of the applause that greeted it, and, stepping

backward, his eyes sought Selaka through the crowd. He was quick to

detect the flame of affectionate pride that involuntarily leaped into

the old man’s answering look, and a chill from excessive hope ran

through his members in a visible shudder.

He beat his way through congratulating strangers till he stood beside

Selaka’s chair.

“Your hand?” he said, under his breath, extending his own tentatively,

and, seeing it grasped, added, with an ingratiating smile: “It is not

withheld.”

“And wherefore? I am proud of you, proud for you, honoured by the

distinction,” Selaka answered, huskily, while he followed the crowd

towards the door.

“Ah, sir, it is a barren pride for you and me,” said Gustav, keeping

close to his side.

Gustav understood that he was dismissed, but with pardonable

pertinacity resolved to force Selaka to speak to him of Inarime, and

walked beside him.

“She is well?” he almost entreated.

“Very well,” Selaka admitted slowly, not trusting himself to recognise

the hungry question in the other’s eyes.

“Her beauty has made some stir here,” he added in a naïve exposure of

paternal vanity. “You have heard?”

“No, I arrived yesterday. The town’s gossip has not reached me.”

A thrill of insufferable horror shot through him at the hideous picture

of Inarime’s beauty the theme of men’s discourse and the object of

their ugly scrutiny. The Turk was thus far strong within him, that if

possible he would have had her shielded from alien homage, guarded the

bloom and perfume of her beauty for his own exclusive possession.

After a pause, filled in with conjecture and flashes of memory, he

turned again to Selaka.

“Am I still an outcast, sir?”

“Outcast! You know that I esteem you--truly, cordially.”

“For yourself. But for her--in that sense I mean it.”

“I cannot alter the sentence pronounced.”

“Ah!” Gustav interjected, drawing in his breath sharply. “It is so hard

on me. I hope, I believe, it is hard on her, too.”

“She is sensible. She will resign herself to marry the man I have

chosen for her.”

“Young Ehrenstein!” Gustav almost shouted, with a start.

“Can you ask? He is a fool and a villain. A fellow who does not know

his own mind, is betrothed to one woman, loves another, and levants

with a third.”

“Such a choice would indeed be tragic for her,” Gustav said,

sardonically. “Has she consented?”

“Partly.”

“It is incredible to me, sir. You shock me. You unnerve me. I desire

to remain cool, but the picture you force upon me is unbearable, vile,

discordant. Inarime wedded--and not to me! Impossible! I will not

accept it.”

“Hush! You have no choice. I do not offer an alternative,” interposed

Selaka, judicially.

“But, sir, you have a tender love for her. Think of the cruelty, the

shame and agony for her! She is all delicacy and sensitiveness. To

have given herself to me, and now to be asked to accept another! It is

the most abominable desecration of maidenhood! She cannot, she will

not! Be reasonable. Think of her, sir.”

“Of whom else do you suppose I think, Herr ----” but Selaka could not

bring himself to pronounce the false name, and his tongue shrank with

violent repugnance from the other.

“Drop the name,” Gustav implored, seeing his hesitation.

“I do not doubt your tender regard for her, but I do most emphatically

deny that it is possible for you to see the position with the eyes

of youth. Oh, I understand. You deem me jealous. If that were all.

Nay, then it would be worse, for I should doubt her. And I do not. I

could answer for her with my life. You are driving her to an ignoble

compliance. You wish her to be safe from me.”

“You have guessed rightly. I shall not feel secure until she has passed

into other hands--hands that will bind her and you with stronger

fetters than mine.”

“Oh, how wrong you are! How you misjudge me! Have I tried to write to

her, to see her? Yesterday we met,--we did not even touch hands, we

said no word.”

It was Selaka’s turn to start.

“She did not tell me,” he muttered. “To-day she met me with a troubled

aspect, and prayed to be taken away.”

“Poor child! Why will you make it harder for her? Have you the heart

to grieve her so? Why, oh, why put this heavy burden on the young

shoulders you should cherish? I will not harass you. I will not thwart

your plans.”

“You are talking complete nonsense,” Selaka responded, testily. “A

father must marry his daughter, if only to feel she will be protected

after his death.”

“Protected! Inarime unprotected! You madden me. But for myself I do not

complain;--nay, I do most bitterly. Kyrie Selaka, is this your last

word?”

“It is.”

“Will nothing--nothing I can say shake you?”

“Nothing.”

“You are a second Agamemnon,” Gustav cried, and turned away with weary,

angry eyes and white lips.

Pericles opened his mouth to call him back, shut it, drove down the

unsaid words with a heavy sigh, and walked slowly towards his brother’s

house.

Constantine greeted him in the hall with an emphatic look, pointed to

the inner room and shrugged his shoulders.

“She is in there, pacing for all the world like a ravenous tiger. Women

are cats. They spring and tread delicately, with glittering, rageful

eyes, and make you listen, in spite of yourself, for the ominous hiss

and spit, or the soft caressing purr. I would not marry that young

woman for her weight in gold. That reminds me. Oïdas is bothering me

about the engagement. He complains that it is indefinite, that Inarime

has stayed too long at that confounded Embassy, and that you keep him

on tenter-hooks. It is all over Athens about young Ehrenstein. The

senseless whelp! Oïdas is frantic, insists he has been injuriously

trifled with; in short, nothing but an immediate marriage will satisfy

him. He is the snarling dog that shows his teeth upon provocation, and

is perhaps more dangerous, if not more discomposing, than the spitting

cat.”

“It is all right, Constantine. Oïdas is correct in his statement that

he has been somewhat unfairly dealt with, in so far as his answer has

been unduly delayed. This accident of Ehrenstein’s--the Fates confound

him and the Furies overtake him!--teaches me that the conclusion of the

bargain must be speedily arrived at. I cannot have my daughter’s name

dubiously upon the lips of chattering fools. Oïdas will be apprised

this afternoon of my decision.”

He swung into the other room, and a face of piercing eagerness and

demand met his!

“Inarime, you must be ready to marry Kyrios Oïdas at once,” he began,

without any thoughtful preliminaries.

“It is of that I wished to speak to you, father,” she said, in a dreary

quiescence that filled him with hope.

“Come, this promises well. My dear girl is reasonable.”

“He sent me those,” she said, pointing to a small stack of roses,

jonquils and heliotrope, that lay a neglected litter, upon the table,

and appealed to her senses in revolt with a nauseating sweetness.

“And this letter. He is giving a fancy ball, and wishes me to attend

publicly as his bride.”

“The wish does him honour, and is but natural and manly. You must get

over this fancied repugnance, my girl. You will have to marry him. It

is my resolution.”

He spoke with a harshness quite foreign to him, but its adoption

nerved him to show her a front of adamant.

“Father, I will not,” she cried--screamed nearly.

“Will not?” he asked, his brows shooting into a significant arch, and

his eyes, for the first time in the interview, holding hers in question.

“Cannot,” she breathed, in a lower tone, with an air of weakness that

touched him horribly.

“You see your position. It is for you to obey.”

She caught her breath in a sound held between a sob and a hiss,

rebellion gathering ominously about the dark brows.

“You are within your rights, I know. But, oh! father, how can you stand

out for paternal authority in the face of my most utter misery?”

“But, Inarime, this is what I cannot understand,” he protested,

returning to their old footing of equality. “Why should the thought of

this marriage--a wholly respectable alliance--irritate you and make you

miserable?”

“It is not _he_!” she whispered, breathlessly.

“Fudge!”

“Father, will you at least try to face the situation with a woman’s

mind and instinct. Believe me, it is no contemptible mind or instinct

that makes us shrink from an abhorrent marriage. We may not have

heads clear as yours, but our instincts are as finely responsive to

the promptings of nature as a watch is delicately accurate in its

measurements of time. Your brains may err and falsely interpret. Our

hearts cannot, unless art interferes. I speak now of uneducated woman

pitted against educated man. In these things he will have much to

learn from her. We are limited in our nature, father, and that which

you ask of me is impossible.”

“I will not hear it. Nothing is impossible when it simply depends on

the good-will and common-sense of the person. It is my punishment

for having brought you up as a boy. All my love and thought and care

were for you, and this is my reward. You seek to disturb and thwart

me on the very first occasion that brings our wills into collision.

A growing child is like a peach, soft and bloomy to the touch, sweet

to the taste, until you come to the heart, where you find bitterness

and hardness. What can it matter whom you marry, when you cannot marry

_him_?”

“Oh, it is easy enough for you to speak as a spectator. You will not

be marrying the man, and it makes all the difference. The servitude,

the loathing, the degradation will be mine to bear, and only a girl can

feel that.”

“A girl! a woman! Will you not taunt me with your boast of nicer

feeling. This Oïdas, on your own admission, was not specially

distasteful to you.”

“That was when you had not proposed him for a husband.”

“Ouf! One notes the unreasonable sex in that retort. What has my

simple proposal to do with the man. If he were a detestable fellow you

would have hated him from the beginning. Nothing but the unconquerable

passion for worrying and grieving and turning everybody topsy-turvy,

that is born in every woman, would make my desire to marry you to him

paint him to you in blacker colours.”

“It would be the same with any man you might think fit to propose.

If it is the fault of my sex, I cannot in reason be held responsible

for it. It is not my fault that I am not born an exception. And I will

admit, father, in this case I would infinitely prefer to follow the

general rule,” she added, bitterly.

“There, there, my girl, don’t fret me with unkind speech. I have

yielded to temper, I know, and am sorry for it. You have ever been a

solace and a joy to me, and if I have set my heart on this matter, it

is entirely for your good. You must marry some one.”

She allowed him passively to fondle her hand, but her face was still

troubled and cold. Why was it so difficult for him, if he loved her, to

understand and appreciate the nature of her repugnance? Are a girl’s

objections never to count when others have her welfare in view?

“One would think I were disgraced, and marriage necessary at once as a

shield for my reputation,” she retorted, crimsoning hotly, held by a

sense of audacity and shame, as the full meaning of her words rushed

upon her.

“Those are words it requires all my tenderness to forgive, Inarime,”

said Pericles, gravely. “You wonder at my anxiety to marry you. Is it

not simply a father’s duty? It is, moreover, a duty women, good women,

owe to the State.”

“The State!” Inarime exclaimed, with a look of surprised indignation.

“What do good women, as you say, owe the State more than others?”

Selaka stared at her incredulously. Could this be his child? This young

woman, lashed by angry passions, and stinging him in turn by sharp,

impertinent speech!

“They owe it the duty to marry and bring up their children befittingly

and intelligently.”

“You accept too readily that every good woman is capable of this. It

requires, I imagine, special gifts, a special capacity, to bring up

children befittingly and intelligently. It is wiser to count on the

stupidity and capacity of the average.”

“Granted. O, I grant you that with full conviction. Still, we cannot

let the race die out because, unfortunately, parents are for the most

part idiots and criminals. The State is wiser to assume they are the

reverse.”

“Then means should be taken by the State to see that the young are

fitted for their future responsibilities. I have met some very charming

young ladies here at Athens--charming, until you have had time to

discover that they are for the most part insipid, uneducated and silly.

I have nothing to say against them. They were prettily apparelled and

amused me. They chatter engagingly--about nothing. They tell me they

have been for years studying the piano, with no result, and that they

have learned at least four foreign tongues for purposes of social

intercourse--not study. I am curious to know how it could enter the

brains of any one to suspect these pretty toys of a capacity for

bringing up their children intelligently. And yet they will marry, and

will doubtless be considered to have accomplished their duty to the

uncritical State.”

“Well, well, that is not our concern, happily. You, at least, are not

similarly situated. The hours spent by you on study have been spent

to some purpose. The only objection I see to Kyrios Oïdas is, that he

is somewhat old. I would very willingly have changed him for young

Herr Rudolph because of his youth and social position. He loves you,

Inarime, he avowed it frantically to me. But just as I had made up my

mind to effect the alteration of bridegrooms, Θις μαυ he explodes in a

flame of ugly scandal, leaving the full theatrical smell of fire and

brimstone behind him. Faust carried off by a female Mephistopheles!

Ouf! This world!”

Inarime walked across the room, pressed her forehead against the

window, and stood gazing into the street in disconsolate perplexity.

Selaka joined her, and placed his hand affectionately on her shoulders.

“We have been equally in the wrong towards one another, my dear one,”

he said. “We have forgotten the seemly restraints of speech, and in

our smarting anger and disappointment, have drawn largely upon the

copper of language, as if our minds had never fed upon its gold. I am

ashamed and grieved. Antigone would not have spoken to Œdipus as you,

my child, have to-day spoken to me; and Œdipus would not so completely

have forfeited the respect that was due to him. To get back into the

old groove, we will separate and meditate a while apart. In the light

of reflection, you will see that what I ask is for your sole good. If

this story of young Ehrenstein gets abroad, you will be unpleasantly

mixed up with it, and marriage will be your best, and, in fact, your

only shield from evil surmise. You do not doubt my great love, child?”

Still hurt and dismayed, Inarime withheld the be-sought-for look of

reconciliation. Her shoulders moved with an uncontrollable sob; this

marriage revolted her, and held her silent.

“My daughter! my dearest! Look at me, your father, Inarime.”

She turned her head slowly, stretched out her arms, and was enfolded

in his. Their embrace was broken by a loud and frantic entrance.

Constantine rushed in, holding a newspaper in his hand, followed close

by Oïdas, whose face wore an expression of vindictive spite.

“Pericles,” roared poor Constantine, shaken out of his wits, “look at

this! The wretches! the liars! Read it.”

He thrust the paper into his brother’s hands, and began violently to

wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Pericles had just time for a

hurried glance at the garbled and extremely malicious version of the

Ehrenstein romance in the “Aristophanes,” in which Inarime’s name was

printed in full, with a minute description of her person, when Oïdas

broke out:

“I am mentioned, too, as betrothed to your daughter. I do not know

who has authorised this impertinence. How can you expect a man in my

position to marry a girl thus advertised!”

“Is that so? You are not perhaps aware,” shrieked Constantine, “that my

niece has emphatically refused to marry you. She hates you.”

Oïdas smiled sarcastically. That was chaff unlikely to catch him.

Pericles shook himself with a supreme effort out of his state of sickly

stupefaction.

“Kyrie Oïdas, it is as my brother says,” he managed to utter, in a

vague, chill tone. “My daughter has to-day communicated to me her

unconquerable repugnance to the alliance you did us the honour to

propose. You will now do us the still greater honour of relieving us

of your presence.”

Oïdas strutted out of the room with lips drawn into an incredulous

grin, and when the door slammed behind him, Pericles stretched out his

hands helplessly. His face was white and his lips blue. Inarime rushed

to him.

“My father!” she murmured, softly. “Uncle, help me.”

Pericles had fallen back in a dead faint.

Oïdas went about the town, distracted, and resolved to spread his evil

tale. He did not want for willing ears and believers. Many discredited

his story, and reverted to his former unconcealed anxiety to get the

girl, and her evident holding back. In the next day’s papers a formal

announcement appeared stating the Mayor of Athens wished it to be known

that he entertained no intention of marrying the desposyné Inarime

Selaka, and had officially rescinded his proposals.

Vague references further appeared to a Turkish lover, a mysterious

Bey, roving incognito over Greece--learned, fascinating and romantic.

This paragraph and the short letter of Oïdas fell under the amazed

eyes of Gustav Reineke, while he sat at breakfast in his hotel. His

face flamed furious. Giddy emotions momentarily held him prostrate and

insane. Then he rose, clenched his teeth, furnished himself with a

heavy riding-whip, and sallied forth towards the newspaper office. He

met the editor in the hall, unprotected and unsuspecting. With a growl

of Homeric satisfaction, he pounced on that unhappy man, and, passion

lending him strength, suitably reduced him to a pulp. Inspirited by

this diversion, he sought the mayor, was courteously admitted, not

being known to be on an avenging mission; he then proceeded, without

preliminary, to do the work of an infuriated hero upon the rickety body

of that civic luminary. Oïdas’ howls were fearful to hear, but the

door was locked, and only opened to emit in a flash the lithe frame of

Gustav,--his face blanched, his eyes blazing, and his lips triumphant.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW ATHENS TOOK THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PERFIDIOUS RUDOLPH.

Rudolph’s disappearance with Photini created rather more than a nine

days’ wonder at Athens. This is one of the privileges of living in a

small and talkative town where private affairs spread like fire, and

scandal is an excitement only second to that of the election of the

mayor. But it must be confessed that this was a big scandal, and worth

all the ejaculations, comments, and emphatic censure it provoked. The

baron shrugged his shoulders and smiled: it may be allowed he was not

prepared for this sweeping descent on the part of the innocent Rudolph.

But, as he remarked to his wife:

“It’s always your well brought up and virtuous youths who take the

rapidest strides to the deuce! I told Ottilie, years ago, that she was

bringing up that boy to be a very dainty morsel for any adventuress

that might happen to catch him.”

“Well, my dear, we must admit,” said the baroness, “that the

Natzelhuber did not put herself to any considerable trouble to catch

Rudolph. I’ve not the slightest doubt that the boy was only longing to

be caught, and not wishing to escape it.”

“That is ever the way,” remarked her amiable husband, “with our

inconsistent sex. Our normal condition is longing or grumbling. Either

we are crying out against the adventuresses who wish to catch us, or

we are railing against those who won’t; and when we are caught, we are

still crying out that we are caught. The child, you perceive, is father

to the man. Watch an infant with his pets: he fondles and maltreats

the confiding kitten that rubs itself against him, and deserts it to

run after the butterfly. The butterfly won’t be caught and he howls

dismally, if he doesn’t go into a fit, and proceeds to strangle the

tabby. Thus it has been with your engaging nephew. Mademoiselle

Andromache represents the confiding kitten, deserted for Selaka’s

daughter, the unattainable butterfly, and Photini stands for the

domestic tabby. Only the tabby in question possesses very formidable

claws, which she is too likely to use upon the slightest or even upon

no provocation from the faithless Rudolph. He will then return to us a

sadder and a wiser man. Perhaps when that time comes, it will not be so

very difficult for us, with the aid of Mademoiselle Veritassi, should

that delightful young lady be still free, to anchor him in the placid

waters of matrimony.”

“As for Mademoiselle Veritassi,” said the baroness, “it is always the

girls who come off the worst in these matters. They stand there ready

victims for the worn and jaded rakes who have sown their wild oats.

That wild-oat period is an abomination, Baron, and the theory has done

more to injure young men than anything else.”

“Madame, I am not responsible for the errors of civilisation. The

period which you so aptly describe as the wild-oat period, is

doubtless a sad one to contemplate for those like you and me, who

have passed to the other side, where it is to be hoped there are no

wild oats to be sown. But I am not so sure of that. However, I have

not the slightest doubt, should Rudolph settle down with Mademoiselle

Veritassi, that he will make her as good a husband as any other.

Certainly she will find him very pliant and easy to manage. He is

wealthy, too, and I suppose a young woman cannot ask anything better

than a husband she can easily manage, and a purse she can draw heavily

upon,” said the baron, and continued to smoke his morning cigar without

any unwonted discomposure.

The baroness went on her round of visits in a saddened spirit, thinking

of that young life wrecked on its threshold, and feeling that her

sister Ottilie, watching from above, might perhaps consider that she

in some manner or another, was responsible for the boy’s fall. She was

a good woman in her way, though a worldly one. Whatever might be her

opinion of the morals of the young men with whom she associated, she

would gladly have shielded poor Rudolph from any such acquaintance with

life as theirs. Having no child of her own, she loved the boy with a

tender and maternal love.

“It is very dreadful,” she said at dinner to her husband.

“My dear, let us be thankful that it is not worse,--it might have

been,” said the cheerful philosopher.

“Worse!” interrogated the baroness.

“He might have married her.”

This appalling suggestion silenced the baroness.

Some days later, a letter came from Rudolph from Cape Juan. Already

there was a breath of cynicism in it, startling to those who had known

him in his not far distant period of girlish and fastidious shrinking.

The baron read it attentively, and then said:

“It seems to me, my dear, your Arcadian nephew is going to the devil as

fast as brandy and Photini will help him.”

And that was all he said, adding that probably in a year, at the most,

Rudolph would reappear in their midst, hardened, cynical, and worldly

wise.

The outrage inflicted on Athens in the respected person of her chief

citizen still lifted the voice of uproarious censure, and the Turkish

Embassy had to interfere on behalf of Daoud Bey, who made good his

escape.

In the meantime, how has it been faring with the victim, Andromache? In

the first flush of separation, Rudolph was as regular a correspondent

as the postal arrangements of the Peloponnesus allowed. His letters

breathed artless affection and most gratifying regrets. They described

everything he saw at considerable length, and Andromache read them

as young ladies will read their first love letters, answered them

as candidly, making proper allowance for maidenly reticence; and

then devoted herself, with much ardour, to discussing Rudolph with

her mother and Julia. All the while the trousseau was progressing

rapidly. What dresses to be tried on! what quantities of linen to be

embroidered what choice of lace! There was confusion in the little

house overlooking the French school, and Themistocles found it more

necessary than ever to seek the quiet and seclusion of his own chamber,

and there to meditate upon the young lady in the next street and play

endless and torturing variations of Schubert’s Serenade. And O what

a glorious time it was for Miltiades! how he boasted of his sister’s

brilliant future at the mess-table, and walked the town, or rode on his

coal-black charger, with his friend Hadji Adam, the light of excitement

in his eye strong enough to dazzle the rash beholder! Alas! that these

simple joys should be dashed to the ground in disappointment and

humiliation! Letters came more rarely upon the second separation, and

their tone was more curt and less confiding. There was even a strain

of self-reproach in them which Andromache was too unsuspecting to

construe. But these signs of storm passed unnoticed by Miltiades. The

letter fever, we know, soon declines with young men absent from their

lady-loves, and as the months passed the fever gradually abated, and

Rudolph, the faithless, lapsed into silence.

Still the trousseau progressed, and still the marriage preparations

went forward. One day Miltiades in his barracks was informed that

Rudolph had returned to Athens;--he dropped his knife and fork in

astonishment. How came it that he was not aware of this? and how came

it that Rudolph had not yet made his appearance in the little salon,

where the Turkish bomb that had exploded at the feet of Miltiades was

proudly displayed? Miltiades sat at home all the day, and waited for

Ehrenstein. He was wise enough not to mention this fact to Andromache

or to his mother. Perhaps there would be a very simple explanation

forthcoming, and why inflict needless pain upon the women? Days went

by, however, and still no Ehrenstein. By the soul of Hercules, how can

a fellow be expected to stand this kind of treatment? The slaughterer

of five thousand Turks sit calmly by, while his sister is being jilted

in the most outrageous manner! Certainly not.

Miltiades strode the streets of Athens with a more warlike aspect than

ever. The very frown of his brows was a challenge, and the glance of

his eyes was a dagger: the crimson plumes of his service cap nodded

valorously, his sword and spurs clanked. He twirled his moustache

until all the little boys and foot passengers made way for him

apprehensively. Still no Ehrenstein appeared. Then came the climax. It

was an awful moment when the news exploded,--more fatal far than the

Turkish bomb on the table,--that Rudolph had disappeared with Photini

Natzelhuber. We will draw the veil of discretion upon the picture of

a modern Theseus lashed into impotent fury, and striding through the

prostrate forms of his womenfolk in hysterics.

With a Jove-like front Miltiades faced the Austrian Embassy, and held

stern council with the Baron von Hohenfels. Of course there was nothing

to be done. It was clearly impossible to offer money to a warrior and

a hero. Such a thing as breaches of promise are here unknown, and it

was equally impossible to collar Rudolph and bring him back to his

deserted bride. The baron was conciliatory and courteous, as was his

wont; expressed the flattering opinion that Mademoiselle Andromache

was far too good for a reprobate like his nephew; hoped Miltiades

would allow the baroness the honour of calling upon his mother,

Kyria Karapolos, and her family; and placed himself, his house, and

everything belonging to him at the disposal of the affronted captain.

The interview terminated amicably--how could it be otherwise with the

most diplomatic of ambassadors?--Miltiades returned to the bosom of his

family, and held a parliament to debate upon proceedings.

Andromache bore her sorrow better than might have been imagined. She

necessarily did a little in the way of hysterics, but soon settled down

in dreary acquiescence, and spent her days embroidering and practising

the piano. The practice of scales may be recommended to jilted young

ladies. It soothes the nerves, dulls the imagination, and produces a

useful kind of indifference. Young men in similar circumstances prefer,

I believe, wine, or cards, or politics,--or worse.

This was the hour in which Maria shone. Very faithfully and lovingly

did she tend her young forsaken mistress, hovered over her yearningly,

invented delicacies by means of rice, jam, macaroni and tapioca, to

tempt the appetite of the most hardened sufferer, sat by her for

hours, silently stroking her hair and fondling her hands, and unveiled

exquisite depths of tenderness and consideration. Greek servants and

Irish servants are the kindest, most affectionate and most absolutely

disinterested in the world.

But there was a curious hardness about Andromache’s young mouth: a

permanent glitter in her dark blue eyes, that bespoke a cherished

design. Of that design she spoke to nobody, but went through the day

pretty much as usual, and was grateful to those who remained silent

upon her shame. The Baroness von Hohenfels called, was most pathetic,

effusive, and strewed her path with good-will. She called again, this

time with Agiropoulos, who stared at Andromache through his eyeglass,

wore an expensive orchid in his coat, and conducted himself with his

usual fascinating audacity.

“Faith!” he said to the baroness. “I should not object to console the

little Karapolos myself.”

“That is an idea,” said the Baroness. “I’ll marry you, and then I shall

have Rudolph’s perfidy off my mind.”

“Well, now that Photini has deserted me for your charming nephew, it

will be teaching Rudolph a nice lesson in military tactics,--to besiege

his deserted town, and carry it by storm,--eh, madame?”

The Baroness was quite serious in her design. A little Athenian might

be an impossible match for a young Austrian aristocrat, with the blood

of the Crusaders, the Hapsburgs, and heaven knows of what other deeply

azure sources, running through his veins;--but a common Greek merchant

from Trieste, now, an amiable enough person in florid attire, but not

of her world, though gracefully patronised by her! It would be a very

proper match, and one which she was resolved to further. The girl was

pretty--extremely pretty and young. She wanted polish, and a few months

of Agiropoulos’ irresistible society would be sure to accomplish much

in that way.

“Decidedly, M. Agiropoulos, I am determined to marry you. You must

range yourself. You are now, I suppose, just thirty?”

“Oh, madame, grace I beseech you! Twenty-six. But you see the

disastrous results of follies and the harassing cares your cruel sex

imposes on sensitive young men,” said Agiropoulos, with his fatuous

smile.

“Then it is of greater necessity that you should settle down at once,

and devote yourself to the whims of a wife.”

“I am only eager for the day. I have been well disposed towards

Mademoiselle Veritassi, but she, capricious angel, will not have me.”

The baroness felt inclined to box the fellow’s ear, but only smiled.

A few days later this airy individual left a basket of flowers for the

desposyné Andromache Karapolos.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER XXVII.

INARIME’S VIGIL.

The journey back to Tenos was a mournful one. Selaka, in a mixture of

dread and compunction, shunned his daughter’s glance. There might be

a question of the amount of blame due to him for the trouble in which

they were mutually involved, but the physical weakness consequent upon

his sharp attack left him a prey to exaggerated feelings. That his

daughter, his treasure, whom he had believed few men worthy to possess,

should have been publicly insulted by a wretch like Oïdas to avenge

an ignoble vanity which conceived itself affronted--that so horrible

a stroke should have been dealt him by fate, and the heavens remained

unmoved and the blood of life still flow in his veins, vision not have

been struck from his appalled eyes! Pride lay dead at a stroke, and the

unhappy man felt that he could never again lift a front of dignity to

the light of day.

Of her own wound Inarime thought nothing. To have got rid of the

offensive Oïdas was a gain, even if it cost her an insult. Her

father’s illness was her only care. Dr. Galenides ordered rest and

mountain air. Books, he opined, and cheerful shepherd surroundings

would more than do the work of physic. The simple sights of nature and

her restoring silence would relieve the shocked system, and the late

catastrophe should be ignored.

Constantine travelled with them, moody and petulant by force of

unexhausted vengeance. He paced the deck, muttering and smoking,

smoking and muttering, forgetful of the clamours of the unassuaged

appetite, and consigned the courteous steward to the devil when

importuned to go down to dinner. Dinner indeed! while that fellow

lived who had stolen his friend Stavros from him, beaten him in his

election, and outraged his family. His days were passed in an open-eyed

bloody-minded dream, and he gloated over the picture of the thrashed

mayor, with his features reduced to a purple jelly, and his sneaking

frame doubled up with pain. He could have kissed Reineke’s hand in

gratitude. Horse-whipping was not in his line, but he understood, when

administered by proxy, what a very excellent thing it was. To himself

he plotted how when peace should have descended on the insulted and

angry household, he would manœuvre to reward Reineke.

“He’ll marry her, he will, or my name’s not Constantine Selaka,” he

reiterated to himself, and took the wide expanse of sky and sea to

witness that it was a solemn oath.

At Syra they were late for the bi-weekly boat, but Pericles would hear

of no delay, so they chartered a caique and shot across the placid

blue, as the trail of sunset glory faded out of the deepening sky and

Tenos showed below a solitary patch of green cloud. As they neared the

little pier, the swift, short twilight had touched the valleys and

lent mystery to the bare sweeps of hillside. A palm stood out upon

the sky and appealed to Inarime’s sad eyes in the language of intense

familiarity. She remembered to have noticed that one tree on her first

childish voyage to Syra and, on coming back, to have claimed it with

eager, friendly gaze. It seemed now that eagerness might henceforth

hold no part in her experiences, and she felt like one who was staring

back with sorrowful visage upon serene unnumbered years. The tears

came rapidly as she noted each feature of the dear familiar picture,

the background of her young life, and with them the magic thought that

Gustav, too, had gazed lingeringly, tenderly upon it, thrilled her

ineffably. She tried to imagine his impressions, and examined it keenly

to discover how it might strike upon strange vision.

This is a craving of girls--to know how their lovers look upon things

both have seen; to get inside their sight and count their very

heart-beats. Women grow less exacting and imaginative, I believe, and

have more practical demands upon love.

Aristides met them with mules and voluble utterances.

“Where is Paleocapa?” Pericles demanded, remembering to cast a

searching glance about for the ruffian steward.

“He went up to meet some fellows in Virgin Street. I’ve no doubt they

are in the Oraia Hellas,” answered Aristides.

“Besotting himself with his abominable raki--the brute!--Annunziata is

well?” Selaka queried, sharply.

“Did you ever know her ill? Kyria Helena is up at Xinara. Nothing

has happened since you left except the occasional backslidings of

Paleocapa, who at times cannot be kept from his raki and was no less

than thrice dead drunk. Oh, yes, Demetrius’ wife is dead, and Michael

the carpenter is going to be married to make up for the deficiency,”

Aristides chirped on, as heedless as a blackbird.

“Will you give us peace, you chattering fool,” thundered Pericles with

an outburst of wholesome rage.

The sharp perfumes of the thyme and pines were wafted on the cool

breezes of an April evening, as the little _cortège_ of mules, guided

by Aristides, wound slowly up the marble-stepped and rocky way, and

Inarime drew in the air with quivering nostrils and parted lips. It was

the air of home she breathed, fresh, untainted, smelling of upper hills

and far off-seas, not that of a dusty city cheapened by the presence

of all-pervading man. Thankfully she acknowledged the quiet of the

land, the view unbroken by moving object. Here, at least, might one

live unshamed, if even the heart were cut in twain. Upon the projecting

point of the Castro, hung one first pale star, steadfast and patient

like the light of a soul. Thus patiently and steadfastly should the

star of love shine for her, its flame softly and uncomplainingly

cherished by her. She would not again quit the shelter of her own grey

Castro that looked so desolately upon these valleys, like the ghost of

other centuries lured to the scene of its departed splendours. Her

spirit sprang towards it with a throb of solemn joy. Dear sight! she

could have clung to its burnt flanks and wept among its thymy crevices.

Night was flying over the heavens as they rounded the little path under

it that leads into Xinara. The wind blew chill and balmy, and chased

skurrying clouds across the peeping stars, like shadows flailed by the

invisible powers to dim their mild radiance. Inarime shivered a little,

and turned anxiously to her father.

“Pull up your coat-collar, father,” she entreated.

Demetrius and Johannis were smoking at the shop door when the expected

procession passed through the village street. Michael was sitting in

his betrothed one’s kitchen, staring at her silently, and profusely

expectorating, which was his way of courting. All the villagers that

dwelt on high, leant over their rickety wooden balconies, sniffing the

evening air and talking in a subdued tone, and those below lounged

against door-jambs, or over garden walls.

“Καγ ἑὁπἑρα,” waved upon many voices to Pericles and Inarime, and more

royal “Ζἡσω” to the King of Tenos.

“Ζἡσω ὁ βασγἑυς ρἡς Τἡνου,” Demetrius sang out, cheerfully, and every

head uncovered, hats were frantically waved by the men, handkerchiefs

by the women. One foolish fellow high up, ran into the house for his

pistol and luxuriously fired off a couple of shots by way of salute.

“Confound the idiots!” muttered Constantine, shuddering in his terror

of the explosion. He hated the sound or the idea of the weapon, and his

abortive duel with Stavros had not tended to lessen his instinctive

abhorrence.

“No more of that, my good fellows,” he roared, commandingly. “Any

expression of your kind regard flatters me, but my brother has had an

illness, and is very much shaken. The ride from the town has proved

rather more than his strength is capable of, and your noisy enthusiasm

would quite prostrate him. Many thanks and good-night.”

“Ζὁψω!” again shook the silence of night as they rode through the

village.

“The Virgin be praised! We have back our own dear young lady,” Katinka

shrieked, kissing her fingers vigorously.

Inarime waved her hand in gracious recognition, and the proud,

cherishing eyes of her adorers watched her slim figure, and the homely

shape of her charger until the twilight mist swallowed them out of

their sight. Annunziata and Kyria Helene stood at the little postern

gate to welcome them. The tender brightness of their glances and the

warmth of their cheering smiles struck the home-sick girl with the

force of a buffet. She stumbled choking into Annunziata’s arms, and

hung limp about her.

“Annunziata, Annunziata,” she cried like a child.

“My own girl! It is heaven to have you back. ‘When will she come?’ the

villagers ask me every day, and shake their heads mournfully at the

continued eclipse. Dear sir!” she added, as she caught the hands of

Pericles, and held them fondly.

Pericles pressed her brown fingers, then kissed the cheeks of his

sister and pleaded for immediate rest.

“It’s what we all need--supper and bed,” Constantine growled, turning

to abuse Aristides for delay.

Oh, the poignant appeal to the senses of the dusky, sweet-smelling

courtyard, rich with its departing spring blooms! It swept Inarime like

the breath of childhood and filled her with fervent gratitude. To go

away for the first time and come back! A month may hold the meaning of

a cycle and awaken in the young heart all the fancies, the miseries and

joys of the wanderer. Astonishment thrilled her that this place should

greet her with its aspect of awful changelessness, and yet, if a stone,

a flower, a chair were changed, it would have left her dumb with aching

regret.

Annunziata’s arm was round her, and she put up a timid hand to feel the

Turkish kerchief, the plait of false hair outside, and lovingly touched

the wrinkled cheek.

“It is so good to be back with you,” she whispered.

“My treasure! my dearest child! I have been with you since you were a

baby, and the sun did not shine for me while you were away,” the old

woman murmured, and her tearful eyes pierced the baffling glimmer of

early moonlight like glittering stars.

The little white salon was cozy and inviting by lamplight, and beyond

it, in the inner room, the table was laid for supper. Constantine, dead

with fatigue, hunger and shaken bones, pounced on it like a famished

ogre, but a little soup and wine sufficed Inarime and Pericles.

“Brother, you look thin and worn,” Helene exclaimed, eyeing him

doubtfully.

“Has he not been ill?” screamed Constantine, between the noisy gulps of

his soup.

“I am well enough, sister, but very weary,” said Pericles, rising from

the table. “Inarime, I would speak a word with you before I sleep.”

She followed him to his room, and when he fell into a chair, she

crouched on her knees beside him.

“My child, I have been humbled through you,” he began, musingly, while

his fingers gently stroked her hair. “Your instinct against my reason!

And instinct conquers, reason is beaten, and grievously rebuked. I

meant it for the best, my Inarime. But now I yield to your wishes. It

would have been well for me to have taken counsel with them from the

first. But this is ground upon which, perhaps, the old may always learn

from the young without disgrace.”

His speech faltered and died away in supreme weariness. Inarime held

her breath. Could this mean the recall of Gustav? And yet the hope

seemed so wild that she dared not give it a transient shelter lest the

reaction should utterly overwhelm her.

“To-morrow, father dear,” she urged, kissing his hand. “You are so

tired now.”

“I have not much to say, and I hasten to have it over that I may not be

obliged to revive the painful subject. I will not seek again to oppose

your natural desire to remain unwedded, since you cannot hope to wed

where your heart is.”

Tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes. She moved away from him in

silence, and then glancing over her shoulder, saw the droop of illness

in his frame, and his arms hanging languidly beside him. She was

smitten with remorse, and went back to him.

“Thank you, father,” she said, softly.

“Kiss me, my girl, and leave me,” he just breathed.

She stooped over him and kissed him tenderly. All her reverent love

returned on a swell, and it seemed a small thing to give up her lover

to stay with her father always. The untroubled harmony of their

relations dwelt with her again.

She went to her room, and opened the window to look out upon the

peaceful night scene. Her terrace ran round the house, and commanded a

view of the plain rolling to the distant sea and the girdling hills and

wide dim valleys. The moon was high under a white veil of milky way.

The bright metallic stars made a counter-radiance to her silver light,

and every leaf and rugged contour was sharply visible in the mystic

illumination. An oppressive silence lay upon the mountains, heavy

stillness enveloped the valleys; the leaves dropped silver, and the

flow of the torrents and the tiny quivering rills ran chill upon the

nerves. The spirit of water and moonlight pervaded the scene, running

through it with innumerable thin faint echoes. Every nook and crevice

lay revealed, and the shadows were defined with harsh distinctness, the

distances losing themselves in their own dark verges. Through the dusk,

yellow lights from the farm casements were sprinkled here and there,

and villages showed through their gardens and orchards as black masses

upon the barren highlands.

Her heart was empty from excessive feeling as she looked across the

land. Oh, for courage and freedom to wander forth and touch with feet

and hands each well-remembered spot! A bat flitting through the air

brushed her cheek, and she looked up to follow its black passage.

She sat and watched everything, her energies expended in the delight

of recognition. The waves of white cloud stealing across the heavens,

and the moon imperceptibly beginning to dip, warned her that time was

running apace, and a fluttering movement in the trees underneath told

of birds softly stirring in their warm nests. The thought of their

warmth made her aware that her teeth were chattering and her limbs were

rigid with cold.

Still she sat through the night, and watched the day ushered in upon

violet light, that soon glowed like fire. Crimson wings sped over the

sky with quivering promise. At their touch the stars seemed to tremble,

grew pale and were extinguished one by one. The little birds exulted in

their nests and essayed a note or two. Daylight broke upon the earth

from the fires of the East. Warmth travelled down the abysses of air,

and in its first caress the night-dews shone like jewels on the leaves

and flowers. The rapture of the birds grew into a spray of delirious

song; it dashed upwards with the ring of silver mellowing to gold as it

caught melody. The moon gazed pallid regret upon the scene and melted

away in sickly stealth, as the voices of the morning awoke with the

shrill crow of the cocks. Every folded leaf was now unclosed, and upon

the skirts of the flying dawn the sun rose and spread his tyrannous

light over hills and valleys. The world breathed in day, the dewdrops

were beginning to melt, and the song of the birds was insufferably

sweet to the ears.

Her hands were clammy and her frame was stiff when Inarime rose and

entered her room. Never more would she be asked to leave this place.

The hand beggared of the touch of Gustav’s, she was now free to keep

unclaimed by any other man. Even that small boon was something to be

thankful for, and she blessed her father before flinging herself down

to snatch an hour of oblivion and rest for her tired young limbs. In a

few hours the kindly villagers would flock to welcome her in person,

and the dispensing of customary hospitalities would leave no time for

poignant thoughts.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SHOWING A LADY KNIGHT-ERRANT TO THE RESCUE OF UNHAPPY LOVERS.

Spring waned in the extinguishing heat of summer. The noonday blue of

the heavens was lost in a warm grey mist. All the green was burnt off

the face of the earth, and the eyes turned in pain from the burning

hills and shadowless plain, from the awful glimmer of marble upon the

Acropolis and the hot streets below. Shade, shade, darkened chambers

and cool drinks, and the sweet siesta, curtained off from the sting of

the mosquito, were all that nature called for.

The Baron and Baroness von Hohenfels had left Athens for the repose

of an Austrian country house. They knew that Rudolph and Photini

were wandering about the south of France with an inconvenient train

of live pets, a grand piano, a violin, and discontented hearts. More

than this they did not care to know, and patiently awaited the hour of

reform, when the wild oats period should have exhausted itself, and

the prodigal return to the comfort of more discreet irregularities,

hardened, cynical, and very well disposed to settle down in marriage.

The Karapolos were looking forward with much satisfaction to the next

September move, and this time were in treaty with the owners of a flat

in Solon Street. Miltiades was away in Thessaly with his regiment, and

was not expected back until October. Andromache went about the same as

ever, and no one knew whether the wounds of her heart were permanent

or not. But Agiropoulos was attentive, though far from communicative

in the proper way, and Kyria Karapolos, in her state missives to the

absent hero, thought it not improbable that Andromache might be induced

to accept him.

Little Themistocles was less on parade in Stadion Street because of the

exactions of the weather, but of an evening he cheerfully tortured his

violin, and unbosomed himself to his fellow-clerks in the Corinthian

bank. Things here as elsewhere went on very much as usual. The town

was rapidly thinning, and lodgings and hotels at Kephissia, Phalerum,

Munychia and the Piræus as rapidly filling.

Gustav Reineke had been voyaging in Asia Minor with a party of English

archæologists bound upon an excavating expedition. Upon his return

to Athens, he found his old friend and admirer, Miss Winters, the

delightful little American, with her lovely snow-white hair and a

complexion as fresh as a girl’s. Gustav was charmed, and so was Miss

Winters. They struck at once into fraternity. He accompanied her

everywhere, carried her photographic apparatus, adjusted it, and as

soon as she disappeared under the cloth, applied himself to read aloud

the classics to her. She took full command of him, ordered and piloted

him in an impulse of protecting and authoritative motherhood that

soothed him unspeakably. He obeyed her with pleasure, and in return

imparted to her the story of his love.

“And has the young lady no idea where you are?” she asked, struggling

frantically with her machine on the Acropolis.

“None. I cannot write to her,” said Reineke, dejectedly.

“What nonsense! You love her; she loves you. You have no right to lose

sight of each other. Have you never tried to write?”

“No. I felt the right to do so was not conceded me.”

“Nonsense! it is no question of right or wrong; it is simply natural.

Well, I see I cannot settle this to-day, so I had better go home and

put my other views in order. Did you say the old man, Selaka, lives in

the village of Xinara?”

“Xinara, Tenos,” nodded Gustav.

“I see. Well, carry this home for me, then go and stay quietly in your

hotel,--I may have something to tell you in a few days.”

He carried his burden to her rooms, which faced the columns of Jupiter,

gallantly kissed her tiny hand, and turned with a soft smile in his

eyes as he walked to the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne.

“I will certainly make a journey to America to see that charming little

lady,” he said to himself, and while he sat in his room waiting for

the short blue twilight, he took out of his breast pocket the only

remembrance of Inarime he possessed--the unfinished verses he had found

some months ago at the Austrian Embassy.

Everything on the Acropolis had been photographed from every possible

point of view, and nearly everything in the museums, and on the day

they had arranged to start for Sunium, Miss Winters met Reineke with a

portentous air.

“Mr. Reineke, I have heard from that old man, and, indeed, he is not

worth much. He is just an old heathen.”

Gustav laughed, touched by the irresistible humour of hearing Miss

Winters, herself more than half a pagan, abuse any one on the ground of

heathenism.

“What are you laughing at, sir?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, I was not quite prepared to hear you turn upon the heathens, I

thought you were in such thorough sympathy with them.”

“With the ancient heathens, if you please,” corrected Miss Winters.

“That is very different from modern heathenism. The ancients were

respectable, upright and religious men, fearing the gods and respecting

the laws of nature. But your Selaka! He has all the vices of the

Christian, without any of the virtues of the pagan.”

“Selaka! What of him?” cried Gustav, opening his eyes.

“Did I not tell you? I have heard from him.”

“Heard from Selaka? How? When?”

“Through the post--how else? I wrote to him.”

Reineke sat dumfounded and stared at her. He believed the courage

of woman in managing the affairs of stricken man went far; but this

utterly surpassed the limitations he allowed it.

“You wrote to him,” he murmured.

“Certainly, it was high time some sane person undertook the task of

reasoning with him, and convincing him of his folly.”

“And might I ask how you applied yourself to this task? upon what

grounds you based your arguments?”

“Well, I told him you are no more a Turk than I am.”

Gustav exploded hilariously.