“Why, you know you are not. You are just as Greek as you can very well

be,--far more so than he is, you bet.”

“Well?”

“He did not see it;--of course not, the old lunatic.”

“May I be permitted to look at the letter, Miss Winters?”

“There it is. It is a very instructive letter in its way, written in

far better German than mine.”

Gustav took the letter, and studied it leisurely. It was dignified

and courteous, spoke in high terms of himself as a man of honour and

learning to whom he should, in other circumstances, have been proud to

entrust his daughter’s happiness. But its tone was unmistakable, its

decision unalterable. Gustav sighed heavily as he returned it to Miss

Winters.

“He’s a fanatic--that’s just what he is,” she cried.

“And the worst of it is, Miss Winters, one is forced to admire such

consistent and adamantine fanaticism, though its bigotry be the bar to

one’s own happiness.”

“Why, of course, that’s the worst of it. If there were not such an

element of nobility in it I should not want to shake him so much. It

is always a satisfaction to be able to call the person who opposes or

frustrates your purpose a scoundrel or a brute--but not to be able to

call him anything harder than a pig-headed old pagan, and to have to

smile admiration through one’s rage of disappointment, puts a point

upon one’s anger. Well, never mind, Mr. Reineke. I’ll thwart him yet.

I’ll write to the girl next.”

Gustav gasped and doubtless thought--as the French critic thought of

Moses--“cette femme est capable de tout.”

They went together to Sunium, and photographed everything in the

neighbourhood, ruins, peasants in fustanella and embroidered jackets,

women in embroidered tunics and headgear of coins and muslin, and then

went to Corinth and accomplished similar wonders there.

“I quite feel as if I had a son,” said Miss Winters, patting Gustav’s

hand affectionately.

“What a pretty and youthful mother I have found,” laughed Reineke.

Miss Winters delayed in Corinth to write a chapter of her book on

Greece, and Gustav lounged about with the piratical tendencies of an

archæologist. When they reached Athens, borne down by the weight of

manuscripts, vases and photographs, Miss Winters found a notification

from the Corinth post-office that a letter was waiting for her “au

_bourreau_ d’ Athènes.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Reineke, can I in some inexplicable way have brought

myself under the penalties of the law? Is it forbidden, under pain of

death, to photograph ruins and views of Greece? What connection can I

possibly have with the executioner of Athens?”

Gustav laughed and suggested “bureau,” and went off himself to the

post-office, where, indeed, he found a letter addressed to Miss Winters

in the beautiful calligraphy he so well knew. Then she had written to

Inarime, and he held the answer in his hand! He looked at it lovingly,

reverentially, and just within the arches of the post-office, glancing

hastily around to ascertain that he was not observed, he raised the

envelope to his lips. He gave it to Miss Winters without a word, and

went away. That evening Miss Winters came to him at his hotel, silently

put the letter into his hand, and closed the door of his room as she

went out softly, as one closes the door of a sick chamber.

Gustav sat watching the letter timidly, afraid to learn its contents,

and the desire of it burned his cheek and quickened his pulse like

fever. How would the silence of months be broken? Would her message

realise his high expectations? Would the world be less empty for

him because of it? Would this fierce ache of the heart drop into a

contented memory? He felt her arms about his neck, her lips upon his,

her glance pierced his own through to his inmost soul, held her in his

clasp, and lived again their short impassioned hour. How bright the

rain-drops had looked upon the winter grasses and curled leaves, how

clear the song of the birds in the moist air! The moments fled with the

hurry of rapture, his beating pulses timed to their measureless speed.

Still Inarime’s letter lay unopened in his hand.

He saw her in the courtyard at Xinara remonstrating with the sobbing

woman crouched at her feet; felt his gaze compel hers and drew in

his breath with a catch of pain at the memory of the sweet surprised

surrender of her eyes,--followed slowly, obediently, her vanishing form

with that last long look of hers to feed his hungry soul.

And still the letter was unread.

He sat trifling with his happiness and his misery, scarcely daring

to open it, shaken with the apprehensions of yearning, hardly strong

enough to lash himself to courage by the past--enervated, sick with

expectation, chill with fright. Slowly he took the sheet out of the

envelope, and bent his eyes upon it, not noticing that a thinner sheet

had fallen to the ground.

Thus it ran:

“MADAME,--

“I am abashed before the thought of my deep indebtedness to you,

and the knowledge that it will never be my good fortune to repay

you. More to me than your kind words is the comfort of knowing

that, separated from him you write of as I am, by a fatality I

have neither voice nor influence to avert, your presence makes

amends to him for my enforced silence. Your letter breathes of

tender regard for him. Is not that a debt of some magnitude you

place on me? A debt I am proud to acknowledge. Alas! Madame,

it is useless to hope to combat my father’s repugnance to the

marriage you appear to think so natural. I know my father. His

prejudices are few, and strong indeed must be that which raises

an impassable barrier to my happiness. I hold it as a religious

duty to respect it, and smother the feelings of rebellion that

sometimes rise and stiffen my heart against him. I have no right

to rebel, for he loves me--oh, he loves me very dearly. I think

he would almost give his life for mine, and most willingly would

I lay down mine for his. Since I was a little child he has cared

for me and cherished me. He has tried to make me the sharer of

his great learning, that there might be no division between us,

that I might be rather a disciple following afar than an alien

to the one object of his existence. You see, it is no common

bond you ask me to break. It would be something more than the

flight of a daughter,--it would be the defection of a pupil--and

he, the tenderest master! I could not bear, by any action of

mine, to forfeit my worthiness of such exclusive devotion, and

should I not do so past excuse if I were to cause him one pang of

disappointment or anger?

“To follow your counsel, and take my destiny into my own hands

by one wild leap into the bliss my heart calls for, would be to

risk his anger without the assurance that ultimately I should be

forgiven. Do not urge me to it, I beseech you. My father ill and

alone! The thought would make a mockery of my happiness. It would

be a pall upon my bridal robes. Forgive me, Madame. I love you

for your wish to help me, though the effort be ineffectual. If

I boldly seem to criticise, believe me, it is with no intention

to wound. You will think me a coward, perhaps, for I know that

it is different with the women of your race. They act without

scruple for themselves, and their parents have no other choice

than to yield to theirs. But I cannot bring myself to regard

this as right. _He_ cannot surely desire that I should come to

him thus--with the stain of strife and revolt upon our love. You

see I am fastidiously jealous of the future. It is so fatally

easy for the young, upon the impetus of ungovernable passion, to

let themselves be precipitated into rash errors: so difficult to

recover forfeited ground.

“But how fervently I thank you for your sweet sympathy and your

offer of a home until such time as another would be mine, I have

not words to say. Your heart must be fresh to be so tenderly open

to the sorrows of the young. I shall bless the day that brings us

face to face. If you would visit our island! But we are so rough

and backward, and the stillness, I fear, would prove oppressive to

one from a country where, I am assured, movement is the extremity

of haste. And yet I love the place all the more from my short

absence from it. It was like heaven to see it again, to feel the

untrodden ground beneath my feet, to watch the unfretted stars

from a world below as uneager and as changeless. The seasons are

not more regular than our habits, and excitement is undreamed of

by us. The villagers come to me with their simple woes, and I

comfort them and doctor them, and instil into them such wisdom

as my young head has mastered. Sometimes my dear father comes to

my help,--not often, for they are less afraid of me. It is, I

suppose, because I am nearer to them.

“This letter shames me, it is so idle and garrulous. What have I

to say but that I love you, Madame,--I love you, and beg you to

accept the assurance of my heartfelt gratitude and my affectionate

friendship.

“INARIME SELAKA.”

This letter might seem to lack the artlessness and spontaneity of

girlhood. But its very restraint held a precious eloquence for Gustav,

and it was not the less dear to him because he felt the writer was

completely master of her mind. It held no want for him. He read

between the lines, and adored the eyes the more that he understood

their tears were held in check. The lips may have trembled in the

reawakened force of passion, the gaze have grown dim with longing,

the pulses throbbed to ache and ebbed away upon the sickening wave

of despair, but the letter only breathed of weakness conquered, the

pressure of a restraint imposed by life-long habit, and could not be

called artificial. He reverenced her sweet reasonableness and her grave

acceptance of the inevitable. He re-read the letter carefully, and

kissed the name at the end. Why had she avoided the writing of his?

He began to walk about the room, picking out sentences to burn upon

his memory, when his eyes detected a slip of paper upon the ground.

He pounced upon it with a presentiment of what it was. _Herrn Gustav

Reineke_ was written outside, and it was delicately folded. He opened

it, and his breathing could have been heard at the other end of the

room.

“Dear One--my dearest! My father has at last consented to let me

remain unmarried--but that is all. We may hope for nothing more.

Still, our love is respected. I cannot think it is wrong of me to

send you this message. At least, I hope it is not. You have my

faith. O, I love you, I love you.”

Gustav sat through the night with his head bent over this message.

Desires and thoughts and wild hopes wavered and shot through him like

arrows, now swift and sharp, now blunt and slow, needlessly lacerating

in their passage. When morning came he shook off his dream, and replied

to Miss Winter’s glance of veiled interrogation by a look supplicating

silence.

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOW A MAID OF ATHENS AVENGED HERSELF.

One day late in October the news somehow or other reached Rudolph, when

at Cannes, that Selaka and his daughter were back in Athens. Without a

word of explanation to Photini, who was engaged upon a public concert,

he started off, and arrived in Athens late at night. The Baron and

Baroness von Hohenfels were startled at their midday breakfast, next

morning, by the entrance of the prodigal.

“Rudolph, good heavens!” cried the baron, and shook him gladly by the

hand, but Rudolph was cold almost to rudeness. He suffered himself

to be embraced by his aunt, and then went and stood against the

mantelpiece. It was impossible not to note and deplore the change in

him: from an engaging and innocent boy he had turned, in less than

a year, into a hard and reckless-looking young-old man. His air was

aristocratic but strangely unattractive, and his fair face was lined as

no face should be lined at twenty-two. The blue eyes that used to be so

soft in their clearness, so like his mother’s, as the Baroness thought,

were now keen and glittering and held a dull fire within them. He stood

thus looking moodily down, and then said curtly:

“You are surprised to see me, I suppose?”

“Well, I will admit,” the baron answered, “something in the nature of

an announcement might have been expected, as a reasonable concession to

the laws of courtesy. But since you are here, you had better sit down

and take some breakfast with us.”

Rudolph laughed, and took a chair at the table. Before eating he

poured himself out a generous tumbler of wine, and drank it almost

at a draught. The baron stared a little, looked across at his wife,

and lifted his brows meaningly. The talk at first was light. Rudolph

touched upon the places he had seen, and made himself exceedingly

witty and merry at the expense of the distinguished personages he

had met in the course of his travels. He asked how matters stood at

Athens; inquired after Agiropoulos and Mademoiselle Veritassi, the

Mowbray-Thomases, and his friend the young Viscount, but never a word

was said about Andromache. Then lying back in his chair, and lighting a

cigar, the baron asked, with a mocking smile.

“And, my amiable nephew, how fares it with the fascinating Natzelhuber?”

Rudolph drew in his brows with a frown, and looking hastily at his

aunt, said:

“We will not discuss her, sir, if you please.”

“Oh,” assented the baron, interjectionally, and busied himself with his

cigar; “may one, without indiscretion, be permitted to inquire into

your plans for the future?”

“I have no plans,” said Rudolph, taking up a cigar.

“At least I see,” laughed the baron, “you have succumbed to the

beneficial influence of tobacco.”

“Yes, I smoke now; I do most things now that other men do.”

“So I perceive,” said the baron, drily, “you even look as if you did

a little more,” he added, noting that Rudolph had helped himself to a

second glass of brandy.

When Rudolph stood up, the baroness stopped him with a demand to know

if they might expect the pleasure of his presence at dinner that night.

The young man nodded and left the room.

“A singularly altered young man,” said the baron, across to his

wife, “it seems to me that the Natzelhuber has imparted some of her

natural courtesy to him, and given his manners the piquant flavour of

originality!”

“Oh, he is frightfully changed,” said the baroness; “and did you remark

his deplorable weakness for wine?”

“Well, yes, it struck me, I confess, that he rather copiously washed

down the small allowance of food he indulged in.”

“Poor boy, we must only try and keep him here now that we have him, and

get up a few lively entertainments for him. That he is wretched it is

easy to see. I think his recklessness comes from despair.”

The baron shrugged his shoulders. “That is always the way with

well-brought-up youths,--the slightest folly plays the very mischief

with their temperaments, and they are ever in extremes, whether on the

path of virtue or on the more fascinating road to the dogs!”

While the easy-going ambassador was thus moralising, Rudolph was

scouring Athens in search of tidings of the Selakas. Having ascertained

at the _Hôtel des Étrangers_ that they had gone out for a drive, he

returned to the Embassy, borrowed one of his uncle’s horses, and was

soon out upon the open road, sweeping the plain of Attica with eager

glances strained in every direction for the carriage in which the

father and daughter might be found.

Upon the skirt of the olive-misted plain he dismounted, and entered the

leafy shade of a little café garden, lost in a glade of scented pines

and oleanders. Here he called for cognac, and sat moodily smoking until

the sun went down.

Let us glance at the house of Karapolos now, situated in Solon Street.

Miltiades is back from Thessaly, more glorious and more ferocious than

ever. He learnt that morning of Rudolph’s reappearance in Athens, and

communicated that fact to his family at dinner. That evening, as he

returned from duty, he missed a dainty silver pistol his friend Hadji

Adam had given him. With a brow of thunder and voice of menace he

sallied forth and had his servant Theodore arrested for the robbery.

While Theodore was being carried off, shrieking and protesting, and

calling upon all the saints and the Virgin and the soul of his dead

mother to witness that he was being falsely accused, Andromache, for

some unaccountable reason was wandering about the steep solitudes of

Lycabettus in company with the faithful Maria. She had been allowed to

go forth in pursuit of veils and gloves in the frequented street of

Hermes. Now, what, one asks, could take a young lady towards sunset up

a lonely and rugged slope of Lycabettus, when her ostensible journey

lay in the region of shops? This was a secret known only to Andromache

and to the faithful Maria.

On the following afternoon, Andromache begged her mother to take her to

hear the band play upon Constitution Square. The square was thronged,

the ladies, as is customary in Athens, walking together, and the men

in similar fraternity, Captain Miltiades was with these, and so were

Agiropoulos and the popular poet.

A close observer might have noticed that Andromache’s pretty dark

blue eyes glistened with a curious light; that the blood had left her

face and lips, and that she walked like one in a state of nervous

excitement. Poor, betrayed, little Andromache! if only she had confided

her frantic purpose to somebody, and had not all these months repressed

her sorrow, and striven to show a brave front to the curious world!

Many horrors are spared the loquacious, and the worst follies are

those committed by silent sufferers. Andromache kept looking fixedly

round in evident watch for some one. If you want to meet any one in

Athens, you are sure to do so between Stadion Street and Constitution

Square. The person Andromache was looking for soon made his appearance,

walking casually along, not caring greatly to examine the people that

were hustling against him. He sat down at a café table, and called for

coffee, and while waiting for it began to roll up a cigarette, and

unconsciously hummed the melody of Waldteufel’s “Souvenir,” which the

band was playing. Andromache made a step forward from her mother’s

side to the table at which Rudolph was seated; and in a second she

whipped out of her breast the little silver pistol, for the loss of

which Theodore was in prison, and fired straight at the shoulder of

her recreant lover. Imagine the commotion, the whirr of speech and

explanation, the jostling to look at the injured maid and the wounded

man. The band stopped playing in the middle of Waldteufel’s charming

waltz, band-master and band attracted to the spot. Strange as it may

appear, all Hellenic sympathies were upon the side of Andromache: not a

single voice of censure was raised against her, but everybody seemed to

think that she had performed a feat of courage. Here her courage ended;

the pistol fell from her hand, and she dropped rigid into her mother’s

arms. She was carried home, and soon passed into the unconsciousness

of brain fever. Rudolph was not seriously injured, but faint enough to

need the help of a carriage to take him back to the Austrian Embassy,

with the prospect of confinement to his room for a few days.

The Baron von Hohenfels in his official position was greatly perturbed

by this scandal, and made immediate application for a change of

post. He was too angry to visit his luckless nephew’s room until the

baroness’ prayers melted him. When Dr. Galenides had seen the patient,

and pronounced him in a favourable condition for recovery, the baron

suffered himself to be led to the bedside.

Rudolph looked very piteous upon his pillow, with the flush of fever

on his white cheeks and a harassed, humble expression in his eyes. The

much aggrieved baron relented, hummed and hawed a little as a kind of

impatient protest, stroked his beard, and finally began, in a softened

voice:

“My dear boy, are you quite satisfied now that you have made Athens too

hot for an Austrian Ambassador?”

“I am very sorry, uncle,” said Rudolph, and he looked it.

“Well, yes, I can quite believe that you are not exactly jubilant.”

“As soon as I am well enough to move, I’ll leave Greece, and wild

horses will never drag me here again.”

“On the whole, I think you have done fairly well upon the classic

shores of Hellas, and it would be as well to confine yourself to the

rest of Europe during the remainder of your mortal career. But it is

a little hard on me that my family should reflect discredit upon my

country. Zounds! Could you not have understood that the Greeks are a

most susceptible and clannish race? There is one thing they will not

forgive, and that is an affront done a compatriot by a stranger. And we

Austrians, you must know, are not more adored here than the English.

In fact, we are hated. If the French Viscount had jilted Mademoiselle

Andromache Karapolos, and had been shot at by her, public indignation

would have taken a considerably modified tone.”

“What can I do, uncle?” asked Rudolph, penitently.

“Get well as soon as possible, and give Athens a wide berth. I cannot

advise you to fling yourself at the feet of the fair Andromache, for

I don’t believe that young lady could very well persuade herself

to forgive you after this public scandal. It is a stupid affair

altogether. I thought you were flirting, but an engagement! Good

heavens! What do you imagine to be the value of a gentleman’s word? A

promise of marriage is not a thing that can be lightly made, because

it is not a thing that can ever be lightly broken. The man is called a

cad, and the woman a jilt; and both are greatly the worse for such a

reputation.”

Rudolph said nothing, but his way of turning on his pillow was a direct

appeal for mercy. The baron felt it to be so, and got up, believing

that the heavy responsibilities of uncle were accomplished with grace

and dignity.

When the illustrious Dr. Galenides called next day, he found his

patient so far recovered that he felt disposed to sit at his bedside,

and chat with him in a friendly way.

“My dear young friend,” he said, cheerfully, “it is the fault of

youth, and perhaps, in a measure, its virtue, to be too precipitate.

If intelligent young people could only be induced to take for their

motto that wise and ancient precept, ‘Μησἑν ἁγαν’--which I believe the

French translate as ‘le juste milieu,’--there would be no such thing as

maidens forced to avenge themselves by means of a pistol, nor young men

deserving such treatment.”

Rudolph shrank a little, and said, with assumed coldness:

“Pray, doctor, do not think hardly of her. I behaved badly to her, and

only cowardice kept me from going to her and asking her to forgive me.”

Dr. Galenides smiled and bowed.

“She is regarded as a heroine now.”

“And I, my uncle tells me, as a cad,” cried Rudolph, bitterly.

“Well, not exactly as a hero, I have to admit.”

“Have you heard how she is, doctor?”

“Very ill indeed--brain fever,--but she is young and strong.”

“Doctor, if you see her, will you take her a message? I dare not write.

Tell her my sufferings have been greater than hers, and tell her I

shall always remember her as a sweet and charming girl far too good for

me. I hope she will be happy. As for me, doctor, my life is wrecked

upon the threshold.”

“One always thinks so at twenty-two. At thirty-two one understands

that it is rather difficult to wreck a man’s life. Get well, my dear

Monsieur Ehrenstein. Life is a very pleasant thing, I assure you, full

of kindly surprise and interest. And remember the wise motto of my old

friends--‘Μησἑν ἁγαν’--neither extreme, the just middle,” ended the

physician, balancing by way of illustration a paper knife upon his

finger.

While Dr. Galenides was putting on his gloves, the baroness entered

the room, accompanied by Pericles Selaka. Rudolph’s face went bright

scarlet, and then turned white, with a pinched, and anxious expression.

“You, Pericles!” cried Dr. Galenides, with something like alarm in his

voice. “I was on my way to you.”

“Oh, I am much better to-day, and wanted very much to see how this

other patient of yours is getting on,” said Selaka, approaching.

“Are you ill, too?” asked Rudolph, excitedly.

“A little unwell, but it is nothing,” answered Selaka, with a smile, as

he took Rudolph’s hand and held it.

Dr. Galenides glanced significantly at the baroness, and went away.

Selaka leant across the side of the bed, and looked steadily at

Rudolph, over whom the baroness was hovering with maternal attentions.

The sick man reached out his hand to take his aunt’s, and held it an

instant to his lips.

“Poor fellow! you will be excited in a minute,” said the baroness.

“It is kind of you, Herr Selaka, to come to me,” Rudolph said, in

German.

“I am sorry for what has happened,” returned Selaka. “I know nothing

more regrettable than the frantic precipitancy and anger of youth.

I cannot understand why you should have made a promise you did not

consider binding, or why, having made it, you should have broken

it. It would not be my place to speak upon a matter so delicate and

so private, did I not feel, through a member of my family, partly

responsible for your misbehaviour.”

“I doubt the utility or kindness of scolding the wrong-doer when the

mischief is done,” interrupted the good-natured baroness.

“Scold! I trust I do not seem to scold, madame,” said Selaka, opening

his eyes, and thrusting out his hand with an air of stately reproach.

“Not even you can be more sorry for this young man’s misfortune. He

is much censured at present. But my voice is not amongst those that

censure him. I simply do not understand how he can have behaved so

unwisely. But my heart is filled with pity for him. I am sure he never

wished to wrong or pain any one, and I deeply feel that one of my name

should unconsciously have been the means of bringing this grief upon

him, and upon others. Had he trusted me when he first found his faith

wavering where he had hoped it anchored, I should have taken measures

to protect him from his own uncertain heart. Believe me, it would

have been best so, and you, my poor young friend, would have been the

happier.”

“Perhaps you are right, sir,” said Rudolph, wearily. “I am sure I

do not know. But tell me--tell me something about her--about your

daughter. Does she despise me?”

“She grieves for you, and deplores her own disastrous influence upon

you.”

“She need not. I do not desire that she should grieve for me,” cried

Rudolph. “You all speak of me as if I had committed some frightful

crime--a murder, a forgery, a felony--as if I had incurred indelible

shame. Granted I have misbehaved myself--we will even grant that I

have not acted as a gentleman--am I the first to find he had given his

promise to the wrong person?”

“Rudolph Ehrenstein, you well know you have done worse than this,--you

affronted your deserted bride by linking your life in the face of the

world with that of a woman who had already incurred public odium. This

is what grieves me most, and it is this step I feel that drove that

unhappy girl to her mad act.”

“We will not speak of her, if you please, Herr Selaka,” said Rudolph,

with a proud look. “As for Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, it wounds me that

she should be so cruelly misjudged. Believe me, under more fortunate

circumstances, she would have been a good woman. She is full of

kindness and sympathy for every phase of misery. She gives away the

money she earns more freely than many rich people spend that which they

inherit. She is an unhappy woman, sir; there is nothing base or shabby

in her, and I am not so sure that there is not a good deal that is

noble.”

“I can well believe you, Herr Rudolph. I have not the honour of knowing

Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, and the public voice rather loves to spread

abroad the fame of glaring vices than that of private virtues. The

lady, I believe, has made a point of shocking every accepted canon

of taste, and, of course, society revenges itself by painting her as

black as possible. But we Greeks, despite our French tastes, are a

very sober and a very moral people, and a step like yours takes away

our breath. This sounds like preaching, does it not? But I am grieved,

distressed. I would have given you Inarime,--once, I almost wished it.

However, it was useless to hope for that. My daughter’s heart is given

elsewhere, and it is well now that it is so. Still, had you told me of

this entanglement, had you left it in my power to aid you! Young men, I

know, sometimes shrink from opening their hearts to their parents and

relatives. But me you would have found indulgent and perhaps helpful.”

Rudolph stretched out his hand and Selaka clasped it warmly.

“Thank you, sir! It would have made all the difference if Inarime

thought as you do. Do you know why I came back to Athens?”

“I think I can guess,” said Selaka, smiling.

“Oh, I loved her so! and, Heaven help me, I cannot choose but love her

still. May I hope to see her, sir?” he asked, humbly.

“No, Herr Rudolph,” said Selaka, shaking his head. “That I cannot

permit, nor would she consent. In the years to come, when I shall be no

more, it will be for her to choose her friends, but as long as I stand

between her and the world those friends shall be spotless, or at least

their names shall be untainted by the breath of public scandal.”

“The lives of young men would be very different if all parents were

as particular and severe as you, Herr Selaka,” observed the baroness,

turning round from the window.

Rudolph moved upon his pillow, and covered his eyes with his arm.

“You are right, sir, I am not worthy to look upon her,” he said.

Suddenly there was heard from the hall an ominous sound, the louder

because of the stillness of the house. The baroness ran to the door

and held it open, listening anxiously. Could that voice, pitched in a

key of lofty indignation, be mistaken for other than the voice of an

angry hero? Ah, who but Miltiades, the glory of modern Athens, could

stride in that magnificent fashion through a hall, clatter and clang

his spurs along the tessellated pavement, rattle and shake the stairs,

the balustrade, with as much noise as all the heroes of Homer sacking

Ilion; nodding fearful menace in his crimson plumes and sending potent

lightning flames with his violet glances?

The baroness looked question and alarm at Selaka, and poor Rudolph,

cowed by weakness and fright, shuddered among his pillows, whiter far

than the linen that framed his face.

“Do not seek to bar my passage, menial,” Miltiades was roaring, as the

clatter and clang of sword and spurs approached the sick chamber. “It

is Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein I desire to see.”

Even Rudolph could not resist a ghastly smile at hearing his name

so curiously pronounced by the warrior. Miltiades stood upon the

threshold, and the baroness could not have looked more petrified if she

had found herself confronted by an open cannon.

“Madame,” said Miltiades, ever the pink of courtesy, as the brave

should be to the fair; after his most ceremonious military salute, he

advanced a step, and said, “I have a few words to say to your nephew,

Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein.”

“Enter, enter, I pray you, Captain Karapolos,” said the baroness in

rather halting but intelligible Greek. “My nephew is ill--as you see.

Perhaps you will consent to spare him the unpleasantness of a scene. He

is very ill.”

“So, madame, is my sister. Dr. Galenides tells me she will hardly

recover. Is this to be borne quietly--think you?”

“Kyrie Selaka, explain to him--I do not know Greek well enough. Tell

him how grieved, how miserably sad the baron and I are about this

business. Speak kindly for us and try to soothe him. I understand he

must be in a desperate state, and heaven knows how sincerely I pity

him. Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph, when will you young men learn to think of

others as well as yourselves?” she cried, distractedly.

“Captain Karapolos, this proceeding of yours is surely as unseemly as

it is futile,” said Selaka. “What good do you expect can come of such a

step? It will not restore your sister to health and happiness, and you

but needlessly inflict pain upon this lady, who is sincerely distressed

for you. My dear sir, the great lesson of life is, that the inevitable

must be accepted. We cannot go back on our good deeds or our ill, and

it is not now in the power of this young man to repair the mischief he

has done. The consequences of wrongdoing cannot be shirked by those who

suffer them, or by those who have done the wrong. They baffle each step

of flight and struggle, and hunt us down remorselessly.”

“My dear sir, such stuff may suit a pulpit or a university chair, but

it offends the ear of a soldier. I care not a jot for the inevitable,

and, as far as I am concerned, this young man will answer to me for his

evil deeds--to me, sir, Miltiades Karapolos, captain of King George’s

Artillery,” shouted Miltiades, slapping his chest emphatically.

Rudolph sat up in bed, and asked feebly:

“Did he say, Herr Selaka, that Andromache is very ill?”

Selaka bowed, and Miltiades glared interrogation.

“Dangerously ill?”

“It appears so.”

“Oh, good God! what a wretch I have been! Please tell him, if she

gets better, and will consent to forgive me, I will gladly fulfil my

engagement. Tell him it was not because Andromache ceased to be dear

to me that I left her, but that, loving somebody else, I felt I had

ceased to be worthy of her. Tell him it was not, heaven knows, for my

pleasure I so acted, that it was a horrible grief to me.”

Miltiades glanced suspiciously from one to the other, and looked

annihilation and contempt upon the sick youth.

“What does the fellow say?” he demanded, fiercely.

Selaka faithfully repeated Rudolph’s message. If Miltiades had been

thunder before, he was lightning now added. He stalked to the bed,

struck Rudolph full in the face, and without another word strode from

the room.

“Good gracious!” cried the baroness, and fell limply into a chair.

“I must get well now,” muttered Rudolph, between his teeth.

Next day Agiropoulos and the popular poet called. It was known all over

Athens that, as well as having been shot at by the sister, Rudolph had

been struck by the brother. Agiropoulos took a fiendish delight in

the situation. Personally he asked nothing better than to console the

heroine as soon as she should have struggled back from the encompassing

shadows of unreason. He was quite ready to place at her disposal

fortune, hand, and heart, as much as he possessed of that superfluous

commodity, which, it must be confessed, was little enough. He loved

notoriety in any form, and was enchanted with the veil of romance that

enveloped Andromache, not in the least scrupulous upon the point that

the veil was smirched with powder and blood. If possible, these unusual

stains but gave an added impetus to his interest.

“Well, my young friend,” he said, sitting down and elegantly crossing

his legs, while, the better to survey the sorry hero of the tragedy, he

adjusted his eye-glass with that peculiar grimace common to those thus

decorated. “You look a little the worse for Mademoiselle Andromache’s

last embrace--eh?” he queried, and turned with a smile to the popular

poet.

“He has the air of Endymion after the desertion of Diana,” said the

poet.

“Was Endymion deserted? Faith, that is a piece of mythological

information for me. We live and learn, eh, Ehrenstein?”

“I suppose so,” said Rudolph, drearily. “The learning is not more

pleasant than the living.”

“You charming boy! so delightful to know that innocence still

flourishes in our midst. The century is exhausted, but a young heart

is a perennial fount of misery. For, my young friend, there is no more

sure prophecy of youth and innocence than utter woe and dejection. If

you give him time, Michaelopoulos will put that into a neat verse for

you.”

“Don’t, pray. I hate poetry,” cried Rudolph.

“It is, I believe, on record that babes have been known to hate milk,”

said Agiropoulos, blandly.

“Don’t weary me with smart talk. I have other things to think of,

Agiropoulos, and cannot listen to your witticisms,” protested Rudolph.

“Don’t mention it. I will be dull to please you. May a poor forsaken

wretch inquire after the health of a quondam mistress?”

“Agiropoulos, if you have not got the breeding of a gentleman, try to

remember when you are in the presence of one,” cried Rudolph.

“Whew!” whistled Agiropoulos, with his enigmatic smile.

“I suppose, Ehrenstein, you don’t exactly want another challenge?”

“I want nothing, and I most certainly don’t want you.”

“Is this delirium, think you, Michaelopoulos?”

“Looks uncommonly like it,” the poet replied.

“Let me feel your pulse, Monsieur Endymion--what an appropriate

comparison for the moment! That young gentleman was, we are given

to understand, partial to the recumbent attitude. But we are rather

embarrassed by our choice of Selene. Which shall it be, Ehrenstein,

first, second or third?”

“Will you do me the favour of leaving my room, sir?” ordered Rudolph,

frigidly. “When I have finished with Captain Miltiades Karapolos, I

shall be happy to dispose of your claims, Agiropoulos, and then of your

friend’s, if he thinks proper to demand the privilege.”

“And then of each of the desposyné Inarime’s suitors, comprising a list

of two members of parliament, a mayor, a justice of the peace, forty or

fifty bachelor islanders and a distinguished archæologist. Don’t forget

the archæologist, I implore you, Rudolph. Demolish him before you touch

me, or Michaelopoulos--the name is rather long, but practice will

accustom your tongue to it--besides, your mellifluous German will be a

substantial aid. First lay low the mighty Karapolos, and in a moment

you avenge five thousand desolate Turkish hearths--have they hearths

in Turkey? Then give the deathly accolade to the archæologist. After

that, of course, these two humble individuals are entirely at your

disposal, as the courtly Spaniards say. Do you know Spanish? Neither

do I. Ta-ta, my friend. You have a heavy day’s work before you when

you get well, Monsieur Endymion. To sweep off the face of the earth a

Greek hero, a Greek poet, a Greek merchant, a Turkish archæologist, an

insular demarch, two members of parliament, a justice of the peace, and

fifty Teniotes. Lead me from the presence of this bloodthirsty youth,

friend. I shudder,” cried Agiropoulos.

Mighty is the passion of anger--mightier far than that of love. Anger

lifted Rudolph out of his sick bed, and placed him, one chill November

morning, opposite Miltiades in a lonely field under the Shadow of

Lycabettus, with Hadji Adam for his antagonist’s second and the French

Viscount for his own. The duel terminated for Rudolph, as nineteenth

century duels frequently do, but Miltiades was imprisoned for fourteen

days in his own room in Solon Street, with a soldier mounted guard

outside, for his colonel, with an unheroic disregard for the laws of

honour, judged his act an infringement of military law.

While Rudolph, with bitterness in his heart and humiliation on

his brow, was speeding back to Cannes and to Photini, Agiropoulos

progressed favourably with his wooing. Half-dead with shame at her

notoriety, poor Andromache asked nothing better than a chance of

getting away for ever from Athens.

CHAPTER XXX.

CONTAINS A RELICATION AND A PROMISE.

Two men coming by opposite directions down Hermes Street, with their

eyes anywhere but where they ought to have been, stumbled into each

other’s arms, and started back instantly, with aggressive question on

their faces.

“Well, Constantine,” one cried, eyeing the other furtively and

distrustfully.

“Well, Stavros,” the other responded, with a corresponding expression.

“Here’s my hand, Constantine,” Stavros said, after a reflective pause,

and held out his hand with an air of strenuous cordiality. “Touch it.

It’s a loyal hand, and an honest one. I was always your friend, always

liked you.”

“And so did I,” assented Constantine, as he laid his upon the extended

palm shamefacedly.

“What! yourself? I never doubted it, my dear fellow.”

“No, you,” Constantine muttered sulkily.

“Come, that’s like old times,” roared Stavros, putting an arm through

the unreluctant Selaka’s, and wheeling him round towards Constitution

Square. “It does me good to hear you after our stupid quarrel.”

“Yes, it was stupid,” Constantine admitted.

The glorious Miltiades, crossing the square, hailed them with his

full-dress military salute, and hurrying up, shook them boisterously

by the hand and bestowed the clap of patronage upon their backs, while

a humorous twinkle in his handsome eyes betrayed remembrance of their

heroic encounter.

“The reconciliation of the Inseparables! A sight for the gods. Achilles

and Agamemnon, I am profoundly rejoiced at your good sense.”

“Friends can shake hands, I suppose, Captain Karapolos, without all

this ado,” sneered Stavros, resentfully.

“So they can, but I could not resist the temptation to stop and offer

my congratulations. Hoch! Trinken sie wein!” he shouted, proud of his

German, and turned on his heel laughing heartily.

“The greatest idiot in all Athens,” exclaimed Stavros, scowling after

him.

The reconciled friends seated themselves at a table, called for coffee,

and began to roll up cigarettes.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Constantine,” said Stavros, as he leaned

across and spoke in the subdued tone of confidence. “That Oïdas is an

unconscionable blackguard. You always thought it, I know, and you were

right.”

Selaka, perfectly conscious that he had never imparted any such opinion

of Oïdas to Stavros, blinked uneasily, and took upon himself the air of

full admission.

“You found him out?” he interrogated, cautiously.

“I should think so,” Stavros exclaimed, waving his hand

comprehensively. “But there are limits to my endurance. I am going to

throw him over. I have compromised myself by being mixed up with such

a fellow. He has money--and he makes no scruple of his use of it.”

“You showed a fine tolerance, too, my friend.”

It still made Constantine sore to reflect that his closest friend had

been bought over by the richer man.

“No, truly. You are quite in error. It was not the money, but I thought

I could do so much better for my family. You see, Constantine, a man

must hold no private feelings in abeyance when the interests of the

family call upon him to silence them. You cannot have imagined our

quarrel was not a cause of real distress to me. But now we are good

friends, eh?”

“That depends. Why do you dislike Oïdas?”

“Oh, for several reasons. He behaved like a villain all round to me, to

you and to your family. I mean to expose him. He promised to make room

for us at the University and to get my son that post I have so long

coveted for him. He has not fulfilled a single obligation he contracted

with me. I had much better have trusted to you. You are not rich, and

the golden mist through which he shines dazzled me. I did not expect

him to come to me direct, and to sue me with soft talk. We all do the

best we can for ourselves, Constantine, and often the best is barren of

result.”

“Well, I don’t want to be hard on you now that you have come to see

your error. You have thrown him over then?”

“Quite so. We are quits. Some time my hour of revenge will come--it

always does if patiently waited for, and if you like to join me, it

will be yours too. You don’t imagine, I hope, that I had anything to

do with that wretched article about Inarime in the ‘Aristophanes’? I

abused him for it horribly. He instigated it, you know.”

“Oïdas! the mighty heavens! His motive, Stavros?”

“He heard about that Turkish fellow, and Agiropoulos very maliciously

assured him he had no chance. He was wild when he knew it was all round

Athens that he wanted to marry a girl who didn’t want him. He took it

into his head he was flouted and mocked, and he resolved to bespatter

the girl with as much mud as possible.”

“The villain! the hound!” Constantine muttered, incapable of coherent

speech or thought.

“She is back in Tenos, I believe?”

Constantine nodded, with blazing inward-seeing eyes.

“He is in Athens--buoyed up, I suppose, with hope.”

“He! Who?”

“Your romantic Reineke,--a handsome fellow, too?”

“Where is he staying?”

“Just opposite,--the Grande Bretagne.”

Constantine rose with an undefined purpose, and Agiropoulos, lazily

sauntering across the square, nodded and placed an arresting hand on

his shoulder.

“My dear fellow! How fares it with your island Majesty? Such a comfort

to have a vestige of royalty,--even spurious royalty in our midst, now

that the real thing has temporarily migrated to Denmark.”

“How do you do, Agiropoulos?” said Stavros, crossly.

“Ah, my excellent friend Stavros! The fiery principals! How thrilling!

Zeus! that was a bloody encounter! May I implore the soothing charm of

your society--with a cigarette? Athens is so dull. All the interesting

personages of our drama have vanished, and there is not the ghost of a

sensation to rouse us.”

“Are you not going to be married?” snarled Stavros.

“Yes, the silken chains of Hymen will shortly weave their spell around

me. The individual sheds his personality upon the gamelian threshold,

and the dual is evolved. Do I transgress the proprieties of speech?

Alas! my poor single and consequently unhappy friends, you must forgive

the metaphysical impetuosities of a contemplating bridegroom.”

He gracefully extracted a cigarette from a dainty silver case, and

gazed amorously into space.

“Miss Karapolos is well?” Constantine asked.

“She is admirably well--and looks it, and your kind inquiry leaves me

your debtor. The virgin blush of health and heroism mantles her brow,

and she is all the better for her little misadventure and the fever,

which fortunately for me, the happy successor, has entirely carried off

the susceptible humours of an earlier fancy.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Constantine exclaimed, heartily. “It is very

wise of her to marry at once, and shake herself free of the whole

affair. It must be unpleasant for you, however.”

“Not in the least, my friend. In the interests of the dramatic I am a

willing sufferer; I will go so far as to describe myself a delighted

martyr. I adore the drama, and if there is a thing that wearies me,

it is the thought of monotonous and tame maidenhood. Mademoiselle

Karapolos, in default of a warlike Hector, which a mind more classical

might exact, will next month graciously condescend to accept my name in

the genitive case. Kyria Agiropoulou (Poor girls! it is sad to think

that they are not allowed the privilege of a surname in the nominative

case) is a heroine with a touch of flame and fire in her veins. I have

none myself, and it gratifies me to know that the destructive influence

of two phlegmatic temperaments is happily avoided for my posterity.”

“Good heavens! Who is that?” cried Constantine, standing, and with

his hand grasped the back of a chair, and stared amazedly at a slowly

advancing carriage.

Agiropoulos turned round with more haste than his boast of a phlegmatic

temperament warranted, gazed with impertinent and complacent curiosity

through his eye-glass at a carriage bowling gaily down from the

Boulevard d’Amélie, which contained an ostensible Indian prince, dark

but not beautiful, who leaned his head indolently against the shoulder

of a fashionable young Athenian lady, whose mother sat alone with her

back to the horses.

“Typical of the graceful and amiable abandonment of modern life,”

lisped Agiropoulos. “The prince has diamonds and rupees in abundance. A

little must be conceded such a happy being. If this public concession

succeed in the regular way--the mamma on the front seat and the

gentleman on the back, in her place, with his head negligently pillowed

on the daughter’s shoulder--think of the gain, my friends. Oh, I see

it on your lips, my excellent Constantine, but spare me the Scriptures.

I can stand most things but a biblical quotation. Strange, it is

only then I discover I possess that distressing outcome of modern

life--nerves. What does it matter--the loss of soul against the gain

of the world? I know the quotation. The young lady probably has no

soul--why should she? A soul is the most inconvenient thing I know of,

except perhaps a conscience.”

“I call it a disgraceful sight. If the prince does not marry her?”

thundered Selaka, indignantly.

“Which is very likely, my dear fellow. In that case the mamma will

bring her spotted lamb to Paris, or perhaps London, or naughtier

Vienna, and the stain of the royal head will be washed off her shoulder

by less magnificent wedding favours.”

“You are brutally cynical, Agiropoulos. Thank God, I live on an

innocent island where one never hears such thoughts expressed.

Good-bye, Stavros.”

“You are indeed an enviable mortal, dropped into this mire out of that

Arcadia. But go, leave the dust and depravity of this much too exciting

town, and return to your shepherds and flocks and peaceful mountain

altitudes. To us, alas! the glitter and distracting noises!”

“Good-bye for the present, Constantine. I can’t tell you what a relief

it is to be friends with you again.”

“Stay! one word, I pray your Majesty,” chimed the imperturbable

Agiropoulos. Selaka flung round uneasily, and frowned on him

inquiringly. “Relieve an anxious mind. Is the beautiful nymph of the

hills well?”

“My niece?”

“The peerless maid of Tenos! Who else? The modern Helen! Strange

that history should repeat itself. How many Iliums have since been

burnt, albeit it takes by our humble calculations less than ten years

nowadays. That’s the beauty of the calendar. It ties us to dates, and

the newspapers do their best to tie us to hard facts.”

“They don’t always succeed,” sneered Constantine.

“There speaks the voice of wisdom--with apologies to our editor. The

‘Aristophanes’ flourishes, I hope? So Helen is well. When does she

settle down to serene wifehood in the house of Menelaus?”

“Let my niece alone, sir. You are not acquainted with her. The respect

of women is a commendable virtue in young men,” Constantine growled,

turning on his heel.

Gustav Reineke was writing in his room when Constantine was announced.

He started up, confused and wondering, keeping the hand which held his

pen pressed upon the papers on the table, and looked inquiringly at

Inarime’s uncle.

“Kyrie Selaka,” he said, and smiled vaguely.

“We are strangers known to one another by repute,” said Constantine,

who bowed and held out his hand with the singularly gentlemanly ease of

the islander.

Reineke took his hand and pressed it warmly. Read in the illumination

of his ardent hopes, this visit was a gracious augury which it behoved

him to receive with visible and cordial satisfaction.

“Be seated, pray,” he said, and the smile that lit up his dark serene

face was as winning as a child’s.

“I suppose you are astonished to see me, sir.”

“I am deeply grateful--yes, and a little astonished. You have come, I

suppose, to bring me news of her?”

“Of--not _from_ her,” Constantine said, prudently. “I am not deputed by

any one, you understand.”

His brows shot up with secretive purpose, and his eager glance was

full of a meaning it puzzled Reineke to read. He nodded affirmatively,

and the light upon his face sobered to the proper tone of unexpectant

resignation.

“I am grateful under any circumstances. To hear _of_ her is second

best, and it is not given to man often to get anything so good as

second best,” he said, calmly.

“You are a philosopher, sir, and philosophy is beyond me. My niece

is well--patient as you might apprehend. But that mad brother of

mine is just an obstinate old idiot. He will hear neither of reason

nor expediency. You had the misfortune to be born a Turk, and it is

your fatality. He has some curious idea that man cannot enter into

strife with fate. He never had much brains for aught but books, and I

have observed that books have a naturally weakening effect upon the

intelligence.”

Gustav laughed tolerantly, and ostentatiously trifled with his papers.

“You see I too consume paper and the midnight oil.”

“I’ve no doubt of it. You’d have shown yourself more sensible in this

affair if you didn’t.”

“As--for instance?”

“You’d have carried your case high-handedly, and reduced the maniac

to reason. What are lovers for but to create scenes and bear away the

maiden upon the wings of melodrama?”

Gustav coloured and bent his eyes upon the table. This was hardly the

sort of man with whom he cared to discuss a matter so very delicate

that speech almost affected it as touch affects the bloom of a peach.

“Your brother is well?” he merely asked.

“Pericles! Far from it. He has never rightly recovered from that bad

attack after--after--the time you thrashed that scoundrel Oïdas. You

remember?”

Gustav reddened darkly, and then paled as suddenly. His eyes took the

deadly brilliance of a panther’s, and he said under his breath:

“I remember,” closing his teeth upon the memory.

“I never had an opportunity of thanking you,” Constantine cried,

jumping up and insisting on shaking Reineke’s hands as if they were

pump handles. Gustav gravely endured the operation, but when the

exuberant Greek, in his anxiety to discharge his conscience of arrears

of gratitude, bent his head and bestowed two kisses on his cheeks,

Reineke withdrew a little, and lifted his slow Oriental gaze in mild

reproof.

“You owe me nothing,” he said, impassively.

“Nothing!” protested Constantine, noisily, “and the honour of our

family vindicated! A miserable coward punished! By the Olympian gods!

but you are a fellow! How my heart rejoiced! I could have danced!”

Gustav’s face sharpened in the shadow of lassitude. The unnecessary

violence of Constantine’s mood oppressed and irritated him, but he

simply gazed patient inquiry at him, and meekly awaited the promised

news of Inarime.

“So you see, Herr Reineke--I suppose I may call you by that more

familiar name?--(Gustav bowed) you have made me your friend in this

matter, and I am resolved you shall have Inarime some day. It will be

so easy, if you once forget that you are a Turk.”

“It is kind of you--most kind, but I fail to see how you will be able

to accomplish it if Inarime’s father refuses his consent.”

“But, the chief bar removed, there will be no reason why he should

withhold his consent. We’ll see, we’ll see,” continued the uncle.

“There’s a way out of all difficulties. Pericles will come to his

senses some day. But you are right to respect his prejudices, and so

is she. In the abstract, that is. I would persecute him if it were my

case. But lovers are ticklish creatures to advise or interfere with.

In the meantime, if you will keep me informed of your whereabouts, I

will let you know how matters progress, and will send for you on the

slightest chance of success after acquainting him with your readiness

to become one of us.”

“You will? Kyrie Selaka, I know not how to thank you. Oh, this is

indeed much--it is much,” Gustav breathed fervently.

“Not at all. I like you, and I want to see you and my niece happy.

Hope! it is I, Constantine Selaka, who bid you.”

Reineke paced the room awhile in silence, keenly observed by his

companion, and sat down to stare idly out of the window. Phrases of

Inarime’s letter to Miss Winter recurred to him like buoyant messages.

“You will be here for some time?” Constantine asked.

“As long as you like--as long as you bid me hope.”

“That is well. You are a distinguished personage, Herr Reineke, and it

will not be difficult to find you.” Then in a lighter tone, dismissing

the graver personal matter, he broke into town gossip.

“I have just met that impertinent young man Agiropoulos. You heard, I

suppose, he is going to marry that little heroine, the Karapolos girl?”

“How should I? But it is well. A woman is all the better for being

hedged round with the conventionalities of life; and in no case are

they so powerfully protecting as when they chain her by marriage,

when, practically speaking, she ceases to be a responsible agent,”

Reineke said, and added as an afterthought, to exclude Inarime from the

slightly contemptuous classification, “that is, the average woman, that

unexplained engine of impulse and unreason.”

“Poor little creature! She was hard hit. I wonder what has become of

her recreant lover.”

“Young Ehrenstein?”

“Yes. He levanted, you know, with that piano-playing woman, the

Natzelhuber.”

“I met them in Paris a month ago.”

“You did? And they are still living together?”

“Most wretchedly. I cannot understand a man choosing degradation

and misery because the particular happiness he sets his heart on

is beyond his grasp. Women! Yes. If they can’t have the best, they

plunge themselves into the worst. They are in extremes of goodness and

badness, and scorn half-measures. I daresay poor young Ehrenstein finds

a woman’s satisfaction in contrasting his present with the future that

might have been.”

“Quite a boy! Miserable, you say. Did you speak to him?”

“No. He was with Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. I would have stopped, but

he glowered on me so forbiddingly that perforce I had to pass on in

silence and without bowing. Doubtless he read commiseration in my

glance, and resented it. They had been quarrelling, and each seemed an

unloved burden to the other.”

“And you heard nothing?”

“I met Mademoiselle Natzelhuber afterwards in a fashionable salon.

She had been drawn out of her tub, by what means I know not, and with

Diogenes’ contempt, consented to play. The soul of despair and unrest

was in her fingers. It was the saddest music I ever heard. I spoke to

her of Rudolph, and she implored me to take him off her hands. She said

he bored her, and the sight of him filled her with inexplicable anger.

I got their address, and when I called, she received me, and threatened

to tear me to pieces if I sought to interfere between them. As I walked

away, I glanced up at the window, and saw Ehrenstein looking down

listlessly upon me. His face was the face of a lost soul.”

Gustav’s voice dropped to a whisper. Constantine sat thrumming the

table with his fingers, and jerked his head up and down disconsolately.

“It is an awful story,” he said.

“It has burnt a hateful picture on my mind. I remember the day I first

saw that boy on the Acropolis--a mere innocent, unhappy boy. Now he

drowns his misery in brandy and shuns his equals. I heard at a club

that he plays heavily and is steeped in vice.”

“The Lord succour him! He was a child when he came to Athens. As for

that wretched woman who has brought him to this----”

“She did not. We are needlessly hard on women. He walked into the pit

with his eyes open, and she was simply an instrument of his own choice.

If she had not been there, he would have found other means,” said

Gustav.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SELAKA’S LAST WORD.

Winter had lashed the Eastern world with sharp frenzy, and now early

spring was raging over the plain of Attica, driving madly in a

whirlwind of dust down from the encircling hills, with its breath of

ice and its shrewish roar. And soon it would be at its verge, and stand

on tiptoe with wistful glance set upon the hurrying summer that so soon

would consume its flowers and grasses and chattering rills.

Still Gustav lingered at Athens studying archæology and patiently

waiting for Constantine’s message of hope. Exploring expeditions helped

him through the long leisure. The last proposed by Miss Winters was

to Vari, to do homage to the mythical Cave of Pan, where Plato was

dedicated to Apollo and the Muses.

Gustav drove round from his hotel at seven o’clock in the morning

to pick up Miss Winters and her paraphernalia, at her lodgings in

front of the Columns of Jupiter. Upon the mountains, hue upon hue lay

intermelted in one transfused whole of indescribable loveliness. The

great forked flanks of Hymettus looked so desolate against the joy

of the sky, as to suggest that here had Prometheus been chained and

had stamped it with the legacy of permanent sadness. Under the hills

stretched on either side wide fields sheeted with blood-red poppies;

the birds woke the air with song, and the air was full of the lovely

scent of the pine. Gustav’s senses thrilled to the exquisite charm of

the hour, and Miss Winters’ gaze was a prayer and a thanksgiving.

When they had devoutly visited the shrine, difficult of access, and

had come back into the pine region, flushed and tired and heated by

the blaze of sunfire, they were accommodated by a courteous villager

with an empty room, into which a table newly-washed and two chairs

were introduced as additional helps to lunch. The villager supplied

them with boiled eggs, water and bread, which was being baked at the

general oven in the middle of the place, and Gustav produced a bottle

of Santorin wine, some fruit and cold chicken. For a forlorn lover he

ate a very hearty meal, and took an animated pleasure in supplying the

absence of attendance.

After lunch they went and sat on a little wooden seat, and while Gustav

smoked, Miss Winters, to the complete astonishment of these simple

folk, fed all the dogs of the place upon bread and chicken just as if

they had been Christians. Greek dogs are never fed, they pick up what

they can here and there, and shrink instinctively from man, whose only

caress is a kick.

“That old man is very ill,” Miss Winters said at length.

“Which old man?”

“That old heathen of Tenos, of course.”

“Oh! Selaka!”

“Yes. I met his brother yesterday. He was attending somebody in the

house, and I asked to see him.”

“Truly, you are a marvellous woman, and a most excellent friend,” said

Gustav.

“I reckon I can seize an opportunity, and don’t fail for the want of

pluck and keeping my eyes open. The brother is a doctor.”

“I know. Constantine. They call him the King of Tenos.”

“Tenos seems to be the home of idiots. Well, the pagan is very

ill--heart-disease--doomed. The doctor is on your side, and says if you

will go to Tenos, in about ten days he will be there to meet you, and

thinks it not improbable that the old lunatic may be talked into reason

before he goes to--Hades or elsewhere.”

Reineke reddened slightly and breathed hard, but he said nothing. The

mere hope meant too much for speech. To touch again land so sacred as

her island home, to look upon the fastnesses which enshielded her from

the world--to see her, feel her, hear her, divine her nearness by every

acute sense quickened to an ache. Perhaps----

Thought could go no farther. He rose and flung away his cigarette with

a passionate gesture, and began to pace the dusty path while the driver

got the horses ready for their return. He seemed to see Inarime’s face,

not the landscape, and his heart throbbed with the wonder of it. He was

silent during the drive home, and sat till far into the night on his

balcony, watching the stars come out in the soft blue gloom and wink

and play like illuminated shuttles upon their glossy background.

Ten days later he came to say good-bye to his friend. The charming

old lady stood in front of him, and peered into his face with kindly

question. A soft smile stirred the grave depths of his dark intense

eyes as he gave her back her look, and tenderly lifted her hand to his

lips.

“No matter what happens, our friendship must be lifelong,” he said.

“Yes, I mean to fall frantically in love with your wife. You will bring

her right along to Washington City to see me, and I’ll have my book on

Greece ready, to present you with a copy on your marriage.” She raised

herself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

“Now go straight away to Tenos, and I guess you’ll carry the day,” she

added.

It was not Aristides who met him this time upon the little quay of St.

Nicholas, but insular majesty itself.

“The King of Tenos,” said Gustav, smiling as he shook hands with

Constantine.

“The slave of Tenos--the devil take the lot,” cried Dr. Selaka,

angrily. “I haven’t a moment to myself once I land on this wretched

island. Because they make me deputy, I must look after all their

ailments gratis; I must stand godfather for all their children, which

means presents illimitable and care for the rest of my days; I must

lend my house for marriages, and give marriage breakfasts to all the

daughters--dowries sometimes, and last, but not least, I must submit

to be carried about the island, up those massacring mountain paths and

down destructive precipices, while the idiots fire off pistols and

guns in the exuberance of their spirits, until I am smothered with

smoke and half-dead with fright.”

“I see there are drawbacks to the glory of a seat in the Boulé.”

“I rather think so. Oh! the monsters! I am compelled to sneak down all

the back lanes to escape them. Come this way. Our mules are hidden

under yonder filthy archway.”

How familiar the ride seemed to Gustav, although he had only twice

ridden through this strange scenery. He recognised every field and

hedge, each cleft in the mountains, the cave of Aiolos, and the little

forsaken fountain with the figures of St. Michael, St. George and the

Virgin Mary roughly carven upon a marble slab by some unknown hand in

the seventeenth century. A thin vein of water flowed from the torrent

above into the fountain with a tinkling sound that broke the silence

very sadly. How desolate in the stillness looked the interminable lines

of marble hills stained with burnt thyme and furze, the great jagged

rocks tinted with gold and red and purple and grey, forked against the

sapphire sky, and the dim grey glades of olives below! Desertion lay

upon all, and the beauty was the beauty of neglect and barrenness.

And above towered the Castro, slanting down from the upper world,

greyer, sterner than ever, with the rocky desert of Bolax behind, and

the villages afar, so white and tiny, tangled upon the slopes, curve

flowing after curve to the horizon, the cornfields and meadows touching

the scene to life, and the sea breaking into the wide green plain of

Kolymvithra like a lake. Here and there a forgotten faded lemon showed

through the orchards, and the geraniums were as drops of blood upon the

leaves. How dear and homelike, how personal it all appeared to him!

Inarime it spoke of. No sound came to him but the clamour of the frogs

among the moist reeds of the torrent-beds, or the liquid flow of bird

music from the trees, broken by occasional farm cries and the bark of

watch dogs.

Pericles Selaka knew that his days were numbered. He was filled with

the trouble and indecision of his daughter’s future. But the thought of

relenting towards Gustav--Daoud Bey, as he now bitterly called him--did

not enter his mind. His anger against Gustav was the more unreasonable

and fierce because of his affection and admiration for the man. What

right had a scholar and a gentleman to prove nothing better than a

miserable Turk? Inarime grieved for the fellow. Of course. And did he

not grieve for her grief? Were there not moments of yearning to throw

off this intolerable cloak of resolution, and send for Gustav to make

his daughter happy? Had she not a right to happiness? She was young and

beautiful. The thought of such beauty as hers dropping unwedded into

the grave exasperated him. But a renegade Turk!

The day of Gustav’s arrival, Selaka was alone in the sitting-room.

Inarime had gone to the fountain for Annunziata, who was busy preparing

the midday breakfast. By an unaccountable impulse, Selaka’s thoughts

flew back to his short married life, and, standing upon the threshold

of memory, struck him with the force of reality. Tears shook upon

his eyelids, and suddenly he raised his head with a listening air.

A delicate breeze seemed to sweep past him, and played about his

forehead and hair like caressing fingers. Then it came back again and

approached him like a soft regretful sigh. He rose, impelled by an

influence which he felt it a pleasure to obey, and followed the sighing

breeze. The blinds were drawn to keep out the glare of the noonday sun,

and a ray from a chink broke into the twilight in a dazzling river of

gold. The air just lifted the blind, and breathed again about his face,

this time lingering like a kiss upon his lips; a rose-leaf kiss, that

very tender lips might give. He staggered against the framework of the

window, filled with a superstitious dread. Was this breath the soul of

his dead wife that floated about him with speechless message? Might

it not be that she was filled with concern for the coming solitude

of her forsaken child? Strive as he might against the insane idea,

it grew upon him, and took possession of his frighted senses. A damp

perspiration broke upon his brow, the pallor of terror was on his

cheek, and his heart beat against his side with suffocating blows.

Hardly knowing why, he held back the blind, and looked down into

the courtyard to see if any wind stirred among the flowers. All was

still. Not a leaf trembled; the flowers drooped in the drowsy heat of

a sultry summer day. He opened the window, and put out his hand. The

air was hot and motionless, and the watch-dog lay panting in the shade

of a palmtree. He closed the window, drew down the blind, and looked

through the soft gloom of the apartment. This time he shivered as the

whispering breath struck him full in the face, like a wing brushing

past. He stretched out his hands with a cry of protest and alarm, and

fell upon the floor in a swoon, with the name of his dead wife upon

his lips.

When Selaka opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the sofa, and

saw the face of Gustav Reineke bent over his anxiously. He stared in

awed amazement, shrank back a little, put up one hand and timidly

touched the young man as if to test his reality.

“You are better, sir?” asked Reineke, taking the hand, and he held it

in a warm, protective clasp.

“You! Daoud Bey,” muttered Selaka, indistinctly.

“Look on me as Gustav Reineke, I beg you, sir, and my presence will

hurt you less. The past is no more for me; have I not promised?” said

Gustav, gently.

“I am conquered, Gustav. I give her to you.”

Gustav gasped, and instinctively dropped on his knees beside the sofa.

He hid his face on the pillow, and burst into uncontrollable tears.

The sick man lay still, and watched him in a state of stupid fatigue

and torpor. Somebody entered the room, and crossing, touched Gustav’s

shoulder. He sprang to his feet, and met the serene brown glance of

Annunziata’s eyes.

“You are welcome, sir, you are very welcome,” she said, and held out

both hands, nodding with subdued approval.

Gustav took them, and shook them with a force that almost hurt. Yet he

wore the look of a man in a trance.

“You are a good, kind woman. Tell me where she is.”

“She is detained in the village. Go into the garden, and I will send

her uncle to fetch her.”

Gustav obeyed her, and passed out into the garden. How changed

everything was since his winter visit, eighteen months before. But

he hardly noted whither he went as he precipitated himself down the

oleander alley. The air quivered with light. The smell of the pines and

thyme floated up from the valley upon the summer wind that just stirred

the laurel leaves and plumes of the reeds in the torrent below. All

abroad sleepy delight, and within an immeasurable joy that touched on

anguish! He stood on the gravel path edged with blue and white irises,

and looked down upon the little goat road behind the zigzag of spiked

cactuses. The shadow of the kids, as they played, wavered upon the

silver light that sparkled and shook in liquid masses from the upper

rocks.

Would she come by that path? The eternal sunshine and the aching mist

of blue dazzled him as did his own overpowering happiness. The rapture

of the birds was a fit interpretation of his own rapture, and the

lizards, darting in and out of the rocks like shuttles quick with life,

were as his beating pulses. He loved everything, the water and flowers,

the quaint and tiny insects that flew around him, and the pigeons that

flashed through the air with an impetuosity he longed to rival.

A step behind him drained the blood from his heart, and he turned, sick

and frightened with the strength of passion.

Inarime was looking at him with equal fear and awe. Slowly and silently

their glances drew one another until their hands met, but speech was

beyond them. They did not speak at once nor embrace, but remained thus

standing and gazing, and then a flame sprang into Gustav’s intense

look, and spread like fire over his face.

“Inarime!” he murmured, and opened his arms.

She was in them enfolded, and their lips were one.

“Oh, Gustav, you have come to me,” cried Inarime.

“At last! At long last! Did it seem long to you, dearest?”

“Long! I tried so hard to do without you, but it grew harder each day.

But you are with me now, dear one.”

“Not again to leave you, Inarime. My own, how best shall I serve you?

How shall I treat you? It is as if a mortal were mated with a goddess.”

“You, too, O love, are to me as a god,” whispered Inarime.

“Nay, nay, beloved, you must not so exalt your worshipper,” protested

Gustav, laughing, while he drew her to a stone and gently forced her to

sit down, that he might kneel before her, and hold her clasped.

He looked up at her in mute adoration, and smiled. She framed his

dusky, glowing face with her hands, and her own, bent over it, looked

glorious in its joy.

“Dearest,” he cried, “bliss cannot madden or kill, or I should not now

be kneeling here, alive and sane.”

“Oh, Gustav, life is so short. No wonder lovers must have their

hereafter. We may not reach an end.”

“Nay, sweet, our life shall not be short; while others merely exist, we

shall live our days to the very full. Think of it--a future with each

other. Here, hereafter! It cannot be for us other than Paradise.”

“I love you, Gustav.”

“Goddess, I adore you.”

She pressed her cheek against his, and he felt her happy tears.

“My father will need me--us,” she said. “Come.”

They found Selaka waiting eagerly for them. Inarime had not seen him

since his seizure, and ran to him with a cry of pain, shocked to see

him look so ill.

“My son,” said Selaka, with laboured breath, “I would ask you much,

since I have given you so much.”

“There is nothing, sir, you can ask that I will not gladly grant,” said

Gustav, taking his hand.

“I would charge you with my dying breath not to resume your hateful

name. It would sting me in the grave if my daughter bore it.”

“It shall be as you wish, sir. Inarime will be the wife of Gustav

Reineke, and Daoud Bey is no more.”

The old man winced under the name, but feebly pressed Gustav’s hand.

Shaken with terror and regret for her own great bliss, Inarime knelt

beside the sofa, and looked beseechingly at her father.

“I have one other request to make to you, my children. You have been

kept apart long enough. I do not desire that my death should impose

a longer separation upon you. If you must mourn me--though I do not

desire that either--let it be together. Let not the grave overshadow

your wedding joys. Think of me, not as dead but as a disembodied spirit

that will hover around and about you in tender concern, sharing your

griefs, which it is my prayer may be few, and your delights, which

I hope will be many. Weep not for me, Inarime. Death is but a quiet

sleep, the grave but rest. You will have your husband. He will be all

to you--more even than I. Promise me, my beloved child, that you will

not grieve, and that there will be no delay in your marriage.”

Inarime crept closer to her father, and twined her arms round his neck.

“There, there, my girl. Gustav, you will be very tender to her.”

“Oh, sir, my life henceforth will be devotion to her.”

“Thank you, thank you. I feel it will be so. Take her now; comfort

her, and dry her tears. That is well. The arms that hold her now are

stronger than mine, the breast that pillows her head will henceforth be

its best protection. And should a son be born to you, my children, call

him Pericles after me, and bring him up to love greatly the great past

of my country. Come nearer, my sight grows dim. Call Annunziata, and my

brother. I would bid them farewell. You, Inarime, stay close to me. It

is with your dear hand in mine that I would go hence into the unknown.”

Constantine and Annunziata were waiting outside. But when they followed

Gustav into the dying man’s presence, Selaka had fallen into a doze. No

word was spoken. Annunziata wept silently: Constantine’s sobs were the

only sound; Inarime knelt watching her father’s face, and Gustav stood

over her with his arm about her neck. Selaka’s eyes opened, and flashed

with a ray of youth. He uttered his wife’s name in a loud, clear voice,

and then the light of life was extinguished.

Gustav bent and kissed Inarime.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CONCLUSION.

Time, summer afternoon, touching sunset, early in the month of

June.--Scene, the beach of Phalerum.

The band is playing a lively selection from Lecocq, whose works are

delighting the Athenians, interpreted by a third-rate French company

three times a week at the Olympian Theatre of Athens, and three times

nightly at the theatre of the Piræus. All the seats outside the Grand

Hotel are filled, as are those edging the golden strand where the

children are digging and making sand-pies--quantities of babies,

dressed in French taste, in English taste, and overdressed whatever the

taste, and quarrelling and making-up in a variety of tongues.

Every table shows a display of coffee cups, of liqueur glasses and of

empty ice plates. The Athenian gilded youth walk up and down, twirling

slim canes; with shorn heads, wide-brimmed hats, white trousers, and

moustaches turned up with emphasis. Droll youths with a serious belief

in their own fascinations, made up, some of them imprisoned in corsets.

Such boots and trousers, such coats and moustaches! Ah! misfortune to

the susceptible maidens of Athens! Their hour is surely come with these

lions abroad.

And the young ladies! Such chatter and beaming smiles, such hats,

high heels, ribbons, laces, veils, powder and perfume! Such miracles

of millinery produced without any regard to cost! Ah, there are two

sides to the picture, my friends, and is it quite so certain that

the lions facing these nymphs will have the best of the encounter?

There are enough uniforms here to convince the sceptical traveller

that he is in a land of heroes. Infantry officers of every rank, in

light blue. Numbers of artillerymen in black with crimson velveteen

collar and cuffs. Yes, there yonder is the glorious Miltiades, linked

with that Phœbus Apollo, Hadji Adam. How the heart gladdens at the

sight, how the nerves shake at the clanking of that terrible sabre

of his, at the rattle of his glittering spurs, and with what cordial

delight do we recognise his military salute and meet the condescension

of his hand-clasp! One singles out the pair instinctively, amid

the multiplicity of uniforms, above the rank and file of mere

marine officers and saucy midshipmen. For, be it known to benighted

foreigners, all male Athens dons a uniform, military or naval. Either

politics or the uniform nothing else counts. Epaulettes or the Bouléor

_le néant_.

And the band is playing--is playing with a desperate fervour, befitting

noisy, volatile Athens. The waiters are rushing wildly about with trays

of cognac and vermouth, of ices and coffee, the fragrance of Greek

tobacco fills the air, the chatter of human voices and the shrill cry

of excited children mingle with the soft murmur of the sea, that beats

so gently upon the sand. A charming hour, a charming scene. The sky

as blue as the lucid waters beneath; shifting hues wavering upon the

sharp mountain sides; the early lights flickering against the trees,

and the sound of happy laughter and speech heard above the band!

The blessed, foolish, frivolous people, self-intoxicated, needing

nothing but its daily gossip, its leaflets called newspapers, coffee

and cigarettes, the excitement of the half-hourly trains to Phalerum of

a summer evening, the rascalities of its politicians to denounce, along

with the nameless Turk and the faithless Mr. Gladstone, to the strains

of its bad, vivacious music!

With regret do I ask the reader to stand with me under the shade of the

Grand Hotel, and cast a farewell glance upon the scene. By the last

train from town old acquaintances arrive--a young pair on their wedding

tour. Three years ago we last saw one of them facing the hero of Greece

at an uncomfortable hour of the morning upon uncomfortable business.

Now he is the husband--of whom? Of whom but that elegant young lady of

the great world, Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi. They were married

at Rome, where the Baron von Hohenfels is Austrian plenipotentiary,

with Rudolph for one of his _attachés_. The bride and bridegroom have

taken Athens on their way to St. Petersburg, to which Embassy Rudolph

now belongs. Ehrenstein looks what he is--an aristocrat in faultless

attire, who has lived hard and enjoys the reputation of a strong

attachment to brandy and music. Pale, thin, stern and fastidious, with

an air of quiescent wretchedness. Poor Rudolph! Is this all that his

mutable affections have brought him--indifference and hopelessness?

Photini had died, and he had mourned her passionately, not her,

perhaps, but his blighted youth. And when he found Mademoiselle

Veritassi disposed to overlook his shady past for the sake of his

expectations, his wealth, and his fair, handsome face, it did not seem

to him he could do very much better than marry her.

They walked the beach once, and then returned, and seated themselves a

little above the Grand Hotel, Ehrenstein gloomily facing the sea while

he waited for his cognac; and his bride, in Worth’s latest splendours,

looking landwards, expecting an ice.

“See, Rudolph, here is my old flame, M. Michaelopoulos, the great

poet,” cried Eméraude, pleasantly excited.

“Indeed,” said Rudolph, stroking his moustache and indolently shifting

his eyes.

“Good heavens! Mademoiselle Veritassi! I forgot, a thousand excuses,

Madame Ehrenstein,” exclaimed the popular poet.

“My dear friend! Sit down and tell us all the news. Rudolph, order some

cognac for M. Michaelopoulos. And now, do tell me everything. What was

said about my marriage?”

“Athens rejoiced that Austria in you, Madame, should so wisely have

chosen,” said the poet, with a magnificent bow.

“No, truly? You mock me, sir. Does Austria, I wonder, think that

Greece chose as wisely?” asked the vivacious bride with an arch,

half-malicious glance at her morose husband.

“Could Austria think otherwise?” the poet replied.

“If such a humble person as myself may answer for Austria, I may

say that no better choice could have been made,” said Rudolph,

sarcastically.

“My friend, I mean to prove the wisdom of my choice.”

Rudolph raised his eyebrows in lazy interrogation.

“At the present you are simply an _attaché_,” explained his wife. “With

my good help you will become an ambassador. That was why I married you.

I always thought the position of ambassadress would suit me admirably.”

“So! You flatter me, Madame.”

“Why not? You surely did not think I was in love with you.”

“Well, I own I had some faint hope you returned my adoration.”

Eméraude glanced quickly at her husband, and smiled, a strange, hard

little smile. Lying back with half-shut eyes, she said to the poet:

“It is evident that my husband is on his wedding tour, judging by the

pretty things he says.”

“I shall doubtless reach perfection in that art under your amiable

tuition,” retorted the bridegroom, as he turned to inspect the crowd.

“They certainly don’t give the unblest any reason to envy their

happiness,” mused the poet. “Who would have thought that such a gentle,

girlish boy would turn into a bitter and cynical rake?”

Some friends of Eméraude bore down upon her, and after a torrent of

congratulation, haughtily received by Rudolph, the latter rose and

took the poet’s arm. They walked past the hotel, and a dark flush

spread like a flame over Rudolph’s face when he recognised the gallant

Captain of the Artillery.

“The sister is here, too,” said the poet, not troubled with any

hesitation or sensitiveness to the delicacy of the subject.

“Indeed,” said Rudolph, very softly.

He did not resent the liberty; he felt an aching desire to hear

something of her--hear that she was well and happy.

“She is married,” he said.

“Yes, and grown so stout. There’s a baby with them. There they are.”

Rudolph started, and the hand on the poet’s arm trembled violently.

Agiropoulos and Andromache were coming towards him. Agiropoulos was on

the side of the sea, fat, contented, floridly attired, with a flower

in his buttonhole and a gold-rimmed glass in his eye. The departing

sunshine shone from the west full upon Andromache’s face. It had lost

all the pretty appeal of youth. A handsome enough profile, dull,

well-filled, with dark blue eyes looking out of a forest of curled

fringe, upon which a much too fashionable bonnet reposed. Rudolph was

startled and disappointed to find his old love the mere expression

of commonplace, domestic content. Yes, she looked as if she did not

greatly mourn him, and remembering his wife’s elegance and social

charm, he recognised he had done better than marry Andromache. But good

heavens! how pretty and sweet she had been in those old days when his

heart was so fresh and his days so innocent! He saw again the little

salon overlooking the Gardens of the French School, with all its

trivial details accurately fixed upon his memory, and two foolish young

creatures so desperately afraid of each other, when first confronted

with a love scene. What a charming idyll! and how evanescent and

unseizable its fragrance floated out of the past!

Andromache was the first to see him. She did not start, but turned

pale to the lips, and looked at him steadily while her fingers closed

convulsively upon her red parasol. Agiropoulos brought his quick, sharp

gaze to bear upon Ehrenstein, who at once lifted his hat. But his

salute was not returned by husband or wife, Andromache stared straight

before her, and Agiropoulos smiled insolently as he passed.

Rudolph gazed across the sea with twitching lips. The cut hurt him more

than he dared allow to himself. He was gentleman enough to feel ashamed

that he deserved it, but was unaccountably angry with Andromache for

not having learned to forgive him.

“Let us go back to Madame,” he said, quietly.

“Have you had enough of Phalerum, Eméraude?” he asked, in reply to the

silent question of his wife’s look.

“You discontented fellow! We have only just come.”

“And how long are we to remain?”

“There, I see you are upset, and, as I can’t expect to make you an

ambassador if I don’t humour you a little, I’ll take you back to Athens

at once,” said Eméraude, rising good-naturedly.

Rudolph flashed her a look of boyish gratitude, and pressed her hand

as he helped her into the train. He was a little boisterous and

intractable on his way to town, laughed and talked wildly and, when

they got into a carriage at Athens to drive to the Hôtel de la Grande

Bretagne, a reaction came, and he sat back, the picture of moody

discontent. Verily, Mademoiselle Veritassi has not chosen an easy life,

but we can see that she understands her task, and that, in spite of

ill-tempers and storms, the whip-hand will be hers.

Turning the corner of Hermes Street, Rudolph’s unhappy glance fell

upon another picture, and one that struck a heavier blow upon his

bruised heart. Two persons on a balcony of the Hôtel d’Angleterre,

which faces Constitution Square, opposite the Palace, were enjoying

the sunset, and the soft, departing daylight. A man was leaning with

his back to the railing, smoking and looking down upon a seated woman

in front of him. Rudolph’s pulses stood still. It was impossible not

to recognise the owner of the supple brown hand that grasped the edge

of the railing, and upon a slight movement of the smoker, who seemed

to be speaking with playful earnestness to his companion, Rudolph saw

Reineke’s delicate, clear profile. A hungry pain sprang into Rudolph’s

eyes as he sat forward, and looked back through the railings, while the

carriage drove across the Square. He saw Inarime distinctly, with her

eyes lifted to her husband, and a happy smile stirring her grave lips.

And as he watched, Reineke went over and sat beside her.

The carriage stopped in front of the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne,

and Rudolph helped his wife out. Instead of following her in, he

hurried down the path to stare again at the rival hotel. Inarime now

was standing with her hand upon Gustav’s shoulder, and the spectator

might divine that the husband was protesting laughingly against some

decision of hers. Then with her tender, grave smile she passed from him

and went inside. Gustav remained seated on the balcony, smoking.

“They are not contented--they are happy,” said Rudolph, as he turned to

join his wife. “Nobody is miserable but myself. Photini is dead, and

I’m alive. I don’t know that it is I who have the best of it, either.

She was right. She told me from the first I never should be happy.

Andromache! Inarime! and poor Photini! I wonder why I have missed the

gladness of life. It seems to exist, and some people catch it. I am

only twenty-five. Heaven help me, what shall I be ten years hence, when

I feel so bitter on my wedding tour?”

He knocked at his wife’s door, and entering, threw himself on a sofa.

“How long do you propose staying in this wretched hole?” he asked.

“A week or so,” said his wife, surprised. “Why?”

“I want to know what I am expected to do with myself.”

“Look after me, of course, and dance attendance on me,” laughed his

wife.

THE END.