“Mother-dear!” It was the voice of Betty Harris--eager, triumphant, with
a little laugh running through it. “Mother-dear!”
“Yes--Betty--” The woman seated at the dark mahogany desk looked up,
a little line between her eyes. “You have come, child?” It was half a
caress. She put out an absent hand, drawing the child toward her while
she finished her note.
The child stood by gravely, looking with shining eyes at the face
bending above the paper. It was a handsome face with clear, hard
lines--the reddish hair brushed up conventionally from the temples, and
the skin a little pallid under its careful massage and skilfully touched
surface.
To Betty Harris her mother was the most beautiful woman in the
world--more beautiful than the marble Venus at the head of the long
staircase, or the queenly lady in the next room, forever stepping down
from her gilded frame into the midst of tapestry and leather in the
library. It may have been that Betty’s mother was quite as much a work
of art in her way as these other treasures that had come from the Old
World. But to Betty Harris, who had slight knowledge of art values, her
mother was beautiful, because her eyes had little points of light in
them that danced when she laughed, and her lips curved prettily, like a
bow, if she smiled.
They curved now as she looked up from her note. “Well, daughter?” She
had sealed the note and laid it one side. “Was it a good lesson?” She
leaned back in her chair, stroking the child’s hand softly, while her
eyes travelled over the quaint, dignified little figure. The child was
a Velasquez--people had often remarked it, and the mother had taken the
note that gave to her clothes the regal air touched with simplicity. “So
it was a good lesson, was it?” she repeated, absently, as she stroked
the small dark hand--her own figure graciously outlined as she leaned
back enjoying the lifted face and straight, clear eyes.
“Mother-dear!” The child’s voice vibrated with the intensity behind it.
“I have seen a man--a very _good_ man!”
“Yes?” There was a little laugh in the word. She was accustomed to the
child’s enthusiasms. Yet they were always new to her--even the old ones
were. “Who was he, daughter--this very good man?”
“He is a Greek, mother--with a long, beautiful name--I don’t think I can
tell it to you. But he is most wonderful--!” The child spread her hands
and drew a deep breath.
“More wonderful than father?” It was an idle, laughing question--while
she studied the lifted-up face.
“More wonderful than father--yes--” The child nodded gravely. “I can’t
quite tell you, mother-dear, how it feels--” She laid a tiny hand on
her chest. Her eyes were full of thought. “He speaks like music, and he
loves things--oh, very much!”
“I see--And did Madame Lewandowska introduce you to him?”
“Oh, it was not there.” The child’s face cleared with swift thought. “I
didn’t tell you--Madame was ill--”
The reclining figure straightened a little in its place, but the face
was still smiling. “So you and Miss Stone--”
“But Miss Stone is ill, mother-dear. Did you forget her toothache?” The
tone was politely reproachful.
The woman was very erect now--her small eyes, grown wide, gazing at the
child, devouring her. “Betty! Where have you been?” It was more a cry
than a question--a cry of dismay, running swiftly toward terror. It was
the haunting fear of her life that Betty would some day be kidnapped, as
the child next door had been.... The fingers resting on the arm of the
chair were held tense.
“I don’t think I did wrong, mother.” The child was looking at her very
straight, as if answering a challenge. “You see, I walked home--”
“Where was James?” The woman’s tone was sharp, and her hand reached
toward the bell; but the child’s hand moved softly toward it.
“I’d like to tell you about it myself, please, mother. James never waits
for the lessons. I don’t think he was to blame.”
The woman’s eyes were veiled with sudden mist. She drew the child close.
“Tell mother about it.”
Betty Harris looked down, stroking her mother’s sleeve. A little smile
of memory held her lips. “He was a beautiful man!” she said.
The mother waited, breathless.
“I was walking home, and I came to his shop--”
“To his shop!”
She nodded reassuringly. “His fruit-shop--and--oh, I forgot--” She
reached into the little bag at her side, tugging at something. “He gave
me these.” She produced the round box and took off the lid, looking into
it with pleased eyes. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
The mother bent blindly to it. “Pomegranates,” she said. Her lips were
still a little white, but they smiled bravely with the child’s pleasure.
“Pomegranates,” said Betty, nodding. “That is what he called them. I
should like to taste one--” She was looking at them a little wistfully.
“We will have them for luncheon,” said the mother. She had touched the
bell with quick decision.
“Marie”--she held out the box--“tell Nesmer to serve these with
luncheon.”
“Am I to have luncheon with you, mother-dear?” The child’s eyes were on
her mother’s face.
“With me--yes.” The reply was prompt--if a little tremulous.
The child sighed happily. “It is being a marvellous day,” she said,
quaintly.
The mother smiled. “Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall
tell me about the wonderful man.”
So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining
table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein
she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the
streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless
freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek--one
Achilles Alexandrakis by name--had heard strange tales of Greece and
Athens and the Parthenon--tales at the very mention of which her eyes
danced and her voice rippled.
And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the
child touched upon and flitted past. It had been part of the careful
rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant
attendance upon her was a body-guard--such as might wait upon a
princess. It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls
were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went
to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Stone slept within sound of
her breath. She had grown up happy and care-free, with no suspicion of
the danger that threatened the child of a marked millionaire. She did
not even know that her father was a very rich man--so protected had she
been. She was only a little more simple than most children of twelve.
And she met the world with straight, shining looks, speaking to rich and
poor with a kind of open simplicity that won the heart.
Her mother, watching the clear eyes, had a sudden pang of what the
morning might have been--the disillusionment and terror of this
unprotected hour--that had been made instead a memory of delight--thanks
to an unknown Greek named Achilles Alexandrakis, who had told her of
the beauties of Greece and the Parthenon, and had given her fresh
pomegranates to carry home in a round box. The mother’s thoughts rested
on the man with a quick sense of gratitude. He should be paid a thousand
times over for his care of Betty Harris--and for pomegranates.
“They are like the Parthenon,” said the child, holding one in her hand
and turning it daintily to catch the light on its pink surface. “They
grew in Athens.” She set her little teeth firmly in its round side.