here I tried to wear a pair of knickerbockers around the city, and the
people stared so that I had to go back to the hotel and change them. I
shouldn’t have minded it so much in any other country, but I thought men
who wore Jaeger underclothing and women’s petticoats for a national
costume might have excused so slight an eccentricity as knickerbockers.
_They_ had no right to throw the first stone.”
The rock upon which the temples of the Acropolis are built is more of a
hill than a rock. It is much steeper upon one side than the other, with
a sheer fall a hundred yards broad; on the opposite side there are the
rooms of the Hospital of Æsculapius and the theatres of Dionysus and
Herodes Atticus. The top of the rock holds the Parthenon and the other
smaller temples, or what yet remains of them, and its surface is
littered with broken marble and stones and pieces of rock. The top is so
closely built over that the few tourists who visit it can imagine
themselves its sole occupants for a half-hour at a time. When Carlton
and his friends arrived, the place appeared quite deserted. They left
the carriage at the base of the rock, and climbed up to the entrance on
foot.
“Now, before I go on to the Parthenon,” said Miss Morris, “I want to
walk around the sides, and see what is there. I shall begin with that
theatre to the left, and I warn you that I mean to take my time about
it. So you people who have been here before can run along by yourselves,
but I mean to enjoy it leisurely. I am safe by myself here, am I not?”
she asked.
“As safe as though you were in the Metropolitan Museum,” said Carlton,
as he and Mrs. Downs followed Miss Morris along the side of the hill
toward the ruined theatre of Herodes, and stood at its top, looking down
into the basin below. From their feet ran a great semicircle of marble
seats, descending tier below tier to a marble pavement, and facing a
great ruined wall of pillars and arches which in the past had formed the
background for the actors. From the height on which they stood above the
city they could see the green country stretching out for miles on every
side and swimming in the warm sunlight, the dark groves of myrtle on the
hills, the silver ribbon of the inland water, and the dark blue Ægean
Sea. The bleating of sheep and the tinkling of the bells came up to them
from the pastures below, and they imagined they could hear the shepherds
piping to their flocks from one little hill-top to another.
“The country is not much changed,” said Carlton. “And when you stand
where we are now, you can imagine that you see the procession winding
its way over the road to the Eleusinian Mysteries, with the gilded
chariots, and the children carrying garlands, and the priestesses
leading the bulls for the sacrifice.”
“What can we imagine is going on here?” said Miss Morris, pointing with
her parasol to the theatre below.
“Oh, this is much later,” said Carlton. “This was built by the Romans.
They used to act and to hold their public meetings here. This
corresponds to the top row of our gallery, and you can imagine that you
are looking down on the bent backs of hundreds of bald-headed men in
white robes, listening to the speakers strutting about below there.”
“I wonder how much they could hear from this height?” said Mrs. Downs.
“Well, they had that big wall for a sounding-board, and the air is so
soft here that their voices should have carried easily, and I believe
they wore masks with mouth-pieces, that conveyed the sound like a
fireman’s trumpet. If you like, I will run down there and call up to
you, and you can hear how it sounded. I will speak in my natural voice
first, and if that doesn’t reach you, wave your parasol, and I will try
it a little louder.”
“Oh, do!” said Miss Morris. “It will be very good of you. I should like
to hear a real speech in the theatre of Herodes,” she said, as she
seated herself on the edge of the marble crater.
“I’ll have to speak in English,” said Carlton, as he disappeared; “my
Greek isn’t good enough to carry that far.”
Mrs. Downs seated herself beside her niece, and Carlton began scrambling
down the side of the amphitheatre. The marble benches were broken in
parts, and where they were perfect were covered with a fine layer of
moss as smooth and soft as green velvet, so that Carlton, when he was
not laboriously feeling for his next foothold with the toe of his boot,
was engaged in picking spring flowers from the beds of moss and sticking
them, for safe-keeping, in his button-hole. He was several minutes in
making the descent, and so busily occupied in doing it that he did not
look up until he had reached the level of the ground, and jumped lightly
from the first row of seats to the stage, covered with moss, which lay
like a heavy rug over the marble pavement. When he did look up he saw a
tableau that made his heart, which was beating quickly from the exertion
of the descent, stand still with consternation. The Hohenwalds had, in
his short absence, descended from the entrance of the Acropolis, and had
stopped on their way to the road below to look into the cool green and
white basin of the theatre. At the moment Carlton looked up the Duke was
standing in front of Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris, and all of the men had
their hats off. Then, in pantomime, and silhouetted against the blue sky
behind them, Carlton saw the Princesses advance beside their brother,
and Mrs. Downs and her niece curtsied three times, and then the whole
party faced about in a line and looked down at him. The meaning of the
tableau was only too plain.
“Good heavens!” gasped Carlton. “Everybody’s getting introduced to
everybody else, and I’ve missed the whole thing! If they think I’m going
to stay down here and amuse them, and miss all the fun myself, they are
greatly mistaken.” He made a mad rush for the front first row of seats;
but there was a cry of remonstrance from above, and, looking up, he saw
all of the men waving him back.
“Speech!” cried the young English Captain, applauding loudly, as though
welcoming an actor on his first entrance. “Hats off!” he cried. “Down in
front! Speech!”
“Confound that ass!” said Carlton, dropping back to the marble pavement
again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures outlined against
the sky. “I must look like a bear in the bear-pit at the Zoo,” he
growled. “They’ll be throwing buns to me next.” He could see the two
elder sisters talking to Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his
purpose in going down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the
Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol, and
smiling. The captain made a trumpet of his hands, and asked why he
didn’t begin.
“Hello! how are you?” Carlton called back, waving his hat at him in some
embarrassment. “I wonder if I look as much like a fool as I feel?” he
muttered.
“What did you say? We can’t hear you,” answered the captain.
“Louder! louder!” called the equerries. Carlton swore at them under his
breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which he was penned in
order to make them believe that he had given up the idea of making a
speech, or had ever intended doing so. He tried to think of something
clever to shout back at them, and rejected “Ye men of Athens” as being
too flippant, and “Friends, Countrymen, Romans,” as requiring too much
effort. When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their way,
and as he started once more to scale the side of the theatre the Duke
waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave another hand to his sisters,
who disappeared with him behind the edge of the upper row of seats.
Carlton turned at once and dropped into one of the marble chairs and
bowed his head. When he did reach the top Miss Morris held out a
sympathetic hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could see that
she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from smiling.
“Oh, it’s all very funny for you,” he said, refusing her hand. “I don’t
believe you are in love with anybody. You don’t know what it means.”
They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after, and then
left Athens for an inland excursion to stay overnight. Miss Morris
returned from it with the sense of having done her duty once, and by so
doing having earned the right to act as she pleased in the future. What
she best pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of the
Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical values, but
rather, as she explained it, for the simple satisfaction of feeling that
she was there. She liked to stand on the edge of the low wall along its
top and look out over the picture of sea and plain and mountains that
lay below her. The sun shone brightly, and the wind swept by them as
though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer, and there was the
added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us when we stand on a
great height. Carlton was sitting at her feet, shielded from the wind by
a fallen column, and gazing up at her with critical approval.
“You look like a sort of a ‘Winged Victory’ up there,” he said, “with
the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair coming down.”
“I don’t remember that the ‘Winged Victory’ has any hair to blow about,”
suggested Miss Morris.
“I’d like to paint you,” continued Carlton, “just as you are standing
now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you could stand a Greek
dress better than almost any one I know. I would paint you with your
head up and one hand shielding your eyes, and the other pressed against
your breast. It would be stunning.” He spoke enthusiastically, but in
quite an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of a
model.
Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had been
standing, and said, simply, “Of course I should like to have you paint
me very much.”
Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.
“When?” said Carlton, vaguely. “Oh, I don’t know. Of course this is
entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home soon, and then
when I do get back to the States you will—you will have other things to
do.”
“Yes,” repeated Miss Morris, “I shall have something else to do besides
gazing out at the Ægean Sea.” She raised her head and looked across the
rock for a moment with some interest. Her eyes, which had grown wistful,
lighted again with amusement. “Here are your friends,” she said,
smiling.
“No!” exclaimed Carlton, scrambling to his feet.
“Yes,” said Miss Morris. “The Duke has seen us, and is coming over
here.”
When Carlton had gained his feet and turned to look, his friends had
separated in different directions, and were strolling about alone or in
pairs among the great columns of the Parthenon. But the Duke came
directly toward them, and seated himself on a low block of marble in
front of the two ladies. After a word or two about the beauties of the
place, he asked if they would go to the reception which the King gave to
him on the day following. They answered that they should like to come
very much, and the Prince expressed his satisfaction, and said that he
would see that the chamberlain sent them invitations. “And you, Mr.
Carlton, you will come also, I hope. I wish you to be presented to my
sisters. They are only amateurs in art, but they are great admirers of
your work, and they have rebuked me for not having already presented
you. We were all disappointed,” he continued, courteously, “at not
having you to dine with us that night in Constantinople, but now I trust
I shall see something of you here. You must tell us what we are to
admire.”
“That is very easy,” said Carlton. “Everything.”
“You are quite right,” said the Prince, bowing to the ladies as he moved
away. “It is all very beautiful.”
“Well, now you certainly will meet her,” said Miss Morris.
“Oh no, I won’t,” said Carlton, with resignation. “I have had two
chances and lost them, and I’ll miss this one too.”
“Well, there is a chance you shouldn’t miss,” said Miss Morris, pointing
and nodding her head. “There she is now, and all alone. She’s sketching,
isn’t she, or taking notes? What is she doing?”
Carlton looked eagerly in the direction Miss Morris had signified, and
saw the Princess Aline sitting at some distance from them, with a book
on her lap. She glanced up from this now and again to look at something
ahead of her, and was apparently deeply absorbed in her occupation.
“There is your opportunity,” said Mrs. Downs; “and we are going back to
the hotel. Shall we see you at luncheon?”
“Yes,” said Carlton, “unless I get a position as drawing-master; in that
case I shall be here teaching the three amateurs in art. Do you think I
can do it?” he asked Miss Morris.
“Decidedly,” she answered. “I have found you a most educational young
person.”
They went away together, and Carlton moved cautiously toward the spot
where the Princess was sitting. He made a long and roundabout détour as
he did so, in order to keep himself behind her. He did not mean to come
so near that she would see him, but he took a certain satisfaction in
looking at her when she was alone, though her loneliness was only a
matter of the moment, and though he knew that her people were within a
hundred yards of her. He was in consequence somewhat annoyed and
surprised to see another young man dodging in and out among the pillars
of the Parthenon immediately ahead of him, and to find that this young
man also had his attention centred on the young girl, who sat
unconsciously sketching in the foreground.
“Now what the devil can he want?” muttered Carlton, his imagination
taking alarm at once.
“If it would only prove to be some one who meant harm to her,” he
thought—“a brigand, or a beggar, who might be obligingly insolent, or
even a tipsy man, what a chance it would afford for heroic action!”
With this hope he moved forward quickly but silently, hoping that the
stranger might prove even to be an anarchist with a grudge against
royalty. And as he advanced he had the satisfaction of seeing the
Princess glance over her shoulder, and, observing the man, rise and walk
quickly away toward the edge of the rock. There she seated herself with
her face toward the city, and with her back firmly set against her
pursuer.
“He _is_ annoying her!” exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried
forward. “It looks as though my chance had come at last.” But as he
approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he had
nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international army of
amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a hunter
follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a prominent
politician or a Lord Mayor’s show, everything being fish that came
within the focus of his camera. A helpless statue and an equally
helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his mercy. He was
bending over, with an anxious expression of countenance, and focussing
his camera on the back of the Princess Aline, when Carlton approached
from the rear. As the young man put his finger on the button of the
camera, Carlton jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed the
enthusiastic tourist to one side.
“I say,” exclaimed that individual, “look where you’re going, will you?
You spoiled that plate.”
“I’ll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any longer,” said
Carlton, in a low voice.
The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire of pursuit
was still in his eye.
“She’s a Princess,” he explained, in an excited whisper.
“Well,” said Carlton, “even a Princess is entitled to some
consideration. Besides,” he said, in a more amicable tone, “you haven’t
a permit to photograph on the Acropolis. You know you haven’t.” Carlton
was quite sure of this, because there were no such permits.
The amateur looked up in some dismay. “I didn’t know you had to have
them,” he said. “Where can I get one?”
“The King may give you one,” said Carlton. “He lives at the palace. If
they catch you up here without a license, they will confiscate your
camera and lock you up. You had better vanish before they see you.”
“Thank you. I will,” said the tourist, anxiously.
“Now,” thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, “when he goes to the palace
with that box and asks for a permit, they’ll think he is either a
dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest
in photography will have sustained a severe shock.”
As Carlton turned from watching the rapid flight of the photographer, he
observed that the Princess had remarked it also, as she had no doubt
been a witness of what had passed, even if she had not overheard all
that had been said. She rose from her enforced position of refuge with a
look of relief, and came directly toward Carlton along the rough path
that led through the débris on the top of the Acropolis. Carlton had
thought, as he watched her sitting on the wall, with her chin resting on
her hand, that she would make a beautiful companion picture to the one
he had wished to paint of Miss Morris—the one girl standing upright,
looking fearlessly out to sea, on the top of the low wall, with the wind
blowing her skirts about her, and her hair tumbled in the breeze, and
the other seated, bending intently forward, as though watching for the
return of a long-delayed vessel; a beautifully sad face, fine and
delicate and noble, the face of a girl on the figure of a woman. And
when she rose he made no effort to move away, or, indeed, to pretend not
to have seen her, but stood looking at her as though he had the right to
do so, and as though she must know he had that right. As she came toward
him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even shorten her steps; but as
she passed opposite to him she bowed her thanks with a sweet impersonal
smile and a dropping of the eyes, and continued steadily on her way.
Carlton stood for some short time looking after her, with his hat still
at his side. She seemed farther from him at that moment than she had
ever been before, although she had for the first time recognized him.
But he knew that it was only as a human being that she had recognized
him. He put on his hat, and sat down on a rock with his elbows on his
knees, and filled his pipe.
“If that had been any other girl,” he thought, “I would have gone up to
her and said, ‘Was that man annoying you?’ and she would have said,
‘Yes; thank you,’ or something; and I would have walked along with her
until we had come up to her friends, and she would have told them I had
been of some slight service to her, and they would have introduced us,
and all would have gone well. But because she is a Princess she cannot
be approached in that way. At least she does not think so, and I have to
act as she has been told I should act, and not as I think I should.
After all, she is only a very beautiful girl, and she must be very tired
of her cousins and grandmothers, and of not being allowed to see any one
else. These royalties make a very picturesque show for the rest of us,
but indeed it seems rather hard on them. A hundred years from now there
will be no more kings and queens, and the writers of that day will envy
us, just as the writers of this day envy the men who wrote of chivalry
and tournaments, and they will have to choose their heroes from bank
presidents, and their heroines from lady lawyers and girl politicians
and type-writers. What a stupid world it will be then!”
The next day brought the reception to the Hohenwalds; and Carlton,
entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same afternoon, found Miss
Morris and her aunt there together taking tea. They both looked at him
with expressions of such genuine commiseration that he stopped just as
he was going to seat himself and eyed them defiantly.
“Don’t tell me,” he exclaimed, “that this has fallen through too!”
Miss Morris nodded her head silently.
Carlton dropped into the chair beside them, and folded his arms with a
frown of grim resignation. “What is it?” he asked. “Have they postponed
the reception?”
“No,” Miss Morris said; “but the Princess Aline will not be there.”
“Of course not,” said Carlton, calmly, “of course not. May I ask why? I
knew that she wouldn’t be there, but I may possibly be allowed to
express some curiosity.”
“She turned her ankle on one of the loose stones on the Acropolis this
afternoon,” said Miss Morris, “and sprained it so badly that they had to
carry her——”
“Who carried her?” Carlton demanded, fiercely.
“Some of her servants.”
“Of course, of course!” cried Carlton. “That’s the way it always will
be. I was there the whole afternoon, and I didn’t see her. I wasn’t
there to help her. It’s Fate, that’s what it is—Fate! There’s no use in
my trying to fight against Fate. Still,” he added anxiously, with a
sudden access of hope, “she may be well by this evening.”
“I hardly think she will,” said Miss Morris, “but we will trust so.”
The King’s palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park,
and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds
and the Americans were staying. As the hotel was the first building on
the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the
illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and
departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering
through the iron rails into the King’s garden. It was a warm night, and
lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in silhouette
against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the yellow
house fronts and red roofs of the town. Every window in the broad front
of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors came the sound
of music, and one without could see rows of tall servants in the King’s
blue and white livery, and the men of his guard in their white
petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps. Carlton pulled a
light coat over his evening dress, and, with an agitation he could
hardly explain, walked across the street and entered the palace. The
line of royalties had broken by the time he reached the ball-room, and
the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left him free, after a
bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move about as he
pleased. His most earnest desire was to learn whether or not the
Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the English
adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked eagerly if
the Princess had recovered from her accident.
“No,” said the officer; “she’s able to walk about, but not to stand, and
sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing. Too bad, wasn’t
it?”
“Yes,” said Carlton, “very bad.” He released his hand from the other’s
arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway. His
disappointment was very keen. Indeed, he had not known how much this
meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this
disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and
have her sympathize and laugh with him. He became conscious, as he
searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and
repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for
sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him. He
wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and whether
he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she not been
there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew faint-hearted.
But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and for an
instant doubted if it were she. The girl he saw seemed to be a more
beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew—a taller, fairer, and more
radiant personage; and he feared that it was not she, until he
remembered that this was the first time he had ever seen her with her
hair dressed high upon her head, and in the more distinguished
accessories of a décolleté gown and train. Miss Morris had her hand on
the arm of one of the equerries, who was battling good-naturedly with
the crowd, and trying to draw her away from two persistent youths in
diplomatic uniform who were laughing and pressing forward in close
pursuit on the other side. Carlton approached her with a certain feeling
of diffidence, which was most unusual to him, and asked if she were
dancing.
“Mr. Carlton shall decide for me,” Miss Morris said, dropping the
equerry’s arm and standing beside the American. “I have promised all of
these gentlemen,” she explained, “to dance with them, and now they won’t
agree as to which is to dance first. They’ve wasted half this waltz
already in discussing it, and they make it much more difficult by saying
that no matter how I decide, they will fight duels with the one I
choose, which is most unpleasant for me.”
“Most unpleasant for the gentleman you choose, too,” suggested Carlton.
“So,” continued Miss Morris, “I have decided to leave it to you.”