How frightened and shy two confiding young people can be when first confronted with the horrors of a tête-à-tête.
Andromache was ready to sink with shame, and Rudolph’s heart was in his boots. He looked at her with piteous entreaty, but her lashes rested upon her cheek.
“Andromache, you are not afraid of me, you do not like me less because—because——” and there was something extremely like fear in his own voice and in the tender imploring of his eyes.
“Oh, no, but I do not know what to say,” whispered Andromache, still studying the Smyrna rug at her feet.
“Look at me, Andromache, and say—say something kind.”
She lifted her eyes, and they were filled with passionate admiration:
“Say that—that you love me.”
“I love you,” she said, with adorable simplicity.
“Oh, Andromache,” he cried, suffocated with a sudden thrill, and advanced nearer with outstretched hand.
But she retreated in visible dread.
“May I not have your hand, Andromache?”
She gave it, still shrinking, with averted face.
“Won’t you call me Rudolph, dear Andromache?”
“Rudolph,” she whispered, and their eyes met lovingly.
Emboldened by his success, he raised her hand to his lips.
“What a pretty hand, Andromache! You are so pretty, dear one. I love you,” he murmured gently, and steps were heard outside.
What are the forces, and on whose behalf employed, that trouble the smooth current of true love? We have seen one pair cruelly separated, and now must these innocents be subjected to infamous treatment? Has the sentence from the beginning been irrevocably pronounced, that if both Adam and Eve prove faithful and worthy, their Eden cannot escape the serpent? Must their bliss be poisoned either by the reptile of Fate or by themselves? Poor sorry lovers, there is no peace, no security for you, even in romance. Your only chance of permanent interest lies in the mist of misfortune. The moment you bask in cloudless content, the wings of poetry are clipped, and your garb is the insipidity of commonplace.
The bolt of Destiny was shot from the blue of dreams next morning, when Rudolph was banqueting blissfully with his uncle and aunt at the midday breakfast.
“Rudolph,” said the enemy, in amiable baronial form, “your aunt and I have arranged a charming surprise for you.”
Rudolph looked up quietly, without a smart of premonition, and smiled his pleasantest.
“That is kind, uncle. And the surprise?”
“Well, seeing how bored you are here—and, really,my dear boy, I am not astonished—we are going to take you on an exciting voyage through the Peloponnesus. We will show you all the historic spots.”
“But, my dear uncle, I have no desire whatever to see the Peloponnesus or any historic spots,” exclaimed Rudolph, paling before the vision of himself wandering away from Andromache. “I hate history, and don’t care a straw for the ancient Greeks.”
“Oh, Rudolph, don’t show me that I’ve built my hopes on you in vain,” exclaimed the baroness, in cheerful dismay. “I have been counting on you to explain everything to me. Your acquaintance with school books is so much more recent than mine, and the baron is even more hazy in his recollections than I.”
“I am very sorry to disappoint you, aunt, but I cannot leave Athens at present. I am not bored, uncle, I assure you. I am very happy, and I love Athens.”
The baron looked at him sharply, and thought he wore much too happy an air.
“Rudolph, I entreat you—if I were not so massive, I would kneel to you,” cried the baron, in mock prayer, “allow us to drag you away for one solitary fortnight from the enchantress, Mademoiselle Photini Natzelhuber. I admit that our society and the sight of historic spots will prove an inadequate substitute for her charms and fascinations, but humour this whim of two old people, and your return to the feet of the yellow-eyed witch of Academy Street will be the more delightful.”
“I don’t know what you mean, uncle,” protested Rudolph, with a look of startled anxiety. “I have not seen Mademoiselle Natzelhuber since Madame Jarovisky’s ball.”
“Not possible? Good gracious! that one so young should be so faithless! The contemplation of the perfidy of my own sex, Madame, fills my eyes with tears. But no, I apprehend. It is merely the refined hesitation of innocence. He sighs at her door—serenades her—have you not, Madame, remarked a tell-tale look about his violin?—and consumes quantities of paper. Well, I shall see that there are at least a dozen quires of note paper, of the very best quality, stamped with the family coat-of-arms, placed in your portmanteau, Rudolph, and your aunt and I will retire discreetly into the background while you compose your flaming epistles and frantically adjure the moon and stars instead of Mademoiselle Photini.
“‘Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,Il y a un mois que la mienne est déjà faite;Mes beaux habits, mes seuls habits,Voilà un mois que je les ai mis.’
“‘Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,Il y a un mois que la mienne est déjà faite;Mes beaux habits, mes seuls habits,Voilà un mois que je les ai mis.’
“‘Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,Il y a un mois que la mienne est déjà faite;Mes beaux habits, mes seuls habits,Voilà un mois que je les ai mis.’
“‘Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,
Il y a un mois que la mienne est déjà faite;
Mes beaux habits, mes seuls habits,
Voilà un mois que je les ai mis.’
There are some verses, ‘une invitation au mariage,’ of which I make you a present. You didn’t know that I sometimes perpetrate impromptu verses? Good, aren’t they? ‘Ma Photini,’” he began again, singing the lines to an impromptu air, seemingly unconscious that the crimson of anger had mounted to Rudolph’s brow.
“You must not tease the boy,” said the baroness, maliciously. “Remember, you were once in love yourself.”
“With you, Madame, before me, as a substantial testimony of that pleasant fact, I do not see how I can forget it,” smiled the baron.
“My dear baron, our Rudolph well understands thatthat is not the sort of love he is pricked with. But, seriously, my dear child, you must not abandon us. A young man loves and he rides away—for a time—which does not in the least prevent him from riding back again, also for a time. Don’t you see? The Natzelhuber won’t die meanwhile.”
“Aunt, I cannot understand why you should talk in this way about Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. Let me positively state that she is nothing to me, nor am I anything to her,” cried Rudolph, testily.
“Poor Mademoiselle! I weep for her,” said the baron. “And there is that wretched Agiropoulos stamping and swearing about Athens, plotting duels and blood and the Lord knows what, protesting against yellow-headed Austrians and amber moustaches. Dear me! That such noble indignation, and a jealousy with a fine mediæval flavour in it, should be wasted! Well, it is settled. If you have got over that little affair of the Natzelhuber, any scruples I may have cherished against tearing you away from the violet-crowned city—vanish. So, my nephew, you will get yourself up in that fascinating green coat and the long boots to-morrow morning, and we will begin by Marathon.”
The baron had finished his coffee and cigar, and stood up with a gesture clearly indicating that the matter was settled. His mocking smile struck Rudolph coward, and though his heart clamoured for open recognition of Andromache, he was unable to force his tongue to break a silence he felt to be mean and unmanly.
“By the way, Rudolph, we have invited the Foreign Legations to dinner at Kephissia, and there will be an expedition before dinner to Tatoi. The young peoplewill ride, and the elder ones will go by carriage. We start at four, so you will not forget to look your best, and do your utmost to entertain Mademoiselle Veritassi,” said the baron, from the door.
This last shot broke the deeps of holy indignation in the lover’s heart. The Karapolos dined at half-past one. It would be discourteous to call earlier than three. And how much time did that leave him for Andromache? and he would be dragged away from her on the morrow. He looked so candidly miserable and disappointed, that his aunt went over to him, and kissed his forehead.
“Is it your wish, aunt, that I should go with you this afternoon? Could I not join you later in time for dinner at Kephissia?”
“You poor child!” exclaimed the baroness, tenderly, smiling to herself to think that he imagined them ignorant of his secret, and that it should be so easy to manage and thwart him.
“No, no, Rudolph. It would be an affront to our guests. You are like the son of the house now, and your presence is indispensable to the young people.”
Rudolph sighed, and kissed his aunt’s plump hand in piteous and dumb eloquence of protest and acquiescence. His eyes were full of tears as he stood at his own window, and gazed like an angry, disappointed child across the lovely hills and sudden sweeps of empty plain. Why had he not spoken? Why had he not asserted himself? A man on the brink of marriage ought surely to be able to take on himself the responsibility of speech and decision. But there was the mocking smile of his uncle that lashed him into petrifiedcowardice, like a well-bred taunt, and flushed him like a buffet, and how to make these worldly relations understand the charm of innocence, the fragrance of a violet, the beauty of an untutored heart?
Punctually at three o’clock, he rapped with his silver-handled walking-stick upon the glass door at the foot of Lycabettus. He had learnt to ask in Greek for the ladies, and with a stare and smile of frank familiarity, Maria supposed it was Andromache and not the others he wanted. The Austrian aristocrat, to whom all evidences of democracy and ill-bred freedom were repugnant, reproved her with a slight touch of haughty insolence, and pointedly repeated his wish to see Kyria Karapolos and her family.
“Kyria Karapolos, the fair young foreigner, is here,” shouted Maria, and left him to find his way into the little salon.
“My dear Monsieur Ehrenstein, it is a pleasure to me to welcome you,” said Kyria Karapolos, hastening to join him.
Her French was fluent, but droll enough to make conversation with her a surprise and a puzzle.
“I have come to tell you that my uncle and aunt have planned an excursion to the Peloponnesus, and they insist on my accompanying them,” Rudolph began at once, very dolorously indeed.
“Well, of course you must please your uncle and aunt. It will make them the more disposed afterwards to assent to your happiness. Here is Andromache. Monsieur Ehrenstein has to leave Athens for a little while. It is quite right. He must not displease those who stand to him as father and mother.”
Andromache blanched to the lips, and then a wave of red flowed into her face. Rudolph felt that he loved her more than ever, and while he held her hand, a smile struggled through the pain of his eyes.
“It is so cruel to have to leave you just now, Andromache.”
She dared not trust herself to speak, for she hardly knew how much it is permitted a modest maiden to say to her lover. But her pretty eyes said a great deal more than she dreamed. Rudolph looked into them, and a happy light broke over his face.
“You grieve too, dear,” he said, softly.
“Must you go, Rudolph?” she asked, tremulously.
“Shall I go, sweet friend?”
Andromache looked question at her mother.
“Of course he must,” cried Kyria Karapolos. “It would be folly to anger or thwart them in the beginning. Besides, it won’t be for long, and we can be getting things ready for the wedding in the meantime.”
“Am I to go, Andromache?” Rudolph still asked, holding her shy glance boldly with his own.
“Yes,” she whispered.
She took a little roll of embroidery from the pocket of her apron, and applied herself to it eagerly, but the needle pricks marked tiny spots of red along the cambric. Rudolph noted this, and anxiously cried out that she was hurting him. Andromache looked up in amazement.
“Don’t you understand?” asked this youth, suddenly growing subtle. “It is my fingers you are so cruelly pricking with that sharp needle.”
Andromache flashed him a joyous smile, and he bent forward, and held both her hands to his mouth.
“I love you, I love you,” he murmured, fondly.
“Rudolph,” she said, and dropped her eyes.
Kyria Karapolos thought proper to strike this growing heat chill with a sound commonplace, by asking him if he had much land in Austria, and what was the exact amount of his rent-roll.
“I believe it amounts to five thousand, but my steward manages everything for me. You may be assured, however, that I have quite enough for Andromache and myself,” answered Rudolph, simply.
This drove him to describe Rapoldenkirchen, and he necessarily rhapsodised over its loveliness, and the happiness that awaited Andromache in that shadowed home. And there in front of him was the clock summoning him from heaven; it already pointed cruelly to the stroke of four. He stood up and announced his hurry, shook hands with Kyria Karapolos, and held a moment Andromache’s slim fingers, looking sorrowfully into the shining March-violets he felt an irresistible impulse to kiss.
“You will think of me every day, dear?”
“I will, Rudolph.”
“Whisper. Am I very dear to you?”
“Oh, Rudolph, I love you,” she cried, and broke down in simple passion.
He stooped hurriedly and pressed his lips to her hair. In another instant he was outside, tearing madly down the rough streets, splashing his boots and clothes in the little streams, jumping over groups of astonished babies,and racing, as if pursued by furies, past the Platea Omonia and up the Patissia Road.
There was a carriage outside the Austrian Embassy, and just as he got inside, a group of riders bore down towards it.
“Monsieur Rudolph will be down presently,” the major-domo explained, in answer to the irritable inquiries of the baron.
When Rudolph descended to the hall in his charming riding attire, the baron surveyed him with a curious and amused smile, and nodded approvingly.
“There are some young ladies for you to look after. Spare them, I entreat you,” and, in reply to Rudolph’s questioning look, added, “Young ladies, you know, are weak and susceptible, and you wear an abominably victimising air.”
Rudolph jumped into the saddle with a very apparent want of alacrity. Mademoiselle Veritassi smiled him welcome, and unconsciously he took his place beside her. Three carriages carried the elders, and the party of youthful riders nearly made the dozen. The air was blithe, the sun shone gloriously and struck the landscape lucid green. The young blood of the impressible Rudolph mounted to his head. The laughter of his companions imparted its contagion to his bereaved heart; on he rode with spring running music through his pulses, and caught by the mirth of the landscape.
The young people showed no destructive tendency to break into couples, but kept one gay and impregnable party, laughing, joking, careering in hearty rivalry to see who should out-distance the sedate carriage-folk, chattering nonsense and enjoying the hour with thefrenzied intensity of unperturbed youth. Mademoiselle Veritassi made a delightful companion, with the charm of a well-bred boy, courteously brusque and quizzically candid.
Under the fire of her imperious glance the sundered, dolorous air dropped from Rudolph, the wine of life coursed vigorously through his veins, and he shouted laughter with the rest. They skirted the stations of upper and lower Patissia under the blue shadows of the Parnes mountains. The marble of Pentelicus, struck by the quivering sunbeams, broke the delicate mist afar. On either side, the long waste of olive plantations toned the joy of the scene by their sad colour, and brought out the contrast of the emerald grasses of the underwoods, and the variously-tinted reeds that edge the torrent of the river Cephissus. The little German village of Heraclion showed white and yellow, with solemn spaces of cypress, upon the sky of clear, unshadowed blue. Flocks of white and black sheep were like moving mounds upon the fields, and over all hung Pentelicus, a haze of grey heather and dismantled branches where its marbles were not a dazzle of whiteness. Rudolph was enchanted with everything—with the blurred hillsides and the murmuring streams that curled in soft swirls along by the hedges, with the goatherds following their capricious charges,—the villagers, burnt brown, in the glory of fustanella, scarlet fez and smart jackets, their long sleeves hanging back like idle wings,—with the boys and their donkeys, and the women in embroidered coats and muslin head-dresses.
At Kephissia it was obligatory to dismount and hunt for the grotto of nymphs, and then talk nonsensebeneath its dripping rocks and curtains of maidenhair. It was even compulsory to taste of its water, and the French viscount made a gallant allusion, and quoted the inevitable line from Homer. Then on up the straight road to Tatoi, the arbutus in full fruit, and on either side exquisite varieties of shrub and leaf and winter flowers. The young ladies were eager to feed on the arbutus, and sent their escorts to gather this ethereal nourishment. And when they were replenished, and satisfied with the smirched and bramble-torn condition of the cavaliers, they decorated their bosoms with the berries, which showed like balls of blood upon their sombre habits. All this necessarily involved much explosive mirth and many inarticulate cries. And men and maidens rode on, convinced there is no delight to match a ride through winter Athenian landscape, when the heart is fresh, the eyes are clear, and the senses near the surface; when, above all, there is plenty of arbutus-fruit for the gathering, cavaliers to tear their gloves in its search through the bushes and brambles, and attractive maidens to wear and eat it.
What more potent than youth’s wild spirits? At dinner it was impossible to say whether the young people or the old, to whom they had communicated their irrepressible gaiety, were the more intoxicated. What amazing tact and calculation were displayed by the Baron and Baroness von Hohenfels! Well they understood the impressionable and susceptible temperament they had to deal with when they gathered together these gems of their society. Such brilliant eyes and laughing teeth gleaming above the flowers, such whiz of airy and unseizable nothings shot high on the wings of badinage,with the same intangible flavour as the foam of champagne which plentifully drowned them. All seemed specially conspiring to captivate the poor bereaved lover. And so well did they succeed, that he quite forgot Andromache. It was only after dinner, when Mademoiselle Veritassi was invited to sing, and selected something weakly sentimental in French, all about hearts and sighs and tears and parting, that the new-born babe, the infant Cupid, began to clamour and blubber within him. Then he turned aside to think of Andromache. He pressed his head against the window, and stared blankly out upon the hotel gardens drenched with moonlight, the flowers washed of all colour in their bath of silver.
The baron saw him in this doleful attitude, and coming up behind him, held one hand sentimentally upon his heart and the other stretched out, in frantic adjuration to the moon.
“Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,” he sang.
Rudolph faced him angrily, barely able to restrain the strong exclamation that rushed to his lips.
“No, I have just made better, that is, more appropriate verses. Mademoiselle Natzelhuber is notorious for not greatly caring for dress. Then it is clearly an offence to mention it.”
Rudolph muttered the German equivalent for “bosh,” and walked away.
Has any philosopher deigned to discover the reason why, when a party of young folks start upon a boisterous expedition, and laugh until the woods resound with their mirth, the return to the domestic hearth is generally so silent and so depressed? They are boundto sigh, and look at the stars, or at themselves, in a forlorn and disappointed way, and wonder where and why all their wild enjoyment has vanished.
Rudolph rode in front with Mademoiselle Veritassi, and remembered not the existence of his companion, as his profound and troubled gaze rested solemnly upon the dark landscape. The wavy hilltops stood far out from the horizon, and the sky, instead of looking like a blue shield against them, shot away like a sea of infinite mist. The night air blew chilly round Athens, and the Viscount cheerfully suggested the visit of those intemperate blasts that howl down from the encircling hills with frantic force, and prove more than anything the exceeding greatness of that mass of broken pillars and temples upon the Acropolis that have resisted their destructive strength all these centuries.
But the next day, though cold, was not thought unfit for travelling, and, at an early hour, Rudolph was carried out of Athens to hear his uncle spout and quote upon the plain of Marathon, where the anemones were getting ready for their spring display. Pray, what did Rudolph care about Miltiades? Had he not an intended brother-in-law of the name worth ten such generals? Indeed, he hazarded the opinion that the old one was greatly overrated, upon which his diplomatic uncle smiled, as the wise smile upon the foolish—the smile of tolerant and good-humoured superiority.
Pericles carried his wounded brother to Phalerum for the period of convalescence, which an incessantly choleric spleen indefinitely prolonged. They stayed at the Grand Hotel looking upon the sanded beach, made cheerful by the café-tables and the proximity of the railway station, by which hosts of voluble Athenians were ever passing and repassing. In the afternoon they lounged amid the olive trees by the side of the hotel, athwart which the blue of sky and sea showed sharply, and drank their coffee while Constantine eagerly devoured “The Hora” and the “The Palingenesia,” ready to pounce like a hawk on its prey upon the first chance acquaintance Providence, in the shape of the half-hourly train, should send him from Athens.
Pericles sat reading one of his favourite volumes, now and then pausing to look watchfully at his daughter, and thankful in his heart to see how well she bore her sorrow. Inarime was for a time laid prostrate by Gustav’s banishment. And then youth’s elasticity rebounded with unconquered force. Like a drenched bird, she shook out her wet plumes, returned to her books, and saw that the sun was shining and that the flowers were blooming—noted it unwearily and withoutdismay. To recognise this much in the time of passionate absorption in self is a rapid stride towards recovery, and at such a moment new scenes and excitements of any sort work most potently.
February had set in sharp and chill when they returned to Athens, Constantine cured and spared the humiliation of seeing the town illuminated in honour of the new Mayor, Oïdas. He insisted on bringing Inarime to the ruinously expensive dressmaker, Madame Antoinette, and there she was supplied with every imaginable detail of fashionable toilet, crowned with a gorgeous red silk parasol and long embroidered Suède gloves.
Inarime, thus apparelled, stood before a cheval mirror, and placidly gazed astonishment at herself. It was impossible to deny that dress added glory to her beauty. Picturesque she had been before with a fitting background of valley and desolate mountain. Now she was a nymph of Paris in walnut-coloured silk, and a little coquettish hat tipped with feathers.
“Now you are fit to be seen in the streets of a capital, Inarime,” said Constantine, surveying her proudly. “Take her with you to Madame Jarovisky’s, Pericles.”
Pericles took her, to Madame Jarovisky’s lasting gratitude. The girl was a positive sensation. Several men stopped to congratulate her uncle next day.
“We must take her to the theatre. There isFauston to-night. Every one likesFaust, and it will delight Inarime, while she is delighting others,” he said.
“I see no objection to the theatre, but mind, Constantine, I will not have the girl talked of. Remember what my great namesake says of women. Their gloryis the silence men observe upon them.” Here he quoted the famous Oration.
“Stuff and nonsense! Your mind is addled with that folly of the Ancients. Who the deuce cares nowadays about silent virtue or the violet blushing unseen? This is the age of advertisement. Get yourself talked of, yourself, your house, your women—if not well, then by all means ill. Only get the talk. Do you imagine I have not gone about everywhere spreading the report of your learning? That is why you receive so many cards of invitation. I extolled you to the director of the German School of Archæology, and he was so impressed that he sends you a request to attend their meeting next month.”
Shame and disappointment struck scarlet Pericles’ sallow face. He thought the letter the natural result of his own recognised and merited reputation, mainly built upon a correspondence with one of the Greek professors of the University of Bonn.
“Brother,” he reproved, sternly, “it would afford me much satisfaction if you would be good enough to discontinue mentioning abroad my name and my daughter’s.”
“Then I am curious to know how you intend to dispose of that girl of yours.”
Pericles sat still, and played musingly with his finger-tips.
“I must marry her?” he interrogated, softly.
“Marry her! What in the name of all the heathen gods else would you do with her? Stick a professor’s cap on her head, and send her out to lecture to a band of curious rascals like that rash and self-opinionatedyoung woman, Hypatia? You’d make a respectable Theon.”
“His was the easier part. But Inarime would not be unworthy, though it is the last career I should choose for her,” said Pericles, with a quaint smile.
“Exactly. You apprehend inflammable youth.”
“I desire but to see my daughter live securely in the shade of protection. There are times when I feel overwhelmed with a strange sensation—half-illness, half the simple withdrawal of vitality. Then it is that apprehensions and terror of a solitary future for that dear girl assail and completely master me. I would have her married, and yet it seems so improbable that I shall find a suitable partner, one to whom her cultured intellect would be a noble possession, to whom her beauty would be a thing of worship. There was one—alas! alas!”
“Well, that’s settled. You sent him about his business. It was a foolish thing to do. Helene thinks so, too. A Turk! Well, we don’t choose our nationality. Probably he would just as soon have been born a Greek or a German. Let that pass. Turn the lock upon your desire for culture and learning. They won’t put bread and olives into Inarime’s mouth. Money, Pericles, money is what we must look to.”
When consulted about the theatre, Inarime showed sufficient pleasure in the prospect to quiet the doubts of her anxious father.
“Come down to Antoinette, and get something pretty—very pretty,” Constantine ordered. “You are not a fool, I suppose, and can take some natural interest in your beauty.”
“I am glad that I am beautiful,” she said, gravely.
“Very well. Put on your hat, and we’ll drive at once to Antoinette,” her uncle laughed hilariously. “Oh, women!”
Conceive the efficiency of a Parisian dressmaker instructed to enhance beauty. Bedeck Inarime then according to fancy, so that the costume be both scientific and suitable.
Constantine was master upon the occasion, ordered the carriage, secured the box, and fussily did the honours to the bewildered islanders when they arrived in the little back street in which the old theatre was located. It was a most grotesque and shabby paper edifice, ugly, dirty, unstable. But it was worth the tenth-rate Italian companies who hired it, and usually left Athens, after the season, bankrupt. The men, untroubled by feminine charges, sat in the parterre, King George’s officers, of whom there are many, enjoyed the spectacle on half fees, chattering, laughing, and ostentatiously clanking their spurs and swords against the floor as they walked about between the acts. Here and there an aspiring civilian made believe to come fresh from Paris by appearingen frac, and impertinently focussed the constellation of beauty in the box lined with cheap and ragged paper, and in the last stage of dilapidation.
They were playing the waltz when the Selakas entered their box. In spite of excruciating fiddles, and tuneless and vulgar singers, it was possible to detect its intoxicating charm, and Inarime sat and listened with a pleased, abstracted expression, her elbow resting on the front of the box and her chin against her cream-gloved hand. Constantine took the seat beside her, in front,and audibly hummed the air while his quick glance roved over the house. He saw Oïdas, the Mayor, opposite in a box with his sister and his little motherless girl. They exchanged an uncordial nod, and the Mayor raised his opera-glass to inspect Inarime. He passed it to his sister, and they nodded and whispered together. The young bloods below were soon enough conscious that there was somebody in the boxes worth looking at. Many an eye was turned from the middle-aged Marguerite, whose flaxen wig inartistically exposed the black hair underneath and who wore a soiled white wrapper of uncertain length, with grass-green bows down the front.
With naïve earnestness Inarime followed the actors, listened to the melodies, and frequently turned to bespeak her father’s attention. She was acquainted with Goethe, and knew the story of Marguerite in its classic form. But this sweet and voluptuous music was quite unfamiliar to her. Of music, good or bad, she knew nothing, and had only occasionally heard a village piper piping for the Arcadians to dance. She could see that the dresses were dirty and tawdry, but the novelty of beholding a tender love-scene for the first time acted even by a stagy foolish Faust singing false, and by a cracked-voiced Marguerite in a slovenly wrapper, with wig awry, to the accompaniment of squeaking fiddles and hoarse ’cellos, brought tears of sympathy to her eyes. Her emotions were too keenly touched to allow of her remembering the necessity of wiping away her tears, and when the curtain went down, the tell-tale drops had fallen on her cheek.
“What a lovely young woman,” Agiropoulosexclaimed, as he stood with his back to the stage, and leisurely surveyed the occupants of the boxes.
“Where?” asked Rudolph, tolerantly.
“Beside the Royal Box. She is with the gallant and fiery member for Tenos.” Agiropoulos broke into laughter, and began to quote Constantine at the Odeon. “‘I’ll mangle him, murder him, riddle him with shots,’ and when it came to the point he had as much courage as a draggled hen.”
Rudolph smiled faintly. He had heard the story before, and Agiropoulos’s excessive spirits bored him. He turned round and looked straight up at the Selaka group. He saw Inarime at once, wearing an intense, almost tragic expression, as if the curtain had just gone down upon her own first love-scene; some moments elapsed before he removed his eyes from her.
Constantine went away in search of an ice for his niece, and a little distraction for himself in shape of gossip and a cigarette. He knocked against Oïdas, and the rival politicians stopped to shake hands.
“Is that your niece you have with you?” the Mayor asked.
“Yes. She and Pericles are staying in town now.”
“A very fine girl—I may say, a very beautiful one. Has your brother any views with regard to her?”
“Matrimonial?” queried Constantine, laughing.
“Those, I think, are the only views fathers are supposed to entertain about their daughters,” retorted Oïdas, with awkward, averted glance.
“Oh, of course. He naturally cherishes the hope to dispose of her some day with entire satisfaction to her and to himself.”
“Anybody in question?”
Constantine faced his interrogator boldly, narrowed his eyelids to a sly, meditative slit, and answered:—
“You think of offering yourself, perhaps.”
“I should certainly have no objection to a beautiful young wife. She has a dowry, I presume.”
“I presume so,” said Selaka, shutting up his lips in a portentous way. “But there is something else to be considered besides your willingness.”
“Undoubtedly. Still, it is a sufficiently important point. That is why I mention it.”
Constantine understood perfectly well that such wealth as Oïdas’ entitled its owner to his confident air. No sane father would be likely to reject or hesitate before such an offer as this, and the girl would, of course, be guided by her father.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” conceded the wily Constantine.
“Begin by introducing me at once,” suggested the Mayor.
The aspiring Mayor was carried triumphantly to the Selakas’ box. The introduction enabled Oïdas to relieve Inarime of her saucer, which he did with ponderous civility. She was hot and wretched in spite of the eaten ice. Of the Mayor’s presence she took no note; in spirit she gazed gloomily back upon the departed vision of Gustav so harrowingly evoked by the music. Oïdas devoted himself to Selaka with an occasional inclusive droop towards Inarime, whom he furtively and appraisingly observed. Into his box opposite Stavros entered, circumspect, thoroughly unobstructive, having joined the Government and resigned the editorship ofthe “New Aristophanes.” He looked casually at Constantine, and bit his underlip, it might be to restrain a blush or a smile. In the next box, just before the curtain went up on the second act, Miltiades rose like an evening sun upon the amazed scene, ingrande tenue, cheerfully attended by his mother and Andromache.
“Your twin-soul,” whispered Agiropoulos. “Hector is called.”
Rudolph turned round quickly, beheld Andromache with soft invitation in her glance, jumped up, and in passing down the house, his eyes rested for one moment on Inarime’s face. He withdrew them angrily, in the delicate belief that even a dim consciousness of any other woman’s beauty but his own particular lady’s was almost a deliberate disloyalty.
“Oh, Rudolph, have you not seen her? Is she not beautiful?” Andromache enthusiastically asked, as she turned round her affectionate and glowing face to his when greetings were over, and he had taken his recognised place behind her chair.
“Who?” Rudolph whispered; rapture demanding that their lightest words should be folded in mystery.
Andromache pointed to the Selaka box. The young man looked steadily across over Andromache’s shoulder, frowned a little, and admitted grudgingly:
“She is handsome, but not soft and sweet like my Andromache.”
“Oh, Rudolph!” Andromache flashed on him delightedly.
He had only the day before come back from the Peloponnesus, and in a week he hoped to have summoned up courage to declare his honourable bondage to the baron, and start for Austria to conclude pre-nuptial arrangements.
When Constantine lighted his niece’s candle and handed it to her, he touched Pericles on the arm and nodded.
“I want you to smoke a cigarette with me before going to bed. I have something to say to you.”
Pericles suffered himself to be led into the sitting-room, and proceeded to roll up a cigarette while his brother lighted the lamp.
“We are agreed upon the advisability of at once marrying Inarime, I suppose?” he began.
“At once!” Pericles exclaimed, in alarm.
“Why not?”
“Think of her recent wound. She behaved so well. I cannot in conscience so soon do wrong to the memory of her lover.”
“Sentiment! The world only exists by ignoring it. What have the fancies of girls to do with suitable family arrangements? I declare you are as great a fool as the child herself. A young woman permits herself the blamable freedom of looking complacently upon a young man who has not been officially chosen for her. She must perforce think herself a martyr and her guardians executioners, when it becomes necessary for them to reprimand her and order her to withdraw herprematurely fixed affections. Good gracious! It is preposterous. We might as well be in England or in some equally wild place, where girls are unprotected and forward.”
“Whom have you in view?” Pericles quietly asked, bringing the orator back to the point.
“Oïdas.”
“The Mayor! Why, he is a widower and nearly as old as myself.”
“What does it matter? He is rich and influential. Inarime will have a handsome house,—you know that colonnaded building near the Palace? Well, when a man has such a house as that to offer a woman, she need not trouble to examine the wrinkles on his forehead or the crowsfeet under his eyes, or whether his hair be grey or black or red. All things are relative, Pericles, even youth and beauty. It depends on the purse.”
“But have you any proof that Kyrios Oïdas is disposed to think of my daughter?”
“The best possible. He told me so to-night.”
Pericles started, and stared doubtingly at his brother.
“You do not credit me, I see, but it is true, I assure you. He admires her, wants a wife, asked if she had a dowry, and notified his willingness to demand her in marriage.”
“He is a rich man, undoubtedly,” Pericles slowly admitted, remembering just then that Reineke had not started by considerations of the dowry. “In his country women are bought,” he said to himself, “in ours their husbands are purchased. It is merely an opinion on which side the barter is more honourable.”
“You consent then to my calling to-morrow on Oïdas with an official communication and recognition?”
“It is too soon,” Pericles pleaded.
“It is never too soon to marry your child well.”
“Perhaps you are right. I would have chosen a younger man. However, do not precipitate matters. I must know more of this Oïdas. He is a politician, and you know my feelings towards that class of men. It is just possible he may be less disreputable and illiterate than the general run. He cannot be an honourable man upon your own admission, for he stooped to buy the influence of that reptile, Stavros.”
“True, but all politicians do so. The greater they are, the more unscrupulous. It is part of theirmétier, as callousness to pain is of the surgeon’s. You have studied history and I have not; then this fact you must have learnt.”
“Sometimes the loose political mind may prove itself more keenly apprehensive of correct deductions than that of the studiously trained thinker,” Pericles rejoined, with a subtle smile. “Doubtless it is I who am in error.”
“This is idle wandering. I’ll grant you anything in argument, only grant me in turn the consideration of Oïdas’ proposals and his formal reception.”
Pericles thought awhile, then rose and stretched his arms.
“There will be nothing incorrect in receiving him. I cannot settle straight off to marry Inarime to him, but I agree with you that his proposals are worth considering. He is not the man I should have selected,and that is why I hesitate to compromise our honour. But he can come. I will not coerce my child. It is for her to say whether he will stay.”
This concession was more than Constantine had dared to hope for, and his spirits rose to the point of exuberance next morning when an invitation came from Madame Jarovisky’s for Inarime to attend an afternoon party for young people given in honour of her daughter’s birthday.
There were about twenty young ladies and mature little girls, with a sprinkling of boys and youths from the military and naval schools, at Madame Jarovisky’s when Inarime entered the rooms, escorted by her father. The chaperons retired to the salon downstairs, to refresh themselves with tea and return to their homes, or stay and watch the youngsters disport and play. By and by Miltiades came, that prince of masters of ceremonies, especially invited to conduct the cotillon, and show the small rabble how to dance the mazurka. Could a hero object to shine and lead, even in minute and giggling society? Heavens above us! What would be the result of an entertainment in Athens without Miltiades? Confusion, scare, and disgrace,—worse, the privation of its most picturesque adornment, and its crown of military glory.
The young ladies of Athens were there in every stage, little women dressed like dolls, flirting and pouting with grave little old men of ten and twelve; girls in tutelage, breaking from their governess to dance a riotous quadrille with the future defenders of their country upon land and water; and lastly, the self-conscious and important “demoiselles à marier,” who playChopin’s Second Nocturne to the desolation of those who understand Chopin, chatter ceaselessly in indifferent French, draw flowers and keep albums for the collection of all the heart-broken verses in European tongues. Into this lively and flippant circle Inarime was at once whirled with voluble cordiality and cries of frantic enthusiasm.
Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi was the presiding archangel, in the artistic setting of the expensive Antoinette. The angels were Miss Mary Perpignani, Sappho Jarovisky, Andromache Karapolos, Proserpine Agiropoulos, and the young ladies of the American legation. Eméraude was the key to the general mood,—she was captain of a pliable and sensitive band of very amiable young marauders. She welcomed Inarime avidly, with the frankest smile and a swift approval of her toilet. The others clustered round her and somewhat bewildered her with this sudden introduction to noisy unmeditative girlhood. Of the mind and ways of girls she was savagely ignorant, we know, and all these laughing faces and softly brilliant glances, turned upon her, shook her with surprise and terror. Could it be that she was one of them and so aloof, so absolutely unlike and out of sympathy with them? Joy and vigour were abounding in them, the susceptible and intoxicating blood of youth and its untamable pulses, gave fire to their eyes and chased reflection from their minds. When they danced together, or with boys of their own age, their steps sprang over the polished floor with the urgent impetuosity of their years. When they stood near her, and panted and laughedbetween their gasping speech, she felt as the Peri might, gazing upon happiness afar.
She envied these absurd and frivolous maidens, envied them their untroubled youth,—beside which her own looked sad and grey-toned,—their free hearts and meaningless laughter, their twinkling feet and innocent sentimentality.
“You do not dance,” said Eméraude, pausing beside her after a wild waltz, with fluttering bosom, like a pursued bird.
“I have never danced. I have never met girls before,” Inarime answered, with a sharp note of regret in her voice.
Imagine the consternation and the wonder on the faces around her. Eméraude was naturally spokeswoman for the party. She expressed an opinion that the conversation should be carried on in Greek instead of French.
“Then we shall have to speak our best Greek,” cried Sappho, having heard of Inarime’s learning. “Mademoiselle Selaka speaks the language of Plutarch.”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Inarime, with a deprecating smile. “I have the current Athenian at your service. Except with my father, I am accustomed to speak the rough brogue of our island.”
“There is just the faintest perceptible tinge of the Archipelago in your accent,” affirmed Eméraude, authoritatively. “This is your first visit to Athens?”
“My first.”
“Oh, are you not happy to be here?” carolled Andromache. “Athens—ah! it is so lovely. I could not leave it.”
“Tell us of your life in Tenos,” said Eméraude, taking up the dominant melody of the concerto, and at once the chorus of followers pressed their captain’s demand with an inarticulate cry of accentuated agreement.
“It is very simple. I read and walk with my father, and when not thus occupied, I help Annunziata in housework or I write letters for the villagers.”
“Annunziata! That is a pretty name. Italian?”
“She is Greek, of remotely Italian origin.”
“And why do you write letters for the villagers?” asked Sappho. “Can they not write themselves?”
“None of the women in the villages of Lutra, Xinara, or Mousoulou can write but myself.”
“How marvellous!” exclaimed Miss Perpignani, and the girls wore a look of interjection.
“Are there goats?”
Inarime stared a little at such an obviously foolish question. Her steady luminous gaze struck chill upon the volatile young circle, and for an instant checked their chatter. Then some one broke the uneasy silence.
“How about your dresses? You must leave Tenos when you want new clothes. This pretty frock is surely Athenian.”
“Yes, that is because I am here, and my uncle wishes me to be dressed like everybody else, but hitherto I have had my dresses made at Tenos. They are well made too.”
“Not possible! Like ours, in the modern fashion?”
Inarime lightly scanned the costumes round her.
“I do not think Tenos could produce anything likethese,” she said, simply, “but then we would not know what to do with them over there.”
“Do you live far from the town?”
“Yes, a good way. It takes nearly three hours by mule.”
“I suppose you have no carriages in Tenos?”
“There are no roads to begin with, and in consequence no vehicles of any sort. It is a very rough, wild place.”
“And now you have come to Athens to be married,” concluded Eméraude. “Do you look forward to marriage?”
A dusky colour shot up into Inarime’s face like a hidden flame. She fixed her eyes slowly on Mademoiselle Veritassi.
“If it is my father’s wish that I should marry, it will be my duty to obey him, but I trust he will not ask it of me.”
Another look of wondering consternation flashed over the circle. Not wish to marry! have a house of her own and take precedence of unmarried girls! be somebody in social life, give parties and travel!
“I thought all girls liked the notion of getting married,” remarked Miss Mary Perpignani. “It is so dull to be unmarried, not to be able to go out alone, or to go to Antoinette’s and order what you like. Just think how delightful it must be to be free, like a young man, and do all sorts of lovely naughty things, dance twice if you like with the handsomest officer without any one to tell you it is notconvenable, and read all the dreadful French novels. We poor girls are so harassed with that horrid wordconvenable. To see little boys at theage of ten allowed to stand on their heads and we, aching for liberty, not allowed to budge at thirty if we are not married!”
“Oh, shocking to think of, as the English say,” cried Sappho, clapping her hands to her ears to shut out the spoken description. “We are martyrs, we unhappy girls.”
“Your faces belie your misery,” said Inarime, gravely.
“Que voulez-vous, Mademoiselle?” Eméraude retorted, gaily, “nous autres, nous sommes á peu près Françaises. Il faut être bien mis et savoir rire malgré tout. Avent de me tuer, je mettrai ma plus jolie robe.”
“Oh, ma chère, ma chère,” the shocked angels chorussed. Then turning to Inarime, one of them soothed her perplexity.
“Don’t pay any heed to the exaggerations of Eméraude. She likes to frighten people. She talks that way, but she means nothing. Comme tu sais blaguer, Eméraude.”
“Mais, point du tout. Je suis sérieuse. Qu’est ce que serait la vie si l’on ne savait pas se moquer de ses chagrins, au lieu de s’en attrister?” protested Eméraude.
“I applaud your sentiment. Cheerfulness I should imagine to be the lesson of life and our highest aspiration,” said Inarime.
“It is not mine, assuredly,” cried Sappho. “My dream is excitement—oh, but the excitement that consumes and fills up every hour, waking and sleeping. I should adore being married to a man I hated, rich, powerful and commanding, of whom I was desperately afraid, and to be in love with a poor, divinelybeautiful young officer. To think of the thrilling terrors and consuming bliss of meetings at parties, at theatres, in picture galleries, horribly shadowed by a jealous husband, only time to whisper a hurried greeting and look into each other’s eyes——”
Be assured this rash prospective sinner was in mind as innocent of a sinister meaning as in limpid gaze. Mademoiselle Veritassi measured her scornfully.
“You have probably been taking your first plunge into Feuillet in secret, and are talking of what you do not in the least understand. You would find your young officer a complete idiot, and his divinely beautiful face would soon enough pall on you. Love, romantic or otherwise, will not be my domain. I aspire to marry a man of moderate intelligence, pliable, of the world and of the best tone, with the doors of a foreign embassy open to him, whom I shall mould and lead, and whose fortune I shall make. My dream is more legitimate, though from the purely masculine point of view, hardly less incorrect than Sappho’s.”
“And yours?” Andromache asked shyly of Inarime.
“Mine? I have none. I have not felt the need for excitement or novelty. My quiet, uneventful life has hitherto amply satisfied me—until lately, until quite lately,” she added, with a slight break in her voice.
Mademoiselle Veritassi scrutinised her through narrowed lids, and smiled imperceptibly.
“You speak German, I am told, fluently. I presume you had a governess.”
“No, my father was my tutor. He taught me everything that I know.”
“Your father! and no governess! And embroidery,music, drawing and the rest?” Mademoiselle Veritassi gasped.
“I know nothing of such graceful accomplishments. With books I am acquainted, and though I have never measured my speed with any other girl’s, my father tells me I am a swift runner. But girls so brilliantly finished as you will laugh to hear me speak of running.”
“No, no. It is charming. A modern Atlanta. You are truly a divine creature. As for us, our futile accomplishments are mere gossamer wings to skim to social heights for which we are destined. There they drop from us, and their instability is their only charm. Yours are of solider weight, with the merit of corresponding permanence.”
“It is kind of you to reassure me thus, but I know my value. I am only a bookish peasant.”
“Eméraude is right,” Miss Perpignani cooed, caressingly. “You are a divine creature—beautiful as a picture.”
Inarime glanced pitifully at the youthful leader whose voice to these girls was as the voice of fame. Her own intellect was rare, and her knowledge profound, and yet she was humiliated and acutely conscious of her inferiority to this dainty damsel, who fluttered and flirted her fragile fan with inimitable grace, and wore her girlhood with an air of sovereignty that came of twenty years’ sway at home and abroad. We may divine that it was the extreme fastidiousness of the heiress and only child that allowed her to reach twenty unclaimed.
“You have but to wish it to outstrip us all on our own ground. But, I beseech you, spare us. Thinkwhat rivalry with you would mean for us. The sun above the stars. Be content with your beauty and your books, and do not ask to descend to the mere social arena. For me, I ask nothing better than to be your friend.”
The little ones had come to the end of their hour of rhythmic movement, and Miltiades, beaming in the splendour of black and gold, was officiously telling off the couples for the cotillon. He approached the girls, and asked if Mademoiselle Selaka would dance. Inarime shook her head.
“Do, do, dear Inarime—may I?” pleaded Mademoiselle Veritassi. “It will give us all such pleasure to watch you.”
“Yes, yes,” chorused the followers.
“But I cannot dance, alas!” Inarime murmured.
“Your voice is like velvet, and yet clear though so softly murmurous. Do not fear. It is quite simple. Pray be persuaded. Captain Karapolos will guide you.”
Inarime suffered herself to be led across the room to the spot where the couples were noisily forming themselves. Just then she saw Rudolph Ehrenstein enter with the Baroness von Hohenfels on his arm, who surveyed the young people through herface-à-mainwith a complacent smile. The smile intensified when Inarime came under its rays, while Rudolph and Andromache were looking far too eloquently at each other. Inarime understood the mute avowal of momently wedded orbs, and a thrill of remembered delight and anguish swept over her like a blast.
O bliss too fleeting, and O pain too sweet!
The constant dropping of the waters of opposition upon the stone of Pericles’ obstinacy showed the proverbial result. It was worn away in a few days, at the end of which time he yielded to his brother’s persuasions and admitted that a daughter is a ticklish charge for one sane man, only armed with the controlling influences of a father. His girl, he at first argued, was not quite as other girls—she was steadfast, sincere and earnest. He had not yet perceived any tendency in her to the sex’s frantic moodishness and dizzy variations. True, the god Cupid had mastered her at a single glance with alarming urgence. But an antique-modern Greek found excuse in his heart for the headstrong vagaries of the eternally youthful god. He announced himself ready to transfer his responsibilities to Oïdas, if he proved acceptable to Inarime. He was not exuberant at the prospect, nor in the least hurry. But he permitted Oïdas to visit with prospectively nuptial intentions, and left the rest to the gods.
Oïdas came. He came very often, hardly noticed by Inarime, beyond the fact that his coming provided her with flowers, and that he frequently conducted her to the theatre where she heard the surfeiting honey strains of Bellini and Verdi, and to the Saturday concerts at theParnassus Club of which he was president, where Bellini and Verdi were also in the ascendant.
“Have you any feeling towards Kyrios Oïdas?” her father once ventured to ask.
“Feeling! I have not remarked him specially. He is polite, but I should imagine not interesting,” Inarime replied.
“Ah!” interjected Selaka, with an air of partial self-commiseration. Having made up his mind after prolonged doubting upon so minor a point, to accept Oïdas for a son-in-law, it was disconcerting to learn that the chosen one had made none but a very dubious impression upon the principal personage of the duet.
He lightly dismissed the fact as another proof of the singular and incorrigible perversity of woman, not even to be counteracted by such anomalous training and education as he had given this particular one.
Not to be out of the fashion, the Baroness von Hohenfels had rapturously taken up the new beauty. Inarime was frequently invited to the Austrian Embassy, and her acquaintance with Mademoiselle Veritassi and her band progressed to intimacy. The delight of joyous youth that lives unthinkingly upon the beating of its own pulses struck dormant rays from her closed nature. She shook off the shadow of her own calm past and emerged from gloom, a radiant being, now and then weighted with her recent heavy bereavement, only to rebound again into realms of intoxicating instability. The friction of her natural forces with these laughing creatures urged her upward, and a return to the desolate solitude of a world unblessed bythe presence of her lover, left her amazed, incredulous and giddy.
The trashy music she had heard struck her as enchantment, until Mademoiselle Veritassi chilled her enthusiasm.
“Do you sometimes go to the theatre?” she queried.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Mon Dieu! When I want to go to the theatre, I go to Paris or Vienna,” said Mademoiselle Veritassi, superciliously.
“Is it not good here?”
“It is vulgar rubbish—good enough for the Athenians, but not for those who have heard music and seen acting. My child, you have yet to see a theatre.”
This was food for reflection, and another proof of her inferiority to these bewildering nymphs of society. The next time Oïdas made soft proposals touching Verdi and Bellini, Inarime curtly declined them.
“I have intimated to Kyrios Oïdas my entire willingness to receive him into my family,” said Pericles one day to his brother. “It now remains for him to try his fortunes with Inarime, to whom I shall previously communicate his intentions. But I desire that the matter may be speedily settled. This frivolous, noisy existence wearies me. I yearn for my books and the quiet of my mountain home.”
“But are you not pledged to attend the meeting of the German School which takes place in ten days?”
“I will come back for it. Besides, Annunziata writesfor my immediate presence. The steward is not giving satisfaction.”
Inarime entered, modernised beyond recognition in a flimsy grey silk gown slashed with crimson and shaded greens, a belt from which depended ribbons of these mixed hues that floated in the breeze and arrested the distracted glance, with hair which swelled above the mild brow to a pyramidal crown of shadow and threw out bronze and bluish lights, its rippling massy softness in complete harmony with the equable, studious face.
“Why thus early decked in bird of Paradise hues?” laughed Selaka, quietly.
“Mademoiselle Veritassi and her brother are to call for me shortly.”
“Ah, I forgot. You grow dissipated, my dear. It seems to me your books are now quite forsaken for the society of these chattering young persons. Voices, voices, voices, and meaningless laughter I hear as I pass you in the salon. What in heaven’s name have they to say?”
“Well, not much that is worth listening to, I am afraid,” Inarime admitted, with a little apologetic smile. “And they fly from one subject to another so quickly, exchange interjections and telegraphic remarks, scattered phrase with sharp hiatus till I am compelled to give up all hope of following them, having missed their airy education. But the sound of their voices is pretty to the ear—that is, not the sound itself, but its suggestions.”
“Then you are satisfied that you have enough amiable reminiscences to carry back with you to the solitudes of Tenos?” Pericles half-commented, justlooking at Constantine to signify his wish to be left alone with his daughter.
Inarime sighed. Tenos seemed so very far away from her.
“We are going back, my child. Do you not rejoice?”
“Back! So soon! You have enjoyed your visit, father?”
“It is for you to decide. Your pleasure is mine, dearest.”
Her face clouded. Confronted with her ruthlessly severed heart the phrase sounded hollow.
“I have almost forgotten that I was unhappy,” she whispered.
Pericles gazed at her in amazement. He would have staked his life on this girl’s stability and firmness. Here was a curious proof of the inexplicable lightness and variability of the feminine temper. Who was to sound its depths or follow its breathless changes? Man, he concluded (not originally, who can be original on the theme?) treads a mine when he essays to read the book of woman, even in the chapter of his own daughter. The simplest page holds promise of explosion and surprise. Philosophy shrinks from the task, as beyond the hard unimaginative male intelligence.
“You wish to remain here?” he interrogated.
“I think I do,” she breathed through her teeth reluctantly. “To return to Tenos would mean so much for me. It was good of you, father, to give me this change.”
“Well, well,” Selaka interposed, with a disappointed air. “Happily the emotions of your strange sex are ever ready to come to your aid. Sorrow is notincurable, because you answer so readily to the spur of distraction. Perhaps you will bend as compliantly to the sound of wedding-bells.”
“No, I will not,” she retorted, harshly.
“If I ask it, Inarime?” he bent forward.
“It would not be fair. You have the right to dispose of me, I know, but I ought not to be tried beyond my strength.”
“Do not speak as if it were possible I should be other than your best friend, with your interests exclusively my own,” protested Selaka, affectionately. “But it is the duty of the old to remember the future for the young. Marriage is the natural termination of a girl’s irresponsible existence. I, as your guardian, am bound to find you a suitable mate. You mentioned just now that here at Athens you had forgotten that you were unhappy. That struck me as a singularly pregnant observation—it felicitously summed up your sex. What then can there be objectionable in my proposal to settle you permanently at Athens?”
He awaited her reply as if he expected compliance.
“I spoke of change preluding a return to the old life. It pleased me to feel that I had pushed it away from me for awhile, that I was aloof from it, beholding entirely new scenes and hearing foreign voices. That change I know I wanted to keep me from a merely whimpering discontent. I wish to be strong, father, and hate to succumb to weakness.”
“Prove your wish for strength by casting from you sentimental chains. Your objection is purely sentimental. Remember the lesson of the ancients. We perceive the ideal, and hasten to make our bestcompromise with the actual. Love is the unattainable draught. We are sometimes permitted to bring our lips within measurable distance from the rim of the bowl, and then it is withdrawn. Some of us are given one sip of the nectar and must go thirsty ever afterwards. We live the life of the flesh, which is common and crude enough, and nourish our starved spirit upon memory. That is the lesson of experience, but we need not, for that, feel ourselves curtained off from cheerfulness and contented labour.”
He watched her attentively. All the light had fled from her face.
“You wish me to marry Kyrios Oïdas,” she said, after a pause.
“You have rightly guessed. He is not a scholar, I have to admit, and a modern politician does not fill me with admiration; but he is wealthy, and will take care of you. It will be for you to shine, and I dare say he will be proud enough of you.”
“If he were a scholar I could understand,” she exclaimed. “But simple money! Father, you are not material. You are not tired of me?”
“Tired? I? Of you?”
Pericles fondled her hand, and laughed.
“But you wish me to leave you for this man, who is only rich.”
“I shall not live forever, and a husband will be your proper protector. Poverty would not be a recommendation in a suitor, I imagine.”
“But you are not so old, and there are long days before us.”
“Who knows? I have been warned of late that Iam not very strong. It is decided. You must marry.”