CHAPTER XV. (From Reineke’s Note Book.)
A SILENT BETROTHAL.
When I joined Selaka in his afternoon stroll, he appeared to notice something different in my step and in my eyes. I felt myself as if I sprang rather than walked, and my glance saw nothing distinctly that it rested upon: it was impeded and clouded by the intense illumination from within. Yet never before did the bare, sunny hills look to me more lovely; never did the Greek isles, rising above their happy waters like rose and mauve clouds upon a blue sky, seem more dreamily enchanting. I remember nothing of our conversation. I walked beside the old man, drunk with my own speechless bliss, and answered his questions at random. And all the while my soul sang aloud its pæan, and the whole earth seemed to smile upon me out of one girl’s grave luminous gaze. Inarime! It seemed to me that the sweet air trembled with the shaking impulses of my intemperate gladness.
Two days passed thus. Blind and absent as I was, I could remark the sullen suspicion of Aristides’ manner, no longer vexing with its impertinent familiarity, but repulsing me with insolent sullenness. I paid no heed to this childishness. But I was struck with the fellow’s extraordinary penetration. Whence could he have divined there was aught in me to fear or distrust? There was something of the extreme fineness and subtlety of the animal instinct in his intuition, which completely eluded my observation. But Annunziata simply attributed my restored strength and serene joy to the notoriously beneficial influences of mountain air. She always greeted me with her cordial smile, and sometimes ventured to pat my hand in a motherly way. I delighted in her noiseless activity, and in her sturdy self-reliance. Tears for self I should imagine had never dimmed her bright black eyes, and the lines time had traced upon her brown forehead were not lines of pain and mental travail, but the marks of healthy, contented labour. It was a lesson to watch her carry her water jar from the village fountain, or lay the table, without hurry or anxiety, with the perfect ease of punctuality and order. Selaka, I felt, was studying me, half in perplexity, half in alarm, yet with increasing approval. He liked me, and with the days grew his cautious esteem into precipitate affection.
On the third day from my meeting with Inarime, he joined me in the early morning, as I sat upon the terrace, smoking and revelling in the lovely air. My heart could no longer bear this silence and separation, and my tongue at last resolved to give utterance to its urgent claim.
“Will your daughter remain much longer at Mousoulou?” I asked, conscious that my voice was unsteady from eagerness.
“I have not yet decided,” said Selaka quietly.
“Kyrie Selaka, I have a favor to ask you—the very greatest one man can ask another.”
I looked round into his face as I spoke, and knew I was pale to the lips.
“You wish to see my daughter,” said Selaka gravely.
“Nay, I have seen her. I want you to take me to her.”
The old man sat for awhile motionless as a statue, then he rose, and paced the terrace in severe and anxious reflection.
After a pause, that seemed to me interminable, he stopped in front of me, and looked in silence into my eyes. He shook back his head, as if he had come to a supreme decision, placed one hand on my shoulder, and held his beard with the other.
“Why not?” he asked, and then sat down beside me.
“That is not worthily said, Kyrie Selaka,” I could not help exclaiming, reproachfully.
“I see. You think I should ask ‘why’ rather than ‘why not,’” said Selaka, smiling softly. “And you are right; it is ‘why?’”
“Why?” I cried, impetuously, “because I love her, because I am hers, and she, I know, is mine.”
“Gently, my son, gently,” he interposed, laying his hand soothingly upon mine. “It seems to me that for a German you possess a pretty lively and reckless temperament. That having looked upon my daughter, her beauty should fire your young blood with romantic aspirations, is but natural. That you should ardently wish to see her again, is as it should be. But that you should hurl yourself with desperate passion into this rash and unconsidered decision that you are hers and Inarime is yours—my son, my son, it is not thus that I desire Inarime should be loved. From stormy scenes and the tempestuous fluctuations of passion would I jealously guard her, as from other noxious influences. The state of romantic love I regard, in common with all serious thinkers, as the very worst and most degraded state of bondage into which man can fall. It is equally unreasonable in its sickening depressions and in its passionate anticipations. I can see that it is only fruitful in cruelty, in folly, in stupidity, in crime and reckless blunders. Its miseries are immeasurable, and grievously restricted is its circle of joys.”
“But surely, sir, it was with this kind of romantic love that you loved your wife, Inarime’s mother,” I retorted.
“It was not so, my son. I loved her with the priceless affection that is based upon tranquil knowledge, upon spiritual affinity and inalterable esteem. Had the Gods left her to me, very jealously would I have sought to preserve her from the wintry winds of sorrow and poverty, and harsh experiences. Dear to me was she, as a complete blessing, and profound was my grief when she was taken from me. But I did not pursue her with the unthinking ardour of a burning desire, nor was my soul consumed in its fires. I saw that she was good and serene, and her beauty was an added charm. I sought her in the noontide of life, as one seeks shade in the noontide of day.”
“But, sir, I beseech you, do not judge us all by this high and inhuman ideal. We cannot all be sages. The passions will speak with terrible insistence in youth, however heavy a chain of habit and restraint may encompass them, and I cannot think there is aught unworthy or degrading in their petulant voice. We love not the less nobly and purely because passion is the font from which our love springs. If it prompts imperious exactions, may it not be that it urges sublime devotions? Man has nobly died for the sake of that romantic love you condemn, and what sacrifice can be finer than a woman’s surrender to it?”
“There should be neither sacrifice nor death. Reasonable beings should strive to meet and fulfil the decrees of destiny, in measure and calm acceptance of the laws of nature; not upon any violent urgence of the emotions, allow themselves to be swept away and precipitated into depths like powerless leaves whipped by the blast.”
“But if I recognise the decree of destiny that commands me to love Inarime, must I not obey it?”
“Be temperate; that is all I ask of you. Be just, too, and as little foolish and indiscreet as it is possible for a young man so blinded as you are,” said Selaka, and I thought he did not look extremely offended or discomposed by my impulsiveness.
“And when will you consent to put my discretion and my wisdom to the proof?” I persisted.
“To-morrow morning we will go to Mousoulou.”
To-morrow, Inarime, to-morrow! That was all I could think of as I sat and counted the hours, and my heart now sank within me in the complete prostration of yearning, and then rose to intoxicating heights upon the splendid wings of promise. I walked up and down the terrace all night, and watched the stars, as glorious and varied as the hopes that sprang and wavered and clamoured around me. Oh, the stillness, the soft yet sharp enchantment of a night-watch upon an Ægean island! The distant murmur of the restless sea breaks the silence of the land, and the shadowy hills fall into the dense veil of the valleys. The charm enters the soul like a pang, and it works upon the quickened senses with the subtle mingling of exasperation, of poignant and tranquil feelings. I felt chill as the twilight crept slowly over the night, and the stars began to pale and drop, one by one, out of the dim sky, like extinguished lamps, tracing a faint milky-way where their blue and golden illumination had been. Then quickly shot into the eastern horizon an arch of blood-red cloud, and showed the sea silver beneath it, and over this scarlet bridge appeared the sun, like a ball of living light ready to explode upon the pallid scene. And then the birds of the orchard began their piercing harmonies, and the wide spears of the grasses glistened with their crystal gathering of the night-dews. Day had come; my day, Inarime, and yours.
Contact with cold water did duty for sleep. I felt quite refreshed when I entered the little sitting-room where the coffee and Koulouria were served.
“You are early,” said Selaka, greeting me with an intangible smile, “and yet I am not wrong in believing you were walking on the terrace long after every one had gone to bed.”
I nodded, and drank my coffee as if it were nectar. I almost choked myself in my eagerness to dispatch my Koulouria, and hugely pleased Annunziata by begging another cup of her excellent coffee. One has not just recovered from a fever and held a tryst with the stars without serious result to one’s appetite.
After breakfast, under a delicately-clouded sky, we rode through the episcopal village of Xinara, this time, to my satisfaction, unaccompanied by Aristides. The narrowness of the passage compelled us to ride in single file until we had passed the bishop’s palace and all the gardens and pigeon-holed hamlets with their bright terraces and flowers. We turned up off the path round the great Castro, which, near, looks even more impressive than afar, burnt red and brown with the sun and rain, the wild thyme making a purple and scented haze upon its enormous flanks. Skirting the ruins of Borgo, all the valleys and vine plantations and orchards, girdled with hill beyond hill, burst upon our view in a magnificent panorama. Everywhere the sharp contrast of silver, olive and blue sea, and beneath us a vein of humid light flashed and twisted itself like quicksilver through the plain, until a bar of rocks broke it into an impetuous descent of foam. Silence lay upon the land, and alternately soft and glowing colours were swept across the empty hills by the wind-pursued clouds and the variations of sun-fire. Here and there little petulant torrents dashed noisily down the precipices, to twine themselves in the valleys and resume their wild course, wherever the rocks rose and shot them into frothy music. As we rode through each village, the curs came out, and stood near a group of pigs to examine us with a depressed and listless air, or bark at us from the ledge of a rock in a half-hearted way. Children with matted hair and glances of dull curiosity, surveyed us gravely, and whispered their opinions, and the villagers stared at us with inconvenient candour and solemnity. As we neared Mousoulou, a fine mist began to fall from the upper peaks, like a thin veil gradually thickening until it enveloped the landscape in a grey pall. I enjoyed the prospects of damp mountain scenery, but I could see that Selaka, like all Greeks, was made unhappy and nervous by it.
We reached Mousoulou drenched. A lover may be permitted to shrink from presenting the front of a water-dog to his mistress, and I was keenly relieved to learn that Inarime and her aunt were out when we arrived. An old woman welcomed us, and offered Selaka one sofa of honour and me another. We were administered a glass of cognac, then Selaka left me to listen to the wind howling furiously against the windows, bending the heads of the flowers on the terrace, and freezing my feet as it blew in under the chinks of the five doors that opened off the room. Undeterred by the rain, the villagers came in batches to inspect the stranger—men, women and children. It was a kind of theatrical entertainment for them, with the agreeable merit of being free of charge, and they availed themselves of the occasion with great good-will. The delighted old woman stayed and did the honours of the spectacle, explained me and appraised me with refreshing candour, and after a burst of exclamations, they all stood round perfectly calm, a row of offensive statues.
Can any reader, not experienced, possibly conjecture the nameless irritation of thus being silently, mercilessly stared at, and what black thoughts of murder may rush through the excited brain under it? I think not. When at last I had reached the white-heat of exasperation under this awful Greek gaze, I rose and turned my back on my tormentors.
The landscape was now folded in a grey mist, broken by the lines of the walls, the spires and perforated belfries. Out of this grey picture showed patches of brown earth and dark rock below the draped head of Mount Elias, and the trees looked like ghosts. The sky was a field of colourless cloud, and the flower-heads on the terrace pierced the opaline vapour with eyes of brilliant reproach. On a distant hill-curve a group of animals were shivering, and near by the raindrops made big pools upon the marble pavement. And soon the grey grew to opaque white, and rushed from the brow of Mount Elias like a swift cloud blotting out the meadows and valleys. Where was the glory of the morning? And where was the warmth of my heart?
“Do you know, sir, that I am inclined to think that I have been quite long enough on view?” I cried, when Selaka returned.
Selaka smiled, and I burst into an irritable laugh, which seemed to impress the audience in the light of a new act. They pressed nearer, and broke into inarticulate sounds of wonder and grave approval. I thought they meditated a general embrace, but they contented themselves with keeping the air from me, poisoning the atmosphere, and expectorating profusely.
“Don’t you think, sir, that it would be possible to hint politely that the entertainment is over?” I piteously implored.
Upon a word and gesture of authority, the audience straggled out, and doubtless held a parliament elsewhere to discuss the remarkable phenomenon.
“Surely your daughter is not out in this rain?” I asked, as soon as we were left to ourselves.
“No, she is sheltering in Steni. She accompanied her aunt on a visit to a sick woman.”
I looked round the large nude room, so chill and cheerless after Selaka’s pretty sitting-room. The floor was marked with the wet clogs of the recent explorers, and small rivers traversed it, flowing from our umbrellas. The beams of the ceiling were supported by white arches, and vulgar Italian pictures hung upon the whitewashed walls. It was the dreariest place possible in which to await one’s beloved, and then the sense of dampness, the deafening patter of rain against the windows, the wind roaring and rising in frantic gusts, and earth and sky one inextricable sea of grey! Most utterly wretched did I feel. I had much to do to keep the tears of acute disappointment from my eyes, and depression settled upon me as heavy as the impenetrable vapours outside.
The noonday dinner was served, and like a philosopher Selaka enjoyed the vermicelli soup, the pilau, and dish of larks stewed in tomatoes. I ate, too, mechanically, with my glance and ear strained in feverish intensity for the slightest premonition of Inarime’s return. And as we sat drinking our coffee I could see with rapture that the colourless mist was rolling rapidly off the earth, and above, delicately-tinted clouds were beginning to show themselves upon the slate ground. The sun peeped out through a blurred and ragged veil, and looked as if he intended to dry the deluged world, and pale gold streaked the jagged banks of red and yellow haze. Down the village street came the sound of hoofed feet, and Selaka rushed forward.
I went and stood at a window, and made a screen of the curtain. Selaka had promised, upon my insistent prayer, to leave me but one moment alone with Inarime before introducing me to her aunt. I saw a tall massive woman, wrapped in a blue cloak, enter, and deposit her wet umbrella in an opposite corner with maddening slowness. I glanced behind her, and here stood Inarime enveloped in some brown garment with a knot of red ribbon at her throat. She wore a red hood, and the moist air and quick ride had left the glow of a pomegranate flower upon her cheek. She stood in the middle of the room, and looked grave inquiry at her father. He nodded reassuringly, told her to wait for him there, and took his sister’s arm to lead her into the inner room.
I came out of my hiding-place. There was something so solemn, so ineffable in the moment, that I rejected all speech as inadequate. I simply stood there looking at Inarime as I have never yet looked at any woman, and then I said:—“Inarime!”
I held out both hands. She turned, and without making any movement towards me looked at me. Again her eyes gave me the impression of eyes that are dazzled with light. They were clear as amber, crystal as her soul, and held mine in willing bondage. Before then my pulses had throbbed with expectation and hope; now they were quieted, numbed almost by sheer intensity of feeling in the trace of gazing silence.
“Inarime!” I said again, and this time my voice dropped to a whisper.
Unconsciously she seemed drawn to me, and while our hands met and clasped, our eyes dwelt on each other in grave delight.
“You have not spoken to me, Inarime,” I said.
“Who are you?” she asked, as a wondering child might.
“Has your heart not told you, Inarime?”
Something like fear and humble pleading strove with the mastery of her proud restrained expression. It was so new and perilous to her, that she hardly knew to what she might not have silently pledged herself. She hastily withdrew her hands, but still her eyes rested on mine and sought solution in their depths.
“Oh, I am afraid,” she murmured, and a wave of intangible pain swept over her strong face.
“Not of me, Inarime; not of me,” I entreated, and drew near to gather her hands again.
Before either of us could realise or stay the volcanic influences that impelled us in an irresistible shock, my arms were round her and our lips were one.
* * * * * * *
Here Reineke’s note book, of which I was glad to avail myself, grows too incoherent and impassioned for further use. The author will try to tell the rest of his story.
CHAPTER XVI. A REVELATION.
It was unknown, as regards time, to Reineke and Inarime whether minutes or hours had passed before Selaka and his sister rejoined them. The massive woman looked sharply at Gustav, then nodded to her brother in emphatic approval. A keen and not unkindly glance took in the situation, and it was possible she liked Reineke all the more for the tell-tale colour that mounted to his cheeks under her searching inspection.
“Now, my children,” said Selaka, with as near an approach to the ordinary gesture of rubbing the hands as a man so wedded to the customs and restraint of the ancients could display. Here was a son-in-law, if you will, not a popinjay from Athens, not a superficial European, not a gross Teniote; but a man who was accustomed to deep draughts from the old founts of learning! Whose youth still ran fire through his veins, while the beauty of his face was enhanced by a delicate suggestion of strength and burning life! Yes, Selaka was thoroughly pleased with Gustav, and, in spite of his philosophic condemnation of the impetuosities and frenzied purposes of an age he had long since passed, something within him thrilled to their memoried delights. Upon reflection, he would perhaps have viewed less enthusiastically the love of a saner and older man for Inarime; and there might be moments of sceptical acknowledgment of the sage reticence and colder blood of the other different son-in-law he had dreamed of. There remained nothing now to be discovered but the pecuniary circumstances of Reineke, and some slight knowledge of his parentage. He looked very unlike a German, but German blood might be crossed as well as any other. Inarime had escaped, and Reineke stood rivetted to the very spot she had left with a dazed look on his face as if he felt rather than saw. He was awakened from the dreamy sensations that enveloped him by the touch of Kyria Helene’s hand.
“Pericles tells me that you have come to take Inarime from us,” said she, and then nodded reassuringly to him, as if she thought it on the whole an extremely reasonable intention on his part.
“I am glad you think me worthy,” said Gustav, with a foolish lover’s smile.
“Oh, for that I don’t know; you may and you may not be. Young people must take their chance; it’s for them to choose, and for them to decide. You are comfortably off, I hope?”
“Comfortably off!” burst out Gustav in radiant incoherence, “you ask a man to whom the gates of Paradise have been opened if he is comfortably off? I pray you, do not speak to me about it; settle everything as you will, only leave me to my thoughts and my happiness.”
This might suit a lover, but could hardly be expected to suit the young lady’s guardians.
“That is very well, but I refer to your means of support. Are you in a position to maintain a wife?” asked the practical Kyria Helene.
“I do not know,” said Gustav; “I am accounted a rich man.”
“But do your people live in Germany?” she proceeded, catechising him severely.
And then came the one great difficulty in Gustav’s path. Oh, if he could have abjured his nationality, gladly then would he have done so. A Turk, and to confess that to these Greeks!—It seemed a horrible risk. Gathering all his energies together, he shook back his head defiantly, and rather gasped than said:
“No, my people do not live in Germany. I am not a German. I am a Turk.”
“A Turk!” cried the woman, and held up her hands in dismay and repulsion.
To Selaka no word was possible; for him the Turk was the symbol of all that is most hateful in his country’s past. He stood transfixed, staring at the young man whom a moment ago he had been prepared to take to his heart, and to whom he had so readily consigned the one treasure of his existence. No, that was not possible. Inarime wed a Turk! It did not seem to him that worse degradation could be for a daughter of free Greece! Despite his contempt of the present, his patriotic pride was very fierce and unbending. He took a step nearer to Gustav, who was looking at him now not defiantly but imploringly, and said:
“There is surely some mistake. Perhaps you mean that you have been born in Turkey. But your name is surely German?”
“No, my name is not German, I merely adopted a German name in coming to Greece so that I might not wound national susceptibilities, and bring upon myself unnecessary coldness. My name is Daoud Bey. Kyria Selaka, what difference can this make? I love not Inarime the less because my people once oppressed yours. I am not responsible for the blunders of generations. You do not surely imagine that I am less likely to cherish and reverence your daughter than one of her own countrymen? Rather do I believe that the very fact of the past wrongs that her race endured at the hands of mine will add to my solemn charge on the day she entrusts herself to my care. That it shall not be for her grief you may believe, for I love her. Besides, you must think of Inarime, if even you refuse to think of me. For now she is mine, and nothing in regard to my nationality or race can alter that fact. You must accept it.”
“I do not accept it,” said Selaka, “my daughter will not marry a Turk. I have said it.” Words of reproach for the lateness of the avowal were on his lips but he repressed the natural retort “you have deceived me.”
“Is this your decision?” asked Gustav, growing chill with fright.
“It is my decision.”
“Then I will only abide by the voice of Inarime. If she bids me go, I will go even without her, but not otherwise. You may be her father, but I am her lover. You have the claim of long years of devoted care and affection, and I have but the claim of a moment of transcendent passion. But, sir, your claim weighed with mine would prove but a feather as opposed to the barque of love on the waters of destiny!”
“No, I think not,” said Selaka. “Inarime will see your race in her lover, and she will not take your name, whatever the effort of parting may cost her.”
“Kyrie Selaka,” cried Gustav, with frantic urgency, “I have but one request to make you, and you must grant it. Not one word of this will be uttered to Inarime; she will only hear from my lips of that which you regard as an impassable barrier to our union.”
Selaka shot a swift inquiry in the direction of his sister.
“I think,” said Helen, “we may accede to this demand. It is reasonable, and it does the young man credit that he should urge it.”
Gustav looked his humble gratitude, and then went out on the terrace, which was nearly dry after the recent deluge. The wet leaves gleamed under their clear burden, while the damp air brought out all the exquisite odours of hillside and valley. Gustav could have almost laughed aloud in the surety of triumph. What could it matter to him the decision of two cold-blooded old people, who perhaps never knew the mighty force of love, or, having known it, had completely forgotten it? He allow himself to be calmly divorced from his mate, and sit down tamely upon the sudden ruins of his life! Such mad acceptance of the control of others might be befitting a phlegmatic Teuton, but it was quite incompatible with the fire of an Oriental. And, then, Inarime could not forsake him; and this theory of race antagonism would be shivered on the first word of his that should fall on her ears. It would mean only a little delay; some indecision, and perhaps some tears; and then for them success lay ahead. Oh, why does nature give youth its volcanic impulse and its ardent impetuosity! Strife, struggle, delay! These but gave an added impetus to his passion.
Flaming clouds shot from the west, heralds to proclaim the sun’s departure in one burst of splendour. They touched the plane and pepper-trees with light, and spurred the lagging birds into song. A breeze, like a sigh after protracted sobbing, swept from the east, and met the moist earth with a throb of promise. It brushed past over Reineke’s hot cheek, and fanned his thrilled senses into exultation. A silent shout of defiance from the invisible host that march in the wake of triumphant love went up, and Reineke felt his heart impervious to doubt. He heard a step, a light, quick step that he should have recognised in a thousand, and it lashed him with insufferable force.
“Inarime! stay! One moment, beloved,” he cried, in a voice of prayer.
That prayer was her command. She stood still, but did not dare advance lest answering passion should fling her in transport into his arms.
They stood thus, trifling with the eternal moments, their aching glances rivetted as under the spell of enchantment. Then he moved towards her, and her hands met his in silence.
“You are mine, Inarime,” he said, in a whisper. “Nothing now can alter that.”
“Nothing.”
It was hardly speech. Her lips moved, but it was her eyes that spoke.
“Say it aloud, beloved, that all may hear it, and know that you promised,—the earth, the trees, the birds and the departing sun. Aloud! Aloud!”
“I am afraid! Can I know? Who are you? Tell me, tell me.”
She retreated, but held him with the bewildering tenderness of her glance.
“Your lover! Lord of you, my lady. Inarime, your husband.”
“I love you,” she cried, and covered her face with her hands.
“My own! Your eyes spoke first. I knew it. Nothing shall part us. Say you believe it.”
“I cannot; but I love you.”
He drew nearer, and his dark, impassioned gaze flamed fire into hers. His breath was on her hair, and he held her hand to his lips.
“Oh, my beloved, thou art the eye of my soul, the voice of my heart,” he burst out, incoherently. At that moment of high-wrought sensation and terrible sincerity, he could no more hold Eastern metaphor in abeyance than he could bid his gaze close upon the light it avidly drank—as sun-drained flowers drink dew. The restraints of European customs and education were broken and overtopped by the strong heat of passion, and wild words gushed upon its wave.
“Inarime, Inarime, thy slim fingers are the rivets that bind my willing feet to high service. Command me! Anything, I pray, but silence and averted looks. Withhold me not thy promise.”
“I cannot,” she said again, startled by his outburst.
“Nay, thou art offended. Oh! blind me not with thy anger, Inarime. But as thou wilt. Thy anger will I bear rather than that thou shouldst leave me. O fair one, O desired of my life! Thy kiss upon my eyelids shall be as the dawn of my Paradise. Be to me, sweet, as an angel of morning. Lift the gloom and fever of unsatisfied longing from my heart. Be to me as the sun, moon, and stars to this earth of ours—light, life, warmth, and colour. I grow chill with the fear of thy unwillingness, Inarime. Worse than perpetual deafness were to my ear thy ‘nay.’ But ‘nay’ it cannot be, beloved. Thou lovest me. The light has shown it in thy eyes. My voice has revealed it on thy face. Mine art thou, O Inarime, and by our love must thou abide.”
“Can I promise, not knowing? But I love you,” she cried, and her voice rose in passionate protest, as though she felt the blood of feeling rise within her like a mighty sea and encompass her to her doom.
They looked at each other an instant gravely—a look of immeasurable love! And while the flaming heralds were ebbing back into the sea, and the sunken sun followed them through a bed of crimson and orange, drawing a purple pall over his vacated place, these two were locked in each other’s arms. Hush, foolish birds! There is no song of yours sweet enough to pierce their ears. The harmonies of love have swelled upon the silence, and its song is measured by their heart-beats.
Inside, two others were holding sharp counsel over the destiny of this miserable privileged pair.
“Can nothing satisfactory be settled, Pericles?” asked Helene.
“Certainly. He goes,” retorted her brother, bringing down his upper lip shortly upon this unpleasant decision.
“But he is rich, Pericles. Be a sane father for once in your life. A rich man! Panaghia mou! You are an idiot.”
“He is a Turk.”
“Oh, a Turk! Never fear, I will keep a careful eye upon him. With me there will be no danger. He will neither desert Inarime, nor outrage her with other wives.”
“I have not thought of that,” said Pericles, reflectively.
“Dystychia mou! that is the only thing to be feared in wedding a Turk,” remarked the practical Kyria Helene.
“It is a side-issue, important, I admit, but below the main barrier. I had forgotten, however, that the sentimental and impersonal side would be the one least likely to touch you, Helene.”
“Sentiment and impersonality won’t find your daughter a suitable match, I can assure you,” said Helene, wisely.
“True enough. But you are ever there, my sister, to shunt the train on to the proper line when you detect a tendency to divagation.”
He smiled sadly as he spoke, for his heart was torn with the torture of the coming severity for those tender young people outside. He heard the ardent murmur of Reineke’s voice, and his eyes filled with tears. But he knew that there were no words the lover could utter that would make him abandon his first decision. That Inarime would seek to shake his resolution he had no fear. Was she not Greek of the very Greek?
“Well, and what are you going to do, Pericles?”
“Inarime will stay here with you, and he will return with me to Xinara at once. Tell your servant to call for the mules. Ten minutes more will I give them, and then their parting is irrevocable.”
“But if Inarime loves this young man? He says she does.”
“Trust her to me. It will be a wrench, but she will get over it. I will take her to Athens, and through the Peloponnesus. New scenes will heal the ache of a young heart.”
Meanwhile, the two outside had dropped from the pinnacle of hardly conscious bliss. She knew his name now, and was standing with one hand stretched across his breast and resting upon his shoulder, and their speech was a happy murmur. No thought of separation here. A life together was what they were speaking of when Selaka interrupted them.
“My children, it is time to part,” he said.
“To part!” cried Inarime. “Then I am not to return to Xinara to-night with you—and him?”
“You are to stay here, and he is to go. Have you not told her?” he demanded sternly of Reineke.
“Nay, sir, consider. Had I time? Can I tell her?” Gustav pleaded, with a broken voice.
Inarime looked from one to the other. In the dusk the light in her lover’s eyes seemed to baffle her searching gaze, and she approached her father a step, her glance still wedded to Gustav’s.
“What is there to tell me?” she commanded of both.
“He is a Turk, my daughter. There can be nothing between you,” said Selaka, sadly.
“Oh, father! That may not be. I love him, his lips have sealed my promise upon mine. I cannot now take back that which I have given. You do not forsake me?” she cried, turning to Gustav, in an impulse of childish yearning.
“I! Inarime!”
His throat rose and choked further speech. He held out his arms, and her head sought protection on his breast.
“Inarime, are you not shamed? Leave that man’s embrace. What! do you not see in him the long years of servitude and degradation under which your country groaned? Are you less proud, less worthy of your glorious ancestors than the Greek woman who flung herself and her babes from a rock into the engulfing sea rather than yield to Turkish embraces? Does Hellenic blood run so sluggishly in your veins that revolt does not cry for shame? Come to me, my daughter. That man and you must part.”
“Have pity, sir, I beg you,” almost shouted Gustav, lifting up his head, which had been bent upon the girl’s, and still holding her form closely to him. “Is there no eloquence in her tears? Can I say naught to shake your harsh resolve?”
“Naught. Young tears are soon dried. Inarime!”
She lifted her head from Gustav’s breast, and held her throat to keep back the fierce sobs that shook her.
“Father,” she said, “have I ever disobeyed you? Have I ever once deliberately thwarted or offended you?”
“Never, my beloved child, never. To me you have been a reward and a support.”
“Then, father, by that past unblotted by tear or wrangle, by the memory of my mother, by your own vanished youth, I beseech you, spare me! I love him, father, leave him to me,” she cried.
Her hands were in Gustav’s, and her praying eyes pierced the heart of Selaka.
“My child, you know not what you ask. I tell you, the man is a Turk. It is mad, it is base of you to be willing to give yourself to him. Do not force me to renounce you.”
She dropped Gustav’s hands, and her face was blanched in a transport of pain.
“Oh, father, blame me not. Your voice has never yet been harsh to me. I am young. Show me some pity. Think what it is, on the threshold of life, to be asked to relinquish life’s best happiness. Plead with me—you,” she urged Gustav, her brows drawn in one line of repressed anguish.
“Sir, is there any sacrifice you will be satisfied with as a proof that for her sake I must utterly renounce my nationality? If I adopt Greece as my home, and your name instead of mine? Inarime is my life, my world, my future,” cried Gustav.
“You are a Turk. You cannot undo or alter that fact.”
“Father, I cannot give him up,” said Inarime.
“Then you are dead to me. Choose between us, my child. Marry him, and go hence without a father. Drop your past, and take up your future alone.”
“Oh, sir, this is a cruel choice for so tender a daughter. I cannot allow it,” Gustav protested.
“It is my decision. Choose at once, Inarime.”
“Leave you, father, or leave—him?” she said, slowly, dazed with the stress of the moment.
She looked from one to the other, and then with a little sob flung out her arms towards her father, her eyes fastened in piteous entreaty on Gustav’s.
“You will forgive me,” she whispered to Gustav; “you will understand? My father! I cannot leave him. He cared so greatly for me. It would be wicked. It would be cruel. He is old. We are young. Oh, dear God, help me!” she cried, in shuddering sobs, but when her father approached to touch her, she shrank from him in a kind of dismay and repugnance.
Shaken by an answering force of agony, Gustav was on his knees before her, kissing her dress, her feet, her icy fingers. She trembled, and a wave of colour spread over her face as she stooped and pressed her hands against his wet eyes.
“Dearest, it will be worse for me,” she murmured.
“It is monstrous. I cannot, I will not accept dismissal. Youth is the time of ardent purpose and revolt. Every nerve in our bodies, every beat of our hearts must revolt against such cruelty. Your father must relent if we both join against him.”
“I will not relent. Stand up, Herr Reineke. Accept your sentence like a man, and be not less brave than a mere child.”
Thus chidden, Reineke stood up, like one struck mortally. His glance never left Inarime’s and both were filled with an unfathomable tenderness.
“Go, my daughter, to your room. This gentleman and I will start at once for Xinara.”
Inarime made a step back towards the window, her face still turned to Reineke’s, as a flower’s to the sun.
“Inarime!” cried Gustav, and in an instant she had bounded across the terrace, and was clinging to him as if for sheer life.
“You see, sir,” said Gustav, looking up triumphantly, when their lips were parted. “Love is ever conqueror.”
“I think not. My daughter, say at once, is this our parting—our last parting and our first?”
Inarime lifted her head and removed her arms from her lover’s neck. She gazed questioningly at both men, begged for pity from the one, and for strength from the other.
The old man was sad and stern, as immovable as his own great Castro. Gustav’s beautiful Eastern face was aflame and radiant in youth and strength and passion.
Could she forsake the old and worn?
“Not that, father, not that,” she cried.
“Then leave that man and go inside.”
“I will obey you, father,” she said. “Farewell,” she cried, turning to Gustav, and with one long look she passed from the terrace.
CHAPTER XVII. PARTED LOVERS.
The last word has been spoken, the last look exchanged between the lovers, and the wrench of parting is over. Gustav declined to accompany Selaka back to Xinara; he was too shaken for society other than his own. Inarime had bent to her father’s decision, and had accepted the sundering of their lives. More than this he hardly knew.
When Selaka rode down the village, Gustav followed on foot, and knew not whither he went,—content to drift along without purpose or desire. Yet he dreaded the weakness of succumbing to a merely whimpering sorrow. That something had gone from him to which he clung with a kind of frenzied fervour he felt, but he was resolved that the sense of desolation should not conquer him. He had said that he would accept his fate at Inarime’s bidding; now, that that fate seemed harder than human endurance, it was not for him to rebel in impotent anguish, but to endeavour bravely to face the empty world.
As he entered the village of Steni, he saw a little band of villagers approach the Greek church, and, hardly knowing why, he followed them. The church was lit, and in the middle upon a table was a tray of sweets and two long candles, upon which rested two wreaths joined by a long white ribbon. Pricked by the dull curiosity of a man who no longer feels interested in himself, he pushed his way on up the church, lounged against the pillar and gazed with a strange calmness upon the ceremonial, that soon began. No one who saw him would interpret his impassivity of attitude and look as the despair of a suddenly wrecked life.
The man beside him, standing with his hat on his head, and wearing the preoccupied air with a visible nervousness that usually betokens the happy man upon the portals of marriage, was a mere village clod in an unpicturesque European garb, who stood beside his best man waiting for the bride. A stout, plain, village girl was ushered into the church in a whirlwind of excitement, surrounded by a circle of feminine satellites. She neither looked at the bridegroom, nor at any one else, but kept her eyes fixed in sullen acquiescence on the ground.
She wore a bright-coloured kerchief on her head, with a band of coins round her forehead; and a profusion of jewellery decked her muscular throat and arms. Very expensively and tastelessly was she arrayed, and most miserable did she look in her finery. The fixed misery of her face interested Gustav, who naturally thought it quite in keeping with the lesson of life, that every one should look wretched. Three priests advanced to wed this uncomely couple, and the evolutions that followed struck Gustav with astonishment. He listened to the priests as they droned out the wedding service, and held the Gospel now to the bridegroom’s lips and then to the bride’s; and so on, three times; watched them place the long lighted tapers in the hands of each; watched the pair give and accept rings, and passively submit to the decoration of the wreaths of artificial flowers, exchanged three times upon either head.
Involuntarily Gustav smiled at the grotesque sight presented by the village clod in his wreath of roses, and then marvelled when the priests and principal personages, with their attendant swains and nymphs, caught hands in a circle, and danced with inconceivable gravity round the table backwards and forwards three times, the bride and bridegroom still wearing their look of dull wretchedness. Good heavens! Was this the kind of ceremony he would have been bound to go through in his marriage with Inarime? to find himself hauled round a table, as sailors haul in the anchor, bound in that degrading fashion with roses! It was some slight salve for his wound to gaze in contempt at this pastoral introduction to marriage, and when a little mischievous boy upset the tray in order that he and his friends might taste of its contents in the scuffle that ensued, and was frantically cuffed and sworn at by the angry priests, Gustav burst out into gloomy laughter, and made his way as well as he could out of the church.
He walked down the darkened street heavy-hearted, thinking of Inarime; he dropped into the rough decline that leads to Xinara, and mingled with the sad images of the day were the cruel dulness of the bride’s face and the tame acceptance of the bridegroom. After all, perhaps it was so; this might be the symbol of marriage, and not the high ideal he yearned for.
Under a rocky projection he saw a man who had been pointed out to him as a semi-idiot. An ambitious mother had sent him as a lad to Marseilles; thence he had made his way up to Paris; and now this was his state. Three years of stormy life in that nefarious city had turned a bright lad into a bald, aged idiot, only twenty-five, looking more than fifty. He was staring stupidly down through the thickening shadows to where the sea beat against the distant shore: staring out from the barren island that oppressed him; living acutely and horribly in memory.
Comforted by the sight of a fellow-sufferer, Gustav stopped and said good-night. The wretched man glanced at him in dreary reproach.
“It used to be good-night over there in Paris; the boulevards were lit and there were laughter and gaiety around, happy voices, music, cabs, and pretty women. Here nothing, nothing, nothing, but the everlasting sea and sky and the pathless mountain sides. Don’t say good-night to me, sir, I am dead, irretrievably damned, damned, damned in hell!”
Gustav thought he was not the only living man who thought this world a hell, and turned round by the desolate Castro. He climbed up the rocks, overjoyed by the sensation of complete discomfort, of torn hands and bruised members. Then he stretched himself on the top of the rock, and looked out across the shadowy waters. The first faint glimmer of the crescent shone in the glossy sky, and the stars looked like drops of fire hanging above the world. There was no sound save the far-off roar of the waterfalls thundering down their marble rocks, or the musical clang of the goat and sheep bells as the shepherds gathered in their flocks for the night. Sometimes a light flamed from a distant window. Gustav thought of old stories he had read, in which maidens placed lights in their windows to light their lovers, or wives as a message to their husbands. The loneliness of his future broke in upon him in a flood of self-pity. There was only one window he wanted to see lighted for him, and that now would be eternally dark. Tears sprang to his eyes, and then, fearful of the horror of the gathering outburst he felt within him, he jumped down the rocks, now sliding, now racing on, tangling his limbs in the bushes and furzes, and shot down the path that hung over the little village of Xinara.
Demetrius saw him pass with flying feet, with set lips, and unseeing eyes; and the popular shop-keeper turned to his patient satellites, Johannes and Michael, and observed:
“He’s been to Mousoulou; I heard it all; the wedding takes place immediately.”
“He’s a good-looking fellow,” said Johannes, apprehensive of the reception of this innocent remark from so susceptible a leader.
“As for that, yes, and he’s getting a good-looking wife, though she does dress outlandishly, and turns up her nose at my stuffs. She got that yellow gown at Syra, and I can’t say I admire the big buttons she wears.”
“Well,” said Michael, reflectively, “she is a very learned young woman, and writes very fine letters for our women. I don’t know what they’ll do when she goes away. I know my girl in Constantinople won’t be in the way of hearing much from my wife.”
“Ay, that’s so,” said Demetrius, “she’ll be missed as letter-writer, and I’m not so sure that the place won’t seem a good deal smaller and duller when we’ve not her handsome face to look at.”
In the courtyard Gustav brushed up against Aristides, who glared at him and muttered a curse as he removed his frame from the doorway, where he had been airing his ill-humour for the benefit of Annunziata, busy making the new Misythra.
“Here he is,” he said to his good-tempered listener, engaged just then on the delicate process of straining off the sheep’s milk and tying up the remainder of clotted cream tightly in a linen cloth.
Gustav strode up to her and said in an unfamiliar voice, chill and remote like an echo:
“I am going.”
The pleasant old woman laid down her jar, dried her hands, and took hold of his, tightening upon them with an inspiriting and sympathetic grasp.
“My poor child, may God and His saints go with you! I know all. By my faith, I see no reason why you should go. The Turk, we know, is a heretic, but you would marry my Inarime according to the Greek rite. You would be faithful to her as a Christian should be.”
“Faithful!” cried Gustav, vehemently. “Gladly would I die for her.” But he did not see that of the two this is much the easier to do.
“Yes, yes,” said Annunziata, “young men in love talk very tall; when the fit passes, they do very little. But I like you, and I am sorry for you. Go away now; it is better so. Be assured that your interests here will not suffer by being left in my hands.”
The tears were perilously near his eyelids; he struggled with rising emotion, flung himself round, and in a moment his figure made a vanishing and graceful shadow in the upper air. Selaka was within, pacing the room in perplexed thought, when the young man entered.
“Sir, is this your last word? Must I go and not bear with me the hope of returning?” demanded Gustav.
“You must,” said Selaka, gravely, “you cannot undo your birth, nor can I.”
Gustav waited not for another word, but rushed into his room, hastily gathered his things together, and reappeared in the little parlour with his portmanteau in his hand. He stood in front of Selaka, and looked at him steadily.
“Should this grief be too much for her?”
“She is strong, and she is brave,” said Selaka, “and she will overcome it.”
“Good God!” said Gustav, “have you no thought of the girl’s heart? Are there forces in nature, think you, to dispel or even dull its yearning? Is there ever a barrier to the union of two souls! What you play with is her happiness, for the sake of your own patriotic pride.”
Selaka did not answer, but covered his eyes with his hand, and said:
“It must be so. We are bound irrevocably by ties nearer, more sacred, than any impulse of nature. There are animosities that cannot shrink and vanish under such considerations as you urge; there is a degradation that cannot be faced by any free spirit! Under other circumstances, I should have regarded your marriage with my daughter as an honour for me and a happiness for her. But that is at an end. You will go hence, and you will forget us, but you may believe that our kindest wishes will follow you wherever you may go.”
They shook hands, and thus they parted. Gustav found Aristides waiting for him outside, with a mule for himself and a donkey for his portmanteau; and through the increasing darkness and the shadows of night, which lay like extended wings on the landscape, they rode silently down into the town.
* * * * * * * * *
The next morning Pericles was shaken out of his moody disappointment by Constantine’s wild letter written the night before his duel with the lawyer Stavros, and an accompanying note from the brave Captain, dwelling pompously on his gallant demeanour, and explaining that the wound, the result of an awkward shot, was not in the least dangerous, but simply troublesome, and that the presence of Dr. Selaka’s family in Athens was desirable.
“The very thing. Inarime needs a change,” Pericles cried, brightening at the prospect of getting outside his daughter’s grief.
He and Inarime embarked from the little pier for Athens late that afternoon, and it seemed to him a hopeful omen that the forlorn girl looked about her with eyes of interest.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER XVIII. RUDOLPH AND ANDROMACHE.
New Year’s Eve at Athens by the Greek calendar. The long street of Hermes was an execrable confusion of the mingled sounds of loud chatter, laughter, jostling and popguns. Everybody was buying monster bouquets for presentation on the morrow. Sensitive nerves were laid prostrate in shivering ache by the din of squib and rattle, and the intolerable and unceasing explosions, and the raw colours were an offence to the eye. But the unfastidious Greeks were drunk with excitement and pleasure. They proudly carried the purchased bouquets with which the New Year’s greetings were to be exchanged, ate sweets, laughed hilariously, and took their jostling very good-naturedly. All the booths erected on either side of the street were covered with flowers, and men went about bearing aloft long poles to which bouquets for sale were affixed,—and these wands wore a curious triumphal aspect. Oh, the dolorous strangeness and multiplied effects of an Oriental town in holiday attire! Its clamorous and enervating gaieties, and its exasperating want of tone! Think of it with a strong sun beating down upon it, with not a touch of shadow or repose to soothe the pained eyes, with incessant speech clanging and clattering through the air, and every delicate sense affronted!
Foreigners and natives were abroad to view and drink at this local fount of joy. One group we recognise. Rudolph Ehrenstein elbows his way through the crowd and turns protectively every moment to his delighted and staring companion, Andromache with the March-violet eyes, whom we last saw with shamed and drooping head flee Madame Jarovisky’s ball-room. How well, and young, and prettily infatuated the pair look! And there is the glorious Miltiades behind them, bearing on his arm his portly and panting mother. Was there ever conqueror so irresistible? ever hero more gallantly conscious of his heroism? The spectator thought of those hapless five thousand Turks, and shuddered; heard the ostentatious rattle of his spurs, and that terrible weapon of destruction hanging from his side in the eloquence of war; looked at the scarlet plumes nodding above his noble brow, measured the awful imposingness of his tall slim form in the sombre simplicity of the Artillery Uniform and his long military boots, and rejoiced that Providence is good enough to limit the number of such heroes, else would surely be exterminated the horde of non-heroic.
This slaughterer of Turks was now content to be regarded as an amiable slaughterer of women. Twirling his fierce moustache, with a casual eye upon the young couple in front, he was looking round eagerly in search of his latest victim, Miss Mary Perpignani, while his mother breathed shortly on his arm, and kept muttering, “Poh! Poh! Poh! what a crush!” while she vigorously fanned and rubbed her sallow face with her handkerchief.
Above the foolish pair in front, Love’s star shone with a very gentle fulgence. Just a sense of delicious trouble, unmarred by any passionate impulses, stirred Rudolph. There was a delicate fragrance of homage in his shy and boyish fancy. It was a happiness, exquisite in its completeness and unexactingness, to be with Andromache, to listen to her voice and look quickly, with the tell-tale blood of fervour in his face, into her pretty eyes, his own shining and candid and content. Was there ever a sweeter, more innocent idyll? and the pity was that these two should not be allowed to run smoothly and trustingly into the shade of forest depths and live the life of nature, with no knowledge of the shabby compromises of civilisation and the more turbulent emotions of the heart.
He called her Mademoiselle Andromache, and with a look of shyest prayer had prevailed on her to call him sometimes Monsieur Rudolph. But the Monsieur and Mademoiselle tripped by with alarming facility; the tongue dwelt and faltered and whipped scarlet colour into each susceptible cheek upon the Andromache and Rudolph. Flattering, foolish, happy creatures! If pulses never beat less innocently, and senses never stirred more rapturously, the period of loverhood would indeed be a spot of Arcadia upon the rough road of life.
“Does all this not make your head and eyes ache, Mademoiselle Andromache?” he asked.
“No,” said the Greek maid, untroubled by nerves, and smiled in healthy admiration. “Are not the bouquets pretty?”
“If you think them pretty, they must be pretty,” said Rudolph, striving loyally to see their beauty. “I am glad you like flowers.”
“Why?” asked Andromache, meeting his eyes consciously.
“Because there are such quantities of flowers about my home in Austria. It is a lovely place, Mademoiselle Andromache. Imagine a great forest, so silent and shadowy. Oh, if you could see it in the moonlight! The trees drop silver, and fairies seem to play among the branches. I wish I could show it to you, take you to see the haunted well, and show you my mother’s favourite walk. You would have loved my mother, dear Mademoiselle Andromache. She was so good, so sweet, so gracious. Oh, it was a bitter loss to me. I cannot accustom myself to it. Sometimes I wake up at night and fancy I hear her enter my room, and feel her soft kiss on my forehead—and it is dreary to know that it is only fancy.”
His voice shook and his clear eyes clouded. Andromache involuntarily pressed his arm in sympathy, and when he looked down upon her he saw responsive tears tremble on her lashes.
“Dear Andromache,” he said, in a whisper, “you make me feel less lonely. Ah, how my mother would have loved you!”
And then these shy young persons, desperately afraid of each other and of themselves, rushed eagerly on to impersonal ground.
At the Byzantine church of Camcarea, which quaintly obstructs Hermes Street, they were jostled out of sight of their escort, upon which Kyria Karapolos was thrown into a state of voluble alarm.
“Where are they, Miltiades? Panaghia mou! Andromache alone with that young man! Come, Miltiades! I shall have a fit if they have gone far.”
“It is all right, mamma,” laughed Andromache, behind them. “We were pushed off the pavement, and had to let some people pass.”
And then she glanced roguishly at Rudolph, and another rivet in the chain of intimacy was added by a sense of peril and crime shared between them.
“Very well, Andromache. You will stay with me now, and Miltiades will bring back Monsieur Ehrenstein to drink coffee with us later.”
The impenitent ruffian, who had endangered her daughter’s reputation, took his dismissal gaily enough; bowed low and smiled delightfully upon both ladies as he took the arm of the stately and stalwart Miltiades, and stood for them to pass:
“Je crois c’est assez,” said Miltiades, with a comprehensive glance up and down the noisy street, which had the bad taste not to show the piquant face of Miss Mary Perpignani.
Rudolph, to whom the Captain’s limited vocabulary in French was a source of perpetual amusement, intimated his concurrence with this opinion, whereupon they ruthlessly beat their way down to Constitution Square.
“Voulez-vous un café et cigarette?” asked the Captain, touching the back of a chair, and the droll anxiety he displayed in uttering this simple demand sent Rudolph into an explosion of appreciative mirth.
“Non, non, chez-vous, j’aime mieux,” said Rudolph, indistinctly, between gasps of laughter.
Miltiades frowned, and held his head high with a proud, hurt air. His French might be imperfect and his enunciation laborious, but he was not the less for that a hero. By the grave of Hercules! was he to be flouted and mocked by a young jackanapes from Austria?
“Mais, mon ami, il ne faut pas se fâcher,” cried Rudolph, full of remorse and apprehension. “Ah, si vous saviez tout,” he added, and forced Miltiades to stop and shake hands with him.
But how to unbosom oneself to a desired brother-in-law without a common tongue? His Greek was even more limited than the other’s French, and of German the gallant Captain’s knowledge was restricted to the convivial “Trinken Sie Wein,” and “Hoch.” But despite the difficulties in the way of conversation, the young men were delighted to be together.
Miltiades chattered Greek, and looked eager inquiry at Rudolph who nodded significantly, and was as voluble and communicative in French.
What they said neither knew, but a gleam of intelligence broke the not unpleasant darkness occasionally for Miltiades, in such pregnant words as “votre sœur,” “j’aime,” and “épouser.”
“He wants to marry Andromache,” thought Miltiades, drawing himself up, and looking very grave and responsible. “It would be a splendid match for her, but his uncle will never consent to it. However, I’ll give conditional consent.”
“Vous,—épouser ma sœur, Andromache?” he said slowly, as he faced Rudolph with the heaviest air of guardian.
“Justement, Monsieur. Je le désire de tout mon cœur,” cried Rudolph, flaming suddenly.
“Ah,” said Miltiades, pausing, and holding the suitor poised on the wing of awful suspense. “Votre oncle?”
Here Rudolph broke out into vehement protestations regarding which not one word did Miltiades understand. They turned up one of the openings off Stadion Street that led direct to the Lycabettus, and here they met little Themistocles, as fresh and dapper and dainty as if he were ready for exhibition on a toy counter.
Miltiades collared him forcibly, and explained the extremity of his need. Charmed by the possession of this sole superiority over the warrior, which his fluent French gave him, little Themistocles lifted his hat, and twirling his cane with an air of graceful ease, placed his services as interpreter at the disposal of Monsieur Ehrenstein.
Thus was cleared the fog of doubt and perplexity. The Jovelike brow of Miltiades smoothed, and the light of approval beamed softly in his dark blue eyes. Little Themistocles minced, and smiled affectedly, and shrugged his shoulders to an incredible extent, until the inferior glory of the Parisian dandy was totally eclipsed. And Rudolph, now that the fatal leap was taken, was full of vague apprehension and nervous tremors. Was he quite so sure as he assumed to be that he had the right to dispose of himself thus? But Andromache was so pretty and tender, and he so greatly loved her!
The enchanted brothers, for once partners in feeling and idea, hurried him up the steep, unpaved streets, laughing boisterously as they jumped the flowing streamlets that intersect them, and when they reached the glass door of the beloved’s home, Miltiades rapped sharply against the pane.
“Maria, tell my mother to join us in the salon,” he said.
“Kyria, you are wanted in the salon,” shouted Maria from the passage, shaking her hair out of her eyes the better to stare at Rudolph. “I’m thinking it is Andromache he wants, and not the old lady,” she muttered.
Kyria Karapolos came puffing excitedly from the dining-room at the end of the passage, followed by Julia, who wore her sulkiest air.
“You are not wanted, Julia,” cried Miltiades, striding into the salon, his sword and spurs making a fearful clatter along the floor.
“You are not wanted, Julia,” echoed Themistocles, vindictively, eager to air his own special spite under the cover of Miltiades’ command.
Miltiades frowned and glowered upon him. He resented the liberty of spurious authority in his presence, and a repetition of thunder irritated him. But Rudolph’s presence checked his anger, and when the suitor, the reigning sovereigns and their humble interpreter were seated, there were perfect serenity and dignity in his bearing.
“Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein wants to marry Andromache,” he said, opening the proceedings.
“Panaghia mou!” cried Kyria Karapolos, with a look of unutterable astonishment at an announcement hourly expected.
“He says his uncle will not object, and cannot practically interfere,” Miltiades explained.
“And that he is rich enough to dispense with a dowry,” added Themistocles, thereby bringing upon himself a lightning-flame of contempt from the hero of Greece.
“Panaghia mou! But I am rejoiced. My dear Monsieur Ehrenstein, you are charming. I am happy to give you Andromache. Oh, but this is a blessed moment for me!” and with that she rose, and emphatically embraced poor Rudolph, whom the ordeal rendered giddy and awkward. This was the signal for general demonstrations of affection. Miltiades shook hands, and kissed the cheeks of his future brother-in-law, and little Themistocles did likewise.
“Order coffee and liqueur, mother,” said Miltiades.
“You are very amiable,” Rudolph said, gratefully, disturbed by the trouble of the moment. “I am sure it will be my pride and happiness to deserve your good-will in the future.”
Kyria Karapolos returned with Andromache, and announced that the refreshments of jubilation would shortly appear.
“Andromache, behold your husband,” exclaimed Miltiades, with a slightly theatrical flourish.
Whereupon little Themistocles sighed profoundly, and retreated to his own chamber to vex the sunset with strains of his asthmatic violin, to muse upon his misery and think of the young lady in the next street. With a significant nod, Captain Miltiades marched away to imaginary glory, and Kyria Karapolos, in a kindly impulse, found a pretext for a short absence in the necessity for Julia’s presence.