CHAPTER XXX. CONTAINS A RELICATION AND A PROMISE.
Two men coming by opposite directions down Hermes Street, with their eyes anywhere but where they ought to have been, stumbled into each other’s arms, and started back instantly, with aggressive question on their faces.
“Well, Constantine,” one cried, eyeing the other furtively and distrustfully.
“Well, Stavros,” the other responded, with a corresponding expression.
“Here’s my hand, Constantine,” Stavros said, after a reflective pause, and held out his hand with an air of strenuous cordiality. “Touch it. It’s a loyal hand, and an honest one. I was always your friend, always liked you.”
“And so did I,” assented Constantine, as he laid his upon the extended palm shamefacedly.
“What! yourself? I never doubted it, my dear fellow.”
“No, you,” Constantine muttered sulkily.
“Come, that’s like old times,” roared Stavros, putting an arm through the unreluctant Selaka’s, and wheeling him round towards Constitution Square. “It does me good to hear you after our stupid quarrel.”
“Yes, it was stupid,” Constantine admitted.
The glorious Miltiades, crossing the square, hailed them with his full-dress military salute, and hurrying up, shook them boisterously by the hand and bestowed the clap of patronage upon their backs, while a humorous twinkle in his handsome eyes betrayed remembrance of their heroic encounter.
“The reconciliation of the Inseparables! A sight for the gods. Achilles and Agamemnon, I am profoundly rejoiced at your good sense.”
“Friends can shake hands, I suppose, Captain Karapolos, without all this ado,” sneered Stavros, resentfully.
“So they can, but I could not resist the temptation to stop and offer my congratulations. Hoch! Trinken sie wein!” he shouted, proud of his German, and turned on his heel laughing heartily.
“The greatest idiot in all Athens,” exclaimed Stavros, scowling after him.
The reconciled friends seated themselves at a table, called for coffee, and began to roll up cigarettes.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Constantine,” said Stavros, as he leaned across and spoke in the subdued tone of confidence. “That Oïdas is an unconscionable blackguard. You always thought it, I know, and you were right.”
Selaka, perfectly conscious that he had never imparted any such opinion of Oïdas to Stavros, blinked uneasily, and took upon himself the air of full admission.
“You found him out?” he interrogated, cautiously.
“I should think so,” Stavros exclaimed, waving his hand comprehensively. “But there are limits to my endurance. I am going to throw him over. I have compromised myself by being mixed up with such a fellow. He has money—and he makes no scruple of his use of it.”
“You showed a fine tolerance, too, my friend.”
It still made Constantine sore to reflect that his closest friend had been bought over by the richer man.
“No, truly. You are quite in error. It was not the money, but I thought I could do so much better for my family. You see, Constantine, a man must hold no private feelings in abeyance when the interests of the family call upon him to silence them. You cannot have imagined our quarrel was not a cause of real distress to me. But now we are good friends, eh?”
“That depends. Why do you dislike Oïdas?”
“Oh, for several reasons. He behaved like a villain all round to me, to you and to your family. I mean to expose him. He promised to make room for us at the University and to get my son that post I have so long coveted for him. He has not fulfilled a single obligation he contracted with me. I had much better have trusted to you. You are not rich, and the golden mist through which he shines dazzled me. I did not expect him to come to me direct, and to sue me with soft talk. We all do the best we can for ourselves, Constantine, and often the best is barren of result.”
“Well, I don’t want to be hard on you now that you have come to see your error. You have thrown him over then?”
“Quite so. We are quits. Some time my hour of revenge will come—it always does if patiently waited for, and if you like to join me, it will be yours too. You don’t imagine, I hope, that I had anything to do with that wretched article about Inarime in the ‘Aristophanes’? I abused him for it horribly. He instigated it, you know.”
“Oïdas! the mighty heavens! His motive, Stavros?”
“He heard about that Turkish fellow, and Agiropoulos very maliciously assured him he had no chance. He was wild when he knew it was all round Athens that he wanted to marry a girl who didn’t want him. He took it into his head he was flouted and mocked, and he resolved to bespatter the girl with as much mud as possible.”
“The villain! the hound!” Constantine muttered, incapable of coherent speech or thought.
“She is back in Tenos, I believe?”
Constantine nodded, with blazing inward-seeing eyes.
“He is in Athens—buoyed up, I suppose, with hope.”
“He! Who?”
“Your romantic Reineke,—a handsome fellow, too?”
“Where is he staying?”
“Just opposite,—the Grande Bretagne.”
Constantine rose with an undefined purpose, and Agiropoulos, lazily sauntering across the square, nodded and placed an arresting hand on his shoulder.
“My dear fellow! How fares it with your island Majesty? Such a comfort to have a vestige of royalty,—even spurious royalty in our midst, now that the real thing has temporarily migrated to Denmark.”
“How do you do, Agiropoulos?” said Stavros, crossly.
“Ah, my excellent friend Stavros! The fiery principals! How thrilling! Zeus! that was a bloody encounter! May I implore the soothing charm of your society—with a cigarette? Athens is so dull. All the interesting personages of our drama have vanished, and there is not the ghost of a sensation to rouse us.”
“Are you not going to be married?” snarled Stavros.
“Yes, the silken chains of Hymen will shortly weave their spell around me. The individual sheds his personality upon the gamelian threshold, and the dual is evolved. Do I transgress the proprieties of speech? Alas! my poor single and consequently unhappy friends, you must forgive the metaphysical impetuosities of a contemplating bridegroom.”
He gracefully extracted a cigarette from a dainty silver case, and gazed amorously into space.
“Miss Karapolos is well?” Constantine asked.
“She is admirably well—and looks it, and your kind inquiry leaves me your debtor. The virgin blush of health and heroism mantles her brow, and she is all the better for her little misadventure and the fever, which fortunately for me, the happy successor, has entirely carried off the susceptible humours of an earlier fancy.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Constantine exclaimed, heartily. “It is very wise of her to marry at once, and shake herself free of the whole affair. It must be unpleasant for you, however.”
“Not in the least, my friend. In the interests of the dramatic I am a willing sufferer; I will go so far as to describe myself a delighted martyr. I adore the drama, and if there is a thing that wearies me, it is the thought of monotonous and tame maidenhood. Mademoiselle Karapolos, in default of a warlike Hector, which a mind more classical might exact, will next month graciously condescend to accept my name in the genitive case. Kyria Agiropoulou (Poor girls! it is sad to think that they are not allowed the privilege of a surname in the nominative case) is a heroine with a touch of flame and fire in her veins. I have none myself, and it gratifies me to know that the destructive influence of two phlegmatic temperaments is happily avoided for my posterity.”
“Good heavens! Who is that?” cried Constantine, standing, and with his hand grasped the back of a chair, and stared amazedly at a slowly advancing carriage.
Agiropoulos turned round with more haste than his boast of a phlegmatic temperament warranted, gazed with impertinent and complacent curiosity through his eye-glass at a carriage bowling gaily down from the Boulevard d’Amélie, which contained an ostensible Indian prince, dark but not beautiful, who leaned his head indolently against the shoulder of a fashionable young Athenian lady, whose mother sat alone with her back to the horses.
“Typical of the graceful and amiable abandonment of modern life,” lisped Agiropoulos. “The prince has diamonds and rupees in abundance. A little must be conceded such a happy being. If this public concession succeed in the regular way—the mamma on the front seat and the gentleman on the back, in her place, with his head negligently pillowed on the daughter’s shoulder—think of the gain, my friends. Oh, I see it on your lips, my excellent Constantine, but spare me the Scriptures. I can stand most things but a biblical quotation. Strange, it is only then I discover I possess that distressing outcome of modern life—nerves. What does it matter—the loss of soul against the gain of the world? I know the quotation. The young lady probably has no soul—why should she? A soul is the most inconvenient thing I know of, except perhaps a conscience.”
“I call it a disgraceful sight. If the prince does not marry her?” thundered Selaka, indignantly.
“Which is very likely, my dear fellow. In that case the mamma will bring her spotted lamb to Paris, or perhaps London, or naughtier Vienna, and the stain of the royal head will be washed off her shoulder by less magnificent wedding favours.”
“You are brutally cynical, Agiropoulos. Thank God, I live on an innocent island where one never hears such thoughts expressed. Good-bye, Stavros.”
“You are indeed an enviable mortal, dropped into this mire out of that Arcadia. But go, leave the dust and depravity of this much too exciting town, and return to your shepherds and flocks and peaceful mountain altitudes. To us, alas! the glitter and distracting noises!”
“Good-bye for the present, Constantine. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be friends with you again.”
“Stay! one word, I pray your Majesty,” chimed the imperturbable Agiropoulos. Selaka flung round uneasily, and frowned on him inquiringly. “Relieve an anxious mind. Is the beautiful nymph of the hills well?”
“My niece?”
“The peerless maid of Tenos! Who else? The modern Helen! Strange that history should repeat itself. How many Iliums have since been burnt, albeit it takes by our humble calculations less than ten years nowadays. That’s the beauty of the calendar. It ties us to dates, and the newspapers do their best to tie us to hard facts.”
“They don’t always succeed,” sneered Constantine.
“There speaks the voice of wisdom—with apologies to our editor. The ‘Aristophanes’ flourishes, I hope? So Helen is well. When does she settle down to serene wifehood in the house of Menelaus?”
“Let my niece alone, sir. You are not acquainted with her. The respect of women is a commendable virtue in young men,” Constantine growled, turning on his heel.
Gustav Reineke was writing in his room when Constantine was announced. He started up, confused and wondering, keeping the hand which held his pen pressed upon the papers on the table, and looked inquiringly at Inarime’s uncle.
“Kyrie Selaka,” he said, and smiled vaguely.
“We are strangers known to one another by repute,” said Constantine, who bowed and held out his hand with the singularly gentlemanly ease of the islander.
Reineke took his hand and pressed it warmly. Read in the illumination of his ardent hopes, this visit was a gracious augury which it behoved him to receive with visible and cordial satisfaction.
“Be seated, pray,” he said, and the smile that lit up his dark serene face was as winning as a child’s.
“I suppose you are astonished to see me, sir.”
“I am deeply grateful—yes, and a little astonished. You have come, I suppose, to bring me news of her?”
“Of—not from her,” Constantine said, prudently. “I am not deputed by any one, you understand.”
His brows shot up with secretive purpose, and his eager glance was full of a meaning it puzzled Reineke to read. He nodded affirmatively, and the light upon his face sobered to the proper tone of unexpectant resignation.
“I am grateful under any circumstances. To hear of her is second best, and it is not given to man often to get anything so good as second best,” he said, calmly.
“You are a philosopher, sir, and philosophy is beyond me. My niece is well—patient as you might apprehend. But that mad brother of mine is just an obstinate old idiot. He will hear neither of reason nor expediency. You had the misfortune to be born a Turk, and it is your fatality. He has some curious idea that man cannot enter into strife with fate. He never had much brains for aught but books, and I have observed that books have a naturally weakening effect upon the intelligence.”
Gustav laughed tolerantly, and ostentatiously trifled with his papers.
“You see I too consume paper and the midnight oil.”
“I’ve no doubt of it. You’d have shown yourself more sensible in this affair if you didn’t.”
“As—for instance?”
“You’d have carried your case high-handedly, and reduced the maniac to reason. What are lovers for but to create scenes and bear away the maiden upon the wings of melodrama?”
Gustav coloured and bent his eyes upon the table. This was hardly the sort of man with whom he cared to discuss a matter so very delicate that speech almost affected it as touch affects the bloom of a peach.
“Your brother is well?” he merely asked.
“Pericles! Far from it. He has never rightly recovered from that bad attack after—after—the time you thrashed that scoundrel Oïdas. You remember?”
Gustav reddened darkly, and then paled as suddenly. His eyes took the deadly brilliance of a panther’s, and he said under his breath:
“I remember,” closing his teeth upon the memory.
“I never had an opportunity of thanking you,” Constantine cried, jumping up and insisting on shaking Reineke’s hands as if they were pump handles. Gustav gravely endured the operation, but when the exuberant Greek, in his anxiety to discharge his conscience of arrears of gratitude, bent his head and bestowed two kisses on his cheeks, Reineke withdrew a little, and lifted his slow Oriental gaze in mild reproof.
“You owe me nothing,” he said, impassively.
“Nothing!” protested Constantine, noisily, “and the honour of our family vindicated! A miserable coward punished! By the Olympian gods! but you are a fellow! How my heart rejoiced! I could have danced!”
Gustav’s face sharpened in the shadow of lassitude. The unnecessary violence of Constantine’s mood oppressed and irritated him, but he simply gazed patient inquiry at him, and meekly awaited the promised news of Inarime.
“So you see, Herr Reineke—I suppose I may call you by that more familiar name?—(Gustav bowed) you have made me your friend in this matter, and I am resolved you shall have Inarime some day. It will be so easy, if you once forget that you are a Turk.”
“It is kind of you—most kind, but I fail to see how you will be able to accomplish it if Inarime’s father refuses his consent.”
“But, the chief bar removed, there will be no reason why he should withhold his consent. We’ll see, we’ll see,” continued the uncle. “There’s a way out of all difficulties. Pericles will come to his senses some day. But you are right to respect his prejudices, and so is she. In the abstract, that is. I would persecute him if it were my case. But lovers are ticklish creatures to advise or interfere with. In the meantime, if you will keep me informed of your whereabouts, I will let you know how matters progress, and will send for you on the slightest chance of success after acquainting him with your readiness to become one of us.”
“You will? Kyrie Selaka, I know not how to thank you. Oh, this is indeed much—it is much,” Gustav breathed fervently.
“Not at all. I like you, and I want to see you and my niece happy. Hope! it is I, Constantine Selaka, who bid you.”
Reineke paced the room awhile in silence, keenly observed by his companion, and sat down to stare idly out of the window. Phrases of Inarime’s letter to Miss Winter recurred to him like buoyant messages.
“You will be here for some time?” Constantine asked.
“As long as you like—as long as you bid me hope.”
“That is well. You are a distinguished personage, Herr Reineke, and it will not be difficult to find you.” Then in a lighter tone, dismissing the graver personal matter, he broke into town gossip.
“I have just met that impertinent young man Agiropoulos. You heard, I suppose, he is going to marry that little heroine, the Karapolos girl?”
“How should I? But it is well. A woman is all the better for being hedged round with the conventionalities of life; and in no case are they so powerfully protecting as when they chain her by marriage, when, practically speaking, she ceases to be a responsible agent,” Reineke said, and added as an afterthought, to exclude Inarime from the slightly contemptuous classification, “that is, the average woman, that unexplained engine of impulse and unreason.”
“Poor little creature! She was hard hit. I wonder what has become of her recreant lover.”
“Young Ehrenstein?”
“Yes. He levanted, you know, with that piano-playing woman, the Natzelhuber.”
“I met them in Paris a month ago.”
“You did? And they are still living together?”
“Most wretchedly. I cannot understand a man choosing degradation and misery because the particular happiness he sets his heart on is beyond his grasp. Women! Yes. If they can’t have the best, they plunge themselves into the worst. They are in extremes of goodness and badness, and scorn half-measures. I daresay poor young Ehrenstein finds a woman’s satisfaction in contrasting his present with the future that might have been.”
“Quite a boy! Miserable, you say. Did you speak to him?”
“No. He was with Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. I would have stopped, but he glowered on me so forbiddingly that perforce I had to pass on in silence and without bowing. Doubtless he read commiseration in my glance, and resented it. They had been quarrelling, and each seemed an unloved burden to the other.”
“And you heard nothing?”
“I met Mademoiselle Natzelhuber afterwards in a fashionable salon. She had been drawn out of her tub, by what means I know not, and with Diogenes’ contempt, consented to play. The soul of despair and unrest was in her fingers. It was the saddest music I ever heard. I spoke to her of Rudolph, and she implored me to take him off her hands. She said he bored her, and the sight of him filled her with inexplicable anger. I got their address, and when I called, she received me, and threatened to tear me to pieces if I sought to interfere between them. As I walked away, I glanced up at the window, and saw Ehrenstein looking down listlessly upon me. His face was the face of a lost soul.”
Gustav’s voice dropped to a whisper. Constantine sat thrumming the table with his fingers, and jerked his head up and down disconsolately.
“It is an awful story,” he said.
“It has burnt a hateful picture on my mind. I remember the day I first saw that boy on the Acropolis—a mere innocent, unhappy boy. Now he drowns his misery in brandy and shuns his equals. I heard at a club that he plays heavily and is steeped in vice.”
“The Lord succour him! He was a child when he came to Athens. As for that wretched woman who has brought him to this——”
“She did not. We are needlessly hard on women. He walked into the pit with his eyes open, and she was simply an instrument of his own choice. If she had not been there, he would have found other means,” said Gustav.