CHAPTER XXXII. CONCLUSION.
Time, summer afternoon, touching sunset, early in the month of June.—Scene, the beach of Phalerum.
The band is playing a lively selection from Lecocq, whose works are delighting the Athenians, interpreted by a third-rate French company three times a week at the Olympian Theatre of Athens, and three times nightly at the theatre of the Piræus. All the seats outside the Grand Hotel are filled, as are those edging the golden strand where the children are digging and making sand-pies—quantities of babies, dressed in French taste, in English taste, and overdressed whatever the taste, and quarrelling and making-up in a variety of tongues.
Every table shows a display of coffee cups, of liqueur glasses and of empty ice plates. The Athenian gilded youth walk up and down, twirling slim canes; with shorn heads, wide-brimmed hats, white trousers, and moustaches turned up with emphasis. Droll youths with a serious belief in their own fascinations, made up, some of them imprisoned in corsets. Such boots and trousers, such coats and moustaches! Ah! misfortune to the susceptible maidens of Athens! Their hour is surely come with these lions abroad.
And the young ladies! Such chatter and beaming smiles, such hats, high heels, ribbons, laces, veils, powder and perfume! Such miracles of millinery produced without any regard to cost! Ah, there are two sides to the picture, my friends, and is it quite so certain that the lions facing these nymphs will have the best of the encounter? There are enough uniforms here to convince the sceptical traveller that he is in a land of heroes. Infantry officers of every rank, in light blue. Numbers of artillerymen in black with crimson velveteen collar and cuffs. Yes, there yonder is the glorious Miltiades, linked with that Phœbus Apollo, Hadji Adam. How the heart gladdens at the sight, how the nerves shake at the clanking of that terrible sabre of his, at the rattle of his glittering spurs, and with what cordial delight do we recognise his military salute and meet the condescension of his hand-clasp! One singles out the pair instinctively, amid the multiplicity of uniforms, above the rank and file of mere marine officers and saucy midshipmen. For, be it known to benighted foreigners, all male Athens dons a uniform, military or naval. Either politics or the uniform nothing else counts. Epaulettes or the Bouléor le néant.
And the band is playing—is playing with a desperate fervour, befitting noisy, volatile Athens. The waiters are rushing wildly about with trays of cognac and vermouth, of ices and coffee, the fragrance of Greek tobacco fills the air, the chatter of human voices and the shrill cry of excited children mingle with the soft murmur of the sea, that beats so gently upon the sand. A charming hour, a charming scene. The sky as blue as the lucid waters beneath; shifting hues wavering upon the sharp mountain sides; the early lights flickering against the trees, and the sound of happy laughter and speech heard above the band!
The blessed, foolish, frivolous people, self-intoxicated, needing nothing but its daily gossip, its leaflets called newspapers, coffee and cigarettes, the excitement of the half-hourly trains to Phalerum of a summer evening, the rascalities of its politicians to denounce, along with the nameless Turk and the faithless Mr. Gladstone, to the strains of its bad, vivacious music!
With regret do I ask the reader to stand with me under the shade of the Grand Hotel, and cast a farewell glance upon the scene. By the last train from town old acquaintances arrive—a young pair on their wedding tour. Three years ago we last saw one of them facing the hero of Greece at an uncomfortable hour of the morning upon uncomfortable business. Now he is the husband—of whom? Of whom but that elegant young lady of the great world, Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi. They were married at Rome, where the Baron von Hohenfels is Austrian plenipotentiary, with Rudolph for one of his attachés. The bride and bridegroom have taken Athens on their way to St. Petersburg, to which Embassy Rudolph now belongs. Ehrenstein looks what he is—an aristocrat in faultless attire, who has lived hard and enjoys the reputation of a strong attachment to brandy and music. Pale, thin, stern and fastidious, with an air of quiescent wretchedness. Poor Rudolph! Is this all that his mutable affections have brought him—indifference and hopelessness? Photini had died, and he had mourned her passionately, not her, perhaps, but his blighted youth. And when he found Mademoiselle Veritassi disposed to overlook his shady past for the sake of his expectations, his wealth, and his fair, handsome face, it did not seem to him he could do very much better than marry her.
They walked the beach once, and then returned, and seated themselves a little above the Grand Hotel, Ehrenstein gloomily facing the sea while he waited for his cognac; and his bride, in Worth’s latest splendours, looking landwards, expecting an ice.
“See, Rudolph, here is my old flame, M. Michaelopoulos, the great poet,” cried Eméraude, pleasantly excited.
“Indeed,” said Rudolph, stroking his moustache and indolently shifting his eyes.
“Good heavens! Mademoiselle Veritassi! I forgot, a thousand excuses, Madame Ehrenstein,” exclaimed the popular poet.
“My dear friend! Sit down and tell us all the news. Rudolph, order some cognac for M. Michaelopoulos. And now, do tell me everything. What was said about my marriage?”
“Athens rejoiced that Austria in you, Madame, should so wisely have chosen,” said the poet, with a magnificent bow.
“No, truly? You mock me, sir. Does Austria, I wonder, think that Greece chose as wisely?” asked the vivacious bride with an arch, half-malicious glance at her morose husband.
“Could Austria think otherwise?” the poet replied.
“If such a humble person as myself may answer for Austria, I may say that no better choice could have been made,” said Rudolph, sarcastically.
“My friend, I mean to prove the wisdom of my choice.”
Rudolph raised his eyebrows in lazy interrogation.
“At the present you are simply an attaché,” explained his wife. “With my good help you will become an ambassador. That was why I married you. I always thought the position of ambassadress would suit me admirably.”
“So! You flatter me, Madame.”
“Why not? You surely did not think I was in love with you.”
“Well, I own I had some faint hope you returned my adoration.”
Eméraude glanced quickly at her husband, and smiled, a strange, hard little smile. Lying back with half-shut eyes, she said to the poet:
“It is evident that my husband is on his wedding tour, judging by the pretty things he says.”
“I shall doubtless reach perfection in that art under your amiable tuition,” retorted the bridegroom, as he turned to inspect the crowd.
“They certainly don’t give the unblest any reason to envy their happiness,” mused the poet. “Who would have thought that such a gentle, girlish boy would turn into a bitter and cynical rake?”
Some friends of Eméraude bore down upon her, and after a torrent of congratulation, haughtily received by Rudolph, the latter rose and took the poet’s arm. They walked past the hotel, and a dark flush spread like a flame over Rudolph’s face when he recognised the gallant Captain of the Artillery.
“The sister is here, too,” said the poet, not troubled with any hesitation or sensitiveness to the delicacy of the subject.
“Indeed,” said Rudolph, very softly.
He did not resent the liberty; he felt an aching desire to hear something of her—hear that she was well and happy.
“She is married,” he said.
“Yes, and grown so stout. There’s a baby with them. There they are.”
Rudolph started, and the hand on the poet’s arm trembled violently.
Agiropoulos and Andromache were coming towards him. Agiropoulos was on the side of the sea, fat, contented, floridly attired, with a flower in his buttonhole and a gold-rimmed glass in his eye. The departing sunshine shone from the west full upon Andromache’s face. It had lost all the pretty appeal of youth. A handsome enough profile, dull, well-filled, with dark blue eyes looking out of a forest of curled fringe, upon which a much too fashionable bonnet reposed. Rudolph was startled and disappointed to find his old love the mere expression of commonplace, domestic content. Yes, she looked as if she did not greatly mourn him, and remembering his wife’s elegance and social charm, he recognised he had done better than marry Andromache. But good heavens! how pretty and sweet she had been in those old days when his heart was so fresh and his days so innocent! He saw again the little salon overlooking the Gardens of the French School, with all its trivial details accurately fixed upon his memory, and two foolish young creatures so desperately afraid of each other, when first confronted with a love scene. What a charming idyll! and how evanescent and unseizable its fragrance floated out of the past!
Andromache was the first to see him. She did not start, but turned pale to the lips, and looked at him steadily while her fingers closed convulsively upon her red parasol. Agiropoulos brought his quick, sharp gaze to bear upon Ehrenstein, who at once lifted his hat. But his salute was not returned by husband or wife, Andromache stared straight before her, and Agiropoulos smiled insolently as he passed.
Rudolph gazed across the sea with twitching lips. The cut hurt him more than he dared allow to himself. He was gentleman enough to feel ashamed that he deserved it, but was unaccountably angry with Andromache for not having learned to forgive him.
“Let us go back to Madame,” he said, quietly.
“Have you had enough of Phalerum, Eméraude?” he asked, in reply to the silent question of his wife’s look.
“You discontented fellow! We have only just come.”
“And how long are we to remain?”
“There, I see you are upset, and, as I can’t expect to make you an ambassador if I don’t humour you a little, I’ll take you back to Athens at once,” said Eméraude, rising good-naturedly.
Rudolph flashed her a look of boyish gratitude, and pressed her hand as he helped her into the train. He was a little boisterous and intractable on his way to town, laughed and talked wildly and, when they got into a carriage at Athens to drive to the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne, a reaction came, and he sat back, the picture of moody discontent. Verily, Mademoiselle Veritassi has not chosen an easy life, but we can see that she understands her task, and that, in spite of ill-tempers and storms, the whip-hand will be hers.
Turning the corner of Hermes Street, Rudolph’s unhappy glance fell upon another picture, and one that struck a heavier blow upon his bruised heart. Two persons on a balcony of the Hôtel d’Angleterre, which faces Constitution Square, opposite the Palace, were enjoying the sunset, and the soft, departing daylight. A man was leaning with his back to the railing, smoking and looking down upon a seated woman in front of him. Rudolph’s pulses stood still. It was impossible not to recognise the owner of the supple brown hand that grasped the edge of the railing, and upon a slight movement of the smoker, who seemed to be speaking with playful earnestness to his companion, Rudolph saw Reineke’s delicate, clear profile. A hungry pain sprang into Rudolph’s eyes as he sat forward, and looked back through the railings, while the carriage drove across the Square. He saw Inarime distinctly, with her eyes lifted to her husband, and a happy smile stirring her grave lips. And as he watched, Reineke went over and sat beside her.
The carriage stopped in front of the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne, and Rudolph helped his wife out. Instead of following her in, he hurried down the path to stare again at the rival hotel. Inarime now was standing with her hand upon Gustav’s shoulder, and the spectator might divine that the husband was protesting laughingly against some decision of hers. Then with her tender, grave smile she passed from him and went inside. Gustav remained seated on the balcony, smoking.
“They are not contented—they are happy,” said Rudolph, as he turned to join his wife. “Nobody is miserable but myself. Photini is dead, and I’m alive. I don’t know that it is I who have the best of it, either. She was right. She told me from the first I never should be happy. Andromache! Inarime! and poor Photini! I wonder why I have missed the gladness of life. It seems to exist, and some people catch it. I am only twenty-five. Heaven help me, what shall I be ten years hence, when I feel so bitter on my wedding tour?”
He knocked at his wife’s door, and entering, threw himself on a sofa.
“How long do you propose staying in this wretched hole?” he asked.
“A week or so,” said his wife, surprised. “Why?”
“I want to know what I am expected to do with myself.”
“Look after me, of course, and dance attendance on me,” laughed his wife.
THE END.
