For Mr. Moropulos there was a peculiar pleasure in setting up in the monastery land such symbols of the pantheistic religion of ancient Greece as he could procure.
The house itself consisted of one large kitchen-hall on the ground floor and two bedrooms above. A more modern kitchen had been built on to the main walls by a former tenant. The cottage was well furnished, and unlike his home in Paddington, the floors were carpeted, a piece of needless extravagance from the Greek's point of view, but one which he had not determined, for he had bought the cottage and the furniture together, the owner being disinclined to sell the one without the other.
The garden was the glory of the place in the summer. It had a charm even on the chill afternoon that Ambrose deposited his bag at the white gate. A wintry sun was setting redly, turning to the color of wine the white face of the fields. In the hollows of the little valley beyond the cottage, the mists were lying in smoky pools. His hands on the top of the gate, he gazed rapturously at such a sun set as England seldom sees. Turquoise—claret—a blue that was almost green.
Drawing a long breath he picked up his bag and walked into the house.
"Go down and look after Moropulos. He is weakening on that barley-water diet—he told me himself."
Thus Steppe. His servitor obeyed without question, though he knew that the shadow of death was upon him.
Moropulos was stretched in a deep mission chair, his slippered feet toward the hearth. And he had begun his libations early.
On the floor within reach of his hand, was a tumbler, full of milky white fluid. There was a sugar-basin—a glass jug half filled with water and a tea strainer. Ambrose need not look for the absinthe bottle. The accessories told the story.
"Come in—shut the door, you big fool—no you don't!" Moropulos snatched up the tumbler from the floor and gulped down its contents. "Ha-a! That is good, my dear—good! Sit down!" he pointed imperiously to a chair.
"You'll have no more of that stuff tonight, Moropulos." Ambrose gathered up the bottle and took it into the kitchen. The Greek chuckled as he heard it smash. He had a store—a little locker in the tool-shed; a few bottles in his bedroom.