“St. Dionysius!” repeated Maurice, with emphasis. “I thought the gentleman of that name was an Olympian!”
“He was,” interposed Crispin before Justinian could speak; “but have you forgotten Heine’s account of how the heathen divinities were transformed into mediæval saints. St. Dionysius is our old friend Bacchus in a new guise; Athena has given place to the Virgin Mary—the Panagia, as they call her in Attica;—Zeus is still the Supreme Being, with awful locks and thunderbolt, while Apollo the Far-Darter masquerades in classical adolescence as St. Sebastian.”
“And Venus, Mr. Professor?” asked Helena, with a gay smile.
“Venus,” answered Crispin, with a profound bow, “still lives in the Ægean Seas as Helena of Melnos.”
“What a charming compliment!” cried the girl, who, in her plain white chiton, purple-edged peplum, and silver-banded hair, looked indeed like Aphrodite incarnate. “What about Andros here?”
“Hermes!”
Caliphronas, poising himself lightly on the verge of the staircase, certainly was the herald of Olympus, the divinized athlete, the more so, as, instead of his voluminous fustanella, he wore a simple tunic of fine white wool, which displayed his fine figure to the greatest advantage. His curls, yellow as those of Achilles, a true Achaian color, were bare, as he never wore a head covering unless forced to do so, and thus, stripped of all artificial aids to beauty, he looked the incarnation of Hellenism, the genius of Greece, ever fair and blooming in eternal adolescence. Even Justinian was struck with the manly grace and perfect vitality of the young man, yet, after an admiring glance at this physical perfection, turned to Maurice, and quoted a line of Homer,—
“‘Faultlessly fair bodies are not always the temples of a godlike soul.’”
“It is curious you should say that, sir,” observed Maurice; “for my old tutor, Mr. Carriston, said the same thing about the same man.”
“Carriston!” echoed Justinian hoarsely.