“Oh, do, do be careful, Katya. You will be married some day, you know.”
“That’s just the point—shall I? Whom can I marry in Hortiach? Is there a single soul good enough? You know there isn’t. Yet in Salonika, only fifteen miles away, there must be scores of the most delightful creatures. Oh, mamma, I do love men, don’t you?”
“I used to, dear. But now I love only your father.”
“Poor mamma! But how awfully sweet for father!”
They sat in silence for a few minutes whilst the still garden hummed with insects; the sun smote the flowers, and a trickle of water made a tepid sound in the well close by.
Then, suddenly, Mrs. Kontorompa, having brushed away a fly that had settled on her nose, turned to her daughter.
“I will persuade your father to let us join him in Salonika for a fortnight. I will really, Katya. I know how to do it. We will go next month.”
“Oh, you are sweet, mamma dear, aren’t you? I do think you’re sweet.”
And Katya, rising from her deep chair and gliding to the pianoforte, began to play Chopin’s Polonaise in C-sharp minor, crashing out the fat discords with all the exuberance of youth. With her hands folded on that part of her body lying below her waist, Mrs. Kontorompa sat admiring her daughter: admiring this daring and bewildering creature who, only a month ago, had come from a Belgian school whither she had gone to add smartness to her education: admiring and loving her, and feeling that she would sell her soul to be like Katya—eighteen, beautiful, devil-may-care, clever, wilful, and so terribly worshipful. Then, Katya having begun the great Nocturne in C minor, with its quivering and mounting octaves, Mrs. Kontorompa rose and left the room to supervise the mysterious workings of her Grecian household.
It was quite early the same morning that Katya, white and wonderful, left her father’s house and walked higher up the mountain to the side of which Hortiach clings. She was in a mood of half-angry revolt, and as she walked along a sheep-track winding among the rocks, she told herself that if only Elise Deschamps were with her, they would surely find something amusing to do. Elise respected the opinions of no one. And as Katya Kontorompa’s mind was busy thinking of her friend, suddenly, from behind a rock stepped a tall, slim youth, hatless, bare-chested, carrying a flute in his hand, his black curly hair surmounting a face that was at once grave and beseeching.