“Should this grief be too much for her?”
“She is strong, and she is brave,” said Selaka, “and she will overcome it.”
“Good God!” said Gustav, “have you no thought of the girl’s heart? Are there forces in nature, think you, to dispel or even dull its yearning? Is there ever a barrier to the union of two souls! What you play with is her happiness, for the sake of your own patriotic pride.”
Selaka did not answer, but covered his eyes with his hand, and said:
“It must be so. We are bound irrevocably by ties nearer, more sacred, than any impulse of nature. There are animosities that cannot shrink and vanish under such considerations as you urge; there is a degradation that cannot be faced by any free spirit! Under other circumstances, I should have regarded your marriage with my daughter as an honour for me and a happiness for her. But that is at an end. You will go hence, and you will forget us, but you may believe that our kindest wishes will follow you wherever you may go.”
They shook hands, and thus they parted. Gustav found Aristides waiting for him outside, with a mule for himself and a donkey for his portmanteau; and through the increasing darkness and the shadows of night, which lay like extended wings on the landscape, they rode silently down into the town.
* * * * * * * * *
The next morning Pericles was shaken out of his moody disappointment by Constantine’s wild letter written the night before his duel with the lawyer Stavros, and an accompanying note from the brave Captain, dwelling pompously on his gallant demeanour, and explaining that the wound, the result of an awkward shot, was not in the least dangerous, but simply troublesome, and that the presence of Dr. Selaka’s family in Athens was desirable.
“The very thing. Inarime needs a change,” Pericles cried, brightening at the prospect of getting outside his daughter’s grief.
He and Inarime embarked from the little pier for Athens late that afternoon, and it seemed to him a hopeful omen that the forlorn girl looked about her with eyes of interest.