“Mon Dieu! When I want to go to the theatre, I go to Paris or Vienna,” said Mademoiselle Veritassi, superciliously.
“Is it not good here?”
“It is vulgar rubbish—good enough for the Athenians, but not for those who have heard music and seen acting. My child, you have yet to see a theatre.”
This was food for reflection, and another proof of her inferiority to these bewildering nymphs of society. The next time Oïdas made soft proposals touching Verdi and Bellini, Inarime curtly declined them.
“I have intimated to Kyrios Oïdas my entire willingness to receive him into my family,” said Pericles one day to his brother. “It now remains for him to try his fortunes with Inarime, to whom I shall previously communicate his intentions. But I desire that the matter may be speedily settled. This frivolous, noisy existence wearies me. I yearn for my books and the quiet of my mountain home.”
“But are you not pledged to attend the meeting of the German School which takes place in ten days?”
“I will come back for it. Besides, Annunziata writes for my immediate presence. The steward is not giving satisfaction.”
Inarime entered, modernised beyond recognition in a flimsy grey silk gown slashed with crimson and shaded greens, a belt from which depended ribbons of these mixed hues that floated in the breeze and arrested the distracted glance, with hair which swelled above the mild brow to a pyramidal crown of shadow and threw out bronze and bluish lights, its rippling massy softness in complete harmony with the equable, studious face.
“Why thus early decked in bird of Paradise hues?” laughed Selaka, quietly.
“Mademoiselle Veritassi and her brother are to call for me shortly.”