CHAPTER XXVII. INARIME’S VIGIL.
The journey back to Tenos was a mournful one. Selaka, in a mixture of dread and compunction, shunned his daughter’s glance. There might be a question of the amount of blame due to him for the trouble in which they were mutually involved, but the physical weakness consequent upon his sharp attack left him a prey to exaggerated feelings. That his daughter, his treasure, whom he had believed few men worthy to possess, should have been publicly insulted by a wretch like Oïdas to avenge an ignoble vanity which conceived itself affronted—that so horrible a stroke should have been dealt him by fate, and the heavens remained unmoved and the blood of life still flow in his veins, vision not have been struck from his appalled eyes! Pride lay dead at a stroke, and the unhappy man felt that he could never again lift a front of dignity to the light of day.
Of her own wound Inarime thought nothing. To have got rid of the offensive Oïdas was a gain, even if it cost her an insult. Her father’s illness was her only care. Dr. Galenides ordered rest and mountain air. Books, he opined, and cheerful shepherd surroundings would more than do the work of physic. The simple sights of nature and her restoring silence would relieve the shocked system, and the late catastrophe should be ignored.
Constantine travelled with them, moody and petulant by force of unexhausted vengeance. He paced the deck, muttering and smoking, smoking and muttering, forgetful of the clamours of the unassuaged appetite, and consigned the courteous steward to the devil when importuned to go down to dinner. Dinner indeed! while that fellow lived who had stolen his friend Stavros from him, beaten him in his election, and outraged his family. His days were passed in an open-eyed bloody-minded dream, and he gloated over the picture of the thrashed mayor, with his features reduced to a purple jelly, and his sneaking frame doubled up with pain. He could have kissed Reineke’s hand in gratitude. Horse-whipping was not in his line, but he understood, when administered by proxy, what a very excellent thing it was. To himself he plotted how when peace should have descended on the insulted and angry household, he would manœuvre to reward Reineke.
“He’ll marry her, he will, or my name’s not Constantine Selaka,” he reiterated to himself, and took the wide expanse of sky and sea to witness that it was a solemn oath.
At Syra they were late for the bi-weekly boat, but Pericles would hear of no delay, so they chartered a caique and shot across the placid blue, as the trail of sunset glory faded out of the deepening sky and Tenos showed below a solitary patch of green cloud. As they neared the little pier, the swift, short twilight had touched the valleys and lent mystery to the bare sweeps of hillside. A palm stood out upon the sky and appealed to Inarime’s sad eyes in the language of intense familiarity. She remembered to have noticed that one tree on her first childish voyage to Syra and, on coming back, to have claimed it with eager, friendly gaze. It seemed now that eagerness might henceforth hold no part in her experiences, and she felt like one who was staring back with sorrowful visage upon serene unnumbered years. The tears came rapidly as she noted each feature of the dear familiar picture, the background of her young life, and with them the magic thought that Gustav, too, had gazed lingeringly, tenderly upon it, thrilled her ineffably. She tried to imagine his impressions, and examined it keenly to discover how it might strike upon strange vision.
This is a craving of girls—to know how their lovers look upon things both have seen; to get inside their sight and count their very heart-beats. Women grow less exacting and imaginative, I believe, and have more practical demands upon love.
Aristides met them with mules and voluble utterances.
“Where is Paleocapa?” Pericles demanded, remembering to cast a searching glance about for the ruffian steward.