“It’s what we all need—supper and bed,” Constantine growled, turning to abuse Aristides for delay.
Oh, the poignant appeal to the senses of the dusky, sweet-smelling courtyard, rich with its departing spring blooms! It swept Inarime like the breath of childhood and filled her with fervent gratitude. To go away for the first time and come back! A month may hold the meaning of a cycle and awaken in the young heart all the fancies, the miseries and joys of the wanderer. Astonishment thrilled her that this place should greet her with its aspect of awful changelessness, and yet, if a stone, a flower, a chair were changed, it would have left her dumb with aching regret.
Annunziata’s arm was round her, and she put up a timid hand to feel the Turkish kerchief, the plait of false hair outside, and lovingly touched the wrinkled cheek.
“It is so good to be back with you,” she whispered.
“My treasure! my dearest child! I have been with you since you were a baby, and the sun did not shine for me while you were away,” the old woman murmured, and her tearful eyes pierced the baffling glimmer of early moonlight like glittering stars.
The little white salon was cozy and inviting by lamplight, and beyond it, in the inner room, the table was laid for supper. Constantine, dead with fatigue, hunger and shaken bones, pounced on it like a famished ogre, but a little soup and wine sufficed Inarime and Pericles.
“Brother, you look thin and worn,” Helene exclaimed, eyeing him doubtfully.
“Has he not been ill?” screamed Constantine, between the noisy gulps of his soup.
“I am well enough, sister, but very weary,” said Pericles, rising from the table. “Inarime, I would speak a word with you before I sleep.”