Little Themistocles was less on parade in Stadion Street because of the exactions of the weather, but of an evening he cheerfully tortured his violin, and unbosomed himself to his fellow-clerks in the Corinthian bank. Things here as elsewhere went on very much as usual. The town was rapidly thinning, and lodgings and hotels at Kephissia, Phalerum, Munychia and the Piræus as rapidly filling.
Gustav Reineke had been voyaging in Asia Minor with a party of English archæologists bound upon an excavating expedition. Upon his return to Athens, he found his old friend and admirer, Miss Winters, the delightful little American, with her lovely snow-white hair and a complexion as fresh as a girl’s. Gustav was charmed, and so was Miss Winters. They struck at once into fraternity. He accompanied her everywhere, carried her photographic apparatus, adjusted it, and as soon as she disappeared under the cloth, applied himself to read aloud the classics to her. She took full command of him, ordered and piloted him in an impulse of protecting and authoritative motherhood that soothed him unspeakably. He obeyed her with pleasure, and in return imparted to her the story of his love.
“And has the young lady no idea where you are?” she asked, struggling frantically with her machine on the Acropolis.
“None. I cannot write to her,” said Reineke, dejectedly.
“What nonsense! You love her; she loves you. You have no right to lose sight of each other. Have you never tried to write?”
“No. I felt the right to do so was not conceded me.”
“Nonsense! it is no question of right or wrong; it is simply natural. Well, I see I cannot settle this to-day, so I had better go home and put my other views in order. Did you say the old man, Selaka, lives in the village of Xinara?”
“Xinara, Tenos,” nodded Gustav.
“I see. Well, carry this home for me, then go and stay quietly in your hotel,—I may have something to tell you in a few days.”