“Well, yes, I can quite believe that you are not exactly jubilant.”
“As soon as I am well enough to move, I’ll leave Greece, and wild horses will never drag me here again.”
“On the whole, I think you have done fairly well upon the classic shores of Hellas, and it would be as well to confine yourself to the rest of Europe during the remainder of your mortal career. But it is a little hard on me that my family should reflect discredit upon my country. Zounds! Could you not have understood that the Greeks are a most susceptible and clannish race? There is one thing they will not forgive, and that is an affront done a compatriot by a stranger. And we Austrians, you must know, are not more adored here than the English. In fact, we are hated. If the French Viscount had jilted Mademoiselle Andromache Karapolos, and had been shot at by her, public indignation would have taken a considerably modified tone.”
“What can I do, uncle?” asked Rudolph, penitently.
“Get well as soon as possible, and give Athens a wide berth. I cannot advise you to fling yourself at the feet of the fair Andromache, for I don’t believe that young lady could very well persuade herself to forgive you after this public scandal. It is a stupid affair altogether. I thought you were flirting, but an engagement! Good heavens! What do you imagine to be the value of a gentleman’s word? A promise of marriage is not a thing that can be lightly made, because it is not a thing that can ever be lightly broken. The man is called a cad, and the woman a jilt; and both are greatly the worse for such a reputation.”
Rudolph said nothing, but his way of turning on his pillow was a direct appeal for mercy. The baron felt it to be so, and got up, believing that the heavy responsibilities of uncle were accomplished with grace and dignity.
When the illustrious Dr. Galenides called next day, he found his patient so far recovered that he felt disposed to sit at his bedside, and chat with him in a friendly way.
“My dear young friend,” he said, cheerfully, “it is the fault of youth, and perhaps, in a measure, its virtue, to be too precipitate. If intelligent young people could only be induced to take for their motto that wise and ancient precept, ‘Μησἑν ἁγαν’—which I believe the French translate as ‘le juste milieu,’—there would be no such thing as maidens forced to avenge themselves by means of a pistol, nor young men deserving such treatment.”
Rudolph shrank a little, and said, with assumed coldness:
“Pray, doctor, do not think hardly of her. I behaved badly to her, and only cowardice kept me from going to her and asking her to forgive me.”