“Of course. I thought it displayed great moderation and sagacity. There’s a statesman if you will, Constantine.”
“May the devil sit upon his moustache for an English humbug! England here, England there! Ouf! But wait until he has me to tackle him.”
“You’ll lead him a dance, I’ve no doubt,” laughed Galenides. “But how are all the family?”
“Very well. My niece Inarime is growing more beautiful every day. All the islanders are in love with her. A queer old dog is Pericles. He has brought that girl up in the maddest fashion. Nothing but ancient Greek and that sort of thing, and he has made up his mind she will marry a foreign archæologist, or die an old maid.”
“Yes, I always thought him unpractical and foolish, but I tremendously respect his learning. Why doesn’t he bring the girl to Athens, if he won’t marry her to a Teniote?”
“Well, he talks vaguely of some such intention. You are going out, I see.”
“Yes, and that reminds me, Selaka. I was just writing a line to Melanos, but you’ll do just as well. There is a foreigner sick in the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne who has sent for me. Could you go round and look at him? I haven’t a spare moment to-day. If I am absolutely wanted for a consultation, of course, I’ll endeavour to attend.”
Selaka consented with alacrity, and the friends parted with cordiality at the door, one to seat himself in a comfortable carriage, and be rolled swiftly to the Queen’s Hospital in the new quarter of Athens, the Teniote to walk to the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne, a little above Constitution Square, overlooking the orange trees and fountains in front of the Royal Palace. He was delighted with the prospect of meeting a distinguished foreigner, distinction proclaimed in the choice of hotel, and he would profit by the occasion to discuss the politics of Bismarck with this M. Reineke.
The waiters favoured him with that insolent reception usually bestowed by waiters of distinguished hotels upon foot and provincial-looking arrivals. But the mention of the illustrious Dr. Galenides cleared the haughty brow of Demosthenes; and when Selaka furthermore stated that that great personage had sent him to feel the pulse of the sick foreigner, Demosthenes condescended to call to Socrates, a lesser luminary among the hotel officials, and signified to his satellite that Dr. Selaka might be conducted to M. Reineke’s chamber.
Selaka found his patient, a young man of about twenty-eight, lying on a sofa, wrapped in a silk dressing-gown, with an elegant travelling rug thrown across his feet. Selaka’s keen glance rested in amazement on a delicate Eastern head, long grave eyes of the unfathomable and colourless shade of water flowing over dark tones, with a very noble and intense look in them, a high smooth brow that strengthened this expression of nobility, and finely-cut lips seen through the waves of dark beard and moustache as benign as a sage’s. It was a thoughtful, spiritual face, serene in its strength, unimpassioned in its kindliness—the face of a student and a gentleman.