“This, Kyrie, has just been brought up from the town,” she said, handing him a telegram.
Pericles took the telegram, opened it in his leisurely way,—one naturally grows sleepy on a sleepy island. It was from his brother in Athens announcing Reineke’s coming. Pericles frowned, and looked more thoughtful than ever as he read the communication. As may be imagined, it was neither very delicate nor very wise. It referred to a possible desirable solution of Inarime’s future.
“Humph,” said Pericles, and crushed the missive in his hand, “my brother is sending us a visitor, Annunziata,” he explained, curtly.
“A visitor! Has your brother taken leave of his senses? Surely the visitor who proposes to come here cannot be other than a madman,” said Annunziata, who appropriated the privilege of speaking her mind to her master.
“He was always a fool,” assented Pericles; “however, it is essential that we should sustain our reputation for hospitality; so, my dear woman, you will be good enough to prepare a room for the guest.”
“And why should I prepare? Don’t you know that my rooms are always prepared?” protested Annunziata, hurt in her honour as a housekeeper.
“Yes, yes, but there will be sheets to air, and flowers and such things to put in the room. He is an invalid; and sick men are proverbially difficult to please. They require as much spoiling as a woman,” said Pericles, dismissing the subject with a majestic wave of his hand.
The subject, however, would not be dismissed from his mind, and he sat there with his open book, his eyes persistently wandering from one window to another, looking now out on the bright terrace and then on the gloomy Castro behind. It was hardly human for a father not to speculate upon the coming of this stranger, and its possible consequences. A husband for Inarime! Nonsense! it was not to be imagined that any stray adventurer, whom his brother might choose to pick up, could possibly prove a worthy or desirable mate for that pearl among girls. Besides, he was not prepared to give her to any man who could not indisputably claim to be a Greek scholar. He knew the sort of scholars Europe habitually sends to Greece. Self-sufficient young men or tottering archæologists with a barbaric pronunciation and a superficial acquaintance with Homer and Plato. These were not the scholars he desired to know, nor the sort who, under any circumstances, could prove congenial to him. As for Inarime, she was likely to be still more fastidious. Her beauty and her great gifts entitled her to contempt for less gifted mortals. While thinking thus, a shadow crossed the light of the terrace, and a girl’s form stood framed in the doorway.