CHAPTER XII. INARIME.
Anybody whose travels have led him to the Hellenic shores, knows too well that the old classic beauty is almost extinct. But not quite. Here and there, on the islands of the Archipelago, he may chance upon a face that looks at him out of the other centuries,—stamped with the grandeur of an unforgotten race in protest against a physical deterioration that gives it the melancholy charm of isolation. This vision is rare, but once seen it is beheld with breathless wonder. There is nothing to compare with it. Other European types of beauty sink beside it, as do Italian melodies beside a bar of Beethoven. It is as if over a gray landscape the scarlet dawn broke suddenly, showing an unhoped-for reality in glowing tints and soft lines no imagination can picture.
Lit by the strong sunshine, with the faintest grave smile round her lovely lips, as she met the puzzled glance of her father, Inarime looked as if she sprang direct from the Immortals.
Something like her face the student dreams of, when he muses over the great Dead. The small dusky head, its blue-black hair, softening to a tawny sheen at the brows; the olive cheek as smooth as satin, almost colourless except where it gathers the bloom of the tea-rose, or of a shell held to the light. The full firm curves of the mouth, rather grave than gay, but ineffably sweet, with paler lips than those of the North; the delicate nose coming down straight from the forehead: the low arch of the eyebrows, and the curves of the chin that show no weakness. These details much contributed to the charm of the whole. But its greatest beauty were the unfathomable eyes—of a deep brown with an outer ring, which in any joyous mood gave them the gleam of amber, while sorrow or deep emotion darkened them to the luster of agate. She wore a dress of dull gold, with a bronze velvet collar and cuffs. The front of the bodice was trimmed with large bronze buttons. It was not a dress which Mademoiselle Veritassi would have worn, but then, on the other hand, it was not a dress that Mademoiselle Veritassi could have worn. Dowdy it was not, but strange, and looked as if it had grown upon the young, firm, and supple form it clothed. Inarime had a pardonable weakness for this most suitable gown. She had worn it constantly since she had selected it from the merchant who brought the stuff from Syra, with other splendid materials for the women and young persons of Tenos, and the dressmaker, who had studied her art in that same elegant centre, had made it for her. Indeed, she had never a variety of gowns, nor did she seem to miss this source of happiness. Round her neck hung suspended by a thin gold chain a little Byzantine cross, a relic of her mother, and her abundant hair was gathered into a thick coil with a long golden pin. It may seem strange that I should insist upon these trivial matters, seeing it is generally considered that young girls should be thus adorned, but it is not so in Tenos, and the artistic delight Inarime could not have failed to take in her own beauty, apart from any silly vanity, and with no desire to please the eye of others, is a very singular deviation from the custom of Greek girls.
“Have you been waiting for me ever since, father?” she asked. A still more curious fact, she did not speak the insular dialect, but pure Athenian, with a faultless accent.
“Yes, my dear,” said Pericles, addressing her in the same language, though he had spoken good Teniote to Annunziata. “It is well that you have come now. I think, my dear, it will be better for you to spend a few days with your aunt at Mousoulou, and it has occurred to me that you might go there this afternoon.”
“But, why? I have no desire to go to Mousoulou,” protested Inarime.
“Well, if you would just please me in this matter, I cannot tell you how grateful I should be to you, Inarime,” said her father, who always treated her as an equal. For this young creature was to him more son than daughter, since he had brought her up in a masculine fashion, in the matter of education and training.
“It is strange, father, that you should turn capricious and mysterious, but I will obey you in this as in all else,” she said, with an exquisite gravity which likened her more than ever to a young goddess.