“Leave Apollos, though I would have no objection if one were to be had. But do you seriously expect me to marry a girl like Inarime, as lovely as Artemis, as learned and wise as Athena, to a clown? A fellow who gets up at two of a summer morning to shoot inoffensive birds, and gets drunk upon abominable raki while prating in vile Romanic about politics and the Lord knows what, of which he understands nothing!”
“No, but there is Vitalis, the ‘member,’ who wants her.”
“May the devil sit upon his moustaches for a vulgar blustering fool!” exclaimed the old man, forgetting Olympus. “What is your Vitalis, Constantine? A boor. An uneducated lawyer, who could not tell a verse of Euripides from one of Sophocles; doesn’t, in fact, know that either existed, and never translated a sentence of Thucydides in his life. A clown is better. At least he has a dim consciousness that he is a barbarian. Whereas the other shrunken miserable being in his ill-fitting clothes and European hat, deems himself the happiest edition of a boulevardier. Boulevardier, save the mark! France has been the ruin of us!”
“Then can’t you take Dragonnis, the other member?”
“No, I cannot. I don’t want any wretched politician for Inarime. Dragonnis is as bad as his colleague—a pair of dunderheads. My daughter will not marry a Teniote, neither will she marry a chattering, gossiping Athenian. Some day I’ll take her abroad, and give her to a scholar and a gentleman, who will see in her gifts and beauty something other than the mere decorations of an upper servant and mother of a family.”
Inarime had been the subject of disputes of this sort between the brothers ever since that memorable day when the absence of shots proclaimed to the village that a little “daughter of man,” instead of the desired “son of God,” had come to bless the house. To the friends and relatives, the intrusion of the unappreciated sex was not, however, looked upon in the light of a blessing. According to custom, people came and shook the hand of the injured father, condoling loudly with the sorrowing and disgraced mother. But when Selaka’s wife died shortly afterwards, and there was no boy on whom he could hope to bestow his knowledge and learning, the father clung to Inarime. He resolved to show the world, by his untiring labour, that a girl may develop remarkable capacity and intellect. He cared little about modern acquirements, but fed her mind exclusively upon the philosophy, poetry, and history of her great ancestors. Homer and Hesiod were the fairy tales of her childhood,—Plutarch the first book she learned to read. She was familiar with all the ancient dialects and Greek literature, from the time of Hesiod to the Alexandrian Renaissance. She was taught to choose the simplest phrasing, and yet one that was severely academical, from which all foreign interpolations of modern Greek were expunged. The old calligraphy, too, was insisted upon, and she wrote papers on the Trilogy from which an infallible University Don might have learned much. Some of these papers her delighted father contemplated sending to one of the German Universities, where he knew that the fragrance of original thought and excellent style would be more justly appreciated than in frivolous Athens. But he feared the wrench of surrender such recognition from beyond the Ægean might bring. A girl so perilously gifted might seek to plunge into the waters alone and swim in depths beyond which his dim eyes and feeble hopes could not follow. Besides, with him she was completely happy, and publicity is a misery, a fret and a constant strain upon the nerves.
Thus she grew up unconscious of solitude or of needs other than those which her surroundings supplied. As for the accomplishments which occupy the elegant leisure of European young ladies, she was hopelessly ignorant: would have been perfectly unserviceable at a suburban tea-party or a game of tennis, and the popinjays who figure in polite society would have scorned her, had they attempted to engage her in conversation suitable to a background of moonlit balcony, or in the movement of a waltz. But if she could not dance or embroider, and sing Signor Tosti’s weeping melodies, and if her brown slender hands looked as if their acquaintance with sun and air was considerably greater than with kid or Suède, she could carry a water-jar from the village fountain in an attitude that was a picture of grace, with a light swinging step that was the music of motion—and this the London sylph could not have done. Her father was strong upon the necessity for thorough gymnastic training, and she could swim and run and ride a mile like a young athlete. Even Greek boys cannot do as much, but then they are not brought up by antiquated professors, who faithfully copy the precepts of the old philosophers. Selaka, for this athletic training cultivated a strip of sanded path in his farm near the sea, with the shade of plane trees for rest. Here Inarime raced and exercised, sweeping the sanded path with flying feet, and lips parted with the joy of quick movement and the flush of health crimsoning her olive cheek.
Outside her books, her racing and riding, she had another important duty—that of general letter-writer for Xinara and the adjacent village of Lutra.