“In bed, sir.”
“In the name of all that is wonderful, has Photini gone clean out of her senses? In bed, and all Athens waiting for her at the Austrian Embassy!”
Polyxena leisurely unbolted the door, and Agiropoulos rushed past her up the stairs, and hammered frantically outside Photini’s bedroom door.
“Photini, get up and dress this instant. I insist. I swear I will not leave off knocking until you come out—not even at the risk of driving all the neighbours mad!” he shouted.
“What the devil do you want at this time of night, Agiropoulos?” was roared back to him. “I will box that girl’s ears for letting you in. Stop that row. You must be drunk.”
“Come, no nonsense, Photini. I am serious, on my soul I am. You’ve been expected at the Austrian Embassy for the last hour and a half. It is just eleven, and Athenian receptions break up at midnight, you know.”
“I suppose they want me to play. I had forgotten all about it. The mischief take the idiots! For goodness’ sake stop that noise, and I’ll get up.”
It was a little after eleven when a murmur ran through the rooms on the Patissia Road that Agiropoulos had returned with the missing Pleiad. Every one pressed eagerly forward to see the great and eccentric artist. Corns were gratuitously trodden upon and the proprietors forgot to swear, dresses were crushed, and no lady remembered to cover a cross expression with a mendacious smile and a feeble “It does not matter;” all faces wore an expression of open anxiety, curiosity, and wonder.