“Dystychia mou! that is the only thing to be feared in wedding a Turk,” remarked the practical Kyria Helene.
“It is a side-issue, important, I admit, but below the main barrier. I had forgotten, however, that the sentimental and impersonal side would be the one least likely to touch you, Helene.”
“Sentiment and impersonality won’t find your daughter a suitable match, I can assure you,” said Helene, wisely.
“True enough. But you are ever there, my sister, to shunt the train on to the proper line when you detect a tendency to divagation.”
He smiled sadly as he spoke, for his heart was torn with the torture of the coming severity for those tender young people outside. He heard the ardent murmur of Reineke’s voice, and his eyes filled with tears. But he knew that there were no words the lover could utter that would make him abandon his first decision. That Inarime would seek to shake his resolution he had no fear. Was she not Greek of the very Greek?
“Well, and what are you going to do, Pericles?”
“Inarime will stay here with you, and he will return with me to Xinara at once. Tell your servant to call for the mules. Ten minutes more will I give them, and then their parting is irrevocable.”
“But if Inarime loves this young man? He says she does.”
“Trust her to me. It will be a wrench, but she will get over it. I will take her to Athens, and through the Peloponnesus. New scenes will heal the ache of a young heart.”
Meanwhile, the two outside had dropped from the pinnacle of hardly conscious bliss. She knew his name now, and was standing with one hand stretched across his breast and resting upon his shoulder, and their speech was a happy murmur. No thought of separation here. A life together was what they were speaking of when Selaka interrupted them.