The Princess Aline

by Richard Harding Davis

"What did you say? We can't hear you," answered the captain.

"Louder! louder!" called the equerries. Carlton swore at them under his breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which he was penned in order to make them believe that he had given up the idea of making a speech, or had ever intended doing so. He tried to think of something clever to shout back at them, and rejected "Ye men of Athens" as being too flippant, and "Friends, Countrymen, Romans," as requiring too much effort. When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their way, and as he started once more to scale the side of the theatre the Duke waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave another hand to his sisters, who disappeared with him behind the edge of the upper row of seats. Carlton turned at once and dropped into one of the marble chairs and bowed his head. When he did reach the top Miss Morris held out a sympathetic hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could see that she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from smiling.

"Oh, it's all very funny for you," he said, refusing her hand. "I don't believe you are in love with anybody. You don't know what it means."

They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after, and then left Athens for an inland excursion to stay overnight. Miss Morris returned from it with the sense of having done her duty once, and by so doing having earned the right to act as she pleased in the future. What she best pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of the Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical values, but rather, as she explained it, for the simple satisfaction of feeling that she was there. She liked to stand on the edge of the low wall along its top and look out over the picture of sea and plain and mountains that lay below her. The sun shone brightly, and the wind swept by them as though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer, and there was the added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us when we stand on a great height. Carlton was sitting at her feet, shielded from the wind by a fallen column, and gazing up at her with critical approval.

"You look like a sort of a 'Winged Victory' up there," he said, "with the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair coming down."

"I don't remember that the 'Winged Victory' has any hair to blow about," suggested Miss Morris.

"I'd like to paint you," continued Carlton, "just as you are standing now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you could stand a Greek dress better than almost any one I know. I would paint you with your head up and one hand shielding your eyes, and the other pressed against your breast. It would be stunning." He spoke enthusiastically, but in quite an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of a model.

Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had been standing, and said, simply, "Of course I should like to have you paint me very much."

Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.

"When?" said Carlton, vaguely. "Oh, I don't know. Of course this is entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home soon, and then when I do get back to the States you will--you will have other things to do."