“Then if you really mean them you must be one of the most daring of human beings. But I shall try a compromise with you. I shall try to give you my best truth, never my worst. You deserve that, I think. Indeed, I know you do.”
And he had left it to her. Was he not wise to do that? Already he trusted her absolutely, as he had never thought to trust any one.
“I could face any storm with you,” he once said to Rosamund.
Rosamund had wanted to love Greece, and from the first moment of seeing the land she had loved it.
In the beginning of their stay she had scarcely been able to believe that she was really in Athens. A great name had aroused in her imagination a conception of a great city. The soft familiarity, the almost rustic simplicity and intimacy, the absolutely unpretentious brightness and homely cheerfulness of the small capital of this unique land had surprised, had almost confused her.
“Is this really Athens?” she had said, wondering, as they had driven into what seemed a village set in bright bareness, sparsely shaded here and there by small pepper-trees.
And the question had persisted in her mind, had almost trembled upon her lips, for two or three days. But then had come a mysterious change, brought about, perhaps, by affection. Quickly she had learnt to love Athens, and then she had the feeling that if it had been in any way different from what it was she could not have loved it. Its very smallness delighted her, and she would not permit its faults to be mentioned in her presence. Once, when Dion said that it was a great pity the Athenians did not plant more trees, and a greater pity they so often lopped off branches from the few trees they had, she exclaimed:
“You mustn’t run down my Athens. It likes to give itself to the sun generously. It’s grateful, as it well may be, for all the sun has done for it. Look at the color of that marble.”
And Dion looked at the honey color, and the wonderful reddish-gold, and, laughing, said:
“Athens is the one faultless city, and the dogs tell us so every night and all night long.”