"Who was she? Oh, where did you meet her? Did you love her very much?"
"I met her on a little coasting boat belonging to her father, on which I had taken passage from Chios to Smyrna. She knew no English. I knew only one sentence of modern Greek, and I was not sure of the meaning even of that. So I had to be careful. I had it from a poem which was making a noise at the time."
"Oh, I know," cried Patsy, "Louis is always saying it over to me: Zoë mou, sas agapo! What does it mean?"
"That I did not know at the time, but I know what I meant the words to mean."
"Was she very lovely?"
"Very," said Uncle Julian. "I see you want a description, but I can only indicate. She had great dark eyes into which every sort of languid delight seemed to have been melted and concentrated, and eyelashes like the fringed awnings of a tent. When she lowered them they swept the ground, and when she lifted them it was slowly, as if their very weight fought against her will!"
"Oh-o-o-h!" said Patsy, feeling with her fingers, "I have regular scrubs. You won't ever love me when you think of her, Uncle Julian."
"I might," he answered, "if you had only the yellow sandals—"
"No, no, tell me about her! What did you say to her?"
"I said 'Zoë mou' half a dozen times, sitting closer to her every time. I spoke lower and lower, till the last 'Zoë mou' was whispered into her ear.