'Nico has rescued me,' she said; 'but for him I should have been alone all day. I have taught him to dance.' She pointed to a gramophone upon a table.
'Where did that come from?' Julian said, determined not to show his anger before the islander.
'From the café,' she replied.
'Then Nico had better take it back; they will need it.' Julian said, threats in his voice, 'and he had better see whether his father cannot find him employment; we have not too many men.'
'You left me the whole day,' she said when Nico had gone; 'I am sorry I came with you, Julian; I would rather go back to Herakleion; even Nana has not come. I did not think you would desert me.'
He looked at her, his anger vanished, and she was surprised when he answered her gently, even amusedly,—
'You are always delightfully unexpected and yet characteristic of yourself: I come back, thinking I shall find you alone, perhaps glad to see me, having spent an unoccupied day, but no, I find you with the best-looking scamp of the village, having learnt from him to play the flute, taught him to dance, and borrowed a gramophone from the local café!'
He put his hands heavily upon her shoulders with a gesture she knew of old.
'I suppose I love you,' he said roughly, and then seemed indisposed to talk of her any more, but told her his plans and arrangements, to which she did not listen.
They remained standing in the narrow window-recess, leaning, opposite to one another, against the thick stone walls of the old Genoese building. Through the grating they could see the sea, and, in the distance, Herakleion.