And then suddenly in upon this idyllic scene burst Evanthia, excited and breathless.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What shall I do?"
"Why, whatever is the matter, Evanthia? Your eyes shine like stars. Do tell me."
Evanthia came striding in like an angry prima-donna, her hand stretched in front of her as though about to loose a thunderbolt or a stiletto. She flung herself down—a trick of hers, for she never seemed to hurt herself—on the rug beside the bed and leaned her head against her friend's hand. It was another trick of hers to exclaim: "What shall I do? Mon Dieu! que ferai-je?" when she was in no doubt about what she was going to do. She was going after her lover. She was going on board the Kalkis before she sailed, on some pretense, and she was going to the Piræus in her, whence she could get to Athens in a brisk walk if necessary, and when she got there God would look after her. She had convinced herself, by stray hints picked up from the domestics of the departed consuls, that her lover would go to Athens. There was as much truth in this as in the possibility of the Kalkis going to Piræus. It was conjecture, but Evanthia wanted to believe it. She had never been in a ship, and she could have no conception of the myriad changes of fortune which might befall a ship in a few weeks. She might lie for months in Phyros. With Evanthia, however, this carried no weight. God would take care of her. It was rather disconcerting to reflect that God did. Evanthia, all her life, never thought of anybody but herself, and all things worked together to bring her happiness and to cast her lines in pleasant places. Just at this time she was concentrating upon an adventure of which the chief act was getting on board that little ship out there. Everything, even to the clothes she was to wear, was prepared. She had gone about it with a leisurely, silent, implacable efficiency. And now she relieved her feelings in a burst of hysterical affection for her dear friend who had been so kind to her and whom she must leave. She could do this because of the extreme simplicity of her personality. She was afflicted with none of the complex psychology which makes the Western woman's life a farrago of intricate inhibitions. Love was an evanescent glamour which came and passed like a cigarette, a strain of music, a wave of furious anger. Evanthia remembered the hours, forgetting the persons. But for that gay and spirited young man with the little blond moustache and laughing blue eyes, whom she believed was now in Athens flirting with the girls, her feeling was different. He had won from her a sort of allegiance. She thought him the maddest, wittiest, and most splendid youth in the world. She did not despise Mr. Spokesly because he was not at all like Fridthiof. She could not conceive in that stark and simple imagination of hers two youths like Fridthiof. His very name was a bizarre caress to her Southern ears. How gay he was! How clever, how vital, how amusingly irreligious, how careless whether he hurt her or not. It was a fantastic feature of her attitude towards him that she liked to think of herself as possessed by him yet at liberty to go where she wished. She was experimenting crudely with emotions, trying them and flinging them away. She had at the back of her mind the vague notion that if she could only get back to Fridthiof he would take her away into Central Europe, to Prague and Vienna and Munich, dream cities where she could savour the life she saw in the moving pictures—great houses, huge motor-cars, gems, and gallimaufry. She dreamed of the silken sheets and the milk-baths of sultanas, servants in dazzling liveries, and courtyards with fountains and string music in the shadows behind the palms. Perhaps. Without history or geography to guide her, she imagined Central Europe as a sort of glorified Jardin de la Tour Blanche, where money grew upon trees or flowered on boudoir-mantels, and where superb troops in shining helmets and cuirasses marched down interminable avenues of handsome buildings. There was no continuity in her mind between money and labour. Men always gave her money. Even Mr. Dainopoulos gave her money, a little at a time. The poor worked and had no money. There would always be money for the asking. When the war moved up into the mountains again, as it always did after a while (for she remembered dimly how the armies went crashing southward into Saloniki in the war of 1912 and later fought among themselves and came crashing back again, passing through the valley like a herd of mastodons), there would be more money than ever, and the rich merchants would send away again to France and Italy for silks and velvets and bijouterie. Ever since she could remember money had been growing more and more plentiful. The Englishman who had given her that splendid emerald ring and who had said he would go to hell for her, had plenty of money, although not long before he had had to jump into the water and swim to the shore with only his shirt and trousers. She might have to swim herself. Well, what of that? More than once she had done the distance from the bathing house to the Allatini jetty and back. Looking through lazy, slitted eyelids she knew she could swim to the Kalkis with ease. Such matters gave her no anxiety. Evanthia's problems were those of an explorer. She was making her way cautiously into a new world, a world beyond those French bayonets. She hated the French because they invariably assumed that she was a demi-mondaine and treated her as bearded family men treat daughters of joy. Perhaps she hated them also because Fridthiof had exhausted his amusing sarcasm upon them as his hereditary enemies; but this is not certain because the Balkan people do not conceive nationality save as a tribal clannishness. Evanthia's notions of patriotism were gathered from films shown in Constantinople of imperial-looking persons sitting on horses while immense masses of troops marched by and presented arms. It was fascinating but perplexing, this tumultuous, shining, wealthy outside world, and Evanthia was ready to abandon everything she knew, including Mrs. Dainopoulos, for a look at it. Blood did not matter out there, Fridthiof had told her. Demokracy made it possible for any woman to become a princess. So she gathered from his highly satirical and misleading accounts of European customs beyond French bayonets. A suspicion suddenly assailed her as she lay on the rug stroking her friend's hand.
"This Englishman, is he faithful, honnête?"
Mrs. Dainopoulos allowed the leaves of her book to slip slowly from her fingers. She smiled.
"Englishmen are always faithful," she said, with a little thrill of pride. Evanthia let this pass without comment. Fridthiof had once told her the English had sold every friend they ever had and betrayed every small nation in the world, with the result that they now sat on top of the world. He also expressed admiration for their inconceivable national duplicity in fooling the world. And Evanthia, if she reflected at all, imagined Mrs. Dainopoulos was of the same opinion since she had married a Levantine. Mr. Spokesly, however, had said he would go to hell for her, which was no doubt an example of the national duplicity.
"Humph!" she said at length and sat there looking at the sky over the trees.
"He's engaged, fiancé, you know, to a girl in England, but I don't think he loves her very much. I think he is beginning to like a friend of mine, Evanthia. Did you go to the cinema last night?"
"Oh, yes, yes. It was beautiful. I love the American pictures, cowboys. They shot the police dead. And in the end the girl had a baby."