Mr. Achilles Part 2

"Home, James."

The horses sprang away. Achilles Alexandrakis, bareheaded in the spring sunshine, watched the carriage till it was out of sight. Then he turned once more to the stall and rearranged the fruit. The swift fingers laughed a little as they worked, and the eyes of Achilles were filled with light.

III

BETTY'S MOTHER HEARS A STORY

"Mother-dear!" It was the voice of Betty Harris--eager, triumphant, with a little laugh running through it. "Mother-dear!"

"Yes--Betty--" The woman seated at the dark mahogany desk looked up, a little line between her eyes. "You have come, child?" It was half a caress. She put out an absent hand, drawing the child toward her while she finished her note.

The child stood by gravely, looking with shining eyes at the face bending above the paper. It was a handsome face with clear, hard lines--the reddish hair brushed up conventionally from the temples, and the skin a little pallid under its careful ma.s.sage and skilfully touched surface.

To Betty Harris her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world--more beautiful than the marble Venus at the head of the long staircase, or the queenly lady in the next room, forever stepping down from her gilded frame into the midst of tapestry and leather in the library. It may have been that Betty's mother was quite as much a work of art in her way as these other treasures that had come from the Old World. But to Betty Harris, who had slight knowledge of art values, her mother was beautiful, because her eyes had little points of light in them that danced when she laughed, and her lips curved prettily, like a bow, if she smiled.

They curved now as she looked up from her note. "Well, daughter?" She had sealed the note and laid it one side. "Was it a good lesson?" She leaned back in her chair, stroking the child's hand softly, while her eyes travelled over the quaint, dignified little figure. The child was a Velasquez--people had often remarked it, and the mother had taken the note that gave to her clothes the regal air touched with simplicity. "So it was a good lesson, was it?" she repeated, absently, as she stroked the small dark hand--her own figure graciously outlined as she leaned back enjoying the lifted face and straight, clear eyes.

"Mother-dear!" The child's voice vibrated with the intensity behind it.

"I have seen a man--a very _good_ man!"

"Yes?" There was a little laugh in the word. She was accustomed to the child's enthusiasms. Yet they were always new to her--even the old ones were. "Who was he, daughter--this very good man?"

"He is a Greek, mother--with a long, beautiful name--I don't think I can tell it to you. But he is most wonderful--!" The child spread her hands and drew a deep breath.

"More wonderful than father?" It was an idle, laughing question--while she studied the lifted-up face.

"More wonderful than father--yes--" The child nodded gravely. "I can't quite tell you, mother-dear, how it feels--" She laid a tiny hand on her chest. Her eyes were full of thought. "He speaks like music, and he loves things--oh, very much!"

"I see--And did Madame Lewandowska introduce you to him?"

"Oh, it was not there." The child's face cleared with swift thought. "I didn't tell you--Madame was ill--"

The reclining figure straightened a little in its place, but the face was still smiling. "So you and Miss Stone--"

"But Miss Stone is ill, mother-dear. Did you forget her toothache?" The tone was politely reproachful.

The woman was very erect now--her small eyes, grown wide, gazing at the child, devouring her. "Betty! Where have you been?" It was more a cry than a question--a cry of dismay, running swiftly toward terror. It was the haunting fear of her life that Betty would some day be kidnapped, as the child next door had been.... The fingers resting on the arm of the chair were held tense.

"I don't think I did wrong, mother." The child was looking at her very straight, as if answering a challenge. "You see, I walked home--"

"Where was James?" The woman's tone was sharp, and her hand reached toward the bell; but the child's hand moved softly toward it.

"I'd like to tell you about it myself, please, mother. James never waits for the lessons. I don't think he was to blame."

The woman's eyes were veiled with sudden mist. She drew the child close.

"Tell mother about it."

Betty Harris looked down, stroking her mother's sleeve. A little smile of memory held her lips. "He was a beautiful man!" she said.

The mother waited, breathless.

"I was walking home, and I came to his shop--"

"To his shop!"

She nodded rea.s.suringly. "His fruit-shop--and--oh, I forgot--" She reached into the little bag at her side, tugging at something. "He gave me these." She produced the round box and took off the lid, looking into it with pleased eyes. "Aren't they beautiful?"

The mother bent blindly to it. "Pomegranates," she said. Her lips were still a little white, but they smiled bravely with the child's pleasure.

"Pomegranates," said Betty, nodding. "That is what he called them. I should like to taste one--" She was looking at them a little wistfully.

"We will have them for luncheon," said the mother. She had touched the bell with quick decision.

"Marie"--she held out the box--"tell Nesmer to serve these with luncheon."

"Am I to have luncheon with you, mother-dear?" The child's eyes were on her mother's face.

"With me--yes." The reply was prompt--if a little tremulous.

The child sighed happily. "It is being a marvellous day," she said, quaintly.

The mother smiled. "Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall tell me about the wonderful man."

So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek--one Achilles Alexandrakis by name--had heard strange tales of Greece and Athens and the Parthenon--tales at the very mention of which her eyes danced and her voice rippled.

And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the child touched upon and flitted past. It had been part of the careful rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant attendance upon her was a body-guard--such as might wait upon a princess. It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Stone slept within sound of her breath. She had grown up happy and care-free, with no suspicion of the danger that threatened the child of a marked millionaire. She did not even know that her father was a very rich man--so protected had she been. She was only a little more simple than most children of twelve.

And she met the world with straight, shining looks, speaking to rich and poor with a kind of open simplicity that won the heart.

Her mother, watching the clear eyes, had a sudden pang of what the morning might have been--the disillusionment and terror of this unprotected hour--that had been made instead a memory of delight--thanks to an unknown Greek named Achilles Alexandrakis, who had told her of the beauties of Greece and the Parthenon, and had given her fresh pomegranates to carry home in a round box. The mother's thoughts rested on the man with a quick sense of grat.i.tude. He should be paid a thousand times over for his care of Betty Harris--and for pomegranates.

"They are like the Parthenon," said the child, holding one in her hand and turning it daintily to catch the light on its pink surface. "They grew in Athens." She set her little teeth firmly in its round side.

IV

AND ACHILLES DREAMS

Achilles, in his little shop, went in and out with the thought of the child in his heart. His thin fingers flitted lightly among the fruit.

The sadness in his face had given way to a kind of waking joy and thoughtfulness. As he made change and did up bags and parcels of fruit, his thoughts kept hovering about her, and his lips moved in a soft smile, half-muttering again the words he had spoken to her--praises of Athens, city of light, sky of brightness, smiles, and running talk....

It was all with him, and his heart was free. How the child's eyes had followed the words, full of trust! He should see her again--and again.... Outside a halo rested on the smoky air--a little child, out of the rattle and din, had spoken to him. As he looked up, the big, sooty city became softly the presence of the child.... The sound of pennies clinking in hurried palms was no longer harsh upon his ears; they tinkled softly--little tunes that ran. Truly it had been a wonderful day for Achilles Alexandrakis.

He paused in his work and looked about the little shop. The same dull-shining rows of fruit, the same spicy smell and the glowing disks of yellow light. He drew a deep, full breath. It was all the same, but the world was changed. His heart that had ached so long with its pent-up message of Greece--the glory of her days, the beauty of temples and statues and tombs--was freed by the tale of his lips. The world was new-born for him. He lifted the empty fig-box, from which the child had set free the b.u.t.terfly that had hung imprisoned in its grey coc.o.o.n throughout the long winter, and placed it carefully on the shelf. The lettering traced along its side was faded and dim; but he saw again the child's eyes lifted to it--the lips half-parted, the eager question and swift demand--that he should tell her of Athens and the Parthenon--and the same love and the wonder that dwelt in his own heart for the city of his birth. It was a strange coincidence that the child should have come to him. Perhaps she was the one soul in the great, hurrying city who could care. They did not understand--these hurrying, breathless men and women--how a heart could ache for something left behind across the seas, a city of quiet, the breath of the Past--sorrow and joy and sweet life.... No, they could not understand! But the child--He caught his breath a little. Where was she--in the hurry and rush? He had not thought to ask. And she was gone! Only for a moment the dark face clouded. Then the smile flooded again. He should find her. It might be hard--but he would search. Had he not come down the long way of the Piraeus to the sea--blue in the sun. Across the great waters by ship, and the long miles by train. He should find her.... They would talk again. He laughed quietly in the dusky shop.