第17章 II(10)

But he did not finish. He felt the tips of Miss Morris's fingers laid upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone: "Don't; please don't." And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on the man's shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to flow calmly again through his veins. Carlton was aware that he had a very quick temper. He was always engaging in street rows, as he called them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else, and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never been satisfied without a blow or an apology. Women had also touched him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on him had had them beaten down for their pains. But this girl had merely touched him gently, and he had been made helpless. It was most perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing his luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as though it were numb, and looking down at it with an amused smile. He did not comment on the incident, although he smiled at the recollection of his prompt obedience several times during the day. But as he was stepping into the cab to drive to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping with water, and muttering bitter curses. When he saw Carlton he disappeared instantly in the crowd. Carlton stepped over to where Nolan sat beside the driver on the box. "Nolan," he said, in a low voice, "isn't that the fellow who--"

"Yes, sir," said Nolan, touching his hat gravely. "He was pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off the pier."

Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.

"Nolan," he said, "you're not telling the truth. You did it yourself." Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously.

There had been no detaining fingers on Nolan's arm.

You are coming now, Miss Morris," exclaimed Carlton from the front of the carriage in which they were moving along the sunny road to Athens, "into a land where one restores his lost illusions. Anybody who wishes to get back his belief in beautiful things should come here to do it, just as he would go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or his appetite. You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you are cured. I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege of cable-cars and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of Robert Elsmeres and the Heavenly Twins. Wait until you see the statues of the young athletes in the Museum," he cried, enthusiastically, "and get a glimpse of the blue sky back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the Acropolis, and you'll be convinced that nothing counts for much in this world but health and straight limbs, and tall marble pillars, and eyes trained to see only what is beautiful. Give people a love for beauty and a respect for health, Miss Morris, and the result is going to be, what they once had here, the best art and the greatest writers and satirists and poets. The same audience that applauded Euripides and Sophocles in the open theatre used to cross the road the same day to applaud the athletes who ran naked in the Olympian games, and gave them as great honor. I came here once on a walking tour with a chap who wasn't making as much of himself as he should have done, and he went away a changed man, and became a personage in the world, and you would never guess what it was that did it. He saw a statue of one of the Greek gods in the Museum which showed certain muscles that he couldn't find in his own body, and he told me he was going to train down until they did show; and he stopped drinking and loafing to do it, and took to exercising and working; and by the time the muscles showed out clear and strong he was so keen over life that he wanted to make the most of it, and, as I said, he has done it. That's what a respect for his own body did for him."

The carriage stopped at the hotel on one side of the public square of Athens, with the palace and its gardens blocking one end, and yellow houses with red roofs, and gay awnings over the cafes, surrounding it. It was a bright sunny day, and the city was clean and cool and pretty.

"Breakfast?" exclaimed Miss Morris, in answer to Carlton's inquiry; "yes, I suppose so, but I won't feel safe until I have my feet on that rock." She was standing on the steps of the hotel, looking up with expectant, eager eyes at the great Acropolis above the city.

"It has been there for a long time now," suggested Carlton, "and I think you can risk its being there for a half-hour longer."

"Well," she said, reluctantly, "but I don't wish to lose this chance. There might be an earthquake, for instance."

"We are likely to see THEM this morning," said Carlton, as he left the hotel with the ladies and drove towards the Acropolis. "Nolan has been interviewing the English maid, and she tells him they spend the greater part of their time up there on the rock. They are living very simply here, as they did in Paris; that is, for the present. On Wednesday the King gives a dinner and a reception in their honor."

"When does your dinner come off asked Miss Morris.

"Never," said Carlton, grimly.

"One of the reasons why I like to come back to Athens so much," said Mrs. Downs, "is because there are so few other tourists here to spoil the local color for you, and there are almost as few guides as tourists, so that you can wander around undisturbed and discover things for yourself. They don't label every fallen column, and place fences around the temples. They seem to put you on your good behavior. Then I always like to go to a place where you are as much of a curiosity to the people as they are to you. It seems to excuse your staring about you."