Part 30 (1/2)

”And what shall you do?”

”I shall go to Asia. I had intended to go in any case, for I have private affairs there, nothing less important, I may tell you in confidence, than marrying a wife. Then I shall find something to do with the Spartans, among whom I have some very good friends. Come with me.

You too, might find a wife; that will be as you please; but anyhow I can guarantee you employment.”

”I confess,” said Callias, after meditating awhile, ”that I do not feel greatly drawn by what you suggest. As for the wife, that prospect does not please me at all; and, as you know, I am not so much of a Spartan-lover[91] as you. You must let me think about it; you shall have a final answer to-morrow.”

When Xenophon had taken leave, Callias went straight to Hippocles, and happened to arrive just as a messenger was leaving the house with a note addressed to himself, and asking for an early visit. Callias related what he had just heard from Xenophon.

”You do not surprise me. In fact I also have had a private intimation from a member of the Senate that this is going to be done, and it is exactly the matter about which I wished to see you. But tell me, what does Xenophon advise?”

Callias told him.

”And you hesitate about accepting his offer?”

”Yes; I do more than hesitate; I feel more and more averse to it the more I think of it.”

”You are right; to take service with the Spartans must, almost of necessity, mean, sooner or later, some collision with your own country.

It was this that ruined Alcibiades. If he could only have had patience, he could have saved himself and the Athenians too, but that visit to Sparta ruined both. No; I should advise you against Xenophon's suggestion.”

”But where am I to go? I have thought of Syracuse. But I do not care to go back to Dionysius. He was all courtesy and kindness; but I felt suffocated in the air of his court. And we never feel quite safe with a tyrant.”

”I have thought of something else that might suit you. I am going to start in a few days' time on a visit to my own native country, not to Poseidonia--I could not bear to see the barbarians masters there--but to Italy. There are other Greek cities which still hold their own, and they are well worth seeing. You might, too, if you choose, pay another visit to Rome. You will at least have the advantage of being out of this dismal round of strife to which Greece itself seems doomed. Our countrymen there have, I know, faults of their own; but they do contrive to live on tolerably good terms with each other.”

The plan proposed seemed to Callias to promise better than any that he could think of and he accepted the offer with thankfulness. A few days afterwards he was gazing for what he felt might well be the last time at the city of his birth. Bathed in the suns.h.i.+ne of a summer morning stood the Acropolis, crowned with its marble temples, and, towering above all, the gigantic statue of Athene the Champion, her outstretched spear-point flas.h.i.+ng in the light. What glories he was leaving behind him! What lost hopes, what unfulfilled aspirations of his own! The tears of no unmanly emotion were in his eyes as he turned away, but not before he had caught sight of a well-known house by the harbor of Piraeus. This seemed to be the last drop of bitterness in his cup. She had lost him for his country's sake, and now he had lost her, too. He turned and found himself face to face with Hermione! There was something in her look which made his heart thrill; but she did not give him time to speak.

”Callias,” she said, ”you gave up what you said was dear to me,” and her blush deepened as she spoke, ”for Athens' sake. But now--if you have not forgotten--”

He needed to hear no more. The next moment, careless of the eyes of the old helmsman, he had clasped her in his arms.

”I can allow myself to love the exile,” she whispered in his ear.