Part 6 (2/2)

”I go,” said the man, with quick gesture--”You keep shop--I go.” He had taken off his white ap.r.o.n and seized a hat. He touched the woman on the shoulder. ”Come,” he said.

She looked at him with dazed glance and put her hand to her head. ”I cannot think,” she said slowly.

He nodded with steady glance. ”When we go, you tell--we find her,” he said.

She started then and looked at him--and the clear colour came to her face. ”You know--where--she is!”

But he shook his head. ”We find her,” he repeated. ”You tell.”

And as they threaded the streets--into drays and past clanging cars and through the tangle of wheels and horses and noise--and she told him the story, shouting it above the rumble and hurry of the streets, into the dark ear that bent beside her.

The look in Achilles's face deepened, but its steady quiet did not change. ”We find her,” he repeated each time, and Miss Stone's heart caught the rhythm of it, under the hateful noise. ”We find her.”

Then the great house on the lake faced them.

She looked at him a minute in doubt. Her face broke--”She may have come--home?” she said.

”I go with you,” said Achilles.

There was no sign of life, but the door swung open before them and they went into the great hall--up the long stairway that echoed only vacant softness, and into the library with its ranging rows of perfect books.

She motioned him before her. ”_I_ must tell them,” she said. She pa.s.sed through the draperies of another door and the silence of the great house settled itself about the man and waited with him.

XI

TWO MEN FACE EACH OTHER

He looked about the room with quiet face. It was the room he had been in before--the day he spoke to the Halcyon Club--the ladies had costly gowns and strange hats, who had listened so politely while he told them of Athens and his beloved land. The room had been lighted then, with coloured lamps and globes--a kind of rosy radiance. Now the daylight came in through the high windows and filtered down upon him over brown books and soft, leather-covered walls. There was no sound in the big room. It seemed shut off from the world and Achilles sat very quiet, his dark face a little bent, his gaze fixed on the rug at his feet. He was thinking of the child--and of her face when she had lifted it to him out of the crowded street, that first day, and smiled at him... and of their long talks since. It was the Child who understood. The strange ladies had smiled at him and talked to him and drank their tea and talked again... he could hear the soft, keen humming of their voices and the flitter of garments all about him as they moved. But the child had sat very still--only her face lifted, while he told her of Athens and its beauty... and he had told her again--and again. She would never tire of it--as he could never tire. She was a child of light in the great new world... a child like himself--in the hurry of the noise. A sound came to him in the distant house--people talking--low voices that spoke and hurried on. The house was awake--quick questions ran through it--doors sounded and were still. Achilles turned his face toward the opening into the long wide hall, and waited. Through the vista there was a glimpse of the stairway and a figure pa.s.sing up it--a short, square man who hurried. Then silence again--more bells and running feet. But no one came to the library--and no one sought the dark figure seated there, waiting. Strange foreign faces flashed themselves in the great mirror and out. The outer door opened and closed noiselessly to admit them--uncouth figures that pa.s.sed swiftly up the stairway, glancing curiously about them--and dapper men who did not look up as they went.

The house settled again to quiet, and the long afternoon, while Achilles waited. The light from the high windows grew dusky under chairs and tables; it withdrew softly along the gleaming books and hovered in the air above them--a kind of halo--and the shadows crept up and closed about him. Through the open door, a light appeared in the hall. A moving figure advanced to the library, and paused in the doorway, and came in. There was a minute's fumbling at the electric b.u.t.ton, and the soft lights came, by magic, everywhere in the room. The servant gave a quick glance about him, and started sternly--and came forward. Then he recognised the man. It was the Greek. But he looked at him sternly. The day had been full of suspicion and question--and the house was alive to it--”What do you want?” he said harshly.

”I wait,” said Achilles.

”Who told you to come?” demanded the man.

”I come. I wait,” said Achilles.

The man disappeared. Presently he returned. ”You come with me,” he said. His look was less stern, but he raised his voice a little, as if speaking to a child, or a deaf man. ”You come with me,” he repeated.

Achilles followed with quick-gliding foot--along the corridor, through a great room--to a door. The man paused and lifted his hand and knocked.

His back was tense, as if he held himself ready to spring.

A voice sounded and he turned the handle softly, and looked at Achilles.

Then the door opened and the Greek pa.s.sed in and the man closed the door behind him.

A man seated at a table across the room looked up. For a minute the two men looked at each other--the one short and square and red; the other thin as a reed, with dark, clear eyes.

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