McClure's Magazine/Volume 32/Number 1/The Golden Fleece

by Albert Kinross

THE GOLDEN FLEECE

BY

ALBERT KINROSS

I

CAPEL came on board the "Golden Fleece" at Athens. It is an old and comfortable five-thousand-tonner, once a mail-boat, but now the property of a London syndicate, which fills it at advertised intervals with thoughtful tourists; sending them down the Mediterranean in winter, and across the North Sea, or up the Baltic, in summer.

Capel had chosen this leisurely way for his homecoming. The "cruise" would break his slow return to England, giving him an added week, a larger space for meditation; and he had time enough. Five years—a few days more would make no difference after five years! As he sat on deck, late in the afternoon, he took her letter from his case—he had done the same thing half an hour ago. He knew the page by heart, had read it twenty times before, would read it twenty times again, as he was reading it now:

"Dear Maurice," she said, "there must be some way out of our horrible mistake. I don't know where you are living, but, if you have any pity in you, come home and make me a free woman. I will do anything I can to help you. I admit the fault was mine, and I regret it.

"Yours,

Mabel."

The note had gone to his solicitors at first, had followed him to Greece, from Athens to the Islands; and then, one stormy afternoon at Delos, a boatman had placed it in his hands. Three months and seven days had passed since she had posted it in London. "Am returning," he had wired back to her from Athens. "She wants to marry again," he now repeated for the twentieth time, as he refolded the small sheet and placed it carefully away in its frayed envelop. A bugler came on deck and sounded the first-dinner call. Capel went below and changed his dress.

Almost five years were gone since he had sat at table in the old, familiar way, in starch and broadcloth, with graceful women and a fixed menu. This evening he bowed gravely as he took his place; already in England, by the decorous face of things. An archeological parson, ardent, Hellenic, was on his left; an auburn-haired, freckled girl sat on his right. The long table to which he had been guided was ringed with smaller tables. There must have been close upon two hundred passengers in the big saloon. It was a vast change from the Islands and the solitary meals of those five years.

A red-faced, shock-headed man, who had his name, presented Capel to neighbors right and left. He must feel at home here, it seemed agreed. He talked the usual commonplaces of such a meeting: Athens was hot—they had passed Salamis that afternoon—yes, he knew it well. And the Islands, part of the itinerary of the "cruise" whose opening stages he had missed, he had visited some of them. Yes, he spoke modern Greek—it was not so difficult if one had a smattering of the old. ... He listened to the calm, cool voice that said these things, recognizing it for his own and rather interested. He had not heard himself aloud—not to any such decorous extent—since 1900. Thought in English, yes; but the spoken word—He had grown calmer and cooler since that language was the every-day. Facing him sat a dark and shimmering girl who had been stung by a mosquito, and who wore some iridescent Eastern covering that hid the injured cheek. She had been included in the shock-headed man's introductions, but, so far, Capel had not caught her name.

Instruction and pleasure seemed evenly mingled on this journey, for, at nine o'clock, the archeological parson was to lecture on their next anchorage and its excursions. To this end the quarter-deck had been transformed into a suitable hall, with long rows of seats and an awning that hid the stars and the far landmarks. Capel joined the audience that lolled in the deck-chairs. The parson and a limelight man, with slides and a lantern, were ready for them. It was very novel, very interesting, very improving. The parson threw his views and his photographs upon the screen and said ardent, instructive things about the scenes and places represented. Capel listened, and old England, the barbaric, the beloved, drew nearer here than in the big saloon. He knew his Greece; but it was not at all like this. To him, Greece was rather more than a dead impulse, covered by its twenty odd centuries. To him, Greece was alive, as in her greatest day. Why not? You may overturn temples; Persian and Slav and Roman may destroy and subjugate; but the soul of things evanished will endure. Twenty odd centuries had only slain the body. He shaped these thoughts indifferently, as he listened to this enthusiastic parson. After all, why should these people know? They had come out of England, fresh, alive; they were returning there hopefully, with stories of this cruise, to go on living; while he—he had the dead for company, the irremediable past. The last five years—and the future, would that not be dead as well?

Away in the stern, safely concealed behind a deck-house full of machinery, he found the auburn-haired, freckled girl, and the dark and shimmering young person who had been stung by a mosquito. Capel had sought this quiet spot for a last cigarette, before going down to his berth. The dark and shimmering young person was, apparently, bent on the same errand. Hers was already lighted.

"Away in the stern, safely concealed behind a deck-house full of machinery, he found them"

"I don't disturb you?" said Capel, striking a second match.

"Nothing ever disturbs us," returned the dark, young person.

"Really?" said Capel. So bold a statement rather came as a surprise. He took it literally and sat with them till it was time to say good-night.

II

The two girls were traveling companions—"thieves set to catch thieves," as Miss Stair, the freckled one, put it next morning, when Capel sat with them again over a cigarette. Neither, it appeared, took her office very seriously. It was a social observance, they carefully explained, and, like many other new things, had been borrowed from America.

They had anchored at Nauplia, a port from which one has easy access to the excursions expounded by last night's lecturer. Already tile first boat-load of tourists was making for the shore. Tiryns, Argos, and Mycenae were to be visited before sundown; a huge undertaking, it seemed to Capel, who had several times found his solitary way to those old monuments; spending a week here, another there, letting time fill him, and torture him, and lead him. He had a vivid memory of all three places.

This morning he landed with the rest, rather from lack of purpose than for any interest he had in revisiting these antique sites and excarations; even those two great tombs, built into a hillside and guarding the mystery of some forgotten line of kings.

It was a broiling day, blue and perfect; the right April weather of such southern lands. Capel's mood was to look once more on Greece; on her bare hillsides, her far mountains, the green level of her plains; to catch once more the rapture of her skies and her blue waters; ah, living—living to-day as in the splendid past! And then .… perhaps he might never see the vision of her loveliness again! Who knew? The future was life's longest mystery with him.

He had drifted again into the society of his two friends, and with them was now a fair young man, whom Capel remembered to have seen on board the ship. After Tiryns and Argos, the four had lunched together at the inn-garden below Mycenae. Capel took charge of the party, and, his knowledge of the language aiding, they fared far better than the rest. He left them as they made ready for the last ascent.

"I shall take a walk while you explore," he said; "there are heaps of things to see if one has time."

He wandered off alone, up a gray hillside, with no one to cross the charm of all that solitude. Away below him were the fragments of Mycenae, dotted and gay with the two hundred tourists. Far and insignificant they seemed, and active like bright ants. He had reached a place, high and steep and mountainous, before he rested. The tourists had all vanished. Now he overlooked the sea, where the "Golden Fleece" had dwindled to a small, black boat, riding at anchor in the Nauplian Bay; nearer was the town, with the vague menace of its Venetian fortress; but, crowding out these trivial incursions, was the great plain that rolled in from the coast-line to the spurs of the bare hills where he was perched. Argos rose from its bosom like an island—a strong place, steep and armed; far away was prehistoric Tiryns; and here beneath him, Mycenae, where Agamemnon and the Argive kings had ruled. The great plain rolled outward to the glittering sea. How dead and empty was the present; how splendid and alive the ancient past! . . . Strange ships cast their anchors in that far-off bay, crowding it, curled hulk behind curled hulk, colored and silken and flaming, as painted sail and painted vessel took the sun. From their bowels came forth armies that massed on the far edge of the plain: thousands and thousands of warriors, waiting the signal to advance: to advance against Tiryns, against Argos, against Mycenae, over that illimitable plain. The sunlight caught the dyes and radiance of their banners, of shimmering garments, the purple and the gold; the embossed trappings, the burnished armor; it flashed amid the spearheads and the thunderous brass. Nearer, unhastening, fearless, irresistible, moved the invader: Tiryns was arming, was arming Argos, was arming Mycenae: nearer and nearer drew all the color and animation of that splendid pageant. War was a sport in those far days when men could come to grips. The great plain was spread before him and alive with a mirage of its glorious past. He came away from there, a dim longing, an exultant reverie, the light of battle and knowledge and visionary dreams filling him with a transient ecstasy.

Coming down the hillside warily, he returned to the gay tavern, with its remnant of conveyances. On the road, ahead of him, was a scarlet parasol, and a slight figure marching lonely like himself—the dark girl from the ship, for he recognized the parasol. Should he overtake her and spoil the vision that still filled him? He slackened his pace and let her reach the inn alone.

That evening at Nauplia he found himself with her again. They had walked down from the station, and she had told him to stop at the first place where they sold picture-cards or postage-stamps. It was a public holiday, and all the shops were shut except a chemist's. Capel accosted the elegant young gentleman in charge and questioned him. From the doorway all three proceeded to a writing-table within. Everything was in order. The chemist produced cards, had postage-stamps, chairs in abundance, ink, and a passable pen. Capel found himself writing addresses at the dark young person's dictation. Her people, so it seemed, were at home in Cumberland, in a house that stood some miles from anywhere. A faint curiosity possessed him as he put addresses on these picture post-cards.

"Your name's Fermoy?" he asked—it was the one that had occurred most frequently.

"Yes; what's yours?"

"Capel—Maurice Capel," he answered, and resumed his writing.

"What's that word?" she asked, looking at the strange characters he had drawn in the corners.

"That's 'England' in Greek."

"They'll like that," said Rose Fermoy gravely; "it makes it seem so real."

III

She cared then a trifle for reality? What would she say if she heard the real, ungilded truth about him? It was the first time in all his exile that Capel had linked the two romantic pronouns personally; even in some such half-fugitive question as this one, which now came to him idly, as their boat made the passage from the shore. . . . Married, yet single, free, and yet bound, he had so far avoided every approach to such an argument. The few possible women that he had met, he had passed almost stonily: they meant nothing to him, nor he to them. Here, on this steam-yacht, there were new conditions; it was like a tiny island, overpopulous, and filled with scarce avoidable companionships. He had not taken count of this; nor did he even now, deeming himself, from long custom, invulnerable and lost to human things. If he had been asked about himself, he might have confessed that this habit of aloofness had grown with him to be his nature, making him almost of another species—so far had it removed him from the kindly race of men.

The second day of their call at Nauplia was to be spent in a visit to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus. Capel had no mind for that long journey and its hurried flittings over classic ground. He hardened his heart, while boat-load after boat-load of his fellow-passengers went holidaying, eager to fill the strings of hired conveyances that lined the shore . . . . The "Golden Fleece" was a golden ark of peace when they were gone.

Safe in his old place behind the steering-engine, he unfolded and read the letter that had called him home; returned it once more to its envelop, the cracked, the soiled. . . . He had never loved this woman who made so seeming piteous an appeal. She had been hard enough before; hard enough before,. when she wanted him and the imagined advantage of a name, socially important, and opening to a class beyond her own. He had believed a little in the point of honor then; believed that there was something to be said for holding to an engagement that time had probed and left all jarring and awry. He was paying dearly for an alluring moment—three dances, sat out in the softness of a June garden, to be exact—and next day she had held him to his word. He had kept it—as best he could. But the rest—a loveless marriage—he could not bring himself to that. All his manhood had cried out against the baseness of this last surrender; and he had fled, leaving her to wear the name she had so coveted, had played for, had won. He had left her upon their wedding-day. There had been an ice-cold scene between them. He had said his say and gone. People, no doubt, had called him mad; it was always the simplest explanation of things, true in nature, though inimical to "civilization" and the social state. She would not let him break this ill-advised engagement; and perhaps she had a right to this; but marriage—a house built on such sands, the forced treacheries of the after years—he could not stoop so low as that!

For the thousandth time, for some time beyond compute, he reviewed the paradox of his position and its hopelessness. What did she want of him now? He had given her all he would; all she had any right to claim, even to the half of his income. Perhaps her lawyers had found some way around. . . . These were idle thoughts to fill a perfect day. He would go ashore and bask in its forgetfulness.

On the way to the cabin he came across Rose Fermoy, who recognized him with a smile and half a gesture, as of invitation. He accepted a convenient deck-chair and asked her why she had not joined the rest and gone to Epidaurus.

She was not doing penance for past sins, she said. Mycenae, Tiryns, and Argos sufficed for all her present needs. Till they had settled to a definite shape, she would not look at another stone.

"Then come ashore and have lunch," he suggested. "I'm going to—at some Greek place. They treat you like a guest if you're civil and can talk to them."

She was delighted with the proposal. . . . "No archeology—no ruins—no nothing— just lunch!" she interpreted it; "I'm coming."

When she joined him at the gangway, she found he had engaged a native boatman, who was to take them for a preliminary sail.

"It'll give us an appetite," he explained; and she was willing.

And so, after making the circuit of the bay, they stepped on shore.

He found the best hotel in the place, and there they made a peculiar repast off dishes she tried hard to recognize.

"This is real," she repeated, happily attacking the unknown.

Again he caught himself wondering at her passion for reality.

"You've lived in Greece?" she asked him, as they took their coffee.

"Five years."

"Doing what?"

"Digging, digging—digging about in the past."

"And the future?"

"Doesn't come within the scope of archeology."

He told her a little of the Islands and the rough life that he and his fellow-excavators had led there.

"Were there ever moments—moments that thrilled you?" She put it to him, a light in her dark eyes.

He met them; and they were genuinely afire; no facile enthusiasm in their honest depths.

Last year at Delos," he answered slowly, "we found an Apollo. It was wonderful to come across him—these things are so alive."

"And women—you never found a woman?"

"Never," he said; and, finishing his scrutiny of her face, "Never till now," he added, under his breath.

She pressed him about the finding of the Apollo.

"You want to hear about him? . . . It was wonderful," he added, after a pause. . . . "Brugère, Homolle, Laporte, Paulsen, and I were on the island, and our workmen. Delos belongs to the French school; but they had admitted Paulsen, who is a Dane; while I—I usually do as I like. . . . All the summer we had been working, with nothing but chips of pottery, one curious piece of mosaic, and a quantity of stones—street after street of houses—to show for it. My men and I were down at a temple near the harbor one evening. It was there that the Apollo first came to light. We had found the floor of the temple, and the bases of its pillars, and some remnant of an altar. We'd all but finished our day's work—sunrise to sunset it often was—when one of the men, digging away near the foundation, discovered a marble knee. He called out when he came to it, and threw his spade aside. By the time I reached him, he had uncovered the whole round of it with his hands and a clasp-knife. . . . You may not have troubled your head about the human knee, marble or otherwise; but, really, it is very beautiful. There's so much delicate machinery, so cunning an arrangement of bone and skin and cartilage; so much knowledge and so much workmanship are required for their proper presentation—and this one, as I stooped over it, was without a flaw. Those of Michelangelo, on the Medicean tombs at Florence, are, perhaps, the most perfect in the world. This one, I thought, was no less masterly. I stopped-work for that day and went to look for my companions. . . . Paulsen was in the museum, sticking labels on bits of earthenware; the three Frenchmen had gone down to their huts. I told them my story, and they came back with me. The workman, who was the real discoverer, still stood on guard. 'Let us finish,' said the Frenchmen. 'We'll dine first,' I said; for I was hungry. 'After that we'll go on; all night, if you like.'"

"There was a full moon, silvering already, and west of us the sun had set, leaving its glow on all the Islands and the wine-dark sea. You yourself have watched the drama of such evenings: they belong to Homer and the epic bards. In the town across the water, there were already a few lights. The near island, Rheneia, lay in shadow, all sinister and dark. It is uninhabited, except for the ghosts of the dead Delians—it was their place of dying and of burial, if you remember. . . . Not a cloud, and a full moon that would stay till after midnight.

"We dined, eating our tinned food and preserves with the zest of heroes; we smoked a few cigarettes; and then the five of us and our faithful workman made ready. . . . It was a lovely scene, rare, romantic: this island, full of mystic ruins, marbles and gray stones, climbing the hill which leads to its furthermost point; the sea about us, other islands across the glass-like waters, the lights of Tinos; above them all, the full moon that alone made this adventure possible. We five men had stripped to the waist; for we had work to do.

"Mostly, we used our hands. Spyros, our man, did the rough digging; but even he was tender. From the knee, we descended little by little—the whole leg and foot were perfect. Spyros, at his end, had found the face; the nose, and even the ears, were undamaged. The rest was easy. . . . Three, four hours' hard work; and then the moon left us—time flies in these good moments; but, before it went, it had shown us this white Apollo, straight from head to foot, with even the fingers curving on the broken hands—they had parted at the wrist, but they were there. . . . The figure was large, yet not too large. Eight foot and something was its height. It lay there like a perfect body in its tomb. . . . The moon went down and all was darkness. The lights had disappeared at Tinos; there was a faint murmur from the sea. The stars stood overhead, creating monstrous outlines, blacks that were less black than other blacks. . . . Brugère gave the word: 'We will continue,' he said, 'with lanterns. Why not?' . . . Half-naked, perspiring though we were, we raced to the huts in that darkness, and came back with lamps, with lanterns, with candles—I remember Homolle brought out a bicycle-lamp that had reached there somehow—with everything we could find that would give light. Our Apollo was safe. . . . And now for the final stroke. We would sink a pole into the earth, a strong support; and, against this, our figure would rest, would stand upright, so that we could see him face to face. This was agreed. In that strange light we chose a pole from the building materials we'd imported for our museum, dug a place for it, and sank it in the ground. Ropes we had in plenty; but, best of all, we were six strong men, all eager, all enthusiasts, and all excited with the joy of a supreme moment, the like of which might never enter in our lives again. It was the first that had been seen of the Delian Apollo. Now, you can buy his photograph at every shop. . . . I suppose your newspapers have said things about it; but, to us, it was an act of true creation" . . . and Capel paused, reaching out again to the joy and the dominance of that august surprise.

Miss Fermoy said, "Go on."

Capel obeyed:

"In that strange light we erected our new god upon the island; lifted him at last from the lost tomb where he had slept two thousand years, and set him in the air and into day again. We turned his glorious face toward the east. With a deft intent. The sun would rise from there, drowning our candles, and our lanterns, and our oil-lamps. . . . And so it happened. The day-break and the dawn came golden from the east. Our white Apollo, who had looked so fair and undefiled by moonlight, and even when our lanterns had traced out the pure lines of his body, stood erect and met the sun. The dust was in his short, crisp curls; he was a trifle soiled, and stained, and tainted with the earth—but so were we! And then, all six of us rushed shouting to the sea, threw off what few clothes we wore, and swam about like fishes. . . . That was last year—only last year."

Miss Fermoy looked up. . . . His story was, evidently, at an end.

"Have you paid?" she asked.

"I will," said Capel.

"Here's my share"; she had handed him a piece of gold. "The change can wait," she added; "and now we'll walk."

Of that afternoon, Capel retained but a radiant, sun-drenched memory; beatific, half opaque, formless yet divined, like the more golden paintings of his favorite Turner. . . . They tramped along the dusty road that leads to Tiryns; they rested under the shadow of that vast, cyclopean ruin. The size of its huge stones explained a thousand myths: Titans had quarried them, and cut them, and laid them—of that there could be no doubt.

The wild thyme grew here, scented, filling the air with its soft odor; the lizards rustled in the sunlight.

"What has become of Miss Stair?" he asked her, as they made the stiff ascent.

"Gone to Epidaurus with the others."

"It was wise of her," he said; and the girl at his side wondered, and, perhaps, agreed.

Below Tiryns stands a cafénia, a wayside tavern, where one may take refreshment in a secluded garden.

The man who looked after them brought Miss Fermoy a huge handful of roses. They drank some sweet red wine; they ate loukoumi and little cakes. On the road again, a native carrier offered them a lift. He had a load of wine barrels, and, among these, they sat blissfully, watching Tiryns disappear, and Nauplia and the "Golden Fleece" come closer.

"It has been wonderful"; they were at the ship's side again. "Ever so much more wonderful," she said, "than broiling at Epidaurus."

IV

Their next halting place was Katakolo; whence they would make the excursion to Olympia. After that, Greece would vanish, and the colder lands approach. This morning, Capel and Rose Fermoy went ashore with the rest; with Miss Stair and the fair young man who had lunched with them at Mycenae; with the whole two hundred.

This morning they had started out together as though some understanding linked them, whether by accident or by design neither took the trouble to ascertain—it seemed the most natural thing in all the world. Ashore. they walked together, fractional. obscure, part and parcel of the flocked two hundred.

Special trains were in waiting to receive them; a toy engine and toy carriages that made the journey from Katakolo to Pyrgos, and a full-sized affair that ran from Pyrgos to the station of Olympia. Village and station lie below a hill and are shut out. Over that ascent. you discover a pink and white museum, a pink and white hotel, shaped like Greek temples; and, afterwards, you face round to where, deep in the bed of a wide and shallow valley, spreads the gray remnant of a ruined city.

Capel had looked down from there alone, lived there alone, through a past autumn. To-day he found that place alight with spring. He let Miss Stair and the fair young man go sight-seeing with the rest. There would be a meal at one o'clock, and they would come together again, all four of them, at the hotel. "What are we going to do?" he asked of Miss Fermoy when this had been agreed.

She looked at him questioningly. "I never care," she said, "as long as I am happy."

"You're happy now?"

"Quite," was her answer. "I could sit down in the grass, and just be—just be—well, happy."

He could, too, it seemed.

They had a plaid with them, an old, dark shawl, threadbare, venerable, but yet so precious that he had with difficulty induced her to part from it. He gathered that it belonged to somebody at home, where it was cherished.

He spread if for her now, and it seemed a link, intimate and vital, that gained him an half admission to the pleasant places whence she was sprung—closed to him, always closed to such as he. . . . His wistful eyes were turned to her clear profile. . . . She might open; she herself might loosen bars and bolts and fling the gateways wide; but behind her and about her, now, there were those others; other measures, other watchwords, other voices in command. He saw her then, remote, far from him, absorbed and divided by a vague atmosphere, that might, in the event, prove hostile. And with that he touched her hand lightly, in passing, reassuring himself; making, at least, that hour, that moment, for his own.

He had spread the shawl for her, and there they sat: behind them, the pink and white museum and hotel, shaped like Greek temples; in front, a tiny stream, crossing rich meadows; and at the end, flanked by the brilliant verdure of the Hill of Kronos, silent, untenanted, the gray ruin of the sacred city. Midway and solitary, between their eminence and the low ground beyond its contours clear in that transparent air, stood a judas-tree in flower, purple all over, from topmost branch to the dark trunk of it. It.stood there proudly, voluptuously, almost wickedly, like.a torch of purple flame mocking the golden noon. . . . Mycenae and the Argive plain had been colt places of bare stone beside this place, whose April splendors shone among these wooded heights, these green enameled fields and sun-kissed waters. A distant river, the Alpheios, a line of torquoise set in a golden bed; closed this fair prospect. From the museum behind them, in tiny groups, trickled their fellow-voyagers, going down to the ruins and inscriptions of the valley.

Perhaps an hour passed, and, perhaps, less—time was no moment on this April day—before they rose and stood upright. The last of the tourists had gone down the slope to the gray city.

V

In the museum of Olympia lives the Hermes of Praxiteles. It has a chamber, dedicate, apart. The other figures, archaic, following an easier convention, have their story, but this rare piece of marble is transfigured by some great awakening, some first, supreme adventure of the human soul. The Hermes is all youth; it has the fragrance of an eternal spring, the wistful sunshine, the exquisite grace of the opening year, the tenderness of faces turned for the first time toward the mystery of love. . . . The profile of this statue, seen in the light that entered from the April fields outside, was the embodiment of the young season. An artist had dreamed of spring and held his dream within the lines his hands had carved.

Capel had led Rose Fermoy through the central hall, past the two rows of figures from the house where Phidias had erected his Zeus; he had led her straight from the sunlight into this cool place, this further shrine. "If you are wise," he had said, "you won't trouble about the rest to-day." . . . And she was wise—or foolish: she could not say which.

Their luncheon ended, she went off alone to seek an answer. Alone, she wandered up the leafy hill of Kronos, Titan and sage; whose wisdom made no stir, whispered neither approval nor reproach, gave nor withheld . . . Or foolish? . . . In all her three and twenty years she had lived untroubled, amazon, and free of heart; a vessel, true and staunch, whose careless flag bore the proud motto, "No Surrender!" Men had come her way, and she had looked them frankly in the face with those clear eyes of hers. To-day . . .

She came down the Hill of Kronos. She had decided that she would ask no further questions.

Capel, left to himself, had stayed behind at the hotel. Idly, from his vantage ground, he traversed the landscape. He looked up to the Kronion and saw a patch of red—he recognized the scarlet parasol that had gone before him on the road below Mycenae. . . . It moved there like a flag and like a signal, ascending higher and ever higher. He lost it, and, when he found it again, she was descending. Should he go out to meet her? She must come by the bridge that crossed the tiny rivulet below. He would wait till she neared it, and then set out.

Meanwhile, he took a letter from an inside pocket, read it, re-read it, folded it, put it in its envelop, and returned it once more to its resting-place. This ceremony over, he went slowly down the hill, thinking—thinking—thinking.

VI

Away from Olympia runs a tiny stream, its channel deep between two scented banks, jeweled with the season's flowers. Here the world is shut out, the ruin of the old city, the to and fro of museum and hotel. Here one might meet a dryad, come lightfooted from the shade and boscage of the Hill of Kronos. Here, indeed, some such entirely appropriate person had arrived to take her ease. She chose a shadowed spot, with a good place for her head, and laid aside her parasol. Two wild ducks chattered and gabbled in some unseen nook, where they had made their nest. She went down to look for them, and the chattering ceased. She came back to her place in the shadow, and the chattering began anew. A peasant boy, leading a mule hung with tin vessels, moved drumming to the stream. He filled his tins with water and drummed away again. Afar, in the world outside, droned the piping of a native musician. There followed the deep silence of the afternoon. Rose put her face to the earth and heard no sound. Above, between bank and bank, the sun blazed in the blue heavens. . . .

Capel, making for the bridge, had seen her disappear, had searched for her, had found her. Pan-like, he had been spying from his unsuspected place amid the reeds. Now he came out of hiding and advanced over the broken ground. Quietly, he sank into the long grass at her side. She was sleeping, dreamlessly, and like a child. . . . He watched her, and the stir of her, and the lines of her; the dark hair and the olive skin; the heave of the small round bosom, the velvet throat, the fall of the soft skirt that draped her. He watched there, suspended, lost in some lyric rapture of the senses, caught up in some April flood that looked nor backward nor ahead. The present filled him. There might be trouble in store; behind him was a waste of bitter years; but to-day, a forbidden hour uplifted him and made him man. . . . He smoothed out one fold of the drapery that was astray. Now she lay perfect; like the Hermes, like the vision of promise and of beauty that had mastered the strong hands of him whose work they had swayed to in the cool museum: they—divided—apart—yet near; touched by a divine emotion that had made them one. They had suffered this joy together, this sweet, soft pain. A glory had laid hold of them that April hour; a musical throbbing, as of ascendant larks facing the sun, had filled their breasts. He knew it: how and why he knew it, he could not say. Perhaps she, sleeping there, would tell him—some day; some far, far day in some unhoped for, unhorizoned life. He stooped over her face and read it. . . . Her eyes opened, and he worshiped it. . . . "Not now," the whisper ran within him; "Not now!" He forced himself away and turned his head. . . .

Upright, erect again, risen to their feet—they found the world. It laughed at them—radiant, as though conscious of bright coverings, its phoenix gift, its April renewal—and they laughed back; heartwhole, asking nothing from the gods but life!

It was Capel's last day in Greece; and yet, the first: the first he had known with spring, and joy, and his forsaken youth, all plucking at his heartstrings—the very first! . . . And then he recalled how, long ago, in far-off dreams, this land had always seemed like that; filled with forgetfulness, and beauty, and dim monuments of the first race that vanquished barbarism, and made their life a ritual and an art.

VII

Late on the next night the "Golden Fleece" anchored before Syracuse. She had reached the outer world at last, where must come parting, and the trend of normal ways. Rose and Grace Stair were leaving her here. Their program was arranged. They would see something of Sicily and then continue northward, stopping at Naples, at Rome, at Florence. Capel's direction was to Marseilles; thence straight to London and the cloud that drew him home. The rest of this journey he would meet alone, aloof and self-absorbed, as when he had set out. Across the waters shone the lights of the unseen city. He and Miss Fermoy had watched them nearing, and each had felt the dim finality, the oncoming severance, of that approach. Now, Rose had gone below, where Miss Stair, her auburn locks unbound, was waiting in a fever of suspense.

"You're going to see him again?" she asked at once.

Rose met her eyes; and gathered what was meant.

"Perhaps, in the morning," she answered quietly.

"And later?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, he's not like that!" Miss Stair was sure.

Rose spoke quite calmly: "I think we're both—'like that'—both he and I."

"Strong-minded?"

"Grace, dear old Grace, I must pack and put my things away—there are so many things to put away," she ended, turning to the hooks and pegs on her side of the cabin. Miss Stair, reclining in an upper berth, looked hard at her, as she moved steadfastly, intent upon her task.

"Nice men are wasted on you, Rose," she said at last; and then, "I could have done with him quite comfortably," she added laughing; "I don't suppose you ever thought of that!"

VIII

Capel stood at the gangway head, saying good-by to her. Below, the ship's launch was in waiting, piled with trunks and boxes, with parcels and the lesser things of such a flitting. It waited, as a cab waits at a door. He could read her name on one flat box—"R. Fermoy," in travel-stained white against the travel-stained brown.

"If you're ever in the north, you must come and see us," were her last words.

He had approached the conventional reply, but there was a wretchedness in his voice, in his whole bearing, that bled through the disguise, making the effort plain, passing his self-control. He stood there with a wound, open, unhealing, but for her. . . . Here was no farewell, rather an amputation, unanesthetized; a lopping off of some new faculty, some radiant blossoming, freshly begun—here ended!

Beside the two girls, at least half a dozen other tourists were volleying parting messages or waving from the launch.

Capel watched their upturned faces, so sick at heart he had not strength to move from there and blot this vision out. It was over, he told himself, finished, and done with,—and still he kept to his post at the ship's side. The start of the small propeller aroused him. The launch first fussed, then found herself—and they were off. In that same instant he knew that his one chance of happiness—his one chance of happiness in all the world; was going from him, was gliding away from him, over those blue waters to that white and glittering town. And he was letting it go! . . . Last night, this severance, unfaced, unrealized, its full cruelty lost in the teeming bounty of the present, the vouchsafed, had seemed necessary, inevitable: but now, without her, there was neither life nor living! . . . And still he clung to his place at the ship's side. . . . The launch had reached a landing-stage. Rose had stepped out. He followed her—a dab of brown—until she and her party and their luggage had disappeared. And then the spell that held him cleared, lifted, and set him free.

Capel sought out the ship's purser.

"I've had enough of this," he said.

The purser hardly seemed surprised.

"Will you take my check?" said Capel.

"How much?" said the purser.

"Thirty."

"Make it fifty. I'll see you in my office."

Capel arrived there with a kit-bag and a check blank.

The purser wrote in the fifty pounds—all but the signature.

Capel added that.

"Better have gold," said the purser.

"I've got a pocketful."

"The more the merrier—here's half and half."

Capel raked in the money, the notes with one hand, the sovereigns with the other. "Good of you to trust me," he said.

"That's all right"; and then the purser added, "Young lady's an heiress."

"Which young lady?"

"Miss Stair."

"Is she?" said Capel.

"You didn't know?—all the better," and the purser chuckled.

"Keep my other things for me at Marseilles; I'11 write or wire—the steward knows all about them."

The purser chuckled again.

"Wish you luck."

The launch had come back from the shore, to find a new fare hurrying down the gangway.

The officer in charge hesitated.

Beside it bobbed a native boat full of musicians. They were giving the "Golden Fleece" a concert in return for stray coppers.

"This'll do," said Capel.

The officer in charge made way.

"Aqui," cried Capel, "Cinque lire—presto!"

They understood him.

"Deici," said they.

"All right." He didn't care.

"All-o-ri," echoed the leader. They sang and strummed to him till he touched land.

IX

It was early morning, and Syracuse had barely brushed the sleep out of its eyes. Capel had found a terrace and a promenade facing seawards; in these a gap that led into the town. Two or three hotels were on the way, none of them very impressive, but easy enough to come across. At one he heard that some English ladies had left their luggage, and then gone out to see the sights. "Show me this luggage," he said. It was practically at his feet, and there, foremost and thrice-blessed, reposed that old flat box, with its "R. Fermoy" in travel-stained white against the travel-stained brown. He thanked the hall-porter and left.

Outside was the sunlit square and the cathedral. What was there to see here, except this massive pile?

He entered and was besieged by boys with picture post-cards. They had no shame, no reverence; it was a public place, like an exchange or market. He answered them curtly and looked down the central aisle. Three of the departed tourists were rummaging there. He moved out of range, to a side chapel, and there she knelt in brown, unmistakably she for whom he sought.

He waited.

There was a footfall at his side. It was Miss Stair, sunny and freckled and altogether alert. She smiled faintly, as though she had expected him. Then she tiptoed away.

Rose had done. There were the marks of tears on her face. It told him everything, as his told her. They had confessed in that swift recognition, without reserve, all weapons laid aside, as is befitting under such a roof. Their love lay open to the world.

"You knew that I would come?" he said.

"I have just prayed for it," she answered simply, "now or later—as long as you did come——"

Miss Stair had rejoined them.

He walked between the two girls on a tiny round of exploration, and, with them, he stepped out into the sunlight, where they paused to notice how Pagan columns and Christian fabric made this temple.

"Catholic," he said, "Roman and Catholic—the most human place of all the places where men pray!"

X

Opposite the cathedral is a café, whose vaulted rooms, as is the way with rooms Italian, are frescoed romantically and, perhaps, cheaply, with designs of flowers and fruit. Hither these three repaired, and it was here that Capel introduced them to the joys of vermouth and seltzers, and sent the waiter across the street for a pocketful of those aromatic cigars named after the patriot-hero, Marco Minghetti. Here, too, it was that that semi-divine personage, Miss Stair, explained that she had letters to write, and, also, her diary to bring in order. She had been most terribly remiss with it. Would they excuse her if she spent a few hours in her room? They made no difficulty, even escorted her as far as the hotel. Then they marched on, seawards, to the harbor, where the "Golden Fleece" was under steam and slowly moving out to the deep waters. They watched her, side by side, shoulder to shoulder; that old black hulk, deliberate and ungainly, whereon they had spent such strange, sweet hours; that good staunch ship, wonder-filled and magical, where all one's dreams came true! . . . She vanished; only the dwindling smoke of her remained, melting, vanishing, too, between the water and the ardent blue beyond.

"The 'Golden Fleece' was under steam and slowly moving out to the deep waters"

From the terrace where they stood, the whole bay was spread before them, and the green of a level country running far inland. Capel's eyes rested on the spot where the green was greenest, the sparse trees most clustered, the plain most rising from the flat. "We'll go there," he said.

He found a cabman, a sly old fellow, greedy, wrinkled, and obtuse; a cunning ogre, who, obviously, preyed upon tourists, and to whose original baseness much traffic with the honeymooner had added a sinister and incurable misanthropy. Rose and her lover hated him, but they had no immediate alternative.

"We want to drive in that direction—" Capel indicated it—"for one hour. Then you can drop us and go home. How much?"

"To the monuments?"

Capel laughed: "One hour—and there!"

They made their bargain and set out; over the limestone of this dusty place, skirting the harbor, then away from it, inland, till they came to a good country road bordered with trees. Down this they went for several miles, passing fields and farmhouses.

"And the monuments?" inquired the driver, pointing to something distant with his whip. Their indifference annoyed him. All his other tourists—even the honeymooners—had visited "the monuments"; and, apparently, nothing else.

Capel had laughed again. . . . No monuments for him! The past—he was done with it; with all its phantoms, with the cold dust of it, and its dim mockery of life, that he had taken to himself, hugged to himself, scorning the present. With all that glamor, that folly, that mirage of impuissant dreams, wherewith, these last five years, he had deluded himself, he was ended. No monuments for him! . . . The past was dead and done; more dead and done than those long years of exile—part of it, and now descended to the grave and death as surely as the years of Greece and Rome! . . . For him, the present, that might soon be past—equal and one with it, but his. His very own! Made by him, for him, recreated—as God creates each year. The men of old had had their day. Now had come his; equally splendid, equally epic, equally alive—for him! . . . "No monuments," he had cried; "we build our own!"

There had been no further interruptions.

At the hour, they had reached the opening of a lane, whose low stone walls gave to a lemon grove, bright with ripening fruit and lingering blossom. Here they dismissed their driver and went on, hand in hand.

"The dismissed their driver and went on, hand in hands"

XI

The day was over, and Rose had said good-night to everybody. In her room at the hotel there was a writing-table, with ink and paper and a pen. She had just sat down to them.

"Darling Mother," she wrote, "I am very tired, very happy, but, oh, so very tired. Now you will guess that it is only you (and, perhaps, he,) who could induce me to write even a page. I have already told you about him. We were nothing to one another till this morning, or we did not know that we were everything. It was only after we had said good-by that we really knew. Last night, in our cabin, Grace spoke to me about him, and I pretended to answer. But, in my heart, I was speaking like this: Supposing, I said, two people, stumbling through the dark had found the gates of heaven and looked in; two people, still on earth, reaching there, intruding there, before their time—common trespassers. That's what I called them last night. What ought they to do? I asked. And then I argued: They've had more than they'd any right to. They would shut their eyes, they would turn their back on the good place, and keep that memory intact, inviolate, forever afterwards. That's what he and I are going to do, I argued last night. To-day I answer: They would go on and enter.

"He and I have gone on and entered. There will be no turning back for us. Last night I had to argue the other way. Now, I know that he loves me, and I do not argue. Now, I am sure.

"I am too tired to explain any more; my head is simply used up and will hardly go on. But you know me better than anybody knows me, mother darling, except him. I say, 'except him,' and he must know me better than anybody because he trusted me so much. He put all his pride, and all his sorrow, and all his hopes before me, and I could have trampled them under foot, or laughed at them, which is worse than trampling. He did not say anything. He showed me a letter. It has made him come home where he will be divorced. It sounds hard of me, and awful of me, to say that. He is going straight home, where he will see you. Do not scold me till then. When you have seen him, as you think of me, you will understand.

"I am too tired to write another word. Do not answer this letter till you have seen him. Love is so new to me that I hardly dared say what I have said. But, then, I loved you first."

Rose signed this and put it in an envelop, which she addressed. Down-stairs she found the hall porter and bought a stamp.

"I want this to go at once," she said, "subito!"

The man smiled on the signorina, and promised that it should.

Rose watched him call a servant who went off with it.

On the way to her room she found that she had something of importance to communicate.

Grace Stair had bolted her door and was fast asleep, but Rose knocked and made so great a din that, at last, she was admitted.

"What do you want?" said Grace.

"Nice men aren't wasted on me, and you couldn't have done with him quite comfortably. That's all."

Rose did not wait for a reply, but pattered down the corridor, wondering what in heaven or earth had made her shout a something so absurd.