VI

ACHILLES CALLS ON BETTY HARRIS

In another week Achilles Alexandrakis had made ready to call on Betty
Harris. There had been many details to attend to--a careful sponging
and pressing of his best suit, the purchase of a new hat, and cuffs and
collars of the finest linen--nothing was too good for the little lady
who had flitted into the dusky shop and out, leaving behind her the
little line of light.

Achilles brushed the new hat softly, turning it on his supple wrist with
gentle pride. He took out the music-roll from the drawer and unrolled
it, holding it in light fingers. He would carry it back to Betty Harris,
and he would stay for a while and talk with her of his beloved Athens.
Outside the sun gleamed. The breeze came fresh from the lake. As he made
his way up the long drive of the Lake Shore, the water dimpled in the
June sun, and little waves lapped the great stones, touching the ear
with quiet sound. It was a clear, fresh day, with the hint of coming
summer in the air. To the left, stone castles lifted themselves sombrely
in the soft day. Grim or flaunting, they faced the lake--castles from
Germany, castles from France and castles from Spain. Achilles eyed them
with a little smile as his swift, thin feet traversed the long stones.
There were turrets and towers and battlements frowning upon the
peaceful, workaday lake. Minarets and flowers in stone, and heavy marble
blocks that gripped the earth. Suddenly Achilles's foot slackened its
swift pace. His eye dropped to the silver tag on the music-roll in his
hand, and lifted itself again to a gleaming red-brown house at the left.
It rose with a kind of lightness from the earth, standing poised upon
the shore of the lake, like some alert, swift creature caught in flight,