Necessarily there was the sofa, the Greek seat of honour, upon which all distinguished visitors are at once installed, this law, like that of the Medes and Persians, knowing no change. Also sundry tables decorated with albums and the school prizes of the young ladies, the bank-clerk, and the Captain of the Artillery. All the chairs were covered with white dimity, and the floor was polished with bees’ wax, which gave the room an aspect of chill neatness.
Andromache was interrupted in a conscientious study of scales by the entrance of her mother and Julia, and the former’s irrelevant question:
“Don’t you think that young man was English, Andromache?”
“I don’t know, mother, possibly,” was Andromache’s impatient answer, for, though it grieves me to unveil the secret workings of a maiden’s mind, I must perforce confess that the student was thinking just then of Rudolph’s kind and sympathetic glance.
“Can’t you stop that horrible noise and describe him?” said Julia. “You know I always want to hear about foreigners.”
“He was fair and tall and handsome, with very kind blue eyes, light, not dark like those of Miltiades--there, that’s all I can say about him,” said Andromache, rising, and standing at the window to stare across at the gardens of the French School.
HOW GUSTAV REINEKE MISSED MADAME JAROVISKY’S BALL.
The illustrious Dr. Galenides had just seated himself at his desk to write a note to his no less illustrious colleague, Dr. Melanos, while his hat and gloves on the study table and his carriage outside were testimony of a contemplated professional drive. The study door was suddenly opened with what Dr. Galenides regarded as undue familiarity, and looking up sharply, prepared to administer the deserved rebuke, the learned physician recognised in the intruder an old friend and brother in profession. The new-comer, a rough, provincial-looking Hercules, was Dr. Selaka of Tenos, a member of his Majesty’s parliament, called for some unaccountable reason, “The King of Tenos.” Instead of a rebuke, Dr. Galenides administered an effusive embrace, and clasped this insular majesty to his capacious bosom.
“What a splendid surprise, my dear Constantine!” he cried, when he had kissed both Selaka’s bronzed cheeks. “When did you come to Athens?”