"But I knew her quite well as a child!" cried Lazarides, "at Aix, at Nauheim, at Zalzomazziore (he exaggerated to the point of grotesqueness the lisp that Trieste Greeks have borrowed from the Venetians). She used to look after her father, a choleric old gentleman who was always blackguarding his servants and distributing five franc pieces amongst the little ladies who called him 'papa.' I saw her again as a young girl in Rome. There she married Pericles Apostolatos who, following the Greek custom, was old enough to be her father; he was at school with me at Condorcet. He killed himself two years ago after some unsuccessful speculations. As he was only a trustee, his personal fortune passed to the creditors; but as Irene is a modern young woman she went into business with the help of her cousins, paid her husband's debts and built up his fortune again; now, as you probably know, she is practically the head of the Apostolatos Bank. Such a thing is unheard of in the history of Greece. She is a thoroughly excellent girl and she hasn't had much of a time. Brought up in our old school. You Parisians have no idea of what that means, what an awful thing youth can be, shut up in those huge Oriental houses whose doors never open save to admit the cephalonite priest who comes to teach the _Pistevo_, our creed, and then a premature marriage, often by proxy." "And yet," said Lewis, "I have met young Greek girls at Marseilles, playing tennis on the courts in the Avenue de la Cadenelle...." "The Marseilles Greeks are middle-class people who try to make themselves pleasant to the French and to marry into the local families. There is no connection between these and ancient Hellenic strongholds like Trieste. There the aristocracy is closely hedged round, impenetrable, and no misalliances are possible. They will have none of the little dowry-hunting Italian Counts, and they marry big black satyrs who talk through their noses and, grunting like pigs, make huge wedding presents, of Viennese taste, to their brides. It's nothing to laugh at. Think of these charming little girls going off with their languorous eyes to conquer the _gambros_, the betrothed, followed by their families--those Greek families which move all together like migratory sardines in the Mediterranean: abruptly to be shown the secret of life, and then to be worn out with motherhood and submerged for ever." Having spoken, Lazarides blew into a little limp skin which he had in the palm of his hand, and this became a green duck which took flight over the table with a penetrating scream and was killed by someone with a fork. The conversation was interrupted by a stag hunt through the house in which the manager of a big bank in the Place Vendôme took the rôle of the stag with the pegs from the hat rack. It ended in a porphyry bath where the hard-pressed animal and taken refuge, the tails of his coat floating amongst the strawberries which the hot water had made it impossible for him to retain.