She smiled a little. “Yes, you give pleasure.” She was somehow at ease about the man. He was poor--illiterate, perhaps, but not uncouth. She glanced at him with a little look of approval as they went up the staircase. It came to her suddenly that he harmonised with it, and with all the beautiful things about them. The figure of Professor Trent flashed upon her--short and fat and puffing, and yearning toward the top of the stair. But this man. There was the grand air about him--and yet so simple. It was almost with a sense of eclat that she ushered him into the library. The air stirred subtly, with a little hush. The president was on her feet, introducing Mr. Achilles Alexandrakis, who, in the unavoidable absence of Professor Trent, had kindly consented to speak to them on the traditions and customs of modern Greek life. Achilles’s eyes fell gently on the lifted faces. “I like to tell you about my home,” he said, simply. “I tell you all I can.” The look of strain in the faces relaxed. It was going to be an easy lecture--one that you could know something about. They settled to soft attention and approval. Achilles waited a minute--looking at them with deep eyes. And suddenly they saw that the eyes were not looking at them, but at something far away--something beautiful and loved. It is safe to say that the members of the Halcyon Club had never listened to anything quite like the account that Achilles Alexandrakis gave them that day, in the gloomy room of the red-fronted house overlooking the lake, of the land of his birth. They scarcely listened to the actual words at first, but they listened to him all lighted up from far away. There was something about him as he spoke--a sweeping rhythm that flew as a bird, reaching over great spaces, and a simple joy that lilted a little and sang. He drew for them the Parthenon--the glory of Athens--in column and statue and mighty temple and crumbling tomb.... A sense of beauty and wonder and still, clear light passed before them.