Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Children of the rich -- Fiction; Friendship -- Fiction; Greeks -- United States -- Fiction
She tapped the marble floor softly with her foot and pondered. She might
sit here in the hall and wait for James--a whole hour. There was a bench
by the wall. She looked at it doubtfully.... It was not seemly that a
princess should sit waiting for a servant--not even in marble halls.
She glanced about her again. There was probably a telephone
somewhere--perhaps on the ground floor. She could telephone home and
they would send another carriage. Yes, that would be best. She rang the
elevator bell and descended in stately silence. When she stepped out of
the great door of the building she saw, straight before her, the sign
she sought--“Pay Station.”
But then something happened to Betty Harris. The spirit of the spring
day caught her and lifted her out of herself. Men were hurrying by with
light step. Little children laughed as they ran. Betty skipped a few
steps and laughed softly with them.... She would walk home. It was not
far. She had often walked as far in the country, and she knew the way
quite well.... And when she looked up again, she stood in front of the
glowing fruit-stall, and Achilles Alexandrakis was regarding her with
deep, sad eyes.
Achilles had been dreaming down the street when the little figure came
in sight. His heart all day had been full of sadness--for the spring in
the air. And all day Athens had haunted his steps--the Athens of dreams.
Once when he had retired into the dark, cool shop, he brushed his sleeve
across his eyes, and then he had stood looking down in surprise at
something that glistened on its worn surface.
Betty Harris looked at him and smiled. She had been so carefully brought
up that she had not learned that some people were her inferiors and must
not be smiled at. She gave him the straight, sweet smile that those who
had cared for her all her life loved so well. Then she gave a little
nod. “I’m walking home,” she said.
Achilles leaned forward a little, almost holding his breath lest she
float from him. It was the very spirit of Athens--democratic, cultured,
naive. He gave her the salute of his country. She smiled again. Then her
eye fell on the tray of pomegranates near the edge of the stall--round
and pink. She reached out a hand. “I have never seen these,” she said,
slowly. “What are they?”
“Pomegranates--Yes--you like some? I give you.”
He disappeared into the shop and Betty followed him, looking about with
clear, interested eyes. It was like no place she had ever seen--this
cool, dark room, with its tiers on tiers of fruit, and the fragrant,
spicy smell, and the man with the sad, kind face. Her quick eye
paused--arrested by the word printed on a box on the shelf to the
right.... Ah, that was it! She knew now quite well. He was a Greek man.
She knew the letters; She had studied Greek for six months; but she did
not know this word. She was still spelling it out when Achilles returned
with the small box of pomegranates in his hand.
She looked up slowly. “I can’t quite make it out,” she said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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