The King's palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park,
and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds
and the Americans were staying. As the hotel was the first building on
the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the
illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and
departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering
through the iron rails into the King's garden. It was a warm night,
and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in
silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the
yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town. Every window in the
broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors
came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall
servants in the King's blue and white livery, and the men of his guard
in their white petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.
Carlton pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an
agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street and entered
the palace. The line of royalties had broken by the time he reached
the ballroom, and the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left
him free, after a bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move
about as he pleased. His most earnest desire was to learn whether or
not the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the
English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked
eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her accident.
"No," said the officer; "she's able to walk about, but not to stand,
and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing. Too bad,
wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Carlton, "very bad." He released his hand from the other's
arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway. His
disappointment was very keen. Indeed, he had not known how much this
meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this
disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and
have her sympathize and laugh with him. He became conscious, as he
searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and
repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for
sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him. He
wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and
whether he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she
not been there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew
fainthearted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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