rthenon. They tell you how long it is, and how wide, and what
it is made of, and who began it, and who finished it, and who
destroyed it, but they never, never"--she raised her small hand
impressively--"they _never_ tell you how it looks!"

Achilles brought a chair and placed it near the open door. "Will
it--kindly--you sit?" he said, gravely.

She seated herself, folding her hands above the music-roll, and lifting
her eyes to the dark face looking down at her. "Thank you."

Achilles leaned back against the counter, thinking a little. He sighed
gently. "I tell you many things," he said at last.

"About the Parthenon, please," said Betty Harris.

"You like Athens?" He said it like a child.

"I should like it--if they would tell me real things. I don't seem to
make them understand. But when they say how beautiful it is--I feel it
here." She laid her small hand to her side.

The smile of Achilles held the glory in its depths. "I tell you," he
said.

The clear face reflected the smile. A breath of waiting held the lips.
"Yes."

Achilles leaned again upon his counter. His face was rapt, and he spread
his finger-tips a little, as if something within them stirred to be
free.

"It stands so high and lifts itself"--Achilles raised his dark
hands--"ruined there--so great--and far beneath, the city lies, drawing
near and near, and yet it cannot reach... And all around is light--and
light--and light. Here it is a cellar"--his hands closed in with
crushing touch--"but there--!" He flung the words from him like a chant
of music, and a sky stretched about them from side to side, blue as
sapphire and shedding radiant light upon the city in its midst--a city
of fluted column and curving cornice and temple and arch and tomb. The
words rolled on, fierce and eager. It was a song of triumph, with war
and sorrow and mystery running beneath the sound of joy. And the child,
listening with grave, clear eyes, smiled a little, holding her breath.
"I see it--I see it!" She half whispered the words.

Achilles barely looked at her. "You see--ah, yes--you see. But I--I have
not words!" It was almost a cry.... "The air, so clear--like wine--and
the pillars straight and high and big--but light--light--reaching...."
His soul was among them, soaring high. Then it returned to earth and he
remembered the child.

"And there is an olive-tree," he said, kindly, "and a well where
Poseidon--"

"I've heard about the well and the olive-tree," sai