wung open before them and they
went into the great hall--up the long stairway that echoed only vacant
softness, and into the library with its ranging rows of perfect books.
She motioned him before her. "_I_ must tell them," she said. She passed
through the draperies of another door and the silence of the great house
settled itself about the man and waited with him.

XI

TWO MEN FACE EACH OTHER

He looked about the room with quiet face. It was the room he had been
in before--the day he spoke to the Halcyon Club--the ladies had costly
gowns and strange hats, who had listened so politely while he told them
of Athens and his beloved land. The room had been lighted then, with
coloured lamps and globes--a kind of rosy radiance. Now the daylight
came in through the high windows and filtered down upon him over brown
books and soft, leather-covered walls. There was no sound in the big
room. It seemed shut off from the world and Achilles sat very quiet, his
dark face a little bent, his gaze fixed on the rug at his feet. He was
thinking of the child--and of her face when she had lifted it to him out
of the crowded street, that first day, and smiled at him... and of their
long talks since. It was the Child who understood. The strange ladies
had smiled at him and talked to him and drank their tea and talked
again... he could hear the soft, keen humming of their voices and the
flitter of garments all about him as they moved. But the child had sat
very still--only her face lifted, while he told her of Athens and its
beauty... and he had told her again--and again. She would never tire of
it--as he could never tire. She was a child of light in the great new
world... a child like himself--in the hurry of the noise. A sound came
to him in the distant house--people talking--low voices that spoke and
hurried on. The house was awake--quick questions ran through it--doors
sounded and were still. Achilles turned his face toward the opening into
the long wide hall, and waited. Through the vista there was a glimpse
of the stairway and a figure passing up it--a short, square man who
hurried. Then silence again--more bells and running feet. But no one
came to the library--and no one sought the dark figure seated there,
waiting. Strange foreign faces flashed themselves in the great
mirror and out. The outer door opened and closed noiselessly to admit
them--uncouth figures that passed swiftly up the stairway, glancing
curiously about them--