Ethel touched him on the cheek. “Papa! I’ve called you three times. All the mules are here.”
“Mules? What mules?”
“Our mules. We’re all waiting. Oh, Mr. Graham, do help my father on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ethel.”
“My dearest papa, we must start. You know we have to get to Olympia tonight.”
Mr. Lucas in pompous, confident tones replied: “I always did wish, Ethel, that you had a better head for plans. You know perfectly well that we are putting in a week here. It is your own suggestion.”
Ethel was startled into impoliteness. “What a perfectly ridiculous idea. You must have known I was joking. Of course I meant I wished we could.”
“Ah! if we could only do what we wished!” sighed Mrs. Forman, already seated on her mule.
“Surely,” Ethel continued in calmer tones, “you didn’t think I meant it.”
“Most certainly I did. I have made all my plans on the supposition that we are stopping here, and it will be extremely inconvenient, indeed, impossible for me to start.”
He delivered this remark with an air of great conviction, and Mrs. Forman and Mr. Graham had to turn away to hide their smiles.
“I am sorry I spoke so carelessly; it was wrong of me. But, you know, we can’t break up our party, and even one night here would make us miss the boat at Patras.”
Mrs. Forman, in an aside, called Mr. Graham’s attention to the excellent way in which Ethel managed her father.
“I don’t mind about the Patras boat. You said that we should stop here, and we are stopping.”
It seemed as if the inhabitants of the Khan had divined in some mysterious way that the altercation touched them. The old woman stopped her spinning, while the young man and the two children stood behind Mr. Lucas, as if supporting him.
Neither arguments nor entreaties moved him. He said little, but he was absolutely determined, because for the first time he saw his daily life aright. What need had he to return to England? Who would miss him? His friends were dead or cold. Ethel loved him in a way, but, as was right, she had other interests. His other children he seldom saw. He had only one other relative, his sister Julia, whom he both feared and hated. It was no effort to struggle. He would be a fool as well as a coward if he stirred from the place which brought him happiness and peace.
At last Ethel, to humour him, and not disinclined to air her modern Greek, went into the Khan with the astonished dragoman to look at the rooms. The woman inside received them with loud welcomes, and the young man, when no one was looking, began to lead Mr. Lucas’ mule to the stable.
“Drop it, you brigand!” shouted Graham, who always declared that foreigners could understand English if they chose. He was right, for the man obeyed, and they all stood waiting for Ethel’s return.
She emerged at last, with close-gathered skirts, followed by the dragoman bearing the little pig, which he had bought at a bargain.
“My dear papa, I will do all I can for you, but stop in that Khan—no.”
“Are there—fleas?” asked Mrs. Forman.
Ethel intimated that “fleas” was not the word.
“Well, I am afraid that settles it,” said Mrs. Forman, “I know how particular Mr. Lucas is.”
“It does not settle it,” said Mr. Lucas. “Ethel, you go on. I do not want you. I don’t know why I ever consulted you. I shall stop here alone.”
“That is absolute nonsense,” said Ethel, losing her temper. “How can you be left alone at your age? How would you get your meals or your bath? All your letters are waiting for you at Patras. You’ll miss the boat. That means missing the London operas, and upsetting all your engagements for the month. And as if you could travel by yourself!”
“They might knife you,” was Mr. Graham’s contribution.
The Greeks said nothing; but whenever Mr. Lucas looked their way, they beckoned him towards the Khan. The children would even have drawn him by the coat, and the old woman on the balcony stopped her almost completed spinning, and fixed him with mysterious appealing eyes. As he fought, the issue assumed gigantic proportions, and he believed that he was not merely stopping because he had regained youth or seen beauty or found happiness, but because in, that place and with those people a supreme event was awaiting him which would transfigure the face of the world. The moment was so tremendous that he abandoned words and arguments as useless, and rested on the strength of his mighty unrevealed allies: silent men, murmuring water, and whispering trees. For the whole place called with one voice, articulate to him, and his garrulous opponents became every minute more meaningless and absurd. Soon they would be tired and go chattering away into the sun, leaving him to the cool grove and the moonlight and the destiny he foresaw.
Mrs. Forman and the dragoman had indeed already started, amid the piercing screams of the little pig, and the struggle might have gone on indefinitely if Ethel had not called in Mr. Graham.
“Can you help me?” she whispered. “He is absolutely unmanageable.”
“I’m no good at arguing—but if I could help you in any other way—” and he looked down complacently at his well-made figure.
Ethel hesitated. Then she said: “Help me in any way you can. After all, it is for his good that we do it.”
“Then have his mule led up behind him.”
So when Mr. Lucas thought he had gained the day, he suddenly felt himself lifted off the ground, and sat sideways on the saddle, and at the same time the mule started off at a trot. He said nothing, for he had nothing to say, and even his face showed
