turally to her transparent
purity, to be an essential part of it. Dion's momentary depression that
evening on the Acropolis had evidently stirred something in her which
would not let her rest until it had expressed itself. She had detected
for the first time in her husband a hint of something connected with his
love for her which seemed to her morbid. She could not forget it and she
was resolved to destroy it if possible. When they next stood together on
their beloved height she said to him:

"Dion, don't you hate anything morbid?"

"Yes, loathe it!" he answered, with hearty conviction. "But surely you
know that. Why d'you ask me such a thing? How dare you?"

And he turned to her his brown face, bright this morning with good
spirits, his dark eyes sparkling with hopefulness and energy.

It was a pale morning, such as often comes to Athens even at the edge
of the summer. They were standing on the little terrace near to the
Acropolis Museum, looking down over the city and to helmet-shaped
Lycabettos. The wind, too fond of the Attic Plain, was blowing, not
wildly, but with sufficient force to send the dust whirling in light
clouds over the pale houses and the little Byzantine churches. Long
and narrow rivulets of dust marked the positions of the few roads
which stretched out along the plain. The darkness of the groves which
sheltered the course of the Kephisos contrasted strongly with the flying
pallors and seemed at enmity with them. The sky was milky white and
gray, broken up in places by clouds of fantastic shapes, along the
ruffled edges of which ran thin gleams of sunshine like things half
timorous and ashamed. Upon the flat shores near Phaleron the purple
seas broke in spray, and the salty drops were caught up by the wind and
mingled with the hurrying grains of dust. It was not exactly a sad day,
but there was an uneasiness abroad. The delicate calm of Greece was
disturbed. Nevertheless Dion was feeling gay and light-hearted, inclined
to enjoy everything the world about him offered to him. Even the
restlessness beneath and around them accorded with his springing
spirits. The whirling spirals of dust suggested to him the gaiety of a
dance. The voice of the wind was a joyous music in his ears.

"How dare you?" he repeated with a happy pretense of indignation.

"Because I think you were almost morbid yesterday."

"I? When?"

"When we spoke of the possibility of our some day having a child."

"I had a moment of