Daphne | Page 5

flooding in upon her. "I cannot take it in. It is too great."
As she climbed, a strength springing from sheer delight in the wide beauty before her came into her face.
"It was selfish, and I am going to take it back. To-night I will write and say so. I could face anything now."
This hill, and then the side of that; one more gate, then Daphne turned for another look at Rome and the sea. Rome and the sea were gone. Here was a great olive orchard, there a pasture touching the sky, but where was anything belonging to her? Somewhere on the hills a lamb was bleating, and near the crickets chirped. Yes, it was safe, perfectly safe, yet the blue gown moved where the heart thumped beneath it.
A whistle came floating down the valley to her. It was merry and quick, but it struck terror to the girl's breast. That meant a man. She stood and watched, with terrified gray eyes, and presently she saw him: he was crashing through a heavy undergrowth of bush and fern not far away. Daphne gathered her skirts in one hand and fled. She ran as only an athletic girl can run, swiftly, gracefully. Her skirt fluttered behind her; her soft dark hair fell and floated on the wind.
The whistle did not cease, though the man was motionless now. It changed from its melody of sheer joy to wonder, amazement, suspense. It took on soothing tones; it begged, it wheedled. So a mother would whistle, if mothers whistled, over the cradle of a crying child, but the girl did not stop. She was running up a hill, and at the top she stood, outlined in blue, against a bluer sky. A moment later she was gone.
Half an hour passed. Cautiously above the top of the hill appeared a girl's head. She saw what she was looking for: the dreaded man was sitting on the stump of a felled birch tree, gazing down the valley, his cheeks resting on his hands. Daphne, stealing behind a giant ilex, studied him. He wore something that looked like a golf suit of brownish shade; a soft felt hat drooped over his face. The girl peered out from her hiding place cautiously, holding her skirts together to make herself slim and small. It was a choice of evils. On this side of the hill was a man; on that, the whole wide world, pathless. She was hopelessly lost.
"No bad man could whistle like that," thought Daphne, caressingly touching with her cheek the tree that protected her.
Once she ventured from her refuge, then swiftly retreated. Courage returning, she stepped out on tiptoe and crept softly toward the intruder. She was rehearsing the Italian phrases she meant to use.
"Where is Rome?" she asked pleadingly, in the Roman tongue.
The stranger rose, with no sign of being startled, and removed his hat. Then Daphne sighed a great sigh of relief, feeling that she was safe.
"Rome," he answered, in a voice both strong and sweet, "Rome has perished, and Athens too."
"Oh"--said the girl. "You speak English. If you are not a stranger here, perhaps you can tell me where the Villa Accolanti is."
"I can," he replied, preparing to lead the way.
Daphne looked at him now. He was different from any person she had ever seen. Face and head belonged to some antique type of virile beauty; eyes, hair, and skin seemed all of one golden brown. He walked as if his very steps were joyous, and his whole personality seemed to radiate an atmosphere of firm content. The girl's face was puzzled as she studied him. This look of simple happiness was not familiar in New York.
They strode on side by side, over the slopes where the girl had lost her way. Every moment added to her sense of trust.
"I am afraid I startled you," she said, "coming up so softly."
"No," he answered smiling. "I knew that you were behind the ilex."
"You couldn't see!"
"I have ways of knowing."
He helped her courteously over the one stone wall they had to climb, but, though she knew that he was watching her, he made no attempt to talk. At last they reached the ilex grove above the villa, and Daphne recognized home.
"I am grateful to you," she said, wondering at this unwonted sense of being embarrassed. "Perhaps, if you will come some day to the villa for my sister to thank you"-- The sentence broke off. "I am Daphne Willis," she said abruptly, and waited.
"And I am Apollo," said the stranger gravely.
"Apollo--what?" asked the girl. Did they use the old names over here?
"Phoebus Apollo," he answered, unsmiling. "Is America so modern that you do not know the older gods?"
"Why do you call me an American?"
A smile flickered across Apollo's lips.
"A certain insight goes with being a