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The only heritage that she left him was her old servant, the taciturn Florou, whose senile caprices he endured patiently, bearing with her uncertain service and poor cooking. Florou's rule, however, rose no higher than the ground-floor. Her master found peace and quiet in his own room upstairs. Here he worked; at his table before the window he prepared his lessons, and read his favorite authors.
Plateas asked so many questions and the judge had to repeat each detail so often, that the sun was setting when the two friends went back to do justice to Florou's supper. They had scarcely finished when there was a knock at the door, and Florou came in with a note for Mr. Liakos. Mr.
"See there!" said he, putting his finger through it. "My house needs a mistress, there's no other remedy for such a state of things. I must have a wife!" Florou shrugged her shoulders as though she thought her master had lost his wits. "Do you understand me? I must get married." The old woman smiled. "What are you laughing at? I have quite made up my mind to marry." Florou stared.
He would have been glad to tell his story even to Florou, but she cared neither to talk nor to listen; conversation was not her strong point. Besides, her master rather shrank from telling her that be had made up his mind to get married, and that her reign was over. Since his mother's death, Florou had had absolute control over the household; why make her unhappy before it was necessary?
Mitrophanis, and he to find the professor. Poor Mr. Plateas was waiting for his friend impatiently. On reaching home he had found his dinner growing cold, and Florou worrying over her master's unusual tardiness; it was full twenty minutes after noon! Although the professor was hungry and ate with relish, his mind was ill at ease. He yearned to talk to some one, but there was no one to talk to.
The judge had promised to come, and Florou had been told to get supper for both; Liakos MUST come. But why didn't he come now? Mr. Plateas paced up and down the Vaporia twenty times at least, and although he kept looking toward his house, there was no sign of the judge. At last! At last he saw his friend coming in the distance.
And striking his head with his hand, he paced up and down his room in the growing darkness until Florou came in and put his lamp on the table. She came and went without a word. The professor stopped a moment, and his eyes rested on the light. The light reminded him of his duty and invited him to work; he must prepare his lesson for the morrow.
On the other hand, he could contain himself no longer; if he had not spoken, there is no telling what would have happened. Not daring to face the question boldly, he beat about the bush, and tried to pass adroitly from the subject of dinner to that of marriage. "Florou," he said, "your meat is overdone."
The old woman made no reply, but looked up at the sun as if to suggest that the fault lay not with her, but with her master's tardiness. He paid no attention to her mute reproach. "In fact," he went on, "the dinner isn't fit to eat to-day." "You've eaten it, though." Florou was in the habit of resorting to this argument as unanswerable.
He remembered the woman who had been chosen for him in his youth, as he had seen her the year before while on a visit to his native island, with her gray hair and premature wrinkles, surrounded by a troop of children, playing, quarrelling, and crying. "Thank Heaven," he said aloud, "I haven't that load to carry! I wish the man joy that fills my place!" Florou interrupted him by opening the door.
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