Stephanie hooted with laughter. 'I bet he was! I would give anything to have seen his face. Have you any more funny stories like that?'
'Well,' Robbie temporized. 'I don't know about funny, unless you have a practical-joke sense of humour. Of course, the ancient Greeks were pretty primitive. Just as schoolboys still get a big laugh out of seeing an old gent slip up on a piece of banana peel, I suppose your remote ancestors fairly split their sides at seeing someone they didn't much care about turned into a lizard or a toad.
'That sort of thing was liable to happen to quite nice people too, because lots of the trees and nearly every stream and lake were the home of some supernatural being, and it was terribly easy to damage their property without meaning to. Then out they popped, and did the most unpleasant things.
'Take Dryope, for example. All she did was to pick a bright flower from a bush for her little girl. Red sap started to run because, as it happened, the bush was really a wood-nymph taking a nap, and the sap was her blood. 'I'll learn you to go about wounding bushes," yelled the nymph in a fury—or words to that effect. And next moment Dryope found herself sprouting twigs and leaves. She had only just time to gasp out a prayer that her child might be allowed to come and play near her, before she became a bush herself. Then there was the awful business of Erysichthon; but, of course, he brought that on himself.'
'What terrible fate befell him?'
'Well, it was a sort of Midas trouble in reverse. In a general way, the oak was sacred to Hera; but there was one giant oak in Thessaly that Demeter had made her special property, and a bunch of Dryads living in the neighbourhood adopted it as an evening rendezvous to play "chase me round the mulberry bush" with a gang of young Satyrs. For some reason—I suppose because he wanted to build a ship or a new barn—Erysichthon, who was King of those parts, decided to have this oak cut down.
'In vain, the locals implored him not to. He put his woodmen on the job and after tremendous efforts the giant oak was felled. The Dryads were fed to the teeth at their jive centre being ruined, so they rushed off and complained to the management. Demeter naturally resented Erysichthon's having wrecked her dance hall, and assured the girls that she would see him off. She sent one of her Oreads up to the far, ice-bound north, having told her messenger to bring back Famine. When this character, with a head like a skull and his ribs sticking out through parchment skin, put in an appearance, Demeter simply said: "Go and do your stuff on Erysichthon."
'After his hard day's work helping to cut down the oak, you can imagine that the King had put away a good-sized steak for his dinner; but while he was asleep, Famine breathed upon him and he woke up as hungry as a hunter.
'I imagine he had a terrific "brekker". Fried eggs, sausages and bacon, kidneys on toast, kedgeree and rounded off with a few slices of York ham and half a cold grouse. You know, the sort of breakfast our great-grandfathers used to have in Victorian times. But it wasn't much good. By lunch time, he was again ravenous.
'From then on, he never suffered a trace of indigestion but, on the other hand, he could never cram himself with enough to satisfy his hunger. His appetite was so enormous that he ate all day, till he had no flocks and herds left to slaughter. In due course, he had to sell his jewels and his palace in order to buy enough to eat.
'At last, driven from his kingdom by his creditors, he had only one asset left—a lovely daughter named Mestra. As he was still tormented by hunger night and day, he decided to sell her as a slave. Luckily for her and for him, it happened that she had played "slap and tickle" with the great god Poseidon. In gratitude for the fun they had had, the Sea King had given her the power to turn herself into anything she liked. So each time her papa sold her for the price of a few cuts off the joint, she promptly became a bee or a beetle or a butterfly and came back to him, so that he could put her up for auction afresh.
'But after a while, the chaps who were in the money and on the look-out for lovelies who would keep them warm at nights tumbled to this. They formed a ring, and when Mestra was put up, refused to bid for her. That left Erysichton completely in the ditch, and as Demeter refused to pardon him he had to eat himself.'
That's quite enough for today, thank you,' said Stephanie.
But by that time they had rounded the great bend in the gulf and were nearing Patras. After the Piraeus and Salonika, it is the largest port in Greece and, as such, mainly a modern, commercial city. Earthquakes in its neighbourhood are frequent, but although the town has escaped recent devastation, it contains few ancient buildings of interest. It had not even occurred to Robbie to book rooms, but Stephanie had looked up the hotels and, finding that the Cecil in St. Andrew Street headed the list, she suggested that they go to it.
After a few enquiries, they found the way there, and Robbie booked two single rooms, each with a private bathroom. Stephanie then said that, after her drive, she would like to rest; so it was agreed that they should meet at eight o'clock down in the dining room. Robbie, who had lately been missing his long sessions of day-dreaming lying on his bed or a chaise-longue in the Embassy garden, decided that he could pass an hour or two very happily doing nothing; so he, too, went up to his room and enjoyed a belated siesta.
For dinner, Stephanie had changed into a cocktail frock, and so alluring did Robbie find her that, several times during the meal, the thought came to him how wonderful it would be if only he were a god and could carry her off into the woods and ravish her. But he sternly put such disturbing ideas from him and instead tried to draw her out about the sort of life she had led.
His efforts met with little success. As far as he could gather, she had not moved in Athenian society or, at all events, not its higher strata that mingled with the Diplomatic Corps. Her mother, she said, had never been really happy living in Greece, and had not many close friends. There were a few families with whom they dined from time to time or joined up with for beach parties in the summer. Her father, of course, was absorbed in his commercial interests and had a separate set of wealthy men friends, with whom he frequently spent the evening. She said that she had never been allowed to go to a night club, but various boy friends took her to the cinema and to subscription dances, and she had had one really desperate love affair of which she preferred not to talk. She added only that for her it had ended unhappily, because her father had not considered the man good enough for her; so he had married someone else. Robbie forbore from pressing her further on the subject.
They enjoyed their dinner, and lingered over it till nearly ten o'clock. Then, after a liqueur in the lounge, they went up to bed. As Robbie undressed, he could not remember ever having had such a happy day.
Next morning, he had just finished his breakfast in bed when the house telephone rang. It was Stephanie and, after briefly wishing him good morning, she said: 'Look. I take it you will be occupied all the morning doing your business with the oil people you've come here to see. I had to pack in such a hurry that I left at home quite a number of things I need, so I want to go out and do some shopping. Would it be all right with you if we meet here about one o'clock for lunch?'