But he did not finish.  He felt the tips of Miss Morris’s fingers laid upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone:  “Don’t; please don’t.”  And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on the man’s shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to flow calmly again through his veins.  Carlton was aware that he had a very quick temper.  He was always engaging in street rows, as he called them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else, and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never been satisfied without a blow or an apology.  Women had also touched him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on him had had them beaten down for their pains.  But this girl had merely touched him gently, and he had been made helpless.  It was most perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing his luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as though it were numb, and looking down at it with an amused smile.  He did not comment on the incident, although he smiled at the recollection of his prompt obedience several times during the day.  But as he was stepping into the cab to drive to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping with water, and muttering bitter curses.  When he saw Carlton he disappeared instantly in the crowd.  Carlton stepped over to where Nolan sat beside the driver on the box.  “Nolan,” he said, in a low voice, “isn’t that the fellow who—­”

“Yes, sir,” said Nolan, touching his hat gravely.  “He was pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off the pier.”

Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.

“Nolan,” he said, “you’re not telling the truth.  You did it yourself.”  Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously.  There had been no detaining fingers on Nolan’s arm.

“You are coming now, Miss Morris,” exclaimed Carlton from the front of the carriage in which they were moving along the sunny road to Athens, “into a land where one restores his lost illusions.  Anybody who wishes to get back his belief in beautiful things should come here to do it, just as he would go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or his appetite.  You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you are cured.  I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege of cable-cars and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of Robert Elsmeres and the Heavenly Twins.  Wait until you see the statues of the young athletes in the Museum,” he cried, enthusiastically, “and get a glimpse of the blue sky back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the Acropolis, and you’ll be convinced that nothing counts for much in this world but health and straight limbs, and tall marble pillars, and eyes trained to see only what is beautiful.