All the household watched—­with quickened hope.  The mistress of the house had taken up her life, and the old quick orders ran through the house.  And no one spoke of the child.  It was as if she were asleep—­in some distant room—­veiled in her cloud.  But the house came back to its life.  Only, the social groups that had filled it every summer were not there.  But there was the Greek boy, in the garden, and Miss Stone, and Philip Harris whirring out at night and sitting on the terrace in the dusk, the light of his cigar glimmering a little, as he watched the Greek boy flung on the ground at his feet, his eyes playing with the stars.  He knew them all by name under the skies of Greece.  Achilles had taught them to him; and he counted them, like a flock, as he lay on the terrace—­rolling out the great Greek names while they girdled the sky above him in a kind of homely chant.

When the boy had gone to bed Philip Harris remained smoking thoughtfully and looking still at the stars.  He had had a long talk with the surgeon to-day and he had given his consent.  The boy was well, he admitted—­as well as he was likely to be—­perhaps.  Give him three more days—­then, if nothing happened, they might question him.

Philip Harris threw away his cigar—­and its glimmering light went out in the grass.  Overhead the great stars still circled in space, travelling on toward the new day.

XX

THE TEST IS MADE

“I will ask the questions,” Achilles had said, in his quiet voice, and it had been arranged that he should come to Idlewood when the surgeon gave the word.

He arrived the next night, stepping from the car as it drew up before the door, and Alcibiades, standing among the flowers talking with Miss Stone, saw him and started and came forward swiftly.  He had not known that his father was coming—­he ran a little as he came nearer and threw himself in his arms, laughing out.

Achilles smiled—­a dark, wistful smile.  “You are grown strong,” he said.  He held him off to look at him.

The boy’s teeth gleamed—­a white line.  “To-morrow we go home?” he replied.  “I am all well—­father—­well now!”

But Achilles shook his head.  “To-morrow we stay,” he replied.  “I stay one day—­two days—­three—­” He looked at the boy narrowly.  “Then we go home.”

The boy smiled contentedly and they moved away.  Early the next morning he was up before Achilles, calling to him from the garden to hurry and see the flowers before the mist was off them, and showing him, with eager teeth, his own radishes—­ready to pull—­and little lines of green lettuce that sprang above the earth.  “I plant,” said the boy proudly.  “I make grow.”  He swung his arm over the whole garden.