The mother waited, breathless.

“I was walking home, and I came to his shop—­”

“To his shop!”

She nodded reassuringly.  “His fruit-shop—­and—­oh, I forgot—­” She reached into the little bag at her side, tugging at something.  “He gave me these.”  She produced the round box and took off the lid, looking into it with pleased eyes.  “Aren’t they beautiful?”

The mother bent blindly to it.  “Pomegranates,” she said.  Her lips were still a little white, but they smiled bravely with the child’s pleasure.

“Pomegranates,” said Betty, nodding.  “That is what he called them.  I should like to taste one—­” She was looking at them a little wistfully.

“We will have them for luncheon,” said the mother.  She had touched the bell with quick decision.

“Marie”—­she held out the box—­“tell Nesmer to serve these with luncheon.”

“Am I to have luncheon with you, mother-dear?” The child’s eyes were on her mother’s face.

“With me—­yes.”  The reply was prompt—­if a little tremulous.

The child sighed happily.  “It is being a marvellous day,” she said, quaintly.

The mother smiled.  “Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall tell me about the wonderful man.”

So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek—­one Achilles Alexandrakis by name—­had heard strange tales of Greece and Athens and the Parthenon—­tales at the very mention of which her eyes danced and her voice rippled.

And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the child touched upon and flitted past.  It had been part of the careful rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant attendance upon her was a body-guard—­such as might wait upon a princess.  It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Stone slept within sound of her breath.  She had grown up happy and care-free, with no suspicion of the danger that threatened the child of a marked millionaire.  She did not even know that her father was a very rich man—­so protected had she been.  She was only a little more simple than most children of twelve.  And she met the world with straight, shining looks, speaking to rich and poor with a kind of open simplicity that won the heart.

Her mother, watching the clear eyes, had a sudden pang of what the morning might have been—­the disillusionment and terror of this unprotected hour—­that had been made instead a memory of delight—­thanks to an unknown Greek named Achilles Alexandrakis, who had told her of the beauties of Greece and the Parthenon, and had given her fresh pomegranates to carry home in a round box.  The mother’s thoughts rested on the man with a quick sense of gratitude.  He should be paid a thousand times over for his care of Betty Harris—­and for pomegranates.