"He loves Anna the same way you loved me, yes? What do you know about love, Stavros
Bouras?"
"Not that again, Melpo. Please stop it. I loved you as much as I could."
"Well, that's not enough!" Melpomeni stood up.
"I have invited Nikolas to the house for dinner, Melpo, so you can meet him."
"No, no! I ... I ... No, definitely not!"
"What has this man done to you,
Melpo?"
"Oh ... well ... I ... no ... Nothing, of course."
"Then why don't you like him?"
"I ... I just don't."
"Aren't you interested in our daughter's happiness, Melpo?"
"And how about my happiness, Stavros?
How about it?"
"I have given you everything you ever wanted, Melpo."
"Things, things! Just things! That's not love!"
Stavros sighed deeply and turned away.
***
There were tears of separation when Nikolas left two days later for New York and then Athens. Anna resumed her studies at Stanford. Stavros returned to London and Melpomeni departed to Hollywood to visit friends.
***
Despite her parents' strong objections not to leave school, Anna could only hear one voice, and that was the voice of her heart. Even Nikolas asked her to think it over, hoping she would stay in the USA and finish her studies. But Anna's mind was made up. She wanted to be near Nikolas, and that was that. Her father finally accepted her decision, but her mother never did. Melpomeni had found a new battlefield, and Nikolas was the focus of her attack.
Anna volunteered as a telephone operator at first, because of her knowledge of five languages. Nikolas would call her every moment he could. Sometimes he pretended to be someone else, or a secret admirer. But Anna always caught on to his tricks right away. They saw each other every day, as Nikolas was stationed nearby. Soon, injured soldiers started arriving from the Albanian front, and Anna was needed at the hospital. For a while she worked in both capacities.
At the hospital in Athens, she became an assistant to Dr. Vassili Tsipras. They worked long hours, and he insisted that she work only with him. Nikolas came and visited her at the hospital. There, he met Dr. Tsipras, and quickly came to dislike him. Whenever Nikolas arrived to escort Anna home, Dr. Tsipras would find some pretense to keep her busy. Nikolas felt there was something unsavory about the man, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.