for a man who was unable to appreciate the flavour, the
bouquet, so to speak, of so delicious a personality. When Mr.
Dainopoulos said warningly, over his shoulder, his scarred and unlovely
features slewed into a grin, "You watch. She'll fool you," he did not
deny it. What he wondered at was the failure of his employer to
appreciate the extreme pleasure of being fooled by a woman like
Evanthia. For Mr. Spokesly had of late discovered that a man can, in
some curious subconscious way, keep his head in a swoon. Like the person
under an anaesthetic, who is aware of his own pulsing, swaying descent
into a hurried yet timeless oblivion, whose brain keeps an amused record
of the absurd efforts of alien intelligences to communicate with him as
he drops past the spinning worlds into darkness, and who is aware, too,
of his own entire helplessness, a man can with advantage sometimes let
himself be fooled. For Mr. Spokesly, who had always prided himself on
his wide-awake attitude towards women, it was a bracing and novel
experience to let Evanthia fool him. It was really a form of making a
woman happy since some women are incapable of happiness unless they are
fooling men. But he was unable to get Mr. Dainopoulos to see this aspect
of the affair. Mr. Dainopoulos was not the man to let anybody fool him
unless it might be his wife. It may be doubted that even she managed it.
He was very largely what we call Latin, and the Latins are strangely
devoid of illusions about women. She mystified him at times, as when she
checked him in his desire to tell people that away back he had an
English relative. He was very proud of it and he could not understand
his wife's reluctance to hear him mention it. It certainly gave him no
clue to their characters; but like many men of diversified descent he
had occasional fits of wanting to be thought English. He had been very
indignant with that fresh young Fridthiof Lietherthal, who had laughed
at his deep-toned statement, "I have British blood in my veins," and
remarked airily, "Well, try to live it down, old man, that's all." Very
indignant. Thought he was everybody, that young feller. And _he_ had a
Swedish mother! And said he envied the Englishman his colossal _ego_,
whatever that might be. A smart-aleck, they would call him in America.

He walked down the road with Mr. Spokesly, who was going to take the car
along and then go aboard. He said:

"I'll be on board the ship to-morrow morning early. Any