vice to Miss Donne, so much
the better, but there is no reason why she should ever know it, so far
as I am concerned. I would rather she should not. She might fancy that
I had acted from other motives.'

'Very well,' Mrs. Rushmore answered; 'then I shall not tell her.'

Nevertheless, when the motor car had tooted and puffed itself away to
Paris and Mrs. Rushmore still sat in her straight-backed garden chair
holding the cheque in her hand, she thought it all very strange and
unaccountable; and the only explanation that occurred to her was that
the invention must be worth far more than she had supposed. This was
not altogether a pleasant reflection either, as it made her inclined to
reproach herself for not having driven a hard bargain with Logotheti.

'But after all,' she said to herself, 'if half a million is not a
fortune, it's a competence, even nowadays, and I suppose the man isn't
an adventurer after all--at least, not if his cheque is good.'

In her complicated frame of mind she felt a distinct sense of
disappointment at the thought that her judgment had been at fault, and
that the Greek was not a blackleg, as she had decided that he ought to
be.

CHAPTER X

Logotheti's motor car was built to combine the greatest comfort and the
greatest speed which can be made compatible. It was not meant for
sport, though it could easily beat most things on the road, for though
the Greek lived a good deal among sporting men and often did what they
did, he was not one himself. It was not in his nature to regard any
sport as an object to be pursued for its own sake. Only the English
take that view naturally, and, of late years, some Frenchmen. All other
Europeans look upon sport as pastime which is very well when there is
nothing else to do, but not at all comparable with love-making, or
gambling, for the amusement it affords. They take the view of the late
Shah of Persia, who explained why he would not go to the Derby by
saying that he had always known that one horse could run faster than
another, but that it was a matter of perfect indifference to him which
that one horse might be. In the same way Logotheti did not care to
possess the fastest motor car in Europe, provided that he could be
comfortable in one which was a great deal faster than the majority.
Moreover, though he was by no means timid, he never went in search of
danger merely for the sake of its pleasant excitement. Possibly he was
too natural and too p