tune runs after a young singer it's not usually with the idea of
marrying her. I'm glad I was wrong.'

Logotheti was too good a judge of men to fancy that Lushington was in
the least afraid of him, or that he spoke from any motive but a fair
and firm conviction; and the Greek himself, with many faults, was too
brave not to be generous. He turned again to get into the car.

'I believe you English take it for granted that every foreigner is a
born scoundrel,' he said with something like a laugh.

'To tell the truth,' Lushington answered, 'I believe we do. But we are
willing to admit that we can be mistaken. Good morning.'

He walked away, and this time Logotheti did not stop him, but got in
and started the car in the opposite direction without looking back. He
was conscious of wishing that he might kill the cool Englishman, and
though his expression betrayed nothing but annoyance a little colour
rose and settled on his cheek-bones; and that bodes no good in the
faces of dark men when they are naturally pale. He reached home, and it
was there still; he changed his clothes, and yet it was not gone; he
drank a cup of coffee and smoked a big cigar, and the faint red spots
were still there, though he seemed absorbed in the book he was reading.

It was not his short interview with Lushington which had so much moved
him, though it had been the first disturbing cause. In men whose
nature, physical and moral, harks back to the savage ancestor, to the
pirate of northern or southern seas, to the Bedouin of the desert, to
the Tartar of Bokhara or the Suliote of Albania, the least bit of a
quarrel stirs up all the blood at once, and the mere thought of a fight
rouses every masculine passion. The silent Scotchman, the stately Arab,
the courtly Turk are far nearer to the fanatic than the quick-tempered
Frenchman or the fiery Italian.

For a long time Constantine Logotheti had been playing at civilisation,
at civilised living and especially at the more or less gentle diversion
of civilised love-making; but he was suddenly tired of it all, because
it had never been quite natural to him, and he grew bodily hungry and
thirsty for what he wanted. The round flushed spots on his cheeks were
the outward signs of something very like a fever which had seized him
within the last two hours. Until then he would hardly have believed
that his magnificent artificial calm could break down, and that he
could wish to get his hands on another man's th