man who fell from the flying trapeze in a circus in Berlin,
struck on one of the ropes to which the safety net was laced and broke
most of his bones. He told me that he had never before understood the
meaning of eternity, but that ever afterwards, for him, it meant the
time that had passed after he had missed his hold and before he struck
and was unconscious. He could associate nothing else with the word.
Logotheti remembered, as long as he lived, the interminable interval
between Margaret's request to see him alone, and the noiseless closing
of the sound-proof door when they had entered the upper room, where
Aphrodite stood in the midst and the soft light fell from high windows
that were half-shaded.

Even then, though her anger was hot and her thoughts were chasing one
another furiously, Margaret could not repress an exclamation of
surprise when she first saw the statue facing her in its bare beauty,
like a living thing.

Logotheti laid one hand very lightly upon her arm, and was going to say
something, but she sprang back from his touch as if it burnt her. The
colour deepened in his dark cheeks and his eyes seemed brighter and
nearer together. When a woman comes to a man's house and asks to be
alone with him, she need not play horror because the tips of his
fingers rest on her sleeve for a moment. Why did she come?

Margaret spoke first.

'How did you dare to settle money on me?' she asked, standing back from
him.

Logotheti understood for the first time that she was angry with him,
and that her anger had brought her to his house. The fact did not
impress him much, though he wished she were in a better temper. The
sound of her voice was sweet to him whatever she said.

'Oh?' he ejaculated with a sort of thoughtful interrogation. 'Has she
told you? She had agreed to say nothing about it. How very annoying!'

His sudden calm was exasperating, for Margaret did not know him well
enough to see that below the surface his blood was boiling. She tapped
the blue tiled floor sharply with the toe of her shoe.

'It's outrageous!' she said with energy.

'I quite agree with you. Won't you sit down?' Logotheti looked at the
divan. Margaret half sat upon the arm of a big leathern chair.

'Oh, you agree with me? Will you please explain?'

'I mean, it is outrageous that Mrs. Rushmore should have told you----'

'You're quibbling!' Margaret broke in angrily. 'You know very well what
I mean. It's an outrage that a man shou