for our side of the question. We point with a fine
gesture toward the severely beautiful figure of Virtue, and the woman,
following our instructions, looks and sees Mrs. Evans and the angel
child. We point ecstatically to Love, and she shrugs her shoulders as
the figure of young Siddons emerges, with his boyish mind choked with
racial and social prejudices, his muzzy, impossible idealism, and his
empty purse.

"And mind you, she was naive enough or clever enough to play up to the
highest possible estimate of such a situation. When I asked her how long
this was going to last, she was charmingly vague and pensive. It was
part of the bargain, I suppose, to furnish the necessary sentiment. And
when I persisted, and wished to know what she would do then, she sighed
and hoped I would always be her friend. Well, she was right about that.
I was her friend until the time came, not so long after, when her need
of friends ceased, when her homeless and undisciplined spirit was
transported to a sphere uncomplicated, let us hope, by our terrestrial
deficiencies. And I like to think that this friendship of ours,
unsullied by conventional gallantry, was for her a source of comfort,
and sustained her at times when the flames of exaltation burned low, and
she was oppressed by the shadow of her destiny. But of course, this may
be only one of my occidental illusions.

"At the time, however, it seemed as though for me the adventure was
already nothing more than an intriguing memory. From time to time I
received postcards written from Paris, Munich, Vienna, Buda-Pesth,
Prague, and Constantinople. And then, after a long silence, a brief
letter telling me that she was living in an apartment, near the _Esky
Djouma_, turning up out of the _Rue Eqnatia_, but that I was to write to
the _Rue Paleologue_, and she would be sure to get it. Her father was
much preoccupied with financial affairs. She wanted to know if I were
coming to Saloniki. I was to be sure and let her know.

"Well, there was nothing inherently impossible in my appearing in
Saloniki. I had been there in the _Manola_ more than once with coal. At
that time, however, we were busily shipping our mineral wealth, at
cut-rate prices, to Italy, and the voyages alternated between Genoa and
Ancona, calling at Tunis for iron ore to keep Krupp's gun-shops at Essen
working full time. All three places were too far away for week-ending at
Saloniki, and the charter was for a year. I wrote to her