ad about Miss Macedoine. If she has treated
you badly the decent thing to do is to forget it. You may not be the
only one, you know.'

"'Forget it?' he asked, like an intelligent child, 'how can one forget
it, Monsieur?'

"'What I mean is, you must not annoy her if you ever meet her.'

"'Annoy her?' he repeated in the same tone. 'I should not annoy. Our
interview,' he added, reflectively, looking at his disintegrating boots,
'would not take up more than a few moments. Very short. To the point, as
you say.' And he regarded me with amusement.

"I left him with a sudden gesture of impatience and he went off toward
the offices of the _Phos_. Words broke out upon him like a rash: it was
impossible to preserve one's credulity in the face of his enigmatic
fluency. Impossible to maintain a grasp upon common facts and homely
eventualities. I walked on past the dock-buildings and came to the
station. And I wondered where the _Rue Paleologue_ might be. A
cab-driver raised his whip as I halted, and moved slowly over to where I
stood. He did not seem to have any clear ideas, but signified by a
wealth of gesture that if I would get in he would find out. It was just
dusk and I got in. We galloped away with a great deal of whip-cracking
and noise of iron tires on the granite sets, past the _Odeon_ again, and
onward along the quays. I reflected upon the attitude Nikitos had taken
up toward Artemisia, but I could arrive at no opinion. One has very
little data for gauging the mentality of a highly sophisticated but
immaculate being. And I still retained the impression that she, under
the powerful protection of Kinaitsky, would stand in very little danger
from the annoyance of a journalist on the _Phos_. Nevertheless,
idealists who take pride in their purity are dangerous, because they are
incalculable. It is the only hold we have on most people in these days
of extreme personal liberty--the sad but inexorable fact that they are
not immaculate. It captured my imagination in spite of my distaste for
the man, this conception he had evoked of himself pursuing his way
through the unnameable wickedness of Levantine cities, yet bearing
within an inviolable chastity. One felt there was something formidable
in its mere existence, like vitriol, something not quite human, and
therefore to be feared. It was like beholding a white-robed virgin with
severe features bearing a palm amidst the groups of courtesans who were
strolling along the quays, a