after a
little while.

'What faith can one expect of a Greek!'

He laughed, too wise in woman's ways to be serious too long just then.
But she shook her head and turned to him with the smile he loved.

'I thought it was something different,' she said. 'I was mistaken. I
believed you had only lost your head for a while, and would soon run
after some one else. That's all.'

'And the loss is permanent. That's all!' He laughed again as he
repeated her words. 'You thought it was "something different"--do you
know that you are two people in one?'

She looked a little surprised.

'Indeed I do!' she answered rather sadly. 'Have you found it out?'

'Yes. You are Margaret Donne and you are Cordova. I admire Cordova
immensely, I am extremely fond of Margaret, and I'm in love with both.
Oh yes! I'm quite frank about it, and it's very unlucky, for whichever
one of your two selves I meet I'm just as much in love as ever!
Absurd, isn't it?'

'It's flattering, at all events.'

'If you ever took it into your handsome head to marry me--please, I'm
only saying "if"--the absurdity would be rather reassuring, wouldn't
it? When a man is in love with two women at the same time, it really
is a little unlikely that he should fall in love with a third!'

'Mr. Griggs says that marriage is a drama which only succeeds if
people preserve the unities!'

'Griggs is always trying to coax the Djin back into the bottle, like
the fisherman in the _Arabian Nights_,' answered Logotheti. 'He has
read Kant till he believes that the greatest things in the world can
be squeezed into a formula of ten words, or nailed up amongst the
Categories like a dead owl over a stable door. My intelligence, such
as it is, abhors definitions!'

'So do I. I never understand them.'

'Besides, you can only define what you know from past experience
and can reflect upon coolly, and that is not my position, nor yours
either.'

Margaret nodded, but said nothing and sat down.

'Do you want to smoke?' she asked. 'You may, if you like. I don't mind
a cigarette.'

'No, thank you.'

'But I assure you I don't mind it in the least. It never hurts my
throat.'

'Thanks, but I really don't want to.'

'I'm sure you do. Please--'

'Why do you insist? You know I never smoke when you are in the room.'

'I don't like to be the object of little sacrifices that make people
uncomfortable.'

'I'm not uncomfortable, but if you have any big sacrifice to suggest,
I promise