to offer it at once.'

'Unconditionally?' Margaret smiled. 'Anything I ask?'

'Yes. Do you want my statue?'

'The Aphrodite? Would you give her to me?'

'Yes. May I telegraph to have her packed and brought here from Paris?'

He was already at the writing-table looking for a telegraph form.
Margaret watched his face, for she knew that he valued the wonderful
statue far beyond all his treasures, both for its own sake and because
he had nearly lost his life in carrying it off from Samos, as has been
told elsewhere.

As Margaret said nothing, he began to write the message. She really
had not had any idea of testing his willingness to part with the thing
he valued most, at her slightest word, and was taken by surprise;
but it was impossible not to be pleased when she saw that he was in
earnest. In her present mood, too, it restored her sense of power,
which had been rudely shaken by the attitude of the public on the
previous evening.

It took some minutes to compose the message.

'It's only to save time by having the box ready,' he said, as he rose
with the bit of paper in his hand. 'Of course I shall see the statue
packed myself and come over with it.'

She saw his face clearly in the light as he came towards her, and
there was no mistaking the unaffected satisfaction it expressed. He
held out the telegram for her to read, but she would not take it, and
she looked up quietly and earnestly as he stood beside her.

'Do you remember Delorges?' she asked. 'How the lady tossed her glove
amongst the lions and bade him fetch it, if he loved her, and how he
went in and got it--and then threw it in her face? I feel like her.'

Logotheti looked at her blankly.

'Do you mean to say you won't take the statue?' he asked in a
disappointed tone.

'No, indeed! I was taken by surprise when you went to the
writing-table.'

'You did not believe I was in earnest? Don't you see that I'm
disappointed now?' His voice changed a little. 'Don't you understand
that if the world were mine I should want to give it all to you?'

'And don't you understand that the wish may be quite as much to me as
the deed? That sounds commonplace, I know. I would say it better if I
could.'

She folded her hands on her knee, and looked at them thoughtfully
while he sat down beside her.

'You say it well enough,' he answered after a little pause. 'The
trouble lies there. The wish is all you will ever take. I have
submitted to that; but if you ever