Such people, when transplanted from what we call a half-barbarous state
to live amongst us, never feel as we do, and when they are roused to
action their deeds are not of the sort which our wives, our
mothers-in-law and the clergy expect us to approve. It does not follow
that they are villains, though they may occasionally kill some one in a
fit of anger, or carry off by force the women they fall in love with;
for such doings probably seem quite natural in their own country, and
after all they cannot be expected to know more about right and wrong
than their papas and mammas taught them when they were little things.
The object of this long-winded digression is not to excite sympathy on
behalf of Logotheti, but to forestall surprise at some of the things he
did when he had convinced himself that of all the women he had ever
met, Margaret Donne was the one that suited him best, and that she must
be his at any cost and at any risk.
The conviction was almost formed at the first meeting, and took full
possession of him when he met her again, and she seemed glad to see
him. By this time she had no reason for concealing from Mrs. Rushmore
that she had seen him at Madame Bonanni's, and she held out her hand
with a frank smile. It was on a Sunday afternoon and there were a
number of lions on the lawn, and half a dozen women of the world.
Logotheti seemed to know more than half the people present, which is
rather unusual in Paris, and most of them treated him with the rather
fawning deference accorded by society to the superior claims of wealth
over good blood.
The Greek smiled pleasantly and reflected that the nobility of the
Fanar, which goes back to the Byzantine Empire, is as good as any in
France, and even less virtuous. He by no means despised his wealth, and
he continually employed his excellent faculties in multiplying it; but
in his semi-barbarous heart he was an aristocrat and was quietly amused
when people whose real names seemed to have been selected from a list
of Rhine wines took titles which emanated from the Vatican, or when
plain Monsieur Dubois turned himself into 'le comte du Bois de
Vincennes'. Yet since few people seemed to know anything about Leo the
Isaurian, under whom his direct ancestor had held office as treasurer
and had eventually had his eyes put out for his pains, Logotheti was
quite willing to be treated with deference for the sake of the more
tangible advantages of present fortune. In Mrs. Rushmore's garden of
celebrities, he at once took his place as a rare bird.