If Mrs. Rushmore's logic was faulty and the language of her argument
vague, her instinct was keen enough and had not altogether misled her.
Logotheti was neither a secret agent of the wicked Alvah Moon who had
robbed Margaret of her fortune, nor had he the remotest idea of making
Margaret support him in luxurious idleness in case she made a success.
But if, when a young and not over-scrupulous Oriental has been refused
by an English girl, he does not abandon the idea of marrying her, but
calmly considers the possibilities of making her marry him against her
will, he may be described as having 'designs' upon her, then Logotheti
was undeniably a very 'designing' person, and Mrs. Rushmore was not
nearly so far wrong as Margaret thought her. Whether it was at all
likely that he might succeed, was another matter, but he possessed both
the qualities and the weapons which sometimes ensure success in the
most unpromising undertakings.
He was tenacious, astute and cool, he was very rich, he was very much
in love and he had no scruples worth mentioning; moreover, if he
failed, he belonged to a country from which it is extremely hard to
obtain the extradition of persons who have elsewhere taken the name of
the law in vain. It is with a feeling of national pride and security
that the true-born Greek takes sanctuary beneath the shadow of the
Acropolis.
He had played his first card boldly, but not recklessly, to find out
how matters stood. He had been the target of too many matrimonial aims
not to know that even such a girl as Margaret Donne might be suddenly
dazzled and tempted by the offer of his hand and fortune, and might
throw over the possibilities of a stage career for the certainties of
an enormously rich marriage. But he had not counted on that at all, and
had really set Margaret much higher in his estimation than to suppose
that she would marry him out of hand for his money; he had reckoned
only on finding out whether he had a rival, and in this he had
succeeded, to an extent which he had not anticipated, and the result
was not very promising. There had been no possibility of mistaking
Margaret's tone and manner when she had confessed that there was 'some
one else.' On reflection he had to admit that Margaret had not been dazzled by his
offer, though she had seemed surprised. She had either been accustomed
to the idea of unlimited money, because Mrs. Rushmore was rich, or else
she did not know its value. It came to the same thing in the end.
Orientals very generally act on the perfectly simple theory that nine
people out of ten are to be imposed upon by the mere display of what
money can buy, and that if you show them the real thing they will be
tempted by it. It is not pleasant to think how often they are right;
and though Logotheti had made no impression on Margaret with his
magnificent ruby and his casual offer of a yacht as a present, he did
not reproach himself with having made a mistake. He had simply tried
what he considered the usual method of influencing a woman, and as it
had failed he had eliminated it from the arsenal of his weapons. That
was all. He had found out at once that it was of no use, and as he
hated to waste time he was not dissatisfied with the result of his
day's work.