Julian heard the tumult of words: some one had been arrested, it was Vassili's brother. Vassili, he knew, was the big chasseur at the French Legation. He heard his father soothing, promising he would look into the matter; he would, if need be, see the Premier on the morrow. A woman flung herself out of the café and clasped Julian by the knee. They had taken her lover. Would he, Julian, who was young, be merciful? Would he urge his father's interference? He promised also what was required of him, feeling a strange thrill of emotion and excitement. Ten days ago he had been at Oxford, and here, to-day, Kato had spoken to him as to a grown man, and here in the dusk a sobbing woman was clinging about his knee. This was a place in which anything, fantastic or preposterous, might come to pass. As they rode on, side by side, his father spoke, thinking aloud. An absent-minded man, he gave his confidence solely in this, so to speak, unintentional manner. Long periods, extending sometimes over months, during which his mind lay fallow, had as their upshot an outbreak of this audible self-communion. Julian had inherited the trait; his mind progressed, not regularly, but by alternate stagnation and a forward bound. 'The mistake that we have made lies in the importation of whole families of islanders to the mainland. The Islands have always considered themselves as a thing apart, as, indeed, historically, they always were. A hundred years is not sufficient to make them an intrinsic part of the State of Herakleion. I cannot wonder that the authorities here dislike us. We have introduced a discontented population from the Islands to spread sedition among the hitherto contented population of the mainland. If we were wise, we should ship the whole lot back to the Islands they came from. Now, a man is arrested on the Islands by the authorities, and what happens? He is the brother of Vassili, an islander living in Herakleion. Vassili spreads the news, it flies up and down the town, and out into the country. It has greeted us out here already. In every café of the town at this moment the islanders are gathered together, muttering; some will get drunk, perhaps, and the municipal police will intervene; from a drunken row the affair will become political; some one will raise the cry of "Liberty!", heads will be broken, and to-morrow a score of islanders will be in jail. They will attribute their imprisonment to the general hostility to their nationality, rather than to the insignificant brawl. Vassili will come to me in Herakleion to-morrow. Will I exercise my influence with Malteios to get his brother released? I shall go, perhaps, to Malteios, who will listen to me suavely, evasively.... It has all happened a hundred times before. I say, we ought to ship the whole lot back to where they came from.' 'I suppose they are really treated with unfairness?' Julian said, more speculation than interest in his tone.