Julian's mind strayed again to the elections. The return of the Stavridis party would mean certain disturbances in the Islands. Disturbances would mean an instant appeal for leadership. He would be reminded of the day he had spent, the only day of his life, he thought, on which he had truly lived, on Aphros. Tsigaridis would come, grave, insistent, to hold him to his undertakings, a figure of comedy in his absurdly picturesque clothes, but also a figure full of dignity with his unanswerable claim. He would bring forward a species of moral blackmail, to which Julian, ripe for adventure and sensitive to his obligations, would surely surrender. After that there would be no drawing back.... 'I have little hope of victory,' said Malteios, to whom Julian, in search of information, had recourse; and hinted with infinite suavity and euphemism, that the question of election in Herakleion depended largely, if not entirely, on the condition and judicious distribution of the party funds. Stavridis, it appeared, had controlled larger subscriptions, more trustworthy guarantees. The Christopoulos, the largest bankers, were unreliable. Alexander had political ambitions. An under-secretaryship.... Christopoulos _père_ had subscribed, it was true, to the Malteios party, but while his right hand produced the miserable sum from his right pocket, who could tell with what generosity his left hand ladled out the drachmæ into the gaping Stavridis coffers? Safe in either eventuality. Malteios knew his game. The Premier enlarged blandly upon the situation, regretful, but without indignation. As a man of the world, he accepted its ways as Herakleion knew them. Julian noted his gentle shrugs, his unfinished sentences and innuendoes. It occurred to him that the Premier's frankness and readiness to enlarge upon political technique were not without motive. Buttoned into his high frock-coat, which the climate of Herakleion was unable to abolish, he walked softly up and down the parquet floor between the lapis columns, his fingers loosely interlaced behind his back, talking to Julian. In another four days he might no longer be Premier, might be merely a private individual, unostentatiously working a dozen strands of intrigue. The boy was not to be neglected as a tool. He tried him on what he conceived to be his tenderest point. 'I have not been unfavourable to your islanders during my administration,'--then, thinking the method perhaps a trifle crude, he added, 'I have even exposed myself to the attack of my opponents on that score; they have made capital out of my clemency. Had I been a less disinterested man, I should have had greater foresight. I should have sacrificed my sense of justice to the demands of my future.' He gave a deprecatory and melancholy smile.