He shook his head in confirmation. Most emphatically there had been
nothing doing. They were all in a decidedly ugly mood, with that darned
girl of Jack Harrowby's in gaol for telling about the times of sailing.
They knew well enough the girl had been a fool, an innocent go-between;
but they weren't having any more of it. The young lady with friends in
Athens would have to exist without them until the war was over. Let her
apply to the Provisional Government and then, if all was satisfactory,
they would forward the application to the War Office, who would look
into it. Sometime next year would be a good date to expect a
reply--probably in the negative. That was all he could get out of them.
He looked glumly at Evanthia, who stared back at him thinking rapidly.
She had not expected a passport. To her a passport was an infernal
contrivance for landing you in prison unless you paid and paid and paid
an interminable succession of officials. When she had exclaimed to Mrs.
Dainopoulos, "Oh, what shall I do? _Que ferai-je?_" she had been really
thinking aloud. What should she do if the Englishman failed to get a
passport? Even that was a pose because she had decided what to do. She
drew Mr. Spokesly farther away from the house and turned to him with an
expression of smiling composure on her face. He stared as though
fascinated. She was going to spring something on him, he was sure. In
the intervals between sleep and his herculean labours to get the
_Kalkis_ ship-shape and Bristol fashion he sometimes wondered whether
she had not taken him literally when he had said he would go to hell for
her. Another thing: it appeared he had to do this for nothing. He was to
get her back to her lover and receive a purely nominal reward. He took
hold of her shoulders and kissed her hair. He was certainly taking a
chance in trying to get her a passport. He had had to be truculent. He
was only trying to do a decent turn to a neutral. Mr. Dainopoulos would
have applied himself only he felt he was in a delicate position, having
chartered his ship to the Government, and so did not want to embarrass
them. And so on. A new Mr. Spokesly. Perhaps his visit to the Post
Office for letters had something to do both with his truculence and his
present air of fascinated interest in Evanthia's face. For there had
been no letters. There you were, you see. Out of sight, out of mind. The
new Mr. Spokesly was a shade more rugged than the other, a shade harder
in the line from ear to chin, a shade more solid on his pins. Evanthia
pulled his head over to her ear.
"What time ship go away?" she asked hurriedly.
"To-morrow," he muttered, remembering Jack Harrowby's indiscretion.
"To-morrow, but you mustn't tell anybody."
"Pst! Who should I tell, stupidity! To-night you go on the ship, eh?"
"They won't let a lady go through...." he began and she pulled his ear.
"Tck! You go on the ship. By and by, late, late, I come, too."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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