‘She is at the cottage on the hill, my lord, with a woman to attend on her.’ After another pause he motioned with his hand to Phroso to take her place by him, and thus we three walked up to the house. It was alive now with women and men, and there was a bustle of preparation for the great man. Mouraki sat down in the armchair which I had been accustomed to use, and, addressing an officer who seemed to be his _aide-de-camp_, issued quick orders for his own comfort and entertainment; then he turned to me and said civilly enough: ‘Since you seem reluctant to act as host, you shall be my guest while I am here.’ I murmured thanks. He glanced at Phroso and waved his hand in dismissal. She drew back, curtseying, and I saw her mount the stairs to her room. Mouraki bade me sit down, and his orderly brought him cigarettes. He gave me one and we began to smoke, Mouraki watching the coiling rings, I furtively studying his face. I was in a rage at his treatment of Phroso. But the man interested me. I thought that he was now considering great matters: the life of Constantine, perhaps, or the penalties that he should lay on the people of Neopalia. Yet even these would seem hardly great to him, who had moved in the world of truly great affairs, and was in his present post rather by a temporary loss of favour than because it was adequate to his known abilities. With such thoughts I studied him as he sat smoking silently. Well, man is very human, and great men are often even more human than other men. For when Mouraki saw that we were alone, when he had finished his cigarette, flung it away and taken another, he observed to me, obviously summarising the result of those meditations to which my fancy had imparted such loftiness: ‘Yes, I don’t know that I ever saw a handsomer girl.’ There was nothing to say but one thing, and I said it. ‘No more did I, your Excellency,’ said I. But I was not pleased with the expression of Mouraki’s eye; the contentment induced in me by the safety of my friends, by my own escape, and by the end of Constantine’s ill-used power, was suddenly clouded as I sat and looked at the baffling face and subtle smile of the Governor. What was it to him whether Phroso were a handsome girl or not? And I suppose I might just as well have added--What was it to me? CHAPTER XIII THE SMILES OF MOURAKI PASHA