‘Enough, Kortes,’ said I, with a lordly air. ‘No doubt your intentions are good, but you forget what is becoming from you to me.’ He was not awed; and I think he perceived some of the truth--not all; for he said, ‘You made her love you; that does not happen unless a man’s own acts help it.’ ‘Do girls never rush uninvited on love, then?’ I sneered. ‘Some perhaps, but she would not,’ he answered steadily. He said no more. I nodded to him and set forward on my way. He bowed again slightly, and stood still where he was, watching me. I felt his eyes on me after we had parted. I was in a very tumult of discomfort. The man had humiliated me to the ground. I hoped against hope that he was wrong; and again, in helpless self-contradiction, my heart cried out insisting on its shameful joy because he was right. Right or wrong, wrong or right, what did it matter? Either way now lay misery, either way now lay a struggle that I shrank from and abhorred. I was somewhat delayed by this interview, and when I arrived at the house I found Mouraki already at breakfast. He apologised for not having awaited my coming, saying, ‘I have transacted much business. Oh, I’ve not been in bed all the time! And I grew hungry. I have been receiving some reports on the state of the island.’ ‘It’s quiet enough now. Your arrival has had a most calming effect.’ ‘Yes, they know me. They are very much afraid, for they think I shall be hard on them. They remember my last visit.’ He made no reference to Constantine, and although I wondered rather at his silence I did not venture again to question him. I wished that I knew what had happened on his last visit. A man with a mouth like Mouraki’s might cause anything to happen. ‘I shall keep them in suspense a little while,’ he pursued, smiling. ‘It’s good for them. Oh, by the way, Wheatley, you may as well take this; or shall I tear it up?’ And suddenly he held out to me the document which I had written and given to Phroso when I restored the island to her. ‘She gave you this?’ I cried. ‘She?’ asked Mouraki, with a smile of mockery. ‘Is there, then, only one woman in the world?’ he seemed to ask sneeringly. ‘The Lady Euphrosyne, to whom I gave it,’ I explained with what dignity I could. ‘The Lady Phroso, yes,’ said he, (‘Hang his Phroso!’ thought I.) ‘I had her before me this morning and made her give it up.’ ‘I can only give it back to her, you know.’ ‘My dear Wheatley, if you like to amuse yourself in that way I can have no possible objection. Until you obtain a firman, however, you will continue to be Lord of Neopalia and this Phroso no more than a very rebellious young lady. But you’ll enjoy a pleasant interview and no harm will be done. Give it back by all means.’ He smiled again, shrugging his shoulders, and lit a cigarette. His manner was the perfection of polite, patient, gentlemanly contempt. ‘It seems easier to get an island than to get rid of one,’ said I, trying to carry off my annoyance with a laugh.