‘Ah! Now once I didn’t quite appreciate yours. The wheel goes round, my dear Pasha. Every dog has his day. Forgive me, I am naturally elated. I meant to tell you at breakfast to-morrow, but since you surprised our tender meeting, why, I’ll tell you now. Congratulate me. That charming girl has owned that her avowal of love for me was nothing but bare truth, and has consented to make me happy.’ ‘To marry you?’ ‘My dear Pasha! What else could I mean?’ I took my hands out of my pockets, lit a cigarette and puffed the smoke luxuriously. Mouraki sat motionless in his chair, his eyes cold and sharp on me, his brow puckered. At last he spoke. ‘And Miss Hipgrave?’ he asked sneeringly. ‘Is there a breach of promise of marriage law in Neopalia?’ said I. ‘In truth, my dear Pasha, I am a little to blame there; but you mustn’t be hard on me. I had a moment of conscientious qualms. I confess it. But she’s too lovely, she really is. And she’s so fond of me--oh, I couldn’t resist it!’ I was simpering like any affected young lady-killer. Mouraki was a clever fellow, but the blow had been a sudden one. It strains the control even of clever fellows when a formidable obstacle springs up, at a moment’s notice, on a path that they have carefully prepared and levelled for their steps. The Pasha’s rage mastered him. ‘You’ve changed your mind rapidly, Lord Wheatley,’ said he. ‘I know nothing,’ I rejoined, ‘that does change a man’s mind so quickly as a pretty girl.’ ‘Yet some men hold to their promises,’ said he with a savage sneer. ‘Oh, a few, perhaps; very few in these days.’ ‘And you don’t aspire to be one?’ ‘Oh, I aspired,’ said I with a laugh; ‘but my aspirations have not stood out against Phroso’s charms.’ Then I took a step nearer to him, and, veiling impertinence under a thin show of sympathy, I said: ‘I hope you’re not really annoyed? You weren’t serious in the hint you gave of your own intentions? I thought you were only joking, you know. If you were serious, believe me I am grieved. But it must be every man for himself in these little matters, mustn’t it?’ He had borne as much as he could. He rose suddenly to his feet and an oath escaped from between his teeth. ‘You sha’n’t have her!’ said he. ‘You think you can laugh at me: men who think that find out their mistake.’ I laughed again. I did not shrink from exasperating him to the uttermost. He would be no more dangerous; he might be less discreet. ‘Pardon me,’ said I, ‘but I don’t perceive how we need your permission, glad as we should, of course, be of your felicitations.’ ‘I have some power in Neopalia,’ he reminded me, with a threatening gleam in his eye. ‘No doubt, but the power has to be carefully exercised when British subjects are in question--men, if I may add so much, of some position. I can’t be considered an islander of Neopalia for all purposes, my dear Pasha.’ He seemed not to hear or not to heed what I said; but he both heard and heeded, or I mistook my man.