"You would rob me of a great deal if you took her away," Maraton answered, "but—"
Selingman interrupted him with a fiercely contemptuous exclamation.
"You have it—the rotten, insular conceit of these Englishmen! You think that she would not come? Do you think that if I were to say to her,—'Come and listen while I make garlands of words, while I take you through the golden doors!'—do you think that she would not put her hand in mine? Fancy—to live in my fairy chamber, to listen while I give shape and substance to all that I conceive—what woman would refuse!"
Maraton laughed softly as they passed out into the Palace yard.
"Try Julia," he suggested.
CHAPTER XXX
Selingman had the air of one who has achieved a personal triumph as, with his arm in Maraton's, he led him towards the man whom they had come to visit.
"Behold!" he exclaimed. "It is a triumph, this! It is a thing to be remembered! I have brought you two together!"
Maraton's first impressions of Maxendorf were curiously mixed. He saw before him a tall, lanky figure of a man, dressed in sombre black, a man of dark complexion, with beardless face and tanned skin plentifully freckled. His hair and eyes were coal black. He held out his hand to Maraton, but the smile with which he had welcomed Selingman had passed from his lips.
"You are not the Maraton I expected some day to meet," he said, a little bluntly, "and yet I am glad to know you."