“Primitivism,” she declared, “is quite the most delightful thing in the world. Then your politics, too, must be most exciting. You have revolutions, and that sort of thing, do you not?”
“I do not understand you, Miss Van Decht,” he said, quietly. “Will you not tell me what you mean?”
“The papers are all so vague,” she answered, “but one gathers that Theos is in a state of political unrest. I believe in South America they would call that a revolution.”
Reist’s eyes flashed fire. A faint smile flickered upon Hassen’s lips.
“There is not any comparison,” he said, haughtily, “any possible comparison, between the affairs of one of the most ancient and historical countries in Europe and the mushroom States of South America. Theos, it is true, has made mistakes, and she will suffer for them—she is suffering now.”
“The Republic, for example,” Hassen remarked, quietly.
“Theos,” Reist answered, “is a country in which the Republican instinct is as yet unborn. Her sons are homely and brave, tillers of the soil, or soldiers. We have few cities to corrupt, and very little attempt at the education which makes shopkeepers and anarchists of honest men. Perhaps that is why we have kept our independence. Ay, kept it, although hemmed in with false friends and open enemies.”
Reist spoke with fervour, a fire in his dark eyes, a note of passion vibrating in his slow tones. The girl especially watched him with keen interest. To her all this was new and incredible. She was used to men to whom self-restraint was amongst the cardinal virtues, to the patriotism of torchlight processions and fire-crackers. This was all so different, it was as though some one had turned back for her the pages of history.... Reist surely was not of this generation? Erlito had averted his face, Hassen was busy lighting a cigarette, Mr. Van Decht was as bewildered as his daughter. Yet Reist’s words, in a way, had moved all of them. It was Hassen who answered.
“If the Republican instinct,” he remarked, quietly, “is as yet unborn in Theos, whence the banishment of the Tyrnaus family, and the establishment of a Republican government?”