Nor was Logotheti above using any art that could please her. His instinct about women, finding no scruples in the way, had led him into present favour by the shortest road. It is one thing to say brutally that all women like flattery; it is quite another to foresee just what form of flattery they will like. People who do not know professional artistic life from the inner side are much too ready to cry out that first-class professionals will swallow any amount of undiscriminating praise. The ability to judge their own work is one of the gifts which place them above the second class.
'I said what I thought,' observed Logotheti with a sudden air of conscientious reserve. 'For once in our acquaintance, I was not thinking of pleasing you. And then I was afraid that I had displeased you, as I so often have.'
The last words were spoken with a regret that was real.
'I have forgiven you,' said Margaret quietly; 'with conditions!' she added, as an afterthought, and smiling.
'Oh, I know—I'll never do it again.'
'That's what a runaway horse seems to say when he walks quietly home, with his head down and his ears limp, after nearly breaking one's neck!'
'I was a born runaway,' said Logotheti meekly, 'but you have cured me.'
In the pause that followed this speech, Mr. Feist leaned forward and spoke to Margaret across the table.
'I think we have a mutual friend, Madame,' he said.
'Indeed?' Margaret spoke coolly; she did not like to be called
'Madame' by people who spoke English.