Greenough drew his long legs back from the fender and, looking toward the young Secretary, said in a decided tone:—
“I don’t agree with you, Ivan. Served the beggar right; the only pity is that he’s going to get well.”
“But she wasn’t his wife,” remarked Mme. Petrovski with increased interest, as she lighted her cigarette.
“No matter, he loved her,” returned the Englishman, straightening in his seat and squaring his broad shoulders.
“And so did the poor devil whom Mercier sewed up,” laughed the old Baron, his eyes twinkling.
Mme. Constantin raised her blonde head from the edge of the divan.
“Is there any wrong, you dear Greenough, you would forgive where a woman is concerned?”
“Plenty. Any wrong that you would commit, my dear lady, for instance; but not the kind the Baron refers to.”
“But why do you Englishmen always insist on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Can’t you make some allowance for the weakness of human nature?” she asked, smiling.
“But why only Englishmen?” demanded Greenough. “All nationalities feel alike where a man’s honor and the honor of his home are concerned. It is only the punishment that differs. The Turk, for instance, bowstrings you or tries to, for peeping under his wife’s veil; the American shoots you at sight for speaking slightingly of his daughter. Both are right in a way. I am not brutal; I am only just, and I tell you there is only one way of treating a man who has robbed you dishonestly of the woman you love, and that is to finish him so completely that the first man called in will be the undertaker—not the surgeon. I am not talking at random—I know a case in point, which always sets me blazing when I think of it. He was at the time attached to our embassy at Berlin. I hear now that he has returned to England and is dying—dying, remember, of a broken heart—won’t live the year out. He ought to have shot the scoundrel when he had a chance. Not her fault, perhaps—not his fault—fault of a man he trusted—that both trusted, that’s the worst of it.”