Far-off siren voices seemed to call to him from the darkness. What would be his? World-fame—not the bays he despised, but the laurel. A seat above even social convention, unprecedented, secure. A power nationally supreme, in State certainly, in Church perhaps—power to override old conditions, to re-create his own future. To sever old bonds with the sword of royal prerogative. Eventually, to choose his queen!
A fit of trembling seized him. He felt Teresa’s arms about him—warm, human, loving arms—her lips on his, sweet as honeysuckle after rain. For a moment temptation flung itself out of the night upon him. Not such as he had grappled with when she had come to him on the square in Venice. Not such as he had felt when Dallas told him of the portrait hidden from Ada’s eyes. It was a temptation a thousandfold stronger and more insidious. It shook to its depths the mystic peace that had come to him on the deck of the Hercules after that last parting. It was as though all the old craving, the bitterness, the cruciate longing of his love rose at once to a combat under which the whole mind of the man bent and writhed in anguish.
Gordon’s face, as it stared out from the torch-flare across the gloomy gulf, showed to the man who waited near-by no sign of the struggle that wrung his soul, and that, passing at length, left him blanched and exhausted like one from whose veins a burning fever has ebbed suddenly.
The primate came eagerly from the shadow as Gordon turned and spoke:
“Say to those who sent you that what they propose is impossible—”
“Illustrious Excellency!”
“—that I came hither for Greek independence, and if this cause shall fall, I choose to bury myself in its ruins.”
The other was dumb from sheer astonishment. He knew the proposal the letter contained. Had not he, Lambro, primate of Argos, nurtured the plan among the chiefs? Had not the representative of a great power confided in his discretion when he sent him with that letter? And now when the whole Morea was ready—when prime ministers agreed—the one man to whom it might be offered, refused the crown! He swallowed hard, looking at the letter which had been handed back to him.
Before he recovered his wits, Gordon had walked uncertainly to his horse, mounted, and was riding toward the town, his body-guard streaming out behind him, running afoot.
As his fellow officer approached him, Lambro swore an oath: