“We are strangers known to one another by repute,” said Constantine, who bowed and held out his hand with the singularly gentlemanly ease of the islander.
Reineke took his hand and pressed it warmly. Read in the illumination of his ardent hopes, this visit was a gracious augury which it behoved him to receive with visible and cordial satisfaction.
“Be seated, pray,” he said, and the smile that lit up his dark serene face was as winning as a child’s.
“I suppose you are astonished to see me, sir.”
“I am deeply grateful—yes, and a little astonished. You have come, I suppose, to bring me news of her?”
“Of—not from her,” Constantine said, prudently. “I am not deputed by any one, you understand.”
His brows shot up with secretive purpose, and his eager glance was full of a meaning it puzzled Reineke to read. He nodded affirmatively, and the light upon his face sobered to the proper tone of unexpectant resignation.
“I am grateful under any circumstances. To hear of her is second best, and it is not given to man often to get anything so good as second best,” he said, calmly.
“You are a philosopher, sir, and philosophy is beyond me. My niece is well—patient as you might apprehend. But that mad brother of mine is just an obstinate old idiot. He will hear neither of reason nor expediency. You had the misfortune to be born a Turk, and it is your fatality. He has some curious idea that man cannot enter into strife with fate. He never had much brains for aught but books, and I have observed that books have a naturally weakening effect upon the intelligence.”