“Stavros is right. Better have the girl up to Athens, and play her beauty upon the susceptibilities of our friend Mingros.” But it was a minor question. His attention was engrossed by parliamentary strife and the coming election. This was but the preliminary of ministerial glory. Place him upon the tribune, Hellas would shake with the thunder of his voice, and Europe hold down her abashed head in the face of a violated Treaty of Berlin, and an unenlarged Greek frontier. He mentally apostrophised Europe, and fell to speaking of himself, and gesticulating wildly, as he walked from the station in Hermes Street to inspect the new house he was building close to the Queen’s Hospital. The work was progressing fairly, and as he made a bid for luck by sacrificing a cock before the first stone was laid, he felt healthily free from apprehensions of any sort. Dr. Galenides was coming out of the Hospital as he turned to go, and the friends stopped to discuss the situation.
“Stavros grows more irrepressible,” said Dr. Galenides, with a curious smile. “He wields his pen not as a sword but as a whip to lash us all, friends and enemies.”
“All bluster. He likes to be thought volcanic,” laughed Selaka, easily.
“Perhaps he has no objection to a reputation a trifle more serious,” Galenides suggested, with a look ostensibly blank.
Dr. Selaka glanced sharply round at him.
“Do you distrust him?”
“It is a wise saying—trust nobody. We are all liable to change.”
“What change do you foresee in Stavros?”
“A change you will hardly appreciate,” Dr. Galenides replied, shutting up his lips with a secretive air.