“We make the laws for others, never for ourselves. Hang it, man, what’s liberty if it can’t provide us with a backstairs to the Temple of Wrong, and can’t supply us with decent excuses for the evasion of principles?”
“There is an abominable looseness in yours,” remarked Selaka, in a doleful attempt at indignation.
“Come, Doctor,” Miltiades cried, clanking his spurs impatiently. “Whatever the laws of the State may be, the laws of honour demand that neither antagonist be a moment behind time. I have the pistols. Be so good as to hurry your movements.”
The doctor’s laggard air suggested the gathering of scattered limbs, and the necessity for adjusting them before a march could be effected. He looked ruefully at the impassible Agiropoulos, and resented his impertinent eyeglass and his irreproachable toilet. He looked at the stern and gallant captain, wavered, and fresh words of protest died in his throat.
“There is no fear of our being discovered and the affair stopped?” he asked, in the tone of one to whom such a contingency would appear the worst possible catastrophe.
“Oh, none whatever,” Miltiades replied, reassuringly.
“Oh!” ejaculated Selaka, with his heart in his boots.
Through a similar hour of agony Stavros had passed, and awaited them with a poor imitation of stoic bearing.
“If anything happens, don’t forget to send this letter to my brother,” Selaka entreated, as he tremblingly took the pistol from Miltiades.