She gave a joyful pant.
“You're too good, Lord John! How grateful we shall all be! You shall tell us all about how we ought to do it, and give us some really good mottoes!... I remember helping with branches of the National Service League before the war, and they had such a nice motto—‘The path of duty is the way to safety.’ ... That would be a good Union motto, don't you think? Or ‘Festina lente’—for we mustn't be impatient, must we? Or, ‘Hands across the sea!’ For nothing is so important as keeping our entente with France intact, is it.... The people of this country will not stand any weakening ... you know.... My husband reads me that out of the paper at breakfast.... There he is ... Frederick, isn't this good of Lord John....”
[24]
Professor Arnold Inglis, that most gentle, high-minded and engaging of scholars, who most unfittingly represented part of a wild, hot, uncultured, tropical continent on the League, strolled out after lunch before the meeting of Committee 9 to see the flowers and fruit in the market-place. He was sad, because, like his fellow-delegate and friend, Lord John Lester, he hated this sort of disturbance. Like Lord John, he resented this violence which was assaulting the calm and useful progress of the Assembly, and was torn with anxiety for the fate of the three delegates. He wished he had Lord John with him this afternoon, that they might discuss the situation, but he had not seen him since he had left the Assembly that morning, so characteristically impatient at the prospect of the appointment of Committee 9.
Professor Inglis stood by a fruit-stall and looked down absently at the lovely mass of brilliant fruit and vegetables that lay on it.
Presently he became aware that some one at his side was pouring forth a stream of not unbeautiful language in a low, frightened voice. Looking round, he saw a small, ugly, malaria-yellow woman, gazing at him with frightened black eyes and clasped hands, and talking rapidly in a curious blend of ancient and modern Greek. What she appeared to be saying was:—
“I am persecuted by Turks; I beg you to succour me!”
“But what,” said Professor Inglis, also speaking in a blend, but with more of the ancient tongue in it that had hers, for he was more at home in classical than in modern Greek, “can I do? Can you not appeal to the police?”