“And it was right he should!” cried Eirene, with flashing eyes. “Would you degrade the Holy Scriptures and the sacred liturgies by translating them from the glorious Greek into the uncouth dialects of these barbarians?”
“What a very curious thing!” exclaimed Zoe involuntarily.
“What do you mean?” demanded Eirene.
“Why, it’s no use pretending that we don’t know you’re a Scythian, Eirene, for you’ve said lots of things that show it. And it’s very funny to hear you talking just as Professor Panagiotis did, when Scythia is doing all she can to stir up the barbarians, as you call them, against the Greeks.”
“Because I have been brought up in Scythia, must I be insensible to truth and rightness?” cried Eirene. “It surprises me, I confess, to find an Englishman supporting the guileful designs of the Slavs in opposition to the noble cause of heroic and persecuted Greece.”
“I’m not supporting Slavs or anybody,” said Maurice. “If you are anxious to define my attitude, I am blaming both sides impartially. They have got things into such a muddle that it looks as if the whole structure of society in Emathia would have to be built up again from the foundations. If the taxes were honestly assessed and collected, and the middleman eliminated, it would do a good deal, of course, especially if you could also get rid of the money-lender by a system of agricultural banks. But you would want to establish a system of village responsibility, as they have done in Burmah, before you could begin to stamp out blood-feuds and religious faction-fights. I must ask Wylie how they manage to get a police-force which is not prejudiced on one side or the other. Side by side with that, you would have to be opening up the country with roads and railways, and getting the priests better educated, and books translated, and schools established, and the army thrown open to Christians and popularised, so that brigandage would no longer be——”
“The only career for a young man of spirit,” supplied Zoe, as he paused.
“Well,” burst forth Eirene, who had been listening in speechless indignation as Maurice elaborated his views on the regeneration of Emathia, “I should like to know what business it is of yours?”
“But why should it affect you?” asked Maurice, warned by an anxious glance from Zoe.
“It is just like you English,” continued Eirene, disregarding the question. “You meddle all over the world with countries which do not concern you, while your own usurped India is ground under the iron heel of men like Captain Wylie, of whom the very brigands are afraid!”