Zoe had turned pale. “You mean that he—and you—are only safe among them because you are known to be armed?” she said.
“Oh no, it’s not quite as bad as that. There is such a thing as moral influence, you know. Besides, I believe our fellows themselves would condemn to death—and execute—any man that tried to murder him or me, if it was done in an underhand way, that is, not in the course of a gentlemanly argument in the Assembly. Any one attempting to blow up one of the warships would be treated in the same way, because that’s the sort of thing the Powers might naturally resent; but they can’t see why the Powers should take it upon themselves to interfere with their domestic customs. Your brother can only back his orders by the threat of leaving the insurgents to themselves, and in some moods they would a good deal rather be without him. So we may yet find ourselves in more danger from our own men than from the Roumis—certainly more than from the Powers.”
He stopped abruptly, and Zoe looked at him in surprise. He was pulling at his moustache in an undecided way.
“I want to speak to you on a personal matter,” he said, in a notably unconciliatory tone.
“Personal to you, or to me?” asked Zoe.
“To you.”
Zoe raised her eyebrows. “I can only promise to listen to you, not to take your advice—which I have not asked for.”
“I know that. You sent Christodoridi back his flag?”
“Most certainly. I never liked the idea of keeping it, and when I found it was the trophy of an ‘infamous massacre,’ I returned it to him at once.”
“Meaning to snub him as horribly as possible?”