'I have come to one real conclusion,' he said, 'which is, that pain alone is intrinsically evil, and that in the lightening or abolition of pain one is safe in going straight ahead; it is a bit of the mosaic worth doing. So in the Islands....' he paused.
Kato repressed a smile; she was more and more touched and entertained by his youthful, dogmatic statements, which were delivered with a concentration and an ardour that utterly disarmed derision. She was flattered, too, by his unthinking confidence in her; for she knew him by report as morose and uncommunicative, with relapses into rough high spirits and a schoolboy sense of farce. Eve had described him as inaccessible....
'When you go, as you say, straight ahead,' he resumed, frowning, his eyes absent.
Kato began to dwell, very skilfully, upon the topic of the Islands....
Certain events which Madame Kato had then predicted to Julian followed with a suddenness, an unexpectedness, that perplexed the mind of the inquirer seeking, not only their origin, but their chronological sequence. They came like a summer storm sweeping briefly, boisterously across the land after the inadequate warning of distant rumbles and the flash of innocuous summer lightning. The thunder had rumbled so often, it might be said that it had rumbled daily, and the lightning had twitched so often in the sky, that men remained surprised and resentful long after the rough little tornado had passed away. They remained staring at one another, scratching their heads under their straw hats, or leaning against the parapet on the quays, exploring the recesses of their teeth with the omnipresent toothpick, and staring across the sea to those Islands whence the storm had surely come, as though by this intense, frowning contemplation they would finally provide themselves with enlightenment. Groups of men sat outside the cafés, their elbows on the tables, advancing in tones of whispered vehemence their individual positive theories and opinions, beating time to their own rhetoric and driving home each cherished point with the emphatic stab of a long cigar. In the casino itself, with the broken windows gaping jaggedly on to the forecourt, and the red curtains of the atrium hanging in rags from those same windows, men stood pointing in little knots. 'Here they stood still,' and 'From here he threw the bomb,' and those who had been present on the day were listened to with a respect they never in their lives had commanded before and never would command again.
There was no sector of society in Herakleion that did not discuss the matter with avidity; more, with gratitude. Brigandage was brigandage, a picturesque but rather opéra bouffe form of crime, but at the same time an excitement was, indubitably, an excitement. The Ministers, in their despatches to their home governments, affected to treat the incident as the work of a fortuitous band rather than as an organised expedition with an underlying political significance, nevertheless they fastened upon it as a pretext for their wit in Herakleion, where no sardonic and departmental eye would regard them with superior tolerance much as a grown-up person regards the facile amusement of a child. At the diplomatic dinner parties very little else was talked of. At tea parties, women, drifting from house to house, passed on as their own the witticisms they had most recently heard, which became common property until reclaimed from general circulation by the indignant perpetrators. From the drawing-rooms of the French Legation, down to village cafés where the gramophone grated unheard and the bowls lay neglected on the bowling alley, one topic reigned supreme. What nobody knew, and what everybody wondered about, was the attitude adopted by the Davenants in the privacy of their country house. What spoken or unspoken understanding existed between the inscrutable brothers? What veiled references, or candid judgments, escaped from William Davenant's lips as he lay back in his chair after dinner, a glass of wine—wine of his own growing—between his fingers? What indiscretions, that would have fallen so delectably upon the inquisitive ears of Herakleion, did he utter, secure in the confederacy of his efficient and vigorous sister-in-law, of the more negligible Robert, the untidy and taciturn Julian, the indifferent Eve?
It was as universally taken for granted that the outrage proceeded from the islanders as it was ferociously regretted that the offenders could not, from lack of evidence, be brought to justice. They had, at the moment, no special grievance; only their perennial grievances, of which everybody was tired of hearing. The brother of Vassili, a quite unimportant labourer, had been released; M. Lafarge had interested himself in his servant's brother, and had made representations to the Premier, which Malteios had met with his usual urbane courtesy. An hour later the fellow had been seen setting out in a rowing boat for Aphros. All, therefore, was for the best. Yet within twenty-four hours of this proof of leniency....
The élite were dining on the evening of these unexpected occurrences at the French Legation to meet two guests of honour, one a distinguished Albanian statesman who could speak no language but his own, and the other an Englishman of irregular appearances and disappearances, an enthusiast on all matters connected with the Near East. In the countries he visited he was considered an expert who had the ear of the English Cabinet and House of Commons, but by these institutions he was considered merely a crank and a nuisance. His conversation was after the style of the more economical type of telegram, with all prepositions, most pronouns, and a good many verbs left out; it gained thereby in mystery what it lost in intelligibility, and added greatly to his reputation. He and the Albanian had stood apart in confabulation before dinner, the Englishman arguing, expounding, striking his open palm with the fingers of the other hand, shooting out his limbs in spasmodic and ungraceful gestures, the Albanian unable to put in a word, but appreciatively nodding his head and red fez.
Madame Lafarge sat between them both at dinner, listening to the Englishman as though she understood what he was saying to her, which she did not, and occasionally turning to the Albanian to whom she smiled and nodded in a friendly and regretful way. Whenever she did this he made her a profound bow and drank her health in the sweet champagne. Here their intercourse perforce ended.
Half-way through dinner a note was handed to M. Lafarge. He gave an exclamation which silenced all his end of the table, and the Englishman's voice was alone left talking in the sudden hush.