'Then he has no business to,' he answered with a smile. 'He has everything man can wish for: power, wealth, and, as you can see, an admirable wife. As usual, however, your perception is unerring: he's the most cynical fellow I ever came across. He believes in nothing—and is incidentally the only real philanthropist I know. His name is perfectly familiar to you. It is Davenant.'
'Oh,' she said, carried away by her interest, 'is that Julian Davenant? Of course every one has heard of him. Stay,' she added, searching in her memory, 'wasn't there some extraordinary story about him as a young man? some crazy adventure he engaged in? I don't remember exactly....'
The man at her side began to laugh.
'There was indeed,' he replied; 'do you remember an absurd tiny republic named Herakleion, which has since been absorbed by Greece?'
'Herakleion?' she murmured. 'Why, I have been there in a yacht, I believe; a little Greek port; but I didn't know it had ever been an independent republic?'
'Dear me, yes,' he said, 'it was independent for about a hundred years, and Julian Davenant as a young man was concerned in some preposterous revolution in those parts; all his money comes, you know, from his vine-growing estates out there. I am a little vague myself as to what actually happened. He was very young at the time, not much more than a boy.'
'How romantic,' said the woman absently, as she watched Julian Davenant shaking hands with his hostess.
'Very romantic, but we all start by being romantic until we have outgrown it, and any way, don't you think we are going, you and I, rather too much out of our way this evening to look for romance?' said the man, leaning confidentially a little nearer.
* * * * * *
But these two people have nothing to do with the story.