He set himself resolutely to think out a plan of action, but like many

men of tolerably fertile imagination he was at a loss for any expedient

in the presence of urgent need. He could watch Logotheti and Margaret,

and they would not easily recognise him, but he was fain to admit that

he had nothing to gain by spying on them. He had seen enough and heard

enough already to convince him that Margaret had allowed herself to be

led into a situation very dangerous for her good name, to say the

least. It did not occur to him that Logotheti wished to marry her,

still less that he meant to hinder her from singing in public. He could

not help thinking of the very worst motives, and he attributed them all

to the Greek.

The mild English man of letters was momentarily turned into an avenging

demon, breathing wrath and destruction upon his adversary. The most

extravagant and reckless crimes looked comparatively easy just then,

and very tempting. He thought of getting into Logotheti's cellar with

enough dynamite to blow the house, its owner and himself to atoms, not

to speak of half the Boulevard Péreire. He fancied himself pounding

Logotheti's face quite out of shape with his fists, riddling him with

revolver bullets, running him through in all directions with duelling

swords, tearing him in pieces with wild horses and hanging him out of

his own front window. These vivacious actions all looked possible and

delightful to Lushington as he walked up and down his little

sitting-room. Then came the cold shower-bath of returning common-sense.

He sat down, filled a pipe and lit it.

'I'm an awful ass,' he said aloud to himself, in a reproachful tone.

He wished that some spirit voice would contradict him, but in the

absence of any supernatural intervention the statement remained

unrefuted. The worst of it was that he had always thought himself

clever, and in his critical writings he had sneered in a superior way

at the inventions of contemporary novelists. Just then, he would have

given his reputation for the talents of the hero in a common detective

story. But his mind refused to work in that way, and he watched with

growing discouragement the little clouds of smoke that floated upwards

to the whitewashed ceiling without leaving the least shadow of a

serviceable idea behind them.

He looked disconsolately at the square patent leather toes of his

shoes, very dusty from bicycling, and he sadly passed his hand over his

smooth-shaven chin; the curious creases in his ready-made trousers, so

conspicuously in the wrong place, depressed him still further, and the

sight of his broad-brimmed hat, lying on the table, enhanced the

melancholy of his reflections. The disguise was admirable, undoubtedly,

but it had only helped him to see with his eyes what he had already

seen in imagination, and so far as he could guess, it was not likely to

help him one step further. At that very moment Margaret was probably

seated at Logotheti's table, without even Madame De Rosa to chaperon

her, and Logotheti's men-servants were exchanging opinions about her

outside the door. Lushington nearly bit through the mouthpiece of his

pipe as he thought of that, knowing that he was powerless to interfere.

The same thing might go on for a month, and he could not stop it; then

Margaret would make her début, and the case would be more hopeless

than ever.




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