She looked a little surprised.

‘Indeed I do!’ she answered rather sadly.  ‘Have you found it out?’

’Yes.  You are Margaret Donne and you are Cordova.  I admire Cordova immensely, I am extremely fond of Margaret, and I’m in love with both.  Oh yes!  I’m quite frank about it, and it’s very unlucky, for whichever one of your two selves I meet I’m just as much in love as ever!  Absurd, isn’t it?’

‘It’s flattering, at all events.’

’If you ever took it into your handsome head to marry me—­please, I’m only saying “if”—­the absurdity would be rather reassuring, wouldn’t it?  When a man is in love with two women at the same time, it really is a little unlikely that he should fall in love with a third!’

’Mr. Griggs says that marriage is a drama which only succeeds if people preserve the unities!’

’Griggs is always trying to coax the Djin back into the bottle, like the fisherman in the Arabian Nights,’ answered Logotheti.  ’He has read Kant till he believes that the greatest things in the world can be squeezed into a formula of ten words, or nailed up amongst the Categories like a dead owl over a stable door.  My intelligence, such as it is, abhors definitions!’

‘So do I. I never understand them.’

’Besides, you can only define what you know from past experience and can reflect upon coolly, and that is not my position, nor yours either.’

Margaret nodded, but said nothing and sat down.

‘Do you want to smoke?’ she asked.  ’You may, if you like.  I don’t mind a cigarette.’

‘No, thank you.’

’But I assure you I don’t mind it in the least.  It never hurts my throat.’

‘Thanks, but I really don’t want to.’

‘I’m sure you do.  Please—­’

‘Why do you insist?  You know I never smoke when you are in the room.’

’I don’t like to be the object of little sacrifices that make people uncomfortable.’

’I’m not uncomfortable, but if you have any big sacrifice to suggest, I promise to offer it at once.’

‘Unconditionally?’ Margaret smiled.  ‘Anything I ask?’

‘Yes.  Do you want my statue?’

‘The Aphrodite?  Would you give her to me?’

‘Yes.  May I telegraph to have her packed and brought here from Paris?’

He was already at the writing-table looking for a telegraph form.  Margaret watched his face, for she knew that he valued the wonderful statue far beyond all his treasures, both for its own sake and because he had nearly lost his life in carrying it off from Samos, as has been told elsewhere.

As Margaret said nothing, he began to write the message.  She really had not had any idea of testing his willingness to part with the thing he valued most, at her slightest word, and was taken by surprise; but it was impossible not to be pleased when she saw that he was in earnest.  In her present mood, too, it restored her sense of power, which had been rudely shaken by the attitude of the public on the previous evening.