a child, threatening to
leave her when she said too much, and bringing her to her senses by
seeming to withdraw her affection. Indeed, there was something
exaggerated in Madame Patoff's love for the girl, as there appeared to
be in everything she really felt. With the other members of the
household she behaved with perfect self-possession, but when she was
alone with Hermione she laid aside all her assumed calm, and spoke
unreasonably about her son, as though it gave her pleasure; always
submitting, however, to the rebuke which Hermione invariably
administered on such occasions. But the idea that whenever she was alone
with her aunt something of the kind was sure to occur made Hermione
nervous, so that she avoided an interview whenever she could.

XVI.

If any of the party could have guessed what Gregorios Balsamides and I
were doing on that dark night, they would not have slept as soundly as
they did. It was an evil night, a night for a bad deed, I thought, as I
looked out of the carriage-window, when we were clear of the houses and
streets of Pera. The black clouds drove angrily down before the north
wind, seeming to tear themselves in pieces on the stars, as one might
tear a black veil upon steel nails. The wind swept the desolate country,
and made the panes of the windows rattle even more loudly than did the
hoofs and wheels upon the stony road. But the horses were strong, and
the driver was not a shivering Greek, but a sturdy Turk, who could laugh
at the wind as it whistled past his ears, striking full upon his broad
chest. He drove fast along the rising ground, and faster as he reached
the high bend which the road follows above the Bosphorus, winding in and
out among the hills till it descends at last to Therapia.

"The clouds look like the souls of the lost, to-night," said Balsamides,
drawing his fur coat closely around him. "One can imagine how Dante
conceived the idea of the scene in hell, when the souls stream down the
wind."

"You seem poetically inclined," I answered.

"Why not? We are out upon a romantic errand. Our lives are not often
romantic. We may as well make the best of it, as a beggar does when he
gets a bowl of rice."

"I should fancy you had led a very romantic life," said I, lighting a
cigarette in the dark, and leaning back against the cushions.

"That is what women always say when they want a man to make
confidences," laughed Balsamides. "No, I have not led a romantic life. I