tter than
I have been able to do since I came out of Love's dear bondages. To be
in love is a delicious and an altogether admirable thing. I would be in
love again to-morrow if I could. You should be welcome to your foolish
laugh at my raptures. Ah me! I shall never know those raptures any more;
and the follies you will laugh at in me will be less noble, less tender,
less innocently beautiful than those of young love. But to them,
who were so sweet to each other, the moonlight was a revelation of
marvellous sanctity, and the sea was holy by reason of their passionate
hearts that hallowed it.

CHAPTER II.

Incidental mention has been made of the fact that Leland Junior engaged
in a pronounced flirtation with a little Greek girl aboard the vessel
wherein Barndale made love so stupidly and so successfully. It was out
of this incident that the strange story which follows arose. It would
not have been easy to tell that story without relating the episode
just concluded; and when one has to be tragic it is well to soften the
horrors by a little love-making, or some other such emollient. I regret
to say that the little Greek girl--who was tyrannously pretty by the
way--was as thorough-paced a little flirt as ever yet the psychic
philosopher dissected. She had very large eyes, and very pretty lips,
and a very saucy manner with a kind of inviting shyness in it. Jimmy
Leland's time had not yet come, or I know no reason why he should not
have succumbed to this charming young daughter of Hellas. As it was, he
flirted hugely, and cared not for her one copper halfpenny. She was a
little taken with him, and was naturally a little indiscreet. Otherwise
surely she would never have consented to meet James at the Concordia
Garden on the evening of their arrival at Constantinople. He had been in
Constantinople before, and was 'down to the ropes,' as he preferred to
say. He made his appointment with the young lady and kept it, slipping
out from Misserie's, and leaving the other members of his party trifling
with their dessert at that dreary table d'hote, and lost in wonder at
the execrable pictures which are painted in distemper upon the walls
of that dismal salle a manger. He strolled down the Grande Rue de Pera,
drank a liqueur at Valori's, and turned into the Concordia in the summer
dusk. He sat down at one of the little wooden tables, and aired his
Turkish before the waiter by orders for vishnap, limoni, and attesh.
Then he cross