r lively for a few seconds, and then he
broke down again, and was as limp as a rag, and trembled with fright,
as if he saw queer things in the room.'

'You sent for a doctor then?'

'My own, and we took care of him together that night. You may laugh at
the idea of my having a doctor, as I never was ill in my life. I have
him to dine with me now and then, because he is such good company, and
is the best judge of a statue or a picture I know. The habit of taking
the human body to pieces teaches you a great deal about the shape of
it, you see. In the morning we moved Mr. Feist from the hotel to a
small private hospital where cases of that sort are treated. Of course
he was perfectly helpless, so we packed his belongings and papers.'

'It was really very kind of you to act the Good Samaritan to
a stranger,' Margaret said, but her tone showed that she was
disappointed at the tame ending of the story.

'No,' Logotheti answered. 'I was never consciously kind, as you call
it. It's not a Greek characteristic to love one's neighbour as one's
self. Teutons, Anglo-Saxons, Latins, and, most of all, Asiatics, are
charitable, but the old Greeks were not. I don't believe you'll find
an instance of a charitable act in all Greek history, drama, and
biography! If you did find one I should only say that the exception
proves the rule. Charity was left out of us at the beginning, and we
never could understand it, except as a foreign sentiment imported with
Christianity from Asia. We have had every other virtue, including
hospitality. In the _Iliad_ a man declines to kill his enemy on the
ground that their people had dined together, which is going rather
far, but it is not recorded that any ancient Greek, even Socrates
himself, ever felt pity or did an act of spontaneous kindness! I don't
believe any one has said that, but it's perfectly true.'

'Then why did you take all that trouble for Mr. Feist?'

'I don't know. People who always know why they do things are great
bores. It was probably a caprice that took me to see him, and then
it did not occur to me to let him cut his throat, so I took away his
razor; and, finally, I telephoned for my doctor, because my misspent
life has brought me into contact with Western civilisation. But when
we began to pack Mr. Feist's papers I became interested in him.'

'Do you mean to say that you read his letters?' Margaret inquired.

'Why not? If I had let him kill himself, somebody would have read
t