"What!" she cried fiercely, clenching her hands. "Tino had the impudence
to offer her Naxos as a bribe!"
"The Duchy of Naxos," I repeated.
I have never seen an angrier or more excited girl. She sprang to her
feet and began to pace the bedroom, her hands doubled in fury, her face
tense and white.
"Naxos!" she kept repeating in a voice strangled by emotion. "That
treacherous Tino offers Naxos to a miserable, fat Russian Princess! Oh!
Was ever such an insult offered to any girl! Naxos! My Naxos! Could
the civilized world believe it! Can the outrage on Belgium equal such
an infamy! Even with the spectacle of martyred France, of Roumania in
Teuton chains, of Russia floundering in blood--could the world believe
its senses if Naxos is betrayed!"
Her emotion was tragic, yet it seemed to me that the lovely Thusis took
Naxos a trifle too seriously. Because I was not at all certain that this
same civilized and horrified world was unanimously aware of the
existence of Naxos. But I didn't say this to Thusis.
As she paced the room she wrung her hands once or twice naively
deploring the avalanche.
"Because," she said, halting in front of me, "Smith or no Smith, I
should certainly attempt to seize this treacherous, beastly Constantine,
and smuggle him over the frontier. The traitor! The double traitor!
For Naxos is not his! No! It is a Venetian Duchy. What if Turkey did
steal it! What if Greece stole it in turn? It is Venetian. It is
Italian. It is my home and I love it! It is my birthplace and I
worship it! It is my native land and I adore it!"
"The King of Italy," I reminded her, "does not seem to desire that Naxos
be included in his domain."
"But _I_ do!" she said passionately. "I am a Venetian of Naxos. Have I
not the right to decide where my island belongs? For six hundred years
my family has owed allegiance to Venice--and naturally, therefore, to
Italy. Have I not every right to raise the banner of revolt in Naxos
and defy this ruffianly ex-king who comes sneaking stealthily into
Switzerland to plot for his own restoration?--who comes here secretly to
offer Naxos to a vulgar Russian as a bribe for financial aid?--offers to
sell my home for a few millions cash and buy cannon and men and send
them into Greece to fight for him and his rotten throne?"
"Thusis----"
"No!" she said violently, "there is no argument possible. And God never
sent His avalanche to ruin my hopes and destroy all chance of freedom
for Naxos! It was the bestial Gott of the boche who loosed the snow up
yonder--the filthy fetish of the hun who did that!" She flung out her
white arms and looked upward. And "oh!" she cried, "for one hour of the
old Greek gods to call on! Oh for the thunderbolts of Zeus!--the spear
of Athene!--the tender grace and mercy of Aphrodite, and her swift and
flaming vengeance when her temples were profaned!--when her children
were betrayed and disinherited!--Naxos--my Naxos----"
All Greek now, pagan, beautiful, the girl's whole body was quivering
with rage and grief. And I knew enough to hold my tongue.
While the fierce storm swept her, bending her like a sapling with gusts
of passion, I stood silent, awaiting the rain of tears to end it.
None came to break the tension, though the gray eyes harbored lightning
and her brow remained dark.
"As Naxos falls, so falls the world," she said. "The eyes of
civilization are on her; the fateful writing runs like fire across God's
heaven! Let the world heed what passes! The doom of Naxos is the doom
of freedom and of man!"
I, personally, had scarcely looked at it in that light. It did not
strike me that the hub of civilization rested on Naxos. Nor do I
believe the world was under that impression. But I was not going to say
so to this excited young Naxosienne--or Naxosoise--or
Naxosette,--whichever may be the respectful and properly descriptive
nomenclature.
And so, standing near the window, I watched the tempest wax, wane, and
gradually pass, leaving her at last silent, seated on her couch, with
one arm across her knee and her head bent like the "Resting Hermes."
When I walked over and stood looking down at her she reached out and,
without looking, took my hand.
"It is your turn now, Michael; and I already know what question you mean
to ask."
"Shall I ask it, Thusis?" After a silence her hand closed convulsively
in mine.
"I _do_ love you.... I am not--free--to marry you."
"Could you tell me why?"