Fair Margaret - Page 69/206

'I love to be out in the rain, and I don't like carrots!' she answered.

'There are evidently things about which our hearts don't beat in unison

at all!' 'If people agreed about everything, what would become of conversation,

lawyers and standing armies? But I meant to suggest that we might

possibly like each other if we met often.' 'I daresay.' 'I have begun,' said Logotheti lightly, but again his long eyes were

grave.

'Begun what?' 'I have begun by liking you. You don't object, do you?' 'Oh no! I like to be liked--by everybody!' Margaret laughed again, and

watched him.

'It only remains for you to like everybody yourself. Will you kindly

include me?' 'Yes, in a general way, as a neighbour, in the biblical sense, you

know. Are you English enough to understand that expression?' 'I happen to have read the story of the Good Samaritan in Greek,'

Logotheti answered. 'Since you are willing that we should be

neighbours, "in the biblical sense," you cannot blame me for saying

that I love my neighbour as myself.' Once more her instinct told her that the words were meant less

carelessly than they were spoken, though she could not possibly seem to

take them in earnest. Yet her curiosity was aroused, as he intended

that it should be.

'I remember that the Samaritan loved his neighbour, "in the biblical

sense," at first sight,' he said, with a quick glance.

'But those were biblical times, you know!' 'Men have not changed much since then. We can still love at first

sight, I assure you, even after we have seen a good deal of the world.

It depends on meeting the right woman, and on nothing else. Do you

suppose that if the Naples Psyche, or the Syracuse Venus, or the Venus

of Milo, or the Victory of Samothrace suddenly appeared in Paris or

London, all the men would not lose their heads about her--at first

sight? Of course they would!' 'If you expect to have such neighbours as those--"in the biblical

sense"----' 'I have one,' said Logotheti, 'and that's enough.' Margaret had received many compliments of a more or less complicated

nature, but she did not remember that any one had yet compared her to

two Venuses, the Psyche and the Samothrace Nikê in a single breath.

'That's nonsense!' she exclaimed, blushing a little, and not at all

indignant.

'No,' Logotheti answered, imperturbably. 'Besides, neither the Victory

nor the Venus of Syracuse has a head, so I am at liberty to suppose

yours on their shoulders. Take the Victory. You move exactly as she

seems to be moving, for she is not flying at all, you know, though she

has wings. The wings are only a symbol. The Greeks knew perfectly well

that a winged human being could not fly straight without a feathered

tail two or three yards long!' 'How absurd!' 'That you should move like the Victory? Not at all. The reason why I

love my neighbour as myself is that my neighbour is the most absolutely

satisfactory being, from an artistic point of view. I don't often make

compliments.' 'They are astonishing when you do!' 'Perhaps. But I was going on to say that what satisfies my love of the

beautiful, can only be what satisfies my love of life itself, which is

enormous.' 'In other words,' said Margaret, wondering how he would go on, 'I am

your ideal!' 'Do you know what an "ideal" is?' 'Yes--well--no!' She hesitated. 'Perhaps I could not define it

exactly.' 'A man's ideal is what he wants, and nothing else in the world.' Margaret was not sure whether she should resent the speech a little, or

let it pass. For an instant they looked at each other in silence. Then

she made up her mind to laugh.