Professor Arnold Inglis, that most gentle, high-minded and engaging of scholars, who most unfittingly represented part of a wild, hot, uncultured, tropical continent on the League, strolled out after lunch before the meeting of Committee 9 to see the flowers and fruit in the market-place. He was sad, because, like his fellow-delegate and friend, Lord John Lester, he hated this sort of disturbance. Like Lord John, he resented this violence which was assaulting the calm and useful progress of the Assembly, and was torn with anxiety for the fate of the three delegates. He wished he had Lord John with him this afternoon, that they might discuss the situation, but he had not seen him since he had left the Assembly that morning, so characteristically impatient at the prospect of the appointment of Committee 9.

Professor Inglis stood by a fruit-stall and looked down absently at the lovely mass of brilliant fruit and vegetables that lay on it.

Presently he became aware that some one at his side was pouring forth a stream of not unbeautiful language in a low, frightened voice. Looking round, he saw a small, ugly, malaria-yellow woman, gazing at him with frightened black eyes and clasped hands, and talking rapidly in a curious blend of ancient and modern Greek. What she appeared to be saying was:—

“I am persecuted by Turks; I beg you to succour me!”

“But what,” said Professor Inglis, also speaking in a blend, but with more of the ancient tongue in it that had hers, for he was more at home in classical than in modern Greek, “can I do? Can you not appeal to the police?”

“I dare not,” she replied. “I am in a minority in my house; I am an unprotected serving-woman, and there are three Turks in the same house who leave me no peace. Even now one of them is waiting for me with a stick because I had a misfortune and broke his hookah.”

“It is certainly,” said the Professor, “a case for the police. If you do not like to inform them, I will do so myself. Tell me where you live.”

“Just round the corner here, in a house in that passage,” she said. “Come with me and see for yourself, sir, if you doubt my word as to my sufferings.”

Professor Inglis hesitated for a moment, not wishing to be drawn into city brawls, but when she added, “I appealed to you, sir, because I have been told how you are always on the side of the unprotected, and also love the Greeks,” his heart melted in him, and he forgot that, though he did indeed love the ancient Greeks, he did not very much care for the moderns of that race (such, for example, as M. Lapoulis, the Greek delegate), and only remembered that here did indeed seem to be a very Unprotected Minority (towards which persons his heart was always soft), and that the Minority was a woman, poor, ill-favoured, and malarial, talking a Greek more ancient than was customary with her race, and persecuted by Turks, which nation Professor Inglis, in spite of his League mind, could not induce himself to like. All these things he recollected as he stood hesitating by the fruit stall, and he reflected also that, until he had in some degree verified the woman's tale, he would not care to trouble the already much burdened police with it; so, with a little sigh, he turned to the poor woman and told her he would come with her to her house and see for himself, and would then assist her to take steps to protect herself. She thanked him profusely, and led the way to the passage which she had mentioned.

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