The graph of Lord D'Abemon's life assumed strange patterns. I
see him first as the handsome Etonian, ambitious and a trifle selfish. I see him as an ensign in the Brigade of Guards, more decorative and extravagant than anything that even Ouida con- ceived. I see him casting all this London life aside and going out to the Near East as a member of the Rumelian Commission. As a young man he must have been arrogant and even un- scrupulous. He loved the Levant but he despised the Levantines ; it was in the East that he determined to lay the foundations of his fortunes and his career. There was a certain recklessness about Edgar Vincent which in those days earned him the dis- approval of older men. Even when he became Governor of the Ottoman Bank there were those who said that he used his Powers unwisely. In my own day upon the hill of the island of Prnilcipo there stood a large red hotel, derelict and decaying, which was known as " Vincent's folly." He was accused of having wasted the resources of the bank upon this unprofitable investment. Yet there was no reason at all why it should have Proved unprofitable, and I suspect that its failure was due, not to the recklessness of Edgar Vincent, but to some intrigue on the part of the little Armenian brokers of Galata, or to some sudden suspicion instilled into the sensitive ears of Abdul Hamid. Then came the Armenian massacres of August, 1896. A band
of revolutionaries held up the Ottoman Bank with hand-grenades and Edgar Vincent was obliged to escape over the roof. In the days that followed some 6,000 Armenians were massacred in Constantinople under the eyes of the Ambassadors. The next year Edgar Vincent left the Levant for ever in disgust.
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