“Guilt may be governed by circumstances.  I suppose it is full of alarms.  But I think an innocent woman who allows herself to be driven out of a place she loves by a false accusation is merely a coward.  But all this is very uninteresting to you.  The point is, I shall soon be settled down again at Constantinople, and ready to make you see it as it really is, if you ever return there.”

She had spoken without hardness or any pugnacity; there was no defiance in her manner, which was perfectly simple and straightforward.

“Your moral comparison between Constantinople and Greece—­it isn’t fair, by the way, to compare a city with a country—­doesn’t interest me at all.  People can be disgusting anywhere.  Greece is no better than Turkey.  It has a wonderfully delicate, pure atmosphere; but that doesn’t influence the morals of the population.  Fine Greek art is the purest art in the world; but that doesn’t mean that the men who created it had only pure thoughts or lived only pure lives.  I never read morals into art, although I’m English, and it’s the old hopeless English way to do that.  The man who made Echo”—­she turned her large eyes towards the statuette—­“may have been an evil liver.  In fact, I believe he was.  But Echo is an exquisite pure bit of art.”

Dion thought of Rosamund’s words about Praxiteles as they sat before Hermes.  His Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke were mentally at opposite poles; yet they were both good women.

“My friend Daventry would agree with you, I know,” he said.

“He’s a clever and a very dear little man.  Who’s that coming in?”

Dion looked and saw Canon Wilton.  He told Mrs. Clarke who it was.

“Enid told me he was coming.  I should like to know him.”

“Shall I go and tell him so?”

“Presently.  How’s your baby?  I’m told you’ve got a baby.”

Dion actually blushed.  Mrs. Clarke gazed at the blush, and no doubt thoroughly understood it, but she did not smile, or look arch, or full of feminine understanding.

“It’s very well, thank you.  It’s just like other babies.”

“So was mine.  Babies are always said to be wonderful, and never are.  And we love ours chiefly because they aren’t.  I hate things with wings growing out of their shoulders.  My boy’s a very naughty boy.”

They talked about the baby, and then about Mrs. Clarke’s son of ten; and then Canon Wilton came up, shook hands warmly with Dion, and was introduced by Mrs. Chetwinde to Mrs. Clarke.

Presently, from the other side of the room where he was standing with Esme Darlington, Dion saw them in conversation; saw Mrs. Clarke’s eyes fixed on the Canon’s almost fiercely sincere face.

“It’s going to be an abominable case,” murmured Mr. Darlington in Dion’s ear.  “We must all stand round her.”

“I can’t imagine how any one could think such a woman guilty,” said Dion.

“It has all come about through her unconventionality.”  He pulled his beard and lifted his ragged eyebrows.  “It really is much wiser for innocent people, such as Cynthia, to keep a tight hold on the conventions.  They have their uses.  They have their place in the scheme.  But she never could see it, and look at the result.”