“I think you’re very complex,” Dion said, still thinking of Dumeny.

“Because I make friends in so many directions?”

“Well—­yes, partly,” he answered, wondering if she was reading his thought.

“Jimmy’s not a friend but my boy.  I know very well Monsieur Dumeny, for instance, whom you saw, and I dare say wondered about, at the trial; but I couldn’t bear that my boy should develop into that type of man.  You’ll say I am a treacherous friend, perhaps.  It might be truer to say I was born acquisitive and too mental.  I never really liked Monsieur Dumeny; but I liked immensely his musical talent, his knowledge, his sure taste, and his power of making almost everything flower into interestingness.  Do you know what I mean?  Some people take light from your day; others add to its light and paint in wonderful shadows.  If I went to the bazaars alone they were Eastern shops; if I went with Dumeny they were the Arabian Nights.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“The touch of his mind on a thing gave it life.  It stirred.  One could look into its heart and see the pulse beating.  I care to do that, so I cared to go about with Monsieur Dumeny.  But one doesn’t love people for that sort of thing.  In the people one loves one needs character, the right fiber in the soul.  You ought to know that.”

“Why?” he asked, almost startled.

“I was introduced to your wife just now.”

“Oh!”

There was a pause.  Then Dion said: 

“I’m glad you have met.”

“So am I,” said Mrs. Clarke, in a voice that sounded more husky even than usual.  “She sang that Greek song quite beautifully.  I’ve just been telling her that I want to show her some curious songs I have heard in Turkey, and Asia Minor, at Brusa.  There was one man who used to sing to me at Brusa outside the Mosquee Verte.  Dumeny took down the melody for me.”

“Did you like the ’Heart ever faithful’?”

“Of course it’s excellent in that sledge-hammer sort of way, a superb example of the direct.  Stamboul is very indirect.  Perhaps it has colored my taste.  It’s full of mystery.  Bach isn’t mysterious, except now and then—­in rare bits of his passion music, for instance.”

“I wonder if my wife could sing those Turkish songs.”

“We must see.  She sang that Greek song perfectly.”

“But she’s felt Greece,” said Dion.  “And I think there’s something in her that——­”

“Yes?”

“I only mean,” he said, with reserve in his voice, “that I think there’s something of Greece in her.”

“She’s got a head like a Caryatid.”

“Yes,” he said, with much less reserve.  “Hasn’t she?”

Mrs. Clarke had paid his Rosamund two noble compliments, he thought; and he liked her way of payment, casual yet evidently sincere, the simple utterance of two thoughts in a mind that knew.  He felt a sudden glow of real friendship for her, and, on the glow as it were, she said: