As soon as Jimmy had gone Mrs. Clarke rang for the waiter to take away the tea-table.

“Then we shan’t be bothered,” she remarked.  “I hate people coming in and out when I’m trying to have a quiet talk.”

“So do I,” said Dion.

The waiter rolled the table out gently and shut the door.

Mrs. Clarke sat down on a sofa.

“Do light a cigar,” she said.  “I know you want to smoke, and I’ll have a cigarette.”

She drew out of a little case which lay on a table beside her a Turkish cigarette and lit it, while Dion lighted a cigar.

“So you’re really going back to Constantinople?” he began.  “Are you taking Jimmy with you?”

“Yes, for a time.  My husband raises no objection.  In a year I shall send Jimmy to Eton.  Lady Ermyntrude is furious, of course, and has tried to stir up my husband.  But her influence with him is dead.  He’s terribly ashamed at what she made him do.”

“The action?”

“Yes.  It was she who made him think me guilty against his real inner conviction.  Now, poor man, he realizes that he dragged me through the dirt without reason.  He’s ashamed to show his face in the Clubs, and nearly resigned from diplomacy.  But he’s a valuable man, and they’ve persuaded him to go to Madrid.”

“Why go back to Constantinople?”

“Merely to show I’m not afraid to and that I won’t be driven from my purpose by false accusations.”

“And you love it, of course.”

“Yes.  My flat will be charming, I think.  Some day you’ll see it.”

Dion was silent in surprise.

“Don’t you realize that?” she asked, staring at him.

“I think it very improbable that I shall ever go back to
Constantinople.”

“And I’m sure you will.”

“Why are you sure?”

“That I can’t tell you.  Why is one sometimes sure that certain things will come about?”

“Do you claim to be psychic?” said Dion.

“I never make verbal claims.  Now about Jimmy.”

She discussed for a little while seriously her plans for the boy’s education while he stayed with her.  She had found a tutor, a young Oxford man, who would accompany them to Turkey, but she wanted Dion’s advice on certain points.  He gave it, wondering all the time why she consulted him after his neglect of her and of her son, after his failure to accept invitations and to fulfil pledges (or to stick to the understandings which were almost pledges), after the tacit refusals of Rosamund.  Did it not show a strange persistence, even a certain lack of pride in her?  Perhaps she heard the haunting questions which he did not utter, for she suddenly turned from the topic of the boy and said: 

“You’re surprised at my bothering you with all this when we really know each other so slightly.  It is unconventional; but I shall never learn the way to conventionality in spite of all poor Esme’s efforts to shepherd me into the path he thinks narrow and I find broad—­a way that leads to destruction.  I feel you absolutely understand boys, and know by instinct the best way with them.  That’s why I still come to you.”