A faint smile curved Lady Ingleton’s sensitive lips.

“Of course.  Then he’s coming to the Bosporus?”

“He’ll probably spend some time at Buyukderer.  He must face his fate and take up life again.”

“He doesn’t intend to do what his wife has done?”

Lady Ingleton was still smiling faintly.

“I should say his experience rather inclines him to take an opposite direction.”

“Is he good-looking?”

“What he has been through has ravaged his face.”

“That probably makes him much handsomer than he ever was before.”

“He hates the thought of meeting any one.  But if you will have him here once or twice, and people know it, it will make things all right.”

“Will he come?”

“Yes.”

“You know I always do what you want.”

“I never want you to do dull things.”

“That’s true.  The dogs don’t come into play against the people you bring here.”

It was a legend in Constantinople in Embassy circles that Lady Ingleton always “set the dogs” at bores.  Even at official dinners, when she had as much as she could stand of the heavy bigwigs whom she was obliged to invite, she surreptitiously touched a bell.  This was a signal to the footman to bring in the dogs, who were trained to yap at and to investigate closely visitors.  The yapping and the investigations created a feeling of general restlessness and an almost inevitable movement, which invariably led to the speedy departure of the unwelcome guests; who went, as Lady Ingleton said, “not knowing why.”  Enough that they went!  The dogs were rewarded with lumps of sugar as are the canine performers in a circus.  Sir Carey complained that it was bad diplomacy, but he was devoted to his wife, and even secretly loved her characteristic selfishness.

“Let Dion Leith come and I’ll cast my mantle over him—­for your sake, Cynthia.  You are a remarkable woman.”

“Why?”

But Lady Ingleton did not say why.  There were immense reticences between her and Cynthia Clarke.

Dion left Hughes’s Hotel and went to Buyukderer.

He had not consciously known why he did this.  Until he met Mrs. Clarke near the British Embassy he had scarcely been aware how sordid and ugly and common under its small ostentations Hughes’s Hotel was.  She made him see the dreariness of his surroundings, although she had never seen them; she made him again aware of things.  That she was able to affect him strongly, although he did not care for her, he knew by the sudden approach to the brink of a complete emotional breakdown which she had brought about in him at their first meeting.  He remembered the hand he had taken and had put against his forehead.  There had been no cool solace in it for the fever within him.  Why, then, did he go to Buyukderer?  Certainly he did not go in hope.  He was dwelling in a region far beyond where hope can live.