“Monsieur Leith,” said the maid.

And she disappeared.

“Come and sit down,” said Mrs. Clarke.  “Why have you come to Pera?”

“I wanted to speak to you.”

“How tired you look!  Have you had dinner?”

“No, I don’t want it.”

“Did you come by steamer?”

“No, I rowed down.”

“All the way?”

He nodded.

“Where are you staying?”

“I haven’t decided yet where I shall stay.  Not here, of course.”

“Of course not.  Dion, sit down.”

He sat down heavily.

“If you haven’t decided about an hotel, where is your luggage?”

“I haven’t brought any.”

She said nothing, but her distressed eyes questioned him.

“I started out for a row.  The current set towards Constantinople, so I came here.”

“I’m glad,” she said.

But she did not look glad.

“We can spend a quiet evening together,” she added nonchalantly.

“I didn’t come for that,” he said.

He began to get up, but she put one hand on him.

“Do sit still.  What is it, then?  Whatever it is, tell me quietly.”

He yielded to her soft but very imperative touch, and sat back in his chair.

“Now, what is it?”

“I’m sure you know.  It’s Jimmy.”

She lowered her eyelids, and her pale forehead puckered.

“Jimmy!  What about Jimmy?”

“I don’t want to be at Buyukderer while he’s with you.”

“And you have rowed all the way from Buyukderer to Constantinople, without even a brush and comb, to tell me that!”

“I told you at Buyukderer.”

“And we decided that it would be much jollier for Jimmy to have you there for his holidays.  I depend upon you to make things tolerable for Jimmy.  You know how few people there are near us who would trouble themselves about a boy.  You will be my stand-by with Jimmy all through his holidays.”

She spoke serenely, even cheerfully, but there was a decisive sound in her voice, and the eyes fixed upon him were full of determination.

“I can’t understand how you can be willing to act a lie to your own boy, especially when you care for him so much,” said Dion, almost violently.

“I shall not act a lie.”

“But you will.”

“Sometimes you are horribly morbid,” she said coldly.

“Morbid!  Because I want to keep a young schoolboy out of—­”

“Take care, Dion!” she interrupted hastily.

“If you—­you don’t really love Jimmy,” he said.

“I forbid you to say that.”

“I will say it.  It’s true.”

And he repeated with a cruelly deliberate emphasis: 

“You don’t really love Jimmy.”

Her white face was suddenly flooded with red, which even covered her forehead to the roots of her hair.  She put up one hand with violence and tried to strike Dion on the mouth.  He caught her wrist.