A frown altered her white face.  His mention of the pavilion had suddenly recalled to her exactly what she had felt for him last year.  She compared it with what she felt for him now.  With an impulsive movement she pulled her hand away from his.

“I shall not give you the key.  I can’t have you there.  I will not.  People have begun to talk.”

“I don’t believe it.  They never see us together here.  You have taken good care of that in the last few months.  Why, we’ve met like thieves in the night.”

“Here, yes.  In a great town one can manage, but not in a place like Buyukderer.”

He leaned forward and said, with dogged resolution: 

“One thing is certain—­I will not be separated from you during the summer.  Do whatever you like, but remember that.  Make your own plans.  I will fall in with them.  But I shall pass the summer where you pass it.”

“I—­really I didn’t know you cared so much about me,” she murmured, with a faint smile.

“Care for you!”

He stared into her face and the twinkles twitched about his eyes.

“How should I not care for you?”

He gripped her hand again.

“Haven’t you taught me how to live in the dust?  Haven’t you shown me the folly of being honorable and the fun of deceiving others?  Haven’t you led me into the dark and made me able to see in it?  And there’s such a lot to see in the dark!  Why, good God, Cynthia, you’ve made a man in your own image and then you’re surprised at his worshipping you.  Where’s your cleverness?”

“I often believe you detest me.”

“Oh, as for that, a woman such as you are can be loved and hated almost at the same time.  But she can’t be given up.  No!”

As she looked at him she saw the red gleam of the torch he carried.  Hers had long ago died out into blackness.

“Is it possible that you really wish to ruin my reputation?”

“Not a bit of it!  You’re so clever that you can always guard against that.”

“Yes, I can when I’m dealing with gentlemen,” she said, with sudden, vicious sharpness.  “But you are behaving like a cad.  Of all the men I—­”

She stopped.  A sort of nervous fury possessed her.  It had nearly driven her to make a false step.  And yet—­would it be a false step?  As she paused, looking at Dion, marking the hard obstinacy in his eyes, feeling the hard, hot grip of his hand, it occurred to her that perhaps she had blundered upon the one way out, the way of escape.  Amid the wreckage of his beliefs she knew that Dion still held to one belief, which had been shaken once, but which her cool adroitness had saved and made firm in a critical moment.  If she destroyed it now would he let her go?  Just how low had he fallen through her?  She wished she knew.  But she did not know, and she waited, looking at him.

“Go on!” he said.  “Of all the men you—­what?”

“How low down is he?  How low down?” she asked herself.