She felt that the struggle with Dion, the horrible scenes she had had with him, the force of her hatred of him and his hatred of her, the necessity of yielding to him in hatred that which should never be given save with desire, had tried her as nothing else had ever tried her.  She felt that her vitality was low, and she supposed that out of that lowered vitality had come her uncharacteristic desire for peace.  She had almost envied for a moment the woman whom she had replaced in the life of Dion.  Even now—­she sighed; a great weariness possessed her.  Was she going to be subject to a weakness which she had always despised, the weakness of regret?

She paused beside a column not very far from the raised tribune on the left of the dome which is set apart for the use of the Sultan, and is called the Sultan’s seat.  Her large eyes stared at it, but at first she did not see it.  She was looking onward upon herself.  Then, in some distant part of the mosque, a boy’s voice began to sing, loudly, almost fiercely.  It sounded fanatical and defiant, but tremendously believing, proud in the faith which it proclaimed to faithful and unfaithful alike.  It echoed about the mosque, raising a clamor which nobody seemed to heed; for the few ulemas who were visible continued reading the Koran aloud on the low railed-in platforms which they frequent; a Dervish in a pointed hat slept peacefully on, stretched out in a corner; before the prayer carpet of the Prophet, not far from the Mihrab, a half-naked Bedouin, with a sheep-skin slung over his bronzed shoulders, preserved his wild attitude of savage adoration; and here and there, in the distance, under the low hanging myriads of lamps, the figures of Turkish soldiers, of street children, of travelers, moved noiselessly to and fro.

The voice of this boy, heedless and very powerful, indeed almost impudent, stirred Mrs. Clarke.  It brought her back to her worship of force.  One must worship something, and she chose force—­force of will, of temperament, of body, of brain.  Now she saw the Sultan’s tribune, and it made her think of an opera box and of the worldly life.  The boy sang on, catching at her mind, pulling her towards the East.  The curious peace of any religious life was certainly not for her, yet to-day she felt weary of the life in her world.  And she wished she could have in her existence peace of some kind; she wished that she were not a perpetual wanderer.  She remembered some of those with whom from time to time, she had linked herself—­her husband, Hadi Bey, Dumeny, Brayfield, Dion Leith.  Now she was struggling, and so far in vain, to thrust Dion out of her life.  If she succeeded—­what then?  Where was stability in her existence?  Her love for Jimmy was the only thing that lasted, and that often made her afraid now.  She was seized by an almost sentimental desire to lose herself in a love for a man that would last as her love for Jimmy had lasted, to know the peace of an enduring and satisfied desire.