made me know them.  If you’d loved me I should never have complained, have attacked you, been brutal to you; but when I think that you’ve never cared a rap about me, never cared for anything but my body, and that—­that——­” his voice broke for a moment; then he recovered himself and went on, more harshly,—­“and that merely from desire, or whatever you choose to call it, you’ve sent the last stones of my building to dust, I sometimes feel as if I could murder you.  If you meant to kick me out and be free of me when you had had enough of me, you should never have brought Jimmy into the matter; for in a way you could never understand Jimmy was linked up with my boy, with Robin.  When you made me earn Jimmy’s hatred by being utterly false to all I really was, you separated me from my boy.  I killed him, but till then I was sometimes near him.  Ever since that night of lying and dirty pretense he’s—­he’s—­I’ve lost him.  You’ve taken my boy from me.  Why should I leave you yours?”

“But you’re mad—­when my boy’s alive and—­”

“And so’s mine!”

She stared at him in silence.

“You can’t give him back to me.  Jimmy shrinks from me not because of what I’ve done, but because of what I’ve become, and my boy feels as Jimmy does.  He—­he——­”

Mrs. Clarke pushed back her chair bruskly.  She was now feeling really afraid.  She longed to call in Sonia.  She wished the other servants were in the flat instead of at Buyukderer.

“You boy’s dead,” she said, dully, obstinately.  “Jimmy has nothing to do with him—­never had anything to do with him.  And as for me, I have never interfered between you and your child.”

She got up.  So did he.

“Never, never!” she repeated.  “But your mind is warped and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do.  But we won’t argue about it.  You’re a materialist and you can’t understand the real things.”

His own words seemed suddenly to strike upon him like a great blow.

“The real things!” he exclaimed.  “I’ve lost them all for ever.  But I’ll keep what I’ve got.  I’ll keep what I’ve got.  You hate me and I hate you, but we belong to each other and we’ll stick together, and Jimmy must make up his mind to it.  Once you said that if he was twenty-one you’d tell him all about it.  If you’re going to England I’ll go there too, and we can enlighten Jimmy a little sooner.  Now let us be off to the rooms.  As you’ve taken a dislike to them we’ll give them up.  But we must pay a last visit to them, a visit of good-bye.”

She shuddered.  The thought of being shut up alone with him horrified her imagination.  She waited a moment; then she said: 

“Very well.  I’ll go and put on my things.”

And she went out of the room.  She wanted to gain time, to be alone for a moment.

When she was in her bedroom she did not summon Sonia, who was in the kitchen washing up.  Slowly she went to get out a wrap and a hat.  Standing before the glass she adjusted the hat on her head carefully, adroitly; then she drew the wrap around her shoulders and picked up a pair of long gloves.  After an instant of hesitation she began to pull them on.  The process took several minutes.  She was careful to smooth out every wrinkle.  While she did so she was thinking of Rosamund Leith.