“Quite so,” said I.  “Now, Carlotta,” I resumed, “our first plan is to set out in search of Harry.  He may have missed his train, and have followed by a later one, and be even now rampaging about Waterloo station.  If we hear nothing of him, I will drive you to the Turkish Consulate, give you in charge there, and they will see you safely home to Alexandretta.  The good Hamdi Effendi is doubtless distracted, and will welcome you back with open

arms.”

I meant to be urbane and friendly.

She rose to her feet, grew as white as paper, opened her great eyes, opened her baby mouth, and in the middle of the Embankment Gardens plumped on her knees before me and clasped her hands above her head.

“For God’s sake get up!” I shrieked, wrenching her back acrobatically to the bench beside me.  “You mustn’t do things like that.  You’ll have the whole of London running to look at us.”

Indeed the sight had so far roused the pale young man from his lethargy that he laid his dirty pink paper on his knees.  I kept hold of Carlotta’s wrists.  She began to moan incoherently.

“You mustn’t send me back—­Hamdi will kill me—­oh please don’t send me back—­he will make me marry his friend Mustapha—­Mustapha has only two teeth—­and he is seventy years old—­and he has a wife already—­I only went with Harry to avoid Mustapha.  Hamdi would kill me, he would beat me, he would make me marry Mustapha.”

That is what I gathered from her utterances.  She was frightened out of her wits, even into anticlimax.

“But the Turkish Consul is your natural protector,” said I.

“You wouldn’t be so cruel,” she sobbed.  The guttural sonority with which she rolled the “r” in “cruel” made the epithet appear one of revolting barbarity.  She fixed those confounded eyes upon me.

I wonder whether such a fool as I has ever lived.

I promised, on my honour, not to hand her over to the Turkish consulate.

I took a four-wheeled cab from the rank on the Embankment and drove her to Waterloo.  On the way she reminded me that she was hungry.  I gave her food at the buffet.  It appears she has a passion for hard-boiled eggs and lemonade.  She did not seem very much concerned about finding Harry, but chattered to me about the appointments of the bar.  The beer-pulls amused her particularly.  She made me order a glass of bitter (a beverage which I loathe) in order to see again how it was done, and broke into gleeful laughter.  The smart but unimaginative barmaid stared at her in bewilderment.  The two or three bar-loafers also stared.  I was glad to escape to the platform.