"I thought you did not understand French," she said. "I observe you have a pretty good Parisian accent." Then the full significance of my blunder came to me and I felt like the classic capricornus, meaning goat. She said she was tired of the Folies that night and suggested a drive. I called a careta and as we were driving down the boulevard I said to her:
"Is this existence always pleasant? Is it not as it was with that officer, often unendurable?"
She replied in a bantering tone, only half hiding a hurt undernote.
"I'm getting used to it," she said. "A Turkish pig is no worse than an English cad or a German boor."
The typical, philandering Broadway or Bond Street masher makes the physiological mistake of undervaluing the innate sense of decency inherent in every woman. Gentle courtesy and manners impress a courtesan by reason of the novelty. The inverse is often useful in dealing with a pampered society woman.
Much to the annoyance of the Turkish officers, I often thereafter took the pretty Cecelia away from the Folies, after her performance, for a drive, and I began to compare her small confidences with certain bits of information that Kim had given me. I knew, or I could pretty well guess, that she was not staying in Constantinople, enduring the insults of those Turkish officers, simply for the money she could earn as a dancer. Then I made my second dramatic play for confidence. I suddenly stopped going to the Folies. I suppose it was rather lonesome in Constantinople and a man who was not a Turk was a novelty.
One afternoon she sent for me and I was confronted with a human situation which I must in this narrative of Secret Service operations treat as impersonal though it is full of pathetic implications. I found her with her luggage packed.
"Why haven't you come to the Folies lately?" she demanded with a pretty air of bossing the situation.
I told her my work at the hospital had made heavy inroads upon my time.
"Oh!" she began, tapping a little boot impatiently on the floor; after a pause, "I have to leave for Paris.... Well?"