“I should like to sit down,” said Mrs. Clarke.
“Here are two chairs——”
“No, I’d rather sit over there under the Della Robbia. I can see Echo from there.”
She walked very slowly and languidly, as if tired, to a large and low sofa covered with red, which was exactly opposite to the statuette. Dion followed her, thinking about her age. He supposed her to be about thirty-two or thirty-three, possibly a year or two more or less. She was very simply dressed in a gray silk gown with black and white lines in it. The tight sleeves of it were unusually long and ended in points. They were edged with some transparent white material which rested against her small hands.
She sat down and he sat down by her, and they began to talk. Unlike Mrs. Chetwinde, Mrs. Clarke showed that she was alertly attending to all that was said to her, and, when she spoke, she looked at the person to whom she was speaking, looked steadily and very unself-consciously. Dion mentioned that he had once been to Constantinople.
“Did you care about it?” said Mrs. Clarke, rather earnestly.
“I’m afraid I disliked it, although I found it, of course, tremendously interesting. In fact, I almost hated it.”
“That’s only because you stayed in Pera,” she answered, “and went about with a guide.”
“But how do you know?”—he was smiling.
“Well, of course you did.”