“Yes.”
“I could easily make you love it,” she continued, in an oddly impersonal way, speaking huskily.
Dion had never liked huskiness before, but he liked it now.
“You are fond of it, I believe?” he said.
His eyes met hers with a great deal of interest.
He considered her present situation an interesting one; there was drama in it; there was the prospect of a big fight, of great loss or great gain, destruction or vindication.
In her soul already the drama was being played. He imagined her soul in turmoil, peopled with a crowd of jostling desires and fears, and he was thinking a great many things about her, and connected with her, almost simultaneously—so rapidly a flood of thoughts seemed to go by in the mind—as he put his question.
“Yes, I am,” replied Mrs. Clarke. “Stamboul holds me very fast in its curiously inert grip. It’s a grip like this.”
She held out her small right hand, and he put his rather large and sinewy brown hand into it. The small hand folded itself upon his in a curious way—feeble and fierce at the same time, it seemed—and held him. The hand was warm, almost hot, and soft, and dry as a fire is dry—so dry that it hisses angrily if water is thrown on it.
“Now, you are trying to get away,” she said. “And of course you can, but——”