They went down the hill by the Tekkeh of the Dancing Dervishes.
Mrs. Clarke did not go back to her villa at Buyukderer that day. It was already late in the afternoon when her caique touched the wharf at the foot of the Galata bridge.
“I shall stay another night at the hotel,” she said to Dion. “Will you drive up with me?”
He assented. When they reached the hotel he said:
“May I come in for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
When they were in the dim, rather bare room with the white walls, between which the fierce noises from the Grande Rue found a home, he said:
“I feel before I leave I must speak about what you did last night, the message you gave to Vane of our Embassy. I dare say you are right and that I ought to face things. But no one can judge for a man in my situation, a man who’s had everything cut from under him. I haven’t ended it. That proves I’ve got a remnant of something—you needn’t call it strength—left in me. Since you’ve told my name, I’ll take it back. Perhaps it was cowardly to give it up. I believe it was. Robin might think so, if he knew. And he may know things. But I can’t meet casual people.”
“I’m afraid I did what I did partly for myself,” she said, taking off her little hat and laying it, with her gloves, on a table.