“For yourself? Why?”
“I’ll explain to-morrow. I shall see you before I go. Come for me at ten, will you, and we’ll drive to Stamboul. I’ll tell you there.”
“Please tell me now, if you’re not tired after being out all day.”
“I’m never tired.”
“Once Mrs. Chetwinde told me that you were made of iron.”
Mrs. Clarke sent him a curious keen glance of intense and almost lambent inquiry, but he did not notice it. The strong interest that notices things was absent from him. Would it ever be in him again?
“I suppose I have a great deal of stamina,” she said casually. “Well, sit down, and I’ll try to explain.”
She lit a cigarette and sat on a divan in the far corner of the large room, between one of the windows and the door which led into the bedroom. Dion sat down, facing her and the noise from the Grande Rue. He wondered for a moment why she had chosen a place so close to the window.
“I had a double reason for doing what I did,” she said. “One part unselfish, the other not. I’ll be very frank. I willed that you should come here.”
“Why did you do that?”