“Yes—he was there.”
The Ambassador paused by the fountain, and stood with one foot on the marble edge of the basin, gazing down on the blue lilies whose color looked dull and almost black in the night.
“He was there. I talked with him for quite half an hour. He seemed glad to talk; he talked almost fiercely.”
Mrs. Clarke’s white face looked faintly surprised.
“Eventually I told him who I was, and he told his name to me, watching me narrowly to see how I should take it. My air of complete serenity over the revelation seemed to reassure him. I said I knew he was a friend of yours and that my wife and I would be very glad to see him at Therapia, and at the Embassy in Pera later on. He said he would come to Therapia to-morrow.”
This time Mrs. Clarke looked almost strongly surprised.
“What did you talk about?” she asked.
“Chiefly about a book he seems to have been reading recently, Richard Burton’s ‘Kasidah.’ You know it, of course?”
“I remember Omar Khayyam much better.”
“He spoke strangely, almost terribly about it. Perhaps you know how converts to Roman Catholicism talk in the early days of their conversion, as if they alone understood the true meaning of being safe in sunlight, cradled and cherished in the blaze, as it were. Well, he spoke like one just converted to a belief in the all-sufficiency of this life if it is thoroughly lived; and, I confess, he gave me the impression of being cradled and cherished in thick darkness.”