“Yes, all of them.”

“Constantinople?”

“Terrible place! Dogs, dogs, nothing but dogs.”

“Did you like Petersburg?”

“No, I couldn’t bear it. I caught cold there.”

“And that was why you hated it?”

“Yes. I went out one night with Fritz on the Neva to hear a woman in a boat singing—a peasant girl with high cheek-bones—and I caught a frightful chill.”

“Ah!” said Sir Donald. “What was the song? I know a good many of the Northern peasant songs.”

Suddenly Lady Holme got up, letting her gloves fall to the ground.

“I’ll sing it to you,” she said.