n what
she undertakes?"

"No, I don't. But you are too competent."

He spoke with hard determination, but his cheeks were still burning.

"It's impossible to be too competent. If I make up my mind that a thing
must be done I resolve to do it thoroughly and to do it well. I despise
blunderers and women who are afraid of what they do. I despise those who
give themselves and others away. I cared for you. I saw you needed me
and I gave myself to you. I am not sorry I did it, not a bit sorry. I
had counted the cost before I did it."

"Counted the cost? But what cost is there? Neither of us loses
anything."

"I risk losing almost everything a woman cares for. I don't want to
dwell upon it. I detest women who indulge in reproaches, or who try
to make men value them by pointing out how much they stand to lose by
giving themselves. But you are so strange to-night. You have attacked
me. I don't know why."

"I've been walking on the quay and thinking."

"What about?"

"You!"

"Go on."

"I've been thinking that, as you take in Jimmy and all the people here
so easily, there is no reason why you shouldn't be taking me in too."

In the dark a feeling was steadily growing within him that his companion
was playing with him as he knew she had played with others.

"I'm forced to deceive the people here and my boy. My relation with you
obliges me to do that. But nothing forces me to deceive you. I have been
sincere with you. Ever since I met you in the street in Pera I've been
sincere, even blunt. I should think you must have noticed it."

"I have. In some ways you are blunt, but in many you aren't."

"What is it exactly that you wish to know?"

For a moment Dion was silent. In the darkness of the pavilion he saw
Dumeny's lips smiling faintly, Hadi Bey's vivid, self-possessed eyes,
the weak mouth of Brayfield and his own double. Was he a member of an
ugly brotherhood, or did he stand alone? He wanted to know, yet he felt
that he could not put such a hideous question to his companion.

"Tell me exactly what it is," she said. "Don't be afraid. I wish to be
quite sincere with you, though you think I don't. It is no pleasure
to me to deceive people. What I do in the way of deception I do in
self-defense. Circumstances often push us into doing what we don't enjoy
doing. But you and I ought to be frank with one another."

Her hands tightened on his.

"Go on. Tell me."

"I've been wondering whether your husband ought to h