t tell me if you
like this Sine carpet. I found it in the bazaar last Thursday, and
it cost the eyes out of my head. Carey, of course, has said for the
hundredth time that I am ruining him, and bringing his red hair in
sorrow to the tomb. Even if I am, it seems to me the carpet is worth
it."

Mrs. Clarke studied the carpet for a moment with earnest attention.
She even knelt down to look closely at it, and passed her hands over it
gently, while Lady Ingleton watched her with a sort of dark and still
admiration.

"It's a marvel," she said, getting up. "If you had let it go I should
almost have despised you."

"Please tell that to Carey when he comes to you to complain. And now,
what is it?"

"You remember several months ago the tragedy of a man called Dion Leith,
who fought in the South African War, came home and almost immediately
after his return killed his only son by mistake out shooting?"

"Yes. You knew him, I think you said. He was married to that beautiful
Rosamund Everard who used to sing. I heard her once at Tippie
Chetwinde's. Esme Darlington was a great admirer or hers, of course
_pour le bon motif_."

"Dion Leith's here."

"In Therapia?"

"No, in a hideous little hotel in Constantinople."

"Why?"

"I don't think he knows. His wife has given him up. She was a mother,
not a lover, so you can imagine her feelings about the man who killed
her child. It seems she was _une mere folle_. She has left him and,
according to him, has given herself to God. He's in a most peculiar
condition. He was a model husband, absolutely devoted and entirely
irreproachable. Even before marriage, I should think he had kept out of
the way of--things. The athlete with ideals--he was that, one supposes."

"How extraordinarily attractive!" said Lady Ingleton, in a lazy and
rather drawling voice.

"So he had a great deal to fasten on the woman who has cast him out.
Just now, like the coffin of Mohammed, he's suspended. That's the
impression I get from him."

"Do you want to bring him down to earth?"

"All he's known and cared for in life has failed him. He was traveling
under an assumed name even, for fear people should point him out as the
man who killed his own son. All that sort of thing is no use. I gave his
secret away deliberately to young Vane, and asked him to speak to the
Ambassador. And now I've come to you. I want you to have him here once
or twice and be nice to him. Then I can see something of him, poor
fe