o dreary look of the museum. On the contrary, they
had an intimate, almost a homely air, in spite of their beauty. Books
and magazines were allowed their place, and on a grand piano, almost
in the middle of the largest room, which opened by long windows into an
adroitly tangled rose garden where a small fountain purred amongst blue
lilies, there was a quantity of music. The whole house was strongly
scented with flowers. Dion was greeted at its threshold by a wave of
delicious perfume.

Mrs. Clarke received him in her most casual, most impersonal manner, and
made no allusion to the fact that she knew he had already been for two
days in Buyukderer without coming near her. She asked him if his room at
the hotel was all right, and when he thanked her for bothering about him
said that Cyril Vane had seen to it.

"He's a kind, useful sort of boy," she added, "and often helps me with
little things."

That day she said nothing about the Ambassador and Lady Ingleton, and
showed no disposition to assume any proprietorship over Dion. She took
him over the house, and also into the garden.

Upon the highest terrace of the latter, far above the house, between two
magnificent cypresses, there stood a pavilion. It was made of the wood
of the plane tree, was painted dull green, had trees growing thickly at
its back, and was partially concealed by a luxuriant creeper with deep
orange-colored flowers, not unlike orange-colored jasmine, which Mrs.
Clarke had seen first in Egypt and had acclimatized in Turkey. The
center of the front of this pavilion was open to the terrace, but could
be closed by sliding doors which, when pushed back, fitted into the
hollow walls on either side. The interior was furnished with bookcases,
divans covered with cushions and embroideries, coffee tables, and
Eastern rugs. Antique bronze lamps hung by chains from the painted
ceiling, which was divided into lozenges alternately dull green and dull
gold. The view from this detached library was very beautiful. Over the
roof of the villa, beyond the broad white road and the quay, the long
bay stretched out into the Bosporus. Across its tranquil waters, and the
waters beaten up into waves by the winds from the Black Sea, rose the
shores of Asia, Beikos, Anadoli Kavak, Anadoli Fanar, with lines of
hills and the Giant's Mountain. Immediately below, and stretching away
to right and left, were the curving shores of Europe, with the villas
and palaces of Buyukderer hel