I remember what songs broke forth on the Night of the Constitution—funereal, indeed, they sounded to our thinking, but such are their songs of joy.
Then they sang for joy, since "freedom" was too new a thing for serious contentment; oppression had only just been lifted, the sense of security had not arrived. Now, in the sure knowledge of freedom from the Greeks and from Imperial rule, they sit, calm and confident and well satisfied, no longer an Emperor's slaves, but citizens of a Free State. Can one wonder that every one of them would die rather than lose one inch of the liberty so bravely won?
"Please tell them," I asked the officer, "that I have been in Turkey for every crisis of progress in recent history, and that none has filled me with such proud delight as the victory of M. Kemal Pasha. I am here to-day to offer him my congratulations."
The colonel politely remarked that it would have been only "prudent" speculation for the British Government to have despatched me upon the mission I had undertaken for myself.
I thought how well it would be for many of my compatriots to do similar work in other lands. It may be against all our traditions, but "propaganda" could now do much for England. Here, on the brink of war, where all men were filled with righteous indignation against us, I have at least been able to leave a "better impression" of my country in wayside cafés and many Turkish homes.
Yet, as official language would express it, I have not "licked the boots of the Turks," and everywhere I have been treated with the true courtesy of the chivalrous. May the experience not prove to have laid the foundation of a new and interesting career for women? To explain in all lands, and to all envious or hostile peoples, the true greatness of the British Empire, will not be work in vain.
Since my return I have been frequently asked to explain the rôle of the French colonel in Angora. I cannot feel that his presence implied any disloyalty to Great Britain. Again and again we have been asked
