Here it is sympathy with Turkey in her bid for freedom that gives one the entré to the society, as in London one gains admission to the club, in my case for example, as a writer of books. There is no sense of suspicion. You feel you have a right to be here all the time. If you were not trusted you would not be allowed over the threshold.
Soldiers and refugees, officers and deputies, they are all on the platform. Everybody has seen us, everybody has greeted us; next morning the kindest little paragraph of welcome appears in the newspapers. I have completely forgotten the war!
The colonel lives on the first floor of what was in the "beginning of days" the Station Hotel. M. Kemal Pasha himself lived there for a time, and now it is the "French Embassy." Fortunately, the colonel has schooled himself into imagining a house is warm, whatever the temperature; and I found him very comfortably installed, with plenty of fresh air and a fine open view. Within, however, there were, except in the bureau, no rugs or carpets on the bare boards.
To secure the luxury of a European wash, I decided to spend the night in the station, where the young secretary gladly gave up his room to me, making a bedroom of the bureau for himself and the colonel's aide-de-camp, Captain Hikmet Bey, after we had all enjoyed a very appetising little meal.
The "Catholic" servant, however, was frankly annoyed at having to wait on an Englishwoman—"that hateful intriguing race that killed my husband!" He was killed, as a matter of fact, by the Greeks, but we are, not unnaturally, held responsible, and once more I realised how little "brotherhood" there exists between Christians. I confess it is always with an effort that I remember Armenians are Christians. In the end, however, Marie decided that I was not really English, and we became the best of friends. When I left Angora she shed many tears, kissing my hand, placing it against her forehead in the picturesque custom of her race, and begging me to come back soon.
When I handed her my rubber hot-bottle, she
