There was no more to be said. Discomfited, indeed, by so much chivalry, I left him, intending, after all, to wait and see if war were declared. But, fortunately, I had given no promise, for to the Scotchman I knew truth and honour were sacred things.
In justice to the official attitude, it should be clearly said that no one could be expected to understand what I should have given up had I returned to England, under orders, with the rest of my compatriots.
What, after all, were the difficulties that I had overcome in comparison with my real object—to reach Angora? What matter if the family coffers, the purses of my friends, and even editorial generosity, were one and all closed against me? None should have on their conscience that they had sent me to my death!
My contract with the newspaper! It was "deliver the goods and your reward shall be handsome." The goods, indeed, are delivered and, in a fashion, made public. They have not, however, been acknowledged as "woman's work," and the reward seems still far to seek!
I had not supposed that in journalism "the sex" must suffer the double loss of justice and credit. The articles were certainly not stamped with any plain mark of a feminine special correspondent.
Unfortunately, we are not in Turkey! where women's achievements have still the "novelty" that can command a fine flourish of trumpets, where no cry has been needed of "equal work—equal pay!"
Had I foreseen, should I then have returned to punish ingratitude? I think not. At such a moment I could not forego the most thrilling chapter of the story that has held me for so many years; ever since, indeed, I used to climb on the knee of the dear being whose name I bear, to hear him tell of his journeyings to those Eastern lands—Japan and China, India and Moslem Turkey.
Many curious interpretations have been put upon my interest in these peoples. The Turks themselves have wondered how it came about.
It is because they had been my friends long years
