The request itself appealed to the Oriental's love of excitement and to his taste for the uncommon in life.

If he had not sometimes found occasions for satisfying both, he could not have lived in Paris and London at all, but would have gone back to Constantinople, which is the last refuge of romance in Europe, the last hiding-place of mediaeval adventure, the last city of which a new Decameron of tales could still be told, and might still be true.
Lady Maud had good nerves, and she watched the play with her friends and talked between the acts, very much as if nothing had happened, except that she was pale and there was that look in her eyes; but only Paul Griggs noticed it, because he had a way of watching the small changes of expression that may mean tragedy, but more often signify indigestion, or too much strong tea, or a dun's letter, or a tight shoe, or a bad hand at bridge, or the presence of a bore in the room, or the flat failure of expected pleasure, or sauce spilt on a new gown by a rival's butler, or being left out of something small and smart, or any of those minor aches that are the inheritance of the social flesh, and drive women perfectly mad while they last.
But Griggs knew that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his sympathy for her in every word and inflection.
She was glad when the evening was over and she was at home in her dressing-room, and there was no more effort to be made till the next day.

But even alone, she did not behave or look very differently; she twisted up her thick brown hair herself, as methodically as ever, and laid out the black velvet gown on the lounge after shaking it out, so that it should be creased as little as possible; but when she was ready to go to bed she put on a dressing-gown and sat down at her table to write to Rufus Van Torp.
The letter was begun and she had written half a dozen lines when she laid down the pen, to unlock a small drawer from which she took an old blue envelope that had never been sealed, though it was a good deal the worse for wear.

There was a photograph in it, which she laid before her on the letter; and she looked down at it steadily, resting her elbows on the table and her forehead and temples in her hands.
It was a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees, not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was all she had, and there could never be another.
She looked at it a long time.
'You understand, dear,' she said at last, very low; 'you understand.' She put it away again and locked the drawer before she went on with her letter to Van Torp.

It was easy enough to tell him what she had learned about Feist from Logotheti; it was even possible that he had found it out for himself, and had not taken the trouble to inform her of the fact.