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 CHAPTER XIX

THE CHIVALRY OF ARIF BEY

Up to now I have only spoken of the women of Turkey, because such are the conditions there that men and women do not mingle freely.

By the Western world Turkish men are held in low estimation: it may be with reason, and it may be merely out of ignorance. One of the episodes of my life deals with a Turkish man, the Arif Bey who used to come to our house as my brother's friend, when I was a little girl, and who for awhile got mixed in my head with the Greek demi-gods. I had not seen him for years. Once I had asked my brother about him. He had only told me that he was now a pasha, and then changed the conversation.

My brother and I were invited to spend a week in Constantinople with some friends, the Kallerghis. Our host was a charming, dashing man of over forty, one of the few remaining members of a formerly rich and powerful Greek family. He was a Turkish official, and the only support of a bedridden mother, to whom he was so devoted that on her account he remained a bachelor.