“So the British are incensed!” Yamina exclaimed. “I am glad about that!”

“The administrative muddle, I am perfectly prepared to admit, has been a disgrace!” Lord Castleford said scathingly. “At the same time our Ambassador here was kept in ignorance through sheer departmental jealousy!”

He paused to add more quietly,

“But the Ambassadress, Lady Stratford, has certainly tried to right a wrong and now everything possible is being done to help Miss Florence Nightingale.”

Yamina did not answer and after a moment he enquired,

“You have heard of Miss Nightingale?”

“Everyone, I think, has heard of her,” Yamina replied. “The Turkish newspapers are full of stories of her courage, even though naturally the people here still believe that a woman should be veiled. They are horrified at the idea of female nurses!”

“And you?” Lord Castleford asked. “You don’t feel like joining Miss Nightingale in her campaign, not only to bring relief to our suffering soldiers but also to establish once and for all that women have a place even in war?”

There was a slightly taunting note in his voice, as if, just as Yamina had tried to score off him, he would score off her.

“As it happens, I am at the moment in the position of being a nurse,” she answered after a moment. “My father is very ill.”

“I am sorry about that,” Lord Castleford said.

“And because I know how necessary I am to him,” Yamina went on, “I think that women should be nurses whether a nation is at war or peace.”

“There I must disagree with you,” he replied. “In the past we have always managed to fight a war without women being involved and quite frankly I am absolutely convinced that they are more of a nuisance than a help.”

Yamina smiled and it seemed to illuminate her small face.

“That is just what I would expect you to say, my Lord,” she remarked and there was a note of satisfaction in her voice.

“Meaning that I am bigoted and old-fashioned?” Lord Castleford enquired.

“You put the words into my mouth,” she answered sweetly and he had a feeling that they had declared war against each other.

It could not but amuse him.

She was so small and so lovely and he thought there was something mysterious and in a way very Eastern about her.

Perhaps it was the mystery in her dark eyes. Perhaps it was her faint fragrance, which he found hard to identify. It might have been the scent of jasmine or tuberose, or perhaps a mixture of them both.

He only knew it was different from any scent he had ever known before and it had a strange allure that he could not describe even to himself. He was also aware that her body was very soft and not straight-backed as most women were.

“Will your Lordship stop here?” Yamina said unexpectedly.