Meanwhile, at home, we paid little heed, and scant courtesy, to the three Ambassadors from Angora, who came to negotiate peace. Békir Sami Bey’s confidential conversations with the ex-Prime Minister about the Soviet Government were handed on to M. Krassine. Youssouf Kemal Bey, indeed, obtained a hearing, but nothing was done. Fethi Bey (the Minister of the Interior, sent as a last resource) was told, and that was true, that Lord Curzon was seriously ill, but that no one “counted” in England except Mr. Lloyd George. Naturally, he asked the Premier for an audience, which was “promised,” but never given! _Incivility does not pay._ It is too expensive a luxury for the greatest of nations. This level-headed Turk, accepting such treatment with all the dignity of his race, found many _other_ things to praise in this country. “The English,” he said, “understand only _one_ form of propaganda—the sword!” But of our institutions, our Parliament, our clubs, and the marvellous acting of Miss Sybil Thorndike in “Jane Clegg,” he said much, and nothing but praise, in Angora! As a woman who has received the greatest kindness and courtesy from the Turks, my resentment, on behalf of Fethi Bey, was expressed with unmeasured indignation. His mission was _not_ taken seriously; the Government dared to show him the cold shoulder! For his part, most graciously he suggested that I should come over to Angora myself, to the cradle of the Nationalist movement, and see the hero of the Nationalists. But for his ever-ready assistance it would have been useless to have made the attempt. When, in Angora, he renewed his apologies for all the discomfort I had endured, but I told him the journey itself had been a privilege, for it enabled me to see with my own eyes what his people had been driven to endure. No, I could never have forgiven myself if, in a moment of weakness, I had been discouraged by the chivalry of the British officials and allowed them to persuade me to stay at home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III MALTA: THE NAME I WAS TO HEAR THROUGHOUT ANATOLIA OUR first stopping-place was Malta, the name I was destined to hear from one end of Anatolia to the other. Was it not of Malta that Angora was born; and since “the trouble” in the East, Malta has been turned into a universal dumping-ground for officers’ wives and refugees. Whenever M. Kemal Pasha lifts his little finger, or Rauf Bey opens his mouth, the women and children are bundled off to Malta. They return, indeed, on any excuse, at the first opportunity (as why should they not?), until a panic-stricken Government again sends them to exile. One lady with us had done the trip in this way four times!