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It was necessary to leave Prinkipo. News was brought one day by Oliver Alden that the British Government could no longer see its way to provide rations for the Russian exiles. It was with much regret that they had to withdraw this aid.

“The fact is, my dear lad,” said Oliver, speaking to young Markov, a few days after the departure of Miss Browne, “that the Labour members in the House of Commons have been making trouble about it. They have a secret sympathy—not too secret—with the Russian Soviet Government. They believe it to be a democratic institution which has established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. You and I may believe that it is another form of tyranny, very stern in its discipline and very ruthless in its methods. I confess I keep an open mind. But meanwhile I feel terribly sorry that I have to stop supplies. It makes me feel a bit of a cad.”

“For some of us,” said Michael, “it is perhaps a sentence of death.”

“Not so bad as that, I hope,” answered Alden, who felt a bit of a cad though he had no control over the British House of Commons.

The news was received with stupor by some of the refugees. They had relied on these British rations for their daily needs, supplemented by occasional meals in Constantinople after bartering little treasures. Some of them had settled down in Prinkipo and had no idea what would happen to them after this picnic life. They were like English gipsies who had squatted on a heath so long that it seemed an outrage when they were told to move on.

“We are betrayed again,” said Prince Andreyev. “The English have always betrayed us.”

“What shall we do now, Michael?” asked Tania. “We shall have to earn our daily bread somehow. It’s not going to be easy. And we shall have to get a lodging over our heads. That will cost money. Where’s the money?”

“Vera is a wretch not to find me a place at the Petits Champs,” said Olga.

“I must make some plans,” said Michael gravely.

One of his plans was to find lodgings in Constantinople. For a few weeks, until he found some work, they would have to live by selling one more of his mother’s rings—the one with a big diamond which held a little world of light.

“It’s hateful having to sell it,” said Michael that night when his mother unwrapped the old shirts and took it from a sock.

Anna Markova touched it with her lips.

“I shan’t regret parting with it,” she said bravely, “if it provides us with food and lodging.”

“You are always brave, mother,” said Michael.

“I always try to be brave,” she told him, as he put his arms about her.

For a little while she had not been brave, after reading a letter from her sister in Vienna.

We are in great distress [wrote Michael’s Aunt Seppi from Vienna]. All the Austrian gentry are reduced to dire poverty. My dear husband has lost everything he had in Bohemia, which now belongs to the Czechs. Vienna is a city of despair. Thousands are starving. We are longing to see you again, and will do all we can to help you, but at the present time we do not advise you to come. There are too many Russian refugees here already, and many of them are in a dreadful state. A little later, dearest Anna——

It was the breakdown of another hope. She had hoped that in Vienna she would get house room for Michael and the two girls and herself. But her sister was now stinting and scraping to keep her girls decently dressed and well enough fed. Her sister’s husband, once with great estates, was an ill-paid official in the Hofburg.

He had written a separate letter, very kind, but not encouraging.

You ask me whether I could send your boy, Michael, to the University here. My dear sister-in-law, I must tell you frankly that such a thing is impossible. I earn a mere pittance. I am wearing pre-war clothes. I deny myself cigars. My pretty daughter has to go to bed when her underclothes are in the wash. That sounds incredible. It is what happens in Vienna. Perhaps things will be better in a year or two. You know our Austrian character. We live on hope, and a little music now and then.

“I remember,” said Michael’s mother, “that your uncle Rudi was a great dandy. He used to take us for drives round the Ring in a carriage with two horses, and the flower girls used to throw bouquets to us in return for a handful of silver.”

“That was in another kind of world,” said Michael.

Both those letters made Michael’s mother more anxious. She had grieved over them. Michael could see a look of despair and fear in her eyes which she tried to hide from him. But now she put a brave face on things. She made light of parting with that diamond ring. She was even a little gay about it.

“I believe it will bring us good luck,” she told Michael. “I have a feeling, my dear, that now we are leaving Prinkipo we shall be happier. At least we shall know the worst, and I have a good friend helping me.”

She spoke the last words mysteriously, with a little secret smile.

“Who is that?” asked Michael. “Mr. Alden or Princess Ivanova?”

“It’s a secret. I don’t like talking about it in front of the girls. They would only laugh at me.”

“Tell me,” said Michael. “I’ll promise not to blab!”

“Perhaps you will laugh at me too, Michael. You have become rather sceptical. But I have found a new saint. She is called the Little Flower. She works the most wonderful miracles for those who believe in her. It was Princess Ivanova who told me about her first. She was literally starving in Constantinople and then heard of the Little Flower. That very day—five minutes after—she found ten English pound notes lying in the gutter at her feet as she went up from the Galata Bridge. Thousands of people must have passed them. They were rolled up tightly in an india-rubber band.”

Michael was silent for a second. On the tip of his tongue was a sceptical remark, words of utter disbelief, a laugh of ridicule. But after a glance at his mother’s face, with a kind of mystical light in her eyes, like a child who talks of fairies, he spoke gently:

“My word, the Little Flower sounds good! I hope she will work a miracle for us. If she does, I’m prepared to say my prayers to her night and morning.”

He was not quite sure that any miracle happened when he went to sell the diamond in a dark old shop kept by an Armenian, behind Tokatlin’s. He had been recommended to this man by Andreyev. Tania was with him when he pulled the ring out of his pocket and unwrapped it from a bit of tissue paper.

“How much will you give for this? It’s a good diamond and worth a lot.”

The Armenian peered at it under his hooked nose.

“It’s a diamond, you say? It looks to me like paste.”

“It’s a diamond which shone in the Imperial Russian Court,” said Michael haughtily. “Don’t talk nonsense, old man.”

“Lots of rubbish comes from Russia. It’s mostly rubbish I get offered by you refugees.”

The old man stuck a glass into his eye and peered at the diamond again.

“It might be a diamond,” he said doubtfully. “I wouldn’t like to say.”

“It flashes like a star,” said Michael. “Give it back. I’ll take it somewhere else.”

The old man clutched it in his hand.

“No, no, don’t be hasty, young man. I’ll admit it’s a diamond. But it has a flaw in it. It’s worth nothing much. There are too many diamonds in the world today. They’re just trash—jewels for Christmas bon-bons.”

“Give it back or I’ll grab it,” said Michael. “You’re an old robber. I’ll fetch that Italian policeman outside.”

“Now don’t be silly,” said the Armenian. “Don’t be violent, my dear boy. I’m going to make you an offer. You have a noble face and your sister is very beautiful. I’m fond of young people. For that reason I make you an offer which will ruin me. I offer you two Turkish pounds for this stone which you call a diamond.”

It was Tania who grabbed the diamond from the old man as he opened his palm again to blink at it. It lay in his palm like a star throwing out light, until Tania snatched it.

“For the love of God,” said the Armenian. “One can’t do business in this way. I’m a gentle old man. I dislike violence. And I’m very generous in my dealings. Now what do you say if I offer ten Turkish pounds?”

What Michael said was a very terrible oath in Russian.

It was half an hour before the old robber offered a sum which Michael and Tania thought worth accepting. It would enable them to get rooms in Constantinople and live somehow for a few months.

They found rooms in an apartment-house at the far end of Pera. They were clean, airy, and nicely furnished. The rent seemed cheap.

“Payment in advance, of course,” said the proprietor, who was a Greek with smiling eyes and a knowledge of Russian which he spoke badly but fluently.

Michael paid over the first instalment.

“We shall move in tomorrow,” he said. “We shall be here at five o’clock.”

“Good! ... Good!” said the Greek. “Excellent. The rooms will be ready for you.”

It was a tiring business packing up and getting away from Prinkipo, after many farewells from those not yet ready to go for lack of lodgings in Constantinople. Michael’s mother looked very tired when they arrived at the door of their new apartments, five flights up a tall house.

“The rooms are not at all bad, mother,” said Michael, “I think you will like them.”

The Greek with the smiling eyes opened the door.

“The rooms are ready,” he said. “They are spotlessly clean.”

Michael strode into the sitting-room and stared round with astonishment and stupefaction. There was not a stick of furniture in it.

“What is this?” he asked in a strangled voice. “Where is the furniture?”

“The furniture?” asked the Greek, with mild surprise. “It is of course removed. I’ve had it cleared out of all the rooms. The price I named was for unfurnished apartments and even then too cheap!”

“Oh, Michael!” said his mother, touching his arm.

Michael threatened to knock the head off the Greek if he did not return the furniture without delay. The Greek with the smiling eyes smiled rather dangerously.

“The International Police are very trustworthy,” he answered. “If I am knocked on the head, you and your womenfolk will get free lodgings in a prison which is very verminous.”

“We had better stay, Michael,” said his mother. “I am very tired.”

They stayed. That night they lay on the bare boards with their bundles for pillows. On the following day Michael brought back some mattresses with the aid of a Kurdish porter, and later some cheap bits of furniture, brought on a cart by two donkeys.

The washing arrangements in this apartment-house left much to be desired. It was all very squalid for Anna Markova who had once been a great lady of Russia, and for two girls who were old enough to remember their pretty frocks and their pleasant nurseries. They regretted the absence of Betty Browne. She would have made things more comfortable. She would have found a joke somewhere.