“Is he still with his mother?” Rosamund asked.

“Yes.  He’s nearly eleven, I believe.  She takes him to Jenkins for exercise.  She’s very fond of him, I think.”

After a moment of silence Rosamund simply said, “Poor child!” and then spoke of something else, but in those two words, said as she had said them, Dion thought he heard a definite condemnation of Mrs. Clarke.  He began to wonder whether Rosamund, although she had not read a full, or, so far as he knew, any account of the case in the papers, had somehow come to know a good deal about the unwise life of Constantinople.  Friends came to see her in London; she knew several people at Westgate; report of a cause celebre floats in the air; he began to believe she knew.

At the end of September, just before Rosamund was to return to London for the autumn and winter, Mrs. Clarke wrote to Dion again.

“CLARIDGE’S, 28 September, 1897

“DEAR Mr. LEITH,—­I’m so sorry to bother you, but I wonder whether you can spare me a moment.  It’s about my boy.  He seems to me to have strained himself with his exercises.  Jenkins, as you probably know, has gone away for a fortnight’s holiday, so I can’t consult him.  I feel a little anxious.  You’re an athlete, I know, and could set me right in a moment if I’m making a fuss about nothing.  The strain seems to be in the right hip.  Is that possible?—­Yours sincerely,

“CYNTHIA CLARKE”

Dion didn’t know how to refuse this appeal, so he fixed an hour, went to Claridge’s, and had an interview with Mrs. Clarke and her son, Jimmy Clarke.  When he went up to her sitting-room he felt rather uncomfortable.  He was thinking of her invitation to dinner, and to call again, of his lack of response.  She must certainly be thinking of them, too.  But when he was with her his discomfort died away before her completely natural and oddly impersonal manner.  Dinners, visits, seemed far away from her thoughts.  She was apparently concentrated on her boy, and seemed to be thinking of him, not at all of Dion.  Had Dion been a vain man he might have been vexed by her indifference; as he was not vain, he felt relieved, and so almost grateful to her.  Jimmy, too, helped to make things go easily.  The young rascal, a sturdy, good-looking boy, with dark eyes brimming over with mischief, took tremendously to Dion at first sight.

“I say,” he remarked, “you must be jolly strong!  May I?”

He felt Dion’s biceps, and added, with a sudden profound gravity: 

“Well, I’m blowed!  Mater, he’s almost as hard as Jenkins.”

His mother gave Dion a swift considering look, and then at once began to consult him about Jimmy’s hip.  The visit ended with an application by Dion of Elliman’s embrocation, for which one of the hotel page-boys was sent to the nearest chemist.

“I say, mind you come again, Mr. Leith!” vociferated Jimmy, when Dion was going.  “You’re better than doctors, you know.”