“You’ve done it once.  I should leave things alone.  Mind, Rosamund has never told me she doesn’t want to know Mrs. Clarke.”

“That may be another example of her goodness of heart,” said Daventry.  “Rosamund seldom or never speaks against people.  I’ll tell you the simple truth, Dion.  As I helped to defend Mrs. Clarke, and as we won and she was proved to be an innocent woman, and as I believe in her and admire her very much, I’m sensitive for her.  Perhaps it’s very absurd.”

“I think it’s very chivalrous.”

“Oh—­rot!  But there it is.  And so I hate to see a relation of my own—­I count Rosamund as a relation now—­standing out against her.”

“There’s no reason to think she’s doing that.”

An expression that seemed to be of pity flitted over Daventry’s intelligent face, and he slightly raised his eyebrows.

“Anyhow, we won’t bother you with another dinner invitation,” he said.

And so the conversation ended.

It left with Dion an impression which was not pleasant, and he could not help wondering whether, during the conversation, his friend had told him a direct and deliberate lie.

No more dinners were given by Beattie and Daventry at the Carlton.  Robin’s health continued to be excellent.  Mrs. Clarke was never mentioned at 5 Little Market Street, and she gave to the Leiths no sign of life, though Dion knew that she was still in London and was going to stay on there until the spring.  He did not meet her, although she knew many of those whom he knew.  This was partly due, perhaps, to chance; but it was also partly due to deliberate action by Dion.  He avoided going to places where he thought he might meet her:  to Esme Darlington’s, to Mrs. Chetwinde’s, to one or two other houses which she frequented; he even gave up visiting Jenkins’s gymnasium because he knew she continued to go there regularly with Jimmy Clarke, whom, since the divorce case, with his father’s consent, she had taken away from school and given to the care of a tutor.  All this was easy enough, and required but little management on account of Rosamund’s love of home and his love of what she loved.  Since Robin’s coming she had begun to show more and more plainly her root-indifference to the outside pleasures and attractions of the world, was becoming, Dion thought, week by week, more cloistral, was giving the rein, perhaps, to secret impulses which marriage had interfered with for a time, but which were now reviving within her.  Robin was a genuine reason, but perhaps also at moments an excuse.  Was there not sometimes in the quiet little house, quiet unless disturbed by babyhood’s occasional outbursts, a strange new atmosphere, delicate and subdued, which hinted at silent walks, at twilight dreamings, at slowly pacing feet, bowed heads and wide-eyed contemplation?  Or was all this a fancy of Dion’s, bred in him by Rosamund’s revelation of an old and haunting desire?  He did not know; but he did know that sometimes, when he heard her warm voice singing at a little distance from him within their house, he thought of a man’s voice, in some dim and remote chapel with stained-glass windows, singing an evening hymn in the service of Benediction.