Then people intervened.

In the carriage going home Rosamund was very happy.  She confessed to the pleasure her success had given her.

“I quite loved singing to-night,” she said.  “That song about Greece was for you.”

“I know, and the ‘Wiegenlied’ was for Robin.”

“Yes,” she said.

She was silent; then her voice came out of the darkness: 

“For Robin, but he didn’t know it.”

“Some day he will know it.”

Not a word was said about Mrs. Clarke that night.

On the following day, however, Dion asked Rosamund how she had liked Mrs. Clarke.

“I saw you talking to her with the greatest animation.”

“Was I?” said Rosamund.

“And she told me it had been arranged that she should—­no, I don’t mean that; but she said she wanted to show you some wonderful Turkish songs.”

“Did she?  What a beautiful profile she has!”

“Ah, you noticed that!”

“Oh yes, directly.”

“Didn’t she mention the Turkish songs?”

“I believe she did, but only in passing, casually.  D’you know, Dion, I’ve got an idea that Greece is our country, not Turkey at all.  You hate Constantinople, and I shall never see it, I’m sure.  We are Greeks, and Robin has to be a Greek, too, in one way—­a true Englishman, of course, as well.  Do you remember the Doric boy?”

And off went the conversation to the hills of Drouva, and never came back to Turkey.

When Friday dawned Dion thought of his appointment for Saturday afternoon at the gymnasium in the Harrow Road, and began to wish he had not made it.  Rosamund had not mentioned Mrs. Clarke again, and he began to fear that she had not really liked her, although her profile was beautiful.  If Rosamund had not liked Mrs. Clarke, his cordial enthusiasm at Mrs. Chetwinde’s—­in retrospect he felt that his attitude and manner must have implied that—­had been premature, even, perhaps, unfortunate.  He wished he knew just what impression Mrs. Clarke had made upon Rosamund, but something held him back from asking her.  He had asked her already once, but somehow the conversation had deviated—­was it to Mrs. Clarke’s profile?—­and he had not received a direct answer.  Perhaps that was his fault.  But anyhow he must go to the gymnasium on the morrow.  To fail in doing that after all that had happened, or rather had not happened, in connexion with Mrs. Clarke would be really rude.  He did not say anything about the gymnasium to Rosamund on Friday, but on the Saturday he told her what had been arranged.

“Her son, Jimmy Clarke, has taken a boyish fancy to me, it seems.  I said I’d look in and see his lesson just for once.”

“Is he a nice boy?”

“Yes, first-rate, I should think, rather a pickle, and likely to develop into an athlete.  The father is awfully ashamed now of what he did—­that horrible case, I mean—­and is trying to make up for it.”