“How?” said Rosamund simply.

“By giving her every chance with the boy.”

“I’m glad the child likes you.”

“I’ve only seen him once.”

“Twice won’t kill his liking,” she returned affectionately.

And then she went out of the room.  She always had plenty to do.  Small though he was, Robin was a marvelous consumer of his mother’s time.

When Dion got to the gymnasium Mrs. Clarke and Jimmy were already there, and Jimmy, in flannels and a white sweater, his dark hair sticking up in disorder, and his face scarlet with exertion, was performing feats with an exerciser fixed to the wall, while Mrs. Clarke, seated on a hard chair in front of a line of heavy weights and dumb-bells, was looking on with concentrated attention.  Jenkins was standing in front of Jimmy, loudly directing his movements with a stentorian:  “One—­two—­one—­two—­one—­two!  Keep it up!  No slackening!  Put some guts into it, sir!  One—­two—­one—­two!”

As Dion came in Mrs. Clarke looked round and nodded; Jimmy stared, unable to smile because his mouth and lower jaw were working, and he had no superfluous force to spare for polite efforts; and Jenkins uttered a gruff, “Good day, sir.”

“How are you, Jenkins?” returned Dion, in his most off-hand manner.

Then he jerked his hand at Jimmy with an encouraging smile, went over to Mrs. Clarke, shook her hand and remained standing beside her.

“Do you think he’s doing it well?” she murmured, after a moment.

“Stunningly.”

“Hasn’t he broadened in the chest?”

“Rather!”

She looked strangely febrile and mental in the midst of the many appliances for developing the body.  Rosamund, with her splendid physique and glowing health, would have crowned the gymnasium appropriately, have looked like the divine huntress transplanted to a modern city where still the cult of the body drew its worshipers.  The Arcadian mountains—­Olympia in Elis,—­Jenkins’s “gym” in the Harrow Road—­differing shrines but the cult was the same.  Only the conditions of worship were varied.  Dion glanced down at Mrs. Clarke.  Never had she seemed more curiously exotic.  Yet she did not look wholly out of place; and it occurred to him that a perfectly natural person never looks wholly out of place anywhere.

“Face to the wall, sir!” cried Jenkins.

Jimmy found time for a breathless and half-inquiring smile at Dion as he turned and prepared for the most difficult feat.

“His jaw always does something extraordinary in this exercise,” said Mrs. Clarke.  “It seems to come out and go in again with a click.  Jenkins says it’s because Jimmy gets his strength from there.”

“I know.  Mine used to do just the same.”

“Jimmy doesn’t mind.  It amuses him.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“He finishes with this.”

“Already?” said Dion, surprised.

“You must have been a little late.  How did you come?”