For two days thereafter no reference was made by either Rosamund or Dion to the question of moving.  Dion gave himself up to Welsley, to holiday-making.  With a flowing eagerness, not wholly free from undercurrents, Rosamund swept him sweetly through Welsley’s delights.  She inoculated him with Welsley, or at any rate did her best to inoculate him, secretly praying with all her force that the wonderful preparation might “take.”  Soon she believed that it was “taking.”  It was evident that Dion was delighted with Welsley.  On his very first day they went together to the afternoon service in the Cathedral, and when the anthem was given out it proved to be “The Wilderness.”  Rosamund’s quick look at Dion told him that this was her sweet doing, and that she remembered their talk on the hill of Drouva.  He listened to that anthem as he had never listened to an anthem before.  After the service Canon Wilton, who, though no longer in residence as “three months’ Canon,” was still staying on at his house in the Precincts for a few days, came up to welcome him home.  Then Mr. Dickinson appeared, full of that modesty which is greedy for compliments.  Mrs. Dickinson, too, drifted up the nave in a casual way which scarcely concealed her curiosity about Mrs. Dion’s husband; when, later, Rosamund told Dion of her Precincts’ name, “the cold douche,” he could not see its applicability.

“I thought her an observant but quite a warm-hearted woman,” he said.

“She is warm-hearted; in fact she’s a dear, and I’m very fond of her,” said Rosamund.

“Every one here seems very fond of you,” he replied.

Indeed, he was struck by Welsley’s evident love of Rosamund.  It was like a warm current flowing about her, and about him now, because he was her husband.  He was greeted with cordial kindness by every one.

“It is jolly to be received like this,” he said to Rosamund.  “It does a fellow good when he’s just come home.  It makes him feel that there is indeed no place like England.  But it’s all owing to you.”

But she protested.

“They all admire and respect you for what you’ve done,” she said.  “You’ve brought the best introductions here, your own deeds.  They speak for you.”

He shook his head, loving her perfectly sincere modesty.

“You may be a thousand things,” he told her, “but one thing you’ll never be—­vain or conceited.”

The charm of her, which was compounded of beauty and goodness, mixed with an extraordinary hold upon, and joy in, the simple and healthy things of life, came upon him with a sort of glorious newness after his absence in South Africa.  He loved other people’s love of her and the splendid reasons for it so apparent in her.  But for Robin he might nevertheless have felt baffled and sad even in these moments dedicated to the joys of reunion, he might have felt acutely that the completeness and perfection of reunion depended upon the exact type of union it followed upon.  Robin saved him from that.  He hoped very much in Robin, who had suddenly given him a confidence in himself which he had never known till now.  This was a glorious possession.  It gave him force.  People in Welsley were decidedly impressed by Mrs. Leith’s husband.  Mrs. Dickinson remarked to her Henry over griddle cakes after the three o’clock service: