“Yes.  I wonder—­I wonder how much of her meaning I thoroughly understand, mater.”

“Perhaps about five per cent of it, dee-ar,” observed Mrs. Leith in her sweetest voice.

And then she began to talk about Esme Darlington.

That night Dion stayed at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and slept in his old room.

In her room his mother lay awake because she wished to lie awake.  In sleep she would have lost the precious sense of her boy’s nearness to her.  So she counted the hours and she thanked God; and twice in the night she slipped out into the hall, with her ample dressing-gown folded about her, and she looked at her boy’s coat hanging on its hook, and she listened just outside his door.  Once she felt certain she heard his quiet breathing, and then, shutting her eyes, for a moment she was again the girl mother with little Dion.

Little, little Dion!  The soldier, burnt and hardened and made wholly a man by South Africa, was still that to his mother, more than ever that since he had been to the war.

That question of Welsley!

Going down in the train next day Dion thought about it a great deal.  With his return the old longing, almost an old need it was, to give Rosamund whatever she wanted, or cared at all for, had come to him again.  But something fought it, the new longing to dominate and the wish to give Rosamund chances.  Besides, how could they possibly live on in Welsley?  He could not spend from three to four hours every day in the train.  He might get away from London on Fridays and stay at Welsley every week till Monday morning, but that would mean living alone in Little Market Street for four days in the week.  If he seemed willing to do that, would Rosamund consent to it?

Another test!  He remembered his test before the war.

Mrs. Clarke’s allusion to Welsley had left a rather strong impression upon him.  He did not know whether he had a great respect for her, but he knew that he had a great respect for her mind.  Like Beattie, but in a very different way, she meant a great deal.  He no longer doubted that she liked him very much, though why he honestly did not know.  When with her he felt strongly that he was not an interesting man.  Dumeny was a beast, he felt sure, but he also felt sure that Dumeny was an interesting man.

Mrs. Clarke’s wild mind attracted something in him.  Through her eyes he was able to see the tameness of Welsley, a dear tameness, safe, cozy, full of a very English charm and touched with ancient beauty, but still——!  Would the petals of Rosamund ever curl up and go brown at the edges from living at Welsley?  No, he could not imagine that ever happening.  A dried-up mind she could never have.

He would not see Welsley through the eyes of Mrs. Clarke.

Nevertheless when he got out of the train at Welsley Station, and saw Robin’s pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of professional deference, Mrs. Clarke’s verdict of “stifling” recurred to his mind.