Down below, in the villa, Mrs. Clarke was sitting in the green-and-blue room in the first floor with Lady Ingleton, and they were talking about Dion.

“He’s here now,” said Mrs. Clarke to her friend.

“Where?”

“In the garden.  I haven’t seen him, but Osman tells me he has gone up to the pavilion.”

“We can stroll up there later on, and then you can introduce him if you want to.”

“No.”

Lady Ingleton did not look surprised on receiving this brusk negative.

“Shall I get Carey to see him first?” she asked, in her lazy voice.  “Cyril Vane has prepared the way before him, and Carey is all sympathy and readiness to do what he can.  The Greek tragedy of the situation appeals to him tremendously, and of course he has a hundredfold more tact than I have.”

“Mr. Leith must go to the Embassy.  But what he has been through has developed in him a sort of wildness that is almost like that of an animal.  If he saw an outstretched hand he would probably bolt.”

“And yet he’s sitting in your pavilion.”

“Because he knows he won’t see any outstretched hand there.  He was here for two days without coming near me, and even then he only came because I had taken no notice of him.”

“I know.  You spread the food outside, go indoors and close the shutters, and then, when no one is looking, it creeps up, takes the food, and vanishes.”

“A very great grief eats away the conventions, and beneath the conventions there is always something strongly animal.”

For a moment Lady Ingleton looked at Mrs. Clarke and was silent.  Then she said, very quietly and simply: 

“Does he realize yet how cruel you are?”

“He isn’t thinking about me.”

“But he will.”

Mrs. Clarke stared at the wall for a minute.  Then she said: 

“Ask the Ambassador if he will ride with me to-morrow afternoon, will you, unless he’s engaged?”

“At what time?”

“Half-past four.  Perhaps he’ll dine afterwards.”

“Very well.  And now I’m going up to the pavilion.”

But she did not go, although she was genuinely curious about the man who had killed his son and had been cast out by the woman he loved.  Secretly Lady Ingleton was much more softly romantic than Mrs. Clarke was.  She was hard on bores, and floated in an atmosphere of delicate selfishness, but she could be very kind if her imagination was roused, and though almost strangely devoid of prejudices she had instincts that were not unsound.

That evening she gave Mrs. Clarke’s message to her husband.

“To-morrow—­to-morrow?” he said, in his light tenor voice, inquiringly.  “Yes, I can go.  As it happens, I’m breakfasting with Borinsky at the Russian Palace, so I shall be on the spot.  John can meet me with Freddie.”

Freddie was the Ambassador’s favorite horse.

“But can Borinsky put up with you till half-past four?”