“Put me up to it, mater, there’s a good girl.  I’m awfully keen on Mr. Leith, as you know.  He’s got the biggest biceps I ever saw, and I’m jolly sorry for him.  What can I do?  Put me up to it.”

And Mrs. Clarke proceeded to put Jimmy up to it.  She had told Dion that Jimmy wouldn’t see the difference in him.  Now she carefully prepared Jimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part she wished him to play.  Jimmy felt very important as he listened to her explanations, trifling seriously with his cigarette, and looking very worldly-wise.

“I twig!” he interrupted occasionally, nodding his round young head, which was covered with densely thick, rather coarse hair.  “I’ve got it.”

And he went off to bed very seriously, resolved to take Mr. Leith in hand and to do his level best for him.

So it was that when Dion and he met next day he was not surprised at the change in Dion’s appearance and manner.  Nor were his young eyes merciless in their scrutiny.  Just at first, perhaps, they stared with the unthinking observation of boyhood, but almost immediately Jimmy had taken the cue his mother had given him, and had entered into his part of a driver-away of trouble.

He played it well, with a tact that was almost remarkable in so young a boy; and Dion, ignorant of what Mrs. Clarke had done on the night of Jimmy’s arrival, was at first surprised at the ease with which they got on together.  He had dreaded Jimmy’s coming, partly because of the secrets he must keep from the boy, but partly also because of Robin.  A boy’s hands would surely tear at the wound which was always open.  Sometimes Dion felt horribly sad when he was in contact with Jimmy’s light-hearted and careless gaiety; sometimes he felt the gnawing discomfort of one not by nature a hypocrite forced into a passive hypocrisy; nevertheless there were moments when the burden of his life was made a little lighter on his shoulders by the confidence his young companion had in him, by the admiration for him showed plainly by Jimmy, by the leaping spirits which ardently summoned a reply in kind.

The subtlety of Mrs. Clarke, too, helped Dion at first.

Since her son’s arrival, without ostentation she had lived for him.  She entered into all Jimmy’s plans, was ready to share his excitements and to taste, with him, those pleasures which were possible to a woman as well as to a boy.  But she was quick to efface herself where she saw that she was not needed or might even be in the way.  As a mother she was devoid of jealousy, was unselfish without seeming to be so.  She did not parade her virtue.  Her reticence was that of a perfectly finished artist.  When she was wanted she was on the spot; when she was not wanted she disappeared.  She sped Dion and Jimmy on their way to boating, shooting, swimming expeditions, with the happiest grace, and never assumed the look and manner of the patient woman “left behind.”