What did she do?  Sometimes, long afterwards in England, Dion, recalling that day—­a very memorable day in his life—­asked himself the question.  And he could never remember very much.  But he knew that Rosamund showed him new aspects of tenderness and fun.  What do women who love and understand little boys do to put them at their ease, to break down their small shynesses?  Rosamund did absurd things with deep earnestness and complete concentration.  She invented games, played with twigs and straws which she drew from the walls of her chamber.  She changed the dog’s appearance by rearrangements of his ears, to which he submitted with a slobbering ecstasy, gazing at her with yellow eyes which looked flattened in his head.  Turned quite back, their pink insides exposed to view, the ears changed him into a brand-new dog, at which his master stared with an amazement which soon was merged in gratification.  With a pocket-handkerchief she performed marvels of impersonation which the boy watched with an almost severe intentness, even putting out his tongue slowly, and developing a slight squint, when the magician rose to the top of her powers.  She conjured with a silver coin, and of course let the child play with her watch.  She had realized at a glance that those things which would be considered as baby nonsense by an English boy of ten, to this small dweller on the plain of Marathon were full of the magic of the unknown.  And at last: 

“Throw me up an orange, Dion!” she cried.  “I know there are two or three left in the pannier.”

Dion bent down eagerly, rummaged and found an orange.

“Here!” he said.  “Catch!”

He threw it up.  She caught it with elaboration to astonish the boy.

“What are you going to do?” asked Dion.

“Throw me up your pocket-knife and you’ll see.”

Again he threw and she caught, while the boy’s mouth gaped.

“Now then!” cried Rosamund.

She set to work, and almost directly had introduced her astounded guest of the Greek kingdom to the famous “Crossing the Channel” tragedy.

So great was the effect of this upon little Miltiades,—­so they both always called the boy when talking of him in after times,—­that he began to perspire, and drops of saliva fell from the corners of his small and pouting mouth in imitation of the dreadfully human orange by which he was confronted.  Thereupon Rosamund threw off all ceremony and frankly played the mother.  She drew the boy, smiling, sideways to her, wiped his mouth with her handkerchief, gently blew his small nose and gave him a warm kiss.

“There!” she said.

And upon this the child made a remark.