She saw in Dion his actions; he saw in her her meditations. Perhaps that was it. All this time he had been living incessantly in the midst of men, never alone, nearly always busy, often fiercely active, marching, eating, sleeping in company. And all the time she had been here, in the midst of this cloistral silence, and perhaps often alone.

"You know everybody here, I suppose?" he asked, drinking his tea with relish, and eating the toast which seemed to him crisply English, but always faintly aware of that still figure and of that downbent face.

"Almost everybody. I've sung a great deal, and got to know them all partly through that. And they're dear people most of them. They let one alone when they know one wants to be alone."

"And I expect you can enjoy being alone here."

"Yes," she said simply. "At times. It would be difficult to feel lonely, in the miserable, dreadful way, I mean, in the Precincts. We are rather like a big family here, each one with his, or her, own private room in the big family house."

"I know you've always loved a certain amount of solitude, Rose," he said tenderly. "D'you remember that day in London when I burst in upon your solitude with Dante, and was actually jealous of the 'Paradiso'?"

"Yes," she said, smiling.

"But you forgave me, or I shouldn't be here now."

He gave her his cup for some more tea.

"You can't imagine how absolutely wonderful it is to me to be here after what I've been through."

He lay back in his chair, but he still looked tremendously alert, wiry, powerful even.

Dion was much more impressive than he had been when he went away. Rosamund felt a faint creeping of something that was almost like shyness in her as she looked at him.

"After Green Point Camp and Orange River—I shall never forget the dust-storm we had there!—and Springfontein and Kaffir River—oh, the heat there, Rose!—and Kaalfontein and all the rest of it. It was near Kaalfontein that we first came under fire. I shan't forget that."

He was silent for a moment. She looked at him across the tea-table. All that he knew and she did not know now made him seem rather strange to her. The uniting of two different, utterly different, experiences of life, was more tremendous, more full of meaning and of mystery, than the uniting of two bodies. This, then, was to be a second wedding-day for her and for Dion? All their letters, in which, of course, they had tried to tell each other something of their differing experiences, had really told very little, almost nothing. Dion's glance told her more than all his letters, that and his color, and certain lines in his face, and the altered shapes of his hands, and his way of holding himself, and his way of speaking. Even his voice was different. He was an unconscious record of what he had been through out there; and much of it, she felt sure, he would never tell to her except unconsciously by being a different Dion from the Dion who had gone away.

"How little one can tell in letters," she said. "Scarcely anything."

"You made me feel Welsley in yours."

"Did I? Why did you walk from the station?"

"I wanted to taste your home, to get into your atmosphere, if I could, before seeing you. Rose, love can make a man almost afraid at times."

It seemed to her that his dark eyes burned with fires they had captured in South Africa. Sitting in the old room with its homely and ecclesiastical look, he had an oddly remote appearance, she thought, as if he belonged to a very different milieu. Always dark, he now looked almost gipsy-like; yet he had the unmistakable air of a soldier. But if there had ever been anything there was now nothing left of the business man in Dion.

"Won't you find it very difficult to settle down again to the life in Austin Friars, Dion?" she said.

"Perhaps I should, but for one thing."

"What's that?"

"You and Robin at home when the drudgery is done."

Rosamund saw Welsley receding from her into darkness, with its familiar faces and voices, its gray towers, its cloisters, its bells, the Dresden Amen, the secret garden, the dreams she had had in the garden.

"Number 5 is all ready to go into. It was lucky we only let it for six months," she said quietly.

"Uncle Biron has given me a fortnight's holiday, or rather gladly agreed to my taking it. Of course I'm my own master in a way, being a partner, but I want to consider him. He was awfully good about my going away. Mother's looking well. She was at our Thanksgiving Service; Beattie and Guy too. I've had just a glimpse of godfather."

They talked about family things till Robin came in from his festivity with Mr. Thrush, who was staying at Little Cloisters, but only till the following day.

That was a great moment, the moment of Robin's arrival. Mr. Thrush did not appear with him, but, being a man of delicate perceptions despite his unfortunate appearance, retired discreetly to the servants' hall, leaving his devoted adherent free for the "family reunion," as he called it.

"Go up quietly, dear," said the nurse to Robin, "and tap at the drawing-room door."

"Shall I tap?" asked Robin earnestly.

He was looking unusually solemn, his lips were parted, and his eyes almost stared.

"Yes, dear. Tap prettily, like a young gentleman as you are, and when you hear 'Come in!'——"

"I know then!" interrupted Robin, with an air of decision.

He walked rather slowly upstairs, lifting one brown leg after the other thoughtfully from step to step, till he was outside the drawing-room door. Inside he heard the noise of a man's voice, which sounded to him very tremendous and important, the voice of a brave soldier.

"That's Fa!" he thought, and he listened for a moment as to the voice of a god.

Then he doubled his small fist and gave a bang to the door. Some instinct told him not to follow nurse's injunction, not to try to be pretty in his tapping. The voice of the soldier ceased inside, there was a brief sound of a woman's voice, then came a strong "Come in!"

Robin opened the door, went straight up to the very dark and very thin man whom he saw sitting by the fire, and, staring at this man with intensity, lifted up his face, at the same time saying:

"'Ullo, Fa!"

There was a dropped aitch for which nurse, who was very choice in her English, would undoubtedly have rebuked him had she been present. The dark man did not rebuke Robin, but caught him up and enfolded him in a hug that was powerful but not a bit rough. Robin was quite incapable of analyzing a hug, but he loved it as he would not have loved it if it had been rough, or if it had been merely gentle. A sense of great happiness and of great confidence flooded him. From that moment he adored his father as he had never adored him before. The new authority of his father's love for him captured him. He knew nothing about it and he knew all about it, as is the way with children, those instinctive sparks fresh from the great furnace.

Long before dinner time Dion knew that he had won something beside the D.C.M. which he had won in South Africa, something that was wonderfully precious to him. He gave Robin the Toby jar and another gift.

He cared for his little son that night as he had never cared for him before. It was as if the sex in Robin spoke to the sex in him for the first time with a clear, unmistakable voice, saying, "We're of the comradeship of the male sex, we're of the brotherhood." It was not even a child's voice that spoke, though it spoke in a little child. Dion blessed South Africa that night, felt as if South Africa had given him his son.

That gift would surely be a weapon in his hands by means of which, or with the help of which, he would conquer the still unconquered mystery, Rosamund's whole heart. South Africa had done much for Dion. Out there in that wonderful atmosphere he had seen very clearly, his vision had pierced great distances; he saw clearly still, in England. War, it seemed, was so terribly truthful that it swept a man clean of lies; Dion was swept clean of lies. He did not feel able any longer even to tell them occasionally to himself. He knew that Rosamund's greeting to him, warm, sweet, sincere though it had been, had lacked something which he had found in Robin's. But he felt that now he had got hold of Robin so instantly, and so completely, the conquest of the woman he had only won must be but a question of time. That was not pride in him but instinct, speaking with that voice which seems a stranger to the brain of man, but a friend to something else; something universal of which in every man a fragment is housed, or by which every man is mysteriously penetrated.

A fortnight's holiday—and then?

On that first evening it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went back to business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receive its old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musical with Rosamund's voice, made gay with the busy prattle and perpetual activities of Robin.

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:

"I call Mr. Leith a very personable man. Without having Mrs. Leith's wonderful charm—what man could have?—he makes a distinct impression. He has suppressed force, and that's what women like in a man."

Henry took another griddle cake, and wondered whether he was wise in looking so decided. Perhaps he ought to suppress his undoubted force; perhaps all his life, without knowing it, he had hovered on the verge of the blatant.

Canon Wilton also was struck by the change in Dion, and said something, but not just then all, of what he felt.

"You know the phrase, 'I'm my own man again,' Leith, don't you?" he said, in his strong bass voice, looking steadily at Dion with his kindly stern eyes. (He always suggested to Dion a man who would be very stern with himself.)

"Yes," said Dion. "Why?"

"I think South Africa's made you your own man."

Dion looked tremendously, but seriously, pleased.

"Do you? And what about the again?"

"Cut it out. I don't think you'd ever been absolutely your own man before you went away."

"I wonder if I am now," Dion said, but without any weakness.

He had been through one war and had come out of it well; now he had come home to another. The one campaign had been but a stern preparation for the other perhaps. But Rosamund did not know that. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that already their relation to each other was slightly altered. He felt that she was more sensitive to him than formerly, more closely observant of what he was and what he did, more watchful of him with Robin, more anxious about his opinion on various matters.

For instance, there was the matter of Mr. Thrush.

Dion had not seen Mr. Thrush on the evening of his first day at Welsley. He had been kept so busy by Rosamund, had done and seen so much, that he had quite forgotten the ex-chemist. In the evening, however, before dinner, he suddenly remembered him.

"What's become of Mr. Thrush?" he asked. "And, by the way, what is he doing down here? You never told me, Rose, and even Robin's not said a word."

"I asked him not to," said Rosamund, with her half-shrewd, half-soft look. "The fact is——" She broke off, then continued, with her confidential air, "Dion, when you see Mr. Thrush I want you to tell me something truthfully. Will you?"

"I'll try to. What is it?"

"I want you to look at his nose—"

"Rosamund!"

"No, really," she pursued, with great earnestness. "And I want you to tell me whether you think, honestly think, it—better."

"But why?"

"It's very important for Mr. Thrush that it should look better. He's down here to be seen."

Her voice had become almost mysterious.

"To be seen? By whom? Is he on show in the town?"

"No—don't laugh. It's really important for his future. I must tell you something. He's taken the modified pledge."

Her look said, "There! what d'you think of that?"

"Modified!" said Dion, rather doubtfully.

"Never between meals—never."

"At any rate that's a step in the right direction."

"Isn't it? I took it with him."

"The modified pledge?"

"Yes," she said, with great seriousness.

"But you never——! To help him, of course."

"Yes."

"And has it made a difference to the nose?"

"I think it's made a considerable difference. But I want your opinion."

"I'll give it you for what it's worth. But who's going to see Mr. Thrush?"

"The Dean.

"The Dean! Why on earth?"

"Almost directly there's going to be a vacancy among the vergers, and the Dean has promised me faithfully that if Mr. Thrush seems suitable he shall have the post."

"Mr. Thrush a verger! Mr. Thrush carry a poker before a bishop!"

"Not a poker, only a white wand. I've been making him practise here in the garden, and he does it quite admirably already."

She spoke now with almost defiant emphasis. Dion loved her for the defiance and for its deliciously absurd reason.

"The Dean is away, but he's coming back to-morrow, so I begin to feel rather anxious. Of course, he'll see at once that Mr. Thrush is an educated man. I'm not afraid about that. It's only—well, the little failing. It would mean so much for Mr. Thrush to get the post. He'll be provided for for life. I've set my heart on it."

Annie came in.

"Oh, Annie, is it Mr. Thrush?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please ask him to come in."

With a very casual air, as of one doing a thing for no particular reason and almost without thought, she lowered the wick of the lamp which illuminated the room.

"We don't want it to flare," she said, as she came away from it. "Oh, Mr. Thrush, here's my husband back again!"

With a certain unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of diminishing gradually into what tailors call "a morning coat," or a morning coat which was in course of expanding gently into a frock coat; a speckless collar with points appeared above a pair of dark worsted gloves, and a hat which resembled a square bowler half-way on the road to top hatdom.

Dion felt touched by his appearance and his gait, which seemed to hint at those rehearsals in the garden, and especially touched by the fact that he had bought a new hat.

"Welcome home, sir!" he said at once to Dion. "I'm sure the country is proud of you."

He paid the compliment with so much sincerity that Dion did not feel embarrassed by it.

"Do sit down, Mr. Thrush," said Rosamund, after hands had been cordially shaken. "No, not there!"—as he was about to sit full in the lamplight—"This chair will be more comfortable. Now I'll leave you to have a little talk with my husband."

With an inquiring look at Dion she went out of the room.

Before she came back Mr. Thrush had told Dion all his hopes and fears with regard to the Dean, and had dwelt on his overwhelming desire to become a verger. Quite unself-conscious in his simplicity he rose almost to dignity. He frankly confessed his "failing," and alluded to the taking of the modified pledge.

"We took it together, sir, your kind lady and I, we both pledged ourselves never to touch a drop of liquor between meals whatever the occasion."

"Quite right!" said Dion, with firmness, almost with bruskness.

"I'm glad you think so, sir. But a verger can't be too careful. He's held up as an example to the whole city by his position, walking so often in procession as he does before the eyes of all men. Even a chemist scarcely takes so much upon himself. In respect of the body he may, I'll allow you,—for no verger has to do with prussic acid, iodine, cascara and all such-like,—but in respect of what I might all the uplifting of the soul not a doubt of it but that the verger comes far before any chemist. It's a solemn thing to think of, and I hope, if so be as I'm elected, I shall be worthy of the position. I see Mr. Dean to-morrow, sir, at eleven o'clock. I trust I shall make a favorable impression. I lived just off Hanover Square for more years than some can remember, and that, I hope, with a Very Reverend will tell in my favor. None of them vergers here, though I'm sure they're a splendid body of men,—any one who has seen them walking before his Lordship, the Bishop, the Canons and what not, as I did last Sunday morning, would say the same,—but none of the vergers here can say as much. I've made inquiry, but of course with all discretion. As to the duties, sir, I think I can fulfil them. The carrying of the wand I may say I am almost perfect in already. I've been at it in the garden with your kind good lady since I came. I found it a bit difficult at first, sir. There's what you might call a knack to it, though from the congregation it looks simple enough. But there, what does a congregation know of the things a verger has to master any more than it does of what is required of a good chemist? Often and often when I was just off Hanover Square——"

He was still flowing on with imperturbable volubility when Rosamund came back and sent another, more inquiring, glance to Dion.

When Mr. Thrush had retired she at once said anxiously:

"Well?"

"He's a nice old chap."

"Yes, isn't he? But what did you really think?"

"About the nose?"

"Yes."

"The lamp was turned rather low, but I really believe the modified pledge has—"

"There! What did I say?" she interrupted triumphantly. "I knew you'd notice the difference. It's really very much like yours or mine now, and I'm sure—"

But here Dion broke in decisively.

"No, Rosamund, I can't let that pass. It's not like yours yet. I say nothing about mine. But I honestly think it's modified and I hope the Dean will pass it."

"The Dean and I are great cronies!" she murmured doubtfully. "My only fear is that after he is a verger Mr. Thrush may—may lapse if I'm not——"

She stopped, looking at Dion, and again he thought that she was more sensitive to his opinion, to his wishes, than she had formerly been. Her slightly changed attitude made Dion gladly aware of change in himself. He meant more to Rosamund now than he had meant when he left England.



CHAPTER VII

Three days had slipped by. Dion had been accepted as one of the big Welsley family, had been made free of the Precincts. During those three days he had forgotten London, business, everything outside of Welsley. It had seemed to him that he had the right to forget, and he had exercised it. Robin had played a great part in those three days. His new adoration of his father was obvious to every one who saw them together. The soldier appealed to the little imagination. Robin's ardor was concentrated for the moment in his pride of possession. He owned a father who—his own nurse had told him so—was not as other fathers, not as ordinary fathers such as stumped daily about the narrow streets of Welsley, rubicund and, many of them, protuberant in the region of the watch-chain. They were all very well; Robin had nothing against them; many of them were clergymen and commanded his respect by virtue of their office, their gaiters, the rosettes and cords that decorated their wide-winged hats. But they were not like "Fa." They had not become lean, and muscular, and dark, and quick-limbed, and keen-eyed, and spry, in the severe service of their country. They had not—even the Archdeacon, Robin's rather special pal, had not—ever killed any wicked men who did not like England, or gone into places where wicked men who did not like England might have killed them. Some of them did not know much about guns, did not seem to take any interest in guns. It was rather pitiable. Since his father had come back Robin had had an opportunity of sounding the Archdeacon on the subject of an advance in open order. The result had not been satisfactory. The Archdeacon, Robin thought, had taken the matter with a lightness, almost a levity, which one could not have looked for from a man in his position, and when questioned as to his methods of taking over had frankly said that he had none.

"I like him," Robin said ruefully. "But he'll never be a good scout, will he, Fa?"

To which Dion replied with discretion.

"There are plenty of good scouts, old boy, who would never make good archdeacons."

"Is there?" said Robin. "Why not? I know what scouts does, but what does archdeacons does?"

And with that he had his father stumped. Dion had not been long enough at Welsley to dive into all its mysteries.

On the evening of the third day Dion told Rosamund that he must go to London on the following morning.

"I've got something I must do and I want to tell you about it," he said. "You remember Mrs. Clarke?"

"Yes," said Rosamund.

"It must be more than two years since I've seen her. She lives a great deal in Constantinople, you know. But she sometimes comes to London in the winter. It's abominably cold in Constantinople in winter. There are perpetual winds from the Black Sea."

"Yes, I know there are. Esme Darlington has told me about them."

"Mrs. Clarke's in London now."

"Did you see her when you passed through?"

"No, but I want to see her to-morrow. Rose, I'm going to tell you something which nobody else must know. I was asked to keep it entirely to myself, but I refused. I was resolved to tell you, because I don't believe in secrets between husband and wife—about their doings, I mean." (Just then he had happened to think of Mrs. Clarke's farewell telegram to him when he had sailed for South Africa.)

"I know how frank and sincere you always are, Dion," she said gently.

"I try to be. You remember that party at Mrs. Chetwinde's where you sang? You met Mrs. Clarke that night."

"Of course I remember. We had quite an interesting talk."

"She's clever. Lord Brayfield was there, too, that night, a fair man.

"I saw him. He wasn't introduced to me."

"Brayfield was shot in the war. Did you know it?"

"No. I thought I had read everything. But I didn't happen to see it."

"And I didn't mention it when I wrote. I thought I'd tell you if I came home. Brayfield, poor fellow, didn't die immediately. He suffered a great deal, but he was able to write two or three letters—last messages—home. One of these messages was written to Mrs. Clarke. He gave it to me and made me promise to convey it to her personally, not to put it in the post."

"Was Lord Brayfield in the C.I.V.?" asked Rosamund.

"Oh no. He was a captain in the 5th Lancers. We were brigaded with them for a bit and under fire at the same time. Brayfield happened to see me. He knew I was an acquaintance of Mrs. Clarke's, and when he was shot he asked that I should be allowed to come to him. Permission was given. I went, and he asked me if I'd give Mrs. Clarke a letter from him when I got home. It seems none of his brother officers happened to know her. He might have given the letter to one of them. It would have been more natural. But"—Dion hesitated—"well, he wanted to say a word or two to some one who knew her, I suppose."

Rosamund quite understood there were things Dion did not care to tell even to her. She did not want to hear them. She was not at all a curious woman.

"I'm glad you are able to take the letter," she said.

And then she began to talk about something else. Mr. Thrush's prospects with the Dean, which were even yet not quite decided.

By the quick train at nine o'clock Dion left Welsley next morning; he was in London by half-past ten. He had of course written to Mrs. Clarke asking if he could see her. She had given him an appointment for three o'clock at the flat she had taken for a few months in Park Side, Knightsbridge. Dion went first to the City, and after doing some business there, and lunching with his uncle at the Cheshire Cheese, got into a cab and drove to Knightsbridge.

Mrs. Clarke's flat was on the first floor of a building which faced the street on one side and Hyde Park on the other. Dion rang at a large, very solid oak door. In two or three minutes the door was opened by an elderly maid, with high cheek-bones and long and narrow light gray eyes, who said, with a foreign accent, that Mrs. Clarke was at home. Afterwards Dion knew that this woman was a Russian and Mrs. Clarke's own maid.

She showed Dion into a long curving hall in which a fire was burning. Here he left his hat and coat. While he was taking the coat off he had time to think, "What an original hall this is!" From it he got an impression of warmth and of a pleasant dimness. He had really no time to look carefully about, but a quick glance told him that there were interesting things in this hall, or at any rate interestingly combined. He was conscious of the stamp of originality.

The Russian maid showed him into a drawing-room and went away to tell "Madame." She did not go out by the hall, but walked the whole length of the long narrow drawing-room, and passed through a small doorway at its farther end. Through this doorway there filtered into the drawing-room a curious blue light. All the windows of the drawing-room looked into Hyde Park, on to the damp grass, the leafless trees, the untenanted spaces of autumn.

Dion went to the fireplace, which faced the far doorway. There was not a sound in the room; not a sound came to it just then from without. He could scarcely believe he was in Knightsbridge. Not even a clock was ticking on the mantelpiece above the fire, in which ship logs were burning. The flames which came from them were of various shades of blue, like magical flames conjured up by a magician. He looked round. He had never seen a room like this before. It was a room to live in, to hear strange music in; it was not a reception-room. Not crowded with furniture it was not at all bare. Its "note" was not austere but quite the contrary. It was a room which quietly enticed. Dion was not one of those men who know all about women's dresses, and combinations of color, and china, and furniture, but he was observant; as a rule he noticed what he saw. Fresh from South Africa, from a very hard life out of doors, he looked at this room and was almost startled by it. The refinement of it was excessive in his eyes and reminded him of something overbred, of certain Italian greyhounds, for instance. Strange blues and greens were dexterously combined through the room, in the carpet, the curtains, the blinds, the stuffs which covered the chairs, sofas, divans, cushions—blues and greens innumerable. He had never before seen so many differing shades of the two colors; he had not known that so many shades existed. In the china these colors were repeated. The door by which he had come in was of thick glass in a frame of deep blue wood and, by means of a mysterious light in the hall, was made mistily blue. All along the windows, lilies were growing, or seemed to be growing, in earth closely covered with green moss. There were dwarf trees, like minute yew trees, in green and blue china pots.

And always the ship logs in the fire gave out the magical blue flames.

Certainly the general effect of the room was not only luxuriously comfortable, but also strangely beautiful, though there was nothing in it which a lover of antiques would have given his eyes for. To Dion, fresh from South Africa, the room looked too comfortable, too ingeniously beautiful. It struck him as ultra modern, ahead of anything he had ever yet seen, and almost as evil. But certainly it enticed.

He heard the distant sound of a woman's dress and saw Mrs. Clarke coming slowly in from the room beyond (another blue and green room perhaps), and he thought of Brayfield dying. He thrust a hand into the breast-pocket of his coat and brought out the dead man's letter.

Mrs. Clarke came up to the fire and greeted him. She did not look a moment older than when he had seen her last at Claridge's, or indeed than when he had first seen her standing under the statue of Echo in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. The same feverish refinement still was with her, belonged to her; she looked as before, wasted as if by some obscure disease, haunted, almost distressed, and yet absolutely self-controlled, mistress of herself and unconscious of critical observation. Not even for a moment, seeing her thus again after a long interval of time, did Dion hesitate about her beauty. Undoubtedly she had beauty. The shape of her head was lovely, and her profile was like a delicate vision seen in water. The husky sound of her voice in her first words to him took him back to the Divorce Court.

"You haven't changed," she said, staring intently at him in her oddly impersonal way, which appraised and yet held something of inwardness.

"But people say I have changed very much."

"People?"

"Well—my people."

"I don't call natural development change. I saw in you very plainly when we first met what you are now. You have got there. That's all."

Her lips were very pale. How strangely unshining her hair was.

"Yes, she looked punished!" he thought. "It's that look of punishment which sets her quite apart from all other women."

She glanced at the letter he was holding and sat down on a very broad green divan. There were many cushions upon it; she did not heap them behind her, but sat quite upright. She did not ask him to sit down. He would do as he liked. Absurd formalities of any kind did not enter into her scheme of life.

"How is Jimmy?" he asked.

"Brilliantly well. He's been at Eton for a long time, doing dreadfully at work—he's a born dunce—and splendidly at play. How he would appreciate you as you are now!"

She spoke with a gravity that was both careless and intense. He sat down near her. In his letter asking to see her he had not told her that he had a special object in writing to visit her. By her glance at Brayfield's letter he knew that she had gathered it.

They talked of Jimmy for a few minutes; then Dion said:

"My regiment was brigaded with Lord Brayfield's for a time in South Africa. I was in the action in which he was shot, poor chap. He saw me and remembered that I was a—a friend of yours. When he was dying he wanted to see me. I was sent for, and he gave me this letter for you. He asked me to give it to you myself if I came back."

He bent down to her with the letter.

"Thank you," she said, and she took it without looking at all surprised, and with her habitual composed gravity. "There are Turkish cigarettes in that ivory box," she added, looking at a box on a table close by.

"Thank you."

As Dion turned to get a cigarette he heard her tearing Brayfield's envelope.

"Will you give me one?" said the husky voice.

Without saying anything he handed to her the box, and held a lighted match to her cigarette when it was between the pale lips. She smoked gently as she opened and read Brayfield's letter. When she had finished it—evidently it was not a long letter—she put it back into the envelope, laid it down on the green divan and said:

"What do you think of this room? It was designed and arranged by Monsieur de Vaupre, a French friend of mine."

"By a man!" said Dion, irrepressibly.

"Who hasn't been in the South African War. Do you like it?"

"I don't think I do, but I admire it a good deal."

He was looking at the letter lying on the divan, and Brayfield was before him, tormented and dying. He had always disliked the look of Brayfield, but he had felt almost a sort of affection for him when he was dying. Foolishly perhaps, Dion wanted Mrs. Clarke to say something kind about Brayfield now.

"If you admire it, why don't you like it?" she asked. "A person—I could understand; but a room!"

He looked at her and hesitated to acknowledge a feeling at which he knew something in her would smile; then he thought of Rosamund and of Little Cloisters and spoke out the truth.

"I think it's an unwholesome-looking room. It looks to me as if it had been thought out and arranged by somebody with a beastly, though artistic, mind."

"The inner room is worse," she said.

But she did not offer to show it to him, nor did she disagree with his view. He even had the feeling that his blunt remark had pleased her.

He asked her about Constantinople. She lived there, she told him, all through the spring and autumn, and spent the hottest months on the Bosphorus.

"People are getting accustomed to my temerity," she said. "Of course Esme Darlington is still in despair, and Lady Ermyntrude goes about spreading scandal. But it doesn't seem to do much harm. She hasn't any more influence over my husband. He won't hear a word against me. Like a good dog, I suppose, he loves the hand which has beaten him."

"You've got a will of iron, I believe," said Dion.

She changed the subject.

"I don't ask you to tell me about South Africa," she said. "Because you told me the whole story as soon as I came into the room. But what are you going to do now? Settle down in the Church's bosom at Welsley?"

There was no sarcasm in her voice.

"Oh—I'm going back to business in a few days."

"You'll run up and down, I suppose."

"It's too far, an hour and a half each way. I shall have to be in London."

He spoke rather indecisively.

"I'm taking a fortnight's holiday, and then we shall settle down."

"I've been in Welsley," said Mrs. Clarke. "It's beautiful but, to me, stifling. It has an atmosphere which would soon dry up my mind. All the petals would curl up and go brown at the edges. I'm glad you're not going to live there. But after South Africa you couldn't."

"I don't know. I find it very attractive," he said, instinctively on the defensive because of Rosamund, who had not been attacked. "The coziness and the peace of it are very delightful after all the—well, of course, it was a pretty stiff life in South Africa."

Again he looked at Brayfield's letter. He wanted to tell Mrs. Clarke about Brayfield, but it seemed she had no interest in the dead man. While he was thinking this she quietly put out her hand, took the letter, got up and dropped it into the fire among the blue flames from the ship logs.

"I seldom keep letters," she said, "unless I have to answer them."

She turned round.

"I've kept yours," she said.

"The one I—it was awfully good of you to send me that telegram."

"So Allah had you in His hand."

"I don't know why when so many much better fellows——" He broke off, and then he plunged into the matter of Brayfield. He could not go without telling her, though hearing, perhaps, would not interest her.

All the time he was speaking she remained standing by the fire, with her lovely little head slightly bending forward and her profile turned towards him. The emaciation of her figure almost startled him. She wore a black dress. It seemed to him a very simple dress. She could have told him that such simplicity only comes from a few very good dressmakers, and is only fully appreciated by a very few women.

Brayfield, though he was dying, had been very careful in what he had said to Dion. In his pain he had shown that he had good blood in him. He had not hinted even at any claim on Mrs. Clarke. But he had spoken of a friendship which had meant very much to him, and had asked Dion, if he ever had the opportunity, to tell Mrs. Clarke that when he was dying she was the woman he was thinking about. He had not spoken interestingly; he was not an interesting man; but he had spoken with sincerity, with genuine feeling.

"She's a woman in a thousand," he had said. "Tell her I thought so till the last. Tell her if she had been free I should have begged her to marry me."

And he had added, after a pause:

"Not that she'd ever have done it. I'm pretty sure of that."

When Dion had finished, still standing by the fire, Mrs. Clarke said:

"Thank you for remembering it all. It shows your good heart."

"Oh—please!"

Why didn't she think about Brayfield?

She turned round and fixed her distressed eyes on him.

"Which is best, to be charitable or to be truthful?" she said, without any vibration of excitement. "De Mortuis—it's a kindly saying. A true Turk, one of the old Osmanlis, might have said it. If you hadn't brought me that letter and the message I should probably never have mentioned Brayfield to you again. But as it is I am going to be truthful. I can say honestly peace to Brayfield's ashes. His death was worthy. Courage he evidently had. But you mustn't think that because he liked me I ever liked him. Don't make a mistake. I'm not a nervous suspicious fool of a woman anxiously defending, or trying to defend, her honor—not attacked, by the way. If Lord Brayfield had ever been anything to me I should just be quiet, say nothing. But I didn't like him. If I had liked him I shouldn't have burnt his letter. And now"—to Dion's great astonishment she made slowly the sign of the Cross—"requiescat in pace."

After a long pause she added:

"Now come and see the other room. I'll give you Turkish coffee there."



CHAPTER VIII

It had been understood between Rosamund and Dion that he should spend that night in London. He had several things to see to after his long absence, had to visit his tailor, the dentist, the bootmaker, to look out some things in Little Market Street, to have an interview with his banker, et cetera. He would go back to Welsley on the following afternoon. In the evening of that day he dined in De Lorne Gardens with Beatrice and Guy Daventry and his mother, and again, as in Knightsbridge, something was said about the Welsley question. Dion gathered that Rosamund's devotion to Welsley was no secret in "the family." The speedy return to Little Market Street was assumed; nevertheless he was certain that his mother, his sister-in-law, and Guy were secretly wondering how Rosamund would be able to endure the departure from Welsley. Beatrice had welcomed him back very quietly, but he had felt more definitely than ever before the strong sympathy which existed between them.

"I quite love Beatrice," he said to his mother in the jobbed brougham with the high stepping, but slow moving, horse which conveyed them to Queen Anne's Mansions after the dinner.

"She is worth it," said Mrs. Leith. "Beatrice says very little, but she means very much."

"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.

Stamboul and Welsley—Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund!

The dual comparison made him at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsley were beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticed by its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stability and matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by its obscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightful simplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faith and a smiling unworldliness, its harmonies of gray and of green, of stone and verdure, its serenity lifted skywards by many bells.

But at the heart of Stamboul the dust lay thick, and there was dew at the heart of Welsley.

Perhaps green Elis, with its sheep-bells, the eternal voices of its pine trees, the celestial benignity of its Hermes, was more to be desired than either Stamboul or Welsley. But for the moment Welsley was very desirable.

Dion gave his bag to an "outside porter," and walked to the Precincts with the Archdeacon.

He found Rosamund uplifted and triumphant; Mr. Thrush had finally captivated the Dean, and had been given the "situation" which Rosamund had desired for him. Her joy was almost ebullient. She could talk of nothing else. Mr. Thrush was to be installed on the following Sunday.

"Installed?" said Dion. "Is the Archbishop coming down to conduct the ceremony?"

"No, no! What I mean is that Mr. Thrush will walk in the procession for the first time. Oh, I shall be so nervous! If only he carries the wand as I've taught him! I don't know what Mr. Thrush would do without me. He seems to depend on me for everything now, poor old gentleman."

"I'm afraid he'll miss you dreadfully," said Dion.

"Miss me? When?"

Before he could answer she said quickly:

"Oh, by the way, Dion, while you've been away I've done something for you."

"What is it, Rose?"

She was looking gaily mysterious, and almost cunning, but in a delightful way.

"I don't want you to be bored during your holiday."

"Bored! Don't you realize that this is an earthly Paradise for me? You and Robin and peace after South Africa."

She looked very shrewd.

"That's all very well, but a man, especially a soldier man, wants sport."

She laid a strong and happy emphasis on the last word, and then she disclosed the secret. A brother of "the cold douche," a gentleman farmer who had land some four miles from Welsley, and who was "a great friend" of Rosamund's—she had met him three times at the organist's house—hearing of Dion's arrival, had written to say that he had some partridges which needed "keeping down." He himself was "laid by" with a bad leg, but he would be very glad if Mr. Leith would "take his chance among the birds" any day, or days, he liked while at Welsley. The gentleman farmer could not offer much, just the ground, most of it stubble, and a decent lot of birds.

"Dear Mrs. Dickinson knew through me how fond of shooting you are. We owe it all to her," said Rosamund, in conclusion. "I've written to thank him, and to say how glad you'll be."

"But you must come too," he said. "You shot in Greece, you must shoot again here."

"I don't think I will here," said Rosamund, confidentially and rather mysteriously.

"Why not?"

"Well, I don't think the Dean would approve of it. And he's been so bricky about Mr. Thrush that I shouldn't like to hurt him."

"I can't go alone. I shall take Robin then."

He spoke half-laughingly.

"Robin?"

"Yes, why not? I'm sure he'd love to go."

"Of course he would. But how could his little legs walk over stubble? He's not four years old yet."

"Robin's got to be Doric. He can't begin too soon."

She smiled, then looked at him seriously.

"Dion, do you know that you've come back much more Doric than you were when you went out?"

"Have I, Rose?"

"Much more."

"Do you like me less because of that?"

She blushed faintly.

"No," she said.

That faint blush made Dion's heart bound, he scarcely knew why. But he only said soberly:

"I'm glad of that. And now about Robin. You're right. He can't walk over stubble with me, but why shouldn't I stick him on a pony?"

"Oh—a pony! How he would love it!"

"Can't I get hold of one?"

"But Job Crickendon's got one!"

"Job Crick— . . . ?"

"Mrs. Dickinson's brother who's lending you the partridges. Don't say another word, Dion. I'll arrange it all. Robin will be in the seventh heaven."

"And you must come with us."

Rosamund was about to speak quickly. Dion saw that. Her eyes shone; she opened her lips. But something, some sudden thought, stopped her. After a minute she said quietly:

"We'll see."

And she gave Dion a curious, tender look which he did not quite understand. Surely she was keeping some delicate secret from him, one of those dear secrets which perhaps will never be told, but which are sometimes happily guessed.

Dion could not help seeing that Rosamund eagerly wanted to attach him to Welsley. He felt that she had not honestly and fully faced the prospect of returning to live in London. Her plan—he saw it plainly; the partridge shooting was part of it—was to make Welsley so delightful to him that he would not want to give up the home at Little Cloisters. What was to be done? He disliked, he almost hated, the thought that his return would necessitate an unpleasant change in Rosamund's life. Yet something within him told him that he ought to be firm. He was obliged to live in London, and therefore it was only natural and right that Rosamund and Robin should live in London too. After this long separation he ought not to have to face a semi-bachelor life; three days of the week at Little Cloisters and four days alone in Little Market Street. He must put Rosamund to the test. That faint blush, which he would not soon forget, made him hope that she would come out of the test triumphantly.

If she did, how splendid it would be. His heart yearned at the thought of a Rosamund submissive to his wish, unselfish out of the depth of—dared he think of it as a new growth of love within her, tending towards a great flowering which would bring a glory into two lives? But if she yielded at once to his wish, without a word of regret, if she took the speedy return to London quite simply as a matter of course, he would feel almost irresistibly inclined to take her in his arms and to say, "No, you shall stay on at Little Cloisters. We'll manage somehow." Perhaps he could stand three hours daily in the train. He could read the papers. A man must do that. As well do it in the train as in an arm-chair at home.

But at any rate he would put her to the test. On that he was resolved.

At dinner that night Rosamund told him she had already written to "dear, kind Job Crickendon" about the pony.

"You might shoot on Monday," she said.

"Right you are. When we hear about the pony we'll tell Robin."

"Yes. Not till it's all delightfully settled. Robin on horseback!"

Her eyes shone.

"I can see him already with a gun in his hand old enough to shoot with you," she added. "We must bring him up to be a thorough little sportsman; like that Greek boy Dirmikis."

They talked about Robin's future till dinner was over. Dion loved their talk, but he could not help seeing that in Rosamund's forecast town life held no place at all. In everything, or in almost everything, that she said the country held pride of place. There was not one word about Jenkins's gymnasium, or the Open Air Club with its swimming facilities, or riding in the Park, or fencing at Bernardi's. Rosamund seemed tacitly to assume that everything which was Doric was connected with country life.

On the following morning she hastened out "to buy riding gaiters for Robin." She had his "size" with her.

Not a word had been said about Dion's visit to Mrs. Clarke. Rosamund's lack of all curiosity in regard to Mrs. Clarke and himself gave him the measure of her faith in him. Few women, he thought, would be able to trust a man so completely. And this trust was the more remarkable because he felt positive that Rosamund distrusted Mrs. Clarke. She had never said so, but he considered that by her conduct she had proved her distrust.

It was a great virtue in Rosamund, that power she had to trust where trust was deserved.

Dear, kind Job Crickendon wrote that Master Robin could ride his pony, Jane, and welcome. The letter arrived on Saturday. Rosamund read it aloud to Dion.

"The people about here are the dearest people I've ever come across," she said. "So different from people in London."

"Why, what's the matter with people in London?" asked Dion.

"Oh, I don't know; they're more artificial. They think so much about clothes, and hats, and the way their hair's done."

"The men!"

"I was talking of the women."

"But is Job Crickendon a woman?"

"Don't be absurd, Dion. You know what I mean. The country brings out the best that is in people."

"That's a bad look out for me, who've lived nearly all my life in London."

"You would be yourself anywhere. Now about Robin. I've got the gaiters. They're not exactly riding gaiters—they don't make them for such little boys—but they'll do beautifully. But I don't want to tell Robin till Monday morning. You see he's got a very exciting day before him to-morrow, and I think to know about Monday on top of it might be almost too much for him."

"But what excitement is there to-morrow?"

She looked at him reproachfully.

"Mr. Thrush!"

"Oh, of course. And is Robin coming to the Cathedral?"

"Yes, for once. It's a terribly long service for a child, but Robin would break his heart if he didn't see Mr. Thrush walk in the procession for the first time."

"Then we won't tell him till Monday morning. I'll hire a dog-cart and we can all drive out together."

Again she gave him the tender look, but she did not then explain what it meant.

That evening they dined with Canon Wilton, who had a surprise in store for them. Esme Darlington had come down to stay with him over Sunday, and to have a glimpse of his dear young friends in Little Cloisters.

The dinner was a delightful one. Mr. Darlington was benignly talkative and full of kindly gossip; Canon Wilton almost beamed upon his guests; after dinner Rosamund sang song after song while the three men listened and looked. She sang her very best for them, and when she was winding a lace shawl about her hair preparatory to the little walk home, Canon Wilton thanked her in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks.

"You've made me very happy to-night," he said finally. And his strong bass voice was softer than usual.

"I'm glad."

"Not only by your singing," he added.

She looked at him inquiringly. His eyes had gone to Dion.

"Not only by that."

And then he spoke almost in a murmur to her.

"He's come back worth it," he said. "Good night. God bless you both."

The following day was made memorable by the "installation" of Mr. Thrush as a verger of Welsley Cathedral.

The Cathedral was not specially crowded for the occasion, but there was a very fair congregation when Rosamund, Dion and Robin (in a sailor suit with wide blue trousers) walked in together through the archway in the rood-screen. One of the old established vergers, a lordly person with a "presence" and the air of a high dignitary, met them as they stepped into the choir, and wanted to put them into stalls; but Rosamund begged for seats in a pew just beyond the lectern, facing the doorway by which the procession came into the choir.

"Robin would be swallowed up in a stall," she whispered to Dion.

And they both looked down at the little chap tenderly, and met his blue eyes turned confidingly, yet almost anxiously too, up to them. He was wondering about all this whispering with the verger, and hoping that nothing had happened to Mr. Thrush.

They found perfect seats in a pew just beyond the deanery stalls. Far up in the distance above them one bell, the five minutes' bell, was chiming. Its voice recalled to Rosamund the "ping-ping" of the bell of St. Mary's Church which had welcomed her in the fog. How much had happened since then! Robin was nestling against her. He sat between her and his father, and was holding his father's hand. By dividing Dion from her he united her with Dion. She thought of the mystery of the Trinity, and then of their mystery, the mystery of father, mother and child. To-day she felt very happy, and happy in an unusual way. In her happiness she know that, in a sort of under way, she had almost dreaded Dion's return. She had been so peacefully content, so truly at rest and deeply serene in the life at Welsley with Robin. In her own heart she could not deny that she had loved having her Robin all to herself; and she had loved, too, the long hours of solitude during which, in day-dreams, she had lived the religious life. A great peace had enveloped those months at Welsley. In them she had mysteriously grown into a closer relation with her little son. She had often felt in those months that this mysterious nearness could never have become quite what it had become to her unless she had been left alone with Robin. It was their solitude which had enabled her to concentrate wholly on Robin, and it was surely this exclusive concentration on Robin which had drawn him so very close to her. All the springs of his love had flowed towards her.

She had been just a wee bit frightened about Dion's return.

And that was why at this moment, when the five minutes' bell was ringing, she felt so happy. For Dion's return had not made any difference; or, if it had made a difference, she did not actively regret it. The child's new adoration of his father had made her care more for Dion, and even more for Robin; for she felt that Robin was unconsciously loving in his father a strength and a nobility which were new in Dion, which had been born far away across the sea. War destroys, and all the time war is destroying it is creating. Robin was holding a little bit of what the South African War had created as he held his father's hand. For are not the profound truths of the soul conveyed through all its temple?

"Happiness is a mystery," thought Rosamund.

And then she silently thanked God that this mystery was within herself, and that she felt it in Robin and in Dion.

She looked down at her little son, and as she met his soft and yet ardent eyes,—full of innocent anxiety, and almost of awe, about Mr. Thrush,—she blessed the day when she had decided to marry Dion, when she had renounced certain dreams, when she had taken the advice of the man who was now her friend and had resolved to tread that path of life in which she could have a companion.

Her companion had given her another companion. In the old gray Cathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and been gathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way of happiness, and she could not see its end.

The five minutes' bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in the pew. The Bishop's wife proceeded to her stall with a friend. Robin stared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush. Miss Piper glided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching for a dropped pin on the pavement. She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin's, and he whispered to his mother:

"Miss Piper's come to see Mr. Thrush."

"Yes, darling."

What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend! She looked at the freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them. This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin's life so far. She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin! And over his fair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion's thought hand in hand with hers.

A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work preluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the Cathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin's mind, was for Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father's hand tightly he joined in the congregation's movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robin felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was standing up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped at his father and whispered:

"May I, Fa?"

Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly at the head of the procession.

At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Only two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their massive stalls. Mr. Thrush was—though not in Robin's eyes—an ordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the procession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the screen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but—as Rosamund afterwards put it—"almost uplifted."

Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush's shoulders the robe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemed as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean's stall. But discipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers.

Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet bright triumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely less excited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of her rehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more than satisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all.

That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated to close in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart.

Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush was entertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery "between the services." Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little in awe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with the Dean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to it too; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and to tell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the procession and his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush received their earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who felt that they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all great artists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion were about to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the tea and well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which did him credit.

"Madame!" He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice.

"Now don't trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?"

Mr. Thrush looked down steadily at the "round" which glistened on his plate. Something fell upon it.

"Oh, Mr. Thrush——!" began Robin, and paused in dismay, looking up at his mother.

"Madame," said Mr. Thrush again, still looking at the "round," "I haven't felt as I do now since I stood behind my counter just off Hanover Square, respected. Yes," he said, and his old voice quavered upwards, gaining in strength, "respected by all who knew me. She was with me then, and now she isn't. But I feel—I feel—I'm respected again."

Something else fell upon the toast.

"And it's all your doing, madam. I—all I can say is that I—all I can say——" His voice failed.

Rosamund put her hand on his shoulder.

"There, Mr. Thrush, there! I know, I know just how it is."

"Madame," said Mr. Thrush, with quavering emphasis, "one can depend upon you, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, even if it's only the putting on his feet of—of—I never thought to be a verger, never. I never could have looked up to such a thing but for you. But Mr. Dean he said to me, 'Mr. Thrush, when Mrs. Leith speaks up for a man, even an archbishop has to listen.'"

"Thank you, Mr. Thrush. Robin, give Mr. Thrush the brown sugar. He always likes brown sugar in his tea."

"It's more nourishing, madam," said Mr. Thrush, with a sudden change from emotion to quiet self-confidence. "It does more work for the stomach. A chemist knows."

"Dear old man!" said Rosamund, when she and Dion were outside in the passage. "To say all that before nurse—it was truly generous."

And she frankly wiped her eyes. A moment later she added:

"I pray he doesn't fall back into his little failing!"

She looked at Dion interrogatively. He looked at her, understanding, he believed, the inquiry in her eyes. Before he could say anything the kind and careful voice of Mr. Darlington was heard below, asking:

"Is Mrs. Dion Leith at home?"

Mr. Darlington was delighted with Little Cloisters. He said it had a "flavor which was quite unique," and was so enthusiastic that Rosamund became almost excited. Dion saw that she counted Mr. Darlington as an ally. When Mr. Darlington's praises sounded she could not refrain from glancing at her husband, and when at length their guests got up to go "with great reluctance," she begged them to come and dine on the following night.

Mr. Darlington raised his ragged eyebrows and looked at Canon Wilton.

"I'm by way of going back to town to-morrow afternoon," he began tentatively.

"Stay another night and let us accept," said Canon Wilton heartily.

"But I'm dining with dear Lavinia Berkhamstead, one of my oldest friends. It's not a set dinner, but I should hardly like—"

"For once!" pleaded Rosamund.

Mr. Darlington wavered. He looked round the room and then at Rosamund and Dion.

"It's most attractive here," he murmured, "and Lady Berkhamstead lives in the Cromwell Road, at the far end. I wonder—"

"It's settled!" Rosamund exclaimed. "Dinner at half-past seven. We keep early hours here, and Dion goes shooting to-morrow with Robin and may get sleepy towards ten o'clock."

After explanations about Robin, Mr. Darlington gracefully yielded. He would wire to dear Lavinia Berkhamstead and explain matters.

As he and Canon Wilton walked back to the Canon's house he said;

"What dear people those are!"

"Yes, indeed," said the Canon.

"Happiness has brought out the very best in them both. Leith is a fine young fellow, and she, of course, is unique, a piece of radiance, as her beautiful mother was. It does one good to see such a happy household."

He gently glowed, and presently added:

"You and I, dear Canon, have missed something."

After a moment the Canon's strong voice came gravely out of the winter darkness:

"You think great happiness the noblest education?"

Mr. Darlington began to pull his beard.

"You mean, my dear Wilton——?"

"Do you think the education of happiness is the education most likely to bring out the greatest possibilities of the soul?"

This was the sort of very definite question that Mr. Darlington preferred to get away from if possible, and he was just preparing to "hedge," when, fortunately, they ran into the Dean, and the conversation deviated to a discussion concerning the effect the pursuit of scientific research was likely to have upon religious belief.

After supper that evening—supper instead of dinner on Sundays was the general rule in Welsley—Dion lit his pipe. It had been a very happy day. He wished the happiness to last till sleep came to Rosamund and to him; nevertheless he was resolved to take a risk, and to take it now before they went to bed, while they still had two quiet hours before them. He looked at Rosamund and reluctance surged up in him, but he beat it back. Something told him that he had been allowed to come back from South Africa in order that he might build firm foundations. The perfect family life must be set upon rock. He meant to get through to the rock if possible. Rosamund and he were beginning again. Now surely was the day of salvation if he played the man, the man instead of merely the lover.

"This has been one of the happiest days of my life," he said.

He was standing by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored ground in her capable hands.

"I'm so thankful you like Welsley," she said.

"Won't you hate leaving Welsley?" he asked.

Rosamund went on quietly working for a moment. Perhaps she bent a little lower over the embroidery.

"I've made a great many friends here," she said at length, "and——"

She paused.

"Yes—do tell me, Rose."

"There's something here that I care for very much."

"Is it the atmosphere of religion? There's a great deal here that suggests the religious life."

"Yes; it's what I care for."

"I was almost afraid of meeting you here when I came back, Rose. I remembered what you had once told me, that you had had a great longing to enter the religious life. I was half afraid that, living here all alone with Robin, you might have become—I don't know exactly how to put it—become cloistral. I didn't want to find you a sort of nun when I came back."

He spoke with a gentle lightness.

"It might have been so, mightn't it?"

She remembered her dreams in the walled-in garden almost guiltily.

"No," she said steadily—and as she spoke she felt as if she were firmly putting those dreams behind her forever. "Motherhood changes a woman more than men can ever know."

"I—I know it's all right. Then you won't hate me for taking you both back to Little Market Street in a few days?"

He saw the color deepen in her face. For an instant she went on working. Then she put the work down, sat back in the low chair, and looked up at him.

"No, of course we must go back. And I was very happy in Little Market Street."

And then quickly, before he could say anything, she began to recall the pleasant details of their life in Westminster, dwelling upon every household joy, and everything that though "Londony" had been delightful. Having conquered, with an effort which had cost her more than even Dion knew, a terrible reluctance she gave herself to her own generous impulse with enthusiasm. Rosamund could not do things by halves. She might obstinately refrain from treading a path, but if once she had set her feet on it she hurried eagerly along it. Something to-night had made her decide on treading the path of unselfishness, of generosity. When Dion lit his pipe she had not known she was going to tread it. It seemed to her almost as if she had found herself upon the path without knowing how she had got there. Now without hesitation she went forward.

"It was delightful in Westminster," she concluded, "and it will be delightful there again."

"And all your friends here? And Mr. Thrush?"

"I don't know what Mr. Thrush will do," she said, with a change to deep gravity.

The two lines showed in her pure forehead.

"I'm so afraid that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can run down now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poor dear old man."

"And your friends?"

"Oh, well—of course I shall miss them. But I suppose there is always something to miss. There must be a crumpled rose leaf. I am far more fortunate than almost any woman I know."

Dion put down his pipe.

"I simply can't do it," he said.

"What?"

"Take you away from here. It seems your right place. You love it; Robin loves it. What's to be done? Shall I run up and down?"

"You can't. It's too far."

"I have to read the papers somewhere. Why not in the train?"

"Three hours or more! It's impossible. If only Welsley were nearer London! But, then, it wouldn't be Welsley."

"Now I know you'll go I can't take you away."

"Did you—what did you think I should do?"

"How could I tell?"

He sat down and took her hands.

"Rose, you've made this the happiest day of my life."

"Do you mean because——?"

She stopped. Her face became very grave, almost severe. She looked at him, but he felt that she was really looking inward upon herself. When at last he let go her hands she said:

"Dion, you are very different from what you were when you went to the war. If I seem different, too, it's because of that, I think."

"War changes women, perhaps, as well as men," he said tenderly.

They sat by the fire in the quiet old room and talked of the future and of all the stages of Robin: as schoolboy, as youth, as budding undergraduate, as man.

"Perhaps he'll be a soldier-man as his father has been," said Rosamund.

"Do you wish it?"

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she said:

"Yes, if it helps him as I think it has helped you. I expect when men go to fight for their country they go, perhaps without knowing it, to fight just for themselves."

"I believe everything we do for others, without any thought of ourselves, we do for ourselves," he said, very seriously.

"Altruism! But then I ought to live in London for you, and you in Welsley for me."

They both laughed. Nothing had been absolutely decided; and yet it seemed as if through that laughter a decision had been reached about everything really important.



CHAPTER IX

A dogcart from Harrington's had been ordered to be "round" the next day at noon. Dion had decided against a long day's shooting on Robin's account. He must not tire the little chap. In truth it would be impossible to take the shooting seriously, with Robin there all the time, clinging on to Jane and having to be looked after.

"It's going to be Robin's day," Dion said the next morning. "When are you going to tell him?"

"Directly after breakfast. By the way, Dion,"—she spoke carelessly, and was opening a letter while she spoke,—"I'm not coming."

"Oh, but you must!"

"No; I'll stay quietly here. I have lots of things to do."

"But Robin's first day as a sportsman!"

"He isn't going to shoot," she said with a mother's smile.

"Why won't you come? You've got some very special reason."

"Perhaps I have, but I'm not going to tell it. Women aren't wanted everywhere. Sometimes a couple of men like to be alone."

"Robin's a man now?"

"Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven't dared to try them on yet. And I've got him the dearest little whip you ever saw."

"Jane will have to look to her paces. I'm sorry you're not coming, Rose."

But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a very sweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself for many months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now, perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for the education which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness—Dion believed it was that—touched him to the heart. But it made him long to do something, many things, for her.

"I'm determined that you and Welsley shan't part from each other forever," he said. "We'll hit on some compromise. This house is on our hands, anyhow, till the spring."

"Perhaps we could sublet it," said Rosamund, trying to speak with brisk cheerfulness.

"We'll talk it over again to-night."

"And now for Robin's gaiters!"

They fitted perfectly; "miraculously" was Rosamund's word for the way they fitted.

"His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear," was nurse's admirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced.

Robin looked at his legs with deep solemnity. When the great project for this day of days had been broken to him he had fallen upon awe. His prattling ardors had subsided, stilled by a greater joy than any that had called them forth in his complex past of a child. Now he gazed at his legs, which were stretched out at right angles to his body on a nursery chair, as if they were not his. Then he looked up at his mother, his father, nurse; then once more down at his legs. His eyes were inquiring. They seemed to say, "Can it be?"

"Bless him! He can't hardly believe in it!" muttered nurse. "And no wonder."

A small sigh came from Robin. To his father and mother it came like the whisper of happiness, that good fairy which men cannot quite get rid of, try as they may. Two small hands went down to the little gaiters and felt them carefully. Then Robin looked up again, this time at his father, and smiled. Instinctively he connected his father with these wonderful appurtenances, although his mother had bought them and put them on him. With that smile he gave the day to his father, and Dion took it with just a glance at Rosamund—a glance which deprecated and which accepted.

When the dogcart was announced by Annie, with beaming eyes, Dion got his gun, Robin received his whip,—a miniature hunting-crop with a horn handle,—his cap was pulled down firmly on his head by Rosamund, and they set forth to the Green Court. Here they found Harrington's most fiery horse harnessed to quite a sporting dogcart and doing his very best to champ his bit. From the ground Robin looked up at him with solemn eyes. The occasion was almost too great. His father with a gun, his own legs in gaiters, the whip which he felt in his hand, the packet of sandwiches thrust tenderly by nurse into the pocket of his little covert coat, and now this glorious animal and this high and unusual carriage gleaming with light-colored wood between its immense wheels! There was almost too much of meaning, too much of suggestion in it all. No words came to him. He could only feel and gaze.

A stableman with hard lips stood sentinel in front of the fiery horse, and put up a red forefinger on the right side of his temple to give them greeting.

"I'll get in first," said Dion to Rosamund, "and then you can hand me up Robin."

He put in his gun and took the reins, while Robin instinctively extended his arms so that his mother could take hold of him under them.

"Up we go!" cried Dion.

And he mounted lightly to the high seat.

"Now, Robin!"

Rosamund took hold of Robin, whose short arms were still solemnly outstretched. She was about to lift him into the cart, but, overcome by an irresistible impulse, she paused, put one arm under the little legs in the gaiters, drew him to her and pressed her lips on the freckled bridge of his tiny nose.

"You darling!" she whispered, so that only he could hear. "I love you in your gaiters better than I ever loved you before." Then she handed him up to his father as if he were a dear little parcel.

"That's it," said Dion. "Put your arm round here, boy. Hold on tight! Let him go!"

The hard-lipped man stood to one side and the horse—well, moved. Robin gazed down at his mother with the faint hint of an almost shy smile, Dion saluted her with his whip, and the glorious day was fairly begun. Traveling with a sort of rakish deliberation the dogcart skirted the velvet lawn of the Green Court and disappeared from sight beneath the ancient archway.

Rosamund sighed as she turned to walk back to Little Cloisters. She had made a real sacrifice that day in giving up Robin to his father and staying at home. Secretly she had longed to go with her "men-folk" upon the great expedition, to be present at Robin's initiation into the Doric life. But something very dear in Dion had prompted her to be unselfish. Dion was certainly much more impressive to her since his return from the war. Even the dear things in him meant more. There seemed to be more muscle in them than there had been when he went away.

"Even our virtues can be weak or strong, I suppose," Rosamund thought, as she turned into the walled garden which she loved so much, and there followed the thought:

"I wonder which mine are."

She meant to spend that day in saying good-by to Welsley. Dion had said they would talk things over again that night; probably he would be ready to fall in with any desire of hers, but she felt almost sure that she would not tell him how much she wished to stay on at Little Cloisters.

An obscure feeling had come to her that perhaps it was not quite safe for her to remain any longer here in the arms of the Precincts. Looking backward to that which has been deliberately renounced is surely an act of weakness.

Even the imaginative effort to live a life that has been put aside is a feeble concession to an inclination at least partially morbid. Rosamund was in fact a mother, and yet here in Welsley, she had, as it were, sometimes played at being one of those "Sisters" who are content to be brides of heaven and mothers of the poor. For her own sake it was doubtless best to renounce Welsley at once. The new meaning of Dion would help her to do that bravely. He had often been unselfish for her; she would try to counter his unselfishness with hers.

When she was in the house again she had a colloquy with the cook about the dinner for that evening. As Esme Darlington had given up an engagement in London to come to Little Cloisters, her dinner must be something special. She told the cook so in her cordial, almost confidential, way, and they "put their heads together" and devised a menu full of attractions. That done she had the day to herself. Dion and Robin would come home some time in the afternoon, and they were all going to have tea together up in the nursery. It might be at half-past four, it might be at half-past five. Till then she was free.

For a moment she thought of going to see some of her friends, of telling Mrs. Dickinson and other adherents of hers that her days in Welsley were numbered. But a reluctance seized her. She felt a desire to be alone. What if instead of saying good-by to Welsley, she said good-by to her dreams in Welsley? She summoned Annie and told her not to let any one in.

"I'm going to spend a quiet day, Annie," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," said Annie, with an air of intelligent comprehension.

"Though what else any one ever does in old Welsley I'm sure I couldn't say," she afterwards remarked to the cook.

"You're a cockney at 'eart, Annie," repeated that functionary. "The country says nothing to you. You want the parks, that's what you want."