uld he
want to go?

In thinking of Mrs. Clarke, Dion of course always considered her with
the detached spectator's mind. No woman on earth was of real importance
to him except Rosamund. His mother he did not consciously count among
women. She was to him just the exceptional being, the unique and homely
manifestation a devoted mother is to the son who loves her without
thinking about it; not numbered among women or even among mothers. She
stood to him for protective love unquestioning, for interest in him and
all his doings unwavering, for faith in his inner worth undying, for the
Eternities without beginning or ending; but probably he did not know it.
Of Rosamund, what she was, what she meant in his life, he was intensely,
even secretly, almost savagely conscious. In Mrs. Clarke he was more
interested than he happened to be in any of the women who dwelt in the
great world of those whom he did not love and never could love.

Had the dinner-party he had just been to been arranged by Daventry in
order that Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke might meet in a perfectly natural
way? If so, it must have been Daventry's idea and not Mrs. Clarke's.
Dion had a feeling that Daventry had been vexed by Rosamund's defection.
He knew his friend very well. It was not quite natural that Daventry
had not mentioned Rosamund. But why should Daventry strongly wish Mrs.
Clarke and Rosamund to meet if Mrs. Clarke had not indicated a desire to
know Rosamund? Daventry was an enthusiastic adherent of Mrs. Clarke's.
He had, Dion knew, a chivalrous feeling for her. Having helped to win
her case, any slight put upon her would be warmly resented by him.

Had Rosamund put upon her a slight? Had she deliberately avoided the
dinner?

Dion was on the point of getting into the spare-room bed when he asked
himself that question. As he pulled back the clothes he heard a dry
little sound. It was Robin's cough. He stole to the door and opened it.
As he did so he saw the tail of Rosamund's dressing-gown disappearing
over the threshold of the nursery. The nursery door shut softly behind
her, and Dion got into bed feeling heartily ashamed of his suspicion.
How low it was to search for hidden motives in such a woman as Rosamund.
He resolved never to do that again. He lay in bed listening, but he did
not hear Robin's cough again, and he wondered if the child was already
old enough to be what nurses call "artful," whether he had made use of
his little affliction to get h