Dion an impression which was not pleasant, and he could not
help wondering whether, during the conversation, his friend had told him
a direct and deliberate lie.

No more dinners were given by Beattie and Daventry at the Carlton.
Robin's health continued to be excellent. Mrs. Clarke was never
mentioned at 5 Little Market Street, and she gave to the Leiths no sign
of life, though Dion knew that she was still in London and was going to
stay on there until the spring. He did not meet her, although she knew
many of those whom he knew. This was partly due, perhaps, to chance; but
it was also partly due to deliberate action by Dion. He avoided going to
places where he thought he might meet her: to Esme Darlington's, to Mrs.
Chetwinde's, to one or two other houses which she frequented; he even
gave up visiting Jenkins's gymnasium because he knew she continued to
go there regularly with Jimmy Clarke, whom, since the divorce case, with
his father's consent, she had taken away from school and given to the
care of a tutor. All this was easy enough, and required but little
management on account of Rosamund's love of home and his love of what
she loved. Since Robin's coming she had begun to show more and more
plainly her root-indifference to the outside pleasures and attractions
of the world, was becoming, Dion thought, week by week, more cloistral,
was giving the rein, perhaps, to secret impulses which marriage had
interfered with for a time, but which were now reviving within her.
Robin was a genuine reason, but perhaps also at moments an excuse. Was
there not sometimes in the quiet little house, quiet unless disturbed by
babyhood's occasional outbursts, a strange new atmosphere, delicate and
subdued, which hinted at silent walks, at twilight dreamings, at slowly
pacing feet, bowed heads and wide-eyed contemplation? Or was all this
a fancy of Dion's, bred in him by Rosamund's revelation of an old and
haunting desire? He did not know; but he did know that sometimes, when
he heard her warm voice singing at a little distance from him within
their house, he thought of a man's voice, in some dim and remote chapel
with stained-glass windows, singing an evening hymn in the service of
Benediction.

In the midst of many friends, in the midst of the enormous City,
Rosamund effected, or began to effect, a curiously intent withdrawal,
and Dion, as it were, accompanied her; or perhaps it were truer to say,
followed after her. He loved quiet