t it never could, that it was his destiny to be
husband rather than parent, the eternal lover rather than the eternal
father. Rosamund's destiny was perhaps to be the eternal mother. She had
never been exactly a lover. Perhaps her remarkable and beautiful
purity of disposition had held her back from being that. Force, energy,
vitality, strong feelings, she had; but the peculiar something in which
body seems mingled with soul, in which soul seems body and body soul,
was apparently lacking in her. Dion had perhaps never, with full
consciousness, missed that element in her till Robin made his
appearance; but Robin, in his bubbling innocence, and almost absurd
consciousness of himself and of others, did many things that were not
unimportant. He even had the shocking impertinence to open his father's
eyes, and to show him truths in a bright light--truths which, till now,
had remained half-hidden in shadow; babyhood enlightened youth, the
youth persisting hardily because it had never sown wild oats. Robin did
not know that; he knew, in fact scarcely anything except when he wanted
nourishment and when he desired repose. He also knew his mother, knew
her mystically and knew her greedily, with knowledge which seemed of
God, and with an awareness whose parent was perhaps a vital appetite.
At other people he gazed and bubbled but with a certain infantile
detachment, though his nurse, of course, declared that she had never
known a baby to take such intelligent notice of all created things
in its neighborhood. "He knows," she asseverated, with the air of one
versed in mysteries, "he knows, does little master, who's who as well as
any one, and a deal better than some that prides themselves on this and
that, a little upsy-daisy-dear!"

Mrs. Leith senior paid him occasional visits, which Dion found just
the least bit trying. Since Omar had been killed, Dion had felt more
solicitous about his mother, who had definitely refused ever to have
another dog. If he had been allowed to give her a dog he would have felt
more easy about her, despite Beatrice's quiet statement of why Omar had
meant so much. As he might not do that, he begged his mother to come
very often to Little Market Street and to become intimate with Robin.
But when he saw her with Robin he was generally embarrassed, although
she was obviously enchanted with that gentleman, for whose benefit she
was amazingly prodigal of nods and becks and wreathed smiles. It was
a pity, he t