with my solicitor, and expect to be here off and on for several
months. Perhaps October will see you back in town, but if you happen
to be in this dusty nothingness now, you might come and see me one
day.--Yours with goodwill,

"CYNTHIA CLARKE

"P. S.--My husband and I are separated, of course, but I have my boy a
good deal with me. He will be up with me to-morrow. I very much want to
take him to that physical instructor you spoke of to me. I forget the
name. Is it Hopkins?"

As Dion read this note in the little house he felt the soft warm grip
of Stamboul. Rosamund and Robin were staying at Westgate till the end of
September; he would go down there every week from Saturday till Monday.
It was now a Monday evening. Four London days lay before him. He put
away the letter and resolved to answer it on the morrow. This he did,
explaining that his wife was by the sea and would not be back till the
autumn. He added that the instructor's name was not Hopkins but Jenkins,
and gave Mrs. Clarke the address of the gymnasium. At the end of his
short note he expressed his intention of calling at Claridge's, but did
not say when he would come. He thought he would not fix the day and the
hour until he had been to Westgate. On a postcard Mrs. Clarke thanked
him for Jenkins's address, and concluded with "Suggest your own day,
or come and dine if you like. Perhaps, as you're alone, you'll prefer
that.--C. C."

At Westgate Dion showed Rosamund Mrs. Clarke's letter. As she read it
he watched her, but could gather nothing from her face. She was looking
splendidly well and, he thought, peculiarly radiant. A surely perfect
happiness gazed bravely out from her mother's eyes, changed in some
mysterious way since the coming of Robin.

"Well?" he said, as she gave him back the letter.

"It's very kind of her. Esme Darlington turns us all into swans, doesn't
he? He's a good-natured enchanter. How thankful she must be that it's
all right about her boy. Oh, here's Robin! Robino, salute your father!
He's a hard-bitten military man, and some day--who knows?--he'll have
to fight for his country. Dion, look at him! Now isn't he trying to
salute?"

"And that he is, ma'am!" cried the ecstatic nurse. "He knows, a boy!
It's trumpets, sir, and drums he's after already. He'll fight some day
with the best of them. Won't he then, a marchy-warchy-umtums?"

And Robin made reply with active fists and feet and martial noises,
assuming alternate expressi