and is getting on
splendidly. We are both grateful to you, and hope to tell you so. Come
whenever you feel inclined, but only then. I love complete liberty too
well ever to wish to deprive another of it--even if I could. How wise of
your wife to stay by the sea. I hope it's doing wonders for the baby who
(mercifully) isn't wonderful.--Yours sincerely,

"CYNTHIA CLARKE"

After receiving this communication Dion felt that he simply must go
to see Mrs. Clarke, and he called at the hotel and asked for her about
five-thirty on the following afternoon. She was out, and he left his
card, feeling rather relieved. Next morning he had a note regretting she
had missed him, and asking him, "when" he came again, to let her know
beforehand at what time he meant to arrive so that she might be in. He
thanked her, and promised to do this, but he did not repeat his visit.
By this time, quite unreasonably he supposed, he had begun to feel
decidedly uncomfortable about the whole affair. Yet, when he considered
it fully and fairly, he told himself that he was a fool to imagine that
there could be anything in it which was not quite usual and natural.
He had been sympathetic to Mrs. Clarke when she was passing through
an unpleasant experience; he was Daventry's good friend; he was also a
friend of Mrs. Chetwinde and of Esme Darlington; naturally, therefore,
Mrs. Clarke was inclined to number him among those who had "stuck to
her" when she was being cruelly attacked. Where was the awkwardness in
the situation? After denying to himself that there was any awkwardness
he quite suddenly and quite clearly realized one evening that such
denial was useless. There was awkwardness, and it arose simply from
Rosamund's passive resistance to the faint pressure--he thought it
amounted to that--applied by Mrs. Clarke. This it was which had given
him, which gave him still, a sensation obscure, but definite, of
contest.

Mrs. Clarke meant to know Rosamund, and Rosamund didn't mean to know
Mrs. Clarke. Well, then, the obvious thing for him to do was to keep out
of Mrs. Clarke's way. In such a matter Rosamund must do as she liked.
He had no intention of attempting to force upon her any one, however
suitable as an acquaintance or even as a friend, whom she didn't want
to know. He loved her far too well to do that. He decided not to mention
Mrs. Clarke again to Rosamund when he went down to Westgate; but somehow
or other her name came up, and her boy was ment