"Well, I'm blowed! Mater, he's almost as hard as Jenkins."

His mother gave Dion a swift considering look, and then at once began
to consult him about Jimmy's hip. The visit ended with an application by
Dion of Elliman's embrocation, for which one of the hotel page-boys was
sent to the nearest chemist.

"I say, mind you come again, Mr. Leith!" vociferated Jimmy, when Dion
was going. "You're better than doctors, you know."

Mrs. Clarke did not back up her son's frank invitation. She only thanked
Dion quietly in her husky voice, and bade him good-by with an "I know
how busy you must be, and how difficult you must find it ever to pay a
call. You've been very good to us." At the door she added, "I've never
seen Jimmy take so much to anyone as to you." As Dion went down the
stairs something in him was gently glowing. He was glad that young
rascal had taken to him at sight. The fact gave him confidence when he
thought of Robin and the future.

It occurred to him, as he turned into the Greville Club, that Mrs.
Clarke had not once mentioned Rosamund during his visit.

CHAPTER VII

When Rosamund, Robin and the nurse came back to London on the last day
of September, Beatrice and Daventry were settled in their home. They
had taken a flat in De Lorne Gardens, Kensington, high up on the seventh
floor of a big building, which overlooked from a distance the trees of
Kensington Gardens. Their friends soon began to call on them, and one
of the first to mount up in the lift to their "hill-top," as Daventry
called their seventh floor, was Mrs. Clarke. A few nights after her
call the Daventrys dined in Little Market Street, and Daventry, whose
happiness had raised him not only to the seventh-floor flat, but also
to the seventh heaven, mentioned that she had been, and that they
were going to dine with her at Claridge's on the following night. He
enlarged, almost with exuberance, upon her _savoir-vivre_, her knowledge
and taste, and said Beattie was delighted with her. Beatrice did not
deny it. She was never exuberant, but she acknowledged that she had
found Mrs. Clarke attractive and interesting.

"A lot of the clever ones are going to-morrow," said Daventry. He
mentioned several, both women and men, among them a lady who was famed
for her exclusiveness as well as for her brains.

Evidently Mrs. Chetwinde had been speaking by the book when she had said
at the trial, "If she wins, she wins, and it's all right. If she
gets the v