The boy made him feel tremendously intimate with Mrs. Clarke. The hero-worship he was receiving, the dancing of the blood through his veins, the glow of hard exercise, the verdict of Jenkins on his physical condition—all these things combined spurred him to a joyous exuberance in which body and mind seemed to run like a matched pair of horses in perfect accord. Although not at all a conceited man, the feeling that he was being admired, even reverenced, was delightful to him, and warmed his heart towards the jolly small boy who kept along by his side through the busy streets. He and Jimmy talked in a comradely spirit, while Mrs. Clarke seemed to listen like one who has things to learn. She was evidently a capital walker in spite of her delicate appearance. To-day Dion began to believe in her iron health, and, in his joy of the body, he liked to think of it. After all delicacy, even in a woman, was a fault—a fault of the body, a sort of fretful imperfection.
“Are you strong?” he said to her, when Jimmy’s voice ceased for a moment to demand from him information or to pour upon him direct statement.
“Oh yes. I’ve never been seriously ill in my life. Don’t I look strong?” she asked.
“I don’t think you do, but I feel as if you are.”
“It’s the wiry kind of strength, I suppose.”
“The mater’s a stayer,” quoth Jimmy, and forthwith took up the wondrous tale with his hero, who began to consult him seriously on the question of “points.”
“If you’d had to give a decision, Jimmy, which of us would have got it, Jenkins or I?”
Jimmy looked very grave and earnest.
“It’s jolly difficult to tell a thing like that, isn’t it?” he said, after a longish pause. “You see, you’re both so jolly strong, aren’t you?”
His dark eyes gazed at the bulk of Dion.