“And I’m sure you will.”
“Why are you sure?”
“That I can’t tell you. Why is one sometimes sure that certain things will come about?”
“Do you claim to be psychic?” said Dion.
“I never make verbal claims. Now about Jimmy.”
She discussed for a little while seriously her plans for the boy’s education while he stayed with her. She had found a tutor, a young Oxford man, who would accompany them to Turkey, but she wanted Dion’s advice on certain points. He gave it, wondering all the time why she consulted him after his neglect of her and of her son, after his failure to accept invitations and to fulfil pledges (or to stick to the understandings which were almost pledges), after the tacit refusals of Rosamund. Did it not show a strange persistence, even a certain lack of pride in her? Perhaps she heard the haunting questions which he did not utter, for she suddenly turned from the topic of the boy and said:
“You’re surprised at my bothering you with all this when we really know each other so slightly. It is unconventional; but I shall never learn the way to conventionality in spite of all poor Esme’s efforts to shepherd me into the path he thinks narrow and I find broad—a way that leads to destruction. I feel you absolutely understand boys, and know by instinct the best way with them. That’s why I still come to you.”
She paused. She had deliberately driven home her meaning by a stress on one word. Now she sat looking at him, with a wide-eyed and deeply grave fixity, as if considering what more she should say. Dion murmured something about being very glad if he could help her in any way with regard to Jimmy.
“You can be conventional,” she remarked. “Well, why not? Most English people are perpetually playing for safety.”
“I wish you wouldn’t go back to Constantinople,” said Dion.