“And you ask me to take his father’s place!” was in Dion’s mind.
But she met his eyes so earnestly and with such sincerity that he only said:
“Of course I’ll read with him in the mornings.”
Despite the ardent protests to Jimmy Dion kept his promise. Soon Mrs. Clarke’s numerous acquaintances knew of the morning hours of study. She had happened to tell Sir Carey Ingleton about Jimmy’s backwardness in book-learning and Mr. Leith’s kind efforts to “get him on during the holidays.” Sir Carey had spoken of it to Cyril Vane. The thing “got about.” The name of Dion Leith began to be connected rather with Jimmy Clarke than with Mrs. Clarke. Continually Dion and Jimmy were seen about together. Mrs. Clarke, meanwhile, often went among her friends alone, and when they asked about Jimmy she would say:
“Oh, he’s gone off somewhere with Mr. Leith. I don’t know where. Mr. Leith’s a regular boy’s man and was a great chum of Jimmy’s in London; used to show him how to box and that sort of thing. It’s partly for Jimmy that he came to Buyukderer. They read together in the mornings. Mr. Leith’s getting Jimmy on in Greek.”
Sometimes she would add:
“Mr. Leith loves boys, and since his own child died so sadly I think he’s taken to Jimmy more than ever.”
Soon people began to talk of Dion Leith as “Jimmy Clarke’s holiday tutor.” Once, when this was said in Lady Ingleton’s drawing-room at Therapia, she murmured:
“I don’t think it quite amounts to that. Mr. Leith has never been a schoolmaster.”
And there she left it, with a faint smile in which there was just the hint of an almost cynical sadness.