He stood looking at her for a moment; then, without another word, he turned quickly away and disappeared among the trees.
Jimmy slept with his face hidden, and Mrs. Clarke, with wide-open eyes, sat motionless staring into the forest.
When they reached the Villa Hafiz late in the afternoon Dion helped Mrs. Clarke to dismount. As she slid down lightly from the saddle she whispered, scarcely moving her lips:
“The pavilion to-night eleven. You’ve got the key.”
She patted Selim’s glossy black neck.
“Come, Jimmy!” she said. “Say good night to Mr. Leith. I’m sure he’s tired and has had more than enough of us for to-day. We’ll give him a rest from us till to-morrow.”
And Jimmy bade Dion good-by without any protest.
As Dion rode off Mrs. Clarke did not turn to look after him. She had not troubled even to question him with her eyes. She had assumed that he would do what she wanted. Would he do that?
At first he believed that he would not go. He had been away in the forest with his misery for nearly two hours, struggling among the shadows of the trees. Jimmy had seen in the pavilion that morning that his “holiday tutor” was strangely ill at ease, and had discussed the matter with his mater, and asked her why on earth the sight of a page of Greek grammar should make a fellow stand staring as if he were confronted by a ghost. But Jimmy had no conception of what Dion had been through in the forest, where happy Greeks and Armenians were lazily enjoying the empty hours of summer, forgetting yesterday, and serenely careless of to-morrow.
In the forest Dion had fought with an old love of which he began to be angrily ashamed, with a love which was now his greatest enemy, a thing contemptible, inexplicable. In the pavilion that morning it had suddenly risen up before him strong, intense, passionate. It seemed irresistible. But he was almost furiously resolved not merely to resist it, but to crush it down, to break it in pieces, or to drive it finally out of his life.