He waited on the terrace while Dion went into the pavilion. As Dion took up “The Kasidah” he glanced down at the page at which Mrs. Clarke had chanced to set the book open, and read:
“Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from
None but self expect applause——”
With a feeling of cold and abject soul-nausea he shut the book, put it away on a bookshelf in which he saw a gap, and went to turn out the lamp. As the flame flickered and died out he heard Jimmy’s foot shift on the terrace.
“Do what thy manhood bids thee do——”
Dion stood for a moment in the dark. He was in a darkness greater than any which reigned in the pavilion. His soul seemed to him to be pressing against it, to be hemmed in by it as by towering walls of iron. For an instant he shut his eyes. And when he did that he saw, low down, a little boy’s figure, two small outstretched hands groping.
Robin!
“Aren’t you coming, Mr. Leith? What’s the matter?”
“I was just seeing that the lamp was thoroughly out.”
“Well——”
Dion came out.