“You enabled me to continue my acquaintance with him here,” said Mrs. Clarke inflexibly.
Lady Ingleton was silent, and Mrs. Clarke continued:
“You know what I did, my efforts to interest him in all sorts of things. I even got Jimmy out because I knew Mr. Leith was fond of him, threw them together, even tried to turn Mr. Leith into a sort of holiday tutor. Anything to take him out of himself. Later on, when Jimmy went back to England, I though I would try hard to wake up Dion Leith’s mind.”
“Did you?” said Lady Ingleton, in her most languid voice.
“I took him about in Stamboul. I showed him all the interesting things that travelers as a rule know nothing about. I tried to make him feel Stamboul. I even spent the winter here chiefly because of him, though, of course, nobody must know that but you.”
“Entendu, ma chere!”
“But I’ve made a complete failure of it all.”
“You meant that Mr. Leith can’t take up life again?”
“He simply doesn’t care for the things of the mind. He has very few mental resources. I imagined that there was very much more in him to work upon than there is. If his heart receives a hard blow, an intellectual man can always turn for consolation to the innumerable things of art, philosophy, literature, that are food for the mind. But Mr. Leith unfortunately isn’t an intellectual man. And another thing——”
She had been speaking very quietly; now she paused.