“No.”

“Made any friends?”

“The landlady’s little boy. I take him for walks sometimes.”

“Good. Can you understand anything he says?”

“He doesn’t talk a great deal. And I’m learning English lessons from a book. I never had time before.”

Up to then he had talked in German; now he said, in English: “I shall have to brush up my German, too, then we’ll be quits. Do you really like children?”

“Yes, indeed.”

He had a sudden idea.

“I’ve got a little boy, you know. He’s nine. It would be a change for him to come to Sandmouth, but I’ve never known quite what to do with him while I make my round of visits. I wonder if … if I were to bring him next week … I could leave him in your charge for a few hours?”

“Yes, please.”

“But I’m afraid he’s not quite an ordinary little boy.”

“No?”

“He’s rather nervous and excitable — and sometimes difficult — do you know what I mean?”

“I don’t mind. Please bring him.”

It was just an idea, and one which, had he thought twice, he might never have put forward; for it was always possible that Jessica would object, and he disliked arguing with her. Jessica, however, was glad enough to have Gerald out of the house for a day, and quite indifferent when David explained that he had a patient at Sandmouth who had promised to act as nursemaid while he made his calls.

The arrangement, therefore, stood; but it entailed a good deal of trouble which Jessica herself would scarcely have thought worth while. David did not mind. He was careful to wait at the very front end of the stations at both Calderbury and Marsland Junction, so that the train did not rush by as it entered the station; that always terrified Gerald, and David understood as if it were the most natural thing in the world; which, indeed, he knew it was, in Gerald’s world. And then there were the actual hours of travel, during which the boy was apt to get tired and fidgety, so that he sometimes made himself a nuisance to others in the compartment.

Nevertheless, they reached Sandmouth without trouble and called immediately at the boarding house. David was a little apprehensive, because Gerald was apt to take sudden dislikes to strangers; but the first encounter seemed to him to pass well enough, and he left on a tiptoe of hopefulness that did not quite amount to confidence. When he called back later in the afternoon he found the two of them eating pink ice cream out of huge cones. “Ice cream is a thing you should never have unless you know where it comes from!” Jessica would have exclaimed, indignantly; but David, neither knowing nor caring where it came from, merely smiled: for the boy at that moment looked just like any other boy. It had been a dream that that should begin to happen some day.

“How did you manage?” he asked later.