"I hear you're thinking of deserting."
She stood before him, her bosom rising and falling.
"Ruth," he said gravely, "you've got to make a home for me while I'm here. I'm a pore lone orphan—no mother, or sister, or friends. You've got to mend me and mind me, as my old nurse used to say. D'you see? I look to you."
"Very well, sir," answered Ruth.
Whatever else Ruth might feel about Captain Royal, there was no doubt that she admired him. And to do the man justice, there was not a little to admire. In any company, except the best, he shone. And on the Third Floor, in that meretricious atmosphere of fat-necked Jews, dubious foreigners, and degenerate Englishmen, Royal with his strenuous ways of the public-school boy, his athletic figure, and keen walk stood out like a sword among gamps in an umbrella-stand.
He lived too with the deliberate speed of the man who knows his goal and means to get there.
There was no need to call him. He was up every morning at 6.15, and into the sea, rain or fine, rough or smooth, at 6.30. At 7 he was back again in his room, stripped, and doing physical exercises. At 8 Ruth brought his breakfast; and by 9 he had settled to his morning's work. After lunch he golfed; then to his crammer; and in the evening he relaxed over a billiard-table or in the card-room.
Sometimes he went off for the night to Town.
On the first of these occasions Ernie carried his bag to the taxi with a joy for which he himself could not account.
"What!—are you off, sir?" he asked gaily. "I thought we was going to keep you all your leave."