"Thank you very much, but I am sure that we ought not to need any more, and I will be very, very careful not to waste our funds," she said, smiling up at him, but her lips quivered a little in spite of her determination to maintain a Spartan-like control of her emotions.
"Money melts when you are travelling, and you are all such babies in the matter of finance. Let me see what I have in my pocket," he said, thrusting his hand in and tugging out a bulky purse from some mysterious inner depths. "Three, five, seven, ten. Yes, I can let you have ten pounds. Put it in your pocket and say nothing about it. If you do not need it for your journey you can keep it as a little gift from me and spend it for your own pleasure."
"You are so very kind, I cannot think what we should have done without you in getting away; you seem to have forgotten nothing, and I am sure that Father will be most grateful to you," she said, looking at him with so much trust and affection in her eyes that his conscience pricked him dreadfully for what he knew to be his selfish eagerness to shift a heavy burden on to the shoulders of someone else.
SAYING GOODBYE TO MR. RUNCIMAN
"It is no great virtue to be kind to you, child; indeed it would be a hard heart that would be anything else," he said in a deeply moved tone; and because the bell began to ring then, in warning to people to leave the ship, he took both her hands in his, and, leaning down, kissed her on the forehead; then with a nod in the direction of the others, who at the sound of the bell had gathered round to bid him a civil goodbye, he disappeared down the gangway and was lost to view in the crowd.
"The old chappy cut up quite decent at the last. I expect it was that little poem of mine which fetched him," said Rumple, who was strutting round like a peacock in a new suit of clothes and feeling himself someone of importance.
"Hush, dear, don't call him names, I do not like it," said Nealie with gentle dignity, while she struggled with her tears.
"Are you crying over saying goodbye to Mr. Runciman?" asked Sylvia in a wondering tone. "I thought we all made up our minds ages ago that he was really an unmitigated nuisance?"