"It sounds like a Deserving Case. Oh, dear, I do hope she isn't a deserving case? I've had so many thrust under my nose in the last seven weeks, and I'm sorry to say the undeserving ones are usually more interesting. They're all undeserving ones who're coming to tea."
"If you'd call on her, you could see for yourself whether you thought she was deserving or not."
"That's the way I'm to help her—by calling? I thought perhaps I was to get her out of pawn, or something, by buying her jewellery. But I had to tell you, if that was what you wanted, I couldn't do much, for all my pocket money is exhausted, owing to so many people coming and crying tears as large as eggs all over the living-room—quite strange people I've never seen before. You can't conceive, Dick, the cataracts of tears that have poured over this rug you admire so much."
"I don't understand," said Carleton, looking blank. "Unless you want to switch me off the subject of——"
"The Poor Dear? No, indeed. But you couldn't be expected to understand, not being a chaplain's wife at Monte Carlo. You see, they hear we're kind, so they call, and then begin to cry and offer me pawn tickets as security."
"Who are 'they'?"
"Oh, poor creatures—seldom poor dears—who've lost, you know. As I suppose your one has?"
"On the contrary," said Dick, almost sharply. "She's won tremendous sums. She simply can't lose—anything except her head."
"Not her heart? But without joking, if she isn't a 'case,' why do you want me to——"
"Because I think she ought to have some one to look after her, some one who knows the ropes. Honestly, Rose, I'd be awfully obliged if you'd call."