"Well, it's just possible. He left me about six; said he had to see some one, too, now I think of it. But I'd give a bit to know what he was doing, messing about down here at the last moment!"
Blanche liked this as little as anything that Cazalet had said yet, and he had said nothing that she did like this morning. But there were allowances to be made for him, she knew. And yet to strengthen her knowledge, or rather to let him confirm it for her, either by word or by his silence, she stated a certain case for him aloud.
"Poor old Sweep!" she laughed. "It's a shame that you should have come home to be worried like this."
"I am worried," he said simply.
"I think it's just splendid, all you're doing for that poor man, but especially the way you're doing it."
"I wish to God you wouldn't say that, Blanche!"
He paid her the compliment of speaking exactly as he would have spoken to a man; or rather, she happened to be the woman to take it as a compliment.
"But I do say it, Sweep! I've heard all about it from Charlie. He rang me up last night."
"You're on the telephone, are you?"