He left the fireplace and went nearer to her.
The dream dropped away from him.
"Some friend of yours is in trouble?" he asked. He smiled at her. "You were quite right to come to me. I am only too glad to do anything for any one in trouble, but more especially I am glad to do anything for any one who is dear to you."
Camilla bit her lip, and moved a little away from him, approaching the fire in her turn.
"How good you are!" she said. The words were wrung from her involuntarily, and there were tears in her eyes and tears in her voice. Indeed, he moved her sharply at this moment.
There was such an element of simplicity about him and yet no weakness. He accepted her story without question. The flimsy fabrication she had just given him was merely the truth to him, essentially so because it was she who spoke. No other man she knew would have been deceived by this story of a friend in the country, but Rupert was not like all these other men. He was very far removed from being a fool, but he was a long, long way from grasping the meaning of life as it was lived by most of the men and women who circled about him now.
Why, he was in many things a child compared to herself!...
Haverford had set down to his writing-table.
"In any matter of this kind," he said, "I beg you will use me in every way that may seem good to you, Mrs. Lancing. I gather that your friend needs immediate help; pray do not let her be troubled an hour longer than is possible."
He signed a blank cheque, and slipped it into an envelope.