[p17]
“Has he got you under his wing?” asked he.
“The guard has me under his care; ma—mamma asked him to see me safe.” The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.
“So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn’t,” thought Dick. Aloud he said bluffly, “’Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, ‘Have you got a ticket, or money to buy one?’”
“Oh, but they’d not let you come without a ticket,” smiled Inna.
“I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father knew I was all right about money, because he’d just sent my quarter’s allowance.”
“And have they got the measles at your school?”
“Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know.”
“Afraid? oh no!”
“Well, if you caught it you’d be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A doctor at a farm [p18] —queer, isn’t it, now?” So Dick went skimming from subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of water after flies and gnats.
“Yes,” Inna could but confess it was—very guardedly, though, lest they might verge upon gossip again.