"Oh, lor!" he said again. "To think I've travelled night and day and raced down from town in a motor to get here first, and he beat me by an hour and a half! However, if he's all right, no harm's done."
He dropped into Ronnie's chair, and rumpled his hair still further with his hands.
"I must try to explain," he said.
Then he lifted a rather white, very grubby face to Helen's. His lips twitched.
"I'm dry," he said; and dropped his face into his hands.
Helen rang the bell.
"Bring whisky and soda at once," she ordered, the instant Simpkins appeared in the doorway.
Then she crossed over, and laid her hand lightly on her visitor's broad shoulder.
"Don't try to explain," she said kindly, "until you have had something. I am sure I know who you are. You appear in all sorts of cricket and football groups in Ronnie's dressing-room. You are Ronnie's special chum, Dick Cameron."
Dick did not lift his head. As a matter of fact, at that moment he could not. But, though his throat contracted, so that speech became impossible, in his heart he was saying: "What a woman! Lor, what a woman! Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have offered me tea—and tea that had stood an hour; and the hundredth would have sent for a policeman! But she jumps instantly to whisky and soda; and then walks across and makes me feel at home. Eh, well! We shall save old Ronnie between us."