“Don’t pay me compliments,” Rupert replied, colouring. “I am not accustomed to them; and if you do, I shall be obliged to return them with interest.”
“You can’t,” Edith answered merrily. “There is nothing of me to be seen in this cloak.”
“Except your face, which is beautiful enough,” he blurted out, whereat it was her turn to colour.
“There,” he went on awkwardly, as at length the cab started, piled up with luggage. “It was awfully kind of you to come to meet me, all alone too, and so late. I never expected it, and I am most grateful.”
“Why, Rupert, how can you suppose that I should do anything else? Unless I had broken my leg or something, I should have been there if it had been three in the morning. It’s the greatest pleasure I have had for a long while, and, Rupert, I—I mean we—are all so proud of you.”
“Oh, please don’t, Edith,” he broke in. “I have done nothing more than my duty, not very well always, and have been rewarded much above my merits, while many better men were overlooked—perhaps because I am supposed to have prospects. Say no more about it or we shall quarrel.”
“Then I won’t. I don’t want to quarrel, I want to be friends with you, for I haven’t many. But you mustn’t be angry if I can’t help feeling proud all the same that one among the lot of us has at last done something worth the doing, instead of wasting his time and strength and money in every sort of horrid dissipation, like horse-racing and gambling.”
Rupert muttered something about such occupations always leading to trouble.
“Yes, indeed,” she answered, “and you mustn’t think me a prig for speaking like that, for I am not good myself a bit. I wish I were. But we had such a lesson lately, with that wretched Dick with whom I was brought up like a sister, you know, and scandals in the paper, and all that sort of thing, that I can’t help feeling rather bitter, and glad that there is one of us whose name appears in the papers in another way.”
As she spoke the light of a passing carriage-lamp fell full upon her earnest face and wide blue eyes, and Rupert understood how pure and beautiful they were.