Blake laughed.
"That's a flattering thing to hint. The man who's always on hand when he's wanted is an estimable person."
He studied her with an interest which she noticed but could not resent. The girl had changed and gained something since their first meeting, and he thought it was a knowledge of the world. She was, he felt, neither tainted nor hardened by what she had learned, but her fresh childish look which suggested ignorance of evil had gone and could not come back. Indeed, he wondered bow she had preserved it in her father's house. This was not a matter he could touch upon; but presently she referred to it.
"I imagine," she said shyly, "that on the evening when you came to my rescue in London you were surprised to find me—so unprepared; so incapable of dealing with the situation."
"That is true," Blake answered with some awkwardness. "A bachelor dinner, you know, after a big race meeting at which we had backed several winners! One has to make allowances."
Millicent smiled rather bitterly.
"You may guess that I had to make them often in those days; but it was on the evening we were speaking of that my eyes were first opened, and I was startled. But you must understand that it was not by my father's wish that I came to London and stayed with him—until the end. He urged me to go away; but his health had broken down and he had no one else to care for him. When he was no longer able to get about, everybody deserted him, and he felt it."
"I was truly sorry to hear of his death," Blake said. "Your father was once a very good friend to me. But, if I may ask, how was it he let you come to his flat?"
"I forced myself upon him. My mother died long ago, and her unmarried sisters took care of me. They lived very simply in a small secluded country house: two old-fashioned Evangelicals, gentle but austere, studying small economies, giving all they could away. In winter we embroidered for missionary bazaars; in summer we spent the days in a quiet, walled garden. It was all very peaceful, but I grew restless; and when I heard that my father's health was failing I felt that I must go to him. My aunts were grieved and alarmed, but they said they dare not hinder me if I thought it my duty."
Stirred by troubled memories and perhaps encouraged by the sympathy he showed, she had spoken on impulse without reserve, and Blake listened with pity. The girl, brought up, subject to wholesome Puritanical influences, in such surroundings as she had described, must have suffered a cruel shock when suddenly plunged into the society of the rakes and gamblers who frequented her father's flat.