"Yus," said Connie.
She dried her eyes.
"Go on talking, Ronald," she said. "I never met a boy like you. I thought there were no one like Giles, but it seems to me some'ow that you're a bit better—you're so wonnerful, wonnerful brave, and 'ave such a cunnin' way of talkin'. I s'pose that's 'cos you—you're a little gen'leman, Ronald."
Ronald made no answer to this. After a minute he said:
"There's no thanks to me to be brave—that is, when I'm brave it's all on account of father, and 'Like father, like son.' Mother used to teach me that proverb when I was very small. Shall I tell you other things that father did?"
"Oh yus, please," said Connie.
"He saved some people once in a great big fire. No one else had courage to go in, but he wasn't afraid of anything. And another time he saved a man on the field of battle. He got his V. C. for that."
"Wotever's a V. C.?" inquired Connie.
"Oh," said Ronald, "don't you even know that? How very ignorant you are, dear Connie. A V. C.—why, it's better to be a Victoria Cross man than to be the greatest noble in the land. Even the King couldn't be more than a Victoria Cross man."
"Still, I don't understand," said Connie.