“Trousers,” said Mr. Maturin, “are closely connected with chivalry, insomuch as he who commits chivalry without them is to be considered a rude fellow. But, child,” Mr. Maturin protested sincerely, “we addressed you only in the hope that we might be of some service in the extremity of your grief. I assure you that you can trust us, for since we are no longer soldiers rape and crime have ceased to attract us. However, you do not need us. We were wrong. We will go.”
“It was I who was wrong!” came the low voice; and Mr. Trevor says that only then did the young lady raise her face, when it was instantly as though the beauty of that small face sent the surrounding darkness scurrying away. Not, however, that Mr. Trevor was impressed altogether in the young lady’s favour. Her eyes, which were large, dark and charming, appeared to rest on handsome Beau Maturin with an intentness which Mr. Trevor can only describe as bold; while her disregard of his own presence might have hurt him had he, says Mr. Trevor, cared two pins for that kind of thing.
“You see, I have not eaten to-day,” the young lady told Beau Maturin, who cried: “But, then, we can help you!”
“Ah, how do I know! Please,” the young lady began weeping again, and Mr. Trevor says that had he not hardened his heart he could not say what he might not have done. “Please, sirs, I simply do not know what to do! I am so unhappy, so alone—oh, but you cannot imagine! You are gentlemen?”
“Speaking for my friend,” said Mr. Maturin warmly, “he has been asked to resign from Buck’s Club only after repeated bankruptcies.”
“Mr. Maturin,” said Mr. Trevor, “has in his time been cashiered from no less a regiment than the Coldstream Guards.”
The young lady did not, however, favour Mr. Trevor with so much as a glance, never once taking her beautiful eyes from the handsome face of Beau Maturin. Indeed, throughout the course of that miserable night she admirably controlled any interest Mr. Trevor might have aroused in her, which Mr. Trevor can only account for by the supposition that she must have been warned against him. Beau Maturin, meanwhile, had taken the young lady’s arm, a familiarity with which Mr. Trevor cannot too strongly dissociate himself, and was saying:
“Child, you may come with us, if not with honour, at least with safety. And while you refresh yourself with food and drink you can tell us, if you please, the tale of your troubles. Can’t she, Ralph?”
“I don’t see,” said Mr. Trevor, “what good we can do.”
“Your friend,” said the young lady sadly to Beau Maturin, “does not like me. Perhaps you had better leave me alone to my misery.”