‘Indeed you must go in at once out of the rain—with my most grateful thanks for what you have done.’
‘To be sure,’ said Emmy, ‘no lady would be likely to stay out in such a wet night—but there are two or three people who keep lodgings in Watcham where I could inquire for you—or I could go to the early train and see if she goes by that. But you must describe her—what she looks like, and what I should say——’
‘And you would really take all this trouble for me?’
‘Oh, for any one!’ cried Emmy. Then she laughed, and added: ‘That does not sound very civil. Of course I should do everything I could—a great deal more—for you, who are a—friend. But I mean I would do that much—or any of us would do it—for any one. You know my father is the Rector. It is in a kind of way our business to be of any use we can—especially,’ she added, ‘when it is a question of right and wrong.’
‘You are too good,’ said Leo. ‘You are too systematically good. I don’t want to be helped merely because I am a fellow-creature, which I fear is what it comes to. I should like—very much—to be helped—because it was me——’
‘And it would be because it was you,’ said Emmy. These words were far more pleasant to hear, on both sides, than it is to be feared they were intended to be—but they were even upon Leo’s part perfectly sincere. He wanted to be more than merely any one, to be helped and served for his own sake, and perhaps it did not occur to him that to an unsophisticated girl like Emmy (of whose romance, to be sure, he was profoundly ignorant) such words as those meant more than they did to him.
‘You are very wet,’ she said suddenly; ‘will you come into the Rectory and get dried? Perhaps you could wear some of Jim’s things. You ought not to be so long in your damp clothes.’
This motherly solicitude amused Leo much, and, to tell the truth, he began to forget the annoyance of his unsuccessful quest and to feel very uncomfortable in his wetness, and disposed towards a little light and warmth. He hesitated for a moment. ‘It would be wise to go home at once,’ he said, ‘and change my wet things there.’
‘Oh!’ said Emmy, who had indeed expected no favourable answer to her invitation, ‘I am sure mamma would be very sorry if you went away that long walk without resting. She would ask you to share our dinner and go home in the fly—for it means to rain on, I am sure, all night.’
‘Do you think Mrs. Plowden would be so very good?’ Leo said.