On arriving at Claridge’s Dion found Jimmy alone. Mrs. Clarke was out but would return in a moment. Jimmy received his visitor not stiffly but with exuberant and vociferous reproaches, and vehement demands to know the why and wherefore of his unsportsmanlike behavior.
“I’ve ordered you a real jam tea all the same,” he concluded, with a magnanimity which did him honor, and which, as he was evidently aware, proved him to be a true sportsman.
“You’re a trump,” said Dion, pulling the boy down beside him on a sofa.
“Oh, well—but I say, why didn’t you come?”
He stared with the mercilessly inquiring eyes of boyhood.
“I don’t think I ever said on my honor that I would come.”
“But you did. You swore.”
“No. I was afraid of the policeman.”
“I say, what rot! As if you could be afraid of any one! Why, Jenkins says you’re the best pupil he’s ever had. Why didn’t you? Don’t you like us?”
“Of course I do.”