"So I understand."
"Do you think there will be any difficulty in my obtaining permission to travel on it? The station-master says that permission is not given to ladies unaccompanied."[226]
She looked at him almost imploringly.
"I really must go on that train," she said in a low voice. "It is desperately necessary. Could you—could you manage to arrange it for me? I would be so grateful!—so deeply grateful!"
"I'll do what I can," said that unimaginative man. "Probably bribery can fix it——"
"There might be—if—if—you would be willing—if you didn't object—I know it sounds very strange—but my case is so desperate——" She checked herself, flushing a delicate pink. And he waited.
Then, very resolutely she looked up at him:
"Would you—could you p-pretend that I am—am—your sister?"
"Certainly," he said. An immense happiness seized him. He was not only up to his neck in Romance. It was already over his head, and he was out of his depth, and swimming.
"Certainly," he repeated quietly, controlling his joy by a supreme effort. "That would be the simplest way out of it, after all."