Sangster laughed.
"That's nothing; it's been pawned fifty times since it first came into my possession, I should think. Don't think I'm asking for sympathy—I'm not. It's the sort of life that suits me, and I wouldn't change it for another—even if I had the chance. But the night I ran across Jimmy I was fairly up against it. I hadn't had a square meal for a week, and I was ill to add to the trouble. Jimmy was coming along Pall Mall in evening-dress. He was smoking a cigar that smelt good, and I wondered as he passed me if I dared go up and ask him for a shilling."
"Oh, Mr. Sangster!" He looked down hearing the distress in her voice.
"Don't look so sorry!" he said very gently. "It's all in a day's march for me. I've had my good times, and I've had my bad; and when I come to write the story of my life—when I'm a bloated millionaire, that is!" he added in laughing parenthesis—"it will make fine reading to know that I was once so hard up that I cadged a shilling off a swell in evening-dress!"
But Christine did not laugh; her eyes were almost tragic as she looked up wonderingly at Sangster's honest face.
"And—and did you ask him?" she questioned.
"Did I not!" said Sangster heartily. "I went up to him—Jimmy stopped dead, I believe he thought I was going to pinch his watch—and I said, 'Will you be a sport and lend me a bob?' Not a bit romantic, you see!"
Christine caught her breath.
"And did he—did he?" she asked eagerly.
Sangster laughed reminiscently.