"Move along here, please! Move on! Move on!"
"All right, constable," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling unmirthfully; "I'll move on—and move out!"
He extricated himself from the swaying, groaning, cursing multitude, and stepped across to the opposite side of the street. Lost in unpleasant meditation, he stood, a spruce, military figure, bearing upon his exterior nothing indicative of the ruined man. He was quite unaware of the approach of a graceful, fair girl, whose fresh English beauty already had enslaved the imaginations of some fifty lawyers' clerks returning from lunch. As ignorant of her train of conquests as Haredale was ignorant of her presence, she came up to him—and tears gleamed upon her lashes. She stood beside him, and he did not see her.
"Dick!"
The voice aroused him, and a flush came upon his tanned, healthy-looking face. A beam of gladness and admiration lost itself in a cloud, as mechanically he raised his hat, and, holding the girl's hand, glanced uneasily aside, fearing to meet the anxious tenderness in the blue eyes which, now, were deepened to something nearer violet.
"It is true, then?" she asked softly.
He nodded, his lips grimly compressed.
"Who told you," he questioned in turn, "that I had my poor scrapings in it?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said wearily. "And it doesn't matter much, does it?"
"Come away somewhere," Haredale suggested. "We can't stand here."