“It hasn’t made any difference, you know.”
It was her turn to feel embarrassed.
“But you understood——”
“Yes, I understood all right. But I want to say just this, I respect you all the more for having been straight with me, and if you’ll let me have a waiting chance, I’ll make the best of it. I won’t bother you. I’ve got a sense of proportion. I’m not the sort of man a woman would get sentimental over in a hurry.”
Her eyes glimmered.
“You are one of the best men I have ever met. In a city of cads, it is good to find a man who has a sense of honour.”
He went very red, and seemed to choke something back.
“I shan’t forget that in a hurry. But look here, put the other thing aside, and let’s just think of ourselves as jolly good friends. Now, I want you to let me do some of the rough and tumble for you. I’m used to it. One gets a business skin.”
“I am not going to bother you.”
“Bosh! And if you happen to want—well, you know what, any of the beastly stuff we pay our bills with——”