“Oh, don’t speak of it!” said Ray. “I didn’t mean that. And you needn’t tell me now what you think of my book. But sometime you will, won’t you?” He drew forward a little nearer to her, where they sat in the light which had begun to wane. “Until then—until then—I want you to let me be the best friend you have in the world—the best friend I can be to any one.”
He stopped for some answer from her, and she said: “No one could be a truer friend to us than you have been, from the very first. And we have mixed you up so in our trouble!”
“Oh, no! But if it’s given me any sort of right to keep on coming to see Mrs. Denton and you, just as I used?”
XLII.
Ray went home ill at ease with himself. He spent a bad night, and he seemed to have sunk away only a moment from his troubles, when a knock at his door brought him up again into the midst of them. He realized them before he realized the knock sufficiently to call out, “Who’s there?”
“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth’s voice without; “you’re not up yet! Can I come in?”
“Certainly,” said Ray, and he leaned forward and slid back the bolt of his door: it was one advantage of a room so small that he could do this without getting out of bed.
Mr. Brandreth seemed to beam with one radiance from his silk hat, his collar, his boots, his scarf, his shining eyes and smooth-shaven friendly face, as he entered.
“Of course,” he said, “you haven’t seen the Metropolis yet?”