The nurse looked at Dallam reproachfully, as her duty demanded, and yet she smiled. The noise of laughter reached them from below.
“I didn't have any to-night,” the child pleaded.
“I got home late,” Dallam explained to Honora, and, looking at the nurse, pleaded in his turn; “just one.”
“Just a tiny one,” said the child.
“It's against all rules, Mr. Dallam,” said the nurse, “but—he's been very lonesome to-day.”
Dallam sat down on one side of him, Honora on the other.
“Will you go to sleep right away if I do, Sid?” he asked.
The child shut his eyes very tight.
“Like that,” he promised.
It was not the Sidney Dallam of the counting-room who told that story, and Honora listened with strange sensations which she did not attempt to define.