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Page 50
"Hasn't what?"
"He hasn't," Sir Henry continued, blowing out the match which he
had been holding to his cigarette and throwing it away, "been in
the position of being able to render you or Helen any service, has
he?"
"I don't understand you," Philippa replied, a little uneasily.
"There's nothing to understand," Sir Henry went on. "I was simply
trying to find some explanation for his veni, vidi, vici."
"I don't think you need go any further than the fact," Philippa
observed, "that he is well-bred, charming and companionable."
"Incidentally," Sir Henry queried, "do you happen to have come
across any one here who ever heard of him before?"
"I don't remember any one," Philippa replied. "He was at college
with Richard, you know."
Sir Henry nodded.
"Of course, that's a wonderful introduction to you and Helen," he
admitted. "And by-the-by, that reminds me," he went on, "I never
saw such a change in two women in my life, as in you and Helen.
A few weeks ago you were fretting yourselves to death about Dick.
Now you don't seem to mention him, you both of you look as though
you hadn't a care in the world, and yet you say you haven't heard
from him. Upon my word, this is getting to be a house of mysteries!"
"The only mystery in it that I can see, is you, Henry," she declared.
"Me?" he protested. "I'm one of the simplest-minded fellows alive.
What is there mysterious about me?"
"Your ignominious life," was the cold reply.
"Jove, I got it that time!" he groaned,--"got it in the neck! But
didn't I tell you just now that I was turning over a new leaf?"
"Then prove it," Philippa pleaded. "Let me write to Rayton and beg
him to use his influence to get you something to do. I am sure you
would be happier, and I can't tell you what a difference it would
make to me."
"It's that indoor work I couldn't stick, old thing," he confided.
"You know, they're saying all the time it's a young man's war.
They'd make me take some one's place at home behind a desk."
"But even if they did," she protested, "even if they put you in a
coal cellar, wouldn't you be happier to feel that you were helping
your country? Wouldn't you be glad to know that I was happier?"
Sir Henry made a wry face.
"It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear,"
he grumbled. "However--now what the dickens is the matter?"
The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but
Jimmy Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the
room.
"Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?" his patron demanded.
"Beg your pardon, sir," was the almost incoherent reply. "I've run
all the way up, and there's a rare wind blowing. There's one of our
--our trawlers lying off the Point, and she's sent up three green
and six yellow balls."
"Whiting, by God!" Sir Henry exclaimed.
"Whiting!" Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. "What does this
mean, Henry?"
"It must be a shoal," her husband explained. "It means that we've
got to get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?"
"She there all right, sir," was the somewhat doubtful reply, "but
us'll have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor'easter is
blowing great guns again and it's a cruel tide."
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