“Sit down,” said Scrope, “sit down.  You’re Mr. Riverton?”

“Yes, Sir,” said the young man.  He had the frequent “Sir” of the subaltern.  Scrope was in the centre of the seat, and the young officer sat down on one side of him while Eleanor took up a watching position on her father’s other hand.  “You see, Sir, we’ve hardly known each other—­I mean we’ve been associated over a philosophical society and all that sort of thing, but in a more familiar way, I mean....”

He hung for a moment, just a little short of breath.  Scrope helped him with a grave but sympathetic movement of the head.  “It’s a little difficult to explain,” the young man apologized.

“We hadn’t understood, I think, either of us very much.  We’d just been friendly—­and liked each other.  And so it went on even when I was training.  And then when I found I had to go out—­I’m going out a little earlier than I expected—­I thought suddenly I wouldn’t ever go to Cambridge again at all perhaps—­and there was something in one of her letters....  I thought of it a lot, Sir, I thought it all over, and I thought it wasn’t right for me to do anything and I didn’t do anything until this morning.  And then I sort of had to telegraph.  I know it was frightful cheek and bad form and all that, Sir.  It is.  It would be worse if she wasn’t different—­I mean, Sir, if she was just an ordinary girl....  But I had a sort of feeling—­just wanting to see her.  I don’t suppose you’ve ever felt anything, Sir, as I felt I wanted to see her—­and just hear her speak to me....”

He glanced across Scrope at Eleanor.  It was as if he justified himself to them both.

Scrope glanced furtively at his daughter who was leaning forward with tender eyes on her lover, and his heart went out to her.  But his manner remained judicial.

“All this is very sudden,” he said.

“Or you would have heard all about it, Sir,” said young Riverton.  “It’s just the hurry that has made this seem furtive.  All that there is between us, Sir, is just the two telegrams we’ve sent, hers and mine.  I hope you won’t mind our having a little time together.  We won’t do anything very committal.  It’s as much friendship as anything.  I go by the evening train to-morrow.”

“Mm,” said Serope with his eye on Eleanor.

“In these uncertain times,” he began.

“Why shouldn’t I take a risk too, Daddy?” said Eleanor sharply.

“I know there’s that side of it,” said the young man.  “I oughtn’t to have telegraphed,” he said.

“Can’t I take a risk?” exclaimed Eleanor.  “I’m not a doll.  I don’t want to live in wadding until all the world is safe for me.”

Scrope looked at the glowing face of the young man.

“Is this taking care of her?” he asked.

“If you hadn’t telegraphed—!” she cried with a threat in her voice, and left it at that.

“Perhaps I feel about her—­rather as if she was as strong as I am—­in those ways.  Perhaps I shouldn’t.  I could hardly endure myself, Sir—­cut off from her.  And a sort of blank.  Nothing said.”