“You would receive well in a garret—­a stable,” he said.  “But what is the meaning of this?  Explain.”

“Lady Henry is ill and is gone to bed.  That made her very cross—­poor Lady Henry!  She thinks I, too, am in bed.  But you see—­you forced your way in—­didn’t you?—­to inquire with greater minuteness after Lady Henry’s health.”

She bent towards him, her eyes dancing.

“Of course I did.  Will there presently be a swarm on my heels, all possessed with a similar eagerness, or—?”

He drew his chair, smiling, a little closer to her.  She, on the contrary, withdrew hers.

“There will, no doubt, be six or seven,” she said, demurely, “who will want personal news.  But now, before they come”—­her tone changed—­“is there anything to tell me?”

“Plenty,” he said, drawing a letter out of his pocket.  “Your writ, my dear lady, runs as easily in the City as elsewhere.”  And he held up an envelope.

She flushed.

“You have got your allotment?  But I knew you would.  Lady Froswick promised.”

“And a large allotment, too,” he said, joyously.  “I am the envy of all my friends.  Some of them have got a few shares, and have already sold them—­grumbling.  I keep mine three days more on the best advice—­the price may go higher yet.  But, anyway, there”—­he shook the envelope—­“there it is—­deliverance from debt—­peace of mind for the first time since I was a lad at school—­the power of going, properly fitted out and equipped, to Africa—­if I go—­and not like a beggar—­all in that bit of paper, and all the work of—­some one you and I know.  Fairy godmother! tell me, please, how to say a proper thank you.”

The young soldier dropped his voice.  Those blue eyes which had done him excellent service in many different parts of the globe were fixed with brilliance on his companion; the lines of a full-lipped mouth quivered with what seemed a boyish pleasure.  The comfort of money relief was never acknowledged more frankly or more handsomely.

Julie hurriedly repressed him.  Did she feel instinctively that there are thanks which it sometimes humiliates a man to remember, lavishly as he may have poured them out at the moment—­thanks which may easily count in the long run, not for, but against, the donor?  She rather haughtily asked what she had done but say a chance word to Lady Froswick?  The shares had to be allotted to somebody.  She was glad, of course, very glad, if he were relieved from anxiety....

So did she free herself and him from a burdensome gratitude; and they passed to discussing the latest chances of the Mokembe appointment.  The Staff-College Colonel was no doubt formidable; the Commander-in-Chief, who had hitherto allowed himself to be much talked to on the subject of young Warkworth’s claims by several men in high place—­General M’Gill among them—­well known in Lady Henry’s drawing-room, was perhaps inclining to the new suggestion, which was strongly supported by important people in Egypt; he had one or two recent appointments on his conscience not quite of the highest order, and the Staff-College man, in addition to a fine military record, was virtue, poverty, and industry embodied; was nobody’s cousin, and would, altogether, produce a good effect.