“Quite right.  I had a card last evening, and was there at nine o’clock this morning.  I suppose I look a perfect wreck.  I was dancing at Hamilton House at three o’clock.”

He looked towards her marvelling.  Her cheeks were prettily flushed, and she walked with the delightful springiness of perfect health.

“I have never seen you look better,” he answered.

“And you,” she remarked, glancing in amusement at his blue serge clothes, which, to tell the truth, badly needed brushing.  “What are you doing in the West End at this time in the morning?

“I have been to Drury Lane,” he answered, “with some surveyors from the County Council.  There is a whole court there I mean to get condemned.  Then I looked in at our new place there, but there was such a howling lot of children that I was glad to get away.  How they hate being washed!”

“Don’t they!” she exclaimed, laughing.  “I had the dearest, naughtiest little girl this morning, and, do you know, when I got her clean, her own brothers and sisters didn’t know her again.  I’m so glad I’ve seen you, Mr. Brooks.  I want to ask you something.”  “Well?”

“About Miss Scott.  She’s been so good to me, and I like her awfully.  We’ve just come up on the omnibus together.”

“She has been my right hand from the very first,” Brooks said, slowly.  “I really don’t see how I could have done without her.  She is such a capital organizer, too.”

“I know all that,” Sybil declared.  “She’s wonderful.  I don’t want, of course, to be inquisitive,” she went on, after a moment’s hesitation, “but she interests me so much, and it was only this morning that I felt that I understood her a little bit.”

Brooks nodded.

“She is a very reserved young woman,” he said.

“Yes, but isn’t there some reason for it?” Sybil continued, eagerly.  “I have asked her lots of times to come and see me.  She admits that she has no friends in London, and I wanted to have her come very much.  You see, I thought she would be sure to like mother, and if she doesn’t care for society, we might go to the theatre or the opera, a it would be a little change for her, wouldn’t it?”

“I think it is very kind of you indeed,” Brooks said.

“Well, she has always refused, but I have been very persistent.  I just thought that she was perhaps a little shy, or found it difficult to break through her retirement—­people get like that, you know, when they live alone.  So this morning I really went for her, and I happened to be looking, and I saw something in her face which puzzled me.  It stopped my asking her any more.  There is something underneath her quiet manner and self-devotion.  She has had trouble of some sort.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“A girl can always tell,” Sybil answered.  “Her self-control is wonderful, but she just let it slip—­for a moment.  She has some trouble, I am sure.  I thought perhaps you might know.  Isn’t there anything we could do?  I am so sorry for her.”