“I’ll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayliss,” she said.

“Eh?” said Bayliss.

“Yes, yes,” said Jimmy.  “Good-bye till then.”

Ann walked on to her compartment.  She felt as if she had just read a whole long novel, one of those chunky younger-English-novelist things.  She knew the whole story as well as if it had been told to her in detail.  She could see the father, the honest steady butler, living his life with but one aim, to make a gentleman of his beloved only son.  Year by year he had saved.  Probably he had sent the son to college.  And now, with a father’s blessing and the remains of a father’s savings, the boy was setting out for the New World, where dollar-bills grew on trees and no one asked or cared who any one else’s father might be.

There was a lump in her throat.  Bayliss would have been amazed if he could have known what a figure of pathetic fineness he seemed to her.  And then her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and she was aware of a glow of kindliness towards him.  His father had succeeded in his life’s ambition.  He had produced a gentleman!  How easily and simply, without a trace of snobbish shame, the young man had introduced his father.  There was the right stuff in him.  He was not ashamed of the humble man who had given him his chance in life.  She found herself liking Jimmy amazingly . . .

The hands of the clock pointed to three minutes to the hour.  Porters skimmed to and fro like water-beetles.

“I can’t explain,” said Jimmy.  “It wasn’t temporary insanity; it was necessity.”

“Very good, Mr. James.  I think you had better be taking your seat now.”

“Quite right, I had.  It would spoil the whole thing if they left me behind.  Bayliss, did you ever see such eyes?  Such hair!  Look after my father while I am away.  Don’t let the dukes worry him.  Oh, and, Bayliss”—­Jimmy drew his hand from his pocket—­“as one pal to another—­”

Bayliss looked at the crackling piece of paper.

“I couldn’t, Mr. James, I really couldn’t!  A five-pound note!  I couldn’t!”

“Nonsense!  Be a sport!”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. James, I really couldn’t.  You cannot afford to throw away your money like this.  You cannot have a great deal of it, if you will excuse me for saying so.”

“I won’t do anything of the sort.  Grab it!  Oh, Lord, the train’s starting!  Good-bye, Bayliss!”

The engine gave a final shriek of farewell.  The train began to slide along the platform, pursued to the last by optimistic boys offering buns for sale.  It gathered speed.  Jimmy, leaning out the window, was amazed at a spectacle so unusual as practically to amount to a modern miracle—­the spectacled Bayliss running.  The butler was not in the pink of condition, but he was striding out gallantly.  He reached the door of Jimmy’s compartment, and raised his hand.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. James,” he panted, “for taking the liberty, but I really couldn’t!”