"I'm sorry you're leaving the Third Floor, Ruth," he said. "For me own sake like." "Thank you," answered Ruth. He noticed she was strangely curt. A week later Madame sent for the girl. "Ruth, are you still in any hurry to change your Floor?" she asked. The girl looked down, colouring faintly. "Think it over, vill you?" said Madame. "There is no hurry." "Thank you, Ma'am," said Ruth, quivering. She returned to her work. A bell was ringing. It was 72. Ruth went. The Captain was manicuring his nails at the window. He looked up as she entered. "Shut the door!" he said. She obeyed. "Come here!" he ordered. She went. He looked at her, in his blue eyes a laughing sternness. "What's this?" he asked. "What, sir?" "I hear you're thinking of deserting." She stood before him, her bosom rising and falling. "Ruth," he said gravely, "you've got to make a home for me while I'm here. I'm a pore lone orphan--no mother, or sister, or friends. You've got to mend me and mind me, as my old nurse used to say. D'you see? I look to you." "Very well, sir," answered Ruth. Whatever else Ruth might feel about Captain Royal, there was no doubt that she admired him. And to do the man justice, there was not a little to admire. In any company, except the best, he shone. And on the Third Floor, in that meretricious atmosphere of fat-necked Jews, dubious foreigners, and degenerate Englishmen, Royal with his strenuous ways of the public-school boy, his athletic figure, and keen walk stood out like a sword among gamps in an umbrella-stand. He lived too with the deliberate speed of the man who knows his goal and means to get there. There was no need to call him. He was up every morning at 6.15, and into the sea, rain or fine, rough or smooth, at 6.30. At 7 he was back again in his room, stripped, and doing physical exercises. At 8 Ruth brought his breakfast; and by 9 he had settled to his morning's work. After lunch he golfed; then to his crammer; and in the evening he relaxed over a billiard-table or in the card-room. Sometimes he went off for the night to Town. On the first of these occasions Ernie carried his bag to the taxi with a joy for which he himself could not account. "What!--are you off, sir?" he asked gaily. "I thought we was going to keep you all your leave." "Only for the week-end," answered the other, with his little hard laugh. "See me back on Monday." Ernie's heart fell. He went upstairs, saw Ruth, and feigned surprise. "What, still here, Ruth?" "Yes," the girl answered in her quiet way. "I shan't move now till the Captain's gone." She said it quite simply. She was too great, too spiritual, to be provocative: Ernie knew that. He stopped full. There was a sea of fire lifting his chest and lighting his eye. "Ruth," he said. She saw his emotion, and stayed with the courtesy natural to her. "Will you walk out with me?" She met his eyes with the courage, dark, flashing, and kind, he loved so much.