"A charming girl," he added.
"Yes."
There was a little pause.
"You are fortunate in that man of yours," Sir John said. "A first-
class man."
"Yes--he saved my life."
Sir John blinked, and for the first time his fingers went to his
mouth, as if his lips had suddenly got beyond his control.
"If I may suggest it," he said rather indistinctly, "I think it
would be well if we signified our appreciation of his devotion in
some substantial way. We might well do something between us."
He paused and threw back his shoulders.
"I should like to give him some substantial token of my--gratitude."
Sir John was nothing if not just.
"Thank you," answered Jack quietly. He turned his head a little,
and glanced, not at his father, but in his direction. "He will
appreciate it, I know."
"I should like to see him to-morrow."
Jack winced, as if he had made a mistake.
"He is not in England," he explained. "I left him behind me in
Africa. He has gone back to the Simiacine Plateau."
The old man's face dropped rather piteously.
"I am sorry," he said, with one of the sudden relapses into old age
that Lady Cantourne dreaded. "I may not have a chance of seeing him
to thank him personally. A good servant is so rare nowadays. These
modern democrats seem to think that it is a nobler thing to be a bad
servant than a good one.
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