and good looks. His flannel suit and straw hat were in the best and quietest taste; he spoke and moved like a gentleman. She began to be interested in him.
"Will it really make very much difference?" she asked. "I mean to say—you aren't ruined and going to blow your brains out, or anything of that sort, are you? Because you—well, you don't look what one usually calls poor, you know."
Goulburn laughed.
"Ah, but I am!" he replied. "Really, I am. I'm only a clerk with a very modest salary. That's why I ought not to have been so foolish as to risk any money on a horse-race. And———"
His face suddenly darkened, and, as if some new thought had struck him, he lifted his hat in silence and was about to move off when she stopped him with a gesture.
"No," she said. "I wish you wouldn't go. I'm sure you are in greater trouble than you've said—and—well, when one sees anybody in trouble one naturally feels that one would like to help them as far as one can. Don't you think so?"
Goulburn was looking at her very steadily.
"I don't think everybody does," he said slowly. "I haven't met many people who did. But then my life's been spent amongst men who care nothing for anything but themselves and money-making. No—I don't know anybody who'd care to hear a trouble of mine—most people I know would say they'd no time to listen. Certainly, there's Chris Aspinall—he would."
