“Pretty well,” answered Louis, and sat down.

In the lobby the doctor, once more in a hurry, said to Rachel—­

“Better get him quietly to bed.  The wounds are not serious, but he’s had a very severe shock.”

“He’s not marked for life, is he?” Rachel asked anxiously.

“I shouldn’t think so,” said the doctor, as if the point was a minor one.  “Let him have some nourishment.  You can begin with hot milk—­but put some water to it,” he added when he was half-way down the steps.

As Rachel re-entered the parlour she said to herself:  “I shall just have to get him to bed somehow, whatever he says!  If he’s unpleasant he must be unpleasant, that’s all.”

And she hardened her heart.  But immediately she saw him again, sitting forlornly in the chair, with the whole of the left side of his face criss-crossed in whitish-grey plaster, she was ready to cry over him and flatter his foolishest whim.  She wanted to take him in her arms, if he would but have allowed her.  She felt that she could have borne his weight for hours without moving, had he fallen asleep against her bosom....  Still, he must be got to bed.  How negligent of the doctor not to have given the order himself!

Then Louis said:  “I say!  I think I may as well lie down!”

She was about to cry out, “Oh, you must!”

But she forbore.  She became as wily as old Batchgrew.

“Do you think so?” she answered, doubtfully.

“I’ve nothing else particular on hand,” he said.

She knew that he wanted to surrender without appearing to surrender.

“Well,” she suggested, “will you lie down on the bed for a bit?”

“I think I will.”

“And then I’ll give you some hot milk.”

She dared not help him to mount the stairs, but she walked close behind him.

“I was thinking,” he said on the landing, “I’d stroll down and take stock of those bicycles later in the day.  But perhaps I’m not fit to be seen.”

She thought:  “You won’t stroll down later in the day—­I shall see to that.”

“By the way,” he said, “you might send Mrs. Tams down to Horrocleave’s to explain that I shan’t give them my valuable assistance to-day....  Oh!  Mrs. Tams”—­the woman was just bustling out of the bedroom, duster in hand—­“will you toddle down to the works and tell them I’m not coming?”

“Eh, mester!” breathed Mrs. Tams, looking at him.  “It’s a mercy it’s no worse.”

“Yes,” Louis teased her, “but you go and look at the basin downstairs, Mrs. Tams.  That’ll give you food for thought.”

Shaking her head, she smiled at Rachel, because the master had spirit enough to be humorous with her.

In the bedroom, Louis said, “I might be more comfortable if I took some of my clothes off.”