"My dear boy--what"s the matter?"
"Oh, there was a bit of a row last night. We were larking round the fountain, trying to push each other in, and I cut my hand on one of those rotten old pipes. Beastly luck! But Fanning"s done everything. I shall be all right directly. There"s a little bone broken."
"A bone broken!--your hand!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sorell, who sat down and looked at him in dismay.
"Yes--I wish it had been my foot! But it doesn"t matter. That kind of thing gets well quickly, doesn"t it?" He eyed his visitor anxiously.
"You see I never was really ill in my life."
"Well, we can"t run any risks about it," said Sorell decidedly. "I shall go and see Fanning. If there"s any doubt about it, I shall carry you up to London, and get one of the crack surgeons to come and look at it.
What was the row about?"
Radowitz"s eyes contracted so that Sorell could make nothing out of them.
"I really can"t remember," said the lad"s weary voice. "There"s been a lot of rowing lately."
"Who made the row?"
"What"s the good of asking questions?" The speaker turned irritably away. "I"ve had such a lot of beastly dreams all night, I can"t tell what happened, and what didn"t happen. It was just a jolly row, that"s all I know."
Sorell perceived that for some reason Radowitz was not going to tell him the story. But he was confident that Douglas Falloden had been at the bottom of it, and he felt a fierce indignation. He had however to keep it to himself, as it was clear that questions excited and annoyed the patient.
He sat by the boy a little, observing him. Then he suggested that Bateson the scout and he should push the bed into the sitting-room, for greater air and s.p.a.ce. Radowitz hesitated, and then consented. Sorell went out to speak to Bateson.
"All right, sir," said the scout. "I"ve just about got the room straight; but I had to get another man to help me. They must have gone on something fearful. There wasn"t an article in the room that wasn"t knocked about."
"Who did it?" said Sorell shortly.
The scout looked embarra.s.sed.
"Well, of course, sir, I don"t know for certain. I wasn"t there to see.
But I do hear Mr. Falloden, and Lord Meyrick, and Mr. Robertson were in it--and there were some other gentlemen besides. There"s been a deal of ragging in this college lately, sir. I do think, sir, as the fellows should stop it."
Sorell agreed, and went off to the surgery, thinking furiously. Suppose the boy"s hand--and his fine talent--had been permanently injured by that arrogant bully, Falloden, and his set! And Constance Bledlow had been entangling herself with him--in spite of what anybody could say! He thought with disgust of the scenes of the Marmion ball, of the reckless way in which Constance had encouraged Falloden"s pursuit of her, of the talk of Oxford. His work with the Greats" papers had kept him away from the Magdalen ball, and he had heard nothing of it. No doubt that foolish child had behaved in the same way there. He was thankful he had not been there to see. But he vowed to himself that he would find out the facts of the attack on Radowitz, and that she should know them.
Yet the whole thing was very surprising. He had seen on various occasions that Falloden was jealous of Connie"s liking for Radowitz, of the boy"s homage, and of Connie"s admiration for his musical gift. But after the Marmion night, and the triumph she had so unwisely given the fellow--to behave in this abominable way! There couldn"t be a spark of decent feeling in his composition.
Radowitz lay still--thinking always of Falloden, and Lady Constance.
Another knock at his door--very timid and hesitating. Radowitz said "Come in."
The door opened partially, and a curly head was thrust in. Another head appeared behind it.
"May we come in?" said a m.u.f.fled voice. "It"s Meyrick--and Robertson."
"I don"t care if you do," said Radowitz coldly. "What do you want?"
The two men came in, stepping softly. One was fair and broad-shouldered.
The other exceedingly dark and broad-shouldered. Each was a splendid specimen of the university athlete. And two more sheepish and hang-dog individuals it would have been difficult to find.
"We"ve come to apologise," said Meyrick, standing by the bed, his hands in his pockets, looking down on Radowitz. "We didn"t mean to hurt you of course, and we"re awfully sorry--aren"t we, Robertson?"
Robertson, sheltering behind Meyrick, murmured a deep-voiced a.s.sent.
"If we hadn"t been beastly drunk we should never have done it," said Meyrick; "but that"s no excuse. How are you? What does Fanning say?"
They both looked so exceedingly miserable that Radowitz, surveying them with mollified astonishment, suddenly went into a fit of hysterical laughter. The others watched him in alarm.
"Do sit down, you fellows!--and don"t bother!" said Radowitz, as soon as he could speak. "I gave it to you both as hard as I could in my speech.
And you hit back. We"re quits. Shake hands."
And he held out his left hand, which each of them gingerly shook. Then they both sat down, extremely embarra.s.sed, and not knowing what to say or do next, except that Meyrick again enquired as to Fanning"s opinion.
"Let"s have some swell down," said Meyrick urgently. "We could get him in a jiffy."
But Radowitz impatiently dismissed the subject. Sorell, he said, had gone to see Fanning, and it would be all right. At the same time it was evident through the disjointed conversation which followed that he was suffering great pain. He was alternately flushed and deadly pale, and could not occasionally restrain a groan which scared his two companions.
At last they got up to go, to the relief of all three.
Meyrick said awkwardly:
"Falloden"s awfully sorry too. He would have come with us--but he thought perhaps you wouldn"t want him."
"No, I don"t want him!" said Radowitz vehemently. "That"s another business altogether."
Meyrick hummed and hawed, fidgeting from one foot to the other.
"It was I started the beastly thing," he said at last. "It wasn"t Falloden at all."
"He could have stopped it," said Radowitz shortly. "And you can"t deny he led it. There"s a long score between him and me. Well, never mind, I shan"t say anything. And n.o.body else need. Good-bye."
A slight ghostly smile appeared in the lad"s charming eyes as he raised them to the pair, again holding out his free hand. They went away feeling, as Meyrick put it, "pretty beastly."
By the afternoon various things had happened. Falloden, who had not got to bed till six, woke towards noon from a heavy sleep in his Beaumont Street "diggings," and recollecting in a flash all that had happened, sprang up and opened his sitting-room door. Meyrick was sitting on the sofa, fidgeting with a newspaper.
"Well, how is he?"
Meyrick reported that the latest news from Marmion was that Sorell and Fanning between them had decided to take Radowitz up to town that afternoon--for the opinion of Sir Horley Wood, the great surgeon.
"Have you seen Sorell?"
"Yes. But he would hardly speak to me. He said we"d perhaps spoilt his life."
"Whose?"
"Radowitz"s."