Part 28 (2/2)

He had hurt himself somehow in the row, that was clear. A sudden terror ran through him. ”It's my right hand!--Good G.o.d! if I lost my hand!--if I couldn't play again!” He opened his eyes, trembling, and saw his little college room; his clothes hanging on the door, the photographs of his father and mother, of Chopin and Wagner on the chest of drawers. The familiar sight rea.s.sured him at once, and his natural buoyancy of spirit began to a.s.sert itself.

”I suppose they got a doctor. I seem to remember somebody coming. Bah, it'll be all right directly. I heal like a baby. I wonder who else was hurt. Who's that? Come in!”

The door opened, and his scout looked in cautiously. ”Thought I heard you moving, sir. May the doctor come in?”

The young surgeon appeared who had been violently rung up by Meyrick some five hours earlier. He had a trim, confident air, and pleasant eyes. His name was Fanning.

”Well, how are you? Had some sleep? You gave yourself an uncommonly nasty wound. I had to set a small bone, and put in two or three st.i.tches. But I don't think you knew much about it.”

”I don't now,” said Radowitz vaguely. ”How did I do it?”

”There seems to have been a 'rag' and you struck your hand against some broken tubing. But n.o.body was able to give a clear account.” The doctor eyed him discreetly, having no mind to be more mixed up in the affair than was necessary.

”Who sent for you?”

”Lord Meyrick rang me up, and when I got here I found Mr. Falloden and Mr. Robertson. They had done what they could.”

The colour rushed back into the boy's pale cheeks.

”I remember now,” he said fiercely. ”d.a.m.n them!”

The surgeon made no reply. He looked carefully at the bandage, asked if he could ease it at all--took pulse and temperature, and sat some time in silence, apparently thinking, by the bed. Then rising, he said:

”I shan't disturb the dressing unless it pains you. If it does, your scout can send a message to the surgery. You must stay in bed--you've got a little fever. Take light food--I'll tell your scout all about that--and I'll come in again to-night.”

He departed. The scout brought warm water and a clean sheet. Radowitz was soon washed and straightened as well as masculine fingers could achieve it.

”You seem to have lost a lot of blood, sir, last night!” said the man involuntarily, as he became aware in some dismay of the white flannels and other clothes that Radowitz had been wearing when the invaders broke into his room, which were now lying in a corner, where the doctor had thrown them.

”That's why I feel so limp!” said Radowitz, shutting his eyes again.

”Please get me some tea, and send a message round to St. Cyprian's--to Mr. Sorell--that I want to see him as soon as he can come.”

The door closed on the scout.

Left alone Radowitz plunged into a tumult of feverish thought. He seemed to be standing again, just freshly dressed, beside his bed--to hear the noise on the stairs, the rush into his sitting-room. Falloden, of course, was the leader--insolent brute! The lad, quivering once more with rage and humiliation, seemed to feel again Falloden's iron grip upon his shoulders--to remember the indignity of his forced descent into the quad--the laughter of his captors. Then he recollected throwing the water--and Robertson's spring upon him--

If _she_ had seen it! Whereupon, a new set of images displaced the first. He was in the ballroom again, he had her hand in his; her charming face with its small features and its beautiful eyes was turned to him. How they danced, and how deliriously the music ran! And there was Falloden in the doorway, with his dark face,--looking on. The rag on his part, had been mere revenge; not for the speech, but for the ball.

Was she in love with him? Impossible! How could such a hard, proud being attract her? If she did marry him he would crush and wither her.

Yet of course girls did do--every day--such idiotic things. And he thought uncomfortably of a look he had surprised in her face, as he and she were sitting in the New Quad under the trees and Falloden pa.s.sed with a handsome dark lady--one of the London visitors. It had been something involuntary--a flash from the girl's inmost self. It had chilled and checked him as he sat by her. Yet the next dance had driven all recollection of it away.

”She can't ever care for me,” he thought despairingly. ”I know that. I'm not her equal. I should be a fool to dream of it. But if she's going to throw herself away--to break her heart for that fellow--it's--it's devilis.h.!.+ Why aren't we in Paris--or Warsaw--where I could call him out?”

He tossed about in pain and fever, irritably deciding that his bandage hurt him, and he must recall the doctor, when he heard Sorell's voice at the door. It quieted him at once.

”Come in!”

Sorell came in with a scared face.

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