The three ladies exchanged startled glances; then Miss Enid said:
"Of course. I had forgotten that you met her the night of the accident. I wonder if we could give the dear child a party?"
"It is not to be thought of," said Miss Isobel, "with no regular butler, and mother ill——"
"I tell you, I'm not ill!" snapped Madam. "I intend to be up and about by Easter. I'll give as many parties as I like. Hurry up with those crutches, Graham; do you think I am going to wait all night?"
One of Quin's first acts upon coming into the house had been to aid and abet Madam in her determination to use her injured leg. Dr. Rawlins had infuriated her by his pessimistic warnings and his dark suggestions of a wheeled chair.
"We'll show 'em what you can do when you get that cast off," Quin had reassured her with the utmost confidence. "I've limbered up heaps of stiff legs for the fellows. It takes patience and grit. I got the patience and you got the grit, so there we are!"
Now that the cast was off, a few steps were attempted each night, during which painful operation Miss Enid fled to another room to shed tears of apprehension, while Miss Isobel hovered about the hall, ready to call the doctor if anything happened.
"Is that better?" he asked now, as he got Madam to her feet and carefully adjusted the crutches. "If you say they are too short, I'll tell you what the little man said when he was teased about his legs. 'They reach the ground,' he said; 'what more can you ask?'"
"Shut up your nonsense, and mind what you are doing!" cried Madam. "My leg is worse than it was yesterday. I can't put my foot to the ground."
"Oh, yes, you can," Quin insisted, coaxing her from the bed-post to the dresser. "You are coming on fine. I never saw but one person do better. That was a guy I knew in France who never danced a step until he lost a leg, and then his cork leg taught his other leg to do the fox-trot."