"Looks rather queer your being here like this at midnight, you know. Wouldn't compromise you for the world."
Bobby was standing at his dressing-table searching for something, and she wheeled upon him indignantly.
"This is no time to be thinking about looks. You lie down and stop talking. Hold your arm up straight, like that. Keep it that way until I come."
He did as she told him, grasping his right wrist in his left hand; but the bright-red blood continued to spurt through his fingers, showing no signs of abating.
"If I could only find a string!" cried Bobby, tossing the contents of his bag this way and that. "Here's the strap on your toilet-case; perhaps it'll do."
She knelt beside the couch, and, ripping his sleeve to the elbow, hastily wrapped the leather thong twice about his forearm and slipped the strap into the buckle.
"I've got to hurt you," she said resolutely, pulling with nervous strength.
"It's most awfully good of you," murmured Percival, wearily, setting his teeth and closing his eyes. Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him. He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear.
From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain. Then for a long time he was aware of nothing whatever.
A sudden sharp pain in his arm roused him, and he opened his eyes. Bobby still knelt on the floor beside him, unflinchingly holding the strap in place.