"Oh, very well, I'll go to bed. You'll never be happy till you've laid me by the heels, you and Thérèse both. What have I got, doctor? Touch of 'flu? They call a lot of things 'flu these days."
The doctor smiled and clapped him on the back reassuringly.
"Oh, perhaps. It's impossible to say yet. However, your sister's right; you mustn't be walking about with a temperature, however slight." He rose and the others followed suit. "Go home, get comfortably to bed, and I'll drop in early in the evening and have another look at you."
"Then you think it's nothing serious?" inquired Lady Clifford with a sudden appeal, her beautiful eyes glancing from her husband to the doctor.
"You know, doctor," broke in Miss Clifford eagerly, "I've sometimes wondered if there was anything wrong with the water. I …"
"Rubbish, Dido, I never drink the water."
There was a general laugh at this.
"I'm not sure that you don't," insisted the old lady defensively. "And I've always been told the water in France is only to be used externally."
"And precious little of it is used in that way," commented Sir Charles, moving towards the door, where he looked back with a curt, ironic gesture of leave-taking. "It's au revoir then, doctor, and not good-bye. Coming, Dido?"
His wife followed him to the outer door.