George nodded. He was very white, and startled. At first he could not command himself sufficiently to be able to articulate. Then he spluttered, “My back!” He subsided gradually into a sitting posture.
Edwin ran to him, and picked him up. But he screamed until he was set down. At the open drawing-room window, Maggie was arranging curtains. Edwin reluctantly left George for an instant and hurried to the window, “I say, Maggie, bring a chair or something out, will you? This dashed kid’s fallen and hurt himself.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Maggie calmly. “What surprises me is that you should ever have given him permission to scramble over the wall and trample all about the flower-beds the way he does!”
However, she moved at once to obey.
He returned to George. Then Janet’s voice was heard from the other garden, calling him: “George! Georgie! Nearly time to go!”
Edwin put his head over the wall.
“He’s fallen and hurt his back,” he answered to Janet, without any prelude.
“His back!” she repeated in a frightened tone.
Everybody was afraid of that mysterious back. And George himself was most afraid of it.
“I’ll get over the wall,” said Janet.