“You and your ‘British Medical Journal’!” Charlie exclaimed, with an irony from which filial affection was not absent, and again prodded his father in the same spot.
“Of course I know I’m an old man,” said Osmond, condescendingly rejecting Charlie’s condescension. He thought he did not mean what he said; nevertheless, it was the expression of the one idea which latterly beyond all other ideas had possessed him.
Three.
Janet came into the room, and was surprised to see Edwin. She was in a state of extreme fatigue—pale, with burning eyes, and hair that has lost the gracefulness of its curves.
“So you know?” she said.
Edwin nodded.
“It seems I’ve got to go to bed,” she went on. “Father, you must go to bed too. Mother’s gone. It’s frightfully late. Come along now!”
She was insistent. She had been worried during the greater part of the day by her restless parents, and she was determined not to leave either of them at large.
“Charlie, you might run upstairs and see that everything’s all right before I go. I shall get up again at four.”