"I got your bag and all your things in it," she said. "There's a clean collar. Ye'd better put it on."
Munching, she unfastened the bag.
"And I've got the licence from the Registry Office," she said. He scrutinized the licence, which by its complexity and incomprehensibility intimidated him. He was much relieved and very grateful that he had not had to go forth and get the licence himself. The clean collar, which Elsie affixed, made a wonderful improvement in Joe's frayed and dilapidated appearance.
"Has the doctor been to look at ye?" Elsie asked. Joe shook his head. "Well, ye can't go till he's been to look at ye."
The doctor had re-engaged Joe, who was to migrate direct to Myddelton Square that afternoon and would take up his duties gradually, as health permitted. He had already been tentatively out in the morning, but only to the other side of King's Cross Road to get a shave. Perhaps it was to be regretted that Joe was going off in one of Mr. Earlforward's grey flannel shirts. Elsie, had she been strictly honest, would have washed this shirt and returned it to the wardrobe, but she thought that Joe needed it, and her honesty fell short of the ideal.
There was a step on the stair. The doctor came into the island. And he himself was an island, detached, self-contained, impregnable as ever. He entered the room as though it was a room and not the emptying theatre of heroic and unforgettable drama, and as though nothing worth mentioning had happened of late in Riceyman Steps.
"Has my daughter called here for me?" he asked abruptly, deposing his prim hat on the little yellow chest of drawers.
"No, sir."
"Ah! She was to meet me here," he said in a casual, even tone. And yet there was something in his voice plainly indicating to the observant that deep down in his recondite mind burned a passionate pride in his daughter.
"I think you'll do, Joe," he decided, after some examination of the malaria patient. "I see you've had a shave."