“That’s better than feeling a good bit underdone,” she rejoined with something of her old, bright laugh.
“How’s the patient? Any further improvement?”
“Rather. Old Vine says we needn’t be anxious any more.”
“That’s right royal news. We ought to give three cheers. But it was sweet of you to come and tell me this, Edala.”
The name came out half-unconsciously. He had taken to using it of late: their new rapprochement in the circumstances of a mutual care and anxiety had seemed to render it natural. And she had never resented it or shown any sign of astonishment.
“I didn’t come to tell it you,” answered the girl, in her direct straightforward way. She had risen from her chair, and the clear blue eyes met his full, yet he thought to detect in them a shade of embarrassment. “What I came to tell you was—is—what an ungrateful, unappreciative little beast I must have seemed all this time never to have said a word about your bravery—your heroism. You saved father’s life. You stood over him and kept off those brutes when—when—”
She broke off, with a little stamp of the foot. Her eyes were beginning to fill. Elvesdon’s face flushed uneasily.
“No—no—no. ‘Bravery! Heroism!’ Bah!” he answered. “You don’t suppose I was going to run away and leave him, do you? Why even Ramasam would hardly have done that. Besides—if I had wanted to ever so much I couldn’t have got far. We were unmounted remember. And, if you only knew it, I’ve been cursing myself and my own idiocy right roundly in having been such a blithering idiot as to get us into that hobble at all. I daresay I shall get a kick down in the Service on the strength of it when my full report goes in, and I haven’t spared myself in it I can tell you.”
“Have you sent it in yet?” asked the girl, speaking quickly.
“No—but I shall to-morrow.”