“But do you think there is anything amiss with me?”
“I shall know more about that to-morrow morning. Come to my room as soon as you are up, unless I come to you. Now, I have something to read before I go to bed, and I may as well try if it will put you to sleep.”
Norman’s last sight that night was of the outline of his father’s profile, and he was scarcely awake the next morning before Dr. May was there again.
Unwilling as he had been to give way, it was a relief to relinquish the struggle to think himself well, and to venture to lounge and dawdle, rest his heavy head, and stretch his inert limbs without fear of remark. His father found him after breakfast lying on the sofa in the drawing-room with a Greek play by his side, telling Ethel what words to look out.
“At it again!” exclaimed Dr. May. “Carry it away, Ethel. I will have no Latin or Greek touched these holidays.”
“You know,” said Norman, “if I don’t sap, I shall have no chance of keeping up.”
“You’ll keep nowhere if you don’t rest.”
“It is only Euripides, and I can’t do anything else,” said Norman languidly.
“Very likely, I don’t care. You have to get well first of all, and the Greek will take care of itself. Go up to Margaret. I put you in her keeping, while I am gone to Whitford. After that, I dare say Richard will be very glad to have a holiday, and let you drive me to Abbotstoke.”
Norman rose, and wearily walked upstairs, while his sister lingered to excuse herself. “Papa, I did not think Euripides would hurt him—he knows it all so well, and he said he could not read anything else.”