Colin woke from his dreamless sleep next morning, to find Nino’s hand on his bare shoulder, gently stirring him. His clothes were in a heap on the floor by his bedside, for when he came in he had but stripped himself and wrapped a sheet round him in which, cocoon-like, he had lain unstirring. He was conscious of a strong glow of happiness as he was thus recalled, and his lazy strength came soaking into him.
“Oh, Nino, what a nuisance you are,” he said. “You spend your beastly life in waking me.”
“Will you sleep again, then?” asked Nino.
“No, the mischief is done now. What’s the morning like? What’s the news?”
“A telephone message from Mrs. Hunt,” said Nino. “She would know if she may come down to-day for Sunday.”
Colin grinned. The moment Nino had said “telephone message” he had guessed from whom it came.
“Well then, she mayn’t,” he said. “Damned cheek! It would never do, would it, Nino?”
“She will be very happy, she said, if she may come,” observed Nino.
Colin raised himself a little, and drew his hand down his arm. The fact that he had decided that Pamela Hunt should not come, made him see causes for re-consideration.
“Just rub my arm,” he said, “I’ve been sleeping on it, and it isn’t awake. Of course, if it would make her happy, that’s a different thing. We ought always to make people happy, Nino, except when we’re making them miserable. Tell her she can come then. What’s the morning like?”