A little pang pricked him, and drove him to the balcony.
"No," he said, "if we are to hit people, at least let us hit them fairly." But all the same he found himself playing with the word-puzzle whose solution was the absolutely right letter to Betty's father, asking her hand in marriage.
"Well," he asked the doctor who closed softly the door of the bedroom and came forward, "is it brain-fever?"
"Holy Ann, no! Brain fever's a fell disease invented by novelists—I never met it in all my experience. The doctors in novels have special advantages. No, it's influenza—pretty severe touch too. She ought to have been in bed days ago. She'll want careful looking after."
"I see," said Vernon. "Any danger?"
"There's always danger, Lord—Saint-Croix isn't it?"
"I have not the honour to be Lady St. Craye's husband," said Vernon equably. "I was merely calling, and she seemed so ill that I took upon myself to—"
"I see—I see. Well, if you don't mind taking on yourself to let her husband know? It's a nasty case. Temperature 104. Perhaps her husband 'ud be as well here as anywhere."
"He's dead," said Vernon.
"Oh!" said the doctor with careful absence of expression. "Get some woman to put her to bed and to stay with her till the nurse comes. She's in a very excitable state. Good afternoon. I'll look in after dinner."