"My dear fellow, you speak as though school were the only thing you had to live for!"
"Well, it was the thing I wanted to get better for," replied Kenyon, frankly; "one of the things anyhow. Of course I want to be up and out here as well. I love this dear old place!"
"Do you want to get strong only for your own sake?" Forrester could not help saying, gently. "Do you never think of Ethel, of your father? I am sure you do!"
Kenyon coloured.
"Don't, old fellow! It's hard to think of anybody but yourself when you're laid up in bed for weeks and weeks. But Ethel knows that I do sometimes think about her; and that reminds me, C. J.; I was going to ask you to play tennis with her, or take her out for a ride, or something. She wants to come out of her shell. And then the governor, he's so decent to me now, of course I'd like to get better for his sake too. I think he'd make less fuss about the windows now—I'd like to break another and see! But it's no good pretending I'm as sorry for them as for myself, I can't be."
"You are very honest," said Forrester, looking kindly into the great bright eyes. "I wish all my fellows were as brave and honest as you!"
"I'm not so brave. You don't know what I've gone through up here alone in the night, apart from the pain. I've been thinking about—it. C. J., I don't know, now, that I'm going to get better at all. I pray to, and I try to, but I don't know that I am. I say, don't hook it! I daren't say it very loud. You're the first I've said it to at all. It only came to me last night ... and it does seem hard lines. Look at the sun! With the window open like this, and your eyes shut, it's almost as good as lying out on the grass. Dear old place!... Why have you hooked it? What are you looking out of the window for? They can't be coming yet!"
But they were, as it happened, though that was not why Forrester had risen; nor had he answered when Kenyon heard the wheels.