Arthur laughed outright.
“Oh, you’re not going—did you think you were? Why, you’re Lady Trevlyn now—a full-blown countess. It would be too absurd, your tying yourself to me. Besides”—with a touch of manly gravity and purpose—“I wouldn’t have you, Monica, not at any price. I can stand things myself, but I can’t stand the look in your eyes. Besides, you know, it would be absurd now—quite absurd. You’re married, you know, and that changes everything.”
Monica’s face was hard to read.
“I should have thought that, even married, I might have been allowed to see you placed safely in the hands of this new doctor, after having been almost your only nurse all these years.”
He stretched out his hand and drew her towards him, making her kneel down beside him, so that he could gaze right into her face.
“You must not look like that, you sweet, sensitive, silly sister,” said Arthur, caressingly. “You must not think I have changed, because I wish to go away, and because I will not have you with me. I love you the same as ever. I know that you love me, and if you want a proof of this you shall have it, for I am going to ask a favour of you—a very great favour.”
Monica smoothed his hair with her hand.
“A favour, Arthur?—Something that I can grant? You know you have only to ask.”
“I want you to lend me Randolph,” he said, with a little laugh, as if amused at the form of words he had chosen. “I want to know if you can spare him for the journey. Tom is going to take me, but somehow, Tom—well, he is very clever and kind, but he does hurt me, there’s no denying, and I don’t feel quite resigned to be entirely at his mercy. But Randolph is different. He is so very strong, he moves me twice as easily, and he is so awfully kind and gentle: he stops in a moment if he thinks it hurts. He has been here a good bit with Tom since he got back, and you can’t think how different his handling is. I don’t like to take him away from you. You must miss him so awfully: he is such a splendid fellow!”
“Have you said anything to Randolph about it?”