“Why, why was I such a fool! As if I could not have let him speak and have done with it, instead of plunging off in that idiotic fashion! And then, if only he had left me alone! I should not in the least have minded a broken leg myself, or even worse.” She dropped her hands, and stood at the window looking gravely out, for Claudia was at the age when living has not become so strong a habit, and death is not so much shrunk from. “But to see him lying there, and to know that it was all one’s own fault—I don’t think there could be a more horrid situation. And then it was very plucky, the most plucky thing he could have done, and just when I had been so nasty to him! Oh, Claudia, Claudia, a fine muddle you have made of it! As if you couldn’t have kept your head, told him quietly you didn’t care for him, and not behaved so altogether idiotically, and landed yourself in such a hateful position! I wish,”—she paused—“yes, I do wish that Anne was here, for there isn’t a soul to whom to turn. Even Harry Hilton. If Harry had done it—he wouldn’t have been quick enough, but if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered half so much, because he would have taken it as a matter of course, and never thought about it afterwards. But now,”—another pause—“I wonder if he does like me very much? Miss Arbuthnot saw, I suppose, when I didn’t, and she implied that he was spoilt—I don’t know, I think she might be jealous, and he must have cared a good deal to dash in like that. Oh, why, why was I such a fool as to put myself under such an obligation to any man! Perhaps it’s not so bad, perhaps— Oh, there are the wheels. Now I shall know something, and anything, anything must be better than this dreadful uncertainty!”
But the uncertainty continued. The leg was set, the patient had recovered consciousness, and had immediately asked for Claudia. But the doctor was still in the house, and had sent for a nurse. More, Claudia could not make out. She had come down, looking very white, and was giving Charlie Carter tea, and a great deal of tea-cake, after which he proposed, as he expressed it, to joggle over towards Barton Towers, expecting to meet and explain matters to Lady Wilmot. He had become more confidential towards Claudia, but also more contemptuous.
“I say, how could you be such a duffer?” he demanded. “Didn’t you hear me call out to you to look out for that turn?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said meekly. “I wasn’t attending.”
“Then you ought to attend, or you’ll always be coming to grief. There’s where Carry gets a pull over you.”
“Who’s Carry?”
“She’s my sister, don’t you know? The eldest of the lot. You and she go along much of a muchness, only she doesn’t lose her head.”
“Oh!” murmured Claudia, too conscious that she deserved the reproach to defend herself.
“I never saw any one get such a cropper before,” he went on, “and it’s an awful pity about that wheel of his. It’s utterly and entirely done for.”
She plucked up spirit.