“I’m not a bad nurse,” he pleaded. “Can’t I relieve guard?”
“Oh, you will be useful, but not in that way,” said the doctor inexorably. “Will you come out for a turn? I have been over the leper hospital, and shall not be sorry for a whiff of fresh air.”
The day was grey and colourless; the water had grown leaden. Wareham found himself longing to look at the yacht, but too much ashamed of the wish to express it. It was, however, in the doctors mind, and they found themselves gazing down from the Frederiksberg. There in the broad harbour lay two or three yachts. Wareham inquired which was Lord Milborough’s.
“She lies behind. The Camilla. White.”
“Oh, the schooner.”
“Beautifully fitted up, they say.”
Wareham kept his eyes fixed upon the yacht, where fancy planted Anne, dispensing smiles. He did not listen while his companion talked of novel inventions introduced into his Camilla by Lord Milborough. He heard, however, that he daily sent the ice wanted for Hugh. By way of saying something, Wareham at last remarked that he had never met Lord Milborough.
“You have seen many others of his pattern. He is emphatically the young man of the age; kind-hearted, indifferent, self-pleasing. His inclination is towards refined pleasures.”
The description sounded too tolerant to Wareham, who had adopted a rapid distrust of Lord Milborough, for which he would have found it difficult to account. He believed that his companion was merely quoting stock phrases, which had done duty until they had lost the freshness of a sketch from life. He painted his own picture of the subject, working out that word, self-pleasing, until the likeness was chiefly shadow. An intuitive sense of unfairness, however, enabled him to keep the portrait to himself.
Dr Scott’s energy soon began to fidget for exercise. He wanted to walk a mile or two. Wareham would have chosen rather to wait and see whether Anne put off in one of the boats buzzing round the yacht; to see her especially from his vantage height. But he became aware that folly was fighting for the upper hand, and walked away discontentedly.