“I see,” said Leoni gravely. “Your blade must have passed through the ruffian, and been held long enough by the muscles for you to receive a horrible wrench. There, set your teeth, and if I hurt you try and bear it. I will be as gentle as I can.”
A rapid examination followed, and then the carefully educated fingers ceased their task, and Leoni spoke again as he drew a white kerchief from his pouch and gently wiped his patient’s moistened brow.
“There is nothing wrong,” he said, “but a bad strain at the tendons, and of course the slightest touch gives great suffering. I will return directly. I am only going to my room for something that will lull that pain, and nature will do the rest.”
He nodded gravely to both the lads, and passed quickly from the room, while as the door closed the young Englishman said eagerly:
“I like him. He seems to know a deal. But you said that he was a maître d’armes.”
“He’s everything,” said Denis with a faint laugh—“chirurgien, statesman—oh, I can’t tell you all. Oh, how he hurt me, though! If you hadn’t been here I believe I should have shrieked.”
“Not you,” cried the other. “I was watching, and I saw how you set your teeth. Why, if he had pulled your arm off you wouldn’t have said a word. I say, I wish you were English.”
“Why?” said Denis wonderingly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the other rather confusedly, “only I seem to like a fellow who can act like that.”
“Then because I am French you feel as if you couldn’t like me?”