“I don’t! For God’s sake, Lucy, will you stop trying to cosset me?”
“Don’t want to cosset you. Thing is, you may have strained it. Better lie up tomorrow, if a night’s rest don’t put all to rights again.”
“Oh, fudge!” Gervase said.
He appeared at the breakfast-table next morning, but he still seemed reluctant to move his left arm; and he admitted, upon being rigorously questioned by the Viscount, that he had not slept well.
“Then let me tell you this, dear boy! You ain’t going to Whissenhurst this afternoon!”
“But if the Bolderwoods are going to town tomorrow, I think I ought to take leave of them!” objected Gervase. “After all, you will be driving, not I.”
“Don’t be a fool, Ger! You’d be fagged to death! Ill be the bearer of your excuses.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Gervase temporized. He glanced across the table at Martin. “Do you mean to go?”
“No, I have business in Grantham this morning,” Martin replied shortly. “I daresay I may be detained there. In any event, I’ve no thought of going to Whissenhurst!”
Gervase said no more, but rose from the table, and sauntered out of the room. Ten minutes later he was in the stables, inspecting Cloud’s forelegs.