“Can you move?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Can you walk to a doctor’s? There’s one just round the corner. Better than having him here. Some doctors talk. You’ll be better out of this.”
Leaning on Kilner’s arm, René managed to reach the doctor’s, but there he fainted. Kilner invented a story of an early morning street attack, and the doctor, who was not interested, swallowed it. He patched René up, gave him a prescription, and told him to call again that day. René disliked the man so much that he refused inwardly ever to go near him again. Between them they had half the fee, and promised to send round the rest.
Kilner made René comfortable in his room and was then sent off to find Miss Cleethorpe.
Lotta came at once. She and Kilner liked each other. Kilner had begun to see the affair in a humorous light. Anything to do with René was to him never very far short of absurdity.
“I wish I’d thought of it like that before,” he said. “I’d never have let him go to her. I might have known he would make a mess of it. He was simply bursting with exaltation, and when he’s like that it never occurs to him that other people may have a different view. I half believe he expected Ann to share his enthusiasm for the other lady——”
Lotta could not help laughing, though she protested: “What a shame!”
“I can’t help it,” said Kilner, “other people’s love affairs always are comic, and Fourmy—well, he is simply inappropriate in a community of creatures who live by cunning.”
“You’ve hit it,” replied Lotta. “I’ve been trying to understand what it was made him so exceptional. Creatures who live by cunning—— Thank you, Mr. Kilner.”