"You look quite faint," observed Mrs. Savine. "It was the hot sun on your forehead, and the mental excitement. Such things are often followed by dangerous consequences, and you must take a dose of my elixir. Helen, dear, you know where to find the bottle."
Julius Savine was guilty of a slight gesture of impatience. His brother laughed, while Helen seemed anxious to slip away. Geoffrey answered:
"I hardly think one should get very mentally excited over a bicycle. I feel perfectly well, and only somewhat greasy."
"That is just one of the symptoms. Yes, you have hit it—greasy feeling!" broke in the amateur dispenser, who rarely relaxed her efforts until she had run down her victim. "Helen, why don't you hunt round for that bottle?"
"I mean greasy externally," explained Geoffrey in desperation, and again Thomas Savine chuckled, while Helen, who ground one little boot-heel into the grasses, deliberately turned away. Mrs. Savine, however, cheerfully departed to find the bottle, and soon returned with it and a wine glass. She filled the glass with an inky fluid which smelt unpleasant, and said to Geoffrey:
"You will be distinctly better the moment you have taken this!"
Geoffrey took the goblet, walked apart a few paces, and, making a wry face, heroically swallowed the bitter draught, after which Mrs. Savine, who beamed upon him, said:
"You feel quite differently, don't you?"
"Yes!" asserted Geoffrey, truthfully, longing to add that he had felt perfectly well before and had now to make violent efforts to overcome his nausea.
His heroism had its reward, however, for when Helen returned from her wheel ride, she said: "I was really ashamed when my aunt insisted on doctoring you, but you must take it as a compliment, because she only prescribes for the people she takes a fancy to. I hope the dose was not particularly nasty?"