“Tell me, tell me,” Winch repeated with the same movement.
The tone in it now made their eyes meet again, and with this presentation of the altered face Mark measured as not before, for some reason, the extent of the recent ravage. “You must have been ill indeed.”
“Pretty bad. But I’m better. And you do me good”—with which the light of convalescence came back.
“I don’t awfully bore you?”
Winch shook his head. “You keep me up—and you see how no one else comes near me.”
Mark’s eyes made out that he was better—though it wasn’t yet that nothing was the matter with him. If there was ever a man with whom there was still something the matter—! Yet one couldn’t insist on that, and meanwhile he clearly did want company. “Then there we are. I myself had no one to go to.”
“You save my life,” Newton renewedly grinned.
VII
“Well, it’s your own fault,” Mark replied to that, “if you make me take advantage of you.” Winch had withdrawn his hand, which was back, violently shaking keys or money, in his trousers pocket; and in this position he had abruptly a pause, a sensible, absence, that might have represented either some odd drop of attention, some turn-off to another thought, or just simply the sudden act of listening. His guest had indeed himself—under suggestion—the impression of a sound. “Mayn’t you perhaps—if you hear something—have a call?”