He obeyed her, with a feeling in his heart of ridiculously childish happiness. He remembered when Helen had once bade him not talk, and how the demand had then irritated him. Curious that Clare could even copy Helen exactly and yet be tremendously, vitally different!
She unwound the bandage, washed the cut, and bandaged it up again in a clean and workmanlike manner. The deftness of her fingers fascinated him; he gazed on them as they moved about over his face; he luxuriated amongst them, as it were.
At the finish of the operation she gave that sharp instant laugh which, even after hearing it only a few times, he had somehow thought characteristic of her. "You needn't worry," she said quietly, and in the half-mocking tone that was even more characteristic of her than her laugh. "You're not going to die. Did you think you were? Now tell me how it happened."
"You'll smile when I tell you. I was taking prep, and they ragged me. Somebody switched off the lights and somebody else must have thrown a book at me. That's all."
"That's all? It's enough, isn't it? And what made you think I should smile at such an affair?"
"I don't know. In a certain sense it's, perhaps, a little funny.... D'you know, lately I've had a perfectly overwhelming desire to laugh at things that other people wouldn't see anything funny in. The other night Helen told me not to talk to her because she couldn't believe a word I said, but she didn't mind if I kissed her. I laughed at that—I couldn't help it. And now, when I think of an hour ago with all the noise and commotion and flash-lights and stink-bombs and showers of ink—oh, God, it was damned funny!"
He burst into gusts of tempestuous, half-hysterical laughter.
"Stop laughing!" she ordered. She added quietly: "Yes, you look as if you've been in an ink-storm—it's all over your coat and collar. What made them rag you?"
"They hate me."
"Why?"