"You'll do nothing of the kind," she said decidedly, looking up at him as he stood by the library table, a folded newspaper in his hand; "you'll stay and do your duty by the wall-flowers."
"Not I, sweet lady," he answered banteringly. "Life is too short. I'm coming back here and entertain your headache away!"
And he did. He came in at about half-past ten, for the filling up of Evelyn's card had been a matter quickly despatched, and he was in radiant spirits over having "jumped the game."
"Mrs. Chalmers didn't mind at all," he explained as he drew a chair up to the fire and lighted a cigarette. "I left her in a corner with a few other fond mammas and she even insisted that I should not go back, as Jim goes for them about two o'clock. All I'm to do is to go out to the stables and punch Jim in the ribs and wake him up in time. So we are going to have a jolly evening together."
"Oh, dear, what a pleasant prospect!" Sophie said, only half in jest, as her hand went up to her aching head. "Now, if I could just get rid of this one-eyed pain I might find life decidedly worth living."
"Isn't there anything we can do?" he asked solicitously, casting his cigarette quickly into the fire as if he thought the smoke might make her head worse. "Can't Miss Fielding and I make you a mustard plaster—or something?"
"There is a little bottle of stuff in my bag up-stairs that sometimes acts like magic in a case like this," she finally said with some hesitancy, and I realized that she was hesitating because she disliked the idea of having any one fussing over her. She is one of these capable creatures who seldom ask even a small service of any one.
"Let me run and get it," I said starting up and resolving that I should get the bottle, hand it in to Mr. Maxwell at the door, then betake myself off to my own room and leave them alone together. I imagined that he would enjoy the privilege of hunting about to get her a glass and a spoon himself. And it would make them feel more at home with each other for him to be rendering her these little services.
I went to Sophie's room and found a bag where she had told me to look, in the closet on the lower shelf. I caught it up and moved across to the bed, where I sat down and deposited it by my side; then I began a wrestling match with the most obstinate catch that it has ever been my ill-fortune to come across on an alligator-skin bag.
"I'll just have to take it down and get Mr. Maxwell to open it," I finally decided, after I had worked with the thing until my strength and patience were both exhausted. "It is provoking to see the ease with which a man can subdue a thing like this after a woman has broken off all her best-looking finger-nails over the task."