Iris laughed, and a little colour came into her pale cheeks as they sped swiftly round the corner in search of the oddly-named lady's abode.
Mrs. Treble, who was engaged in hanging out the weekly washing in the small garden, was all sympathy at the sight of the young lady's wounded wrist, and invited them into the parlour and provided the basin of water and other accessories for which Anstice asked with a cheerful bustle which took no account of any trouble involved.
When she had dispatched her son, an overgrown lad who had just left school, to keep watch over the motor-cycle, Mrs. Treble requested the doctor's leave to continue her work; and nothing loth, Anstice shut the door upon her and gave his attention to his pale patient.
He had brought in a small leather case from his car, and after cleansing the wound he selected a needle and some fine wire in order to put in the necessary stitches, watched the while by a pair of interested, if somewhat apprehensive eyes.
"I won't hurt you, Miss Wayne." Somehow he felt oddly reluctant to inflict even a pinprick of pain on this particular patient. "I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid I really must put in a couple of stitches. I'll be as gentle as I can."
Iris laughed, rather shamefacedly.
"You think I am a coward," she said, "and you're quite right. I openly confess I dread bearing pain, probably because I've never known anything worse than toothache in my life!"
"Toothache can be the very—er—deuce," he said. "I once had it myself, and ever since then I've had the liveliest sympathy for any poor victim!"
"But there are so many other pains, so much worse, that it seems absurd to talk of mere toothache as a real pain," she objected, and Anstice laughed.
"Quite so, but you must remember that the other 'real pains' have alleviations which are denied to mere toothache. One's friends do at least take the other things seriously, and offer sympathy as freely as more potent remedies; while the sight of a swollen face is apt to cause one's relations a quite heartless amusement!"