"Let's get a cab and take her now," Edmund suggested; "it would be a lark, and such a surprise for Mrs. Dew."
Jane-Anne looked from Edmund to Mr. Wycherly, but saw that the enchanting proposition found no favour in his eyes.
"We mustn't do that," he said, "we haven't got the doctor's permission, and I don't think Mrs. Dew has got her room ready yet."
"This bed's coming for me to-morrow," Jane-Anne said shyly. "The things in this room are Aunt's."
"You won't be such a squash in the room you're going to have," Edmund remarked. "It's not a big room but you'll be able to get round the furniture better."
"It will be so lovelly to have a little room of my own," Jane-Anne said softly.
"I hope you will sleep well in it, and get strong," said Mr. Wycherly. "And I am sure Mrs. Dew will make it as pretty for you as possible. And now, my child, we must go. I don't think you are very fit for visitors as yet, and we mustn't tire you. We just looked in to tell you how welcome you will be to-morrow."
"We've got a bathroom, you know," Edmund said proudly, anxious to do the honours of their house. "Hot and cold and a squirty thing for washing your head, you can use it for the rest of you, too, if you like, but it makes rather a mess. It's in the basin really, and we do each other sometimes. I do like a bathroom, don't you?"
Jane-Anne murmured her appreciation of that luxury, and Mr. Wycherly held out his hand to her, and she gave him hers; such a nervous little hand, so thin and hectic and fluttering: yet it grew still as it lay in his, and there seemed some subtle contact in its gentle clasp.
The child's eyes and the old man's met in a long gaze that asked and promised much.