“But I don’t wish to be cured.”
“Nonsense!” Bransby rebuked him, adding dryly, “what would you say to a patient of yours who talked like that?”
Latham turned to Helen desperately. “I say, Miss Bransby, does she know I am staying with you?”
“No—I think not. I think she’s still in town.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But she’ll find out,” Helen assured him, nodding sagely her naughty red head.
But respite was at hand. “Can we come in?” asked a voice at which Richard Bransby winced again.
“Yes, Hugh, come along,” Helen said cheerfully. “Dr. Latham will be glad to see you; he has finished his delicate confidences.”
“It’s all right, Stephen, we won’t be in the way,” Hugh called over his shoulder as he strolled through the doorway, a boyish, soldierly young figure, sunny-faced, frank-eyed. He wore the khaki of a second lieutenant. He went up to his uncle. Bransby’s fingers tightened at the throat of the green god, and imperiled the delicately cut pink lotus leaves.
“I suppose Helen told you that she beat us,” the young fellow said, laying a coin near Bransby’s hand. “There’s the shilling I owe you, sir—the last of an ill-spent fortune.”