“But I haven’t another friend, Ivor!” But she was thinking only of what to do with him.
“No?” his eyes searched her face naïvely. “Well, then, I’ll be your friend, indeed I will. Later on, though. For I somehow can’t yet get used to not being your lover, it’s stupid of me. But I’ll be your friend, Magdalen, you can rely on me.”
“Silly Ivor!” she laughed at him nervously, taking his arm. His absurd seriousness unnerved her. “Why, you’ll have your work cut out to be your own friend, in the state you are in! You’ve got influenza, that’s what you’ve got. And you’ll go straight off to bed, please, straight away, and I’ll send you a doctor. You didn’t think, I suppose, of seeing a doctor, Ivor?”
“But that’s just what I came to see you about!” he remembered eagerly.
“Stay a moment,” she commanded, and flew quickly up the stairs. Ivor, with his back to the wall, closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly, in the hope that the pain in his side was an illusion. Maybe it was ... but it wasn’t. He opened his eyes; she was coming down again, wrapping something up in paper.
“Hot-water bottle,” she explained, giving it to him. “I’m sure you haven’t got one in your flat.”
“The correct procedure is,” she said, “to fill it with boiling water, then go to bed and lay it on your tummy, and go to sleep. Some people say it’s better to put it under your feet, but I’ve always inclined to the tummy school. One sweats.”
“Now, Ivor, no more nonsense!” she almost stamped her foot as he still made to delay. “And I’ll ring up Dr. Harvey as soon as you’ve gone, to go and see you. He’ll be with you in a very few minutes.” She almost pushed him to the door: deciding that she would follow him to his flat as soon as she had telephoned Dr. Harvey.
He wouldn’t let her open the door, he blocked her way, and his fumbling with it strained her nerves. But it was open at last. And without a word he stumbled quickly out.
“You’ve decorated my life, anyway,” he called abruptly back from the pavement, and strode away. She saw the paper round the hot-water bottle flutter down to the glistening pavement. Shivering from the damp cold, she watched the tall figure from the open doorway. Where had he left his hat, she wondered? She hadn’t realised he had no hat. She began to run after him to tell him to come back indoors while she tried to find a taxi, but at that moment she saw him catch one at the Knightsbridge corner....