There was no denying the fact that he did not make an agreeable invalid. In the first realisation of his accident he had meekly bowed his head to Fate; but ever since he had, figuratively speaking, kicked against the pricks, and repaid the kindness of his companions by incessant grumblings and complaints. He hated having to give up his own way; he hated being tied to a sofa and a bath-chair; he resented offers of help as if they had been actual insults, and hindered his recovery by foolhardy attempts at independence.
“How would you like to be an invalid for life?” Mollie asked him severely after one of these outbursts. “There was a young man in mother’s district, every bit as strong and big as you, and a sack of something fell on his back while they were trying to haul it up into a warehouse. He was taken to the hospital, and they told him that he would never walk again, never even sit up again. As long as he lived he would be a helpless cripple. And he was just going to be married, too!”
“Well, I’m not, thank goodness!” cried Jack bluntly. “Why do you tell me such gruesome stories? My own troubles are quite enough just now. I don’t want to hear any more horrors.”
“It was just to distract your mind from yourself that I did tell you. Once upon a time I met a man who read me a beautiful lecture upon the dangers of being selfish and self-engrossed. I’ll tell you his very words, if you like. They made a deep impression upon me at the time,” said Mollie naughtily. But instead of being amused, Jack was only irritated afresh.
In these first days of invalidism Mollie’s influence was the reverse of soothing, for Jack was not in the mood to be teased, and if his inner determination could have been put into words it would have been that he objected to be cheered up, refused to be cheered up, and insisted upon posing as a martyr; therefore, it followed that Ruth’s gentle ministrations were more acceptable than her sister’s vigorous sallies. If he could have seen again the Mollie of whom he had caught a glimpse on Sunday evening, Jack would have chosen her before any other companion; but, as she had made place for a mischievous tease, he preferred to look into Ruth’s lovely anxious eyes, and to dilate at length upon his symptoms to her sympathetic ear.
Mr Farrell’s behaviour at this critical juncture did not throw oil upon the troubled waters. He took care that Jack should have every attention, and inquired as to his progress with punctilious regularity; but he plainly considered a sprained ankle a very trivial affair, which, needless to say, did not coincide with the invalid’s views of the case; moreover, he absolutely refused to believe that the accident was responsible for keeping Jack at the Court.
“It is only right to tell you, sir, that I had finally made up my mind that I must return home to-day, as I could not agree with your conditions,” Jack informed him on their first interview after the doctor had paid his visit; whereupon the old man elevated his eyebrows with that air of ineffable superiority which was so exasperating, and said—
“And I, on the contrary, had made up my mind that you should stay. It is satisfactory to me that the question is decided in my favour.”
“By an accident, sir. By an accident only. If I’d been able to move—”
Mr Farrell held up his hand with a deprecatory gesture.