Pat struck the match and sucked luxuriously. There was no need to make conversation to Glynn. He was a comfortable fellow who always understood. It was good to see him sitting there, to look at his fine, grave face, and realise that boredom was over, and the happiest hour of the day begun.
“I say, Glynn, I made you, come! Mesmerised you. It drives a fellow crazy to be done by a couple of inches. They say if you concentrate your thoughts—”
“I arranged this morning to call at five o’clock. I should say by the look of things you had concentrated on biscuits. ... Where’s that old woman?” Glynn inquired.
“Shopping. Always is. And never buys anything by the taste of the food. You should have seen my lunch! I’ll be a living skeleton at this rate.”
Pat spoke laughingly, but the hearer frowned, and looked quickly at the sharpened face, on which weeks of solitary confinement had left their mark.
“Why don’t you round into her?”
“Daren’t! Might make off and leave me in the lurch. They do, you know. Fellows have told me. Any one is better than no one at all when you are minus a leg.”
“And about that letter? The time limit runs out to-morrow. You know what I threatened?”
Pat shrugged impatiently.
“You and your threats! What’s the sense in worrying when it’s got to end in worrying, and can do no good? I’ve told you till I’m tired—the Hilliards are abroad, Dick Victor is down with rheumatism, and Bridgie makes sure he’s going to die every time his finger aches. She’d leave him if I died first, I suppose, but I wouldn’t make too sure even of that. ’Twould have finished her altogether to know that I was lying here all these weeks. However!” Pat shrugged again, “you’ve got your way, bad luck to you! Bridgie wrote to ask me to run down over a Sunday, to cheer Victor, so there was nothing for it but to own up. She’ll write me reams of advice and send embrocations. Serve you jolly well right if I rubbed them on you instead!”