“I expect I’m a bore,” he said, with a shrug; “and I’d better go to bed.”
Falloden helped him carry up his books and papers. In Otto’s room, the windows were wide open, but there was a bright fire, and Bateson, the ex-scout, was waiting to help him undress. Falloden asked some questions about the doctor’s orders. Various things were wanted from Oxford. He undertook to get them in the morning.
When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time in a brown study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications at all as a nurse. But he was inclined to think now that Radowitz might be worse off without him; what Constance had said seemed less unreal; and his effort of the evening, as he looked back on it, brought him a certain bitter satisfaction.
The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course of the second movement of his symphony clear before him. He worked feverishly all day, now writing, now walking up and down, humming and thinking, now getting but of his piano—a beautiful instrument hired for the winter—all that his maimed state allowed him to get; and passing hour after hour, between an ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of impotent rage with his own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn out, and with tea beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he was sitting huddled over the fire, when he heard some one ride up to the front door.
In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl’s figure in a riding habit appeared.
“May I come in?” said Connie, flushing rather pink.
Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as though by magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.
“Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed five minutes ago—I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the room shine—you do come in like a goddess!”
He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in relighting the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.