Mrs. Sandford laid down her pen and held out her hand.
‘If I had lost the thread of that account, I should never have found it again,’ she said. ‘My work is in such arrear. How are you this morning, John? Let us see this place on your forehead.’
‘It is nothing,’ he said, with a flush of colour.
‘I must see that for myself,’ she said, rising up, and taking his head in her hands. Other feelings came into John’s heart as he felt those hands, with their skilful touch, putting aside his hair, examining his wound. She let him go in a few moments, with a slight pat which was almost a caress. It was what she would have done to any young patient, but this he did not know. ‘It is, as Susie said, nothing to be uneasy about. If it does not heal in a day or two, we must get Mr. Denton or Mr. Colville to look at it. But I think it will heal of itself. It would have been more prudent, John, to remain at home instead of seeking adventures in the streets the first night.’
‘It didn’t look much like home,’ he said.
‘No; but it would, if you had waited for Susie. She is very like home even here. We cannot make a home for you, unhappily. The only thing for it, failing that, is to find you something to do.’
‘That is what I desire most,’ he said. She had seated herself again, returning to her books, and was looking at him with the air of one who has but a short time to spare for any other interest. Her eyes glanced from him to the long lines of figures she had before her. ‘Couldn’t I do some of that for you?’ said John, with a sudden impulse.
Mrs. Sandford started, and looked at him with astonished eyes.
‘My work?’ she said, ‘do you think you could do my work?’
‘If it is only adding up figures, surely,’ said John.