hing to stay had been
some unformed idea of being helpful to the girl herself--ungrateful
minx!

"If there is anything really wrong--" the cold incredulity of her tone
was the last straw.

"Nothing wrong at all!" said Professor Spence. He arose briskly. Alas!
He had forgotten his sciatic nerve. He had forgotten, too, the
crampiness of its temper since that glacial bath, and, most completely
of all, had he forgotten the fate of the
man-who-didn't-take-care-of-himself. Therefore it was with something of
surprise that he found himself crumpled up upon the floor. Only when he
tried to rise again and felt the sweat upon his forehead did he
remember the doctor's story.... Spence swore under his breath and
attempted to pull himself up by the table.

"Wait a moment!"

The cold voice held authority--the authority he had come to respect in
hospital--and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them
still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and
laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa.

"Why didn't you say you had sciatica?" asked Miss Farr, belligerently.

It seemed unnecessary to answer.

"I know it is sciatica," she went on, "because I've seen it before. And
if you had no more sense than to bathe in that pool you deserve all
you've got."

"It looked all right."

"Oh--looked! It's melted ice--simply."

"So I realized, afterwards."

"You seem to do most things afterwards. What caused it in the first
place, cold?"

"The sciatica? No--an injury."

There was a slight pause.

"Was it--in the war?" The new note in her voice did not escape Spence.
He lied promptly--too promptly. Desire Farr was an observant young
person, quite capable of drawing conclusions.

"I'm not going to be sympathetic," she said. "That," with sudden
illumination, "is probably what you ran away from. But you'd better be
truthfull Was it a bullet?"

"Shrapnel."

"And the treatment?"

"Rest, and the tablets in my bag."

"Right--I'll get them."

It was quite like old hospital times. The sofa was hard and the pillows
knobby. But he had lain upon worse. Li Ho was not more unhandy than
many an orderly. And the tablets, quickly and neatly administered by
Miss Farr, brought something of relief.

Not until she saw the strain within his eyes relax did his
self-appointed nurse pass sentence.

"You certainly can't move until you are better," she said. "You'll have
to stay. It can't be helped but--father