lised you are
keeping Sartorius here on my account. You'll think me incredibly
stupid, but I supposed he was staying on as a--a guest."

"Well?" she returned, quite tranquilly, though watching him closely, he
thought.

Mechanically she put out her hand to take a cigarette from the table,
keeping her eyes on his. He bent forward with a match for her, and the
perfume from her hair, her skin, her dress met him in a cloying wave.
Why, in spite of all, did he shrink from that scent? He couldn't
explain it, it wasn't exactly unpleasant....

"Well," he replied, finding it hard to proceed, "now that I do
understand, I must really beg you to get rid of him. I'm not ill
enough to need any physician's undivided attention, and besides"--he
hesitated, then took the plunge--"I feel I've got to get away. Since
Father's funeral this house seems to get on my nerves. I'm horribly
depressed. Do you know what I mean?"

Expecting to see her face cloud with the look of resentful suspicion he
knew so well he was agreeably surprised when she merely smiled faintly
and replied:

"My dear, of course I know! It is most natural. I too would like to
get away. Why don't you go to a nursing-home for a bit?"

Both he and his aunt could hardly believe their ears. Therese was
surely becoming much more reasonable than formerly.

"Perhaps, it depends on how I feel. It's jolly decent of you to
understand. Of course it's nothing but nerves----"

"Oh, my dear, don't trouble to explain! As if I didn't know what
nerves are! I don't suppose, in that case, you will want Sartorius?"

"Well, I----" He broke off, embarrassed, scarcely able to keep the
amazement out of his voice.

"Because I think he wants to run down to Algiers for a little rest.
He's only staying to please me."

The matter had cleared up in the simplest fashion. Roger felt a rush
of slightly ashamed gratitude towards his step-mother, feeling a little
reluctantly, as he had done once before, that he had misjudged her.
Confused by her kindly impulses he stooped to pick up the wisp of a
handkerchief she had let fall to the floor. As he laid it in her lap
she uttered a sharp little cry.

"Roger--your hand! Let me see, please. Why, it's bleeding again!
Aren't you doing anything for it?"

He allowed her to examine it, while his aunt adjusted her spectacles
and moved nearer to see.

"My dear, that is bad! I'd almost forgotten it, but it isn't healing
at all, it look