Jim leaned forward and looked at him hard.

“Quite so,” said Nick in answer, closing his eyes again.  “But you don’t by any chance imagine she’s in love with me, do you?  You know how a woman looks at a worm she has chopped in half by mistake?  That’s how Muriel Roscoe looked at me to-day when she expressed her regret for my mishap.”

“She wouldn’t do that for nothing,” observed Jim, with a hint of sternness.

“She wouldn’t,” Nick conceded placidly.

“Then why the devil did you ever give her reason?” Jim spoke with unusual warmth.  Muriel was a favourite of his.

But he obtained scant satisfaction notwithstanding.

“Ask the devil,” said Nick flippantly.  “I never was good at definitions.”

It was a tacit refusal to discuss the matter, and as such Jim accepted it.

He turned from the subject with a grunt of discontent.  “Well, if I am to undertake your case, you had better let me look at you.  But we’ll have a clean understanding first, mind, that you obey my orders.  I won’t be responsible otherwise.”

Nick opened his eyes with a chuckle.  “I’ll do anything under the sun to please you, Jimmy,” he said generously.  “When did you ever find me hard to manage?”

“You’ve given me plenty of trouble at one time and another,” Jim said bluntly.

“And shall again before I die,” laughed Nick, as he submitted to his brother’s professional handling.  “There’s plenty of kick left in me.  By the way, tell me what you think about Daisy.  I must call on her to-morrow before I leave.”

This intention, however, was not fulfilled, for Daisy herself came early to the doctor’s house to visit him.  Far from well though she was, she made the effort as a matter of course.  Nick was too near a friend to neglect.  Blake did not accompany her.  He was riding with Muriel.

She found Nick stretched out in luxurious idleness on a couch in the sunshine.  He made a movement to spring to meet her, but checked himself with a laugh.

“This is awfully good of you, Daisy.  I was coming to see you later, but I’m nailed to this confounded sofa for the next two hours, having solemnly sworn to Jim that nothing short of battle, murder or sudden death should induce me to move.  I’m afraid I can’t reasonably describe your coming as any of these, so I must remain a fixture.  It’s Jimmy’s rest cure.”

He reached out his hand to Daisy, who took it in both her own.  “My poor dear Nick!” she said, and stooping impulsively kissed him on the forehead.

“Bless you!” said Nick.  “I’m ten times better for that.  Sit down here, won’t you?  Pull up close.  I’ve got a lot to say.”

Of sympathy for her recent bereavement, however, he said no word whatever.  He only held her hand.

“There’s poor old Will,” he said:  “I spent the night with him on my way down.  He’s beastly homesick—­sent all sorts of messages to you.  You’ll be going out in the winter?”