“Let’s have some swell down,” said Meyrick urgently.  “We could get him in a jiffy.”

But Radowitz impatiently dismissed the subject.  Sorell, he said, had gone to see Fanning, and it would be all right.  At the same time it was evident through the disjointed conversation which followed that he was suffering great pain.  He was alternately flushed and deadly pale, and could not occasionally restrain a groan which scared his two companions.  At last they got up to go, to the relief of all three.

Meyrick said awkwardly: 

“Falloden’s awfully sorry too.  He would have come with us—­but he thought perhaps you wouldn’t want him.”

“No, I don’t want him!” said Radowitz vehemently.  “That’s another business altogether.”

Meyrick hummed and hawed, fidgeting from one foot to the other.

“It was I started the beastly thing,” he said at last.  “It wasn’t Falloden at all.”

“He could have stopped it,” said Radowitz shortly.  “And you can’t deny he led it.  There’s a long score between him and me.  Well, never mind, I shan’t say anything.  And nobody else need.  Good-bye.”

A slight ghostly smile appeared in the lad’s charming eyes as he raised them to the pair, again holding out his free hand.  They went away feeling, as Meyrick put it, “pretty beastly.”

* * * * *

By the afternoon various things had happened.  Falloden, who had not got to bed till six, woke towards noon from a heavy sleep in his Beaumont Street “diggings,” and recollecting in a flash all that had happened, sprang up and opened his sitting-room door.  Meyrick was sitting on the sofa, fidgeting with a newspaper.

“Well, how is he?”

Meyrick reported that the latest news from Marmion was that Sorell and Fanning between them had decided to take Radowitz up to town that afternoon—­for the opinion of Sir Horley Wood, the great surgeon.

“Have you seen Sorell?”

“Yes.  But he would hardly speak to me.  He said we’d perhaps spoilt his life.”

“Whose?”

“Radowitz’s.”

Falloden’s expression stiffened.

“That’s nonsense.  If he’s properly treated, he’ll get all right.  Besides it was a pure accident.  How could any of us know those broken pipes were there?”

“Well, I shall be glad when we get Wood’s opinion,” said Meyrick gloomily.  “It does seem hard lines on a fellow who plays that it should have been his hand.  But of course—­as you say, Duggy—­it’ll probably be all right.  By the way, Sorell told me Radowitz had absolutely refused to let anybody in college know—­any of the dons—­and had forbidden Sorell himself to say a word.”

“Well of course that’s more damaging to us than any other line of action,” said Falloden drily.  “I don’t know that I shall accept it—­for myself.  The facts had better be known.”

“Well, you’d better think of the rest of us,” said Meyrick.  “It would hit Robertson uncommonly hard if he were sent down.  If Radowitz is badly hurt, and the story gets out, they won’t play him for the Eleven—­”