In a way it was always there.  When he was not laughing and shouting you saw it—­a careworn, anxious look, as though he were always afraid something might pounce out on him.  It ought to have been pathetic, but somehow or other it was not.  For one thing, he was not an angel-child, bearing oppression meekly.  He was much more like a yellow-haired imp waiting sullenly for a chance to pounce back, and the whole effect of him was at once furtive and obstinate.  Indeed, anyone who knew nothing of the Stonehouse temper and duns and forgotten birthdays would have dismissed him as an ugly, disagreeable little boy.

But Frances Wilmot, who knew nothing of these things either, crouched down beside him, her arm about his shoulder.

“Poor Robert!”

He began to hiccough again.  He had to clench his teeth and his fists not to betray the fact that the hiccoughs were really convulsively swallowed sobs asserting themselves.  He wanted to confide in her, but if she knew the truth about his home and his people she wouldn’t play with him any more.  She would know then that he wasn’t nice.  And besides, he had some dim notion of protecting her from the things he knew.

“You t-t-tied me up jolly well,” he said.  “It’s comfy now.  It was aching hard.”

“I like tying up things,” she explained easily, “You see, I’m going to be a doctor.”

The rabbit’s ears stopped waving for a minute in sheer astonishment.

“Girls aren’t doctors.”

“Yes, they are.  Heaps of them.  I’m reading up already, in that book.  It’s all about first-aid.  There’s the bandage I did for you.  You can read how it’s done.”

He couldn’t.  And he was ashamed again.  In his shame he began to swagger.

“My father’s a doctor—­awfully clever——­”

“Is he?  How jolly!  Why didn’t you tell me?  Has he lots of patients?”

“Lots.  All over the world.  But he doesn’t think much of other doctors.  L-licensed h-humbugs, he calls them.”

She drew away a little, her face between her hands, and he felt that somehow he had failed again—­that she had slipped through his fingers.  If only for a moment she had looked up to him and believed in him the evil spirit that was climbing up on to his shoulders would have fled away.  There was a stout piece of stick lying amidst the rubble at his feet, and he took it up and felt it as a swordsman tests his blade.

“I’m going to be a doctor too,” he said truculently.  “A big doctor.  I shall make piles of money, and have three ass-assistants.  P’r’aps, if you’re any good you shall be one of them.”

She did not answer.  The intent, observing look had come into her eyes.  The cool wind lifted the brown hair so that it was like a live thing floating about her head.  She seemed as lovely to him as his mother.  He wanted terribly to say to her, “It’s my birthday, Francey, and they haven’t even wished me many happy returns;” but that would have shown her how little he was, and how unhappy.  Instead, he began to lunge and parry with an invisible opponent, talking in a loud, fierce voice.