“What is it, dear boy?  You look so white!”

Without quite knowing what he did, he bent his face towards the hand that she had laid on his sleeve, then knew no more, having fainted.

VIII

Growing boy—­over-exertion in the morning!  That was all!  He was himself very quickly, and walked up to bed without assistance.  Rotten of him!  Never was anyone more ashamed of his little weakness than this boy.  Now that he was really a trifle indisposed, he simply could not bear the idea of being nursed at all or tended.  Almost rudely he had got away.  Only when he was in bed did he remember the look on her face as he left her.  How wistful and unhappy, seeming to implore him to forgive her!  As if there were anything to forgive!  As if she had not made him perfectly happy when she danced with him!  He longed to say to her:  “If I might be close to you like that one minute every day, then I don’t mind all the rest!” Perhaps he would dare say that to-morrow.  Lying there he still felt a little funny.  He had forgotten to close the ribs of the blinds, and moonlight was filtering in; but he was too idle, too drowsy to get up now and do it.  They had given him brandy, rather a lot—­that perhaps was the reason he felt so queer; not ill, but mazy, as if dreaming, as if he had lost the desire ever to move again.  Just to lie there, and watch the powdery moonlight, and hear faraway music throbbing down below, and still feel the touch of her, as in the dance she swayed against him, and all the time to have the scent about him of flowers!  His thoughts were dreams, his dreams thoughts—­all precious unreality.  And then it seemed to him that the moonlight was gathered into a single slip of pallor—­there was a thrumming, a throbbing, and that shape of moonlight moved towards him.  It came so close that he felt its warmth against his brow; it sighed, hovered, drew back soundless, and was gone.  He must have fallen then into dreamless sleep. . . .

What time was it when he was awakened by that delicate ‘rat-tat’ to see his tutor standing in the door-way with a cup of tea?

Was young Lennan all right?  Yes, he was perfectly all right—­would be down directly!  It was most frightfully good of Mr. Stormer to come!  He really didn’t want anything.

Yes, yes; but the maimed and the halt must be attended to!

His face seemed to the boy very kind just then—­only to laugh at him a very little—­just enough.  And it was awfully decent of him to have come, and to stand there while he drank the tea.  He was really all right, but for a little headache.  Many times while he was dressing he stood still, trying to remember.  That white slip of moonlight?  Was it moonlight?  Was it part of a dream; or was it, could it have been she, in her moonlight-coloured frock?  Why had he not stayed awake?  He would not dare to ask her, and now would never know whether the vague memory of warmth on his brow had been a kiss.