CHAPTER XXXIX

My examination was at three, and at two o’clock I got up. If I hadn’t done so well on the other papers, probably I should have let it go, but it seemed, in the circumstances, a pity to spoil my results if I could possibly avoid it. Yet when I lifted my head from the pillow it throbbed so violently that I thought I should have to lie down again. I steadied myself, holding on to the bed-post, but presently I was able to finish dressing and go downstairs. Miss Izzy was in the shop, alone, and she gazed at me with keen curiosity. I smiled, though I was really feeling fairly bad.

“Are you better?” Miss Izzy asked, for some reason speaking in a kind of hoarse whisper.

“I’ve a beastly headache, that’s all.”

“Not much wonder. _She_ did it, didn’t she?” Miss Izzy was all eyes and secrecy.

I nodded.

“She’s getting worse,” Miss Izzy announced in an awed tone. “She’s really not in her right senses. I don’t know what she’ll be doing next. You’re going to-day, aren’t you?”

“Yes――after the exam. I wish you would ask Alice to pack my things for me; she can do it all right.”

“I’ll help her. I’ll tell you this, I’ve been looking out for another job this while back, and I think I’ve got one. That’s between ourselves; but I can’t put up with her any longer. I’ll drop you a postcard; give me your address.”

I scribbled it on a bit of paper she handed me.

Miss Izzy glanced at it and stuffed it in her pocket. “Right oh! Here’s somebody coming in; they never give you a minute’s peace―――― Are you away?”

“Yes. I think I’ll take a cab.”

The customer had entered, but Miss Izzy only glared at her. “I’m sure you shouldn’t be going at all. It may just give you brain fever or something!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I smiled.

Miss Izzy nodded at me as she advanced reluctantly to her duty. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yes. You’ll not forget to tell Alice?”

“No; that’ll be all right.”

At the stand by the gas-works I got into a hansom and drove off. I kept my cap on the seat beside me, for any pressure on my head was painful. Fortunately I had only a short distance to go, and once in the cool airy hall I felt better. But my bandaged appearance created quite a sensation. Everybody stared at me, and one of the superintendents came to ask me if I had met with an accident. I told him I had fallen downstairs, at which he indulged in a somewhat obvious jest.

The paper suited me and did not require any great effort, but when I had finished I was glad. Outside, I had to repeat my fiction of falling downstairs, and listen to various versions of the superintendent’s joke, before I was able to get Owen by himself. We went into the Botanic Gardens and sat down on the first vacant bench, where I told him what had actually happened. He did not appear to realize that I might have been killed, and, in spite of his sympathy and the questions he asked, I knew his thoughts were really hovering round the examination, and that he was weighing the chances of his having retained his last year’s exhibition. We talked of my adventure, but, as we did so, unconsciously, he drew the examination paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Owen had not been doing so well as I had, and a good deal depended on the marks he got this afternoon. “I wouldn’t mind,” he said, “only there’s something I’m doing which the pater will make me give up if I don’t keep my ‘ex.’”

“If I’d been killed,” I said, “I wonder if you’d have gone over the questions with Grimshaw or O’Brian!”

Owen glanced at me to see if I were serious. He had by this time spread out the blue sheet on his knees. “What did you put for ‘cane-bottomed chair?’” he asked, anxiously.

But my interest in the exam. had vanished. “Oh, I don’t know――‘chaise cannée,’ or something. Look here, Owen, will you come and see me off at the station? I have to go back to the house, of course, to get my things, but I’d rather have somebody with me.”

“‘Chaise cannée?’ How did you think of it? I wonder if it’s right? I put ‘au fond de jonc,’ but I’m sure that’s rot. ‘Chaise cannée.’ You know, it’s not fair giving things like that! What do you think?”

“Of ‘au fond de jonc’? I don’t think much of it.”

Owen was depressed. “It doesn’t sound right, does it? What did you put for ‘fire-dogs?’ O’Brian put ‘chiens de feu.’”

“O’Brian’s a fool,” I answered, truthfully.

Owen laughed, but without merriment, and I was pretty sure he had put ‘chiens de feu’ himself. “You might drop that beastly paper,” I said, “and tell me if you’ll come or not.”

“Of course I’ll come. But tell me just this one thing.”

“What? ‘Fire-dogs?’――‘chenets.’”

“‘Chenets?’ Are you sure? You’re awfully clever at those out-of-the-way words!”

“It’s not an out-of-the-way word. ‘Chiens de feu’ are the sort of things that’ll be chasing you and O’Brian in the next world.”

Owen laughed ruefully, but another question, in spite of his promise, was already hovering on his lips.

“Come along,” I said, getting up. “What good does it do worrying over the rotten thing now?” And I tore my paper in two, and let the pieces go fluttering down the path on the wind.