(There was still something pathetically young about
Rufus Cosgrave. Now that his body was growing stronger, youth peered out
of his wan face like a famished prisoner demanding liberty.)
What he did with himself during the long hours when Stonehouse was in his
consulting-room or on his rounds Stonehouse never asked. At night he sat
at the study window of his friend's flat (shabby and high up since all
spare money was diverted to other and better purposes), and looked over
the roofs of the houses opposite, smoking and watching the dull red glow
that rose up from the blazing theatres westwards.
"It is a fire," he said once, "and all the cold, tired people in London
come to warm their hands at it."
Robert Stonehouse went on with his writing under the lamplight.
"Are you cold?"
"Not now." He added unexpectedly: "You think I'd be all right, don't
you, if only you could have a go at my tonsils or my adenoids? I believe
you're just waiting to have a go at them."
"Your tonsils are septic," Stonehouse agreed gravely. "I told you so,
but I wouldn't advise anything drastic until you're stronger. We'll
think about it in a month or two. You're better already."
Cosgrave chuckled to himself. In the shadow in which he sat the chuckle
sounded elfish and almost mocking.
"Oh, yes, I'm better!"
Stonehouse took his first holiday for three years, and carried Cosgrave
off with him to a rough shooting-box in the Highlands lent him by a
grateful and sporting patient, and for a week they tramped the moors
together and stalked deer and fished in the salmon river that ran in and
out among the desolate hills.
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