"Great Scott!" ejaculated Denis, with overdone dismay. "Won't be a
minute--forgot--" and he strode from the room.
Nell sat down suddenly, and hid her face in her hands. She knew quite
well that Denis was now crawling about under his bed in search of the
stocking.
Presently he reappeared, and worked his way round to her. Ted was urging
a political argument with the Atom. Under cover of it Denis began.
"Beastly stocking isn't there!"
"If it were, why would the lamp be out, you goose?"
"Never thought of that!" He gave a chuckle.
"It's under the table! It's not packed properly yet. Get Ted up to
your room. I'll put it in mine."
"Right you are."
"I say, what on earth am I kicking under here?" came from Ted suddenly.
"Ugh, it feels like a corpulent corpse." He stooped to peer under the
table. Molly cried out; he dropped the cloth and turned round.
"Did you hurt yourself?"
"I say, old man," Denis flung his arm round his shoulders and dragged
him towards the door, "you might come up now and look at that book of
Heller's I was telling you about. It's in my room."
"All right, but I've a conviction it's Herr Schmidt under that table!"
When they returned to the Stronghold all was light and innocent and
calm. Denis made some excuse and went away.
Nell glanced several times at Ted. She guessed he had been doing too
much; his face was pale and there were dark rings round his eyes. All
the mother in her surged up; she smiled whimsically as she wondered if
he would be astonished if she were to go and stroke his head, as she
felt inclined to do. She went and sat on the rug by the fire and looked
at him softly.
"Ted," she said, "I wish you were going to spend to-morrow with us."
"Do you really?" He looked tremendously pleased.