Am I"-- sarcastically--"allowed to get up now ?" He surveyed her consideringly.
"No, I think not," he said at last.

"But as the mountain can't go to Mahomet, Mahomet shall come to the mountain." He crossed the room and, while Magda was still wondering what he proposed to do, he stooped and dexterously wheeled the couch with its light burden close up to the tea-table.
"Now, I'll fix these cushions," he said.

And with deft hands he rearranged the cushions so that they should support her comfortably while she drank her tea.
"You would make a very good nurse, I should think," commented Magda, somewhat mollified.
"Thanks," was all he vouchsafed in answer.
He busied himself pouring out tea, then brought her cup and placed it beside her on a quaint little table of Chinese Chippendale.
"Mrs.Braithwaite--my housekeeper--is looking after your chauffeur in the kitchen," he observed presently.

"Possibly you may be interested to hear"-- sarcastically--"that he wasn't hurt in the smash-up." Magda felt herself flushing a little under the implied rebuke--as much with annoyance as anything else.

She knew that she was not really the heartless type of woman he inferred her to be, to whom the fate of her dependents was only of importance in so far as it affected her own personal comfort, and she resented the injustice of his assumption that she was.
She had been so bewildered and dazed by the suddenness of the accident and by the blow she herself had received that she had hardly yet collected her thoughts sufficiently to envisage the possible consequences to others.
With feminine perverseness she promptly decided that nothing would induce her to explain matters.