“Well, you can’t work looking like that. Have you ever taken aspirin?”
“Yes, but I haven’t any.”
“I have. Will you take it and go home?”
“I can’t go home. I have a leader to write, and—and a meeting.” The effort to keep up nauseated her. Her head dropped back onto her hands.
Dane leaned his snake stick against the corner of her table, opened the door into the composing-room, struck a match and lit a near gas jet. Then he hurried to the back door, opened it and looked out into the small yard littered with boxes, barrels and paper. He saw there was a high wooden fence all round it and that no one could look in. It had odours of its own, but it was incomparably fresher and cooler than any place inside. He found two large sheets of brown paper on a bench and spread them out on a flat place near a tap where water dropping into a bucket cooled the air. Then he went quickly back to Valerie.
“Come on, Miss Carr, and lie down. I’ve fixed a clean place. You’ll be all right soon if you keep still.”
He put an arm round her and helped her out. She did not seem conscious of him at all. Hardly knowing what she was doing she dropped down on to the paper and lay dizzy with pain. Mechanically she clutched at her throat. She was wearing a shirt-waist with a collar that though soft seemed to be choking her. Very deftly with his sensitive hands Dane undid the knotted tie and loosened it. Then he found a tumbler inside, rinsed it at the tap and filled it.
“Can you take a good dose?” he asked leaning over her.
“Yes, oh yes,” she mumbled.
He took a little box out of his vest pocket, gave her
