Growing boy--over-exertion in the morning! That was all! He was himself
very quickly, and walked up to bed without assistance. Rotten of him!
Never was anyone more ashamed of his little weakness than this boy. Now
that he was really a trifle indisposed, he simply could not bear the
idea of being nursed at all or tended. Almost rudely he had got away.
Only when he was in bed did he remember the look on her face as he left
her. How wistful and unhappy, seeming to implore him to forgive her! As
if there were anything to forgive! As if she had not made him perfectly
happy when she danced with him! He longed to say to her: "If I might be
close to you like that one minute every day, then I don't mind all the
rest!" Perhaps he would dare say that to-morrow. Lying there he still
felt a little funny. He had forgotten to close the ribs of the blinds,
and moonlight was filtering in; but he was too idle, too drowsy to get
up now and do it. They had given him brandy, rather a lot--that perhaps
was the reason he felt so queer; not ill, but mazy, as if dreaming, as
if he had lost the desire ever to move again. Just to lie there, and
watch the powdery moonlight, and hear faraway music throbbing down
below, and still feel the touch of her, as in the dance she swayed
against him, and all the time to have the scent about him of flowers!
His thoughts were dreams, his dreams thoughts--all precious unreality.
And then it seemed to him that the moonlight was gathered into a single
slip of pallor--there was a thrumming, a throbbing, and that shape of
moonlight moved towards him. It came so close that he felt its warmth
against his brow; it sighed, hovered, drew back soundless, and was gone.
He must have fallen then into dreamless sleep....

What time was it when he was awakened by that delicate 'rat-tat' to see
his tutor standing in the door-way with a cup of tea?