In the end, however, she followed him across a little vestibule into a bright, whitewashed room empty of all furniture but a table, a few chairs and a large box-spring and mattress, which stood like an island in the middle of the floor and served as bed or sofa as occasion required. Over the mantelpiece was pinned a large photographic reproduction of Leonardo’s study of the anatomy of love. There were no other pictures on the walls. “All the apparatus is here,” said Coleman, and he pointed to the table. “Lint, bandages, cotton-wool, iodine, gauze, oiled silk. I have them all ready in preparation for these little accidents.” “But do you often manage to cut yourself in the arm?” asked Rosie. She took off her gloves and began to undo a fresh packet of lint. “One gets cut,” Coleman explained. “Little differences of opinion, you know. If your eye offend you, pluck it out; love your neighbour as yourself. Argal: if his eye offend you—you see? We live on Christian principles here.” “But who are ‘we’?” asked Rosie, giving the cut a last dressing of iodine and laying a big square of lint over it. “Merely myself and—how shall I put it?—my helpmate,” Coleman answered. “Ah! you’re wonderfully skilful at this business,” he went on. “You’re the real hospital nurse type; all maternal instincts. When pain and anguish wring the brow, an interesting mangle thou, as we used to say in the good old days when the pun and the Spoonerismus were in fashion.” Rosie laughed. “Oh, I don’t spend all my time tying up wounds,” she said, and turned her eyes for an instant from the bandage. After the first surprise she was feeling her cool self again. “Brava!” cried Coleman. “You make them too, do you? Make them first and cure them afterwards in the grand old homœopathic way. Delightful! You see what Leonardo has to say about it.” With his free hand he pointed to the photograph over the mantelpiece. Rosie, who had noticed the picture when she came into the room, preferred not to look at it too closely a second time. “I think it’s rather revolting,” she said, and was very busy with the bandage. “Ah! but that’s the point, that’s the whole point,” said Coleman, and his clear blue eyes were alive with dancing lights. “That’s the beauty of the grand passion. It _is_ revolting. You read what the Fathers of the Church have to say about love. They’re the men. It was Odo of Cluny, wasn’t it, who called woman a _saccus stercoris_, a bag of muck. _Si quis enim considerat quæ intra nares et quæ intra fauces et quæ intra ventrem lateant, sordes ubique reperiet._” The Latin rumbled like eloquent thunder in Coleman’s mouth. “_Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus._” He smacked his lips. “Magnificent!” he said. “I don’t understand Latin,” said Rosie, “and I’m glad of it. And your bandage is finished. Look.”