went into the dining-room, and when they sat round the table they talked about indifferent things. St. John usually made it his business to start the talk and to keep it from dying out.
“I’ve discovered the way to get Sancho past the white house,” said St. John on Sunday at luncheon. “You crackle a piece of paper in his ear, then he bolts for about a hundred yards, but he goes on quite well after that.”
“Yes, but he wants corn. You should see that he has corn.”
“I don’t think much of the stuff they give him; and Angelo seems a dirty little rascal.”
There was then a long silence. Ridley murmured a few lines of poetry under his breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the fact that he had done so, “Very hot today.”
“Two degrees higher than it was yesterday,” said St. John. “I wonder where these nuts come from,” he observed, taking a nut out of the plate, turning it over in his fingers, and looking at it curiously.
“London, I should think,” said Terence, looking at the nut too.
“A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time,” St. John continued. “I suppose the heat does something funny to people’s brains. Even the English go a little queer. Anyhow they’re hopeless people to deal with. They kept me three-quarters of an hour waiting at the chemist’s this morning, for no reason whatever.”
There was another long pause. Then Ridley enquired, “Rodriguez seems satisfied?”
“Quite,” said Terence with decision. “It’s just got to run its course.” Whereupon Ridley heaved a deep sigh. He was genuinely sorry for every one, but at the same time he missed Helen considerably, and was a little aggrieved by the constant presence of the two young men.
They moved back into the drawing-room.
“Look here, Hirst,” said Terence, “there’s nothing to be done for two hours.” He consulted the sheet pinned to the door. “You go and lie down. I’ll wait here. Chailey sits with Rachel while Helen has her luncheon.”
It was asking a good deal of Hirst to tell him to go without waiting for a sight of Helen. These little glimpses of Helen were the only respites from strain and boredom, and very often they seemed to make up for the discomfort of the day, although she might not have anything to tell them. However, as they were on an expedition together, he had made up his mind to obey.
Helen was very late in coming down. She looked like a person who has been sitting for a long time in the dark. She was pale and thinner, and the expression of her eyes was harassed but determined. She ate her luncheon quickly, and seemed indifferent to what she was doing. She brushed aside Terence’s enquiries, and at last, as if he had not spoken, she looked at him with a slight frown and said:
“We can’t go on like this, Terence. Either you’ve got to find another doctor, or you must tell Rodriguez to stop coming, and I’ll manage for myself. It’s no use for him to say that Rachel’s better; she’s not better; she’s worse.”
Terence suffered a terrific shock, like that which he had suffered when Rachel said, “My head aches.” He stilled it by reflecting that Helen was overwrought, and he was upheld in this opinion by his obstinate sense that she was opposed to him in the argument.
“Do you think she’s in danger?” he asked.
“No one can go on being as ill as that day after day—” Helen replied. She looked at him, and spoke as if she felt some indignation with somebody.
“Very well, I’ll talk to Rodriguez this afternoon,” he replied.
Helen went upstairs at once.
Nothing now could assuage Terence’s anxiety. He could not read, nor could he sit still, and his sense of security was shaken, in spite of the fact that he was determined that Helen was exaggerating, and that Rachel was not very ill. But he wanted a third person to confirm him in his belief.
Directly Rodriguez came down he demanded, “Well, how is she? Do you think her worse?”
“There is no reason for anxiety, I tell you—none,” Rodriguez replied in his execrable French, smiling uneasily, and making little movements all the time as if to get away.
Hewet stood firmly between him and the door. He was determined to see for himself what kind of man he was. His confidence in the man vanished as he looked at him and saw his insignificance, his dirty appearance, his shiftiness, and his unintelligent, hairy face. It was strange that he had never seen this before.
“You won’t object, of course, if we ask you to consult another doctor?” he continued.
At this the little man became openly incensed.
“Ah!” he cried. “You have not confidence in me? You object to my treatment? You wish me to give up the case?”
“Not at all,” Terence replied, “but in serious illness of this kind—”
Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders.
“It is not serious, I assure you. You are overanxious. The young lady is not seriously ill, and I am a doctor. The lady of course is frightened,” he sneered. “I understand that perfectly.”
“The name and address of the doctor is—?” Terence continued.
“There is no other doctor,” Rodriguez replied sullenly. “Every one has confidence in me. Look! I will show you.”
He took out a packet of old letters and began turning them over as if in search of one that would confute Terence’s suspicions. As he searched, he began to tell a story about an English lord who had trusted him—a great English lord, whose name he had, unfortunately, forgotten.
“There is no other doctor in the place,” he concluded, still turning over the letters.
“Never mind,” said Terence shortly. “I will make enquiries for myself.” Rodriguez put the letters back in his pocket.
“Very well,” he remarked. “I have no objection.”
He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, as if to repeat that they took the illness much too seriously and that there was no other doctor, and slipped out, leaving behind him an impression that he was conscious that he was distrusted, and that his malice was aroused.
After this Terence could no longer stay downstairs. He went up, knocked at Rachel’s door, and asked Helen whether he might see her for a few minutes. He had not seen her yesterday. She made no objection, and went and sat at a table in the window.
Terence sat down by the bedside. Rachel’s face was changed. She looked as though she were entirely concentrated upon the effort of keeping alive. Her lips were drawn, and her cheeks were sunken and flushed, though without colour. Her eyes were not entirely shut, the lower half of the white part showing, not as if she saw, but as if they remained open because she was too much exhausted to close them. She opened them completely when he kissed her. But she only saw an old woman slicing a man’s head off with a knife.
“There it falls!” she murmured. She then turned to Terence and asked him anxiously some question about a man with mules, which he could not understand. “Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he come?” she repeated. He was appalled to think of the dirty little man downstairs in connection with illness like this, and turning instinctively to Helen, but she was doing something at a table in the window, and did not seem to realise how great the shock to him must be. He rose to go, for he could not endure to listen any longer; his heart beat quickly and painfully with anger and misery. As he passed Helen she asked him in the same weary, unnatural, but determined voice to fetch her more ice, and to have the jug outside filled with fresh milk.
When he had done these errands he went to find Hirst. Exhausted and very hot, St. John had fallen asleep on a bed, but Terence woke him without scruple.
“Helen thinks she’s worse,” he said. “There’s no doubt she’s frightfully ill. Rodriguez is