'I want you to ring for Bennett to pass me my tonic.'
'Really, Bruce, it's at your elbow.' She laughed.
'I suppose I've changed a good deal since my illness,' said he looking in the glass with some complacency.
'You don't look at all bad, dear.'
'I know I'm better; but sometimes, just as people are recovering, they suddenly have a frightful relapse. Braithwaite told me I would have to be careful for some time.'
'How long do you suppose he meant?'
'I don't know—five or six years, I suppose. It's the heart. That's what's so risky in influenza.'
'But he said your heart was all right.'
'Ah, so he thinks. Doctors don't know everything. Or perhaps it's what he says. It would never do to tell a heart patient he was in immediate danger, Edith; why, he might die on the spot from the shock.'
'Yes, dear; but, excuse my saying so, would he have taken me aside and told me you were perfectly well, and that he wouldn't come to see you again, if you were really in a dangerous state?'