I know without being told that Grace Draper was a member of the frolic. And here I was suffering, yet refusing the services of a skilled physician because I fancied there was something in his manner the tolerance of which would savor of disloyalty to Dicky!
I turned to my mother-in-law to tell her she could summon the physician, but found that I could hardly speak. My throat felt as if I were choking.
"The spray!" I gasped.
Thoroughly alarmed, Mother Graham assisted me in spraying my throat with a strong antiseptic solution. Then I gave her the number of Dr. Pettit's office, and she called him up. I heard her tell him to make haste, and then she came back to me. I saw that she was frightened about the condition of my throat, but the choking feeling gave me no time to be frightened. I kept the spray going almost constantly until the physician came. It was the only way I could breathe.
Dr. Pettit must have made a record journey, for the door bell signalled his arrival only a few moments after Mother Graham's message.
He gave my throat one swift, shrewd glance, then turned to his small valise and drew from it a stick, some absorbent cotton and a bottle of dark liquid. With swift, sure movements he prepared a swab, and turned to me.
"Open your mouth again," he said gently, but peremptorily.
I obeyed him, and the antiseptic bathed the swollen tonsils surely and skilfully.
As I swayed, almost staggered, in the spasm of coughing and choking which followed, I felt the strong, sure support of his arm touching my shoulders, of his hand grasping mine.
"Now lie down," he commanded gently, when the paroxysm was over. He drew the covers over me himself, lifted my head and shoulders gently with one hand, while with the other he raised the pillows to the angle he wished. Then he turned to my mother-in-law.