As he had not ceased to look at her while she was dismissing all her ladies, his persistency exasperated her like importunity.
"Well, sir," she snapped at him like a pistol-shot, "what are you doing in staring at me instead of telling what ails me?"
This furious apostrophe, accompanied with visual lightning, would have blasted any courtier into dropping at her feet and sueing for mercy though he was a hero, a marshal, or a demigod.
But Gilbert made answer quietly:
"The physician judges by the eyes in the first place, my lady. As your Majesty summoned me, I come not from idle curiosity but to obey your orders and fulfill my duty. As far as in my power lays, I study your Majesty."
"Am I sick?"
"Not in the usual meaning of the word, but your Majesty is superexcited."
"Why not say I am out of temper?" she queried with irony.
"Allow me to use the medical term, since I am a medical man called in."
"Be it so. Whence this superexcitement?"