"I won't have this!" he cried, struggling to sit up. "Your lips are trembling. It's making you ill."
She laid her free hand on his shoulder.
"Please lie still! They'll be here in a minute. I thought I heard the elevator. It won't be much longer."
There was the sound of hurrying feet in the hall, and the next instant a quick rap at the door. Bobby looked up with great relief as a burly English physician bustled into the room.
"How long have you had the tourniquet on, Madam?" he asked, stripping off his gloves and falling to work.
"The what?" said Bobby.
"The strap on his arm?"
"Oh, since a quarter past twelve." She got up from her knees stiffly, and shook out the shining folds of the Manchu coat. "It was the only thing I could think of; it's what the boys do back home for a rattlesnake bite."
The doctor's glance expressed complete and unqualified approval, but whether it was for her course of action or her very lovely and disturbed appearance it would be hard to say. As she slipped out of the room he turned to Percival.
"It's a severed artery, sir; no special harm done except the loss of blood. A few days' rest—"