He turned restlessly, seeking a more comfortable position, and a grim smile flickered over his sallow face.
"I did my utmost to dodge it, but it was no good. First it was my sister who kept forcing the stuff on me, then my wife took a hand. Between the two of them I hadn't a chance. Now, to cap the climax, I have nothing but milk. I don't know why I should be so punished."
She laughed gaily and with a deft hand put the covers right for him.
"Never mind, I'll fix it for you so you'll find it quite different.
You'll see, it won't be bad."
Her words and the laugh were alike purely mechanical. Inside her brain she was listening to other words in the doctor's hall, ten days ago: "I suppose he's had his milk regularly, a pint and a half a day?…"
She had assumed that Sartorius had meant that the old man was fortified by the extra nourishment, but the conclusion she had come to in regard to Lady Clifford upset her former ideas. She heartily wished she had not thought of it, that she had never overheard the conversation between Lady Clifford and Holliday….
"I'd far better attend to my own affairs," she told herself decidedly. "If I don't, I shall be in imminent danger of becoming known as Esther the Eavesdropper."
At this thought she laughed again, spontaneously, then was disconcerted to find a pair of sunken old eyes regarding her keenly.
"What's amusing you?" demanded her patient.
"This time I'm afraid I can't tell you," she confessed in confusion, annoyed to feel a tide of red sweep over her face.