There was no use speculating about what D stood for. He thought she was twelve, did he? She put her hand up to where his had rested on the top of her head. She could not begin to make hers cover the same area. He must have a large hand. Well, that was all right; he was a large man. She could see his face before her, smooth as to skin and rather jutty as to outline of brows and jaw, and his heavy, thick, short, black hair, almost like an Indian's in texture. And she had thought that she preferred blond men. L. D.—Lita D.... She wondered if she ought to go immediately and hunt up those photographs of Aurelia's. What a time it would make if they should be found before she got there! How long would this take—an hour? Would he really come back himself, or would he send that light-hearted, gray-haired nurse who looked like Marie Antoinette? If he patted her on the head he might even—Lawrence—Leonard—
Suddenly he was in the room again, smelling horribly of disinfectants.
"It's all right—all over," he said. He began to pluck ineffectually at the back buttons of his white robe. "Help me, there's a good child," he said, stooping so that she could reach.
She undid the buttons, the garment slipped to the floor, and he stood revealed as a normal young man in his shirt and dark blue serge trousers. He began rolling down his shirt sleeves, talking as he did so.
"Your friend has good nerve—brave and calm. Your sister? No? What's your name?"
"Hazlitt."
Too kind to smile at this infantile assumption of importance, his eyes did laugh a little, but he said, "I meant your first name."
"Lita. What's yours?"
"Luke— Well, Lita, I'm going to write to Effie about you. Wait! Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
She could not tell him that she was going to destroy the patient's compromising correspondence.