As he sat looking at her, thinking deeply, casting about how he could help her, she was watching him hopefully. At their first meeting she had felt a calmed sensation, an access of strength, while talking to him, and since—even when merely remembering or speaking of him.
“Well, monsieur?” she asked at last, with a smile.
He sighed, almost impatiently.
“You expect me to give you medicine?” he asked.
“If you do, monsieur le docteur, I think I could not take it,” she said. “I have had so much médécine, and never, never did it take away one dream; no, not one!”
“Then what am I to do for you?” asked Hugh, in his perplexed mood unaware how strange a question this was from an eminent physician to a patient.
She looked at him earnestly, and leaning forward she said, slowly:
“See me—every—day!”
Hugh started. Then he laughed, then checked himself. Was she mad, or only eccentric?
“Why?” he asked. “Why see you every day, especially as you tell me that if I prescribe for you, you will not take my medicine?”