“Quick, let us start, my dear doctor. I follow you.”
He was no longer angry with Jenkins for having disturbed him, and he knotted his cravat feverishly, forgetting in his new emotions how he had been upset a moment earlier, for ambition with him came before all else.
While the two men were talking in a half-whisper, Felicia, standing motionless before them, with quivering nostrils and her lip curled in contempt, watched them with an air of saying, “Well, I am waiting.”
Jansoulet apologized for being obliged to interrupt the sitting; but a visit of the most extreme importance—She smiled in pity.
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it. At the point which we have reached I can work without you.”
“Oh, yes,” said the doctor, “the work is almost completed.”
He added with the air of a connoisseur:
“It is a fine piece of work.”
And, counting upon covering his retreat with this compliment, he made for the door with shoulders drooped; but Felicia detained him abruptly.
“Stay, you. I have something to say to you.”