No! She could not send anybody at all for the doctor. Common sense came to her aid. She must wait till morning. A few hours, and it would be full day. And the risk of a disaster in those few hours was exceedingly small. She must not be a silly, frightened little fool. Joe was still talking in his restless sleep. She quickly made up the fire, and then revisited Mr. Earlforward, who also was asleep and talking. After a moment she fetched a comb and went to the kitchen, washed her face and hands in warm water, took down her blue-black hair, combed it and did it up. And she put on a clean apron. She had to look nice and fresh for her patients when the next day should start. For her night and day were now the same; her existence had become continuous—no break in consciousness—it ran on and on and on. She did not feel tired. On the contrary, she felt intensely alive and energetic and observant, and had no desire for sleep. And her greed seemed to have left her.
VI
THE SECOND REFUSAL
She was running up the Steps (not as early as she hoped, owing to a quick succession of requisitions from her two patients at the last moment) to find a messenger in the Square to dispatch for the doctor, when a sharp "Hai! Hai!" from behind caused her to turn. The summons came from Dr. Raste, who had appeared round the corner from King's Cross Road. Elsie ran back and unlocked the shop-door. The ink of her scrawled notice of closure to the public had been weeping freely in the weather of the last twenty-four hours.
"You were leaving your patient, Elsie," said the doctor, in a prim, impartial voice, expressing neither disapproval nor approval nor anything, but just holding up the mere fact for her consideration.
She explained.
"He's worse, of course," the doctor remarked, his tone not asking for confirmation—almost forbidding it.
He was impenetrable; or, as Elsie thought: "You couldn't make anything out of him." He might be tired; he might not be tired. He might have been roused from his bed at 2 A.M.; he might have slept excellently in perfect tranquillity. You didn't know; you never would know. The secrets of the night were locked up in that trimly dressed bosom. He was the doctor, exclusively. But one thing showed him human; he had once again disturbed the sequence of his daily programme in order to visit T. T. Riceyman's.