The doctor walked majestically out of the room, followed by Elsie.
VII
MALARIA
"I suppose I must just do the best I can, sir," said Elsie on the landing outside the bedroom. She smiled timidly, cheerfully and benevolently.
The doctor looked at her, startled. It seemed to him that in some magic way she had vanquished the difficulties of a most formidable situation by merely accepting and facing them. She did not argue about them, complain about them, nor expatiate upon their enormity. She was ready to go on living and working without any fuss from one almost impossible moment to the next. During his career in Clerkenwell Dr. Raste had become a connoisseur of choice examples of practical philosophy, and none better than he could appreciate Elsie's attitude. That it should have startled him was a genuine tribute to her.
"Yes, that's about it," he said nonchalantly, with the cunning of an expert who has seen an undervalued unique piece in an antique shop. "Well, good morning, Elsie. Good morning."
He was in a hurry; he had half a hundred urgent matters on his professional conscience. What could he do but leave Elsie alone with her ordeal? He could not help her, and she did not need help in this particular work, which was, after all, part of her job at twenty pounds a year and food given and stolen. She was beginning to see the top of his hat as he descended the stairs. The stupid, plump, practical philosopher wanted to call him back for an affair of the very highest importance, and could not open her mouth, because Mr. Earlforward's desperate plight somehow inhibited her from doing so.
"Doctor!" she exclaimed with a strange shrillness as soon as he had passed from her sight into the shop.