Violet clapped her hands.
“Good—and good again?” she cried. “Just the very thing I’d thought of doing, and now I’ve got your authority behind me, why, I will.”
Again the doctor looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said:
“I will take upon myself to advise you further, Miss Clinock. Do so at once, on your own responsibility. Say nothing to our patient—and so spare her the worry of argument and counter-argument, which would be in the last degree bad for her at this stage. She will thank you for it afterwards, believe me; and then, if the answer should not be satisfactory, which I can hardly think—she will be spared that additional disappointment too. But I tell you, purely professionally, that a change to a quiet country place like Clancehurst, and its pure, splendid air, would be the saving of her. Good-bye. I needn’t look round to-morrow unless you send for me.”
“I’ll do it at once, this very night,” answered Violet briskly. “Good-bye, doctor. You have taken something of a weight off my mind.”
The next day Violet Clinock took “off,” though not without some qualms of trepidation. She had been taking several “off” of late, and her employers were getting a bit short. They were rather “fed up” with her sick friend and the absences entailed, and half hinted that a typing secretary unburdened with sick friends was more in their line, and in fact plenty were there ready and waiting. But Violet was shrewd enough to know her own value, which was really considerably beyond that of salary received. However, she fingered the reins delicately.
That day she devoted to Melian, and the general cheering of her up. The next or the one after that, at the furthest, should bring a reply to her diplomatically, but at the same time very humanly, expressed missive to a perfect stranger.
“You must buck up, Melian,” she would say. “Why, if the worst came to the worst didn’t old Carstairs say that he would be a friend to you if ever you were in want of one?”
“Pooh! He didn’t mean it. It was only something to say—a sort of well rounded figure of speech to get rid of me comfortably,” announced Melian cynically—her illness and growing straits had rendered her cynical. “And even if he did, that old cat of his would soon want to know the reason why, I can tell you.”
“I don’t know. Very likely she has come round, since she’s had time to think things over.”