“So I’m to be your mamma. What a lark.”
Miss Dear shed a fond look. “I want you to meet my little man. He’s longing to meet you?”
“Have you mentioned me to him.”
“Well dear who should I mention if not you?”
8
“So I thought the best thing to do would be to come and ask you what would be the best thing to do for her.”
“There’s nothing to be done for her.” He turned away and moved things about on the mantelpiece. Miriam’s heart beat rebelliously in the silence of the consulting-room. She sat waiting stifled with apprehension, her thoughts on Miss Dear’s familiar mysterious figure. In an unendurable impatience she waited for more, her eye smiting the tall averted figure on the hearthrug, following his movements ... small framed coloured pictures—very brilliant—photographs?—of dark and fair women, all the same, their shoulders draped like the Soul’s Awakening, their chests bare, all of them with horrible masses of combed out waving hair like the woman in the Harlene shop only waving naturally. The most awful minxes ... his ideals. What a man. What a ghastly world. “If she were to go to the south of France, at once, she might live for years” ... this is hearing about death, in a consulting-room ... no escape ... everything in the room holding you in. The Death Sentence.... People would not die if they did not go to consulting-rooms ... doctors make you die ... they watch and threaten.
“What is the matter with her?” Out with it, don’t be so important and mysterious.
“Don’t you know, my dear girl?” Dr. Densley wheeled round with searching observant eyes.
“Hasn’t she told you?” he added quietly with his eyes on his nails. “She’s phthisical. She’s in the first stages of pulmonary tuberculosis.”