His kind, twinkle-eyed Scotch face had grown grave over his operations, but he guessed what the suspense to Madge was, and rightly decided that nothing could be gained by lengthening it. Then he completed the shaving operations which the nurse had begun the evening before to the uncovered part of the face, and brushed into order his thick brown hair. Finally he adjusted a pair of large dark spectacles. Evelyn demurred at this.
“What is that for?” he asked.
“Ah, that is necessary,” said the doctor; “we have to protect the—the place of the worst injury. You will always have to wear them, I am afraid. And now I think we are ready.”
Madge got up from the window-seat. Though she had wished Lady Dover to be there, at this moment she cared not one farthing who was there or who was not. It was only she and Evelyn who mattered; Piccadilly might have buzzed round them, and she would have been unconscious of the crowd.
And she looked—she saw——
For one moment she stood there facing him, her breath suspended, only conscious of some deep-seated terror and dismay, and her face grew white. Once she tried to speak and could not, for she knew that some dreadful exclamation alone could pass her lips. Lady Dover had got up, too, and stood by her; she looked not at Evelyn at all, but at Madge, and before the pause had grown appreciable she whispered to her—
“Say anything. Don’t be a coward.”
It was therefore as well that Lady Dover had come with her, otherwise anything might have happened, Madge might have screamed almost, or she might have left the room without saying a word, so dreadful was the shock. But Lady Dover’s words were a lash to her, and the power of making an effort came back.
“Ah, dearest Evelyn,” she said, “how nice to see your face again.”
For a moment the tremor in her voice, the imminent sob in her throat, all but mastered her. Yet all this week he had been so brave, and for very shame she could not but put on the semblance of bravery and try to infuse her speech with a grain of courage.