The words had poured out. He barely paused, hesitated only to give her a glance more piercing. Yet when he spoke again he voiced a new insistence.
"I have got to have help. Get on your things," he commanded.
"I?" she gasped.
"Yes, you! And quickly. I have no time to lose."
The haste of his words only made her own seem slower. "Then you will certainly have to go for someone else. You are losing time waiting for me."
He came a step or two closer. "You have got to come," he said, clearly, speaking his words very distinctly, as if trying to make himself understood beyond question. "There is no time to go for someone else. And I have got to operate on that woman at once, at once, or she will die." As Rosamund still stood, head up, eyes upon him coldly, he repeated: "Don't you understand? The woman will die, and then the baby will starve...."
Her eyes seemed to darken; Cecilia would have recognized the sign of wrath. "Certainly I understand," she said. "But you must see that it is perfectly impossible for me—me—to help you! I don't know what you can be thinking of!"
"Impossible? I say you have got to help me! I can't wait for anyone else!"
"I? Help you—help you—operate—cut—oh!"
She shrank farther back towards the table. "Oh, I think you are perfectly brutal!"