When the Doctor came at noon he reported with eminent satisfaction a decided improvement in both his patients. Claude Kennilworth, contrary to one's natural expectations, was proving himself an ideal patient despite his painful injury which he steadfastly refused to acknowledge.
Even the May Girl's more subtle and mystifying complications seemed to have cleared up most astonishingly, he felt, since his previous visit.
"Oh, she's coming out all right," he assured us. "Fresh air, plenty of range, freedom from all emotional concern or distress," were the key-notes of his advice. "She's only a baby, grown woman-sized in an all too brief eighteen years," he averred.
Words, phrases, judgments, rioted only too confusedly through my mind that was already so inordinately perplexed with the whole chaotic situation.
As I said "good-bye," and turned back from the front door, I was surprised to see both my Husband and Ann Woltor standing close beside me. The constrained expressions on their faces startled me.
"You heard what the Doctor said," I exclaimed. "You heard his exact words—'great big overgrown baby,' he said. 'Ought to be turned out to play in a sand-pile for at least two years more.' Just a baby," I protested, "And she'll be tending her own babies before the two years are over! They are planning to marry her in September you know to a man old enough to be her grandfather—almost. To Doctor Brawne," I stormed!
"To whom?" gasped Ann Woltor. Her face was suddenly livid. "To whom?"
A horrid chill went through me. "What's Doctor Brawne to you?" I asked.
"It's time you told her," interposed my Husband, quietly.
"What is Doctor Brawne to you!" I demanded.