Goodness me!—That voice!—The babyishness of it!—And the poignancy! Should one laugh? Or should one cry? Clap one's hands? Or bolt from the room? I decided to bolt from the room.
Both my Husband and myself thought it would be only right to telephone Dr. Brawne about the fainting spell. There was a telephone fortunately in my own room. And there is one thing at least very compensatory about telephoning to doctors. If you once succeed in finding them, there is never an undue lag in the conversation itself.
"But tell me only just one thing," I besought my Husband, "so I won't be talking merely to a voice! This Dr. Brawne of yours?—Is he old or young? Fat or thin? Jolly? Or——?"
"He's about fifty," said my Husband. "Fifty-five perhaps. Stoutish rather, I think you'd call him. And jolly. Oh, I——"
"Ting-a-ling—ling—ling!" urged the telephone-bell.
Across a hundred miles of dripping, rain-bejeweled wires, Dr. Brawne's voice flamed up at last with an almost metallic crispness.
"Yes?"
"This is Dr. Brawne?"
"Yes."
"This is Mrs. Delville—Jack Delville's wife."