My man looked up suddenly and saw the eyes of the Grey Hawk on us.
"We must talk!" he said, with a laugh, "or they will think we aren't getting on. That isn't a comfortable chair after all." He stood up. I said it was quite comfortable. While he was insisting, a servant came in to speak to my aunt. I caught a glimpse through the door of a footman going upstairs with a short, fattish young man. Too young, I thought, to be another doctor.
We went to the end of the room, and we sat on a sofa near the fireplace—one of those sofas you sink down in till you feel half buried. I didn't like to say I hated it, for he was taking so much trouble. He put a great down cushion at my back, as if I were an invalid.
"There! Now, can you sit quite still for a few minutes? As still as if I were taking your picture?" I said I supposed I could. "And must I look pleasant?" I laughed. He hesitated and then: "How good are your nerves?" he asked.
"Very good," I boasted.
But he was grave.
"Never!" I said, a little indignantly.
"Could you hear something very unexpected, even horrible, and not cry out?"
"You know something!" I thought of an accident to my mother. "You have news for me...."