‘Oh, you doubting Thomas,’ said the nurse, whose friendliness had flowered into a robust familiarity. ‘Just look at yourself now. Don’t you see?’ And she took her by the shoulders and twisted her round to the glass again.
No, Catherine didn’t see. She saw the nurse’s laughing, rosy face close to hers, and hers yellow and pale-lipped,—just as it always was now when nothing out of Maria Rome’s box had been put on it. Maria Rome had had a terrible effect on her. Her hair was startlingly more grey, now that the dye had had time to wear off, than it used to be before any was put on.
‘It’s the trained eye that can tell,’ said the nurse brightly. ‘I notice a great change.’
‘Do you?’ was all Catherine could say.
That day she seemed so much more quiet and tired than usual, lying on her sofa in the flat and not even reading, that Mrs. Mitcham, who hadn’t been at all happy about her since Christopher’s departure, asked her if it wouldn’t be a good plan to see a doctor.
Catherine couldn’t help smiling at this. Why, that was what was the matter with her, that she was seeing a doctor.
‘I shall be all right soon,’ she assured Mrs. Mitcham; for she still hoped.
It wasn’t till after the ninth treatment that her hopes began to grow definitely pale. Nothing had happened. She was just as old as ever; older, if anything, for those stabbing sparks made her brace herself to an endurance that left her utterly exhausted. The nurse, it is true, continued stoutly to express delighted surprise each time she saw her, but this merely caused Catherine to distrust either her sincerity or her eyesight. She became more silent and less interested in the tales about other old ladies. Their alleged skipping began to leave her cold. It was possible, of course, that they had skipped, but she wasn’t able to bring herself to believe in it really.
‘Those other old ladies——’ she said, on her eleventh visit.
The nurse interrupted her with a gay burst of laughter. ‘You’re never going to class yourself with old ladies?’ she cried. ‘Now, Mrs. Monckton, that’s really naughty of you. I won’t allow it. I shall have to scold you soon, you know.’