"Then it isn't really pneumonia?" asked Angelica.
He hesitated, still trying to answer the appeal in her eyes, and to spare her the truth if it were possible.
"It looks now as if it might be, Mrs. Blackburn, but children pick up so quickly, you know." He reached out his arm as he answered, and led her to the couch in one corner. "Have you some aromatic ammonia at hand, Miss Meade? I think you might give Mrs. Blackburn a few drops of it."
Caroline measured the drops from a bottle on the table by Letty's bed. "Perhaps she had better lie down," she suggested.
"Yes, I think I'll go to my room," answered Angelica, rising from the couch, as she lifted a grateful face to the young doctor. "A shock always upsets me, and ever since Mary told me how ill Letty was, I have felt as if I couldn't breathe."
She looked really unhappy, and as Caroline met her eyes, she reproached herself for her harsh criticism of the morning. After all, Angelica couldn't help being herself. After all, she wasn't responsible for her limited intelligence and her coldness of nature! Perhaps she felt more in her heart than she was able to express, in spite of her perfect profile and her wonderful eyes. "Even her selfishness may be due to her bringing up, and the way everyone has always spoiled her," pursued the girl, with a swift reaction from her severe judgment.
When Angelica had gone out, Doctor Boland came over to the bed, and stood gazing thoughtfully down on the child, who stirred restlessly and stared up at him with bright, glassy eyes. It was plain to Caroline that he was more disturbed than he had admitted; and his grave young features looked old and drawn while he stood there in silence. He was a thickset man, with an ugly, intelligent face and alert, nearsighted eyes behind enormous glasses with tortoise-shell rims.
"If we can manage to keep her temperature down," he said, and added as if he were pursuing his original train of thought, "Mrs. Blackburn is unusually sensitive."
"She is not very strong."
"For that reason it is better not to alarm her unnecessarily. I suppose Mr. Blackburn can always be reached?"