The girls did not speak.
"Come on down-stairs and let's beg some coffee. It does not seem particularly cold to-day, but you folks give me a chilly sensation."
"And leave father?" gasped Doris.
"Why not? And why do you whisper? Your father, my dear, will have a nice quiet rest for an hour or so, and there is no reason why we should sit here in the dark and hear him breathe. Come on, MacCammon, don't you need a tonic?"
"Are you sure he is all right?" asked Doris, looking closely at her father's face, showing grim and rigid in the darkened room. "He looks very sick."
"He looks sick, my dear, but he is all right. The operation was absolutely successful to the minutest degree. You do not think he is going to die, do you?"
"Doctors are strange," said Rosalie in a hushed voice. "How do you know he will come out from the anesthetic?"
"Because he is out from the danger of it now. Only he does not know it yet. His heart is pumping away, and he is breathing normally, and in a few hours he will be wide awake. Come now, don't argue with me. Your father has spoiled you, I see that. I would never allow any argument, if I had girls of my own. But I haven't any."
"Are you married?" asked Doris with some interest.
"No, I am not married. But I know how I would rear my daughters."