With the light full upon her face, Pauline Leicester hardly stirred.
“You’ve heard all about me,” she said, with a touch of sadness in her voice, “from Robert Grimshaw?”
“No, from Ellida,” Katya answered, “and I’ve seen your photograph. She carries it about with her.”
Pauline Leicester said, “Ah!” very slowly. And then, “Yes; Ellida’s very fond of me. She’s very good to me.”
“My dear,” Katya said, “Ellida’s everything in the matter. At any rate, if I’m going to do you any good, it’s she that’s got me here. I shouldn’t have done it for Robert Grimshaw.”
Pauline turned slightly pale.
“You haven’t quarrelled with Robert?” she said. “I should be so sorry.”
“My dear,” Katya answered, “never mention his name to me again. It’s only for you I’m here, because what Ellida told me has made me like you;” and then she asked to see the patient.
Dudley Leicester, got into evening dress as he was by Saunders and Mr. Held every evening, sat, blond and healthy to all seeming, sunk in the eternal arm-chair, his fingers beating an eternal tattoo, his eyes fixed upon vacancy. His appearance was so exactly natural that it was impossible to believe he was in any “condition” at all. It was so impossible to believe it that when, with a precision that seemed to add many years to her age, Katya Lascarides approached, and, bending over him, touched with the tips of her fingers little and definite points on his temples and brows, touching them and retouching them as if she were fingering a rounded wind-instrument, and that, when she asked: “Doesn’t that make your head feel better?” it seemed merely normal that his right hand should come up from the ceaseless drumming on the arm of the chair to touch her wrist, and that plaintively his voice should say: “Much better; oh, much better!”
And Pauline and Mr. Held said simultaneously: “He isn’t ...”