I was aghast at the horrible suggestion his words contained, but he stood smiling at us pleasantly, imperturbable, inscrutable.
“I think that I can understand your feelings a little,” Margaret said inaptly, “you’re afraid it might somehow happen again. Is Ethel really ill then?”
“No, oh no, not exactly ill, but the bang on her mouth has loosened one tooth and some of the others have had a nasty jar. It has given her neuralgia and I want her to have a comfortable night if she can. We still have some unpleasant hours ahead, I fear.”
He was making up the medicine as he spoke, pouring first from one and then from the other bottles—a series of simple acts which he seemed to invest with some quality of magic. The glass lightly held between finger and thumb might have stood on a slab of stone for steadiness. Each ingredient trickled quickly yet surely to fill it to within a hair’s breadth of the graduation mark against which he had placed his thumb. Not once did he have to make an addition or adjustment, and so quick and precise was it all that he had finished while he was answering Margaret’s question, and the simple every-day movements took on the aspect of a conjuring trick.
We initialed the labels of the bottles he had used and the prescription he had written in the book after checking the one with the other.
Margaret, too, had evidently been impressed by his sleight of hand, for she said, “And now shall I sit on a broomstick, and whisk it up-stairs to Ethel?” It was the most original remark I had ever heard her make.
“No thanks, I’ll take it up myself.”
Margaret reddened, but he smiled at her coolly, adding, “I want to have a chat with her,” and he picked up the glass and was gone.
We didn’t say anything, but if looks could speak——? I think we were both of us wondering why he should have bothered to ask us to see him prepare the medicine, and then having had us for witnesses, have refused to let Margaret take it up to Ethel. He could have gone up with her for his little chat. It was queer and extraordinary. I could not understand it.