“I am afraid I have been indiscreet. Elderly men will presume upon their years, my dear Miss Gartram, and think that they have a right to banter young ladies. I was only going to say that my prescription would be, go away for a good long sea trip.”
“Is not papa sleeping an unusually long time, Mary?” said Claude, ignoring the doctor’s remark, as she proceeded to refill his cup.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Mary; “I’ll go and see.”
She left the room, and Claude at once turned to the doctor.
“Do you think papa is acting rightly about the medicine he takes?”
Asher raised his eyebrows, and gave his shoulders a slight shrug.
“It makes me terribly uneasy,” said Claude. “Of course, I know very little about these matters, but I have naturally learned how the use of narcotics grows upon those who indulge in them; and papa seems to fly more and more to that chloral.”
The doctor pursed up his lips in the most professional way.
“Really, my dear young lady,” he said, “you are, to speak vulgarly, putting me in a corner.”
“Pray do not trifle with me, doctor. You cannot think how I suffer.”