“Well, I will not,” he said, smiling. “Now, don’t be alarmed, but keep perfectly cool, for I must go back and see to that poor fellow at the quarry.”
“Yes, of course. But, doctor, if my poor father should be taken worse?”
“He will not be taken worse, but gradually mend. I shall not be very long away.”
“No, no; pray don’t be long.”
“No; and mind you are my assistant. So you must be cool and self-possessed. Shall I send Miss Dillon to sit with you?”
“Yes, please, do,” said the agitated girl, as she gazed wildly at her father’s altered face.
Doctor Asher seemed rather to resemble a very smooth, black tom cat, and, as he drew down his cuffs, and passed his white hands over his glossy coat, an imaginative person would not have been much surprised to see him begin to lick himself, to remove a few specks caused by the business in which he had been engaged.
As he left the study and crossed the hall, with its polished granite flooring, his delicate manner of proceeding toward the drawing-room, and stepping from one to another of the oases of Eastern rugs, was still like the progress of the cat who believed the polished granite to be water, and tried to avoid wetting his paws.
When he laid his hand upon the drawing-room door, a murmur of voices came from within, and, as he entered, Mary Dillon jumped up from the low ottoman upon which she had been seated, talking to Glyddyr, and ran quickly to the doctor’s side.
“How is he?” she said excitedly.