“Yes, at last, Mrs Berens,” said the doctor, taking the extended, soft, white hand of the pleasant, plump lady of eight-and-thirty or forty, whose whole aspect was suggestive of a very pretty, delicate-skinned baby grown large. “Why, how well you look.”
“Oh, doctor!”
“Indeed you do. Why, from your note I was afraid that you were seriously ill.”
“And I have been, doctor. In such a low, nervous state. At one time I felt as if I should sink. But”—with a sigh—“I am better now.”
The lady waved her kerchief towards a chair, and seated herself upon an ottoman, where, in obedience to the suggestion, she once more laid her hand in the doctor’s firm white palm, wherein Jonadab Moredock’s gnarled, yellow, horny paw had so lately lain: and as the strong fingers closed over the delicate white flesh, and a couple glided to the soft round wrist, the patient sighed.
“Oh, doctor, I do feel so safe when you are here. It would be too hard to die so young.”
The doctor looked up quickly. “Now that’s wicked,” said the lady reproachfully, “because I said ‘so young.’ Well, I’m not quite forty, and that is young. Is my pulse very rapid?”
“No, no. A little accelerated, perhaps. You seem to have been fretting.”
“Yes, that’s it, doctor. I have,” said the lady.
“What a fool I am!” he said to himself, as he released the hand. Then aloud: “I see, I see. Little mental anxiety. You want tone, Mrs Berens.”