The doctor was quite prepared to save the lady any further distresses, no matter at what trouble to himself. “You are so good to me,” she said, letting the tears have their way with her.
“I am silly to cry,” she said, dabbing her eyes.
“We will get it over to-morrow,” he reassured her. “You need not think of it again.”
He took over Martin’s brief note to Lady Hardy and set to work by telegram to arrange for her visit. She was in London at her Chelsea flat and easily accessible. She was to come to the house at mid-day on the morrow, and to ask not for Lady Hardy but for him. He would stay by her while she was in the house, and it would be quite easy for Lady Hardy to keep herself and her daughter out of the way. They could, for example, go out quietly to the dressmakers in the closed car, for many little things about the mourning still remained to be seen to.
Section 8
Miss Martin Leeds arrived punctually, but the doctor was well ahead of his time and ready to receive her. She was ushered into the drawing room where he awaited her. As she came forward the doctor first perceived that she had a very sad and handsome face, the face of a sensitive youth rather than the face of a woman. She had fine grey eyes under very fine brows; they were eyes that at other times might have laughed very agreeably, but which were now full of an unrestrained sadness. Her brown hair was very untidy and parted at the side like a man’s. Then he noted that she seemed to be very untidily dressed as if she was that rare and, to him, very offensive thing, a woman careless of her beauty. She was short in proportion to her broad figure and her broad forehead.
“You are Dr. Martineau?” she said. “He talked of you.” As she spoke her glance went from him to the pictures that stood about the room. She walked up to the painting and stood in front of it with her distressed gaze wandering about her. “Horrible!” she said. “Absolutely horrible!... Did SHE do this?”
Her question disconcerted the doctor very much. “You mean Lady Hardy?” he asked. “She doesn’t paint.”
“No, no. I mean, did she get all these things together?”
“Naturally,” said Dr. Martineau.