“I should never take you to be a German, M. Reineke,” said Selaka, after their first greeting, seating himself beside the sofa, and taking the sick man’s supple fingers into his.
“No one does,” said Reineke, in such pure French as to put to shame Selaka’s grotesque accent. His voice was musical and low, with a softness of tone in harmony with his peculiar beauty, and fever gave it a ring of weariness.
“Are you going to order me quinine, doctor?”
“Why, naturally. How else would you break a fever?”
“But I cannot take it, doctor. It disagrees with me.”
“That is a pity. Four doses taken in four hours cut the worst fever, and set a man on his feet in a day.”
“Some constitutions can bear it, I suppose. But I nearly died after quinine treatment in Egypt. My head has not ceased going round ever since.”
“Your temperature is over a hundred, and you refuse to take quinine! Then there is nothing for you but to linger on in this state. Low diet and repose—that is all I can prescribe.”
Left alone, the sick man closed his eyes wearily and turned to sleep, out of which he was shaken by a knock at the door, and the head of an Englishman thrust itself inside.
“Can I come in, Mr. Reineke?”