“Just before I came away from England. My tailor urged it so strongly. He said that he had made outfits for many gents going to Africa, and they had all made their wills and been vaccinated. For reasons which are too painful to dwell upon in these pages I could not make a will, so I was enthusiastically vaccinated.”
“And have you all the medicines you will require? Did you really want that quinine?”
There was a practical, common-sense anxiety in the way she asked these questions which made him answer gravely.
“All, thanks. We did not really want the quinine, but we can do with it. Oscard is our doctor; he is really very good. He looks it all up in a book, puts all the negative symptoms on one side, and the positive on the other—adds them all up, then deducts the smaller from the larger, and treats what is left of the patient accordingly.”
She laughed, more with the view of pleasing him than from a real sense of the ludicrous.
“I do not believe,” she said, “that you know the risks you are running into. Even in the short time that Maurice and I have been here we have learnt to treat the climate of Western Africa with a proper respect. We have known so many people who have—succumbed.”
“Yes, but I do not mean to do that. In a way, Durnovo's—what shall we call it?—lack of nerve is a great safeguard. He will not run into any danger.”
“No, but he might run you into it.”
“Not a second time, Miss Gordon. Not if we know it. Oscard mentioned a desire to wring Durnovo's neck. I am afraid he will do it one of these days.”
“The mistake that most people make,” the girl went on more lightly, “is a want of care. You cannot be too careful, you know, in Africa.”