“He thinks so. It’s nothing. He hasn’t your pluck.”
As he spoke, he took from his bag a roll of absorbent cotton wool and a bottle of picric acid solution, which he placed upon a table where such articles were eyed askance by a Parian-marble lady under a glass dome. Deftly, he removed the sling.
“Tell me if I hurt you.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort.”
In the presence of a comparative stranger, Lady Selina had reassumed her manner, so natural to her, so indisputably her shining armour. The sudden change confounded Cicely. Which was the real woman?
Grimshaw addressed Cicely professionally:
“More light, Miss Chandos.”
Cicely pulled back the curtains, which always slightly obscured the light, because ample folds revealed the needlework.
“That’s much better.”
He examined the burn, and then cut off a pad of the sterilised cotton, which he wetted with the picric solution.