"You have had none for six months," she replied curtly.
"I am sorry you feel so bitterly," he said, "but you know I can not agree with you there. You will think more kindly of me some day, I hope, when time has freed your mind of its prejudice."
"When will that be?" she asked, meeting his eyes full for a moment.
"I wrote only this morning to your uncle, stating your gradual but steady improvement, and assuring him that in my opinion—subject, of course, to circumstances—it would be a matter of a few months more only," he said. "Does not that make your feelings a little—only a little more tender—"
"What did you say?" a shrill voice interrupted, "say that again, please."
Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a frail, anemic little creature with pathetic eyes, into a halting conversation.
"I said," she repeated, buttering her roll thickly and appreciatively with fresh, clover-scented butter, "I said that no weather was too hot for me. I love it."
("Now, really, I am pleased," the big doctor murmured to the girl beside him. "Mrs. Du Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In fact, she's been quite silent; I was alarmed about her. It's the child's influence.")
"—Uncle Joe said," Caroline went on, the roll at her mouth, "and he said I was a regular little snake."
She heard a guttural, growling sound beside her, lifted her eyes innocently, and for one flashing, doubtful second beheld the swollen, distorted face, the bulging eyes, the back-drawn snarling lips beside her. She did not see the plunging fork above her head, so quickly did Joan's arm intervene between her and it; she did not hear its impact against the big doctor's plate nor the gurgling voice of what had been the sad-eyed little woman beside her, for her head was buried in Joan's stifling skirt.