So I stayed quiet a little while. Then I began again to beg her to rid me of Lansdowne.
“After all, he is independent of his profession,” she said at length thoughtfully, thinking of his feelings and how not to hurt them. “He married a rich woman.”
“He would. And I am sure he has no children,” I answered.
“Good heavens! How did you know? You are cleverer when you are ill than other people when they are well.”
That is like Ella, too, she has an exaggerated and absurd opinion of my talent. Just because I write novels which are paid for beyond their deserts!
I don’t know how she did it, I don’t know how she accomplished half of the magical wonderful things she did for my comfort all that sad time. But I was not even surprised, a few days later, when I really was better and sitting up in bed; propped up by pillows, I admit, but still actually sitting up; that Dr. Kennedy, tall and unaltered, with the same light in his eye, even the same dreadful country suit, lounged in and sat on the chair by my side. Ella went away when he came in, she always had an idea that patients like to see their doctors alone. She flirts with hers, I think. She is incurably flirtatious in her leisure hours.
“You’ve had a bad time,” he said abruptly.
“You didn’t try to make it any better,” I answered weakly.
“Oh! I! I was dismissed. Your sister turned me out. She said I hadn’t recognised how ill you were. I told her she was quite right. I didn’t tell her how often you had refused to see me.”
“Did you know how ill I was?”