"Go and get your hat," he said.
As I came down-stairs again with my hat on I found Sophie standing at the front door talking with Richard. She was dressed entirely in the garb of a nurse by this time, and I looked admiringly at the becoming white uniform, but Richard made no reference to the change nor anything that it entailed.
"Sophie thinks that we would better not go very far," he said to me as he stepped outside into the vestibule and looked up again at the clouds. "She says Evelyn is not resting so well—and mother, of course, has entirely lost her grip."
"Do you think that there is any new danger in Evelyn's case?" I asked anxiously.
"Well, we are eager for the surgeon to get here as quickly as possible," she answered.
"He'll be here on the noon train, and, of course, he can operate immediately. And it hasn't been nearly twenty-four hours since the onset of the acute attack. The mortality is less than one per cent, if taken within—"
I had been looking into Sophie's eyes as I spoke and had not observed that Richard was listening intently to what I was saying, but as I made use of this last bit of medical jargon a contemptuous little half-laugh broke from him and I looked up quickly. He was smiling sardonically.
"Of course your friend, Doctor Morgan, is your authority," he said, his brows elevated and a disagreeable expression around his mouth.
"He is—and I couldn't ask a better," I flashed back at him.
We stood thus a moment, our eyes meeting in fiery challenge, and in that brief moment I realized that such a scene repeated a few times would cause us to hate each other. I felt suddenly as if the earth were receding from me and leaving me in a very uncertain stratum of air. I was violently angry with Richard—and he was infuriated.