"Are you hungry?"
The eyes closed again, and her lips quivered.
"Boor!" he said to himself, "she's starving, and you wouldn't buy her book. Beast! she's starving, and you tried to turn her out."
But his sympathy was hardly communicated by his voice; indeed, in her shame she thought him rather rough.
"You stop here a minute," he continued; "don't you go and faint again, because I forbid it! I'm going to order a prescription for you. Your complaint isn't incurable—I've had it myself."
He left her in quest of the housekeeper, whom he interrogated on the subject of eggs and coffee. A shilling brightened her wits.
"Mr. Corri's room; hurry!"
His patient was sitting in the arm-chair when he went back; he saw tear-stains on her cheek, though she turned away her face at his approach.
"The prescription's being made up," he said. "Would you like the window shut again? No? All right, we'll keep it open. Don't talk if you'd rather not; there's no need—I know all you want to say."
He ignored her ostentatiously till the tray appeared, and then, receiving it at the doorway, brought it over to her himself.