"Never again!" swore poor Danby as he left the house—and he meant it.
In his own sanctum he conned over every speech of hers and found the interview had been bald to desolation. Not one green blade of sympathy even had she given to cheer the dreary wilderness of his life. She had wished to keep him as her friend, certainly; but that in itself was a dubious compliment. Had she cared for him ever so little, and felt bound by duty for her child's sake to sacrifice love, she would have avoided painful chances of meeting.
"She has evidently no fear of falling in love with me," groaned Ralph to himself. "I am not even sufficiently interesting to be dangerous."
This rankled for some time. He continued on his daily rounds, endeavouring, if possible, to avoid passing through the street in which his frosty idol dwelt. With dreary, lustreless eyes he received the blandishments of the feminine throng which had elevated him to popularity; with tired, joyless heart he buried himself in his lonely home after the treadmill hours were over. Only some exceptional case of suffering or technical interest had power to rouse him. He was but happy when ministering to the physical pain of others; if possible, he would have shared it. In mental trouble the absolute prick and smart of bodily injury seems a welcome inconvenience, for at least it admits of hope, the continued hope of recovery, to give impetus to life. He was neither mawkish nor sentimental—his years of scientific training had pruned such tendencies; but the inborn sympathy with his fellow-men which had prompted him to the choice of medicine as a career permeated every tissue of his medical knowledge and supplemented a powerful element of healing peculiarly its own. He had been ever ready to throw heart and soul into any case of interest or alarm, but now his patients found him more than ever devoted. They did not know that in their service alone the heart's blood of the man was kept from anæsthesia. For nearly a month Ralph Danby avoided the house in Mervan Street; then with the inconsistency symbolic of great minds, he decided to go there at once. He counselled himself that half a loaf was better than no bread, and came rightly to the conclusion that if he intended calling again, the more he postponed the ordeal the more impossible would be the resumption of the old relations which had existed so happily before he had made a fool of himself.
On the doorstep he trembled—absolutely trembled (he who, in Egypt, had bandaged wound after wound, while bullets peppered the air with their metal hail)—but once in her presence, her serene composure was infectious, he was himself again, and almost forgot his last unhappy visit and the miserable interregnum of mental nothingness from which he had suffered. He might have been uneasy or constrained, but her calm suavity left him no opportunity. About her manner there was no spark of vanity, no simpering nor restraint—she was merely a well-bred young hostess entertaining an intimate friend.
In novels heroines are credited with the exhibition of complex emotions on the smallest provocation, but women of breeding in the nineteenth century are too good actresses to hang their hearts on their sleeves without exceptional cause. So Ralph Danby's little brougham came and went as of yore, and only in the solitary evenings, when reason unprejudiced criticised his actions, did he realise that again was he building a palace of Eros, and again its foundation was nothing but sand!
One evening, in the midst of his mental accusations, came a note:—
Please come soon. Phœbe seems very ill.—P. C.
He hailed a hansom and was off in a moment.
The child was asleep in her crib, and Mrs Cameron watched uneasily by her side. The flushed face, hurrying pulse, the dry skin, and spasmodic breathing showed signs of fever. There were cases of diphtheria about, and he looked grave. But he decided to cause no unnecessary anxiety, and promised to return later. Then there was no concealing it; great care, he said, must be exercised, as the child was young and not over-strong. He put his opinion in that form to avoid being an alarmist, though the symptoms of the disease were unfavourable, and he dreaded the worst. But his own hope was so great that it tempered his report with consolation, for he had not the heart to warn Phœbe's mother of his fears.