Even so the doctor was dubious.
“He must not be allowed to get excited,” he said.
“Then may he listen to me a minute?”
“Yes, if you really keep to schedule.”
“Don’t move, Alec!” whispered Nina, and there seemed to be a note in her voice that Maseden had heard only once before, though he could not recall the occasion. “We’re on board a mail steamer bound for England, but she touches at Punta Arenas and Buenos Ayres, so you must be ‘Mr. Alexander,’ not ‘Mr. Maseden,’ until we reach home. Don’t ask why just now. I’ll tell you to-morrow, or next day, when you are stronger. You will trust me, won’t you?”
“Trust you, Nina! Yes, forever!”
He looked at her, as though to make sure that his senses were not deceiving him and that it was really Nina Forbes who sat there, a Nina with her hair nicely combed and coiled and wearing a particularly attractive pink jersey and white serge skirt.
He thought that her eyes—those frank blue eyes he had gazed into so often—were suffused with tears.
“Why are you crying?” he demanded, with just a hint of that domineering way of his.
“Not for grief,” she said quietly. “But you must drink this now, and go to sleep. When you awaken again, perhaps the doctor will let C. K. come and chat with you.”