“Now, drink this at once, please.” The man’s voice cut sharply across the impending flow of garrulous interest, and Magda, who had not gathered the actual sense of the murmured conversation, felt an arm pass behind her head, raising it a little, while once more that hateful glass of sal volatile was held to her lips.
Her eyes unclosed fretfully.
“Take it away,” she was beginning.
“Drink it! Do you hear? Do as you’re told!”
The sharp, authoritative tones startled her into sudden compliance. She opened her mouth and swallowed the contents of the glass with a gulp. Then she looked resentfully at the man whose curt command she had obeyed in such unexpected fashion. Magda Wielitzska was more used to giving orders than to taking them.
“There, that’s better,” he observed, regarding the empty glass with satisfaction. “No, lie still”—as she attempted to rise. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.”
“I’m better now,” declared Magda sulkily.
Her head was growing clearer every minute. She was even able to feel an intense irritation against this man who had just compelled her to drink the sal volatile.
He looked at her unperturbedly.
“Are you? That’s good. Still, you’ll stay where you are till I tell you that you may get up.” He turned to a comfortable-looking woman who was standing at the foot of the couch on which Magda lay—a housekeeper of the nice old-fashioned black-satin kind. “Now, Mrs. Braithwaite, I think this lady will be glad of a cup of tea by the time you can have one ready.”