"She is with that boy," said Lloyd Pryor. He made no motion of civility; he stood where Helena had left him, his hands still in his pockets. "Will you be so good as to tell her to come down here to me? The stage is due, and I must see her before I go."
William King, red and stolid, nodded again, and went up-stairs without another look into the parlor.
While he waited Lloyd Pryor's anger slowly rose. The presence of the doctor froze the tenderness that, for an idle moment, her face and voice and touch had awakened. The annoyance, the embarrassment, the danger of that call, returned in a gust of remembrance. When she came down-stairs, full of eager excuses, the touch of his rage seared her like a flame.
"If you will kindly take five minutes from that squalling brat—"
"Lloyd, he was in pain. I had to go to him. The instant the doctor came, I left him. I—"
"Listen to me, please. I have only a minute. Helena, this friend of yours, this Dr. King, saw fit to pry into my affairs. He came to Philadelphia to look me up—" "What!"
"He came to my house"—he looked at her keenly through his curling eyelashes—"to my house! Do you understand what that means?"
In her dismay she sat down with a sort of gasp; and looking up at him, stammered, "But why? Why?"
"Why? Because he is a prying suspicious jackass of a country doctor! He came at exactly six o'clock. It was perfectly evident that he meant to give me the pleasure of his company at dinner."
At that she sprang to her feet, her impetuous hands upon his arm. "Then he was not—suspicious! Don't you see? He was only friendly!" She trembled with the reaction of that instant of dismay. "He was not suspicious, or he wouldn't have been—been willing—" Her voice trailed into shamed silence.