He got up, beside himself with perplexity: but even as he tried to think what on earth he could do, the doctor came. The ambulance would arrive, he said, with bored cheerfulness, in twenty minutes. Lily, rushing from Jacky's bedside, flew at him with set teeth, her trembling hands gripping the white sleeve of his linen jacket.
"This gentleman's a friend of mine," she said, jerking her head toward Maurice; "he says you shan't carry Jacky off!"
The doctor's relief at having a man to talk to was obvious. And while Maurice was trying to get in a word, there came another whimper from the room where Jacky lay, red and blotched, talking brokenly to himself: "Maw!" Lily ran to him, leaving the two men alone.
"Thank Heaven!" the doctor said; "I'd about as soon argue with a hornet as a mother. She's nearly crazy! I'll tell you the situation." He told it, and Maurice listened, frowning.
"What can be done?" he said; "I—I am only an acquaintance; I hardly know Mrs. Dale; but she sent for me. She's frantic at the idea of the boy being taken away from her."
"He'll have to be taken away! Besides, he'll have ten times better care in the hospital than he could have here."
"Can she go with him?" Maurice said.
"Why, if she can afford to take a private room—"
"Good heavens! money's no object; anything to keep her from doing some wild thing!"
"You a relation?" the doctor asked.