“I don’t believe you,” he said stoutly. “Anyway, she’s worrying me, and her mission in the world is to keep that family together. I’m going to talk to her.”
“Don’t offend her, Brian.”
“There now—she is coming between us,” he growled. “I’ll not have it.”
A day or two later came his chance for a conversation with Vivienne. Accompanied by Stargarde’s dog she had left the Pavilion immediately after breakfast, and had gone for an early constitutional. She liked to saunter along the streets and look in the shop windows before the rosy-cheeked matrons and maids came trooping from north, south, and west to do their shopping in the business quarter of the town, which lies along the water’s edge.
As she stood examining with a critical and approving eye the many soft fur garments hung up in a shop window, Dr. Camperdown came suddenly around the corner of the street, swinging himself carelessly along, his hands in the pockets of his huge raccoon coat, in which he looked like a grizzly bear—amiable or unamiable as his humor happened to be.
Catching sight of Vivienne he moderated his pace, and came to a stop without being perceived by her. As the girl examined a waxen lady who was enveloped in a complete suit of sealskin, Dr. Camperdown examined her.
“Wax doll better equipped for a walk than girl is,” he soliloquized. “Girl’s dress might do for Parisian boulevards—too thin for Halifax winter,” and he surveyed disapprovingly the quiet elegance of Vivienne’s brown cloth costume.
Her attire was certainly better suited for a summer or autumn day than one in February, and she shivered slightly as she stood before him.
“French shoes too,” he muttered, looking down at her feet. “No overshoes or rubbers.” And as if unwilling to be protected from the cold while she was suffering from it, he angrily swung off his bulky coat, and threw it over his shoulder, saying as he did so, “Little simpleton, her mind is so preoccupied that she doesn’t know what she puts on.”
Roused by his half-uttered words, the girl turned around. “Good-morning,” he said grimly. “Which is your pet form of lung disease? If you just mention it you’re likely to have it.”