"After all," he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is not irrevocable. I can fix it up so that——"
"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, and snapped her watch shut.
The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap.
"Now!" she said.
"I am to go on?"
"Yes, please."
"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give me any other diabolical truck to swallow," he said somewhat peevishly, "will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessional minutes?"
"Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, to his disgust, over his knees.
This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table near him and he reached over and covered it with his.
"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell you some of the things I have to tell."