"Precisely."
"That shall be as you wish. I appreciate your motives." His voice was full of sympathy, giving a treble value to the most ordinary words. "That is the action of a true friend."
Rivière brought Elaine into the consulting-room, and left her in the great specialist's gentle hands. An assistant surgeon was there to act as interpreter.
The verdict came quickly. For a week Elaine was to be in the surgical home receiving preliminary treatment, and then Dr Hegelmann was to operate on her right eye. For the left eye there was no hope.
During the week of waiting, Rivière came twice a day to Elaine's bedside, to chat and read to her.
One day he told her that he had arranged for the use of a bench at a private biological laboratory at Wiesbaden belonging to one of the medical specialists.
"That will enable me to begin my research while you're recovering from the operation. You'll have no need to think that you might be keeping me here away from my work."
"I'm glad. It's very good to have a friend by one, but I should have worried at keeping you from your work. Now I'm relieved.... Is the laboratory here well equipped?"
"Quite sufficiently for my purposes. Of course I'm sending to Paris for my own microscope—it's a Zeiss, with a one-twelfth oil immersion—and I'll have my own rocker microtome sent over also. There's a microtome in the laboratory here, but I might take weeks to get on terms with it. If you'd ever worked with the instrument, you'd know how curiously human it is in its moods and whims. If a microtome takes a liking to you, she'll work herself to the bone while you merely rest your hand on the lever. But if she has some secret objection to you, she'll pout and sulk, and jib and rear, and generally try to drive you distracted."
Elaine smiled. "I notice that man always applies the feminine gender to anything unreliable in the way of machinery. If it's sober and steady-going, you label it masculine, like Big Ben. But if it's uncertain in action, like a motor-boat, you call it Fifi or Lolo or Vivienne."