Rhoda had spoken to Miss Cursiter. Nobody ever knew what she said to her, but the next day Miss Cursiter's secretary had the pleasure to inform Miss Quincey that she would have leave of absence for three months, and that her place would be kept for her.
Miss Quincey had become a person of importance. Old Martha fumbled about, unnaturally attentive, even Mrs. Moon acknowledged Juliana's right to be ill if her foolish mind were set on it. There was nothing active or spontaneous in the Old Lady's dislike of her niece, it was simply a habit she had got.
An agreeable sense of her dignity stole in on the little woman of no account. She knew and everybody knew that hers was no vulgar illness. It was brain exhaustion; altogether a noble and transcendental affair; Miss Quincey was a victim of the intellectual life. In all the five-and-twenty years she had worked there St. Sidwell's had never heard so much about Miss Quincey's brain. And on her part Miss Quincey was surprised to find that she had so many friends. Day after day the teachers left their cards and sympathy; the girls sent flowers with love; there were even messages of inquiry from Miss Cursiter. And not only flowers and sympathy, but more solid testimonials poured in from St. Sidwell's, parcels which by some curious coincidence contained everything that Dr. Cautley had suggested and Miss Quincey refused on the grounds that she "couldn't fancy it." For a long time Miss Quincey was supremely happy in the belief that these delicacies were sent by the Head; and she said to herself that one had only to be laid aside a little while for one's worth to be appreciated. It was as if a veil of blessed illusion had been spread between her and her world; and nobody knew whose fingers had been busy in weaving it so close and fine.
Dr. Cautley came every day and always at the same time. At first he was pretty sure to find Miss Vivian, sitting with Miss Quincey or drinking tea in perilous intimacy with Mrs. Moon. Then came a long spell when, time it as he would, he never saw her at all. Rhoda had taken it into her head to choose six o'clock for her visits, and at six he was bound to be at home for consultations. But Rhoda or no Rhoda, he kept his promise. He was looking well after Miss Quincey. He would have done that as a matter of course; for his worst enemies—and he had several—could not say that Cautley ever neglected his poorer patients. Only he concentrated or dissipated himself according to the nature of the case, giving five minutes to one and twenty to another. When he could he gave half-hours to Miss Quincey. He was absorbed, excited; he battled by her bedside; his spirits went up and down with every fluctuation of her pulse; you would have thought that Miss Quincey's case was one of exquisite interest, rarity and charm, and that Cautley had staked his reputation on her recovery. When he said to her in his emphatic way, "We must get you well, Miss Quincey," his manner implied that it would be a very serious thing for the universe if Miss Quincey did not get well. When he looked at her his eyes seemed to be taking her in, taking her in, seeing nothing in all the world but her.
As it happened, sooner than anybody expected Miss Quincey did get well.
Mrs. Moon was the first to notice that. She hailed Juliana's recovery as
a sign of grace, of returning allegiance to the memory of Tollington
Moon.
"Now," said the Old Lady, "I hope we've seen the last of Dr. Cautley."
"Of course we have," said Miss Quincey. She said it irritably, but everybody knows that a little temper is the surest symptom of returning health. "What should he come for?"
"To run up his little bill, my dear. You don't imagine he comes for the pleasure of seeing you?"
"I never imagine anything," said the little arithmetic teacher with some truth.
But they had by no means seen the last of him. If the Old Lady's theory was correct, Cautley must have been the most grossly avaricious of young men. The length of his visits was infamous, their frequency appalling. He kept on coming long after Miss Quincey was officially and obviously well; and on the most trivial, the most ridiculous pretexts. It was "just to see how she was getting on," or "because he happened to be passing," or "to bring that book he told her about." He had prescribed a course of light literature for Miss Quincey and seemed to think it necessary to supply his own drugs. To be sure he brought a great many medicines that you cannot get made up at the chemist's, insight, understanding, sympathy, the tonic of his own virile youth; and Heaven only knows if these things were not the most expensive.