"Impossible. My reputation would be at stake. Besides I do not often have the chance of studying two such interesting parallel cases of poisoning at the same time."
"Very well, doctor. All I ask of you is to cure our little one."
"I hope to save the pair of them. And now I'll go up and have a look at her, and then I must return to Mr. Sipos's house. But I shall be here again in an hour or so."
And with that the old man had to be content.
During the whole course of Henrietta's illness he sent to enquire after his grandchild every hour. Clementina and an old maid-servant took it in turns to watch by her bedside. It was strictly forbidden to leave Henrietta alone for an instant, and Mr. Demetrius gave special orders that her brother Koloman was not to be allowed to approach within six paces of her bed because he was sure to bring cold air into the room, or convey to her surreptitiously something which she ought not to have and behave like a blockhead generally. So he was obliged to keep his distance.
At last when weeks and weeks had flown by, God and blessed nature helped the doctor to triumph over the effects of the poison. Henrietta slowly began to mend. She was still very weak, but the doctor assured them that she was quite out of danger and that the little capricious fancies of convalescence might now be safely humoured.
Madame Langai, in the doctor's presence, asked the sick girl whether there was anything in particular she would like, any food she fancied, any pastime she preferred.
The pale, delicate-looking child languidly cast down her eyes as if she would say: "I should like to lie in the grave—deep, deep, down." But what she really did say was: "I should like to read something. I feel so dull."
"That I cannot allow," said the doctor, "it would make your head ache, but I have no objection to someone reading to you some nice, amusing novel, Dickens's "Pickwick Papers," for instance, or a story of Marryat's, something light and amusing, I mean, which will not excite you too much."
"I should like that," said Henrietta and the choice fell on the "Pickwick Papers." But as the English governess complained that she could never read aloud for ten minutes at a time without growing hoarse and Clementina's eyes were too weak for any such office, it was suggested that Margari should be asked to submit to this extra sacrifice, and Clementina succeeded in persuading him to do so by promising him a liberal reward. So she brought him back with her and seated him behind a curtain so that he could not see the invalid (that would have been scarcely proper), and put the book into his hand.