“What’s the matter?”
Cassandra rose with a hasty movement, struggled to speak, and pointed to her throat. “A... bone... Don’t!”
The “Don’t” was accompanied by a gesture of the arm, as though to thrust away any offer of help. She walked away a few yards’ distance and stood facing the sea, while her companions looked at one another, sympathetic but calm.
“A bone! In the salad. The Wretch! I’ll give her notice to-night. Poor dear!”
“It’s horrid swallowing a bone. I did it once. It was rabbit. Mother was quite frightened.”
Peignton said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the white figure outlined against the blue, on the shoulders which rose and fell. He filled a tumbler with water and sat waiting, glass in hand. A moment passed, the upheave of the shoulders became more pronounced, he rose swiftly and walked to Cassandra’s side.
She stepped away from him as he approached, waving him away, but he had seen her face and kept steadily on.
“Drink this. Gulp it! It will carry it down.”
The waving fingers spilled half of the liquid, he steadied it with his own hand, while she gulped, and panted, and gulped again, and struggled choking away. The drink had not dislodged the bone, it had served only to hinder the sharpened breath.
Peignton hurried back to the table and seized a lump of bread. Grizel and Teresa stared wide-eyed, and silent. Even in the moment which it had taken to go and to come, Cassandra’s face had taken a deeper hue; the damp stood on her forehead, but she made a gallant effort at composure, standing with her back resolutely turned to her companions, so that they might be spared the sight of her struggles.