“Our patient,” she said, “has been thinking. He has been using his mind a great deal too much—he has been smiling to himself and knitting his brows as if he were trying to remember something. You will please to tell him, Miss Harwood, that this sort of thing will not do. I have done so, but he does not mind me.”
“How cruel of you to say so!” said Meredith, “when you know that I mind you in everything! I never take an invigorating glass of soda-water without asking you if I may.”
She shook her head again.
“It is not glasses of soda-water that are in question, but using your head, Mr. Meredith, when it’s not in a fit state.”
“With two or three holes in it,” said Meredith, ruefully.
“No; you must not,” said Gussy, soothing him. “I am glad you think you have found a clue, but that is enough for to-day.”
Yes, it was enough for to-day; he was compelled in his weakness to acknowledge that he could do no more.
“And you must not think. You must not even attempt to think,” said Gussy; “thinking is not a thing for you to do. Promise me you will not try.”
He took her hand to reassure her, but he did not promise, and even in the act of holding Gussy’s hand and looking up tenderly into her face in requital of her care, he glanced round to make sure that Janet saw this little affectionate episode. He wished her to see, with a sense of pique at the indifference she had shown, and a desire that she should be made aware how little her indifference was shared by others. In his weak state it was doubly necessary to him to be surrounded by care and attention, to have love to wait upon and consider him in all things. He was pleased for himself to caress and be caressed, but he loved to have a spectator to whom he could make those little traitorous asides which increased his enjoyment, or whom he could at least mortify with the sight of his entire mastery over some one else if he had ceased to move her.
But, though this little play with the feelings of others pleased him, he did not give up on that account the quest upon which his mind had entered. Meredith had no inclination to let off or pardon the offender who had so nearly taken his life. Whoever it might be, he was determined to hunt him out and punish him. And he only relinquished this, the process in his mind of putting together such evidence as he had got possession of and working it out, as he might have put aside any piece of manual work till his fatigue had passed away and he was able to take it up again. It would not do to throw himself back by getting a headache, by injuring his nerves or his sleep. His mind was sufficiently trained to enable him to do this; to put thoughts aside when they hurt him, to take them back again when he was in a fit state to do so—which is a capacity always very astonishing to those who have never learned to discipline and rule their thoughts.