She felt that he suspected her, that he would, if he had use of his voice, have ordered her out of the room; she read all that in his regard. Prudence necessitated the continuance of the very tiresome rôle of ministering angel. She dared do nothing until the doctor should have confirmed the hopelessness of his state. She was excruciatingly bored, and somewhat frightened. The horrible spectre on the bed looked like a ghoul so lean, so colorless, so distorted, so motionless. She had nothing to do, she felt a palpitating terror lest he should recover the power of speech; she believed that people struck down by hemiplegia did so recover it sometimes. She held a spoonful of lemonade to his shut lips; but he did not open them, he only glared at her. The spoon was of a common white metal, ugly, yellow, discolored; she hated to touch it.
At that moment a heavy step was heard on the stair and a broad, bearded, rough-looking man entered with his hat on his head; it was the doctor.
“Sapristi!” he shouted very angrily; “what do you send for again and again and again. The man is as good as dead. All the science in the world could not save him. You waste my time. You——”
Catching sight then of a lady in the room he pulled off his hat and muttered his excuses: he was very busy, he had many sick people, people who were curable, the man on the bed could not recover.
“Oh, pray do not say so!” said Mouse with much apparent feeling. “Do they not recover sometimes? I think I have heard——”
“A man of that age cannot recover,” said the doctor impatiently. “He is practically dead already. He will not live through the night, if you can call him still living. You are a relation?”
“No. But I have known him in other years, when he was less—less fortunate; and I know all his people.”
“The lady says they are royal,” murmured the woman of the house.
“Royal!” echoed the doctor with scorn. “If they were the consul would be after him like a dog after a bone.”
The consul! Mouse remembered with a shock that such a person might indeed arrive at any moment. She had not thought of this possibility.