"Better now, madame? Are you going to be good?"
Mme. Rambert was reclining on a sofa in her room, watching her attendant, Berthe, moving about and tidying up the slight disorder caused by her recent ministrations. The patient made a little gesture of despair.
"Poor Berthe!" she said. "If you only knew how unhappy I am, and how sorry for having given way to that panic just now!"
"Oh, that was nothing," said the attendant. "The doctor won't attach any importance to that."
"Yes, he will," said the patient with a weary smile. "I think he will attach importance to it, and in any case it will delay my discharge from this place."
"Not a bit of it, madame. Why, you know they have written to your home to say you are cured?"
Mme. Rambert did not reply for a minute or two. Then she said:
"Tell me, Berthe, what do you understand by the word 'cured'?"
The attendant was rather nonplussed.