All his movements had suddenly become alert and energetic. The joy of the true physician, the healer, had awakened in him at the prospect of a duel with Death, and he was no longer merely the slouching, good-natured wastrel who doctored horses at the Hippodrome.
He possessed for the moment the dignity of a leader, of the master of a situation. He smiled to himself as he moved about humming a verse of "Let Ireland remember," and swept away a débris of books, a rouge pot, some dead flowers, and a large over-trimmed hat.
"Shure 'tis back in the surgery again I am," he told himself, while his lean, ugly face beamed with satisfaction.
No one who knew Michael Furness had ever suspected the regret by which he was for ever haunted, regret at the loss of his profession. His rollicking manner made it impossible to believe him capable of any depth of feeling, and he had a trick of talking least about the things for which he cared most. The failing that banned him from his work was an inherited one. He suffered for the sins of his fathers, for the indulgences of many generations of hard riding, hard living, reckless hot-blooded Celts. He was too old to reform now, he would say. Perhaps later on he would be "making his soul"; in the meantime he drifted.
Emile, Maria and the boiling water all made their entrée together. The eyes of the former travelled first of all to the bed and then to the heap of vegetation.
"Qu 'est-ce que c'est que ca?" he demanded. "She is better, eh?"
"No, she's worse," answered Michael. He seized upon the leaves and began to bundle them into the steaming basin.
"We shouldn't have been gone so long. What's this did ye say, Poleski? Well, 'tis the only thing I can do for her. After I left you I went and got these. They're great believers in herbs in this counthry, and by the light of what I have seen, so am I. The poor people never use anything else, and I've seen some fine cures. It's unprofessional, but it's giving her a chance and as I told you I can't operate." He withdrew his fingers hurriedly.
"Faith, that jade with the dark eyes knew what she was doing when she made this water hot! They're ready now, and I'll want a piece of stuff to lay them on. Find me a piece of the colleen's finery, something old that she won't be wanting to use any more."
He pronounced the last two words as "ANNIE MOORE," and would have been furious if the fact had been pointed out to him, for like all Irishmen he would never admit the possession of a brogue.