"If Jacques never has drunk," said he, "brandy will poison him."
Stainton rose.
"I am as sound as a bell," he vowed.
Boussingault did not rise. He only leaned back the farther and smiled the more knowingly.
"Yet you are here," said he.
Stainton took a turn of the room. When he had risen he had meant to leave, but he knew that such a course was folly. When he turned, he showed Boussingault a face distorted by anguish.
"What can I do?" he asked. His voice was low; his deportment was as restrained as he could make it. "She is a girl——"
"Were madame forty-five," said the physician, "you would not have come to consult me."
"Surely it's not fair, doctor. After all my repression—all my life of—of——"
Boussingault rose at last. He came round the desk and, with a touch of genuine affection in the movement, slipped an arm through one of Jim's.