"And what did he say?"
"He did not say much."
"Does he—does he think that it is anything—anything serious?"
"He did not say."
"Do you mean to tell me"—indignantly—"that you did not ask him?"
"If you had been here," replies Cecilia, with a not inexcusable resentment, "you might have asked him yourself."
"But did not you ask him?" in too real anxiety to be offended at, or even aware of, her fleer. "Did not he say?"
"I do not think he knew himself."
"But he must have thought—he must have had an opinion!" growing the more uneasy as there seems no tangible object for his fears to lay hold of.
"He says it is impossible to judge at so early a stage; it may be a chill—I told him about that detestable excursion yesterday, and he considered it quite enough to account for anything—it may be measles—they seem to be a good deal about; it may be malaria—there is a good deal of that too."