“It is very hard upon my predecessor, isn’t it,” she says, beginning to talk much faster than her wont, “to have developed such an enthusiasm for nursing, and then to have her course barred by so odious a form of illness?”
“Jaundice, isn’t it?” returns he, with a very respectable and even remorseful effort at regret.
“Yes; jaundice.”
“Poor soul!”
Both read in each other’s hearts that, as between them, talk of Féodorovna is sheer waste of time; yet one of them clings convulsively to her as a safe topic.
“What aggravates her vexation is that she can’t believe that you will not be starved and ill-used in her absence!”
“Poor soul!”
There is a touch of impatience that to one initiated speaks of past endurance in the repeated phrase; and the smile that sends up the corners of both their mouths, when Lavinia adds demurely, “I am to report progress every quarter of an hour,” makes them both feel rather guilty.
It is the man who instinctively breaks away from the subject, and, as one determined to have his will, rushes headforemost into another.
“Tell me how much time you are going to give me! I had rather know at once.”