Always pale, her pallor did not demand particular attention, save that under their ruddy salve the edges of her lips showed white. She answered, forcing the lips to smile, compelling her eyes to meet Saxham's.
"About coming to see you?" She remembered and drew from her gilt-chain vanity bag the letter she had not posted: "This was written to you to-day. Then I thought I would have been able to look in at Harley Street, and in the end——"
"In the end you neither paid the visit nor posted the excuse. Well, be more considerate in future to those who love you. Sincere, clean love does not grow on every gooseberry bush, my dear!"
The curt speech, made in the Doctor's brusquest tone, conveyed to Patrine an impression of exquisite kindness. So many boons, so many benefits had been conferred in that grim, curt way. She had wept and would not weep again, but her hard bright eyes grew misty as she thanked him, and asked after Lynette, with a touch of wistfulness that recalled to the Doctor that unforgettable time when greedy Death had threatened to rob him of his joy. He answered her cheerfully, and they found themselves chatting of familiar, everyday matters across the gulf that yawned between. And then, warned by some swift change of expression in her face, Saxham glanced up to see Sherbrand approaching.
"Doctor!" he called. "Sorry to interrupt, but would you listen a minute?"
The tall, lightly-built, lightly moving figure came swinging towards them. He still carried the eared cap with the goggled visor, his thick, silvery-blonde hair was darkened at the temples with the dampness generated under the close covering of waterproof. His light grey-blue eyes were smiling, yet there was a pucker of anxiety between his eyebrows, as he put von Herrnung's case.
"So," he ended, "instead of taking a second flight in the Bird with me as we arranged, would you trust your boy to this foreign crack who's in a hole for a passenger? He is Captain von Herrnung of the German Flying Service—winner of the two-days' flight from Hanover to Paris in April—a famous run!" He added, "I need hardly say that with such a record as von Herrnung holds you cannot be apprehensive of any rashness or neglect on his part. But I'll own I would rather take Bawne up another day myself. Still, von Herrnung——"
"I am aware of the reputation held by the person you mention. I am going now to speak to him."
The Doctor's face was devoid of all expression. But he battled, as he spoke, with a masterful desire to forbid Bawne the expedition. To assert parental authority on this point would have been the mode of dealing approved by one of the two men who dwelt within the Dop Doctor. The other Saxham said "Hold!"
Dare you place your paternal love, that other Saxham asked—between your son and his duty? Because it would be so easy to do it, is the reason why you should refrain! The Doctor had walked a few paces towards the object of his troubled reflections. He wheeled abruptly, returned, and presented Sherbrand to his niece.