"I've not forgotten."
"I'm no' dootin' but ye have found it unco' useful." Taggart's frosty eyelashes twinkled. "It has saved my ain face from shame mair times than I daur tell." He quoted, relishingly: "M.B.A.—Might Be Anything! G.O.K.—Guid Only Knows! L.F.A.—Luik for Alcohol. A.D.T.—Any Damned Thing! 'Toch, Sister, I beg your parr-don! The word slipped oot—I have nae other excuse! But my case o' shell-shock, Saxham. What say ye to an involuntary simuleetion o' rigor mortis? A man sane an' sound an' hale—clampit by his relentless imagination into the shape o' a Polwheal Air-Course Finder, or a pair o' dividers. Half open, ye ken. Ye may stand him on the ground upo' his feet, an' his neb is pointing at the daisies—or ye may lie him o' his back in bed—an' his taes are tickling the stars. Am thinking it long till I'm bringing ye thegither! But ye are busied. I'll no' keep ye the noo."
Racing for the second lift, just emptied of its sorrowful burden, the big shirt-sleeved Doctor checked in his stride and touched the handle of a sliding door. The door shot back noiselessly in its grooving. Saxham was in a cushioned tribune high above the level of the chapel Altar. The scent of flowers and the perfume of incense hung like a benison on the still air of the sacred place.
In one of the carved stalls of the nave the figure of a priest in cassock and biretta sat reading from a breviary. It was the Chaplain, waiting in readiness to be called to administer Holy Unction and Viaticum to some Catholic soul about to depart. In the choir behind the high Altar a slight girl, in the frilled cap and prim black gown of the Novitiate, knelt on a rush-bottomed prie-dieu absorbed in meditation, her black Rosary twisted round her clasped hands. Prayers that are most earnest are frequently incoherent. Saxham formulated no petition as he knelt there in the tribune, but the cry of his heart to the Divine Hearer might have been construed into words like these:
"If Thou wert here in the visible Body as when of old Thou didst walk on earth with Thy Disciples, Thou wouldst heal these broken sons of Thine with Thy look. Thy Touch, Thy Word! Yet art Thou here—for Thou hast said it, ever present for Thy Faithful in Spirit, Flesh, and Blood. Help O Helper! Heal O Healer! Lord Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, give power and wisdom to Thy servant. Aid me, working in the dark by my little flame of hard-won knowledge, to preserve life, Thou Giver of Life! Amen."
So having prayed, the Dop Doctor went up to the theatre and wrought mightily, doing wonderful things in the way of patching and botching the broken bodies of men. Later, as he sat in the Harley Street dining-room playing the courteous, attentive host to sad-eyed, wistful Madame van der Heuvel and her two pretty daughters—for Lynette had dined earlier on account of the Suffrage Meeting—he heard a latch-key in the front-door and Patrine's well-known step in the hall.
He excused himself, rose and went out, and spoke to his niece. She made a croaking sound in answer, as unlike the voice of Patrine as the pinched and sunken face revealed by the hall electroliers, resembled the face of dead David's handsome girl. The mouth hung lax. The cheeks had fallen. The eyes stared blank and tearless, from hollow caves under the broad black eyebrows. He said with a pricking of foreboding:
"You have had a long day! ..."
"Not long enough to tire me. I am made of india-rubber, I think, and steel."
He considered her a moment with grave, keen eyes that had no gleam of curiosity.