‘“But me no buts!” Sydney, don’t torture me,—let me stop here where I am,—don’t you see I’m haunted?’
She had seated herself. Now she stood up, holding her hands out in front of her in a state of extraordinary agitation, her manner as wild as her words.
‘Why are you staring at me like that? Do you think I’m mad?—I wonder if I’m going mad.—Sydney, do people suddenly go mad? You’re a bit of everything, you’re a bit of a doctor too, feel my pulse,—there it is!—tell me if I’m ill!’
I felt her pulse,—it did not need its swift beating to inform me that fever of some sort was in her veins. I gave her something in a glass. She held it up to the level of her eyes.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s a decoction of my own. You might not think it, but my brain sometimes gets into a whirl. I use it as a sedative. It will do you good.’
She drained the glass.
‘It’s done me good already,—I believe it has; that’s being something like a doctor.—Well, Sydney, the storm has almost burst. Last night papa forbade me to speak to Paul Lessingham—by way of a prelude.’
‘Exactly. Mr Lindon—’
‘Yes, Mr Lindon,—that’s papa. I fancy we almost quarrelled. I know papa said some surprising things,—but it’s a way he has,—he’s apt to say surprising things. He’s the best father in the world, but—it’s not in his nature to like a really clever person; your good high dried old Tory never can;—I’ve always thought that that’s why he’s so fond of you.’