She said it softly, almost reflectively, and with a little droop of the head she emphasized it.
"You had better do what I ask you to do, Doctor Isaacson. If you wish to do Nigel good, you had better not try to force yourself in against my will in the dead of the night, when I'm tired out and have begged you to go. You had better let me ask Doctor Hartley for a consultation to-morrow, and tell Nigel, and call you in. That's the best plan—if you want to be nice to Nigel."
She sat down again on the divan, at a short distance from him, and close to the door by which Hamza had gone out.
"Nigel and I have talked this all over," she said, with a quiet sweetness.
"Talked this over?" Isaacson said.
With his usual quickness of mind he had realized the exact strength of the strategic position she had so suddenly and unexpectedly taken up. For the moment he wished to gain time. His former complete decision as to what he meant to do was slightly weakened by her presentation of Nigel, the believer. From his knowledge of his friend, he appreciated her judgment of Nigel at its full value. What she had just said was true, and the truth bristled like a bayonet-point in the midst of the lies by which it was surrounded.
"Talked this over? How can that be?"
"Very easily. When two people love each other there is nothing they do not discuss—even their enemies."
"My dear Mrs. Armine, no melodrama, please!"
"Melodrama or not, Doctor Isaacson, I promise you it is a fact that my friends are Nigel's friends, and that my enemies would, at a very few words from me, find that in Nigel they had an enemy."