"I do. I was extremely shocked at the appearance of Mr. Armine when I saw him last night. If you had ever known him in health, you would have been as shocked as I was. He was one of the most robust, the most brilliantly healthy, strong-looking men I have even seen."
As he spoke, Armine seemed to stand before Isaacson as he had been.
"The change in him, mind and body, is appalling," he concluded.
And there was in his voice an almost fearful sincerity.
Doctor Hartley fidgeted. He moved his hat, pulled down his ducks, dropped his cigarette on the rug, then rather hastily and awkwardly put it out with his foot. Sitting with his feet no longer cocked up but planted firmly on the rug, he said:
"Of course, an attack like this changes a man. What else could you expect? Really! What else could you expect? I noticed all that! That's why I am going to stay. Upon my word"—as he spoke he seemed to work himself into vexation—"upon my word, Doctor Isaacson, to hear you, anyone would suppose I had been making light of my patient's condition."
Isaacson was confronted with fluffy indignation.
"You'll be accusing me of professional incompetence next, I dare say," continued Doctor Hartley. "I have not told you before, but I'll tell you now, that I consider it a breach of the etiquette that governs our profession, your interfering with my patient."
"How interfering?"
"I hear you gave him something last night—something to make him sleep."