"Have you any idea how long she is going to sleep?"
"Some hours."
"What? Do you mean that you have put her to sleep, too?"
"I have ventured to do so. Her night had not been good."
Isaacson remembered the sounds that had come to him over the Nile.
"You have given her a sleeping draught?" he said.
"I have."
"But she was expecting me here. She was expecting me here for a consultation."
"I beg your pardon. You were good enough to say you meant to come. Mrs. Armine has been scrupulously delicate and courteous to me. That I know. You placed her in a very difficult position. She explained matters when I arrived."
She had "explained matters"! Isaacson felt rather as if he were fighting an enemy who had laid a mine to check or to destroy him, and had then retreated to a distance.