The doctor waited.
"What is it?" he said at length. "Tell me why you have called. If you are not ill, what is it you want of me?"
"You'll laugh, p'r'aps."
"Laugh? Is it something funny, then?"
"Funny! Not it!"
The sound of her voice seemed to give her some courage, for she went on with more hardy resolution:
"Look here, you can see what I am—oh yes, you can—and you wonder what I'm doin' here. Well, if I tell you, will you promise as you won't laugh at me?"
This was Cuckoo's way of delicately sounding the doctor's depths. She thought it decidedly subtle.
"Yes, I'll promise that," the doctor said.
He looked at her faded young face and felt no inclination to laugh.