“I shall be glad to call a doctor.”
“Thank you—it is quite unnecessary. If you will be so good as to have the manager send me a competent body servant, it will be sufficient.”
“But you may need medical attention.”
“Then it will not be difficult to reach McKenzie, over at the Legation. I won't trouble you further—beyond that matter of the servant.”
I bowed and went out, closing his door behind me.
I stood there for a moment in the hall. It seemed a very long time since I had seen Heloise or heard from her. And now, thanks to that old man, I had a new set of mental pictures to touch my spirit, and stir me, and rouse feelings so subtle, so haunting, so poignant, that I could hardly bear them. Yet, I thought, these are my new mental companions, these thoughts and feelings and partly distinct, partly elusive, mind pictures, and it is with them I have got to live for the rest of my life.
I listened. She was in there, surely, behind that closed door. The transom was closed, too. I could hear no sound.
I decided then to make her speak to me. And it seemed to me that now I could give without asking.
My hopes for myself were running as high as that—to give without asking, and to reassure her poor tortured spirit by so appearing and acting that she would know, through her fine intuition, that I had risen to this point.
I ran downstairs and told the manager of Sir Robert's request. I also suggested that in my judgment medical care was indicated. He looked puzzled, and a thought worried, that little French manager; as if unable to determine whether I had killed Sir Robert or had suddenly become his friend.