"Why don't you eat your dinner?" she asked David.
"I am interested," he replied rather hoarsely.
"At what? I was wondering what right I had to inflict all this on you. I suppose when I came in you were talking of something worth while." She turned again to Brantome. "And Marco Polo?"
"The best tone poem since Don Quixote," he said, rising and making her a bow. "As far as it has gone. It is not finished yet."
"It soon will be. Won't it, David?"
"Oh, another month with luck," he returned lightly, trying to lift a wineglass, and spilling on the cloth the champagne that had been prescribed by Dr. Fallows.
She caught his wrist. A pang passed through her heart. She showed them a new expression, or else an old one for which they had been hoping, as she exclaimed in alarm:
"You're not so well to-night!"
And, as Hamoud was wheeling David into the living room, she protested to Brantome:
"I can't leave him for a day without something happening."