“I have your letter. All that you say may be true, but it doesn’t affect my point. So far as I know, the facts have never been put before Ivy. Will you tell her that I should like to see her as soon as she’s well enough? The issue is quite plain.”
Eric locked the letter away in a despatch-box and walked up and down the library, trying to compose himself before Gaisford came in from the sick-room. Even without Gaymer, the last few weeks had been sufficiently exhausting—first Ivy, then Barbara and the succession of unnerving encounters with her; and, before that, the shock of her marriage, the torturing sense of betrayal, the endless nights and days of inward raving and outward stoicism in which he had travelled and lectured and written from end to end of America like an effigy of himself with the spirit torn out and bleeding apart; and, before that, the two years of illness and madness. It was not surprising if he sometimes felt that something in his head, just behind the eyes, would snap; it was unpleasantly surprising to calculate that he had not felt well for months, that he was half-consciously waiting to hear the snap.
He was sitting with his head bent forward, squeezing his fists against his temples, when the doctor came in. The door was open, and Eric never knew how long Gaisford had stood watching him before he looked up; and, though he rallied at once and asked steadily enough for the evening report, he felt trapped.
“She’s doing very nicely,” said Gaisford, still looking at him curiously. “If you don’t let people see her till I give you leave—.”
“You can trust me for that,” Eric interrupted.
“And if I say you’re not to see her yourself?”
“I shouldn’t dream of going near her against your orders!”
The doctor silenced him with a grunt and began digging like an industrious terrier among the papers on the writing table.
“Tell me where you keep your cigars and don’t become theatrical,” he advised. “Since when have you started this flattering regard for my orders?”
“I’ve done everything you’ve told me to.”