"I'll be as quiet as a mouse," said Margaret giving a sudden queer little glance at his face.
Richard emptied a paper of white powder into a great yellow bowl half filled with water and fell to stirring it vigorously, like a pastry-cook beating eggs. When the plaster was of the proper consistency he began building it up around the hand, pouring on a spoonful at a time, here and there, carefully. In a minute or two the inert white fingers were completely buried. Margaret made a comical grimace.
"Is it cold?"
"Ice," said Margaret, shutting her eyes involuntarily.
"If it is too disagreeable we can give it up," suggested Richard.
"No, don't touch it!" she cried, waving him back with her free arm. "I don't mind; but it's as cold as so much snow. How curious! What does it?"
"I suppose a scientific fellow could explain the matter to you easily enough. When the water evaporates a kind of congealing process sets in,--a sort of atmospheric change, don't you know? The sudden precipitation of the--the"--
"You're as good as Tyndall on Heat," said Margaret demurely.
"Oh, Tyndall is well enough in his way," returned Richard, "but of course he doesn't go into things so deeply as I do."
"The idea of telling me that 'a congealing process set in,' when I am nearly frozen to death!" cried Margaret, bowing her head over the imprisoned arm.