I found Sir Miles’s bottle of wine untouched in the cupboard, and placed it on the table. Then I left him to his meal. When I returned, I found he had eaten next to nothing. One could have cried with vexation.
“Lord, sir,” I said, still in my feigned voice, “if you do not eat you will be ill. Is there never a body that loves you?”
He started, but hardly looked at me.
“A trick of voice,” he said. “Yet it reminded me—Is there anybody who loves me, child? I think there is. To be sure, there is some one whom I love.”
“Then, sir, you ought to eat, if only to please her, by keeping well and strong.”
“Well, well! I dare say I shall be hungry to-morrow. You can take away the things, Phœbe, if that is what they call you.”
I could say no more, but was fain to obey. Then as I could do no more for him, I took up the tray and resolved to go and see the Doctor, with whom I had much to say. Therefore I put off my servant’s garb, with the apron and cap, and drew the hood over my face again.
The Doctor’s busy time was in the morning. In the afternoon, after dinner, he mostly slept in his arm-chair, over a pipe of tobacco. I found him alone thus enjoying himself. I know not whether he slept or meditated, for the tobacco was still burning, though his eyes were closed.
There is this peculiarity about noise in London, that people who live in it and sleep in it do not notice it. Thus while there was a horrible altercation outside his very windows—a thing which happened every day, and all day long—the Doctor regarded it not at all. Yet he heard me open and shut the door, and was awake instantly.
“Kitty!” he cried. “Why, child, what dost thou here?”