Our excellent surgeon instantly seized on my idea, and made it his own.
"You are a phenix among womens," he said, paternally patting me on the shoulder. "Which is most perfectest, your advice or your Mayonnaise, I am at a loss to know." He turned to Lucilla, and raised her gently from her chair. "Come into your own rooms with me, my poor little Feench. I shall see if I dare take off your bandages to-day."
Lucilla clasped her hands entreatingly.
"You promised!" she said. "Oh, Herr Grosse, you promised to let me use my eyes to-day!"
"Answer me this!" retorted the German. "Did I know, when I promised, that I should find you all shaky-pale, as white as my shirts when he comes back from the wash?"
"I am quite myself again," she pleaded faintly. "I am quite fit to have the bandage taken off."
"What! you know better than I do? Which of us is surgeon-optic—you or me? No more of this. Come under my arms! Come into the odder rooms!"
He put her arm in his, and walked with her to the door. There, her variable humour suddenly changed. She rallied on the instant. Her face flushed; her courage came back. To my horror, she snatched her arm away from the surgeon, and refused to leave the room.
"No!" she said. "I am quite composed again; I claim your promise. Examine me here. I must and will have my first look at Oscar in this room."
(I was afraid—literally afraid—to turn my eyes Oscar's way. I glanced at Nugent instead. There was a devilish smile on his face that it nearly drove me mad to see.)