CHAPTER XXXVII
OF THE DOCTOR'S CAUTIOUS RESERVE, AND MRS. FENWICK'S STRONG COMMON-SENSE. AND OF A LADY AT BUDA-PESTH. HOW HARRISSON WAS ONLY PAST FORGOTTEN NEWSPAPERS TO DR. VEREKER. OF THE OCTOPUS'S PULSE, HOW THE HABERDASHER'S BRIDE WOULD TRY ON AT TWO GUAS. A WEEK, AND OF A PLEASANT WALK BACK FROM THE RAILWAY STATION
"You never mean to say you've been in the water?"
It was quite clear, from the bluish finger-tips of the gloveless merpussy—for at St. Sennans sixes are not de rigueur in the morning—that she has been in, and has only just come out. But Fenwick, who asked the question, grasped a handful of loose black hair for confirmation, and found it wet.
"Haven't I?" says the incorrigible one. "And you should have heard the rumpus over getting a machine down."
"She's a selfish little monkey," her mother says, but forgivingly, too. "She'll drown herself, and not care a penny about all the trouble she gives." You see, Rosalind wouldn't throw her words into this callous form if she was really thinking about the merpussy. But just now she is too anxious about Gerry to be very particular.
What has passed between him and Dr. Conrad? What does the latter know now more than she does herself? She falls back with him, and allows the other two to go on in front. Obviously the most natural arrangement.
"What has he told you, Dr. Conrad?" This is not unexpected, and the answer is a prepared one, preconcerted under pressure between the doctor and his conscience.
"I am going to ask you, Mrs. Fenwick, to do me a very great kindness—don't say yes without hearing what it is—to ask you to allow me to keep back all your husband says to me, and to take for granted that he repeats to you all he feels certain of himself in his own recollections."