Bella Donna Part 113

"You don't tell me what exactly has been the matter," he said, at last.

"You've had such a complication of symptoms."

"That you mean it's impossible to give a name that covers them all?"

Isaacson squeezed the last drop almost tenderly into the tumbler, took up his napkin, and carefully dried his long, brown fingers.

"'What's in a name?'" he quoted.

He looked across the table at Nigel, and questions seemed to be shining in his eyes.

"Do you mean that you don't want to tell me the name?" Nigel said.

It seemed that he was roused to persistence. Either curiosity or some other feeling was awakened within him.

"I don't say that. But you know we doctors often go cautiously--we don't care to commit ourselves."

"Hartley, yes. But that isn't true of you."

He paused.

"You are hedging," he said, bluntly.

Isaacson drank the Vichy and lemon. He put down the gla.s.s.

"You are hedging," Nigel repeated. "Why?"

"Isn't it enough for you to get well? What good will it do you to know what you have been suffering from?"

"Good! But isn't it natural that I should wish to know? Why should there be any mystery about it?"

He stopped. Then, leaning forward a little with one arm on the table, he said:

"Does my wife know what it is?"

"I've never told her," Isaacson answered.

"Well, but does she know?"

The voice that asked was almost suspicious. And the eyes that regarded Isaacson were now suspicious, too.

"How can I tell? She told me she supposed it to be a sunstroke."

"That was Hartley's nonsense. Hartley put that idea into her head. But since you came, of course she's realized there was more in it than that."

"I dare say."

Nigel waited, as if expecting something more. But Isaacson kept silence.

Dinner was over. Nigel got up, and walking steadily, though not yet with the brisk lightness of complete strength and buoyancy, led the way to the drawing-room.

"Shall we sit out on the terrace?"

"If you like. But you must have a coat. I'll fetch it."

"Oh, don't you--"

But the doctor was gone. In a moment he returned with a coat and a light rug. He helped Nigel to put the coat on, took him by the arm, led him out to the chair, and, when he was in it, arranged the rug over his knees.

"You're awfully good to me, Isaacson," Nigel said, almost with softness, "awfully good to me. I am grateful."

"That's all right."

"We were speaking about it only to-day, Ruby and I. She was saying that we mustn't presume on your kindness that we mustn't detain you out here now that I'm out of the wood."

"She wants to get rid of me! Then she must be coming back!" The thought darted through Isaacson's brain, upsetting a previously formed conviction which, to a certain extent, had guided his conduct during dinner.

"Oh, I'm in no hurry," he said, carelessly. "I want to get you quite strong."

"Yes, but your patients in London! You know I've been feeling so ill that I've been beastly selfish. I've thought only of myself. I've made a slave of my wife, and now I've been keeping you out of London all this time."

As he spoke, his voice grew warmer. His reserve seemed to be melting, the friend to be stirring in the patient. Although certainly he did not realize it, the absence of his wife had already made a difference in his feeling towards Isaacson. Her perpetual silent hostility was like an emanation that insensibly affected her husband. Now that was withdrawn to a distance, he reverted instinctively towards--not yet to--the old relation with his friend. He longed to get rid of all the difficulty between them, and this could only be done by making Isaacson understand Ruby more as he understood her. If he could only accomplish this before Ruby came back! Now this idea came to him, and sent warmth into his voice, warmth into his manner. Isaacson opened his lips to make some friendly protest, but Nigel continued:

"And d'you know who made me see my selfishness--realize how tremendously unselfish you've been in sticking to me all this time?"

Isaacson said nothing.

"My wife. She opened my eyes to it. But for her I mightn't have given a thought to all your loss, not only your material loss, but--"

Isaacson felt as if something poisonous had stung him.

"Please don't speak of anything of that kind!" he said.

"I know I can never compensate you for all you've done for us--"

"Oh, yes, you can!"

The Doctor's voice was almost sharp. Nigel was startled by it.

"We can? How?"

"You can!" Isaacson said, laying a heavy stress on the first word.

"How?"

"First, by never speaking to me of--of the usual 'compensation' patients make to doctors."

"But how can you expect me to accept all this devoted service and make no kind of return?"

"Perhaps you can make me a return--the only return I want."