Part 24 (2/2)
whispered Georgiana.
Jeannette smiled. ”I couldn't be happy till I was sure,” she breathed.
”I thought--I might die, even yet--and I wanted it like this--first.”
An inarticulate murmur from Stuart answered this, but Georgiana a.s.sured her very gently: ”You're going to be happy with Jimps for years and years, Jean darling.”
They were silent then, as they had been bidden, but the silence was eloquent. Doctor Craig, coming in to put an end to the little interview, saw the unmistakable tableau. As Stuart, catching sight of him, rose slowly to his feet, the surgeon's fingers closed upon his patient's pulse. He nodded.
”As a heart stimulant you have done very well, Mr. Stuart,” he said.
”But small doses, frequently repeated, are better than large ones.”
Jeannette's hand weakly caught his. ”Isn't it queer, Georgiana,” she murmured, ”that it should be your Mr. Jefferson who has saved my life?”
In spite of herself, Georgiana could not prevent the rich wave of colour which swept over her face. She knew, without venturing to look at him, that Doctor Craig's eyes flashed toward her with a smile in them. She stooped over Jeannette with a gay reply:
”And he began his acquaintance with you by s...o...b..lling you till you almost had need of his surgery on the spot!”
Then she and Stuart were out in the wide, bare hospital corridor, and Stuart was saying with a s.h.i.+ver: ”Does she look all right to you, George--sure?”
”Of course she does, Jimps. You never saw her before with her hair down in braids; and any face looks pale against a white bed.”
He shook his head. ”I shall not stir out of this town till she looks like herself to me.”
”Of course you won't. I wish I needn't, but I must go back to father to-night.”
They all tried to dissuade her from this course, but she was firm. She knew well enough that all Jeannette had wanted of her was to a.s.sure herself that she possessed a clear right and t.i.tle to Stuart's love.
Evidently Jeannette had guessed more at Stuart's past relations with Georgiana than either of them had imagined, and she would not allow herself to be happy without the knowledge that she was not making her cousin miserable.
One brief conversation with Doctor Craig was all that was vouchsafed Georgiana before she left the city, and that took place in the presence of others, in Aunt Olivia's apartment. It was clear enough how busy a man he was in this his own world, for when he came into the room he explained to Mrs. Crofton that it had been his only chance since they arrived to make a brief social call upon the family of his patient. It was but an hour before Georgiana's departure, and when he learned this, Jefferson Craig came over to her, where she sat upon a divan at one end of the long private drawing-room of the suite. Seeing this, the others of the party began conversations of their own, after the manner of the highly intelligent, and for those five minutes Georgiana lived in a place apart from the rest of the world.
”Please tell me all about your father,” he began, and the tones of his voice, low as are habitually those of his profession, could hardly have been heard by one across the room.
Georgiana told him, unconsciously letting him see that the fear of her probable loss was ever before her, though she could not put it into words. She knew as she spoke that his eyes did not leave her face. She had no possible idea how alluring was that face as the light from the sconces nearby fell upon it. She was conscious, womanlike, that the small hat she wore was made over from one of Jeannette's, and she did not think it becoming. Though it was November, she still wore her summer suit, for the reason that since her return from abroad Jeannette had not found time to pack and send off the usual ”Semi-Annual,” and previous boxes had not included winter suits at at all. Altogether, with many-times-mended gloves upon her hands, and shoes which to her seemed disgraceful, though preserved with all the care of which she was mistress, Georgiana felt somehow more than ordinarily shabby.
Doctor Craig asked her several questions. He spoke of the rug-making, watching her closely as she answered. He asked how often she went to walk and how far. He asked what she and her father were reading. He would have asked other questions, but she interrupted him.
”It's not fair,” she said. ”Please tell me about the book. Does it get on?”
”Do you care to know?”
”Very much. I'm wondering if your copyist makes those German references any clearer for the printer than I did.”
”n.o.body has copied a word. I have not written a word. The book is at a complete standstill. I see no hope for it until I can take another vacation--under the name of E. C. Jefferson.”
”And that you will never take,” she said positively.
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