Bella Donna. Robert Hichens

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СКАЧАТЬ be an elderly malade imaginaire of dilatory habit, involved speech, and determined misery, he was obliged firmly to check a rising desire to write a hasty bread-pill prescription and fling him in the direction of Marlborough House. The half-hour chimed, and still Sir Henry explained the strange symptoms by which he was beset—the buzzings in the head, the twitchings in the extremities, the creepings, as of insects with iced legs, about the roots of the hair. His eyes shone with the ardour of the determined valetudinarian closeted with one paid to attend to his complaints.

      And Mrs. Chepstow? Had she come? Was she sitting in the next room, looking inattentively at the newest books?

      "The most extraordinary matter in my case," continued Sir Henry, with uplifted finger, "is the cold sweat that—"

      The doctor interrupted him.

      "My advice to you is this—"

      "But I haven't explained to you about the cold sweat that—"

      "My advice to you is this, Sir Henry. Don't think about yourself; walk for an hour every day before breakfast, eat only two meals a day, morning and evening, take at least eight hours' rest every night, give up lounging about in your club, occupy yourself—with work for others, if possible. I believe that to be the most tonic work there is—and I see no reason why you should not be a centenarian."

      "I—a centenarian?"

      "Why not! There is nothing the matter with you, unless you think there is."

      "Nothing—you say there is nothing the matter with me!"

      "I have examined you, and that is my opinion."

      The face of the patient flushed with indignation at this insult.

      "I came to you to be told what was the matter."

      "And I am glad to inform you nothing is the matter—with your body."

      "Do you mean to imply that my mind is diseased?"

      "No. But you don't give it enough to think about. You only give it yourself. And that isn't nearly enough."

      Sir Henry rose, and put a trembling finger into his waistcoat-pocket.

      "I believe I owe you—?"

      "Nothing. But if you care to put something into the box on my hall table, you will help some poor man to get away to the seaside after an operation, and find out what is the best medicine in the world."

      "And now for Mrs. Chepstow!" the Doctor murmured to himself, as the door closed behind the outraged back of an enemy.

      He sat still for a minute or two, expecting to see the door open again, the form of a woman framed in the doorway. But no one came. He began to feel restless. He was not accustomed to be kept waiting by his patients, although he often kept them waiting. There was a bell close to his elbow. He touched it, and his man-servant instantly appeared.

      "Mrs. Chepstow is down for five-thirty. It is now"—he pulled out his watch—"nearly ten minutes to six. Hasn't she come?"

      "No, sir. Two or three people have been, without appointments."

      "And you have sent them away, of course? Quite right. Well, I shan't stay in any longer."

      He got up from his chair.

      "And if Mrs. Chepstow should come, sir?"

      "Explain to her that I waited till ten minutes to six and then—" He paused. The hall door-bell was ringing sharply.

      "If it is Mrs. Chepstow, shall I admit her now, sir?"

      The doctor hesitated, but only for a second.

      "Yes," he said.

      And he sat down again by his table.

      He had been almost looking forward to the arrival of his last patient of that day, but now he felt irritated at being detained. For a moment he had believed his day's work to be over, and in that moment the humour for work had left him. Why had she not been up to time? He tapped his delicate fingers impatiently on the table, and drew down his thick brows over his sparkling eyes. But directly the door moved, his expression of serenity returned, and when a tall woman came in, he was standing up and gravely smiling.

      "I'm afraid I am late."

      The door shut on Henry.

      "You are twenty minutes late."

      "I'm so sorry."

      The rather dawdling tones of the voice denied the truth of the words, and the busy Doctor was conscious of a slight sensation of hostility.

      "Please sit down here," he said, "and tell me why you come to consult me."

      Mrs. Chepstow sat down in the chair he showed her. Her movements were rather slow and careless, like the movements of a person who is quite alone and has nothing to do. They suggested to the watching man vistas of empty hours—how different from his own! She settled herself in her chair, leaning back. One of her hands rested on the handle of a parasol she carried. The other held lightly an arm of the chair. Her height was remarkable, and was made the more apparent by her small waist, and by the small size of her beautifully shaped head, which was poised on a long but exquisite neck. Her whole outline announced her gentle breeding. The most lovely woman of the people could never be shaped quite like that. As Doctor Isaacson realised this, he felt a sudden difficulty in connecting with the woman before him her notorious career. Surely pride must be a dweller in a body so expressive of race!

      He thought of the very young men, almost boys, with whom Mrs. Chepstow was seen about. Was it possible?

      Her eyes met his, and in her face he saw a subtle contradiction of the meaning her form seemed eloquently to indicate.

      It was possible.

      Almost before he had time to say this to himself, Mrs. Chepstow's face had changed, suddenly accorded more definitely with her body.

      "What a clever woman!" the Doctor thought.

      With an almost sharp movement he sat forward in his chair, braced up, alert, vital. His irritation was gone with the fatigue engendered by the day's work. Interest in life tingled through his veins. His day was not to be wholly dull. His thought of the morning, when he had looked at the patients' book, was not an error of the mind.

      "You came to consult me because—?"

      "I don't know that I am ill," Mrs. Chepstow said, very composedly.

      "Let us hope not."

      "Do you think I look ill?"

      "Would you mind turning a little more towards the light?"

      She sat still for a minute, then she laughed.

      "I have always said that so long as one is with a doctor, qua doctor, one must never think of him as a man," she said; "but—"

      "Don't think of me as a man."

      "Unfortunately, СКАЧАТЬ