"I didn't sleep at night," Nigel said quickly. "What you gave me did me no good at all."
"I'm sorry for that."
Nigel still sat up against the cushions, but his body now inclined slightly to the left side, where Mrs. Armine was standing, looking down on him with quiet solicitude.
"I had a very bad night--very bad."
"Then I'm afraid--"
"Doctor Hartley rowed down to fetch you here, I understood," Nigel interrupted.
There was suspicion in his voice.
"Yes," said Hartley, speaking for the first time, nervously. "I--I thought to myself, 'Two heads are better than one.'"
He forced a sort of laugh. Nigel twitched on the divan like a man supremely irritated, then looked from one doctor to the other with eyes that included them both in his irritation.
"Two heads--what for?" he said. "What d'you mean?"
He sighed heavily as he finished the question. Then, without waiting for an answer, he said to his wife: "If only I could have a little peace!"
There was a frightful weariness in his voice, a sound that made Isaacson think of a cruelly treated child's voice. Mrs. Armine bent down and touched his hand as it lay on the newspaper which was still across his knees. She smiled at him.
"A little patience!" she murmured.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, it's all very well, Ruby, but--" He looked again at Isaacson, with a distinct though not forcible hostility. "I know you want to doctor me, Isaacson," he said. "And she asked me to-night to see you. Last night it was different, but to-night I don't want doctoring. Frankly"--he sighed again heavily--"I only see any one to-night to please her. All I want is quiet. We came here for quiet. But we don't seem to get it."
He turned again to his wife.
"Even you are getting worn out. I can see that," he said.
Mrs. Armine's forehead sharply contracted. "Oh, I'm all right, Nigel," she said, quickly. She laughed. "I'm not going to let them begin doctoring me," she said.
"She's nursed me like a slave," Nigel continued, looking at the two men, and speaking as if for a defence. "There has never been such devotion. And I wish every one could know it." Tears suddenly started into his eyes. "But the best things and the best people in the world are not believed in, are never believed in," he murmured.
"Never mind, Nigel dear," she said, soothingly. "It's all right."
Isaacson, who with Hartley had been standing all this time because Mrs. Armine was standing, now sat down beside the sick man.
"I think true devotion will always find its reward," he said, quietly, steadily. "We only want to do you good, to get you quickly into your old splendid health."