"And the result of your conversation?"
"At first things were not so bad. I agreed--I thought it was only reasonable--to wait till Mr. Armine woke up and to see how he was then. He slept for some time longer, and we sat there waiting. She--I must say--she has charm."
Even in the midst of his anxiety, of his nervous tension, Isaacson could scarcely help smiling. He could almost see Bella Donna fighting the young man's dawning resolution with every weapon she had.
"Indeed she has!" he assented, without a touch of irony.
"Ah! Any man must feel it. At the same time, really she is a wreck now."
Isaacson's almost feminine intuition had evidently not betrayed him. That altered face had had a great deal to do with Doctor Hartley's definite resolve to have a consultation.
"Poor woman!" he added. "Upon my soul, I can't help pitying her. She knows it, too. But I expect they always do."
"Probably. But you've come then to take me to the Loulia?"
"I told her I really must insist."
"How did you find the patient when he woke?"
"Well, I must say I didn't like the look of him at all.'"
"No? Did he seem worse?"
"I really--I really hardly know. But I told her he was much worse."
"Why?"
"Why? Because I was determined not to go on with the case alone, for fear something should happen. She denied it. She declared he was much better--stronger. He agreed with her, I must confess; said he felt more himself, and all that. But--but she seemed rather putting the words into his mouth, I fancied. I may have been wrong, but still--the fact is I'm positively upset by all that's happened."
He grasped the rail with both hands. Evidently he had only held his own against Bella Donna at the expense of his nervous system.
"When we left him, I told her I must get you in. She was furious, said she wouldn't have you, that you had always been against her, that you had nearly prevented her marriage with Mr. Armine, that you had maligned her all over London."
"Did she say any of this before her husband?"
"Not all that. No. We were in the first saloon. But I thought the men would have heard her. She really lost her head. She was distinctly hysterical. It was a most awkward position for me. But--but I was resolved to dominate her."
"And you did?"
"Well--I--I stuck to my point. I said I must and would have another opinion."
"Another?"
"Yours, of course. There's nobody else to be got at immediately. And after what you--what we both said and thought this afternoon, I won't wait till another doctor can be fetched from a distance."