But suppose I were to spoil your
game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?"
"I don't think you'll do that, sir."
"Why not, pray?"
"I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor."
"You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?"
"Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day
comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house."
"By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!"
He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no
command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a
limited and primitive range.
"You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned
and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on
his entrance.
The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into
the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had
been in the day.
"What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?"
"Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill."
"Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us
another invalid to nurse."
"I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill."
"Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a
pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more
womanish than the silliest of you.
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