Bella Donna Part 90

"It's very late, and I'm really tired out. I can't talk any more. I've told you that Nigel is asleep and that I decline to wake him for you or for any one. The doctor who understands his case, and whom he himself has chosen to be in charge of it, is coming early to-morrow. The felucca is there"--she put out her hand towards the nearest door--"and will take you down the river. I must ask you to go. I'm tired."

She dropped her hand.

"This boat is my house, Doctor Isaacson, and I must seriously ask you to leave it."

"And I must insist, as a doctor, on seeing your husband."

All pretence was dropped between them. It was a fight.

"This is great impertinence," she said. "I refuse. I've told you my reason."

"I shall stop here till I see your husband," said Isaacson.

And he sat down again very quietly and deliberately on the divan.

"And if you like, I'll tell you my reason," he said.

But she did not ask him what it was. Through the sheet of gla.s.s he looked at her, and it was as if he saw a pursued hare suddenly double.

"It's too utterly absurd all this argument about nothing," she said, suddenly smiling, and in her beautiful voice. "Evidently you have been the victim of some ridiculous stories in Cairo or Luxor. Some kind people have been talking, as kind people talked in London. And you've swallowed it all, as you swallowed it all in London. I suppose they said Nigel was dying and that I was neglecting him, or some rubbish of that sort. And so you, as a medical Don Quixote, put your lance in rest and rush to the rescue. But you don't know Nigel if you think he'd thank you for doing it."

In the last sentence her voice, though still preserving its almost lazy beauty, became faintly sinister.

"Nigel knows me as the world does not," she continued, quietly. "And the one who treats me wrongly, without the respect due to me as his wife will find he has lost Nigel as a friend."

Isaacson felt like a man whose enemy has abruptly unmasked a battery, and who faces the muzzles of formidable guns.

"You don't know Nigel."

She said it softly, almost reflectively, and with a little droop of the head she emphasized it.

"You had better do what I ask you to do, Doctor Isaacson. If you wish to do Nigel good, you had better not try to force yourself in against my will in the dead of the night, when I'm tired out and have begged you to go. You had better let me ask Doctor Hartley for a consultation to-morrow, and tell Nigel, and call you in. That's the best plan--if you want to be nice to Nigel."

She sat down again on the divan, at a short distance from him, and close to the door by which Hamza had gone out.

"Nigel and I have talked this all over," she said, with a quiet sweetness.

"Talked this over?" Isaacson said.

With his usual quickness of mind he had realized the exact strength of the strategic position she had so suddenly and unexpectedly taken up.

For the moment he wished to gain time. His former complete decision as to what he meant to do was slightly weakened by her presentation of Nigel, the believer. From his knowledge of his friend, he appreciated her judgment of Nigel at its full value. What she had just said was true, and the truth bristled like a bayonet-point in the midst of the lies by which it was surrounded.

"Talked this over? How can that be?"

"Very easily. When two people love each other there is nothing they do not discuss--even their enemies."

"My dear Mrs. Armine, no melodrama, please!"

"Melodrama or not, Doctor Isaacson, I promise you it is a fact that my friends are Nigel's friends, and that my enemies would, at a very few words from me, find that in Nigel they had an enemy."

"If you are speaking of me, your husband would never be my enemy."

"Do you know why he never told you we were going to be married?"

"It was no business of mine."

"His instinct informed him that you mistrusted me. Since then a good deal of time has pa.s.sed. A man who loves his wife, and has proved her devotion to him, does not care about those who mistrust and condemn her.

Their mistrust and condemnation reflect upon him, and not only on his love, but on his pride. I advise you, when you come to Nigel as a doctor, to come as my friend, otherwise I don't think you'll have an opportunity of doing him much good."

The cleverness of Isaacson, that cleverness which came from the Jewish blood within him, linked hands with the defiant adroitness of this woman even to-night and in the climax of suspicion. Why, with her powers, had she made such a tragic mess of her life? Why, with her powers, had she never been able to run straight along the way that leads to happiness?

Useless questions! Their answer must be sought for far down in the secret depths of character. And now?

"If you come to Nigel when I call you in it will be all right, not otherwise, believe me."

She sat back on the divan. The greyness had gone out of her face. She looked now at her ease. Isaacson remembered how this woman had got the better of him in London, how she had looked as she stood in her room at the Savoy, when he saw her for the last time before she married his friend. She had been dressed in rose colour that day. Now she was in black--for Harwich. It seemed that for evening wear she had brought some "thin mourning." Did he mean her to get the better of him again?

"But you will not call me in," he said bluntly.

"Why not? As a doctor I rather believe in you."

"Nevertheless, you will not call me in."

"If Doctor Hartley desires a consultation, I promise you that I will. I hope you won't make your fee too heavy. You must remember we are almost poor people now."

It was very seldom that Isaacson changed colour; but at these words his dark face slowly reddened.

"If you suppose that--that I want to make money--" he began.

"It's always nice, if one takes a holiday, to be able to pay one's expenses. But I know you won't run Nigel in for too much."

Isaacson got up. His instinct was to go, to get away at once from this woman. For a moment he forgot the voice he had heard in the night; he forgot the words it had said. His egoism and his pride spoke, and told him to get away.

She read him. She got up, too, came away from her place near the door, and said, with a smile:

"You are going?"

He looked at her. He saw in her eyes the look he had seen in them when he had bade her good-bye at the Savoy after his useless emba.s.sy.

"You are going?"

"Yes," he said. "I am! Going to see your husband!"

And before she could speak or move, he was at the door through which Hamza had pa.s.sed; he had opened it and disappeared, shutting it softly behind him.

x.x.xV