THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
of this. "How we're talking about her!" Kate compunctiously sighed. But there were the facts. "From illness I keep away."
"But you don't—since here you are, in spite of all you say, in the midst of it."
"Ah, I'm only watching———!"
"And putting me forward in your place? Thank you!"
"Oh," said Kate, "I'm breaking you in. Let it give you the measure of what I shall expect of you. One can't begin too soon."
She drew away, as if under the impression of a stir on the balcony, the hand of which he had a minute before possessed himself; and the warning brought him back to attention. "You haven't even an idea if it's a case for surgery?"
"I dare say it may be; that is that if it comes to anything it may come to that. Of course she's in the highest hands."
"The doctors are after her then?"
"She's after them—it's the same thing. I think I'm free to say it now—she sees Sir Luke Strett."
It made him quickly wince. "Ah, fifty thousand knives!" Then after an instant: "One seems to guess." Yes, but she waved it away. "Don't guess. Only do as I tell you."
For a moment now, in silence, he took it all in, might have had it before him. "What you want of me then is to make up to a sick girl."
"Ah, but you admit yourself that she doesn't af-
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