The doctor's professional visit to Hintock House was promptly repeated
the next day and the next. He always found Mrs. Charmond reclining on
a sofa, and behaving generally as became a patient who was in no great
hurry to lose that title. On each occasion he looked gravely at the
little scratch on her arm, as if it had been a serious wound.
He had also, to his further satisfaction, found a slight scar on her
temple, and it was very convenient to put a piece of black plaster on
this conspicuous part of her person in preference to gold-beater's
skin, so that it might catch the eyes of the servants, and make his
presence appear decidedly necessary, in case there should be any doubt
of the fact.
"Oh--you hurt me!" she exclaimed one day.
He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under which the
scrape had turned the color of an unripe blackberry previous to
vanishing altogether. "Wait a moment, then--I'll damp it," said
Fitzpiers. He put his lips to the place and kept them there till the
plaster came off easily. "It was at your request I put it on," said he.
"I know it," she replied. "Is that blue vein still in my temple that
used to show there? The scar must be just upon it. If the cut had
been a little deeper it would have spilt my hot blood indeed!"
Fitzpiers examined so closely that his breath touched her tenderly, at
which their eyes rose to an encounter--hers showing themselves as deep
and mysterious as interstellar space. She turned her face away
suddenly. "Ah! none of that! none of that--I cannot coquet with you!"
she cried. "Don't suppose I consent to for one moment. Our poor,
brief, youthful hour of love-making was too long ago to bear continuing
now. It is as well that we should understand each other on that point
before we go further."
"Coquet! Nor I with you. As it was when I found the historic gloves,
so it is now. I might have been and may be foolish; but I am no
trifler. I naturally cannot forget that little space in which I
flitted across the field of your vision in those days of the past, and
the recollection opens up all sorts of imaginings."
"Suppose my mother had not taken me away?" she murmured, her dreamy
eyes resting on the swaying tip of a distant tree.
"I should have seen you again."
"And then?"