She was steady enough in a moment, cool and calm, moving about her work
with ice-cold hands and slightly narrowed eyes. To a sort of physical
nausea was succeeding anger, a blind fury of injured pride. He had been in
love with Carlotta and had tired of her. He was bringing her his
warmed-over emotions. She remembered the bitterness of her month's exile,
and its probable cause. Max had stood by her then. Well he might, if he
suspected the truth.
For just a moment she had an illuminating flash of Wilson as he really was,
selfish and self-indulgent, just a trifle too carefully dressed, daring as
to eye and speech, with a carefully calculated daring, frankly
pleasure-loving. She put her hands over her eyes.
The voices in the next room had risen above their whisper.
"Genius has privileges, of course," said the older voice. "He is a very
great surgeon. To-morrow he is to do the Edwardes operation again. I am
glad I am to see him do it."
Sidney still held her hands over her eyes. He WAS a great surgeon: in his
hands he held the keys of life and death. And perhaps he had never cared
for Carlotta: she might have thrown herself at him. He was a man, at the
mercy of any scheming woman.
She tried to summon his image to her aid. But a curious thing happened.
She could not visualize him. Instead, there came, clear and distinct, a
picture of K. Le Moyne in the hall of the little house, reaching one of his
long arms to the chandelier over his head and looking up at her as she
stood on the stairs.