Chloe did not contest the point further.
"Very well, Dr. Anstice. You know best; and if you think it necessary, will you find us someone at once?"
"Yes. I think I know just the person for you." He turned to Tochatti, who was standing by, her face full of smouldering resentment. "I'm sure you want me to do the best thing for Miss Cherry, don't you?"
She did not answer; and he repeated his question rather sharply.
This time she answered him.
"Si, signor." She spoke sulkily, and a flash of something like actual hatred shot from her black eyes as he watched her; but he had no time to spare for her vagaries, and turned back to Chloe Carstairs forthwith.
"Then I will try to find Nurse Trevor and bring her along. She will sit up to-night, and then you can both get some rest." He spoke kindly, including Tochatti in his smile; but the woman merely glowered, and he felt a spasm of sudden annoyance at her ungracious behaviour.
* * * * *
Luckily Nurse Trevor was at hand and disengaged; and Anstice had the satisfaction of finding her safely installed and apparently completely at home in her new surroundings when he paid his last visit to Cherry Orchard late that night.
She was a pretty girl of twenty-seven, who had had a good deal of experience in nursing children, and although poor little Cherry was by this time too ill to pay much attention to any of the people around her, it really seemed as though Margaret Trevor's soft voice, with its cooing, dove-like notes, had a soothing influence on the suffering child.
Anstice stayed some time in Cherry's room, doing all his skill could suggest for the alleviation of his little patient's pain, and when at length he took his departure Chloe herself came downstairs with him.
"What a lovely night!" She had opened the big hall door quietly while he sought his hat. "The moon must be nearly at the full, I think."
Together they stood on the steps looking out over the dew-drenched garden. The white stars of the jasmine which clustered thickly round the house sent out a delicious fragrance, and there were a dozen other scents on the soft and balmy air, as though the sleeping stocks and carnations and mignonette breathed sweetly in their sleep.
A big white owl flow, hooting, across the path, and Chloe shivered.
"I hate owls--I always think them unlucky, harbingers of evil," she said, and her face, as she spoke, was quite pale.