"Think, then, by all means," he said merrily.--"Flattery is hard to bear, Lady Martlett."

"I am not accustomed to flattery," said the visitor coldly, and she turned away her head.

"That is a fib," said the doctor to himself, as he watched the handsome woman intently. "You are used to flattery--thick, slab, coa.r.s.e flattery--to be told that you are extremely beautiful, and to receive adulation of the most abject kind. You are very rich, and people make themselves your slaves, till you think and look and move in that imperious way: and yet, some of these days, _ma belle dame_, you will be prostrate, and weak, and humble, and ready to implore Doctor somebody or another to restore you to health. Let's see, though. I called you _belle dame_. Rather suggestive, when shortened and p.r.o.nounced after the old English fashion.--Well, Miss Raleigh, of what are you thinking?"

he said aloud, as he turned and found Naomi watching him; Lady Martlett having risen and walked with Aunt Sophia into the conservatory.

"I--I--"

"Ah, ah!" said the doctor, laughing. "Come, confess; no evasions. You must always be frank with a medical man. Now then?"

"You would be angry with me if I were to tell you," said Naomi.

"Indeed, no. Come, I'll help you."

"Oh, thank you--do," cried the girl with a sigh of relief, which seemed to mean: "You will never guess."

"You were thinking that I admired Lady Martlett."

"Yes! How did you know?" cried the girl, starting.

"Diagnosed it, of course!" said the doctor, laughing. "Ah, you don't know how easily we medical men read sensitive young faces like yours, and--Oh, here they come back."

In effect, Lady Martlett and Aunt Sophia returned to the drawing-room, the former lady entirely ignoring the presence of the doctor till she left, which she did soon afterwards, leaving the kindest of messages for Lady Scarlett, all full of condolence, and quite accepting the apologies for her non-appearance. Then there was the warmest of partings, while the doctor stood back, wondering whether he was to be noticed or pa.s.sed over, the latter seeming to be likely; when, just as she reached the door, Lady Martlett turned and bowed in the most distant way.

Then John Scales, M.D., stood alone in the drawing-room, listening to the voices in the hall as the door swung to.

"Humph!" he said to himself. "What a woman! She's glorious! I like her pride and that cool haughty way of hers! And what a voice!

"No; it won't do," he muttered, after a short pause. "I'm not a marrying man--not likely to be a marrying man; and if I were, her Ladyship would say, with all reason upon her side: 'The fellow must be mad! His insolence and a.s.sumption are not to be borne.'

"I wish I had not shown her the sixpence, she will think me quite contemptible."

"Talking to yourself, doctor?" said Lady Scarlett, entering the room, looking very pale and anxious.

"Yes, Lady Scarlett; it is one of my bad habits.--How is my patient?"

"Sleeping pretty easily," she said. "I came to ask you to come and look at him, though."

"What's the matter?" cried the doctor sharply; and he was half-way to the door as he spoke.

"Nothing, I hope," exclaimed Lady Scarlett, trembling; "but he alarms me. I--I am afraid that I am quite unnerved."

The doctor did not make any comment till he had been and examined the patient for a few minutes, Lady Scarlett hardly daring to breathe the while; then he turned to her with a satisfied nod: "Only the sedative.

You are over-anxious, and must have some rest."

This she refused to take, and the doctor had to give way.

Volume 1, Chapter XIV.

MR SAXBY COMES DOWN ON BUSINESS.

The next day and next, Sir James Scarlett seemed to be better. He was pale and suffering from the shock, speaking gravely to all about him, but evidently trying to make the visitors feel at their ease. He pressed them to stay; but the doctor had to get back to town; so had Prayle, though the latter acknowledged the fact with great reluctance; and it was arranged that they were to be driven over to the station together.

That morning at breakfast, however, a visitor was announced in the person of Mr Frederick Saxby.

"Saxby? What does he want?" said Scarlett. "Why, he must have come down from town this morning. Here, I'll fetch him in." He rose and left the room, and the doctor noted that his manner was a good deal changed.

"Unpleasant business, perhaps," he thought: and then, as his eyes met Lady Scarlett's: "She's thinking the same."

Just then Scarlett returned, ushering in a good-looking rather florid man of about thirty-five, over-dressed, and giving the impression, from his glossy coat to his dapper patent-leather boots, that he was something in the City.

"Saxby has come down on purpose to see you, aunt," said Scarlett.

"Trusted to our giving him some breakfast, so let's go on, and you people can afterwards discuss news."

Mr Saxby was extremely polite to all before he took his place, bowing deferentially to the ladies, most reverentially to Naomi, and apologetically to the gentlemen; though, as soon as the constraint caused by his coming in as he did had pa.s.sed, he proved that he really was something in the City, displaying all the sharp dogmatic way of business men, the laying-down-the-law style of speech, and general belief that all the world's inhabitants are fools--mere children in everything connected with business--always excepting the speaker, who seemed to a.s.sume a kind of hidden knowledge concerning all matters connected with sterling coin. He chatted a good deal upon subject that he a.s.sumed to be likely to interest his audience--how Egyptians were down, Turkish were up, and Hudson's Bays were slashing, an expression likely to confuse an unversed personage, who might have taken Hudson's Bays for some celebrated regiment of horse. He several times over tried to meet Aunt Sophia's eyes; but that lady rigidly kept them upon her coffee-cup; and not only looked very stern and uncompromising, but gave vent to an occasional sniff, that made Mr Saxby start, as though he looked upon it as a kind of challenge to the fight to come.

Despite the disturbing influences of Aunt Sophia's sniffs and the proximate presence of Naomi, by whom he was seated, and to whom, in spite of his a.s.sumption, he found himself utterly unable to say a dozen sensible words, Mr Frederick Saxby, of the Stock Exchange, managed to partake of a most excellent breakfast--such a meal, in fact, as made Dr Scales glance inquiringly at him, and ask himself questions respecting digestion and the state of his general health.

It was now, as the breakfast party separated, some to enter the conservatory, others to stroll round the garden, that Aunt Sophia met Mr Saxby's eye, and nodding towards the drawing-room, said shortly: "Go in there!--Naomi, you can come too."

Mr Saxby heard the first part of Aunt Sophia's speech as if it were an adverse sentence, the latter part as if it were a reprieve; and after drawing back, to allow the ladies to pa.s.s, he found that he was expected to go first, and did so, feeling extremely uncomfortable, and as if Naomi must be criticising his back--a very unpleasant feeling, by the way, to a sensitive man, especially if he be one who is exceedingly particular about his personal appearance, and wonders whether his coat fits, and the aforesaid back has been properly brushed.

Naomi noted Mr Saxby's uneasiness, and she also became aware of the fact that Arthur Prayle strolled slowly off into the conservatory, where he became deeply interested in the flowers, taking off a dead leaf here and there, and picking up fallen petals, accidentally getting near the open window the while.

"Now, Mr Saxby," said Aunt Sophia sharply, "you have brought me down those shares?"

"Well, no, Miss Raleigh," he said, business-like now at once. "I did not buy them because--"

"You did not buy them?"

"No, ma'am. You see, shares of that kind--"

"Pay twelve and fifteen per cent, and I only get a pitiful three."

"Every year, ma'am, regularly. Shares like those you want me to buy generally promise fifteen, pay at the rate of ten on the first half-year--"

"Well, ten per cent, then," cried Aunt Sophia.

"Don't pay any dividend the second half-year, and the shares remain upon the buyer's hands. No one will take them at any price."

"Oh, this is all stuff and nonsense, Mr Saxby!" cried Aunt Sophia angrily.

"Not a bit of it, ma'am," cried the stockbroker firmly.

"But I say it is!" cried Aunt Sophia, with a stamp of her foot. "I had set my mind upon having those shares."

"And I had set my mind upon stopping you, ma'am. That's why I got up at six o'clock this morning and came down."