The man looked as if he would say "Yes," if he dared.
Carmina came running back with the brandy. The doctor smelt it first, and then took notice of her. "Out of breath?" he said.
"Why don't you give him the brandy?" she answered impatiently.
"Strong lungs," Benjulia proceeded, sitting down cross-legged by Ovid, and administering the stimulant without hurrying himself. "Some girls would not have been able to speak, after such a run as you have had. I didn't think much of you or your lungs when you were a baby."
"Is he coming to himself?" Carmina asked.
"Do you know what a pump is?" Benjulia rejoined. "Very well; a pump sometimes gets out of order. Give the carpenter time, and he'll put it right again." He let his mighty hand drop on Ovid's breast. "This pump is out of order; and I'm the carpenter. Give me time, and I'll set it right again. You're not a bit like your mother."
Watching eagerly for the slightest signs of recovery in Ovid's face, Carmina detected a faint return of colour. She was so relieved that she was able to listen to the doctor's oddly discursive talk, and even to join in it. "Some of our friends used to think I was like my father," she answered.
"Did they?" said Benjulia--and shut his thin-lipped mouth as if he was determined to drop the subject for ever.
Ovid stirred feebly, and half opened his eyes.
Benjulia got up. "You don't want me any longer," he said. "Now, Mr. Keeper, give me back the monkey." He dismissed the man, and tucked the monkey under one arm as if it had been a bundle. "There are your friends," he resumed, pointing to the end of the walk. "Good-day!"
Carmina stopped him. Too anxious to stand on ceremony, she laid her hand on his arm. He shook it off--not angrily: just brushing it away, as he might have brushed away the ash of his cigar or a splash of mud in the street.
"What does this fainting fit mean?" she asked timidly. "Is Ovid going to be ill?"
"Seriously ill--unless you do the right thing with him, and do it at once." He walked away. She followed him, humbly and yet resolutely. "Tell me, if you please," she said, "what we are to do."
He looked back over his shoulder. "Send him away."
She returned, and knelt down by Ovid--still slowly reviving. With a fond and gentle hand, she wiped the moisture from his forehead.
"Just as we were beginning to understand each other!" she said to herself, with a sad little sigh.
CHAPTER XV.
Two days passed. In spite of the warnings that he had received, Ovid remained in London.
The indisputable authority of Benjulia had no more effect on him than the unanswerable arguments of Mrs. Gallilee. "Recent circumstances" (as his mother expressed it) "had strengthened his infatuated resistance to reason." The dreaded necessity for Teresa's departure had been hastened by a telegram from Italy: Ovid felt for Carmina's distress with sympathies which made her dearer to him than ever. On the second morning after the visit to the Zoological Gardens, her fortitude had been severely tried. She had found the telegram under her pillow, enclosed in a farewell letter. Teresa had gone.
"My Carmina,--I have kissed you, and cried over you, and I am writing good-bye as well as my poor eyes will let me. Oh, my heart's darling, I cannot be cruel enough to wake you, and see you suffer! Forgive me for going away, with only this dumb farewell. I am so fond of you--that is my only excuse. While he still lives, my helpless old man has his claim on me. Write by every post, and trust me to write back--and remember what I said when I spoke of Ovid. Love the good man who loves you; and try to make the best of the others. They cannot surely be cruel to the poor angel who depends on their kindness. Oh, how hard life is--"
The paper was blotted, and the rest was illegible.
The miserable day of Teresa's departure was passed by Carmina in the solitude of her room: gently and firmly, she refused to see anyone. This strange conduct added to Mrs. Gallilee's anxieties. Already absorbed in considering Ovid's obstinacy, and the means of overcoming it, she was now confronted by a resolute side in the character of her niece, which took her by surprise. There might be difficulties to come, in managing Carmina, which she had not foreseen. Meanwhile, she was left to act on her own unaided discretion in the serious matter of her son's failing health. Benjulia had refused to help her; he was too closely occupied in his laboratory to pay or receive visits. "I have already given my advice" (the doctor wrote). "Send him away. When he has had a month's change, let me see his letters; and then, if I have anything more to say, I will tell you what I think of your son."
Left in this position, Mrs. Gallilee's hard self-denial yielded to the one sound conclusion that lay before her. The only influence that could be now used over Ovid, with the smallest chance of success, was the influence of Carmina. Three days after Teresa's departure, she invited her niece to take tea in her own boudoir. Carmina found her reading. "A charming book," she said, as she laid it down, "on a most interesting subject, Geographical Botany. The author divides the earth into twenty-five botanical regions--but, I forget; you are not like Maria; you don't care about these things."
"I am so ignorant," Carmina pleaded. "Perhaps, I may know better when I get older." A book on the table attracted her by its beautiful binding. She took it up. Mrs. Gallilee looked at her with compassionate good humour.
"Science again, my dear," she said facetiously, "inviting you in a pretty dress! You have taken up the 'Curiosities of Coprolites.' That book is one of my distinctions--a presentation copy from the author."
"What are Coprolites?" Carmina asked, trying to inform herself on the subject of her aunt's distinctions.
Still good-humoured, but with an effort that began to appear, Mrs. Gallilee lowered herself to the level of her niece.
"Coprolites," she explained, "are the fossilised indigestions of extinct reptiles. The great philosopher who has written that book has discovered scales, bones, teeth, and shells--the undigested food of those interesting Saurians. What a man! what a field for investigation! Tell me about your own reading. What have you found in the library?"
"Very interesting books--at least to me," Carmina answered. "I have found many volumes of poetry. Do you ever read poetry?"
Mrs. Gallilee laid herself back in her chair, and submitted patiently to her niece's simplicity. "Poetry?" she repeated, in accents of resignation. "Oh, good heavens!"
Unlucky Carmina tried a more promising topic. "What beautiful flowers you have in the drawing-room!" she said.
"Nothing remarkable, my dear. Everybody has flowers in their drawing-rooms--they are part of the furniture."
"Did you arrange them yourself, aunt?"
Mrs. Gallilee still endured it. "The florist's man," she said, "does all that. I sometimes dissect flowers, but I never trouble myself to arrange them. What would be the use of the man if I did?" This view of the question struck Carmina dumb.