Chapter 35

He took up his hat and held it tightly, crushing the soft brim between his fingers. Doctor Hartley was looking at him with the undisguised enmity of the egoist tricked. He had had time to find out that Isaacson had begun subtly to induce him to do what he had refused to do. If Mrs. Armine had not appeared unexpectedly, Nigel Armine's case would have been, perhaps, pretty thoroughly discussed by the two doctors.

"Pushing trickster!"

His round eyes said that with all the vindictiveness of injured conceit.

"You are wronging me!" repeated Isaacson--"wronging me shamefully!"

Was he going? Yes, he supposed so. Yet he did not go.

"It's not a question of wronging any one," she said. "Facts are facts."

Her face was ravaged with physical misery. There was a battle going on between the sleeping draught she had taken and her will to be sleepless. She moved her shoulders again, with a sort of shudder, sideways.

"Nigel doesn't want you," she said.

"How can you say that? It's not true."

"It is true. Isn't it, Doctor Hartley? Didn't my husband--"

She yawned again, and put down her hand on the back of a chair to which she held tightly. "Didn't he ask you to remain on board and look after the case?"

"Certainly!" cried the young man, eagerly drinking in her returning favour. "Certainly!"

"Didn't he ask you to 'save him,' as he called it, poor, dear fellow?"

"That was the very word!"

"And last night?" said Isaacson, fixing his eyes upon her.

"Last night you startled him to death, rushing in upon him without warning or preparation. Wasn't it a cruel, dangerous thing to do in his condition, Doctor Hartley?"

"Most cruel! Unpardonably so! If anything had occurred you ought to have been held responsible, Doctor Isaacson."

"And then whatever it was you gave him, you forced it on him. And he had a perfectly terrible night in consequence."

"Not in consequence of what I gave him!" Isaacson said.

"It must have been."

"It was certainly not."

"He never had such a night before--never, till you interfered with him, and interrupted Doctor Hartley's treatment."

"Disgraceful!" exclaimed the young doctor. "I never have heard of such conduct. If it were ever to be made public, your medical reputation would be ruined."

"And I shouldn't mind if it was, over that!" said Isaacson.

His fingers no longer crushed the brim of his hat, but held it gently.

"I shouldn't mind if it was. But I think if very great care is not taken with this case, it will not be my medical reputation that will be ruined over it."

As if mechanically Mrs. Armine pulled at the chair which she was holding. She drew it nearer her, and twisted it a little round.

"What do you mean?" said Doctor Hartley.

"Mr. Armine is a well-known man. Almost all the English travellers on the Nile, and most people of any importance in Cairo, know of his illness--have heard about his supposed sunstroke."

"Supposed!" interrupted the young doctor, indignantly. "Supposed!"

"All these people will know the name of the medical man in charge of the case--the medical man who declined a consultation."

"Will know?" said Hartley.

Under the attack of Isaacson's new manner his self-possession seemed slightly less assured.

"I shall be in Assouan and Cairo presently," said Isaacson.

Mrs. Armine yawned and pulled at the chair. Her face twitched under her veil. She looked almost terribly alive, as if indeed her mind were in a state of ferment. Yet there was in her aspect also a sort of half-submerged sluggishness. Despite her vindictive agitation, her purposeful venom, she seemed already partially bound by a cloud of sleep. That she had cast away her power to charm as useless was the greatest tribute that Isaacson had ever had paid to his seeing eyes.

"Really! What has that to do with me? Do you suppose I am attending this case surreptitiously?" said Hartley.

He forced a laugh.

"No; but I think it very possible that you may regret ever having had anything to do with it."

In spite of himself, the young doctor was impressed by this new manner of the older man. For a moment he was partially emancipated from Mrs. Armine. For a moment he was rather the rising, not yet risen, medical man than the fully risen young man in love with a fascinating woman. When he chose, Isaacson could hold almost anybody. That was part of the secret of his success as a doctor. He could make himself "believed in."

"Some mistakes ring through the world," Isaacson added quietly. "I should not care to be the doctor who made one of them."

Mrs. Armine, with a sharp movement, twisted the chair quite round, pulled at one side of her dress, and sat down.

"But surely--" Doctor Hartley began.

"This really is the most endless consultation over a case that ever was!" said Mrs. Armine.

She leaned her arms on the arms of the chair and let her hands hang down.

"Do, Doctor Hartley, make my husband over to Doctor Isaacson, if you have lost confidence in yourself. It will be much better. And then, perhaps, we shall have a little peace."

Doctor Hartley turned towards her as if pulled by a cord.

"Oh, but indeed I have not lost confidence. There is, as I have repeatedly said, nothing complicated--"

"You are really sure?" said Isaacson.

He fixed his dark eyes on the young man. Doctor Hartley's uneasiness was becoming evident.

"Certainly I am sure--for the present." The last words seemed to present themselves to him as a sort of life-buoy. He grasped them, clung to them. "For the present--yes. No doctor, of course, not the cleverest, can possibly say that no complications ever will arise in regard to a case. But for the present I am satisfied all is going quite as it should go."

But he turned up the tail of his last sentence. By his intonation it became a question, and showed clearly the state of his mind.

Isaacson had one great quality, the lack of which in many men leads them to distresses, sometimes to disasters. He knew when ice would bear, and directly it would bear, he was content to trust himself on it, but he did not stamp upon it unnecessarily, to prove it beyond its strength.

Suddenly he was ready to go, to leave this boat for a time. He had done as much as he could do for the moment, without making an actual scene. He had even perhaps done enough. That turned-up tail of a sentence nearly convinced him that he had done enough.

"That's well," he said.

His voice was inexpressive, but his face, turned full to the young doctor, told a powerful story of terribly serious doubt, the doubt of a big medical man directed towards a little one.

"That's well," he quietly repeated.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Armine," he said.

She was sunk in her chair. Her arms were still lying along its arms, with her hands hanging. As Isaacson spoke, from one of these hands her fan dropped down to the rug. She did not feel after it.

"Are you really going?" she said.

A faint smile twisted her mouth.

"Yes."

"Good-bye, then!"

He turned away from her slowly.

"Well, good-bye, Doctor Hartley," he said.

All this conversation, since the arrival on deck of Mrs. Armine, had been carried on with lowered voices. But now Isaacson spoke more softly, and his eyes for an instant went from Doctor Hartley to the tall figure sitting low in the chair, and back again to Hartley.

He did not hold out his hand. His voice was polite, but almost totally inexpressive.

Doctor Hartley looked quickly towards the chair too.

"Good-bye," he said, hesitatingly.

His youth was very apparent at this moment, pushing up into view through his indecision. Every scrap of Isaacson's anger against him had now entirely vanished.

"Good-bye!"

Mrs. Armine moved her head slightly, settling it against a large cushion. She sighed.

Isaacson walked slowly towards the companion. As the _Loulia_ was a very large dahabeeyah, the upper deck was long. It was furnished like a drawing-room, with chairs, tables, and sofas. Isaacson threaded his way among these cautiously as if mindful of the sick man below. At length he reached the companion and began to descend. Just as he got to the bottom a whispering voice behind him said:

"Doctor Isaacson!"

He turned. Doctor Hartley was at the top of the steps.

"One minute! I'll come down!" he said, still whispering.

He turned back and glanced over his shoulder. Then, putting his two hands upon the two rails on either side of the steps, he was swiftly and rather boyishly down, and standing by Isaacson.

"I--we--I think we may as well have a word together before you go."

His self-possession was distinctly affected. Anxiety showed itself nakedly in his yellow-brown eyes, and there were wrinkles in his low forehead just below the crimpy hair.

"She's fallen asleep," he added, looking hard at Isaacson.

"Just as you like," Isaacson said indifferently.

"I think, after what has passed, it will be better."

Isaacson glanced round on the stretched-out Nubians, on Ibrahim and Hassan in a corner, standing respectfully but looking intensely inquisitive.

"We'd--we can go in here," said Doctor Hartley.

He led the way softly down the steps under the Arabic inscription, and into the first saloon of the _Loulia_. As Isaacson came into it, instinctively he looked towards the shut door behind which--somewhere--Nigel was lying, asleep or not asleep.

"He'll sleep for some hours yet," said Doctor Hartley, seeing the glance. "Let's sit down here."

He sat down quickly on the nearest divan, and pulled his fingers restlessly.

"I didn't quite understand--that is--I don't know whether I quite gathered your meaning just now," he began, looking at Isaacson, then looking down between his feet.

"My meaning?"

"Yes, about this case."

"I thought you considered a consultation unnecessary."

"A formal consultation--yes. Still, you mustn't think I don't value a good medical opinion. And of course I know yours is a good one."

Isaacson said nothing. Not a muscle of his face stirred.

"The fact is--the fact is that, somehow, you have thoroughly put Mrs. Armine's back up. She thinks you altogether undervalue her devoted service."

"I shouldn't wish to do that."

"No, I knew! Still--"

He took out a handkerchief and touched his lips and his forehead with it.

"She has been really so wonderful!" he said--"waiting on him hand and foot, and giving herself no rest night or day."

"Well, but her maid? Wasn't she able to be of service?"

"Her maid? What maid?"

"Her French maid."

A smile of pity moved the corners of the young man's mouth.

"She hasn't got one. She sent her away long ago. Merely to please him. Oh, I assure you it isn't all milk and honey with Mr. Armine."

Isaacson motioned towards the inner part of the vessel.

"And she's not come back? The maid's never come back?"

"Of course not. You do so misunderstand her--Mrs. Armine."

Isaacson said nothing. He felt that a stroke of insincerity was wanted here, but something that seemed outside of his will forbade him to give it.

"That is what has caused all this," continued Hartley. "I shouldn't really have objected to a consultation so much, if it had come about naturally. But no medical man--you spoke very seriously of the case just now."

"I think very seriously of it."

"So do I, of course."

Doctor Hartley pursed his lips.

"Of course. I saw from the first it was no trifle."

Isaacson said nothing.

"I say, I saw that from the first."

"I'm not surprised."

There was a pause in which the elder doctor felt as if he saw the younger's uneasiness growing.

"You'll forgive me for saying it, Doctor Isaacson, but--but you don't understand women," said Hartley, at last. "You don't know how to take them."

"Perhaps not," Isaacson said, with an apparent simplicity that sounded like humility.

Doctor Hartley looked more at his ease. Some of his cool self-importance returned.

"No," he said. "Really! And I must say that--you'll forgive me?"

"Certainly."

"--that it has always seemed to me as if, in our walk of life, that was half the battle."

"Knowing how to take women?"

"Exactly."

"Perhaps you're right." He looked at the young man as if with admiration. "Yes, I dare say you are right."

Doctor Hartley brightened.

"I'm glad you think so. Now, a woman like Mrs. Armine--"

The mention of the name recalled him to anxiety. "One moment!" he almost whispered. He went lightly away and in a moment as lightly returned.

"It's all right! She'll sleep for some hours, probably. Now, a woman like Mrs. Armine, a beautiful, celebrated woman, wants a certain amount of humouring. And you don't humour her. See?"

"I expect you know."

Isaacson did not tell of that sheet of glass through which Mrs. Armine and he saw each other too plainly.

"She's a woman with any amount of heart, any amount. I've proved that." He paused, looked sentimental, and continued, "Proved it up to the hilt. But she's a little bit capricious. She wants to be taken the right way. I can do anything with her."

He touched his rose-coloured tie, and pulled up one of his rose-coloured socks.

"And the husband?" Isaacson asked, with a detached manner. "D'you find him difficult?"

"Between ourselves, very!"

"That's bad."

"He tries her very much, I'm afraid, though he pretends, of course, to be devoted to her. And she's simply an angel to him."

"Hard on her!"

"I sympathize with her very much. Of course, she's told me nothing. She's too loyal. But I can read between the lines. Tell me, though. Do you think him very bad?"

"Very."

Isaacson spoke without emotion, as if out of a solely medical mind.

"You don't--ah--you don't surely think him in any danger?"

Isaacson slightly shrugged his shoulders.

"But--h'm--but about the sunstroke! If it isn't sunstroke--?"

Hartley waited for an interruption. None came.

"If it isn't sunstroke entirely, the question is, what is it?"

Isaacson looked at him in silence.

"Have you formed any definite opinion?" said Hartley, at last bringing himself to the point.

"I should have to watch the case, if only for a day or two before giving any definite opinion."

"Well, but--informally, what do you think about it? What did you mean upstairs about unless very great care was taken a--a--medical reputation might be--er--ruined over it. 'Ruined' is a very strong word, you know."

The egoist was evidently very much alarmed.

"And then you said that very possibly I might regret ever having had anything to do with it. That was another thing."

Isaacson looked down meditatively.

"I didn't, and I don't, understand what your meaning could have been."

"Doctor Hartley, I can't say very much. A doctor of any reputation who is at all known in the great world has to be guarded. This is not my case. If it were, things would be different. I may have formed an opinion or not. In any event, I cannot give it at present. But I am an older man than you. I have had great experience, and I should be sorry to see a rising young physician, with probably a big future before him, get into deep waters."

"Deep waters?"

Isaacson nodded gravely.

"Mrs. Armine may think this illness is owing to a sunstroke. But she may be wrong. It may be owing to something quite different. I believe it is."

"But what? What?"

"That has to be found out. You are here to find it out."

"I--I really believe a consultation--"

He hesitated.

"But there's her great dislike of you!" he concluded, naively.

Isaacson got up.

"If Mr. Armine gets rapidly worse--"

"Oh, but--"

"If he dies and it's discovered afterwards that the cause of his illness had never been found out by his doctor, and that a consultation with a man--forgive me--as widely known as myself was refused, well, it wouldn't do you any good, I'm afraid."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the young man, getting up in a flurry. "But--but--look here, have you any idea what's the matter?"

"Unless there's a formal consultation, I must decline to say anything on that point."

Doctor Hartley dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief.

"I--I do wish you were on better terms with Mrs. Armine," he said. "I should be delighted to meet you in consultation. It would really be better, much better."

"I think it would. It often requires two brains working in accord to unravel a difficult case."

"Of course it does! Of course it does!"

"Well, I'm just down the river. And I may pole up little higher."

"Of course, if I demand another opinion--"

"Ah, that's your right."

"I shall exercise it."

"Women, even the best of women don't always understand as we do, the gravity of a situation."

"Just what I think!"

"And if--he should get worse--" said Isaacson, gravely, almost solemnly, and at this moment giving some rein to his real, desperately sincere feeling.

"Oh, but--do you think it's likely?"

Isaacson looked steadily at Hartley.

"I do--very likely."

"Whatever she wishes or says, I shall summon you at once. She will be thankful, perhaps afterwards."

"Women admire the man who takes a strong line."

"They do!"

"And I think that you may be very thankful--afterwards."

"I'll tell you what, I'm going to call you in, in consultation to-night. Directly the patient wakes and I've seen him, I shall insist on calling you in. I won't bear the whole responsibility alone. It isn't fair. And, as you say, she'll be glad afterwards and admire the strong line I--one takes."

They parted very differently from the way in which they had met.

Did the fate of Nigel depend upon whether the sensual or the ambitious part of the young American came out "top dog" in the worry that was impending? Isaacson called it to himself a worry, not a fight. The word seemed to suit best the nature in which the contest would take place.

Mrs. Armine's ravaged face would count for something in the struggle. Isaacson's cleverness was trusting a little to that, with a pitiless intuition that was almost feminine.

His eyes had pierced the veil, and had seen that the Indian summer had suddenly faded.

XXXVIII

Returned to the _Fatma_, Isaacson felt within him a sort of little collapse, that was like the crumbling of something small. For the moment he was below his usual standard of power. He was depressed, slightly overstrung. He was conscious of the acute inner restlessness that comes from the need to rest, of the painful wakefulness that is the child of a lack of proper sleep. As soon as he had arrived, he asked for tea.

"You can bring it," he said to Hassan.

When Hassan came up with the tea Isaacson gave him a cigarette, and, instead of getting rid of him, began to talk, or rather to set Hassan talking.

"What's the name of the tall boy who met us on the _Loulia_?"

"Ibrahim, my gentleman."

Ibrahim--the name that was mentioned in Nigel's letter as that of the Egyptian who had arranged for the hire by Nigel of the _Loulia_. Isaacson encouraged Hassan to talk about Ibrahim, while he kept still and sipped his tea and lemon.

It seemed that Ibrahim was a great friend of Hassan's; in fact, Hassan's greatest friend. He and Hassan were like brothers. Also, Hassan loved Ibrahim as he loved his father, and Ibrahim thought of Hassan with as much respect and admiration as he dedicated to his own mother.

Isaacson was impressed. His temples felt as if they were being pinched, as if somebody was trying gently to squeeze them together. Yet he was able to listen and to encourage, and to know why he was doing both.

Hassan flowed on with a native volubility, revealing his own and Ibrahim's affairs, and presently it appeared that at this moment Ibrahim was not at all pleased, not at all happy, on board the _Loulia_. Why was this? Isaacson asked. The reason was that he had been supplanted--he who had been efficient, devoted, inspired, and capable beyond what could be looked for from any other Egyptian, or indeed from any other sentient being. Hassan's hands became tragic and violent as he talked. He showed his teeth and seemed burning with fury. And who has done this monstrous thing? Isaacson dropped out the enquiry. Hamza--him who prayed. That was the answer. And it was through Ibrahim that Hamza had entered the service of my Lord Arminigel; it was Ibrahim's unexampled generosity and nobility that had brought Hamza to the chance of this treachery.

Then Ibrahim had been first in the service of the Armines?

Very soon Isaacson knew that Mohammed, "the best donkey-boy of Luxor," had been driven out to make room for Hamza, while "my Lord Arminigel" had been away in the Fayyum, and that now Hamza had been permitted to take Ibrahim's place as the personal attendant on my lord.

"Hamza him wait on my lord, give him his drink, give him his meat, give him his sick-food"--_i.e._, medicine--'give him everythin'.

And meanwhile Ibrahim, though always well paid and well treated, had sunk out of importance, and was become, in the eyes of men, "like one dog what eat where him can and sleepin' nowheres."

Who had driven out Mohammed? Isaacson was interested to know that. He was informed, with the usual variations of the East, that Mrs. Armine had wanted Hamza. "She likin' him because him always prayin'." The last sentence seemed to throw doubt upon all that had gone before. But as Isaacson lay back, having dismissed Hassan, and strove to rest, he continually saw the beautiful Hamza before him, beautiful because wonderfully typical, shrouded and drenched in the spirit of the East, a still fanatic with fatal eyes.

And Hamza always gave Nigel his "sick-food."

When Isaacson had spoken to Mrs. Armine of Hamza praying, a strange look had gone over her face. It was like a look of horror. Isaacson remembered it very well. Why should she shrink in horror from Hamza's prayers?

Isaacson needed repose. But he could not rest yet. To sleep one must cease from thinking, and one must cease from waiting.

He considered Doctor Hartley.

He was accustomed in his consulting-room to read character, temperament, shrewdly, to probe for more than mere bodily symptoms. Would Doctor Hartley act out of his fear or out of his subjection to women? In leaving the _Loulia_ Isaacson had really trusted him to act out of his fear. But suppose Isaacson had misjudged him! Suppose Mrs. Armine again used her influence, and Hartley succumbed and obeyed!

In that case, Isaacson resolved that he must act up to his intuition. If it were wrong, the consequences to himself would be very disagreeable--might almost be disastrous. If he were wrong, Mrs. Armine would certainly take care that he was thoroughly punished. There was in her an inflexible want of heart and of common humanity that made her really a dangerous woman, or a potentially dangerous woman. But he must take the risk. Although a man who went cautiously where his own interests were concerned, Isaacson was ready to take the risk. He had not taken it yet, for caution had been at his elbow, telling him to exhaust all possible means of obtaining what he wanted, and what he meant to have in a reasonable way and without any scandal. He had borne with a calculated misunderstanding, with cool impertinence, even with insult. But one thing he would not bear. He would not bear to be a second time worsted by Mrs. Armine. He would not bear to be driven away.

If Hartley was governed by fear, well and good. If not, Isaacson would stand a scene, provoke a scandal, even defy Nigel for his own sake. Would that be necessary?

Well, he would soon know. He would know that night. Hartley had promised to summon him in consultation that night.

"Meanwhile I simply must rest."

He spoke to himself as a doctor. And at last he went below, lay down in his cabin with the wooden shutters drawn over the windows, and closed his eyes. He had little hope of sleep. But sleep presently came. When he woke, he heard voices quite near him. They seemed to come from the water. He lay still and listened. They were natives' voices talking violently. He began to get up. As he put his feet to the floor, he heard a knock.

"Come in!" he called.

Hassan put in his head.

"The gentleman him here!"

"What gentleman? Not Doctor Hartley?"

"The sick gentleman."