Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the
circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs.
Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two
nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab further
afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and
far with a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry and
the two nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and
continuous knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of
typhoid under your own roof tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major
Livingstone could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this
uncertainty; other satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and Mrs.
Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so
uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from
Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature
was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get it down somehow
in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to envelop himself in the
newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for
apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped themselves on most things
as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs.
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