consistently modest and maidenly.
`You must have a nurse or somebody, to look after you personally. You
should really have a manservant,' said Hilda as they sat, with apparent
calmness, at coffee after dinner. She spoke in her soft, seemingly gentle
way, but Clifford felt she was hitting him on the head with a bludgeon.
`You think so?' he said coldly.
`I'm sure! It's necessary. Either that, or Father and I must take
Connie away for some months. This can't go on.'
`What can't go on?'
`Haven't you looked at the child!' asked Hilda, gazing at him full
stare. He looked rather like a huge, boiled crayfish at the moment; or so
she thought.
`Connie and I will discuss it,' he said.
`I've already discussed it with her,' said Hilda.
Clifford had been long enough in the hands of nurses; he hated them,
because they left him no real privacy. And a manservant!...he couldn't stand
a man hanging round him. Almost better any woman. But why not Connie?
The two sisters drove off in the morning, Connie looking rather like an
Easter lamb, rather small beside Hilda, who held the wheel. Sir Malcolm was
away, but the Kensington house was open.
The doctor examined Connie carefully, and asked her all about her life.
`I see your photograph, and Sir Clifford's, in the illustrated papers
sometimes. Almost notorieties, aren't you? That's how the quiet little girls
grow up, though you're only a quiet little girl even now, in spite of the
illustrated papers. No, no! There's nothing organically wrong, but it won't
do! It won't do! Tell Sir Clifford he's got to bring you to town, or take
you abroad, and amuse you. You've got to be amused, got to! Your vitality is
much too low; no reserves, no reserves. The nerves of the heart a bit queer
already: oh, yes! Nothing but nerves; I'd put you right in a month at Cannes
or Biarritz. But it mustn't go on, mustn't, I tell you, or I won't be
answerable for consequences. You're spending your life without renewing it.
You've got to be amused, properly, healthily amused. You're spending your
vitality without making any. Can't go on, you know. Depression! Avoid
depression!'
Hilda set her jaw, and that meant something.
Michaelis heard they were in town, and came running with roses. `Why,
whatever's wrong?' he cried. `You're a shadow of yourself. Why, I never saw
such a change! Why ever didn't you let me know? Come to Nice with me! Come
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