Another person now appeared, a sleek, pale, old young man, whom Jasmine recognized from Selina's allusion as the 'smarmy' doctor. She took advantage of his presence to run past her aunt and speak to the old gentleman, who was so much occupied in holding on to the frame of the door that he was apparently unconscious of his niece's arrival. "If you please, miss," said one of the nurses, "you'd better not excite the patient just now." Jasmine paid no attention to this advice, but knelt down and with all the force she could achieve kept on calling out to know what Uncle Matthew wanted, until at last the old gentleman was induced to recognize her. He was evidently pleased at her arrival, so much pleased that he offered her his hand in greeting, a gesture which cost him his hold on the frame of the door. The male nurses were quick to take advantage of this, and while Jasmine was still on her knees, they hurried him along the passage and vanished through the door from which Lady Grant had just emerged. Jasmine realized that her interference had only succeeded in helping the other side, and in a mist of mortification and self-reproach she followed the bed into the room prepared to receive the sick man. She was bound to admit to herself that the room was well chosen and admirably prepared. Yet she knew that the more careful the preparations, the more acutely would they aggravate her uncle's discomfort. The fire burning lavishly in the grate, the flowers blooming wastefully on the table, the sick room's glittering equipment, they would seem to him detestable extravagances which in his feeble condition he was powerless to prevent. As soon as Uncle Matthew was safely out of his little bath-bedroom, Lady Grant locked the door and put the key in her bag; but Selina arrived on the scene in time for this action by her ladyship, to whom she proceeded to give, or rather at whom she proceeded to throw a piece of her mind. When the housekeeper paused for breath, her ladyship merely said coldly that if she did not behave herself, she would find herself and her boxes in the street. "This kind of thing has been going on long enough," Lady Grant proclaimed to the world. "It was time for his relations to interfere."