Gurdy found himself standing and dropped the telephone. It brushed the chessmen in a clattering volley to the floor. His father’s blue eyes bit through the smoke. “When’s a train to Philadelphia, dad?” “That damn fool girl gone and got herself into--” “This actor!... Of course she has! Of course! Oh, hell! In her room! When’s there a train to Philadelphia?” X The Idolater Olive left the telephone table and strolled across the bright library to the fire. The sussuration of dragged silk behind her moving gown gave her a queer discomfort; there had been no time to change in the rush; it seemed improper to attend a death-bed in evening dress. And she was intrusive, here, and helpless. Mark’s pain was calm. He would suffer later, at the end of these hours or minutes. The bored, plump doctor came into the library, closed the door and lit a cigarette, joining Olive at the warm hearth. “He was asking for Miss Walling, just now.” “Ah? She’s in Philadelphia. She was dining with some friends at the Ritz, there, so we left her.” The doctor said, “Very sensible,” and blew a smoke ring. Under its dissolution his eyes admired Olive’s shoulders then, the pastel of Gurdy in a black frame on the mantel. “Tell me,” Olive asked, “how--how far is he conscious?” “It would be interesting to know. In these collapses we’re not sure. His conscious mind probably asserts itself, now and then. The unconscious--I really can’t say. Still, before you and Mr. Walling came he spoke in Swedish several times. And that’s the unconscious. He forgot his Swedish years ago. Been in this country ever since eighteen sixty-eight. But he spoke Swedish quite correctly and very fast. I’m a Swede. It surprised me.” “Indeed,” said Olive and shivered before his science, cool, weary, not much interested. The doctor looked at his watch, murmured, “Twelve thirty,” and tossed his cigarette in the fire. He observed, “But the old gentleman’s in no pain. The reversion’s very interesting. He was talking to some one about Augustin Daly. Very interesting.” The clipped, brisk voice denied the least interest. The doctor went from the library as Olive heard wheels halt outside. This couldn’t be Gurdy. She looked through a window and recognized her maid paying a taxicab driver. The black and yellow taxicab trembled behind a car entirely black and windowless; the undertaker awaited Carlson’s body. Olive drew the curtains across the glass, shook herself and went down to speak with her maid. “Margot hadn’t come back from her dinner when you came away, Lane?”