"I am just on my way to join it now," the young man answered, looking up
at the bishop from the chair near Edith on which he was again sitting, and
giving the corners of his little light moustache a twirl on either side
when he had spoken. All his features, except his eyes, preserved an
imperturbable gravity; his lips moved, but without altering the expression
of his face. His eyes, however, inspected the bishop intelligently; and
always, when he spoke to him, they rested on some one point, his vest, his
gaiters, his apron, the top of his bald head, the end of his nose.
"Dr. Galbraith," the footman announced; and the doctor entered in his
easy, unaffected, but somewhat awkward way. He had his hat in his hand,
and there was a shade of weariness or depression on his strong pale face;
but his deep gray kindly eyes--the redeeming feature--were as
sympathetically penetrating as usual.
He shook hands with them all, except Sir Mosley, at whom he just glanced
sufficiently long to perceive that he was a stranger.
Mrs. Beale named them to each other, and they both bowed slightly, looking
at the ground, and then they exchanged glances.
"Not much like a medico if you are one," thought Menteith.
"Not difficult to take your measure," thought the doctor; after which he
turned at once to the tea-table, like one at home, and stood there waiting
for a cup. His manner was quite unassuming, but he was one of those men of
marked individuality who change the social atmosphere of a room when they
enter it. People became aware of the presence of strength almost before
they saw him or heard him speak. And he possessed that peculiar charm,
common to Lord Dawne and others of their set, which came of giving the
whole of their attention to the person with whom they were conversing for
the moment. His eyes never wandered, and if his interest flagged he did
not allow the fact to become apparent, so that he drew from everybody the
best that was in them, and people not ordinarily brilliant were often
surprised, on reflection, at the amount of information they had been
displaying, and the number of ideas which had come crowding into their
usually vacant minds while he talked with them.
He turned his attention to Mrs. Beale now. "I was afraid I should be late
for tea," he said. "I had to turn back--about something. I was delayed."
"We were late ourselves this afternoon," said Mrs. Beale.
Curiously enough the same cause had delayed them both, for Dr. Galbraith,
coming into Morningquest by the road Mrs. Beale had chosen for her drive
that day, had noticed the insensible girl and her baby lying on the
footpath, and had got down, lifted them into his carriage, and driven back
some miles with them in order to leave them at the house of one of his
tenants, a respectable widow whom he had trained as a nurse, and to whose
kind care he now confided them with strict orders for their comfort, and
the wherewithal to carry the orders out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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