"No, but he wants to talk to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse, he said, "Madame, it is impossible for me to continue to attend this child unless I have had this very day a conversation with the father." So I said "Very well," and he said he would come at once."
George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. "My poor little daughter!" he whispered to himself.
"Yes," said the mother, her voice breaking, "she is, indeed, a poor little daughter!"
A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her, and she said to George, "It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in the next room."
Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and he stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost overcome with emotion. Then he said, "Good-day, doctor." As the man stared at him, surprised and puzzled, he added, "You don"t recognize me?"
The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him to break out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. "You!" he exclaimed. "It is you!"
At last, in a voice of discouragement than of anger, he went on, "You got married, and you have a child! After all that I told you! You are a wretch!"
"Sir," cried George, "let me explain to you!"
"Not a word!" exclaimed the other. "There can be no explanation for what you have done."
A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say. Finally, stretching out his arms, he pleaded, "You will take care of my little daughter all the same, will you not?"
The other turned away with disgust. "Imbecile!" he said.
George did not hear the word. "I was able to wait only six months," he murmured.
The doctor answered in a voice of cold self-repression, "That is enough, sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong even to let you see my indignation. I should have left you to judge yourself. I have nothing to do here but with the present and with the future--with the infant and with the nurse."
"She isn"t in danger?" cried George.
"The nurse is in danger of being contaminated."
But George had not been thinking about the nurse. "I mean my child," he said.
"Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing."
George waited; after a while he began, "You were saying about the nurse.
Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better than I."
"As you wish," was the reply.
The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress.
"I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so that my wife--so that no one will know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause--! It is for her that I implore you! She--she isn"t to blame."
Said the doctor: "I will do everything in my power that she may be kept ignorant of the true nature of the disease."
"Oh, how I thank you!" murmured George. "How I thank you!"
"Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to lie."
"And my mother?"
"Your mother knows the truth."
"But--"
"I pray you, sir--we have enough to talk about, and very serious matters."
So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered and greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to keep the signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to the doctor to take a seat, and then seated herself by a little table near him.
"Madame Dupont," he began, "I have prescribed a course of treatment for the child. I hope to be able to improve its condition, and to prevent any new developments. But my duty and yours does not stop there; if there is still time, it is necessary to protect the health of the nurse."
"Tell us what it is necessary to do, Doctor?" said she.
"The woman must stop nursing the child."
"You mean we have to change the nurse?"
"Madame, the child can no longer be brought up at the breast, either by that nurse or by any other nurse."
"But why, sir?"
"Because the child would give her disease to the woman who gave her milk."
"But, Doctor, if we put her on the bottle--our little one--she will die!"
And suddenly George burst out into sobs. "Oh, my poor little daughter!
My G.o.d, my G.o.d!"
Said the doctor, "If the feeding is well attended to, with sterilized milk--"
"That can do very well for healthy infants," broke in Madame Dupont.
"But at the age of three months one cannot take from the breast a baby like ours, frail and ill. More than any other such an infant has need of a nurse--is that not true?"
"Yes," the doctor admitted, "that is true. But--"
"In that case, between the life of the child, and the health of the nurse, you understand perfectly well that my choice is made."
Between her words the doctor heard the sobbing of George, whose head was buried in his arms. "Madame," he said, "your love for that baby has just caused you to utter something ferocious! It is not for you to choose. It is not for you to choose. I forbid the nursing. The health of that woman does not belong to you."
"No," cried the grandmother, wildly, "nor does the health of out child belong to you! If there is a hope of saving it, that hope is in giving it more care than any other child; and you would wish that I put it upon a mode of nourishment which the doctors condemn, even for vigorous infants! You expect that I will let myself be taken in like that? I answer you: she shall have the milk which she needs, my poor little one!
If there was a single thing that one could do to save her--I should be a criminal to neglect it!" And Madame Dupont broke out, with furious scorn, "The nurse! The nurse! We shall know how to do our duty--we shall take care of her, repay her. But our child before all! No sir, no! Everything that can be done to save our baby I shall do, let it cost what it will. To do what you say--you don"t realize it--it would be as if I should kill the child!" In the end the agonized woman burst into tears. "Oh, my poor little angel! My little savior!"
George had never ceased sobbing while his mother spoke; at these last words his sobs became loud cries. He struck the floor with his foot, he tore his hair, as if he were suffering from violent physical pain. "Oh, oh, oh!" he cried. "My little child! My little child!" And then, in a horrified whisper to himself, "I am a wretch! A criminal!"
"Madame," said the doctor, "you must calm yourself; you must both calm yourselves. You will not help out the situation by lamentations. You must learn to take it with calmness."