Bosey took special care in arranging her aunt’s toilet one morning not long after her arrival. She fastened a sheer white ‘kerchief (which she found in the press) about the old lady’s neck. She powdered her face from her own box of duvet de cygnet; and she gave her a fine linen handkerchief (which she also found in the press), sprinkling it from the bottle of cologne water which she had brought from New Orleans. She filled the vase upon the table with fresh flowers, and dusted and rearranged the books there.
Madame had been moving forward the bookmark in the novel to pretend that she was reading it.
These unusual preparations were explained an hour or two later, when Bosey introduced into Madame Solisainte’s presence their neighbor, Doctor Godfrey. He was a youngish, good-looking man, with a loud, cheery voice and a super-abundance of animal spirits. He seemed to carry about with him the very atmosphere of health and to dispense it broadcast in invisible waves.
“Do you see, Tante Félicie, how I think of everything? When I saw, last night, the suffering you endured at being put to bed, I decided that you ought to be under a physician’s treatment. So the first thing I did this morning was to send a messenger for Doctor Godfrey, and here he is!”
Madame glared at him as he drew up a chair on the opposite side of the table and began to talk about how long it was since he had seen her. “I do not need a physician!” she cried in tones of exasperation, looking from one to the other. “All the physician’ in the worl’ cannot ‘elp me. My mother was the same; she try all the physician’ of the parish. She went to the ‘ot spring’, to la Nouvelle Orleans, an’ she die at las’ in this chair. Nothing will ‘elp me.”
“That is for me to say, Madame Solisainte,” said the Doctor with cheerful assurance. “It is a good idea of your niece’s that you should place yourself under a physician’s care. I don’t say mine, understand – there are many excellent physicians in the parish – but some one ought to look after you, if it is only to keep you in comfortable condition.”
Madame blinked at him under lowered brows. She was thinking of his bill for this visit, and determined that he should not make a second one. She saw ruin staring her in the face, and felt as if she were being borne along on a raging torrent of extravagance to meet it.
