her own account
and obtained information.

Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the
circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs.
Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two
nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab farther
afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and
far with a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry
and the two nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and
continuous knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of
enteric under your own roof-tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major
Livingstone could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this
uncertainty; other satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and
Mrs. Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so
uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from
Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature
was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get it down somehow
in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to envelop himself in
the newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for
apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped themselves on most things
as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs. Barberry gave her other
details, thinking her rather cold in the reception of them. But she
plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses on the stairs,
refraining from so much as a glance at the boiled milk preparations of
the butler. "And you know," said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, "how these
people have to be watched." To Mrs. Barberry she was really a conundrum,
only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy.
There was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct
as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either by
this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her right to
take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it has
been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and penalties
may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take the
importance of motives. She rather stood aside with folded hands, and
in an infinite terror of prejudicing fate, devoured her heart by way of
keeping its beating normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final
alternative to Lindsay's marriage, one can imagine