Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Gwendolen had had her tantrum. He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred and he always found, when he arrived, a white shaken girl lying on her bed, sulky and still so hysterical that she was ready to break into fresh sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits. On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon.
"How is she?" he asked Mr. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived. "She will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day. The girl is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence."
"Well, sir," answered Mr. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes when you see her. That plain sour-faced child that's almost as bad as herself has just bewitched her. How he's done it there's no telling. The Lord knows he's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear him speak, but he did what none of us dare do. He just flew at her like a little cat last night, and stamped his feet and ordered her to stop screaming, and somehow he startled her so that she actually did stop, and this afternoon--well just come up and see, sir. It's past crediting."
The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his patient's room was indeed rather astonishing to him. As Mr. Medlock opened the door he heard laughing and chattering. Gwendolen was on her sofa in her dressing-gown and she was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture in one of the garden books and talking to the plain child who at that moment could scarcely be called plain at all because his face was so glowing with enjoyment.
"Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those," Gwendolen was announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums."
"Destiny says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Master Toby. "There are clumps there already."
Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Toby became quite still and Gwendolen looked fretful.
"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my girl," Dr. Craven said a trifle nervously. He was rather a nervous man.
"I'm better now--much better," Gwendolen answered, rather like a Princess. "I'm going out in my chair in a day or two if it is fine. I want some fresh air."
Dr. Craven sat down by her and felt her pulse and looked at her curiously.
"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not to tire yourself."
"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young Princess.
As there had been occasions when this same young gentlewoman had shrieked aloud with rage and had insisted that fresh air would give her cold and kill her, it is not to be wondered at that her doctor felt somewhat startled.
"I thought you did not like fresh air," he said.
"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Princess; "but my cousin is going out with me."
"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr. Craven.
"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Toby could not help remembering how the young native Prince had looked with his diamonds and emeralds and pearls stuck all over him and the great rubies on the small dark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach with salaams and receive his orders.
"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when he is with me. He made me better last night. A very strong girl I know will push my carriage."
Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome hysterical girl should chance to get well he himself would lose all chance of inheriting Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak one, and he did not intend to let her run into actual danger.
