Something of
this passed through her mind as she saw that the doctor had wheeled it
beneath the strong light in the centre of the room, stripped its
outer coverings with professional thoughtfulness, and rearranged the
mattresses. But it did not seem like the same room. There was a pungent
odor in the air from some freshly-opened phial; an almost feminine
neatness and luxury in an open morocco case like a jewel box on the
table, shining with spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of her
own servants, the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with the
mingled curiosity and blase experience of one accustomed to smashed and
lacerated digits. At first she did not look at the central unconscious
figure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have been
vicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces that
looked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled before the
bared white neck and shoulders displayed above the quilt, until, forcing
herself to look upon the face half-concealed by bandages and the head
from which the dark tangles of hair had been ruthlessly sheared, she
began to share the doctor's unconcern in his personality.
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