She could have smiled, but did not. "You have--only of course I have seen
that something was wearing you--keeping you on a tension. You've not been
quite yourself for several days."
"I am myself. I'm the real fellow--only you haven't known him before. The
other is just--the devil disguised in a goodly garment, one that doesn't
belong to him."
"Oh, no!"
"No question of it. I'm so swearing mad this minute I could kill
somebody,--in other words, that foul fiend of a James Van
Horn--smooth-tongued hypocrite that he is!"
"Has he injured you?"
"Injured me? Knifed me in the back, every chance he got. Always has--but
he never had such a chance as he has now. And plays the part of an angel
of light in that house--fools them all. I'm the ill-tempered incompetent,
he's the forbearing wise man. The case is mine, but he's played the game
till they all have more confidence in him than they have in me. And he's
got all the cards in his hand!"
He flung himself off the couch, and began to pace the room. Speech, once
unloosed, flowed freely enough now,--he could not keep it back.
"The patient is a man of prominence--the matter of his recovery is a
great necessity. If he were able to bear it he ought to be operated upon;
but there isn't one chance in a hundred he'd survive an operation at
present.
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