On this question she
was immediately satisfactory.
"We are forbidden," she said, removing a piece of tape from her mouth,
"to wish anybody's death; you know that as well as I do, Dan." She made a
stitch or two. "We must leave it to Providence," she ended serenely.
At first sight there was nothing much in this dictum; it appeared even
commonplace. But Mrs. Baxter had been lunching with the Mildmays, had
heard a full account of what the doctors said about Quisante, and had
expressed her conviction that he could not possibly last long. So far as
could be judged then, the confidence which she proposed to show ran no
appreciable risk of being misplaced, while at the same time she avoided
committing herself by any expression of a personal opinion.
"Doubtless, my dear," said the Dean with a little cough.
"If he had thought less about himself and more about other people----" she
resumed.
"That can't have anything to do with an apoplectic seizure," the Dean
pleaded.
Mrs. Baxter looked up with a patient smile.
"If you weren't in such a hurry, Dan, to show what you call your
enlightenment (though heaven knows you may be wrong all the time, and a
judgment is a perfectly possible thing) you'd have found out that I was
only going to say that, if he'd thought more of other people, he'd find
other people thinking more about him now.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385