XV
Meals with the patients were a chore he approached with apathy. The gathering, which of course did not include residents at the Eglantine or the Beeches, was conventional enough at first sight, but over it brooded always a heavy melancholy. Such doctors as were present kept up a conversation but most of the patients, as if exhausted by their morning’s endeavor, or depressed by the company, spoke little, and ate looking into their plates.
Luncheon over, d**k returned to his villa. Nicole was in the salon wearing a strange expression.
‘Read that,’ she said.
He opened the letter. It was from a woman recently discharged, though with skepticism on the part of the faculty. It accused him in no uncertain terms of having seduced her daughter, who had been at her mother’s side during the cru
