That young woman knows too much! Sebastian muttered to me, looking after her as she glided noiselessly with her gentle tread down the long white corridor. We shall have to suppress her, Cumberledge.... But Ill wager my life shes right, for all that. I wonder, now, how the dickens she guessed it!
Intuition, I answered.
He pouted his under lip above the upper one, with a dubious acquiescence. Inference, I call it, he retorted. All womans so-called intuition is, in fact, just rapid and half-unconscious inference.
He was so full of the subject, however, and so utterly carried away by his scientific ardour, that I regret to say he gave a strong dose of lethodyne at once to each of the matrons petted and pampered Persian cats, which lounged about her room and were the delight of the convalescents. They were two peculiarly lazy sultanas of catsmere jewels of the haremOriental beauties that loved to bask in the sun or curl themselves up on the rug before the fire and dawdle away their lives in congenial idleness. Strange to say, Hildas prophecy came true. Zuleika settled herself down comfortably in the Professors easy chair and fell into a sound sleep from which there was no awaking; while Roxana met fate on the tiger-skin she loved, coiled up in a circle, and passed from this life of dreams, without knowing it, into one where dreaming is not. Sebastian noted the facts with a quiet gleam of satisfaction in his watchful eye, and explained afterwards, with curt glibness to the angry matron, that her favourites had been canonised in the roll of science, as painless martyrs to the advancement of physiology.
The weasels, on the other hand, with an equal dose, woke up after six hours as lively as crickets. It was clear that carnivorous tastes were not the whole solution, for Roxana was famed as a notable mouser.
Your principle? Sebastian asked our sibyl, in his brief, quick way.
Hildas cheek wore a glow of pardonable triumph. The great teacher had deigned to ask her assistance. I judged by the analogy of Indian hemp, she answered. This is clearly a similar, but much stronger, narcotic. Now, whenever I have given Indian hemp by your direction to people of sluggish, or even of merely bustling temperament, I have noticed that small doses produce serious effects, and that the after-results are most undesirable. But when you have prescribed the hemp for nervous, overstrung, imaginative people, I have observed that they can stand large amounts of the tincture without evil results, and that the after-effects pass off rapidly. I who am mercurial in temperament, for example, can take any amount of Indian hemp without being made ill by it; while ten drops will send some slow and torpid rustics mad drunk with excitementdrive them into homicidal mania.
Sebastian nodded his head. He needed no more explanation. You have hit it, he said. I see it at a glance. The old antithesis! All men and all animals fall, roughly speaking, into two great divisions of type: the impassioned and the unimpassioned; the vivid and the phlegmatic. I catch your drift now. Lethodyne is poison to phlegmatic patients, who have not active power enough to wake up from it unhurt; it is relatively harmless to the vivid and impassioned, who can be put asleep by it, indeed, for a few hours more or less, but are alive enough to live on through the coma and reassert their vitality after it.
I recognised as he spoke that this explanation was correct. The dull rabbits, the sleepy Persian cats, and the silly sheep had died outright of lethodyne; the cunning, inquisitive raccoon, the quick hawk, and the active, intense-natured weasels, all most eager, wary, and alert animals, full of keenness and passion, had recovered quickly.
Dare we try it on a human subject? I asked, tentatively.
Hilda Wade answered at once, with that unerring rapidity of hers: Yes, certainly; on a fewthe right persons. I, for one, am not afraid to try it.
You? I cried, feeling suddenly aware how much I thought of her. Oh, not YOU, please, Nurse Wade. Some other life, less valuable!
Sebastian stared at me coldly. Nurse Wade volunteers, he said. It is in the cause of science. Who dares dissuade her? That tooth of yours? Ah, yes. Quite sufficient excuse. You wanted it out, Nurse Wade. Wells-Dinton shall operate.
Without a moments hesitation, Hilda Wade sat down in an easy chair and took a measured dose of the new anaesthetic, proportioned to the average difference in weight between raccoons and humanity. My face displayed my anxiety, I suppose, for she turned to me, smiling with quiet confidence. I know my own constitution, she said, with a reassuring glance that went straight to my heart. I do not in the least fear.
As for Sebastian, he administered the drug to her as unconcernedly as if she were a rabbit. Sebastians scientific coolness and calmness have long been the admiration of younger practitioners.
Wells-Dinton gave one wrench. The tooth came out as though the patient were a block of marble. There was not a cry or a movement, such as one notes when nitrous oxide is administered. Hilda Wade was to all appearance a mass of lifeless flesh. We stood round and watched. I was trembling with terror. Even on Sebastians pale face, usually so unmoved, save by the watchful eagerness of scientific curiosity, I saw signs of anxiety.
After four hours of profound slumberbreath hovering, as it seemed, between life and deathshe began to come to again. In half an hour more she was wide awake; she opened her eyes and asked for a glass of hock, with beef essence or oysters.
That evening, by six oclock, she was quite well and able to go about her duties as usual.
Sebastian is a wonderful man, I said to her, as I entered her ward on my rounds at night. His coolness astonishes me. Do you know, he watched you all the time you were lying asleep there as if nothing were the matter.
Coolness? she inquired, in a quiet voice. Or cruelty?
Cruelty? I echoed, aghast. Sebastian cruel! Oh, Nurse Wade, what an idea! Why, he has spent his whole life in striving against all odds to alleviate pain. He is the apostle of philanthropy!
Of philanthropy, or of science? To alleviate pain, or to learn the whole truth about the human body?
Come, come, now, I cried. You analyse too far. I will not let even YOU put me out of conceit with Sebastian. (Her face flushed at that even you; I almost fancied she began to like me.) He is the enthusiasm of my life; just consider how much he has done for humanity!
She looked me through searchingly. I will not destroy your illusion, she answered, after a pause. It is a noble and generous one. But is it not largely based on an ascetic face, long white hair, and a moustache that hides the cruel corners of the mouth? For the corners ARE cruel. Some day, I will show you them. Cut off the long hair, shave the grizzled moustacheand what then will remain? She drew a profile hastily. Just that, and she showed it me. Twas a face like Robespierres, grown harder and older and lined with observation. I recognised that it was in fact the essence of Sebastian.
Next day, as it turned out, the Professor himself insisted upon testing lethodyne in his own person. All Nats strove to dissuade him. Your life is so precious, sirthe advancement of science! But the Professor was adamantine.
Science can only be advanced if men of science will take their lives in their hands, he answered, sternly. Besides, Nurse Wade has tried. Am I to lag behind a woman in my devotion to the cause of physiological knowledge?