Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/214

 'Means nothing to me.'

'Come and meet her, and help make it pleasant for her here, if you can. She's a patient of mine.'

Dr. Baird had left them almost as soon as he had introduced them. Sheilah without warning or preparation suddenly found herself alone with a stranger (she, who lately avoided meeting even the postman, it was such an effort to say good-morning) politely inquiring, 'May I sit here?' drawing the chair next to hers into a better position for conversation.

'Yes. Do.' Sheilah replied. What else could she reply. 'Only,' she added, half-rising, 'hadn't we better move out of the sun?'

'No, don't. Please, I beg of you. Don't move.'

The stranger was very insistent. He even put out his hand as if to push her back bodily into her chair.

'Oh, all right,' she acquiesced, and sank back again into the bright shaft of sunlight.

The stranger drew his chair away from Sheilah a little and sat down. He was an older man, at least what Sheilah then called an 'older man,' ten years or so older than herself. Dark, clean-shaven, ruddy.

'Are you an inmate?' he inquired smiling.

'An inmate?' Sheilah exclaimed.  ' Is that what I am?'

'Certainly,' he shrugged, apparently enjoying her dismay, 'if you're a patient of Carl Baird's.' Where