When she went into the office the next afternoon to put drops into Miss MacVane's eyes, she looked at her with curiosity. She had not the remotest claim to beauty; she was short of speech and sometimes irritable, and her thick glasses, without which she could see nothing, disfigured her. It was not possible that Mrs. Lanfair feared good Miss MacVane!
Miss MacVane removed her green shade and her thick glasses, and Ellen lifted the little rack and took from the bottle the attached medicine-dropper. A penetrating odor frightened her.
"I'm ready," said Miss MacVane patiently. "I'm better, thank God!" The expletive was heartfelt--she did thank God.
Ellen's hand poised motionless above the little vials.
"What is it?" Miss MacVane blinked unseeing.
Still Ellen made no motion. There was something wrong. Ammonia was not a medicament for the eye, but the lotion seemed to be pure ammonia!
Ellen believed suddenly that she understood what had happened--Dr. Lanfair had made a mistake. Her next act, quickly conceived and executed, was like a protecting gesture. Into her eyes came again the expression with which Fetzer and Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane regarded their master. No wonder that he had made a mistake! She put deliberately into Miss MacVane's eyes two drops of distilled water.
When Miss MacVane had gone, Ellen stood holding the bottle and looking at it. What should she do now? Had she behaved with unwarrantable officiousness? She stood in the same spot holding the bottle in her hand when Stephen entered and stared at her in surprise and then in amazement. For an instant they regarded each other, for the first time straightforwardly. A vaguely disturbing recollection troubled Stephen's mind and then was immediately lost in a sharper emotion.
Ellen grew pale and her knees weakened. But it was better to have been unwarrantably officious than to have used the wrong medicine!
"I've been putting drops into Miss MacVane's eyes in the afternoon, so that Miss Knowlton wouldn't have to stay, and to-day there's something wrong with it."
"It's different from yesterday," said Ellen, "there's a great deal more of it, and there's an odor."
Stephen held the little bottle with both hands.
"If I did wrong, I'm sorry. I can go to Miss MacVane's house if you want me to."