“Oh, Lucy, Lucy! can’t you see it is not _stuffing_ and _swallowing_ that I want, but for people to know that father is really ill and not shamming—that we are not all combining in a dreadful game of deceit?”
“Do be content, child, to let the talk wear itself out. From what the doctor told my father this morning, your father may be a long time like this—weeks and months perhaps—even if by and by he comes to himself. It isn’t like a toothache that will be over to-morrow. You can’t rush out on the avenue and pull the people up here in flocks to see for themselves, though by to-morrow, just as soon as society has made up its mind what it ought to do, you’ll have plenty of callers. You told me yourself that the result of the consultation was that everything hinges on quiet.
“By the way, there were two reporters clamouring at the lift when I went out, one actually trying to bribe the boy to tell whether your father was really here in the apartment. I sent them scurrying in a hurry, I can tell you. Listen! I believe that there is another at the door now; anyway, some one is asking for you. I think I heard the words _Daily Forum_,” and Lucy pulled aside the curtain, and going to the angle in the hallway peered down its length to where the maid was talking in whispers to a tall somebody in pantaloons.
“Yes, it is a reporter,” said Lucy, stepping back noiselessly. “Sellers is trying to shoo him out, but he’s all inside the door and asking, not a bit humbly, to see ‘a member of the family.’ Watch and see how long it will take me to get rid of him,” and Lucy pulled on and buttoned her gloves, which, on coming in, she had begun to take off, with a gesture as though fists were to take part in the encounter, if necessary.
Brooke, who had been listening to Lucy, yet not looking at her, with eyes fixed on the crumpled paper before her, suddenly sprang to her feet, the warning flash returning to her eyes, saying: “Don’t go; I will see this man myself, and please remember, Lucy, whatever I may say or do, you are not to speak. No, don’t leave the room. I want you to stay by me, but this matter of father’s feigning illness is an affair of honour that only one of the family can conduct.”