princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a table.
“Beautiful,” said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather. “The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as if one were in the country.”
“Yes, indeed,” replied the princess with a sigh. “So he may have something to drink?”
Lorrain considered.
“Has he taken his medicine?”
“Yes.”
The doctor glanced at his watch.
“Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar,” and he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.
“Dere has neffer been a gase,” a German doctor was saying to an aide-de-camp, “dat one liffs