"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

and found that, by Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching out,
so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful
examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall
advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I
fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our
friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said: 'You must
tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if
you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and
death, perhaps more.' I asked what he meant by that, for he was very
serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a
cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not
give me any further clue. You must not be angry with me, Art,
because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for
her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure.
So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if
I were doing a descriptive special article for The Dally Telegraph. He
seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not
quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to
get his report tomorrow if he can possible make it. In any case I am
to have a letter.

"Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I
first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something
of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal.
She was very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to
make him feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was
making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too,
for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old.
Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases
and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy's
pretense of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming
change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and
suavely said:-

"'My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are
much beloved. That is much, my dear, even were there that which I do
not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were
of a ghastly pale. To them I say: "Pouf!"' And he snapped his
fingers at me and went on: 'But you and I shall show them how wrong
they are. How can he'- and he pointed at me with the same look and
gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or
rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind
me of- 'know anything of a young ladies? He has his madams to play
with, and to bring them back to happiness and to those that love them.
It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can
bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor
daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to
the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of
them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the
garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.' I took