"Goot! I have now my own word to put in," said Herr Grosse. "It shall be one little word--no more. With my best compliments to Mr. Sebrights, I set up against what he only thinks, what I--Grosse--with these hands of mine have done. The cataracts of Miss there, is a cataracts that I have cut into before, a cataracts that I have cured before. Now look!" He suddenly wheeled round to Lucilla, tucked up his cuffs, laid a forefinger of each hand on either side of her forehead, and softly turned down her eyelids with his two big thumbs. "I pledge you my word as surgeon-optic," he resumed, "my knife shall let the light in here. This lofable-nice girls shall be more lofable-nicer than ever. My pretty Feench must be first in her best goot health. She must next gif me my own ways with her--and then one, two, three--ping! my pretty Feench shall see!" He lifted Lucilla's eyelids again as he said the last word--glared fiercely at her through his spectacles--gave her the loudest kiss, on the forehead, that I ever heard given in my life--laughed till the room rang again--and returned to his post as sentinel on guard over the Mayonnaise.
"Now," cried Herr Grosse cheerfully, "the talkings is all done. Gott be thanked, the eatings may begin!"
Lucilla left her chair for the second time.
"Herr Grosse," she said, "where are you?"
"Here, my dears!"
She crossed the room to the table at which he was sitting, already occupied in carving his favorite dish.
"Did you say you must use a knife to make me see?" she asked quite calmly.
"Yes, yes. Don't you be frightened of that. Not much pains to bear--not much pains."
She tapped him smartly on the shoulder with her hand.
"Get up, Herr Grosse," she said. "If you have your knife about you, here am I--do it at once!"
Nugent started. Mr. Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong across the room to her. I was even fool enough to scream.
Before I could reach her, Herr Grosse had risen, obedient to command, with a choice morsel of chicken on the end of his fork. "You charming little fools," he said, "I don't cut into cataracts in such a hurry as that. I perform but one operations on you to-day. It is this!" He unceremoniously popped the morsel of chicken into Lucilla's mouth. "Aha!
Bite him well. He is nice-goot! Now then! Sit down all of you. Lonch! lonch!"
He was irresistible. We all sat down at table.
The rest of us ate. Herr Grosse gobbled. From Mayonnaise to marmalade tart. From marmalade tart back again to Mayonnaise. From Mayonnaise, forward again to ham sandwiches and blancmange; and then back once more (on the word of an honest woman) to Mayonnaise! His drinking was on the same scale as his eating. Beer, wine, brandy--nothing came amiss to him; he mixed them all. As for the lighter elements in the feast--the almonds and raisins, the preserved ginger and the crystallized fruits, he ate them as accompaniments to everything. A dish of olives especially won his favor. He plunged both hands into it, and deposited his fists-full of olives in the pockets of his trousers. "In this ways," he explained, "I shall trouble nobody to pass the dish--I shall have by me continually all the olives that I want." When he could eat and drink no more, he rolled up his napkin into a ball, and became devoutly thankful. "How goot of Gott," he remarked, "when he invented the worlds to invent eatings and drinkings too! Ah!" sighed Herr Grosse, gently laying his outspread fingers on the pit of his stomach, "what immense happiness there is in This!"
Mr. Sebright looked at his watch.
"If there is anything more to be said on the question of the operation," he announced, "it must be said at once. We have barely five minutes more to spare. You have heard my opinion. I hold to it."
Herr Grosse took a pinch of snuff. "I also," he said, "hold to mine."
Lucilla turned towards the place from which Mr. Sebright had spoken.
"I am obliged to you, sir, for your opinion," she said, very quietly and firmly. "I am determined to try the operation. If it does fail, it will only leave me what I am now. If it succeeds, it gives me a new life. I will bear anything, and risk anything, on the chance that I may see."
So, she announced her decision. In those memorable words, she cleared the way for the coming Event in her life and in our lives, which it is the purpose of these pages to record.
Mr. Sebright answered her, in Mr. Sebright's discreet way.
"I cannot affect to be surprised at your decision," he said. "However sincerely I may regret it, I admit that it is the natural decision, in your case."
Lucilla addressed herself next to Herr Grosse.
"Choose your own day," she said. "The sooner, the better. To-morrow, if you can."
"Answer me one little thing, Miss," rejoined the German, with a sudden gravity of tone and manner which was quite new in our experience of him.