"Yes, that's fine, and Annette is from the extreme South and delights in warmth and sunlight. I feel sure you have done right and am just lying down like a baby and leaving everything to you," and Robert Carter closed his eyes, smiling feebly.
At a summons from the doctor, Douglas and the notary public entered the room. Helen, who had stayed to get the blowing up that she had expected from Dr. Wright, not having got it, still stayed just because she did not know how to leave. No one noticed her or paid the least attention to her except the notary, who bowed perfunctorily.
"This is the paper. You had better read it to see if it is right. It gives your daughter full power to act in your absence." Dr. Wright spoke slowly and gently and his voice never seemed to startle the sick man.
"Is Miss Carter of age?" asked the notary. "Otherwise she would have some trouble in any legal matter that might arise."
"I never thought of that," said Mr. Carter.
"Nor I, fool that I am," muttered the young physician.
"Oh, well, let me make you her guardian, or better still, give you power of attorney," suggested Mr. Carter.
"Me, oh, I never bargained for that!" The patient feebly began to weep at this obstacle. You never can tell what is going to upset a nervous prostrate. "Well, all right. I can do it if it is up to me," the doctor muttered. "Put my name in where we have Miss Carter's," he said to the notary. "George Wright is my name."
"I'm so glad to know your name; that is one of the things that has been worrying me," said the patient, as he signed his name and the notary affixed his seal after the oaths were duly taken.
"I am waiting, Dr. Wright," said Helen, after the notary public had taken his departure and Douglas had gone to put finishing touches to the very rapid packing of steamer trunks, Mrs. Carter helping in her pathetically inefficient way. Helen stood at the top of the stairs to intercept the doctor as he left the patient's room.
"For you to tell me you were astonished to find me in my father's room when you had given express orders that none of us were to see him."
"I did not know whether I should find you, but I knew very well you would go there."
"So you thought I would sneak in and sneak out?"