His sharp eyes looked hither and thither, and there was something jerky in his quick movements; still, their grave decisiveness made up for the lack of grace.

He paid no heed to the bystanders, but threw himself forward rather than bent over the patient, felt him, and with a light hand renewed his bandages; and then he looked round the room, examining it as curiously as though he proposed to take up his abode there, ending by fixing his prominent, round eyes on Melissa.

There was something so ruthlessly inquisitive in that look that it might, under other circumstances, have angered her.
However, as it was, she submitted to it, for she saw that it was shrewd, and she would have called the wisest physician on earth to her lover's bedside if she had had the power.
When Ptolemaeus--for so he was called--had, in reply to the question, "who is that ?" learned who she was, he hastily murmured: "Then she can do nothing but harm here.

A man in a fever wants but one thing, and that is perfect quiet." And he beckoned Andreas to the window, and asked him shortly, "Has the girl any sense ?" "Plenty," replied the freedman, decisively.
"As much, at any rate, as she can have at her age," the other retorted.
"Then it is to be hoped that she will go without any leave-taking or tears.

That fine lad is in a bad way.