I'll go down to the kitchen and make them lazy hussies stir themselves and get you a meal of some sort." In the days when Mrs.Briggs had been Violet's nurse she had reigned supreme in the Priory kitchen, and she still regarded it as an outlying portion of her dominions.
Violet leaned back upon her pillows with exhaustion written plainly on her pale face.

"Oh, do as you like, Nanny! But I don't want anything.
I've got my cigarettes." Mrs.Briggs grunted, and turned to go.

The patient Cork here seized the opportunity to assert himself, and gently but firmly pressed into the room.
"Drat the dog!" said Mrs.Briggs.
"Leave him alone!" Violet commanded.

"He knows how to take care of me." As Cork was fully determined to enter, no effort on Mrs.Briggs's part would have availed to stop him, and Mrs.Briggs, realizing this, sniffed and departed.
The huge animal lay down by the foot of the bed and heaved a sigh of satisfaction as he dropped his nose upon his paws.
And then Violet turned her face to Olga, sitting on the bed, and whispered, "Does he know ?" "Who ?" whispered back Olga.
"Max, of course! Who else ?" Olga hesitated.

Violet's hands were gripping her very tightly.