She looked perplexed, and colored slightly, but said smilingly, "Mrs.
Yocomb will think I"m a poor nurse if I let you talk too much."
"Then talk to me. I promise to listen as long as you will talk."
"Well, mention an agreeable subject."
"Yourself. What have you been doing in the ages that have elapsed since I came to life. It seems as if I had been dead, and I can"t recall a thing that happened in that nether world. I only hope I didn"t make a fool of myself."
"I"m sorry to say you were too ill to do anything very bad. Mr. Morton, you can"t realize how glad we all are that you are getting well so fast."
"I hope I can"t realize how glad YOU are, and yet I would like to think that you are very glad. Do you know what has done me the most good to-day?"
"How should I know?" she asked, looking away, with something like trouble in her face.
"I heard your laugh this morning while you were at breakfast, and it filled all the old house with music. It seemed to become a part of the sunshine that was shimmering on the elm-leaves that swayed to and fro before my window, and then the robins took it up in the garden. By the way, have you seen the robin"s nest that Zillah showed us?"
"Yes," she replied, "but it"s empty, and the queer little things that Zillah said were all "mouth and swallow" are now pert young robins, rollicking around the garden all day long. They remind me of Reuben and Dapple. I love such fresh young life, unshadowed by care or experience."
"I believe you; and your sympathy with such life will always keep you young at heart. I can"t imagine you growing old; indeed, truth is never old and feeble."
"You are very fanciful, Mr. Morton," she said, with a trace of perplexity again on her face.
"I have heard that that was a characteristic of sick people," I laughed.
"Yes; we have to humor them like children," she added, smoothing her brow as if this were an excuse for letting me express more admiration than she relished.
"Well," I admitted, "I"ve never been ill and made much of before, since I was a little fellow, and my mother spoiled me, and I"ve no idea how to behave. Even if I did, it would seem impossible to be conventional in this house. Am I not the most singularly fortunate man that ever existed? Like a fool I had broken myself down, and was destined to be ill. I started off as aimlessly as an arrow shot into the air, and here I am, enjoying your society and Mrs. Yocomb"s care."
"It is indeed strange," she replied musingly, as if half speaking to herself; "so strange that I cannot understand it. Life is a queer tangle at best. That is, it seems so to us sometimes."
"I a.s.sure you I am glad to have it tangled for me in this style," I said, laughing. "My only dread is getting out of the snarl. Indeed, I"m sorely tempted to play sick indefinitely."
"In that case we shall all leave you here to yourself."
"I think _you_ have done that already."
"What would your paper do without you?" she asked, with her brow slightly knitted and the color deepening in her cheeks.
"Recalling what you said, I"m tempted to think it is doing better without me."
"You imagine I said a great deal more than I did."
"No, I remember everything that happened until I was taken ill. It"s strange I was taken so suddenly. I can see you playing Chopin"s nocturne as distinctly as I see you now. Do you know that I had the fancy that the cl.u.s.ter of roses you sent me was that nocturne embodied, and that the shades of color were the variations in the melody?"
"You are indeed very fanciful. I hope you will grow more rational as you get well."
"I remember you thought me slightly insane in the garden."
"Yes; and you promised that you would see things just as they are after leaving it."
"I can"t help seeing things just as they seem to me. Perhaps I do see them just as they are."
"Oh, no! To a matter-of-fact person like myself, you are clearly very fanciful. If you don"t improve in this respect, you"ll have to take a course in mathematics before returning to your work or you will mislead your readers."
"No, I"m going to take a course of weeding in the garden, and you were to invite me into the arbor as soon as I had done enough to earn my salt."
"I fear you will pull up the vegetables."
"You can at least show me which are the potatoes."
In spite of a restraint that she tried to disguise, she broke out into a low laugh at this reminiscence, and said: "After that revelation of ignorance you will never trust me again."
"I will trust you in regard to everything except kitchen vegetables," I replied, more in earnest than in jest. "A most important exception,"
she responded, her old troubled look coming back. "But you are talking far too much. Your face is slightly flushed. I fear you are growing feverish. I will call Mrs. Yocomb now."
"Please do not. I never felt better in my life. You are doing me good every moment, and it"s so desperately stupid lying helplessly here."
"Well, I suppose I must humor you a few moments longer," she laughed.
"People, when ill, are so arbitrary. By the way, your editorial friends must think a great deal of you, or else you are valuable to them, for your chief writes to Mr. Yocomb every day about you; so do some others; and they"ve sent enough fruit and delicacies to be the death of an ostrich."
"I"m glad to hear that; it rather increases one"s faith in human nature. I didn"t know whether they or any one would care much if I died."
"Mr. Morton!" she said reproachfully.
"Oh, I remember my promise to you. If, like a cat, I had lost my ninth life, I would live after your words. Indeed I imagine that you were the only reason I did live. It was your will that saved me, for I hadn"t enough sense or spirit left to do more than flicker out."
"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly, and a rich glow of pleasure overspread her face.
"I do indeed. You have had a subtle power over me from the first, which I cannot resist, and don"t wish to."
"I must go now," she said hastily.
"Please wait," I entreated. "I"ve a message for Mrs. Yocomb."
She stood irresolutely near the door.
"I wish you to tell her--why is it getting dark so suddenly?"
"I fear we"re going to have a shower," and she glanced apprehensively toward the window.
"When have I seen that look on your face before?" I asked quickly.
"You had a message for Mrs. Yocomb?"
"Yes. I wish you would make her realize a little of my unbounded grat.i.tude, which every day increases. In fact, I can"t understand the kindness of this family, it is so hearty, so genuine. Why, I was an entire stranger the other day. Then Adah and--pardon me--you also used expressions which puzzle me very much. I can"t understand how I became ill so suddenly. I was feeling superbly that Sunday evening, and then everything became a blank. Mrs. Yocomb, from a fear of disquieting me, won"t say much about it. The impression that a storm or something occurred that I can"t recall, haunts me. You are one that couldn"t deceive if you tried."
"You needn"t think I"ve anything to tell when Mrs. Yocomb hasn"t," she answered, with a gay laugh.