Part 34 (1/2)
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 suns.h.i.+ne that was s.h.i.+mmering 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.”