Joan did not know that she had given Leo pain, perhaps she would not have cared if she had known it. Sorrow makes some people selfish, and Joan was selfish in this grief. There seemed no room in her oppressed and burdened heart for sympathy with others. She could not have told why she turned now to Leonard in her trouble, only it was a relief to speak freely to somebody, and he had always stood in the position of brother to herself and Nessie. The years of his absence in India had modified that position, perhaps much more than any of them were aware. It might have been that the very resemblance to George Rutherford, from which she shrank with positive suffering, yet helped to draw her out.
“What does Mr. Forest say to you about father?” she asked suddenly.
He was thinking of Joan’s last words, and did not at once take in the meaning of the question.
“Mr. Forest? About your father?” Leo repeated dreamily.
“Yea, of course—about father,” said Joan with impatience.
“Much the same, I suspect, as he says to you.”
“He says nothing to me—about what we may expect, I mean. He only talks of waiting, and being patient, and taking each day as it comes. But I am tired of waiting, and I never was patient; and I like to look on. And then he lectures me about going out; and I hate to go out. The sunshine seems such a mockery, when father is lying like this. I can’t enjoy anything if he can’t enjoy it too. I only want to sit in a dark room till he is well.”
“But is that right, Joan?”
“Right I don’t know. And I am sure I don’t know why I should talk to you like this,” continued Joan, lifting her eyes once more, with a perplexed look. “It seems so foolish, only one must speak out a little now and then, and nobody else can understand. I don’t know whether you can—but you look a little as if you could. Nessie can say nothing, except ‘I’m sorry;’ and mother and I never do understand each other the very least.”
“I think you and I do, Joan,” said Leo.