"Marjorie!" I exclaimed. "You are ill!"
She smiled faintly and admitted that she had a slight chill. I persuaded her to take a hot drink and went at once to prepare it. When I returned she had gone to her room and was bathing her face with cologne water. Her hair, which she had combed with care half an hour earlier, was much disarranged and her eyes were swollen.
"Come in and sit down," she said. Then, as I hesitated, she added, "Oh, you can leave the door open."
The door was a frame affair covered with mosquito bar, there being nothing more seclusive in the house. Cold weather never reaches St. Thomas at any time of year. I explained to her that to leave the door open was to invite the intrusion of insects.
"I am going to lie down," she replied. "My head aches." She drank part of the liquid I had brought. "We can't be prudish," she said, then. "The door is practically open at all times, for it is free to admit light and sound. Are you afraid to be alone with me? Perhaps you had best send for one of the servants to guard you."
"Or Laps?" I suggested, laughing.
I entered and took a chair, while she arranged herself upon the bed, with pillows to prop her up into a half-sitting posture.
"Don," she began. "You will let me call you Don?"
"You can call me what you please," I said. "Don or anything else that begins with D. 'Dear' or 'Darling,' if that suits you better."
I could not make her smile.