“What is your trade?”
“A machinist.”
“Do you drink?”
“Not now; I did at one time.”
Then a long silence.
“What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?”
Jack saw in the physician’s face the same sympathetic interest that he had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some curiosity to the words “inspiration,” “expiration,” “phthisis,” &c., and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,—so critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in Paris, and if he could send to them.
His family! Who were they? A man and a woman who were already there at the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no other friends than these, no other relatives.
“And how are we to-day?” said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept his tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence.
Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking?