The boy, trying so hard to "be a man," regarded him with wide eyes, and the most touching, wavering smile of courage on the verge of tears. Then he looked with desperate appeal up at his mother. The set, wavering smile grew pale.
"Dada too st'ong...." he said. "Bobby so little...."
Chesney put down his face upon the crib and wept. Sophy knew that he was weeping, though no sound came from him. Then she told Bobby that "poor dada had been very, very ill"—he wasn't "too st'ong" any more. And taking the little unwilling hand in hers, she "poored" his father's bent head with it. Chesney turned his face presently, kissed the little hand, then got up silently and left the room. Sophy went to him, five minutes later, and found him face down on his bed, sobbing like a child. His own nerves had gone completely under the dreadful shocks of the past ten days.
XLII
Bobby's attack of jaundice was soon over. After that glimpse of his father, so gentle and so very kind—kinder than Bobby had ever known him—the boy began to recover with the quick resilience of childhood. By the following Monday he was quite fit to travel, Camenis said.
Physically, Chesney was much better also. Camenis had succeeded in routing the sciatica. A strong tonic had somewhat restored his appetite. Altogether, he felt more fit than he had believed possible under the circumstances. At first, Camenis had wanted him to take hot hip-baths mixed with sea-salt. But here Chesney rebelled. He loathed hot baths. He demanded either a quick, cold tub in the morning, or else his usual swim in the lake. Camenis and he tussled for some hours over this question. Finally, it was agreed by the physician that as this September was such an unusually warm one, Chesney might have a very short swim during the hottest hours of the morning; then, after drying himself, lie and bake in the sun on the scorching pebbles of the shore. Late in the season as it was, he acquired the most beautifully toned mahogany-brown back and chest by this method. He was boyishly proud of this splendid tanning.
"The old boy'll think he's got a nigger-chief to monkey with, this time. Eh—what?" he asked Sophy, turning about before her in his short bathing-trunks that she might see the full glory of his sunburnt torso. She smiled approval, saying that to her he looked more like a well-roasted turkey than a "nigger." And she thought what a boy the big man was, at heart. It seemed pathetic and strange and very nice to her, all at the same time, that he could take such pleasure in such a thing, after all that had passed and was to come.
Sunday evening she spent in having the last things packed away. The dismantled villa looked the picture of sordid cheerlessness, when stripped of all the little touches she had given it. They dined by one, virulent jet of acetylene gas, blazing in an iron loop from the middle of the ceiling.
"By George, this is funereal!" Chesney could not refrain from exclaiming. "Two more meals like this—is it? Well, they'll give me melancholia."