Olive cast an apologetic glance at Mrs. Opdyke, knitting by the other window. Then she dropped her hands, palms up, into her lap. The gesture was so expressive as not to need the one word of her answer.
"Impossible."
"I'm not surprised."
"You had seen her?"
"Yes, at our commencement. She was a country daisy, if you choose: but a nig-nose one, not a placid ox-eye."
This time, Olive felt called on to remonstrate.
"Reed, you are becoming intolerable. A man flat on his back ought to be pondering upon the convolutions of his soul, not cultivating flowers of rhetoric."
"Soul be hanged! I keep insisting that mine isn't in any more need of attention than it was when I was up and doing, and it's a long way greater bore. Besides, I am prouder of my rhetoric than of my spiritual convolutions. But about Brenton's wife? She seemed to me then the typical shrewd Yankee who would adapt herself to any sort of circumstances and get the best end of any sort of bargain."
Olive nodded.
"You've about hit it, Reed. But then, I'm not fair to her."