"Oh, darling. You're sure it hasn't done you any harm?"
"And that's not quite all. There's my will," said he. "Ring the bell."
He spoke to Jacqueline, who after a few minutes brought in an English valet and an English lady's maid. Felix was set upon having his will witnessed by people with English addresses. He silently gave Lilian the will to read. He had written it himself. In three lines it bestowed upon her all that was his. Not a syllable about his sister. Well, that was quite right, because Miss Grig had means of her own. Sitting in the easy chair, with a blotting-pad on his knees, Felix signed the will. Then the valet and the lady's maid signed, with much constraint and flourish. Felix gave them fifty francs apiece, and dismissed them.
"Put that with your marriage certificate," he said to Lilian, folding up the will and offering it to her. "I think I'll get back to bed. Exhausting work, being married!" He laughed shortly. "I'm going to sleep," he said later, after he had eaten and drunk. "You be off downstairs and have your lunch."
But, of course, she could not go downstairs. She dropped into her bed, staggered by the swift evolution of her career. Staggered by it! Lo! She was a typewriting girl wearing wristlets, poor, hopeless, with no prospects. A little while, and lo! she was the wife of a rich and brilliant adorer, and an honest man in whom her trust was absolute. And she was pregnant. Strange fear invaded her mind, the ancient fear that too much happiness is a crime that destiny will punish.
IX
The Widow
"Felix seriously ill; double pneumonia; we are married.--Lilian Grig." Ten words, plus Isabel's address and her own! She wrote the telegram after several trials, in her bedroom, on half a sheet of the hotel notepaper, Kate O'Connor standing by her side, the next morning but one.
"Give it me," said the white nurse. "I'll see to it for you, Mrs. Grig, as I go home."
She looked up at the nurse, and the nurse, eyes no longer laughing, looked down at her. The nurse knew everything, and, moreover, must have assisted at scores of tragedies; yet Lilian regarded her as an innocent who understood nothing essential in life. Her comforting kiss was like the kiss of a very capable child pretending to be grown up.