He was not only dazed, but a pallor stole over his skin, the more ghastly in contrast with his black hair and his scarlet dressing-gown.
“Isn’t there no place you can lay down? I always laid momma down after a spell of this kind. It did her good to sleep and she always slept.”
He said, absently: “There’s a couch in the library. I can’t go back to bed.”
“No, you don’t want to go back to bed,” she agreed, as if she was humoring a child. “You wouldn’t sleep there––”
“I haven’t slept for two nights,” he pleaded, in excuse for himself, “not since––”
Taking him by the arm she led him into the library, which was in an ell behind the back drawing-room. It was a big, book-lined room with worn, shiny, leather-covered furnishings. On the shiny, leather-covered couch was a cushion which she shook up and smoothed out. Over its foot lay an afghan the work of the late Mrs. Allerton.
“Now, lay down.”
He stretched himself out obediently, after which she covered him with the afghan. When he had closed his eyes she passed her hand across his forehead, on which the perspiration was still thick and cold. She remembered that a bottle of Florida water and a paper fan were among the luxuries of the back spare room.
“Don’t you stir,” she warned him. “I’m goin’ to get you something.”