“Oh, when you’re in the way I’ll tell you.”
On this understanding Barbara sat down, in a small low armchair not far from the foot of the bed. Miss Gallifer also sat down, nearer to the window, taking up a book which, as Barbara could see from the “jacket” on the cover, bore the title, The Secret of Violet Pryde. It was clear that there was nothing to be done, since Miss Gallifer could so easily lose herself in her novel.
Not till her jumble of impressions began to arrange 336 themselves did Barbara realize that she was in Rash’s room, surrounded by the objects most intimate to his person. Here the poor boy slept and dressed, and lived the portion of his life which no one else could share with him. In a sense they were rifling his privacy, the secrecy with which every human being has in some measure to surround himself. She recalled a day in her childhood, after her parents and both her brothers had died, when their house with its contents was put up for sale. She remembered the horror with which she had seen strangers walking about in the rooms sanctified by loved presences, and endeared to her holiest memories. Something of that she felt now, as Miss Gallifer threw aside her book, sprang lightly to her feet, hurried into Rash’s bathroom, and came out with a towel slightly damped, which she passed over the patient’s brow. She was so horribly at ease! It was as if Rash no longer had a personality whose rights one must respect.
But he might get better! Miss Gallifer believed that he would! Barbara clung to that as an anchor in this tempest of emotions. If he got better he would open his eyes. If he opened his eyes it would be, for a little while at least, with his inhibitions suspended. If his inhibitions were suspended the thing he most wanted would be in his first glance; and if his first glance fell on her....
Chapter XXVI
Waiting was becoming dreamlike. She didn’t find it tedious, or over-fraught with suspense. On the contrary, it was soothing. It was a little trance-like, too, almost as if she had been enwrapped in Rash’s stillness.
It was so strange to see him still. It was so strange to be still herself. Of her own being, as of his, she had hardly any concept apart from the high winds of excitement. Calm like this was new to her, and because new it was appeasing, wonderful. It was not unlike content, only the content which comes in sleep, to be broken up by waking. Somewhere in her nature she liked seeing him as he was, helpless, inert, with no power of enraging her by being restive to her will. It was, in its way, a repetition of what she had said that morning: “If he wasn’t here—or if he was dead!” Longing for peace, her stormy soul seemed to know by instinct the price she would have to pay for it. For peace to be possible Rash must pass out of her life, and the thought of Rash passing out of her life was agony.
While Miss Gallifer was downstairs at lunch Barbara had the sweet, unusual sense of having him all to herself. She had never so had him in their hours together because the violence of their clashes had prevented communion. Seated in this silence, in this quietude, she felt him hers. There was no one to 338 dispute her claim, no one whose claim she had in any way to recognize as superior. Letty’s claim she had never recognized at all. It was accidental, spurious. Letty herself didn’t put it forth—and even she was gone. If Rash were to open his eyes he would see no one but herself.