“How long did the doctor say you can stay here?”
“Five or ten minutes.”
“Well, then, I think you ought to come back to-morrow when you can stay half an hour or an hour.”
“I will,” she said.
But he had not finished. “And the next day, too. Maybe they’d let you read to me, or something. And as long as I’m laid up here—it won’t be long, at that—I think you ought to come every day and help me pass the time. I forgive you, but I think you do owe me that much. And as soon as they let me take a drive I think you ought to go along. How about it?”
“I will,” Lily said. “I will, indeed. I’ll do anything in the world you think might make up a little for the pain I’ve brought you. Nothing could make me happier.”
“That’s good news,” the young man told her, thoughtfully. “A clip on the head isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, after all.”
More and more he seemed to incline to this opinion;—in fact, he went so far as to assure Doctor Waite, three days later, that he preferred the hospital to the apartment old Hiram Huston was preparing for him. “I think I’d like to sort of settle down to the life here,” he said. “It’s nice and private and suits me exactly.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, thoughtfully. “It’s a pity you’re too important to do what you want to.” And lightly, as if to himself, he hummed a fragment of frivolous song:
“I don’t want to get well,