"I knew nothing else could have excited you so much," he went on masterfully, still hypnotizing her with his eyes, until even a duller woman would have grasped his meaning. But maybe he wanted to read out the news himself? Nurse Yorke handed him the paper.
"Perhaps Mr. St. George will be interested in the advertisement of this sale," she suggested, with a coy emphasis which made Doctor Taylor want to smother the well-meaning creature with a pillow.
"We'll let Mrs. Stanton read it to him when she comes," he said waspishly; and at that moment Mrs. Stanton came.
They both knew her knock, and Nurse Yorke flew to open the door.
She had a smile and a word for them, and then went straight to Max. "How splendid! You're sitting up," she said. "This is worth travelling fast for, if there were nothing else. But there is. There's something next best to your getting well." Then she caught sight of the open paper in the nurse's hand. "Have you—has any one been telling you—or reading you to-day's news?" she asked, breathless.
"Nurse Yorke was just beginning to read something about a sale, I think," Max answered, hardly knowing what he said because his eyes were upon her—this girl of girls, this pearl of pearls, whom honour was forcing him to give up, and at the same time bidding him to keep. He thought that he had never seen her so lovely as to-day, in the simple travelling dress and hat all of black, yet not mourning. There was a look of heaven in her eyes, and they seemed to say that this heaven was for him. Could he refuse it? He gave her back look for look; and neither he nor she knew what they said when Doctor Taylor invited Nurse Yorke to go with him into the next room and examine the chart.
"Are you glad I'm back?" Sanda asked, drawing a chair close up to the chaise longue.
"Glad? You're worth all the doctor's medicines and tonics. I'm well now!"
"Aren't you dying to hear my news?"
"It's such wonderful news that you've come, I can't think of anything else," Max assured her, gazing at her hair, her eyes, her mouth—her sweet, sweet mouth.