“Upstairs. You can hear him cough regularly every thirty-two seconds. I timed him last night.” She made a brave attempt to pass it off lightly. But Stacey perceived that she was worn out, and felt sorry for her.
“Can’t I go up and sit with him and let you rest?” he asked. He was quite sincere in the demand, too; which was as strange as everything else, since his passion for Marian was bubbling in his veins like a Circean draft.
“No—thank you,” said Catherine, with a rare beautiful smile. “He’s asleep now. I’ll go up when he wakes. I’m afraid,” she went on, with involuntary formality, and turning to Marian, “that I don’t seem very cordial. Really I’m glad you came—both of you.”
“Truly?” asked Marian prettily. “Then I’ll stay a few minutes longer. I was afraid I might be tiring you.”
Stacey considered her. He felt that she was hard beneath her beauty. She was not pitiful. She was not interested in sickness. It annoyed her. Yet this judgment made not the slightest difference in what he was feeling toward her. The only thing that affected him was his perception that she was somehow tense, and that she was staying for him. This stirred him.
A strange trio—even Stacey could feel that; yet they managed to talk with apparent ease—of Vernon, New York, the weather,—anything. What a thing training was!
But a small pathetic whine came from upstairs. Catherine rose hastily. “It’s Jackie,” she explained. “You’ll excuse me for a few minutes, won’t you?”
“Hadn’t we better go?” Marian asked.
“No, please! I’ll give him his medicine and get him to sleep again and be back down presently.”
“Not a thing I can do? You’re sure?” Stacey begged.