“Don’t, please. There’s to be no lowering of blinds—not yet.”
He paused rigid, as though he had been stabbed; then went slowly back to his old position before the fire.
“I didn’t mean to say it,” she whispered pleadingly. “I’m not going to die, Jimmie Boy—not so long as you need me. If I were lying here dead and you were to call, I—I should get up and come to you, Jimmie Boy. ’Dearie, I say unto thee arise’—that’s what you’d say, I expect, like Christ to the daughter of Jairus—‘Dearie, I say unto thee arise.’”
A third person, who had been sitting on the counterpane, playing with her hand, looked up. “And would you if I said it?”
“Perhaps, but I’m not going to give you the chance—not yet.”
“I’m glad,” sighed the little boy, “’cause, you know, I might forget the words.”
The ghost of a laugh escaped the woman’s lips and quickly spent itself. “Jimmie Boy’s glad too, only he’s such an old Awkward, he won’t tell. He hates being laughed at, even by his wife.”
The man raised his shaggy head. His voice sounded gruff and furious. “If you want to know, Jimmie Boy’s doing his best not to cry.”
His head jerked back upon his breast.
The woman lay still, gazing at him with adoring eyes. He cared—he was trying not to cry. She never quite knew what went on inside his head—never quite knew how to take him. When others would have said most, he was most silent He was noisy as a child over the little things of life. He did everything differently from other men. It was a proof of his genius.