“Sallow skin, soft, brown hair, fine eyes, but an iron mouth with a devil-may-care expression. He has the get-up of a man who is too busy being prosperous to take time to be comfortable. His face, a singular combination of sensitiveness and stolidity, the latter leading. Neither hard enough for this world nor tender enough for the next. An Achilles with a dozen vulnerable spots, he sheds two drops of his own blood for every one he draws in his battles; so, whether he wins or not, they are always losing fields for him.”
She lay, looking at his profile, thinking that never, so long as she lived, could she see the other side of that anguished countenance, and the thought irritated her. This, she reflected, was an instance of the strength of the ruling passion. She had always been thirstily curious about life, even to its least details. Now the opportunities for quenching that thirst were at an end. There was no more for her in this world of that friction of spirit upon spirit which she loved. She was dying in a corner. Between herself and the immensity of eternity hung only that one white face.
Suddenly a thought came into her mind. Why should she not talk to him—while she was waiting?
“Are you badly hurt?” she asked, softly.
He groaned. “I am a dead man.”
“They tell me I am dying, too,” she said. “Why have they put us here in this corner, away from the others?”
“Because neither of us is in great pain, and we are both hopeless cases. They have no time to waste on us.”
“It is very strange to think that this is really the last of it. Are you prepared to die?”
“Prepared? What is prepared?” he answered. “One is never ready to stop living. And there were a great many things I wanted to do yet.”
“Were any of them important?”