"I still want Monica."
Mary dropped her head and did not answer. She recognised it as one of the signs that he was going to live. And she recognised the unbending obstinacy in his voice.
"I shall come for you too in time," he said to her, looking at her with his terrible scarlet eyes.
She did not answer, but her hand trembled as she went for his medicine. There was something prophetic and terrible in his sallow face and burning, blood-shot eyes.
"Be still," she murmured to him. "Only be still."
"I shan't ever really drop you," he said to her. "But I want Monica first. That's my way."
He seemed curiously victorious, making these assertions.