"They'll find a cure for it," pursued he. "But not till the day after I'm gone. That is the way my luck runs. Still, I don't see why I should care to stay—and I don't! Have you any more of that whiskey?"
Susan brought out the bottle again, gave him the last of the whiskey—a large drink. He sat up, sipping it to make it last. He noted the long row of books on the shelf fastened along the wall beside the bed, the books and magazines on the table. Said he:
"As fond of reading as ever, I see?"
"Fonder," said she. "It takes me out of myself."
"I suppose you read the sort of stuff you really like, now—not the things you used to read to make old Drumley think you were cultured and intellectual."
"No—the same sort," replied she, unruffled by his contemptuous, unjust fling. "Trash bores me."
"Come to think of it, I guess you did have pretty good taste in books."
But he was interested in himself, like all invalids; and, like them, he fancied his own intense interest could not but be shared by everyone. He talked on and on of himself, after the manner of failures—told of his wrongs, of how friends had betrayed him, of the jealousies and enmities his talents had provoked. Susan was used to these hard-luck stories, was used to analyzing them. With the aid of what she had worked out as to his character after she left him, she had no difficulty in seeing that he was deceiving himself, was excusing himself. But after all she had lived through, after all she had discovered about human frailty, especially in herself, she was not able to criticize, much less condemn, anybody. Her doubts merely set her to wondering whether he might not also be self-deceived as to his disease.
"Why do you think you've got consumption?" asked she.
"I was examined at the free dispensary up in Second Avenue the other day. I've suspected what was the matter for several months. They told me I was right."