“Cuts always feel worse than they are——”
“I could tell. By the way they looked when I said anything. My eyes—were left whole.” Her voice was conversational. “Why wasn’t I—cut all to pieces while I was about it? I might just as well be dead.”
“Félicie, you mustn’t say such things!” Joy said weakly.
“I might—just as well be dead. You can’t deny it. What is left me? No man could stand a face all gashed and sewed——”
“You don’t know it’s going to be all——”
“Oh, yes—I do. . . . Don’t let Hal Jennings come in here—will you? I know it wasn’t his fault—we would never have left the dance if I hadn’t wanted some excitement—but he stands for—everything for which I’ve always passed up Greg and the only things that matter. The—only things—that matter! They all come under—love, Joy. And I passed Greg up—and now it’s too late.”
An interlude while the nurse appeared and pleasantly hinted for Joy’s departure, which brought about a paroxysm beneath the bandages,——
“I want her to stay! She’s got to stay! It isn’t as if I were really sick! I wish I was, but you know I’m not! She’s got to stay! You can go to your lunch now, or something! You know the doctor said I could see people and be alone and things!”
And when the nurse departed, whether on a search for the doctor or her lunch Joy did not know; “I hate her! Oh, my God, I wish I were dead!”
It was at that awful moment while Joy racked her bursting brain for what to say that a knock came at the door.