"I shall soon be strong enough to get up," said Lily. "I don't want to lie here longer than I need."
"You're like me," Miss Dickenson retorted. She possessed a wonderful power of extracting a personal application from apparently anything in the world. "That's just like me. I never can bear to give in. You know, sometimes I've really been on my last legs, as the saying is, and the Sister or someone has noticed it, and told me to slack off a bit. But I simply can't take things easily. I have to go on till I drop. That's absolutely me all over."
She leant back comfortably in an armchair as she spoke and began to polish her finger-nails with the palm of her hand—a favourite exercise.
"I was so awfully surprised at your not manicuring, Mrs. Aubray. It was one of the first things I noticed about you. You know, I'm afraid I always notice people's hands. It's the first thing I look at, almost. I suppose I sort of judge people by that. I sort of can't help it. I always look first of all at their hands."
Lily wondered, with the acrimony born of weariness, why this well-worn boast should almost invariably emanate from those least capable of any intelligent observation whatsoever.
She ignored Miss Dickenson's claim to perspicacity altogether, and replied to her earlier remark.
"I hope you don't feel that you have to go on till you drop, here. It's the last thing I should wish, and besides there's nothing but weakness the matter with me. I shall be getting up very soon—I hope before my aunt comes."
"Oh, yes, your aunt is coming. Now, when I'm ill, I never have any of my relations near me—not my sisters or anyone. It isn't that I don't think they'd come, you know, but I simply couldn't ask them. A weird sort of pride, I suppose. I really am a weird sort of person altogether, you know."
Lily closed her eyes.
"What makes you put that face on—it makes you look so weird. What were you asking about—oh, yes—me when I'm ill. It's too funny, you know. I go on and on long after other people would have let themselves collapse, and then, when I do have to give in, of course I'm most frightfully bad. I'm a fearfully bad patient, too, because I'm always down on the nurse. I suppose it's because I know so well how nursing ought to be done."