All the doctors in the world could not have done Christine so much good. She lay on the sofa, and Paul sat beside her, looking into her face with miserable anxiety; and so great was her delight in his awkward tenderness, his terrible concern, that it needed no effort to smile.
“Don’t worry so, Paul, dear,” she entreated.
“I can’t help it, my dearest girl. If we love each other, and share our work and our play, we can’t help sharing each other’s pain. And you know, don’t you, little Christy—”
She could have wept when the telephone rang, because she wanted so dreadfully to hear the rest of that last sentence. She watched Paul cross the room and take down the receiver. Then he turned and dashed toward the hall.
“Miss Banks’s house is on fire!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave the door unlatched for the doctor!”
Off he went. Christine sat up.
“You beast!” she sobbed. “You horrid little beast! You’ve spoiled everything! You did it on purpose—I know you did!”
This was manifestly unjust. Miss Banks might have been capable of burning down a house to attract attention, but she couldn’t have known just the right moment in which to do it. She might have been glad enough to interrupt Paul’s speech, but she couldn’t have managed it so well unless chance had favored her.
Christine, suffering as she was, may well be excused for being unreasonable. Perhaps it would be kinder not to tell you all the things she thought about Miss Banks.
The village fire apparatus went tearing down the road with a noble uproar. Surely that should have released Paul, but still he didn’t come, or the doctor, either, and Christine began to grow alarmed.