Why shouldn’t she go out to dinner? He simply hoped that she was enjoying herself. And, as he ate his solitary dinner, he thought about this; he imagined Miss Selby enjoying herself somewhere, sitting at some other table, and probably with some other young man sitting opposite her.[Pg 378]
He knew how she would look if she were enjoying herself, with that lovely color in her cheeks, and that wonderful smile of hers. Well, it was none of his business—absolutely none of his business.
And yet, after dinner, he found occasion to stop the landlady in the hall, and to say, with an air of courteous indifference:
“That young lady who sits at my table—didn’t see her to-night. Has she gone away?”
“No, Mr. Anderson!” answered Mrs. Brown, with stern solemnity. “She has not. She’s lying upstairs, sick, at this very moment that I’m speaking to you. And I think it’s pneumonia, that’s what I think.”
“Pneumonia!” he cried. “But only last night—”
“It takes you sudden,” Mrs. Brown asserted. “And Miss Selby—well, people have often said to me how blooming she looked, but well I knew it was nerve, and nerve alone, that kept her going. Nerve strength!” she sighed. “It’s a treacherous thing, Mr. Anderson. You live on your nerves, and then, all of a sudden, they snap—like that!”
And her bony fingers snapped loudly, a startling sound in the dimly lit hall. The young man was in no condition to judge of the value of Mrs. Brown’s medical opinion; he was simply panic-stricken.
He went out of the house in a sort of blind haste, and began to walk along roads strange to him, under a cloudy and somber sky. He heard the voice of the wind in the trees, and to his unaccustomed ears it held no solace, but was a voice infinitely mournful.
Pneumonia! That little, little pretty thing—so far from home—ill and alone in a boarding house. Such a young, little thing.