"If you can do it, it's best so," she said, simply.
"Of course—of course," agreed Gano, hastily, his Puritan mind involuntarily considering the proprieties, even in these haunts.
"You see, while you sleep I can look after him, and do my work too if I have daylight. You can write by lamplight."
And the practical sense of the arrangement shamed his first interpretation of her plan. He found himself during their brief meetings, morning and evening, watching the woman with a deepened interest.
"Am I in love with her, too?" he wondered, as he caught himself following with something like envy her ministering to his friend.
But all she did was strangely lacking in any hint of the supposed relation between Driscoll and herself. There was infinite gentleness in her, but no happy confusion. Gano never saw in her quiet eyes that look he was always dreading to surprise.
"She doesn't care about him in the way he thinks, poor devil!" he said, at last, to himself.
The only time he ever ventured to speak of her goodness to the sick man, "Oh, Mr. Driscoll has been kind to me," she said. "He got me my place on the Semaine Illustrée."
Why, it was a sheer case of extravagant gratitude! Gano was conscious this explanation pleased him.