At twelve o'clock that night Mrs. Schum, without regaining consciousness, was rushed to the Saint Genevieve Hospital in East Seventy-eighth Street, for an emergency operation that had to do with a growth in her side.
It was Lilly's first contact with the casualty of sudden illness. In the little anteroom of the hospital, her hand in Harry's, she sat the remainder of the night through. He was constantly wiping away the tears from his light eyes and looking away to gulp. She reassured him where she could, tightening her hold of his hand.
"Don't—let them hurt her."
"They aren't hurting her, Harry dear. She can't feel at all under the anaesthetic."
"But they won't know. Gramaw won't let them know. Tell them, Lilly, she's that way—not to hurt her—please."
"Harry—dear!"
At dawn milk wagons began to clatter through streets no grayer than Harry's face. But at six o'clock Mrs. Schum was reported "as well as could be expected" and the operation apparently a success.
They rode home through the early morning, Lilly insisting upon a taxicab and Harry lying back, quite frankly spent, against her arm. Her vitality was unquenchable, mounted, in fact, under stress. Untired, she brewed him hot coffee, forced him to drink it and lie down; tidied up the little flat there at six-thirty o'clock in the morning, with a hit-and-a-miss it is true, but allaying all signs of confusion; fluted an Eton collar for Zoe and packed her off to school; and at half after eight, just out of a cold and invigorating shower, was combing out the fine electric rush of her hair, a pink Turkish bathrobe, the color of her firm, cool skin, wrapped tightly about her and caught in by a cord at her waist line.
Suddenly through the mirror she saw the door open, and before she could call out, Harry stood in the center of the room, his eyes running quite unmistakably over the contour of her sheathed body.
It was the first time he had ever violated the slightest nicety, and, outraged even in her pity for him, her hand flew up, drawing the robe closer at her breast.