“I am going to breakfast,” said she, calmly.
“Without even wishing me good-morning! After refusing point-blank just to step along the corridor in the night when I might have been dying! You’re a nice wife!”
“Now, look here, Harry; I don’t pretend to do more than just my simple duty to you, and don’t for a moment set myself up for a model wife.”
“I should think not indeed! Everybody would laugh if you did.”
“Everybody would laugh, as you say, if I pretended to show any affection for a husband so selfish that he will break a night’s rest of a very good nurse—I have been that, remember—on the most trifling pretexts. I dare say you think it an honor to choose me instead of Mrs. Stanley to put on a poultice or arrange a bandage; but I assure you it is one I don’t appreciate. You are nearly well now, and the task I set myself of seeing you through your illness is over. My presence can only irritate you now, and I think of taking the hint you have often given me, and going to-day.”
“Go? What—leave me here all alone when I’ve shown you I like to have you near me? All right—go along then, you hard, heartless vixen! No, no,” he called, as she turned again toward the door—“Annie, Annie, I didn’t mean it—I’m not ungrateful—I have been selfish! Don’t go till I’m quite well; don’t leave me all alone, Annie, till I can get about again! I like to hear your voice; and you move so quietly, and you talk so prettily—I’m always dull when you’re out of the room—I’m sorry I’ve been so cross. Don’t go, Annie, till I’m quite well. Wait till next week. Won’t you wait just till next week, Annie?”
She came back to his side again, looking very grave.
“Look here, Harry,” she said; “you are well enough now for me to speak to you seriously, as I could not speak when you were lying there likely to die. You have been very rude to me and ungracious, considering that I came simply to do my best to get you well quickly. Now the duty I set myself is over, and I assure you, strange as it may seem to you, I feel no irresistible wish to stay here a moment longer than is necessary. If you wish me to stay here still and do my best to amuse you until you are strong enough to amuse yourself again, I will do so, on one condition. It is that now you will drop the tone of childish insolence to me which I have excused on account of your illness, and speak to me as other men speak to their wives—no better than that,” she added, with a slight shade of irony.
“So you want to preach and domineer over me,” protested Harry, rather sulkily, “just because I said I didn’t mind your being in the room. Yes, yes, I will be civil,” he added hastily, as Annie’s head moved away; “I didn’t mean to be rude to you: I really am grateful for the way you have taken care of me. Only don’t speak to me in that hard voice: just say something in your soft, pretty way, and I shall come round directly. You always get over me when you speak in your soft voice, you know.”
“Well, then, may I go to breakfast, Harry?” said she, smiling, and taking the hand he involuntarily stretched toward her.