"That is fine," he said, his flute-like voice making melody in the studio and in his hearer's heart. "You must have done well, lately. How much have you sold altogether?"
"A long story to the 'Alhambra,' a funny skit to the 'Woman's Hearth' and an article or two to some smaller concerns. Try to make it last, for I had to spend nearly all my month's salary—oh, Liol, Liol!"
A burst of coughing interrupted her and turned her wind-flushed face white. She stood in silence, knowing that nothing infuriated the dying boy like sympathy, and held her breath, waiting for the paroxysm to pass. So long did it last, however, that she forgot all caution and, rushing to the sick man's side, caught his hand and screamed aloud.
"Oh, Liol, Liol, do you want to kill me? Won't you go to that retreat? and try to live for my sake? Oh try, only try! I can't bear it! I thought I could, but I can't. Oh, for God's sake, go! try it, only try it for a little while"—
He snatched his hand away and flung himself on the couch, shaking with weakness and fury.
"Again?" he cried, raging. "You ask me again to go to one of those vile cures? after all I've said and sworn? God in Heaven! how often must I tell you that, if I've only a few months to live, I'm going to live! not die by inches. Fool that you are!"
She covered her face with her hands and turned away from him.
"Go to those beastly mountains," he snarled, venomously. "Go where all that makes life worth living will be out of reach and I dogged by a pack of vile, prying doctors and attendants! If you're tired of keeping me I'll take an extra dose and end it to-night!"
"Liol!"
"Then don't madden me! Here! you said you couldn't stay long, didn't you? My last poems are on the table. Send a couple more to 'Hosmer's Monthly'—they asked for them—God! is this another fit coming on? ... There! I feel better. It passes sometimes and I daresay I'll outlive you all, yet." His face brightened and became luminous with hope and defiance. The terrible paroxysm of coughing had flooded his dusky cheeks with rose; his black hair curled limply back from his damp forehead; his magnificent eyes expanded and fired with the consumptive's cheating illusion of future health. Beside his glowing, burning beauty Lynn Thayer seemed one of those daughters of earth who, in former ages, loved the sons of God. She devoured him with her eyes in a silence so tense and sorrow-laden that the very air seemed to vibrate with it.