She turned, walked across the room with a slow, careless step, as if the effort was scarcely worth while. There was an antique mirror on the wall, and she stopped before it and looked herself over.
"It isn't wise, is it?" she said. "It makes me look like a ghost. No, it doesn't make me look like one; it simply shows me as I am. It couldn't be said of me just now that I am at my best, could it?"
Then she turned around.
"I don't seem to care!" she said. "Don't I care! That would be a bad sign in me, wouldn't it?"
"I should consider it one," he answered. "It is only in novels that people can afford not to care. You cannot afford it. Don't wear a dress again which calls attention to the fact that you are so ill and worn as to seem only a shadow of yourself. It isn't wise."
"Why should one object to being ill?" she said. "It is not such a bad idea to be something of an invalid, after all; it insures one a great many privileges. It is not demanded of invalids that they shall always be brilliant. They are permitted to be pale, and silent, and heavy-eyed, and lapses are not treasured up against them." She paused an instant. "When one is ill," she said, "nothing one does or leaves undone is of any special significance. It is like having a holiday."
"Do you want to take such a holiday?" he asked. "Do you need it?"
She stood quite still a moment, and he knew she did it because she wished to steady her voice.
"Sometimes," she said at last, "I think I do."