At first he resisted. Perversely he frowned, as if the thing increased his pain, annoyed him beyond words. He all but cried out to the well-meaning hands to stop.
“Doesn’t it feel good?” asked Aurora, anxiously.
He relaxed. Without opening his eyes, he nodded to thank her, and as he yielded himself up to the hands it seemed to him that those passes drew his spirit after them quite out of his body.
“I don’t think I’ll go up with you,” Estelle said unexpectedly when on the next day they stopped before the narrow yellow door in Borgo Pinti. “I’ll wait here in the carriage. I’m nervous myself to-day. Give my best regards to Gerald. I hope you’ll find him better.”
Aurora did not take time to examine into the possible reasons for her friend’s choice. She climbed the long stairs sturdily, managing her breath so that she did not have to stop and rest on the way.
She followed the stern Giovanna, unsubdued by the latter’s hard and jealous looks, to the door of her master’s chamber.
She went toward the bed, smiling at the sick man over an armful of white lilacs.
He half rose in his bed and quickly, disconnectedly, impetuously, said:
“My dear friend, this is most good of you. I’m sure I 284thank you very much. I’m very, very much better, as you can see. I shall be out again in a day or two.” He was visibly trembling; his eyes flared with excitement. “That being the case, my dear lady, I earnestly beg you will not trouble to come like this every day.” He stopped to choke and cough, then wrenching himself free from strangulation–“Aurora,”–he changed his key and tune,–“do let me be ill in peace! Here I am on my back, with a loosened grip on everything, and it’s taking an unfair advantage to invade my privacy as you do. Take away those lilacs with you, won’t you, please? We haven’t any more vases to put them in; they’d have to be stuck in a bedroom water-jug. Giovanna won’t let me have flowers in my room, anyhow; she says they are bad for me. Don’t be offended! I know you mean nothing but to be kind, but the thing you are doing is devilish.... What do you think I am made of? I don’t want you to be offended, but I have got to say what I can to keep you from coming to this house and troubling me in my illness. I have got to say it plainly and fully because you, Aurora, never understand anything that is not said to you in so many words. I might try and try my best to convey the same idea to you in a gentle and gentlemanly way, and not a scrap of good would be done. I’ve got to talk like a beast. I wish to be alone. Is that clear? I’ve just struggled and waded my way out of one quagmire; I do not wish to enter another. Is that plain? I wish to feel free to be ill as much and as long as I choose. It concerns nobody. It concerns nobody if I die. It would be an excellent thing, saving me the trouble later of blowing out my brains.... My God, Aurora, have you understood?” he almost shouted.