“To see me?” gasped Annette. “Oh! I don’t like to see sick people. I—I’m not a bit of good in a sick room.”
“But you can help make him well by calling on him for a few minutes, can’t you?” demanded Janice, sharply.
Annette caught the tone, and seemed to see something in Janice’s face that displeased her.
“I suppose you are in close attendance upon him, Miss Day?” she drawled. “Dear me! I shouldn’t think he would want anybody else.”
“I am not in attendance on him,” Janice said, sternly. “And he has not asked to see me. It is you he wants. I should think that you would have no hesitancy in going at such a time.”
“Oh, dear me!” said Annette, with one of her silliest smiles. “I have my reputation to think of. To go to a young man’s boarding place—of course, he’s ill——”
“Mrs. Beasely will be there, and Mrs. Beasely is above reproach,” said Janice, wearily, and turning toward the door. “You will come?”
“Now, really, I’d like to, of course. Poor Nelson! And he wants to see me? Just fancy!”
“And she never expressed any feeling for him at all,” Janice said over and over to herself as she trudged home. “What a wicked, heartless girl!”
Nelson was not so well that evening. Janice learned that Annette had called, but had remained only a few moments and had refused to enter the sick chamber save with Mrs. Beasely. That good lady said, with a sniff: