“Don’t!” he protested. “Don’t you do it. It—it wasn’t anything like that. It—it was all right. I knew it anyway.”
“Knew what?”
He looked at me for a long time. Then he appeared to change the subject.
“Everything’s all right, old man. We’ve come to an understanding, Betty and I. It’s all settled as it should be. I’ve had a lot of time for long talks with Betty.” He laughed. “She’s opened her heart to me, at last, and told me everything. We—we’ve been exploring hidden country, Betty and I. Good phrase of Brack’s, that.”
I raised myself and held out my hand.
“Congratulations, George. I knew it would come out all right.”
His brows came down in puzzled, skeptical fashion as he took my hand. There was in his expression a tinge of suspicion, and he smiled as one smiles when humoring a sick man.
“There’s hidden country in you, all right, old boy,” he said. “You ought to play poker.”
More sleep and more nightmares, the latter now complicated by the presence of George. Brack no longer was dragging Betty to the rail; she was standing by George’s side; and Brack and I were playing poker. Then at last came the sane untroubled sleep of normal condition, and I awoke one morning ravenously hungry and glad that the sun was bright outside.
“You can join the convalescent squad now,” said Dr. Olson, and under the awning on the fore-deck I joined Pierce and Simmons, stretched at ease in luxurious deck-chairs.