“Yes. You see, my mother died when I was born.”
The nurse, watching those lips, still pale with pain, felt a queer pang. She smoothed the bed-clothes and said:
“That's nothing—it often happens—that is, I mean,—you know it has no connection whatever.”
And seeing Gyp smile, she thought: 'Well, I am a fool.'
“If by any chance I don't get through, I want to be cremated; I want to go back as quick as I can. I can't bear the thought of the other thing. Will you remember, nurse? I can't tell my father that just now; it might upset him. But promise me.”
And the nurse thought: 'That can't be done without a will or something, but I'd better promise. It's a morbid fancy, and yet she's not a morbid subject, either.' And she said:
“Very well, my dear; only, you're not going to do anything of the sort. That's flat.”
Gyp smiled again, and there was silence, till she said:
“I'm awfully ashamed, wanting all this attention, and making people miserable. I've read that Japanese women quietly go out somewhere by themselves and sit on a gate.”
The nurse, still busy with the bedclothes, murmured abstractedly: