“Now,” she said, “pop them in! You've no idea how they'll send you to sleep! They're the most splendid things; perfectly harmless. Just let them rest on the tongue and swallow!”
John let them rest—they were sweetish—and swallowed.
“How is it, then,” he said, “that you never go to sleep before two?”
Frances Freeland corked the little bottle, as if enclosing within it that awkward question.
“They don't happen to act with me, darling; but that's nothing. It's the very thing for any one who has to sit up so late,” and her eyes searched his face. Yes—they seemed to say—I know you pretend to have work; but if you only had a dear little wife!
“I shall leave you this bottle when I go. Kiss me.”
John bent down, and received one of those kisses of hers that had such sudden vitality in the middle of them, as if her lips were trying to get inside his cheek. From the door he looked back. She was smiling, composed again to her stoic wakefulness.
“Shall I shut the door, Mother?”
“Please, darling.”
With a little lump in his throat John closed the door.