“Thank God!” He kissed her hand.
But returned to his text as a man will. “No, I am not jealous. How could I be? You have honoured me, dowered me beyond all other men. But you are so precious, so supremely and unutterably precious. Margaret, my heart is suddenly shaken. Tell me again. You are not ill, not really ill? When this trying time is over, when I can be with you always....”
“How about those hours I want to myself?” she interrupted.
“When I can be within sound of you, taking care of you all the time, you will be well then?” Now she put a hand on his knee. “Your little fairy hand!” he exclaimed, capturing it.
“I want you to listen,” she began. She did not know or believe herself that she was seriously ill, but remembered what Dr. Lansdowne had said and shivered over it a little.
“Suppose I am really ill, that it is heart disease with me as the German doctors and Lansdowne told me? Not only heart weakness as the others say, would you be afraid? Do you think I ought not to ... to marry?”
“My darling, it is impossible, your beautiful vitality makes it impossible. But if it were true, incredibly true, then all the more reason that we should be married as quickly as possible. I must snatch you up, carry you away.” There was an interlude. “You want petting....” He was a little awkward at it nevertheless, inexperienced.
“Isn’t there some great man you could see, and who would reassure you, some specialist?”
“The Roopes?” She laughed, and her short fit of seriousness was over.
“I will find out who is the best man, the head of the profession. No one but the best is good enough for my Margaret. You will let me take you to him?”