Borrowed!
I sat down at once by Jack’s bedside.
“What are you going to tell me?” I asked.
“How prosaic you are, Rose.”
“Well, you never like me to make a fuss.”
“That is true, and no doubt you will act sensibly in the present emergency. It is nice to be pitied, and affection is of value, but sense, oh yes, unquestionably common sense comes first of all.” I could not help gazing at Jack with wide-open round eyes while he was speaking.
“You never in your whole life asked me to show feeling or affection,” I managed to gasp out. “What do you mean by regretting it now? Your head must be wandering.”
“Well, well, Rose, perhaps it is. It certainly aches badly enough to account for any vagaries in my speech. But now to business—or rather to the kernel of the matter. Rose, I am going to be very ill, very dangerously ill—do you understand?”
“I hope I don’t, Jack. You have a bad headache, which will soon get better.”
“I repeat, I am going to be dangerously ill. I have taken fever. I know the symptoms, for I have watched them in another.”