"Jimmy."
Four hours later all my exasperatingly complicated arrangements for a two-weeks' absence were made—the requisite motions had been the purest somnambulism—and by the ample margin of fifty seconds I had caught an express—to do it that courtesy—moving with dignity, at decent intervals, toward all that I lived by and despaired of and held inviolably dear. But the irony of Jimmy's last three words went always with me, a monotonous ache blurring every impulse toward hope and joy. Susan was not dead, was not dying! "No cause for real worry." Jimmy would not have said that if he had feared the worst. It was not his way to shuffle with facts; he was by nature direct and sincere. No; Susan would recover—thank God for it! Thank—and then, under all, through all, over and over, that aching monotony: "She needs you. Jimmy. She needs you. Jimmy."
"Needs me!" I groaned aloud.
"Plaît-il?" politely murmured the harassed-looking little French captain, my vis-à-vis.
"Mille pardons, monsieur," I murmured back. "On a quelquefois des griefs particuliers, vous savez."
"Ah dame, oui!" he sighed. "Par le temps qui court!"
"Et ce pachyderme de train qui ne court jamais!" I smiled.
"Ah, pour ça—ça repose!" murmured the little French captain, and shut his eyes.
"She needs you. Jimmy. She needs you. Jimmy. She needs——"
Then, miraculously, for two blotted hours I slept. But I woke again, utterly unrefreshed, to the old refrain: She needs you—needs you—needs you. . . .