“Of course it’s absurd,” she said. “I know it’s absurd. But, somehow, little things do worry me, even when I know they’re silly. And there’s just enough that’s not silliness in this to let it be a real worry.”
“A genuine midge bite,” he suggested. “But, you know, rubbing it only makes it worse.”
She laughed a trifle shakily.
“And honestly,” he pursued, “though I do understand your—your conscience in the matter, I’m really very glad you’ve seen Mr. Danver.”
“Well, so was I,” owned Trix.
Again there was a silence. They were walking down a narrow lane bordered on either side with high banks and hedges. The dust lay rather thick on the grass and leaves. It had already covered their shoes with its grey powder. Doctor Hilary was turning certain matters in his mind. Presently he gave voice to them.
“It is exceedingly good for him that someone besides myself and the butler and his wife should know that he is alive, and that he should know they do know it. I agreed to this mad business because I believed it would give him an interest in living, eccentric though the interest might be.”
“It sounds so odd,” she explained, “to hear you say that pretending to be dead could give any one an interest in life.” And she gurgled again. Trix’s gurgling was peculiarly infectious.
“Odd!” laughed Doctor Hilary. “It’s the oddest thing imaginable. No one but Nick could have conceived the whole business, or found the smallest interest in it. But he did find an interest, and that was enough for me. He is lonely now, I grant. But before this—this invention, he was stagnant as well as lonely. His mind, and seemingly his soul with it, had become practically atrophied. His mind has now been roused to interest, though the most extraordinarily eccentric interest.”