“It makes no difference,” she said. “In a few days there will be no one to use the pillows. There are times, you know, when such things don’t matter. Lie down,” she commanded. “One must know when such things are of no account. It is part of knowing how to live.”
Protesting, Krylenko laid his great body back gently and she bent over him, first removing the rings from her finger and placing them in a glittering heap upon the lacquer table. He closed his eyes with a sigh and she washed away with great gentleness the blood from his hair, from the side of his face. Her soft white fingers swept across the tanned face, then lower to where the throat became white and across the smooth, hard muscles of the shoulder until at last there was in her touch more of the caress of a woman than the ministering of a nurse.
“It is not serious,” she said in a low voice. “The bullet only cut the skin.”
She took the strips of linen and bound them with the same gentle, caressing fingers round and round his head. And presently she discovered that he was still watching her in a curious embarrassed fashion. When she had finished the dressing, she bathed the deep cut on his shoulder and bound it carefully.
At length he sat up once more. A sudden change came over him. His blue eyes grew dark, almost clouded.
“You are a good nurse,” he said, and took another drink from the silver flask.
Lily moved about, clearing away the blood stained cloths and the bowl of reddish water. The soft glow of the lamp captured the silver of her kimono and fixed it as she moved with a flashing light. And all the time Krylenko regarded her with a strange look of awe, as if he had never before seen a woman.
“Strange,” she said presently, “that we should meet like this. You, who have never seen me before.”
Krylenko stirred and ran one strong hand awkwardly over the back of the other. “I’ve seen you before ... twice ... No ... three times. Once on that day you came to the Mills, once in the street in your carriage and once”—he looked up—“once in this room, right here. You were with the boss that time ... dancing with him.”
Lily laughed softly. She must have remembered the shameless gown of chartreuse green. “I’ll never be dancing with him again. I doubt if I ever see him.”