“Fit?” Stephen said it rather indignantly.
“Well—if it wasn’t, it was a pretty good imitation one. I called it a fit. Horace called it something in Latin. And you began saying things you’d no business to say, so I wasn’t going to call any one in. So I just got you into the next room, and on to the bed.”
“You?”
“Me!”
“But you couldn’t.”
“No, of course I couldn’t. But I did. You can’t faze an American woman. We’re not made that way. You’re not so awfully heavy, and I just hauled and twisted until I’d done it. You never know till you try. I don’t go in much for horses—I never did. But once I held a runaway team of Blue Grass Kentuckies for three miles on the Shell Road, outside ’Frisco. They pulled. But I held on. And I slowed them down all right in the end. I got you on to the bed and telephoned for Horace. No strangers wanted! You fussed about a bit—but I managed.”
“Why did you bother?” he asked in a curious tone. Her answer was prompt. “Because I like you. I always have liked you—very much indeed.”
The sick man’s thin hand crept over the eiderdown and rested on hers.
“Horace came,” she continued, “and we bundled you up in blankets and things and brought you around here. At first I said you shouldn’t be moved. But Horace said you’d be better here than so near Bond Street, and, after all, he’s a doctor. So—well, we just moved you.”
“And you’ve nursed me ever since.”