“It was the doctor. Your mother was not quite herself this evening. He came in to see her, but he does not think she is ill. 'Rest and change,' he says she needs.”
Paul gave the words a certain depth of consideration. “Are you as well as usual, Moya?”
“Oh, I am always well,” she answered cheerlessly. “I seem to thrive on anything—everything,” she corrected herself, and blushed.
The blush made him gasp. “You are more beautiful than ever. I had forgotten that beauty is a physical fact. The sight of you confuses me.”
“I always told you you were morbid.” Moya's happy audacity returned. “Now, how long are you going to sit and think about that?”
“Do I sit and think about things?” His reluctant, boyish smile, which all women loved, captured his features for a moment. “It is very rude of me.”
“Suppose I should ask you what you are thinking about?”
“Ah! I am afraid you would say 'morbid' again.”
“Try me! You ought to let me know at once if you are going to break out in any new form of morbidness.”
“I wish it might amuse you, but it wouldn't. Let me put you a case—seriously.”