He welcomed the interruption, she saw. He was very professional instantly, and so absorbed for a moment in relieving the child's pain that he could ignore his own.
“Let's see it,” he said in a businesslike, slightly strained voice. “Better have it out, old chap. But I'll give you something just to ease it up a bit.”
Which he proceeded to do. When he came back to Lily he was quite calm and self-possessed. As he had never thought of dramatizing himself, nor thought of himself at all, it did not occur to him that drama requires setting, that tragedy required black velvet rather than tooth-brushes, and that a small boy with an aching tooth was a comedy relief badly introduced.
All he knew was that he had somehow achieved a moment in which to steady himself, and to find that a man can suffer horribly and still smile. He did that, very gravely, when he came back to Lily.
“Can you tell me about it?”
“There is not very much to tell. It is Louis Akers.”
The middle-aged clerk had disappeared.
“Of course you have thought over what that means, Lily.”
“He wants me to marry him. He wants it very much, Willy. And—I know you don't like him, but he has changed. Women always think they have changed men, I know. But he is very different.”
“I am sure of that,” he said, steadily.