"Then would you mind not staring so? You—upset me."
"I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, and worried her into a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his head back and his eyes shut.
So—the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle lay undisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceased running, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently. That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into the Nurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it across the hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side, and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had been putting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant was waiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something in his face she had not seen there before.
"Shall we breakfast?" he said.
"I told you yesterday——"
"Think a minute," he said softly. "Is there any reason why we should not breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, but she did not speak. "Unless—you do not wish to."
"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to—fix that——"
"So I will if you say the word."
"And—to forget all about it."
"That," said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as I live. Do you say the word?"