She took him upstairs.
On the landing she turned to him.
"She doesn't look worse. She looks better."
"All right. She won't deceive me."
She did look better, better than he could have believed. There was a faint opaline dawn of color in her face.
Heaven only knew what he talked about, but he talked; for over a quarter of an hour he kept it up.
And when he rose to go he said, "You're not worse. You're better. You'll be perfectly well if you'll only get up and go out. Why waste all this glorious air?"
"If I could live on air!" said Alice.
"You can—you do to a very large extent. You certainly can't live without it."
Downstairs he lingered. But he refused the tea that Gwenda offered him. He said he hadn't time. Patients were waiting for him.