Ordinarily he would have combated this, as he combated most emphatic statements; but his willingness to let it pass unchallenged convinced her that there had been a sharp change for the worse in his condition.
It was the way of her contradictory nature to be moved to pity for him in his weakness, and a wave of tenderness swept her. After all, if he wished to cut her off with a hundred thousand dollars and give the rest to charity he had a right to do it.
She took the tray from the bed, smoothed the covers and passed her cool hand over his hot forehead.
“Please, papa,” she said, “don’t bother about business to-day. Miss Rankin says it’s only a cold, but she’ll have to report it to the doctor. I’m going to telephone him to drop in this morning.”
He demurred, but not with his usual venomous tirade against the whole breed of doctors.
“All right, Nan,” he said, clinging to her hand. “And I wish you’d tell Thurston to come in this afternoon. I want to talk to him about some matters.”
“Well, we’ll see the doctor first, papa. We can have Mr. Thurston in any time.”
She knelt impulsively beside the bed.
“I want you to know, papa, about wills and things like that, that I don’t want you to bother about me. I hope we’re going to live on together for long, long years. And anything you mean to do for me is all right.”
She hardly knew herself as she said this. It was an involuntary utterance; something she could not have imagined herself saying a few hours earlier as she lay in bed hating him for his meanness.