1
But, it later appeared, that was not all that had interested her. “Oh, one’s been thinking such a lot!” she told Ivor weakly, when he saw her a few afternoons later.
“Well, such as?” Ivor smiled. The commonplace of treating an ill person like a child occurred to him vividly. One couldn’t help it.
“About people,” Virginia explained vaguely. “And about clouds....”
“We had a nice lot of clouds downstairs, too,” Ivor told her.
“Poor Ivor,” she said softly.
“My clouds,” she said, “were different. They rolled off people, and I saw people clearly. They’ll be rolling back again soon, I daresay....”
“Where did I come in?” he asked. And he wanted to know, too. He loved Virginia.
“You didn’t, Ivor.” She turned her head on her pillow and stared at him very seriously. How gray and wan she was! “There haven’t been any clouds on you for ages—we pushed them off together, don’t you remember? We insisted on that.... You did, anyway. You are the nice man of my life, Ivor.... I kept on telling myself that I would mention that to the higher authorities when I was dead.”
“This dying business,” Ivor said almost frantically, “has got on our nerves, Virginia.”