I owe an apology to that class.
XXXVI
WE were all sitting around the big hall stove, and papa said:
“Put your feet on the fender, Marion, and get them warm.”
Mama was feeding me with a big spoon of ice-cream, which Reggie tried to snatch away, and then he would throw red-hot coals in my face. Screaming:
“Reggie! Reggie! Stop! Stop!” I woke up.
A man was sitting on the bed in my little room, and he was holding my wrist. I recognized him as a young doctor who had attended Miss Darling when she had the grippe. He had straight blond hair and a gentle expression. Standing by him was the girl who had taken the big room on the first floor a few days before. I had noticed her, because she dressed so well and had so many visitors. Now she was holding some ice on my head, and I heard her say to the doctor that she had just put a hot-water bag on my feet. She was not beautiful like Rose St. Denis, for she was short and stout, but she had a large, generous mouth, which, when she laughed, showed the most beautiful teeth, and she laughed a great deal so that one could not help liking her. “How is she, doctor?” she asked, and he replied:
“She ought to stay in bed some time. Her temperature is a hundred and five. I’m afraid of her being left alone. Has she no one to take care of her?”
“No, no,” I moaned weakly. “I have nobody. They are all dead.”
“Who was that ‘Reggie’ you were calling for?” asked the girl, and I said: