“Don’t be an ass, Alan,” I broke in good-naturedly. “I’m no more saint than you are. Well, am I to come in or not?”
“You can come in.”
I had expected a shoddy, disordered interior. The little apartment was immaculate; flower-boxes, red and white geraniums at the balcony which gave on a garden; neatness, order, charm. I sat, asking no questions,—puzzled. Was it from love of the man, or from the denied natural instinct towards home-building? Toinon served the dinner, which she had cooked herself; hesitated and then, at a sign from Alan, sat down with us. When Alan left the room she turned to me and said, in a warning voice: “He is very ill.”
Down the hall I heard him coughing.
“How ill?”
She shook her head.
“Does he realize—?”
“No, no.”
Dinner over, she cleared the table deftly and converted the room into a salon, brought the tisane to her invalid, lit our cigars and, drawing up her chair before the fire, began to crochet. But, all at once, looking up, she said:
“If you’d rather be alone?”