“It’s partly physical, just as some men—the bravest—cannot stand the sight of blood. But I must talk to him.... Claudia, you are dead tired. There’s nothing more to be done at the moment. She’s still unconscious.” The clock in the room struck eleven, and she dropped wearily into a chair. His keen eyes suddenly took on a tenderness that she did not see as they searched her drawn face. “Have you had a meal this evening?”
She shook her head without raising her eyes, for she suddenly felt a weak sort of feeling, so that she was afraid if she looked up and met his gaze the tears would come running down her cheeks. He would despise her for such an exhibition, but everything—everything seemed so wrong and miserable.
“Then you’ll have one at once.... Yes, I know you feel as if you can’t eat, but you must.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and there was something so sympathetic and yet so invigorating in his touch that she felt new courage flow into her veins. She did not know that the sight of two tears that would escape down her cheeks ere she could overcome her weakness nearly unnerved him, and made the cheap tawdry little room suddenly blur before his eyes.
What he said to Jack, Claudia never knew, but ten minutes later Jack came out of the dining-room looking like a whipped cur, but holding his head with a certain forced rigidity, and his lips were steady as he said to her:
“Claudia, is there anything I can do? I’ve been a beast, I know. Shall I”—he could not control a wince of repugnance—“shall I go to her?”
She told him that she was still unconscious. “But when she recovers, if she asks for you, you must go to her.”
“Yes, I will, I will. Only, Claud, for God’s sake don’t go away and leave us to-night. I couldn’t stand that.”
Claudia looked at Paton inquiringly. Everyone seemed to be doing that to-night. There was a slight pinkness of her eyes, and somehow, to Paton, it gave her a new and rather pathetic character. The dark eyes were very heavy but curiously beautiful in the white face, and the hard brilliancy that had characterized them recently had temporarily vanished.
“I’ll stay, too, if you wish,” said Paton simply, “but in case she recovers consciousness she might like to see a woman she knows as well as her nurse. A woman is always such a comfort to another in time of illness, don’t you think?”
“I hardly know,” admitted Claudia, trying to force some soup down her throat, “you see, I’ve never been in contact with such things as—grave illnesses. Of course I’ll stay.”