“Yes, but how did you know?” She lifted the distorted, tear-stained face wonderingly.
“You were quite a child when you made that fight, at an age when I was still in the schoolroom. And you fought fairly, and made lots of friends. Look at the crowds of letters you get, asking how you are. Fay, go on fighting. Don’t give in now.”
There was complete silence. The dark head was motionless. Claudia knew she was taking in the idea, for whenever Fay wanted to reason with herself, she always thought in silence. She always took a special interval from life to do her thinking.
“But what am I to fight for?” she said at length.
“To keep your own respect and the respect and admiration of all who know you. Poor Jack loves you very much in his way, and he is distracted. Help to steady him, Fay. He is beginning to look at life more seriously. He admires you immensely as an artist, make him admire you as a woman. You told me once that you didn’t want to do him any harm by marrying him. You can do him a great deal of good.”
“Poor old Jumbo! I scared him out of his life.” She gave a ghost of her gay smile. “I knew I’d get it out of him. No one else would tell me.”
“He’s known all the time,” went on Claudia, stroking her hair, as she would have a child’s. “It’s been a terrible burden, Fay. You can see from his face how he has been brooding over it. Jack’s never had to bear any kind of trouble in his life before. The world has been all rose-leaves for him. I think he’s been putting up a bit of a fight, too, because he hates trouble and illness, and all the uncomfortable things of life. He’s come pretty regularly to see you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he has. I see what you’re driving at. But why should I have to die? I swear to God I never did no one no harm that I know of. There was a chap once I was awful fond of, and him of me. We used to keep on meeting on the Stoll tour. One week his wife came along. She was a silly, soppy piece of goods; he liked a bit of a devil, like me, but she was dead stuck on him, and there was a baby coming. I sent him back to her, straight, I did. I wouldn’t have no truck with him. He sent me an awful nice letter when I got hurt. He’ll be sorry when—when he hears.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Fay was silent again, her blue eyes fixed on an absurd Teddy Bear on the chest of drawers. Then she said with a queer jumble of ideas that left Claudia speechless: