Lee tensed as he saw that she was smiling now; and she opened her eyes. His hand went to hers where it lay, so white, blue-veined on the white bedspread.
"I'm here, Anna. Feel better?"
"Oh, yes. I'm all right." Her faint voice, gently tired, mingled with the sounds from the party downstairs. She heard the laughter. "You should be down there, Lee. I'm all right."
"I should have postponed it," he said. "And what you did, preparing for it—"
She interrupted him, raising her thin arm, which must have seemed so heavy that at once she let it fall again. "Lee—I guess I am glad you're here—want to talk to you—and I guess it better be now."
"Tomorrow—you're too tired now—"
"For me," she said with her gentle smile, "there may not be any tomorrow—not here. Your grandfather, Lee—you really don't remember him?"
"I was only four or five."
"Yes. That was when your father and mother died in the aero accident and your grandfather brought you to me."
Very vaguely he could remember it. He had always understood that Anna Green had loved his grandfather, who had died that same year.