"Will not you sit down? It seems monstrous that I should be lying here letting you wait upon yourself. Will you try that one?" pointing to the chair which is figuring at the same moment so prominently in Jim's tormented fancy. "I am afraid you will not find it very comfortable. I have not tried it yet, but it looks as hard as a board."
She sits down meekly as he bids her, glad to be no longer obliged to depend upon her shaky limbs, and answers:
"Thank you; it is quite comfortable."
"Would not it be better if you had a cushion?"—looking all round the room for one.
His voice is courteous, tender almost, in its solicitude for her ease. But is she asleep or awake? Can this be the same voice that poured the frenzy of its heartrending adjurations into her ear scarce a month ago? Can this long, cool, white saint—he looks somehow like a young saint in his emaciation and his skull-cap—be the stammering maniac who, when last she saw him, crashed down nigh dead at her feet, slain by three words from her mouth?
At the stupefaction engendered by these questions, her own brain seems turning, but she feebly tries to recover herself.
"I—I am so glad you are better."
"Thank you so much. Yes, it is nice; nice to be
"'Not burnt with thirsting,
Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting.'
Do you remember Keats?"