“You’ve never been ill yet, Zeen! It won’t be anything this time.”
“I’m ill now, Zalia.”
“Wait, I’ll get a light. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“In bed, in bed ... then it’ll be for good, Zalia; I’m afraid of my bed.”
She felt along the ceiling for the lamp, then in the corner of the hearth for the tinder-box; she struck fire and lit up.
Zeen looked pale, yellow, deathlike. Zalia was startled by it, but, to comfort him:
“It’ll be nothing, Zeen,” she said. “I’ll give you a little Haarlem oil.”
She pulled him on to a chair, fetched the little bottle, put a few drops into a bowl of milk and poured it down his throat.
“Is it doing you good?”
And Zeen, to say something, said: