"But you won't have to give me up; we are going to be neighbors still, and see each other every day. And you won't be ill again, you know. You are acclimated now, Dr. Hope says."
"Yes—I hope so; I am sure I hope so. And yet, do you know, I almost think I would go through the fever all over again for the sake of having you take care of me!"
"Why, my dear child, what a thing to say! It's the greatest compliment I ever had in my life, but yet—"
"It's no compliment at all. I should never think of paying you compliments. I couldn't."
"That is sad for me. Compliments are nice things, I think."
Imogen suddenly knelt down and put her arms on Clover's lap as she sat by the window.
"I want to tell you something," she said in a broken voice. "I was so unjust when I came over,—so rude and unkind in my thoughts. You will hardly believe it, but I didn't like you!"
"I can believe it without any particular difficulty. Everybody can't like me, you know."
"Everybody ought to. You are simply the best, dearest, truest person I ever knew. Oh, I can't half say what you are, but I know! You have heaped coals of fire on my head. Perhaps that's the reason my hair has fallen off so," with a mirthless laugh. "I used to feel them burn and burn, on those nights when I lay all scorching up with fever, and you sat beside me so cool and sweet and patient. And there is more still. I was jealous because I fancied that Isabel liked you better than she did me. Did you ever suspect that?"
"Never till you were ill. Some little things that you muttered when you were not quite yourself put the idea into my head."