"But Hilda is a very good nurse."
"Do you think of her only as a—good nurse?"
He turned that over in his mind. "No. In a sense she's rather attractive. She satisfies a certain side of me—."
"The best side?"
He avoided an answer to that. "When she is away I miss her."
And now Miss Emily, shaking a little, but not showing it, made him face the situation squarely.
"Have you ever thought that, missing her, you might want to marry her?"
"I have thought of it. Why not, Emily?"
"Have you thought that it would make her your Jean's—mother—?"
His startled look met her steadfast one. His mind flew back to Hilda as she had bent down to him the night before, that he might unfasten the necklace. He thought of the evil that her eyes saw in him, and in the rest of the world. He thought of Jean, and of her white young dreams.