“My dear boy, no!” Mother said, and George groaned as he always does when she calls him boy, but invalids can’t be choosers of phrases. “You aren’t going to die just yet.” She went on, kindly banging his pillows about—“I shall have to stay here with you a little, though, I fancy, to look after you. I shouldn’t wonder if they didn’t make objections in the house. There will be a bit of a fuss.”
“Who will make a fuss, Mother?” I asked, “and why should they?”
“Don’t ask questions about what you don’t understand,” Mother said sharply, though what else really should I ask questions about? “Run home and tell your Aunt that I am going to get a room here for a night or two, and that she is to send my things, just what I’ll want for a couple of nights.”
“Night-gown and toothbrush,” said I. As I left George put out his hand to Mother and said quite nicely—
“You are very good to me, dear. And can you really stay and soothe the sick man’s pillow?”
Mother sat down and put the blanket in its proper place, not grazing his cheek, and gave him a drink, and read to him out of Anatole France. She kept saying, “I know they’ll think I am not respectable.”
The thought seemed to amuse her very much, and George too, and I left them, and went home and gave Aunt Gerty her directions. Aunt Gerty chuckled as Mother had said she would, and said—
“This will clear up George’s ideas a little! Nothing like an ugly illness for letting a man know who his true friends are! Looks lovely, don’t he? Is its blessed poet’s nose a good deal swollen?”
I said no, George looked very nice in bed, a mixture of the Pope and Napoleon combined. I left her and went back to Mother with her things. George by that time was arranged. He had a silk handkerchief tied over his forehead. He said he did that to keep his brain from being too active, like the British workman girds his loins with a belt before he begins to dig. He looked very happy and quite stupid. I took our cat Robert the Devil up with me and put him on George’s chest to soothe him. It did, and he played with my hair.
“I am an angel when I am ill,” he said; “don’t you find me so? Strong natures like mine——”