"I'll be all right," George kept saying, "if you'll fix a headgear to cover my new soft spot."
And finally:
"I'll be all right if you'll only leave me alone."
Yet, when they had, Squibs came, totally forgetful of his grave problems of the classes, foreseeing no disaster nearly as serious as a defeat by Yale—"now that we've done so well against Harvard, and would have done better if you hadn't got hurt"—limping the length of the sick-room until the nurse lost her temper and drove him out. Then Goodhue arrived as the herald of Josiah Blodgett, of all people.
"This does me good," George pled with the nurse.
And it did. For the first time in a number of weeks he felt amused as Blodgett with a pinkish silk handkerchief massaged his round, unhealthy face.
"Thought you didn't like football," George said.
"Less reason to like it now," Blodgett jerked out. "Only sensible place to play it is the front yard of a hospital. Thought I'd come down and watch you and maybe look up what was left afterward."
George fancied a wavering of the little eyes in Goodhue's direction, and became even more amused, for he believed a more calculating man than Blodgett didn't live; yet there seemed a real concern in the man's insistence that George, with football out of the way, should spend a recuperative Thanksgiving at his country place. George thought he would. He was going to work again for Blodgett next summer.
Betty and Mrs. Bailly were the last callers the nurse would give in to, although she must have seen how they helped, one in a chair on either side of the bed; and it was difficult not to look at only one. In her eyes he sought for a souvenir of those tears, and wanted to tell her how sorry he was; but he wasn't really sorry, and anyway she mustn't guess that he knew. Why had Mrs. Bailly bothered to tell him at all? Could her motherly instinct hope for a coming together so far beyond belief? His memory of the remote portrait reminded him that it was incredible in every way. He sighed. Betty beckoned Mrs. Bailly and rose.