The day dragged on.  Downstairs people ate and read and wrote letters, and outside newspaper men talked together and gazed over at the house and photographed the doctors coming in and the doctors going out.  As for me, in the intervals of bringing things, I sat in Bella’s chair in the upper hall, and listened to the crackle of the nurse’s starched skirts.

At midnight that night the doctors made a thorough examination.  When they came out they were smiling.

“He is doing very well,” the younger one said—­he was hairy and dark, but he was beautiful to me.  “He is entirely conscious now, and in about an hour you can send the nurse off for a little sleep.  Don’t let him talk.”

And so at last I went through the familiar door into an unfamiliar room, with basins and towels and bottles around, and a screen made of Jim’s largest canvases.  And someone on the improvised bed turned and looked at me.  He did not speak, and I sat down beside him.  After a while he put his hand over mine as it lay on the bed.

“You are much better to me than I deserve,” he said softly.  And because his eyes were disconcerting, I put an ice cloth over them.

“Much better than you deserve,” I said, and patted the ice cloth to place gently.  He fumbled around until he found my hand again, and we were quiet for a long time.  I think he dozed, for he roused suddenly and pulled the cloth from his eyes.

“The—­the day is all confused,” he said, turning to look at me, “but—­one thing seems to stand out from everything else.  Perhaps it was delirium, but I seemed to see that door over there open, and you, outside, with—­with Max.  His arms were around you.”

“It was delirium,” I said softly.  It was my final lie in that house of mendacity.

He drew a satisfied breath, and lifting my hand, held it to his lips and kissed it.

“I can hardly believe it is you,” he said.  “I have to hold firmly to your hand or you will disappear.  Can’t you move your chair closer?  You are miles away.”  So I did it, for he was not to be excited.

After a little—­

“It’s awfully good of you to do this.  I have been desperately sorry, Kit, about the other night.  It was a ruffianly thing to do—­to kiss you, when I thought—­”

“You are to keep very still,” I reminded him.  He kissed my hand again, but he persisted.

“I was mad—­crazy.”  I tried to give him some medicine, but he pushed the spoon aside.  “You will have to listen,” he said.  “I am in the depths of self-disgust.  I—­I can’t think of anything else.  You see, you seemed so convinced that I was the blackguard that somehow nothing seemed to matter.”

“I have forgotten it all,” I declared generously, “and I would be quite willing to be friends, only, you remember you said—­”

“Friends!” his voice was suddenly reckless, and he raised on his elbow.  “Friends!  Who wants to be friends?  Kit, I was almost delirious that night.  The instant I held you in my arms—­It was all over.  I loved you the first time I saw you.  I—­I suppose I’m a fool to talk like this.”