“No, I don’t believe I’m very well!” Julia admitted restlessly, lighting the shaded lamp on the centre table, and snapping off the side lights that so mercilessly revealed her pale face and burning eyes.

“Not well enough for the theatre?  Well, but darling, I don’t care one snap for the theatre,” Jim assured her eagerly.  “Only I hate to see you so nervous and tired.  Has it been a hard day?  Aunt Sanna—?”

“No, your aunt’s an angel to me—­no, it’s been an easy day,” Julia said, dropping into a chair, and pushing her hair back from her face with a feverish gesture.  A second later she sprang up and disappeared into the assembly hall.  “I thought I mightn’t have locked the door,” she said, returning.

“Why, sweetheart,” Jim said, in great distress, “what is it?  You’re not one bit like yourself!”

“No, I know I’m not,” Julia said wildly.  She sat down again.  “I’ve been thinking and thinking all day, until I feel as if I must go crazy!” she said with a desperate gesture.  “And it’s come to this, Jim—­Don’t think I’m excited—­I mean it.  I—­we can’t be married, Jim.  That’s all.  Don’t—­don’t look so amazed.  People break engagements all the time, don’t they?  And we aren’t really engaged, Jim; nobody knows it.  And—­and so it’s all right!”

Anything less right than Julia’s ashen face and blazing eyes, and the touch of her cold wet little hands, Jim thought he had never seen.  He stepped into the bathroom, and ran his eye along the trim row of labelled bottles on the shelf.

“Here, drink this, dear,” he said, coming back to her with something clear and pungent in a glass.  “Now, come here,” and half lifting the little figure in his arms he put her on the couch, and tucked a plaid warmly about her.  “Don’t forget that your husband is also a doctor,” said Jim, sitting down so that he could see her face, and hold one hand in both of his.  “You’re all worn out and excited, and no wonder!  You see, most girls take out their excess emotion on their families, but my little old girl is too much alone!”

Julia’s eyes were fixed on him as if she were powerless to draw them away.  It was sweet—­it was poignantly sweet—­to be cared for by him, to feel that Jim’s warm heart and keen mind were at her service, that the swift smile was for her, the ardour in his eyes was all her own.  For perhaps half an hour she rested, almost without speaking, and Jim talked to her with studied lightness and carelessness.  Then suddenly she sat up, and put her hands to her loosened hair.

“I must look wild, Jim!”

“You look like a ravishing little gipsy!  But I wish you had more colour, mouse!”

“Am I pale?” Julia asked, with a little nervous laugh.  Jim dropped on one knee beside her, and studied her with anxious eyes, and she pushed the hair off his forehead, and rested her cheek against it with a long sigh as if she were very tired.

“What is it, dear?” asked Jim, with infinite solicitude.