I am very, very well."
He thought it was one of those things that people say when they mean
that death is well. He gathered her to him as if he could hold her
back from death. She looked smiling into his face.
"Keith," she said, "you _didn't_ have a mackintosh. You must go away
at once to Robert and get dry."
"Not now, Lucy. Let me stay."
"How long can you stay?"
"As long as ever you'll let me."
"Till you go to Italy?"
"Very well. Till I go to Italy."
"When are you going?"
"Not till you're well enough to go with me."
"How did you know I was ill?"
"Because I saw that Kitty had had to finish what your dear little
hands had begun."
"Ah--you should have had them sooner--"
"Why should I have had them at all? Do you think I would have
published them before I knew I had dedicated them to my wife?"
"Keith--dear--you mustn't talk about that yet."
She hid her face on his shoulder; he lifted it and looked at it as if
it could have told him what he had to know. It told him nothing; it
had not changed enough for that. It was like a beautiful picture
blurred, and the sweeter for the blurring.
He laid his hand over her heart. At his touch it leapt and throbbed
violently, suggesting a new terror.
"Darling, how fast your heart beats. Am I doing it harm?"
"No, it doesn't mind."
"But am I tiring it?"
"No, no, you're resting it."
She lay still a long time without speaking, till at last he carried
her upstairs and delivered her into Kitty's care.
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