She thought, as he moved off, that Allan was handsome--more than handsome, indeed. He left an immediate conviction of his superb vitality of body and mind, the incarnation of a spirit created to prevail. Featured in almost faultless outline, of a character unconsciously, unaffectedly proclaiming its superior gravity among human ma.s.ses, he was a planet destined to have many satellites and be satellite to none; an _ego_ of genuine lordliness; a presence at once masterly and decorative.

And yet she was conscious of a note--not positively of discord, but one still exciting a counter-stream of reflection. She had observed that each time Allan turned his head, ever so little, he had a way of turning his shoulders with it: the perfect head and shoulders were swung with almost a studied unison. And this little thing had p.r.i.c.ked her admiration with a certain needle-like suspicion--a suspicion that the young man might be not wholly oblivious of his merits as a spectacle.

Yet this was no matter to permit in one's mind. For Nancy of the lengthened skirts and the ma.s.sed braids was now a person of reserves. Even in that innocent insolence of first womanhood, with its tentatively malicious, half-conscious flauntings, she was one of reticences toward the world including herself, with petticoats of decorum draping the child's anarchy of thought--her luxuriant young emotions "done up" sedately with her hair. She was now one to be cautious indeed of imputations so blunt as this concerning Allan. Besides, how n.o.bly he had spoken of Bernal. Then she wondered _why_ it should seem n.o.ble, for Nancy would be always a creature to wonder where another would accept. She saw it had seemed n.o.ble because Bernal must have been up to some deviltry.

This phrase would not be Nancy's--only she knew it to be the way her uncle, for example, would translate Allan's praise of his brother. She hoped Bernal had not been very bad--and wondered _how_ bad.

Then she went to him. Her first little knock brought no answer, nor could she be sure that the second did. But she knew it was loud enough to be heard if the room were occupied, so she gently opened the door a crack and peeped in. He lay on the big couch across the room under the open window, a scarlet wool dressing-gown on, and a steamer-rug thrown over the lower part of his body. He seemed to be looking out and up to the tree that appeared above the window. She thought he could not have heard her, but he called:

"Clytie!"

She crossed the room and bent a little over to meet his eyes when he weakly turned his head on the pillow.

"Nancy!"

He began to laugh, sliding a thin hand toward one of hers. The laugh did not end until there were tears in his eyes. She laughed with him as a strong-voiced singer would help a weaker, and he tried to put a friendly force into his grip of the firm-fleshed little hand he had found.

"Don't be flattered, Nance--it's only typhoid emotion," he said at last, in a voice that sounded strangely unused. "You don't really overcome me, you know--the sight of you doesn't unman me as much as these fond tears might make you suspect. I shall feel that way when Clytie brings my lunch, too." He smiled and drew her hand into both his own as she sat beside him.

"How plump and warm your hand is--all full of little whispering pulses. My hands are cold and drowsy and bony, and _so_ uninterested! Doesn't fever bring forward a man's bones in the most shameless way?"

"Oh, Bernal--but you'll soon have them decently hidden again--indeed, you're looking--quite--quite plump." She smiled encouragingly. A sudden new look in his eyes made her own face serious again.

"Why, Nance, you're rather lovely when you smile!"

She smiled.

"Only then?"

He studied her, while she pretended to be grave.

He became as one apart, giving her a long look of unbia.s.sed appraisal.

"Well--you know--now you have some little odds and ends of features--not bad--no, not even half bad, for that matter. I can see thousands of miles into your eyes--there's a fire smouldering away back in there--it's all smoky and mysterious after you go the first few thousand miles--but, I don't know--I believe the smile is _needed_, Nance. Poor child, I tell you this as a friend, for your own good--it seems to make a fine big perfection out of a lot of little imperfections that are only fairly satisfactory."

She smiled again, brushing an escaped lock of hair to its home.

"Really, Nance, no one could guess that mouth till it melts."

"I see--now I shall be going about with an endless, sickening grin. It will come to that--doubtless I shall be murdered for it--people that do grin that way always make _me_ feel like murder."

"And they could never guess your eyes until the little smile runs up to light their chandeliers."

"Dear me!--Like a janitor!"

"--or the chin, until the little smile does curly things all around it--"

"There, now--calm yourself--the doctor will be here presently--and you know, you're among friends--"

"--or the face itself until those little pink ripples get to chasing each other up to hide in your hair, as they are now. You know you're blushing, Nance, so stop it. Remember, it's when you smile; remember, also, that smiles are born, not made. It's a long time since I've seen you, Nance."

"Two years--we didn't come here last summer, you know."

"But you've aged--you're twice the woman you were--so, on the whole, I'm not in the least disappointed in you."

"Your sickness seems to have left you--well--in a remarkably unprejudiced state of mind."

He laughed. "That's the funny part of it. Did they tell you this siege had me foolish for weeks? Honest, now, Nance, here's a case--how many are two times two?" He waited expectantly.

"Are you serious?"

"It seems silly to you, doesn't it--but answer as if I were a child."

"Well--twice two are four--unless my own mind is at fault."

"There!--now I begin to believe it. I suppose, now, it _couldn't_ be anything else, could it? Yesterday morning the doctor said something was as plain as twice two are four. You know, the thing rankled in me all day.

It seemed to me that twice two ought to be twenty-two. Then I asked Clytie and she said it was four, but that didn't satisfy me. Of course, Clytemnestra is a dear soul, and I truly, love her, but her advantages in an educational way have been meagre. She could hardly be considered an authority in mathematics, even if she is the ideal cook and friend. But I have more faith in your learning, Nance. The doctor's solution seems plausible, since you've sided with him. I suppose you could have no motive for deceiving me?"

She was regarding him with just a little anxiety, and this he detected.

"It's nothing to worry about, Nance--it's only funny. I haven't lost my mind or anything, you know--spite of my tempered enthusiasm for your face--but this is it: first there came a fearful shock--something terrible, that shattered me--then it seemed as if that sickness found my brain like a school-boy's slate with all his little problems worked out on it, and wickedly gave it a swipe each side with a big wet sponge. And now I seem to have forgotten all I ever learned. Clytie was in to feed me the inside of a baked potato before you came. After I'd fought with her to eat the skin of it--such a beautiful brown potato-skin, with delicious little white particles still sticking to the inside where it hadn't all been dug out--and after she had used her strength as no lady should, and got it away from me, it came to me all at once that she was my mother. Then she a.s.sured me that she was not, and that seemed quite reasonable, too. I told her I loved her enough for a mother, anyway--and the poor thing giggled."

"Still, you have your lucid moments."

"Ah, still thinking about the face? You mean I'm lucid when you smile, and daffy when you don't. But that's a case of it--your face--"

"My face a case of _what?_ You're getting commercial--even shoppy. Really, if this continues, Mr. Linford, I shall be obliged--"

"A case of it--of this blankness of mine. Instead of continuing my early prejudice, which I now recall was preposterously in your favour, I survey you coldly for the first time. You know I'm afraid to look at print for fear I've forgotten how to read."

"Nonsense!"

"No--I tell you I feel exactly like one of those chaps from another planet, who are always reaching here in the H.G. Wells's stories--a gentleman of fine attainments in his own planet, mind you--bland, agreeable, scholarly--with marked distinction of bearing, and a personal beauty rare even on a planet where the flaunting of one's secretest bones is held to betoken the only beauty--you understand _that?_--Well, I come here, and everything is different--ideals of beauty, people absurdly holding for flesh on their bones, for example--numbers, language, inst.i.tutions, everything. Of course, it puzzles me a little, but see the value I ought to be to the world, having a mature mind, yet one as clean of preconceptions and prejudice as a new-born babe's."

"Oh, so that is why you could see that I'm not--"

"Also, why I could see that you _are_--that's it, smile! Nance, you _are_ a dear, when you smile--you make a man feel so strong and protecting. But if you knew all the queer things I've thought in the last week about time and people and the world. This morning I woke up mad because I'd been cheated out of the past. Where _is_ all the past, Nance? There's just as much past somewhere as there is future--if one's soul has no end, it had no beginning. Why not worry about the past as we do about the future?

First thing I'm going to do--start a Worry-About-the-Past Club, with dues and a president, and by-laws and things!"

"Don't you think I'd better send Clytie, now?"

"No; please wait a minute." He clutched her hand with a new strength, and raised on his elbow to face her, then, speaking lower:

"Nance, you know I've had a feeling it wasn't the right thing to ask the old gentleman this--he might think I hadn't been studying at college--but _you_ tell me--what is this about the atoning blood of Jesus Christ? It was a phrase he used the other day, and it stuck in my mind."

"Bernal--you surely know!"

"Truly I don't--it seems a bad dream I've had some time--that's all--some awful dream about my father."