Then he went away to get her breakfast. All day long he was conscious of nothing but her. It was a long ache that made him feverish. Then, when he got home in the early evening, he glanced through the kitchen window. She was not there; she had not got up.
He ran straight upstairs and kissed her. He was almost afraid to ask:
“Didn’t you get up, Pigeon?”
“No,” she said. “It was that morphia; it made me tired.”
“I think he gives you too much,” he said.
“I think he does,” she answered.
He sat down by the bed, miserably. She had a way of curling and lying on her side, like a child. The grey and brown hair was loose over her ear.
“Doesn’t it tickle you?” he said, gently putting it back.
“It does,” she replied.
His face was near hers. Her blue eyes smiled straight into his, like a girl’s—warm, laughing with tender love. It made him pant with terror, agony, and love.
“You want your hair doing in a plait,” he said. “Lie still.”
And going behind her, he carefully loosened her hair, brushed it out. It was like fine long silk of brown and grey. Her head was snuggled between her shoulders. As he lightly brushed and plaited her hair, he bit his lip and felt dazed. It all seemed unreal, he could not understand it.
At night he often worked in her room, looking up from time to time. And so often he found her blue eyes fixed on him. And when their eyes met, she smiled. He worked away again mechanically, producing good stuff without knowing what he was doing.
Sometimes he came in, very pale and still, with watchful, sudden eyes, like a man who is drunk almost to death. They were both afraid of the veils that were ripping between them.
Then she pretended to be better, chattered to him gaily, made a great fuss over some scraps of news. For they had both come to the condition when they had to make much of the trifles, lest they should give in to the big thing, and their human independence would go smash. They were afraid, so they made light of things and were gay.
Sometimes as she lay he knew she was thinking of the past. Her mouth gradually shut hard in a line. She was holding
