72
FLAMING
“No.
It’s a stimulant.
YOUTH
But I think you’d better not
try to talk for a while.” “T must ... Sid, dear, go into the other room, won’t you?”
Rathbone nodded, speechless for the moment. His hollowed eyes were full of the slow tears of relief. He bent over the sick woman’s face for a moment and was gone, obediently. “JT want to tell you,” said Mona, as soon as the door had closed, “about this.”
“There isn’t any need,” returned Osterhout. “No. There isn’t,” agreed Mona. “The situation explains itself, doesn’t it??? She smiled at him, equably but without hardihood. “It does.” “Are you being my wise doctor or my reproachful friend? Are you thinking to yourself: ‘Mona, I wouldn’t have thought it of you!) Because, if you are——”
- “T’m not.”
‘You mean that you would have thought it of me. How dare you, Bobs!” she demanded elfishly. He did not respond to her raillery, which he recognised for the expression of tortured nerves. “I wish you wouldn’t talk,” he said.
“T will,” she retorted mutinously. “It won’t hurt me. At worst, it won’t hurt me nearly as much as to hold in what I want to say. Bobs, was this attack brought on by —by my foolishness?” “Very possibly. It certainly didn’t help any,” he replied grimly. “Suppose I’d died here,” she mused. “I very nearly did.” “So I should judge.” “What a scandal there’d have been! And what a tezt
