Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/99

 Please don't look as though you thought it were anything serious, Miss Trehearne. I assure you, it's nothing. Lots of people have it."

"It is serious. Anything that has to do with the heart is serious."

Lawrence smiled faintly.

"Is that a joke?" he asked. "If it is, please let me sit up."

"No—that isn't a reason," answered Fanny, laughing a little, though her eyes were still grave. "You must lie still a little longer. You might faint again, you know. It must be dangerous to have one's heart behaving so strangely."

"Oh—I don't believe so."

"You don't believe so? You mean that it's possible, but that you hope it won't stop? Is that it?"

"Oh—well—perhaps. But I don't think there's any real danger. Besides—if it did, it's easy, you know."

"What's easy?"

"It's an easy death—over at once, in a flash. No lingering and last words and all that." He laughed.