Page:Hare and Tortoise (1925).pdf/206

 by struggling to free himself, and by trying to prevent her from bathing him with her lotions.

In one access of delirium he sat up, glared at her with unrecognized fury, and shouted, "Get to hell out of this room, before I break in your skull!"

Whereupon she walked straight to the bed, pinned his shoulders to the pillow, and retorted, "Don't you say another word till I tell you to; if you order me out I may go, and if I do there'll be no one to give you a drink. Now lie still."

She held his eyes until she saw a return of lucidity. He collapsed, and said feebly, "Have I been bad? I can't have you overhearing me if I ramble."

She had overheard many illuminating scraps of confession. "Listen, Mr. Dare dear," she said, with tears in her eyes. "If you're going to get well soon, you must be perfectly quiet. The rambling doesn't matter, but try to fix it in your mind that you mustn't be rough. You're so terribly strong!"

"What's the use of getting well?" he moaned.

A few moments later his good intentions were consumed in the heat of new hallucinations. "Is that Claudia?" he shouted. "Oh God, it must be a thousand in the shade."

Sometimes he hummed a few bars of a lively melody, in appallingly unmusical tones. With a remorse that closed her ears to the grotesqueness of the performance Louise recognized the tune of their dance.

In a few days the ranch settled down to the new