Page:Possession (1926).pdf/239

 It was a stiff greeting, somewhat awkward, not because the boy was unwelcome but because Clarence, who would have welcomed the devil himself for the sake of his wife, was ill at ease. It may have been the dream that disturbed him.

Fergus pulled up a chair beside the bed, and asked if his brother-in-law were ill.

"It's nothing," was the answer. "It's just a bilious attack. I have them every now and then. . . . I'll be over it in a day or two."

Then he lay back once more, wearily, and asked Fergus about his trip and about his mother and father and the people in the Town—all save the Setons. They made polite conversation to each other and Clarence, beneath the spell of the boy's friendliness, melted a little so that the stiffness presently slipped away. But after a time the conversation for want of interest died back into silence and Fergus went to the window to feast his young eyes on the panorama of the river and the great city into which he had escaped. The boy was happy with an animal sort of joy which showed itself in the very lines of his tall body, in the brightness of his blue eyes. He too was free now, a rover, attached to nothing.

"It's a great place," he said presently, and turning from the window, added, "I think I'll get settled. . . . Where do I hang out?"

He had picked up his hat before Clarence said, "Wait. . . . There's something I want to talk to you about. . . . Just a minute." And then humbly after a pause: "It won't be long."

So the boy seated himself again and waited while Clarence sat up in bed, looking thin and worried in his mauve pajamas, and, after coughing nervously, said, "It's about Ellen. . . . You know her better than I do. . . . I've lived with her for three years but she's more like you. . . . She's not like me, at all."

Fergus stirred nervously and blushed a little, perhaps in doubt of what Clarence was to say. 