Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/206

 called either a woman or a great lady. She was, rather, the embodiment of an idea.

"You're safe," said Lily. "You may depend on it. I, myself, will see to it. I don't love the police or the Harrisons or Judge Weissman . . . I don't love any of them." She drew her chair nearer. "Now lie down and I'll bathe your head."

He lay down and instantly sat up again. "My head!" he protested. "It's all bloody. . . . It'll spoil everything." He picked up one of the pillows. "See, I've done it already. They're covered with blood."

Lily smiled at him in her charming fashion, an imperceptible, secret smile. She behaved as if she were entertaining a great man, an ambassador or a rich banker, as if she were intent only upon making him comfortable, at ease.

"It makes no difference," she said. "In a few days there will be no one to use the pillows. There are times, you know, when such things don't matter. Lie down," she commanded. "One must know when such things are of no account. It is part of knowing how to live."

Protesting, Krylenko laid his great body back gently and she bent over him, first removing the rings from her finger and placing them in a glittering heap upon the lacquer table. He closed his eyes with a sigh and she washed away with great gentleness the blood from his hair, from the side of his face. Her soft white fingers swept across the tanned face, then lower to where the throat became white and across the smooth, hard muscles of the shoulder until at last there was in her touch more of the caress of a woman than the ministering of a nurse.

"It is not serious," she said in a low voice. "The bullet only cut the skin."

She took the strips of linen and bound them with the same gentle, caressing fingers round and round his head. And presently she discovered that he was still watching her in a curious embarrassed fashion. When she had finished the dressing, she bathed the deep cut on his shoulder and bound it carefully.

At length he sat up once more. A sudden change came over him. His blue eyes grew dark, almost clouded.