Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/419

THE AMERICAN of men, in the tears and the terrors of women, and he had no arms against it. At last a sound struck on the stillness and he heard Valentin's voice.

"It can't be about me you're pulling that long face!" He found when he turned that his patient lay in the same position, but with eyes now open and showing the glimmer of a smile. It was with a very slender strength that he felt the pressure of his hand answered. "I've been watching you for a quarter of an hour," Valentin went on; "you've been looking as if you too had had to swallow some vile drug. You're greatly disgusted with me, I see. Well, of course! So am I!"

"Oh, I shan't abuse you," said Newman. "I feel too badly. And how are you getting on?"

"Oh, I'm getting off! They've quite settled that. Are n't you here to see me off?"

"That 's for you to settle; you can get well if you try," Newman declared with a queer strained quaver.

"My dear fellow, how can I try? Trying's violent exercise, and that sort of thing is n't in order for a man with a hole in his side as big as your hat, which begins to bleed if he moves a hair's breadth. I knew you 'd come," he continued; "I knew I should wake up and find you here; so I'm not surprised. But last night I was very impatient. I did n't see how I could keep still without you. It was a matter of keeping still, just like this; as still as a mummy in his case. You talk about trying; I tried that! Well, here I am yet—these twenty hours. It's more like twenty days." Valentin's speech was slowly taken, with strange precautions and punctuations, but it 389