Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/341

 before her and began to take off her sodden shoes. 'Get a glass of hot cognac and water—will you, Amélie,' he said, over his shoulder, and Amélie, crying out that it was precisely what Madame Michon had advised, sped away on the behest.

Graham, deftly, quietly, poured out the water and chafed Jill's icy feet as he put them into the basin. He often bathed Jill's feet for her, and never failed to remark on their beauty. But to-day he said nothing. And she suffered his ministrations in silence.

Amélie brought the cognac and she drank it obediently, and then, when the feet were dried.

'Now,' she said, 'I'm going to sluice down with hot water and go to bed.'

Dick had risen and was looking at her. 'The best thing you can do. A long sleep is what you need. Like mine.' Still he looked at her. 'Such dreams, Jill;—such strange long dreams I've had.'

She saw from his eyes that his dream was still about him and seeing it she felt again the sense of an unearthly radiance that had come to her on the mountain road. She and Dick were suddenly near together; almost as near as she and Marthe had been. They were friends in a deep, final sense that made of the nearness of marriage a clumsy, inadequate device. They were smiling at each other and tender, foolish thoughts came to her mind. 'Not too strange I hope,' she said. 'What would your horrid Freud make of them?'

'He's welcome to make what he likes.—Are you going to sleep in here?' There was the little bed in the