Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/81

 "All right."

"But have whichever you'd rather, Joe. Or would you rather have something cool, some orange juice?"

Kate was a wonderful nurse, he told himself, slipping into the dark waters, numb with the exhaustion that came after the pain, when the bones in his body felt as if they had been pulverized. And then he was swirling in a whirlpool of nightmare, borrowing again, seeing the faces change as he asked, losing everything.

He struggled back into his own room, his own bed. Kate was sitting by him, holding hot milk in a blue cup with flowers on it. A paper pinned on the lampshade shielded his eyes and threw the light on her bright hair and compassionate face. He and she were stretched out on cushioned chairs on the terrace; through blossoming lemon trees they saw the blue Mediterranean, turquoise and sapphire gleaming through emerald and gold and pearl, like that heavenly city in the Bible or somewhere, he thought, impressed with himself for remembering.

The house was cold that week. Kate and Lizzie struggled with the furnace, but there was an edge in the air; the snowy wind came keenly through every crack. Kate, shivering, her nose pink, her golf cape hugged tightly around her, would run into the kitchen to stand with her back up to the stove, drinking hot water, her teeth chattering against the cup. Late at night, light-headed with exhaustion, she would watch the white moon falling down the cold sky, dragging