Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/327

  oh, Zuleika, if one is n’t a bit advanced in any way, does n’t it seem hard to keep from marrying somebody you love just for the good of a few frivolous children you’ve never seen in your life?”

It was neither the place, the hour, nor the subject for laughter, but I forgot my neurasthenia and gave way to a burst of wholehearted mirth! Every second of time seemed to increase the unconscious humor of her point of view, and only fear of the nurse on duty in the corridor enabled me to control myself at all.

“Have I been funny?” she asked delightedly, as she drew her head in the window. “I never can see my own jokes, but I’m glad to have amused you, only I did hope for a little sympathy. Everybody can’t be Zenobias and Vashtis and Lauras, superior to common weaknesses!”

“I do, I do sympathize,” I said, wiping the tears of merriment from my eyes, “and I agree with you much more than with Laura. Now the ‘other man’ is, I suppose,