revising. So care was needed; otherwise cigarette and pen might have been shot from her mouth. When she spoke her utterance was indistinct and mumbling.
"I suppose you infer that you are more at home in heaven than hell," she said, "since just a touch makes you feel a saint. I should say it was the other way about. You are so at home in the other place that the most abysmal depths of infamy have to be presented to you before you know they are wicked at all, whereas you hail as divine the most infinitesimal distraction that breaks the monotonous round of vice. Perhaps I am expressing myself too strongly, but I feel strongly. The world is more high-colored to me than to other people."
"Darling, I never heard such a moderate and well-balanced statement," said Dodo. "Do go on."
"I don't want to. But I thought your optimism about yourself was sickly, and wanted a—a dash of discouragement. But you and Nadine are both the same: if you behave charmingly, you tell us to give the praise to you; if you behave abominably you say, 'I can't help it: it was Nature's fault for making me like that.' Now I am not like that: whatever I do, I take the responsibility, and say, 'I am I. Take me or leave me.' But I have no doubt that Nadine believes it has been too wonderful of her to fall in love with Hugh. And when she jilts Seymour, she says 'Enquire at Nature's Workshop; this firm is entirely independent.' Bah!"
Dodo laughed, but her laugh died rather quickly.
"Ah, don't be hard, Edith," she said. "We most of us want encouragement at times, and we have to encourage ourselves by making ourselves out as nice as we can. Otherwise we should look on the mess we make of things as a hopeless job. Perhaps it is hopeless but that is the one thing we mustn't allow. We are like"—Dodo paused for a simile—"we are like children to whom is given a quantity of lovely little squares of mosaic, and we know, our souls know, that they can be put together into the most beautiful patterns. And we begin fairly well, but then the devil comes along, and jogs our elbow, and smashes it all up. Probably it is our own stupidity, but it is more encouraging to say it is the devil or nature, something not ourselves. Good heavens, my elbow has jogged often enough! And when the pattern gets on well, we encourage ourselves by saying, 'This is clever and good and wise Me doing it now!' And then perhaps something very big and solemn comes our way, and we bow our heads, and know it isn't ourselves at all."
Edith had finished erasing her blot, and was gathering her sheets together. She tapped them dramatically with an inky forefinger.
"This is big and solemn," she said. "But it's Me. The artist's inspiration never comes from outside: it is always from within. I'm going to send it to have the band parts copied to-day."
At the moment the message came that Hugh received, and Dodo got up. He had received Edith one morning, but the effect was that he had eaten no lunch and had dozed uneasily all afternoon. Edith had been content with the explanation that her vitality was too strong for him, and, while ready to give him another dose of it, did not press the matter; anyhow, she had other business on hand.
He lay propped up in bed, with a wad of pillows at his back. He looked far more alert and present than he had yet done. Hitherto, he had been slow to grasp the meaning of what was said to him, and he hardly ever volunteered a statement or question, but this morning he smiled and spoke with quite unusual quickness.
"Morning, Aunt Dodo," he said. "I'm awfully brisk to-day."
Nurse Bryerley put in a warning word.
"Don't be too brisk," she said. "Please don't let him be too brisk," she added, looking at Dodo.
"Hughie, dear, you do look better," she said; "but we'll all be quite calm, and self-contained like flats."
Hugh frowned for a moment; then his face cleared again.
"I see," he said. "Bright, aren't I? Aunt Dodo, I have certainly woke up this morning. You look real, do you know; before I was never quite certain about you. You looked as if you might be a good forgery, but spurious. Have a cigarette, and why shouldn't I?"
"Wiser not," said Nurse Bryerley laconically.
Hugh's briskness did not seem to be entirely good-natured.
"How on earth could a cigarette hurt me?" he said. "Perhaps it would be wiser for Lady Chesterford not to smoke either. Aunt Dodo, you mustn't smoke. Wiser not."
Nurse Bryerley smiled with secret content.
"That's right, Mr. Graves," she said. "I like to see my patients irritable. It always shows they are getting better."
"I should have thought you might have seen that without annoying me," said Hugh.
"Well, well, I don't mind your having one cigarette to keep Lady Chesterford company," said the nurse. "But you'll be disappointed."
Dodo took out her case as Nurse Bryerley left the room. "Here you are, Hughie," she said.
Hugh lit one, and blew a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.
"Are they quite fresh, Aunt Dodo?" he said.
"Yes, dear, quite. Doesn't it taste right?"
"Yes, delicious," said Hugh, absolutely determined not to find it disappointing. "I say, what a sunny morning!"
"Is it too much in your eyes?"
"It is rather. Will you ask Nurse Bryerley to pull the blind down? Why should you?"
"Chiefly, dear, because it isn't any trouble."
Dodo pulled down the blind too far on the first attempt to be pleasing, not far enough on the second. Hugh felt she was very clumsy.
"Isn't Nadine coming to see me this morning?" he asked. "But I daresay she is tired of sitting with me every day."
Dodo came back to her chair by the bed again.
"She went off with Jack to Winston this morning," she said. "Just for a change. She was very much tired and overdone. You've been a fearful anxiety to her, you dear bad boy."
Hugh put his cigarette down and shut his mouth, as if firmly determined never to speak again.
"She came in to say good-by to you," she said, "but you were asleep and they didn't want to wake you."
There was still dead silence on Hugh's part.
"It was only settled she should go yesterday," she continued, "and she had to be persuaded. But Jack wanted one of us, and, as I say, she was very much overdone. Now I'm not the least overdone. So I stopped. But I wish she could have seen how much more yourself you were when you woke to-day."
At length Hugh spoke.
"What is the use of telling me that sort of tale?" he said. "She is going to be married to Seymour in a few days. She has gone away for that. I suppose in some cold-blooded way she thought it better to sneak off without telling me. No doubt it was very tactful of her."
Dodo turned round towards him.
"No, Hughie, you are quite wrong," she said. "Nadine is not going to marry Seymour at all."
Hugh lifted his right hand, and examined it cursorily. A long cut, now quite healed, ran up the length of his forefinger.
"I see," he said. "She said
