with the two children clinging to his coat-tails, all
three quite unmindful of the rain, and yelling like
Comanches.


Ten minutes later he had donned his professional
dignity, entered my room, and beheld me in all my limp
and pea-green beauty. I noted approvingly that he had to
stoop a bit as he entered the low doorway, and that the
Vandyke of my prophecy was missing.

He took my hand in his own steady, reassuring clasp.
Then he began to talk. Half an hour sped away while we
discussed New York--books--music--theatres--everything
and anything but Dawn O'Hara. I learned later that as we
chatted he was getting his story, bit by bit, from every
twitch of the eyelids, from every gesture of the hands
that had grown too thin to wear the hateful ring; from
every motion of the lips; from the color of my nails;
from each convulsive muscle; from every shadow, and
wrinkle and curve and line of my face.

Suddenly he asked: "Are you making the proper effort
to get well? You try to conquer those jumping nerfs,
yes?"

I glared at him. "Try! I do everything. I'd eat
woolly worms if I thought they might benefit me. If ever
a girl has minded her big sister and her doctor, that
girl is I. I've eaten everything from pate de foie gras