nfusion of mind, of
groping to recollect where I was and why and what had last happened to me.

When I recalled my last waking experience I lay bathed in sleepy
contentment. I could think connectedly enough to reason out, or my
unthinking intuitions presented to me without my thinking, the conviction
that, if Vedia could recognize me in a big pool among scores of swimmers,
if her perceptions in regard to me were acute enough and quick enough for
her and her alone to notice that I had fainted in the water, if she cared
enough for me and was sufficiently indifferent to what society might say
of her, for her to rescue me and sit down on the pavement of the
_tepidarium_ and pillow my wet head on her wet thighs till I showed signs
of life, I need not worry about whether Vedia cared for me or not. I was
permeated with the conviction that, however difficult it might be to get
her to acknowledge it, however great or many might be the obstacles in the
way of my marrying her, Vedia loved me almost as consumedly as I loved
her.

In this frame of mind I convalesced steadily, if slowly, incurious of the
flight of time, of news, of anything; content to get well whenever it
should please the gods and confident that happiness, even if long
deferred, was certain to follow my recovery.

After I could talk to Occo and Agathemer and seemed to want to ask
questions, which both of them discouraged, one morning, on wakening for
the second time, after a minute allowance of nourishment and a refreshing
nap, I found Galen by my bedside.

He looked me over and asked questions, as physicians invariably do,
concerning my bodily sensations. After he seemed satisfied he asked:

"My son, were you ever ill before you were hit on the head in your recent
affrays?"

"Never that I remember," I answered.

"I judge so," he said. "If you had not been blessed with the very best
physique and constitution you would have died in your friend's litter on
the Salarian Highway. Thanks to your general strength and healthiness, and
thanks, to some extent, to my care and that of my colleagues, you are
alive and on the way to complete, permanent recovery and to long life with
good health. But you very nearly committed suicide when you went out and
about contrary to my orders. I say all this solemnly, for I want you to
remember it. If you disobey again, you will, most likely, be soon buried.
If you obey you have every chance of getting so well that you can safely