said, evading a direct answer,
and trying to infuse extra kindness into her voice to make up for the
evasion.

"Oh, it's just the fag end of that beastly jungle fever I got in India.
Gaynor understands it like a native. Gave me some drops. Indian specific
for the thing, you know. So I'm forgiven--eh? It's _pax_ between us?"

"Yes--_pax_," said Sophy. She felt very tired, and turned as if to draw
up a chair, but the big hands held her fast.

"No--no--not an inch away from me, even for a second. Sit here--on the
bed--close to me."

She let him draw her down. She could not keep her eyes from his face.
There was something in it--a strangeness. It was Cecil's face and yet it
was not quite his face. Or was it his voice that was strange? Yes; there
was something in his voice. It was almost as though he were imitating
himself. She felt that her own thoughts were becoming mixed. But the
impression of strangeness--of something queer--grew upon her. And all at
once, as she became accustomed to the shaded lamp, she noticed, with an
odd little start of the spirit, that his eyes were pale, and dull
again--like bits of glass that have been rubbed together--like those
pale, greenish glass marbles that boys call "taws." It was doubly
striking--this change in his eyes--because of the way that they had been
over-dark and dilated only a little while ago. His lips, too, she
noticed, were very dry. As he talked eagerly, volubly, he kept sipping
champagne from the glass that Gaynor had filled just before leaving the
room. Sometimes his lips stuck to his teeth, they were so dry. And his
upper lip caught up for an instant in this way, gave him a peculiar,
unnatural look.

"Isn't the medicine that Gaynor gives you very strong?" she asked
anxiously. "Isn't it dangerous to take such strong medicine--without a
doctor's advice?"

She was so utterly ignorant of the effects of opium or morphia, that she
put aside the things that Olive Arundel had told her, as she listened to
his excited, garrulous talk. Opium gave wonderful dreams--deep sleep.
Morphine was used to quiet delirium. This could not be the effect of
either of those drugs. It seemed much more probable to her that what he
had said was the simple truth, and that Gaynor had given him some strong
Oriental medicine to check the effects of fever.

"No--no--nonsense," he cried, in answer to her suggestion, a fretful
look crossing his forehead. Then a sort of slow ecstatic expression
crept