still full of that unrebuffable, loving energy and
insistence which she would probably keep to the last minute of her
life.

"No," said the Crusader, still in those empty, listless tones. "I'd
rather not talk. I'm tired."

His mother seemed not at all put out.

"Of course, darling," she said, kissing him. She sat by him still,
however, and poured out sentence after sentence of question, insistence,
imploration, and pity, eliciting no answer at all. Phyllis wondered how
it would feel to have to lie still and have that done to you for a term
of years. The result of her wonderment was a decision to forgive her
unenthusiastic future bridegroom for what she had at first been ready to
slap him.

Presently Mrs. Harrington's breath flagged, and the three women went
away, back to the room they had been in before. Phyllis sat and let
herself be talked to for a little longer. Then she rose impulsively.

"May I go back and see your son again for just a minute?" she asked, and
had gone before Mrs. Harrington had finished her permission. She darted
into the dark room before her courage had time to fail, and stood by the
white couch again.

"Mr. Harrington," she said clearly, "I'm sorry you're tired, but I'm
afraid I am going to have to ask you to listen to me. You know, don't
you, that your mother plans to have me marry you, for a sort of
interested head-nurse? Are you willing to have it happen? Because I
won't do it unless you really prefer it."

The heavy white lids half-lifted again.

"I don't mind," said Allan Harrington listlessly. "I suppose you are
quiet and trustworthy, or De Guenther wouldn't have sent you. It will
give mother a little peace and it makes no difference to me."

He closed his eyes and the subject at the same time.

"Well, then, that's all right," said Phyllis cheerfully, and started to
go. Then, drawn back by a sudden, nervous temper-impulse, she moved back
on him. "And let me tell you," she added, half-laughing,
half-impertinently, "that if you ever get into my quiet, trustworthy
clutches you may have an awful time! You're a very spoiled invalid."

She whisked out of the room before he could have gone very far with his
reply. But he had not cared to reply, apparently. He lay unmoved and
unmoving.

Phyllis discovered, poising breathless on the threshold, that somehow
she had seen his eyes. They had been a little like the wolfhound's, a
sort of wistful gold-brown.

For some reason she found th