"Yes. He isn't well."
"Don't croak, Jim Crow."
But I knew what I was talking about. "I am going to get him to bed. You
can have the milk ready when I come down."
It developed that there was no milk. I walked half a mile to a road
house and brought back oysters and a bottle of cream. I cooked them
myself in the white-tiled kitchen, and served them piping hot in a bowl
with crackers.
Perry, propped up in bed, ate like a starved bird.
"I've never tasted anything better," he said; and, warmed and fed, he
slept after a bit as soundly as a satisfied baby.
It was while he was eating the oysters that Rosalie came to the door and
looked at him. He was not an æsthetic object--I must admit that no sick
man is--and I saw distaste in her glance, as if some dainty instinct in
her shrank from the spectacle.
When I went down I found her sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a
Chinese robe of black and gold. You can imagine the effect of that with
the red of her hair and the red of her cheeks and lips. Her feet, in
black satin slippers, were on a jade-green cushion, and back of her head
was the strip of brocade that she had bought with her housekeeping
money. It was a gorgeous bit, repeating the color of the cushion, and
with a touch of blue which matched her eyes.
She wanted me to show her the rest of the prints. I tried to talk to her
of Perry's health, but she wouldn't.
"Don't croak, Jim Crow," she said again.
As I look back at the two of us by the fire that night I feel as one
might who had been accessory to a crime. Rosalie's charm was undoubted.
Her quickness of mind, her gayety of spirit, her passion for all that
was lovely in art and Nature--made her indescribably interesting. I
stayed late. And not once, after my first attempt, did we speak of
Perry.