In the bedroom, Darius had sunk on to the cushioned ottoman. Edwin shut
the door.
"Now then!" said Edwin encouragingly, yet commandingly. "I can tell you
one thing--you aren't losing weight." He had recovered from his
annoyance, but he was not disposed to submit to any trifling. For many
months now he had helped Darius to dress, when he came up from the shop
for breakfast, and to undress in the evening. It was not that his
father lacked the strength, but he would somehow lose himself in the
maze of his garments, and apparently he could never remember the proper
order of doffing or donning them. Sometimes he would ask, "Am I
dressing or undressing?" And he would be capable of so involving
himself in a shirt, if Edwin were not there to direct, that much
patience was needed for his extrication. His misapprehensions and
mistakes frequently reached the grotesque. As habit threw them more and
more intimately together, the trusting dependence of Darius on Edwin
increased. At morning and evening the expression of that intensely
mournful visage seemed to be saying as its gaze met Edwin's, "Here is
the one clear-sighted, powerful being who can guide me through this
complex and frightful problem of my clothes." A suit, for Darius, had
become as intricate as a quadratic equation. And, in Edwin, compassion
and irritation fought an interminable guerilla. Now one obtained the
advantage, now the other. His nerves demanded relief from the friction,
but he could offer them no holiday, not one single day's holiday. Twice
every day he had to manoeuvre and persuade that ponderous, irrational
body in his father's bedroom. Maggie helped the body to feed itself at
table. But Maggie apparently had no nerves.
"I shall never go down them stairs again," said Darius, as if in
fatigued disgust, on the ottoman.
"Oh, nonsense!" Edwin exclaimed.
Darius shook his head solemnly, and looked at vacancy.
"Well, we'll talk about that to-morrow," said Edwin, and with the skill
of regular practice drew out the ends of the bow of his father's
necktie. He had gradually evolved a complete code of rules covering the
entire process of the toilette, and he insisted on their observance.
Every article had its order in the ceremony and its place in the room.
Never had the room been so tidy, nor the rites so expeditious, as in the
final months of Darius's malady.
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