ent she added, "I can't
make him out."

Estelle saw that she was deeply troubled, and, herself troubled at the
sight, did not press her for explanations.

During the drive home Aurora made only one other remark. It was
delivered with a certain emphasis.

"_One_ thing I know: I sha'n't go _there_ again in a hurry!"

Her lilacs, after wondering a moment what to do with them, she had
quietly deposited outside Gerald's entrance-door.

* * * * *

It was unimaginable, of course, that the childhood's friend should so
disregard the rules of the game as to leave her old playmate's curiosity
long unsatisfied. Estelle accordingly learned before evening that Gerald
had been guilty of an attack of nerves, in the course of which he had
said something which Aurora did not like. What this was Aurora would not
tell, saying it seemed unfair to repeat things Gerald had spoken while
he was not himself and which he perhaps did not mean. From which Estelle
judged that Aurora had already softened since she returned to the
carriage looking as grim as she was grieved.

That Aurora had something on her mind no observant person could fail to
see, and Estelle was not unprepared to hear her say as she did on the
third morning at breakfast, after fidgeting a moment with a pinch of
bread:

"I'm so uneasy I don't know what to do. That boy is much sicker than he
knows," she went on to justify her disquietude, "and he's in a bad mood
for getting well. I don't believe Italian doctors know much, anyhow.
I've heard that they still put leeches on you. All he has to take care
of him, day and night, is that old servant-woman What's-her-name, who,
he told me himself, doctors him with herb-tea. I'm so uneasy! The sort
of cold he has, I tell you, can turn any minute into something you don't
want. He's all run down and a bad subject for pneumonia. I'm thinking I
shall have to just go to the door and find out how he is."

"You could send a servant to inquire," suggested Estelle.

Aurora appeared to reflect; she might have been trying to find a reason
for not taking the hint, but she said, "No; I should feel better
satisfied to go myself."

At the last moment, when they were ready to start, Estelle found
Busteretto's nose hot, and decided not to go. She stayed at home and
called a doctor. For some days the pet had not seemed to her in quite
his usual form.

Aurora, climbing Gerald's stairs this time, felt ve