any things, but in all my life I
don't remember anybody calling me that,--a co-quette. But you're talking
lots more than is good for you, brother. Now I want you to quiet down
and give those sleepy-drops a chance to work. Here I've fixed you
something else that will help them. It's just a drink with nothing in it
but something nice and cooling. Smells pleasant, doesn't it? This'll do
the trick."

Slipping an arm under his neck, she lifted him, propped him against
herself, and held the glass to his mouth. Instead of words pouring out,
the calming draught flowed in. It was a slow process; he drank by small
swallows and wished after each one to stop, but she gently forced him to
go on. When it was finished and he turned his head away from the glass,
he found it resting on her shoulder. He settled his cheek warmly against
it, like a child burying his face in the pillow. With a long sigh he
relaxed.

"Now, Aurora," he said solemnly, "be per--fect--ly still."

He was very still, too. After a long moment he half lifted his head and
with a long soft sigh replaced it, as if to renew his sense of a
resting-place so sweet. With all her heart Aurora lent herself to this,
glad to witness, as she thought, the belated effect of the soporific. In
a few minutes he would be asleep.

"Aurora," he suddenly said, wakeful as earlier, but without moving his
heavy head or opening his eyes, "do you remember the first evening I
ever saw you? You came down the middle of the room all by yourself, like
something in the theater, where the stage has been cleared for the
principal character to make an effect. You were a fine large lady in a
sky-blue frock with bursts of pink, your hair spangled with diamonds, a
fan in one hand, a long pair of gloves in the other. That at least is
what everybody else saw that looked at you. But me, what I seemed to see
was America coming toward me draped in the stars and stripes. Now you
know how I feel about my dear country. If I loved it why should I have
fixed my abode once and for all over here? And yet when I saw it coming
toward me across the room, with your eyes and smile and look of Home, I
felt like the tiredest traveler and exile in the whole world, who wants
nothing, nothing, but to get Home again. It was like a moment's
insanity. I almost wonder that I resisted it, the desire to lay my head
on your shoulder and cry, Aurora, and tell you about it, then never move
again, or say another word."

Aurora re