r head and a bed of violets at your
feet. I should bring you something nice to eat every two hours."

"And how much work do you suppose I should get through?"

"Work? You wouldn't do _any_ work for a year at least--if I had my way."

"It's a beautiful dream," said she. She closed her eyes, but whether to
shut the dream out or to keep it in he could not say.

"I don't want," she said presently, "to lie on a couch in a garden with
roses at my head and violets at my feet, as if I were dead. You don't
know how tre--_mend_--ously alive I am."

"I know," he said, "how tremendously alive you'd be if I had my way--if
you were happy."

She was still sitting up, nursing her knees, and staring straight in
front of her at nothing.

"You don't know what it's like," she said; "the unbearable pathos of
Papa."

"It's your pathos that's unbearable."

"Oh don't! Don't be nice to me. I shall hate you if you're nice to me."
She paused, staring. "I was unkind to him yesterday. I see how pathetic
he is, and yet I'm unkind. I snap like a little devil. You don't know
what a devil, what a detestable little devil I can be."

She turned to him, sparing herself no pain in her confession.

"I was cruel to him. It's horrible, like being cruel to a child." The
horror of it was in her stare.

"It's your nerves," he said; "it's because you're always frightened." He
seemed to meditate before he spoke again. "How are you going on?"

"You see how."

"I do indeed. It's unbearable to think of your having to endure these
things. And I have to stand by and see you at the end of your tether,
hurt and frightened, and to know that I can do nothing for you. If I
could have my way you would never be hurt or frightened any more."

As he spoke something gave way in her. It felt like a sudden weakening
and collapse of her will, drawing her heart with it.

"But," he went on, "as I can't have my way, the next best thing is--to
stand by you."

She struggled as against physical faintness, struggled successfully.

"Since I can't take you out of it," he said, "I shall come and live in
Camden Town too."

"You couldn't live in Camden Town."

"I can live anywhere I choose. I shouldn't _see_ Camden Town."

"You couldn't," she insisted. "And if you could I wouldn't let you."

"Why not?"

"Be_cause_--it wouldn't do."

He smiled.

"It would be all right. I should get a room near you and look after your
father."

"It wouldn't do," she said again.