"It is indeed strange," she replied musingly, as if half speaking to herself; "so strange that I cannot understand it. Life is a queer tangle at best. That is, it seems so to us sometimes." "I assure you I am glad to have it tangled for me in this style," I said, laughing. "My only dread is getting out of the snarl. Indeed, I'm sorely tempted to play sick indefinitely." "In that case we shall all leave you here to yourself." "I think _you_ have done that already." "What would your paper do without you?" she asked, with her brow slightly knitted and the color deepening in her cheeks. "Recalling what you said, I'm tempted to think it is doing better without me." "You imagine I said a great deal more than I did." "No, I remember everything that happened until I was taken ill. It's strange I was taken so suddenly. I can see you playing Chopin's nocturne as distinctly as I see you now. Do you know that I had the fancy that the cluster of roses you sent me was that nocturne embodied, and that the shades of color were the variations in the melody?" "You are indeed very fanciful. I hope you will grow more rational as you get well." "I remember you thought me slightly insane in the garden." "Yes; and you promised that you would see things just as they are after leaving it." "I can't help seeing things just as they seem to me. Perhaps I do see them just as they are." "Oh, no! To a matter-of-fact person like myself, you are clearly very fanciful. If you don't improve in this respect, you'll have to take a course in mathematics before returning to your work or you will mislead your readers." "No, I'm going to take a course of weeding in the garden, and you were to invite me into the arbor as soon as I had done enough to earn my salt." "I fear you will pull up the vegetables." "You can at least show me which are the potatoes." In spite of a restraint that she tried to disguise, she broke out into a low laugh at this reminiscence, and said: "After that revelation of ignorance you will never trust me again." "I will trust you in regard to everything except kitchen vegetables," I replied, more in earnest than in jest. "A most important exception," she responded, her old troubled look coming back. "But you are talking far too much. Your face is slightly flushed. I fear you are growing feverish. I will call Mrs. Yocomb now." "Please do not. I never felt better in my life. You are doing me good every moment, and it's so desperately stupid lying helplessly here." "Well, I suppose I must humor you a few moments longer," she laughed. "People, when ill, are so arbitrary. By the way, your editorial friends must think a great deal of you, or else you are valuable to them, for your chief writes to Mr. Yocomb every day about you; so do some others; and they've sent enough fruit and delicacies to be the death of an ostrich."