She loathed nothing that he might reveal and she looked at him searchingly. She remembered that his knowledge was gone or blurred; he could no longer lay his hand upon it; it was gone then; his charm was gone. What, she questioned, did his spirit have to do with his knowledge, with his person, his courage, his putrefying flesh, his taste, his temper, his determination, his belief in herself? He wanted to be alive, secret, shut within himself. She tried to eliminate from herself all but that which they held in common and, the cancellations made, to identify something which one could describe as deathless, as indicative of a man. Her tenderness intervened, however, and she found that she had resolved to make him some light flannel caps to protect his head from the cold while he slept. She felt a holy sense of comfort when she went softly from his door. In the hall Horace was taking off his overcoat. He had just come in. “You’re up late, Dosia,” he said. “You let your fellows stay till after midnight. It’s not prudent. Trust a Bell.” He opened the parlor door and looked in at the dark and the fireless hearth. She had gone to the foot of the staircase. “Grandfather,” she said. “I was in his room.” She was indifferent to his words. “Come on,” he said, “we’ll go upstairs together, hand in hand, our hearts entwined. ‘She’s a pretty girl now,’ I said the other day, said it to myself, you understand, and it wasn’t a lie I told either. No need to worry about the old man. He’s better. I’ll lay a bet he’ll be out again in a week. The old war horse, he’s not so easy beaten. He’ll come under the wire first, the old horse will. It’s been a long time since I walked upstairs with as pretty a lady.” At the top of the flight, where his way led him down the hall to his room at the back of the house, he caught her into his arms. “Kiss your father good-night,” he said. “I don’t want to.” He had not made such a demand for years. “I want to kiss a pretty girl before I go to bed and by God you’re a pretty one. Kiss me good-night.”