"I should consider it one," he answered. "It is only in novels that people can afford not to care. You cannot afford it. Don't wear a dress again which calls attention to the fact that you are so ill and worn as to seem only a shadow of yourself. It _isn't_ wise." "Why should one object to being ill?" she said. "It is not such a bad idea to be something of an invalid, after all; it insures one a great many privileges. It is not demanded of invalids that they shall always be brilliant. They are permitted to be pale, and silent, and heavy-eyed, and lapses are not treasured up against them." She paused an instant. "When one is ill," she said, "nothing one does or leaves undone is of any special significance. It is like having a holiday." "Do you want to take such a holiday?" he asked. "Do you need it?" She stood quite still a moment, and he knew she did it because she wished to steady her voice. "Sometimes," she said at last, "I think I do." Since he had first known her there had been many times when she had touched him without being in the least conscious that she did so. He had often found her laughter as pathetic as other people's tears, even while he had joined in it himself. Perhaps there was something in his own mood which made her seem in those few words more touching than she had ever been before. "Suppose you begin to take it now," he said, "while I am with you." She paused a few seconds again before answering. Then she looked up. "When people ask you how I am," she said, "you might tell them that I am not very well, that I have not been well for some time, and that I am not getting better." "Are you getting--worse?" he asked. Her reply--if reply it was--was a singular one. She pushed the sleeve of her black dress a little way from her wrist, and stood looking down at it without speaking. There were no bangles on the wrist this morning, and without these adornments its slenderness seemed startling. The small, delicate bones marked themselves, and every blue vein was traceable. Neither of them spoke, and in a moment she drew the sleeve down again, and went back to her place by the fire. To tell the truth, Arbuthnot could not have spoken at first. It was she who at length broke the silence, turning to look at him as he sat in the seat he had taken, his head supported by his hand. "Will you tell me," she said, "what has hurt _you_?" "Why should you ask that?" he said. "I should be very blind and careless of you if I had not seen that something had happened to you," she answered. "You are always caring for me, and--understanding me. It is only natural that I should have learned to understand you a little. This has not been a good winter for you. What is it, Larry?" "I wish it was something interesting," he answered; "but it is not. It is the old story. I am out of humor. I'm dissatisfied. I have been guilty of the folly of not enjoying myself on one or two occasions, and the consciousness of it irritates me."