For ten days the bulletins continued to be increasingly favorable, and then--a sign that convalescence had set in--they ceased entirely. Cora found the silence trying. With the great question of life or death answered there was so much else that she wanted to know--whether he had been permanently weakened by his illness; whether he would now be starting on one of his long-projected trips--to China or the South Seas. China had always fired his imagination. Twice during her short marriage they had had their trunks packed for China. Had he been softened, or frightened, or in any way changed by the great adventure of almost dying? There was one person who could tell her all these things, and that was Margaret. Without exactly formulating a plan Cora went to the hospital one day and inquired about him. The girl at the desk answered as if Valentine were already a personage of the hospital. "He's getting along splendidly now. His wife's with him." "I wonder," Cora heard herself saying, "whether Mrs. Bing would see me for a minute." She retired, rather frightened at her temerity, to the reception room, where the Lesson in Anatomy still dominated the wall. "Margaret won't mind," she kept telling herself. "She's so kind, and, anyhow, she's more like his mother than his wife." It was on this maternal quality that Cora depended. There was a footstep in the hall. A statuesque figure molded into blue serge stood in the doorway--bare-headed with shiny bronze-colored hair elaborately looped and curled. It was Hermione. "You wanted to see me?" she asked in her drawling, reconstructed voice. She did not at once recognize Cora. "No," said Cora, "I certainly did not want to see you. I thought it was Mrs. Johnson-Bing who was here." "Margaret?" replied Hermione. She drooped her thick eyelids and smiled, as if the name itself were comic--she never broke her beautiful mask with a laugh. "No, that didn't last long. He bounced Margaret as soon as he got over being delirious." "And was it then that he sent for you?" asked Cora with an edge to her voice that a Damascus blade might have envied. "As a matter of fact he didn't; it was Thorpe who sent for me," said Hermione. "Thorpe had a wholesome recollection that I used to keep Val in order. Nice little job, keeping Val in order. Ever tried it? No, I remember Thorpe said that wasn't your line." Cora would have given a good deal to know just how Thorpe had characterized her line, but not even curiosity could make her address an unnecessary word to the coarse, cold woman before her. She was not jealous as she understood the word, but the disgust she felt for Hermione included Valentine, too, and made her hate him for the moment with an intimate disturbing warmth. Hermione went on: "And, after all, as I said to Val yesterday, what does it matter to me whether he gets well or not? It takes too much vitality--making him mind. I'm through. I'm off for Palm Beach to-morrow. Thorpe's taking him home."