“My God—­yes—­I’m dying!” gasped Kent.  “According to Dr. Cardigan I’m due to pop off this minute.  Aren’t you a little nervous, sitting so near to a man who’s ready to explode while you’re looking at him?”

For the first time the eyes changed.  She was not facing the window, yet a glow like the glow of sunlight flashed into them, soft, luminous, almost laughing.

“No, it doesn’t frighten me,” she assured him.  “I have always thought I should like to see a man die—­not quickly, like drowning or being shot, but slowly, an inch at a time.  But I shouldn’t like to see you die.”

“I’m glad,” breathed Kent.  “It’s a great satisfaction to me.”

“Yet I shouldn’t be frightened if you did.”

“Oh!”

Kent drew himself up straighter against his pillows.  He had been a man of many adventures.  He had faced almost every conceivable kind of shock.  But this was a new one.  He stared into the blue eyes, tongueless and mentally dazed.  They were cool and sweet and not at all excited.  And he knew that she spoke the truth.  Not by a quiver of those lovely lashes would she betray either fear or horror if he popped off right there.  It was astonishing.

Something like resentment shot for an instant into his bewildered brain.  Then it was gone, and in a flash it came upon him that she was but uttering his own philosophy of life, showing him life’s cheapness, life’s littleness, the absurdity of being distressed by looking upon the light as it flickered out.  And she was doing it, not as a philosopher, but with the beautiful unconcern of a child.

Suddenly, as if impelled by an emotion in direct contradiction to her apparent lack of sympathy, she reached out a hand and placed it on Kent’s forehead.  It was another shock.  It was not a professional touch, but a soft, cool little pressure that sent a comforting thrill through him.  The hand was there for only a moment, and she withdrew it to entwine the slim fingers with those of the others in her lap.

“You have no fever,” she said.  “What makes you think you are dying?”

Kent explained what was happening inside him.  He was completely shunted off his original track of thought and anticipation.  He had expected to ask for at least a mutual introduction when his visitor came into his room, and had anticipated taking upon himself the position of a polite inquisitor.  In spite of O’Connor, he had not thought she would be quite so pretty.  He had not believed her eyes would be so beautiful, or their lashes so long, or the touch of her hand so pleasantly unnerving.  And now, in place of asking for her name and the reason for her visit, he became an irrational idiot, explaining to her certain matters of physiology that had to do with aortas and aneurismal sacs.  He had finished before the absurdity of the situation dawned upon him, and with absurdity came the humor of it.  Even dying, Kent could not fail to see the funny side of a thing It struck him as suddenly as had the girl’s beauty and her bewildering and unaffected ingenuousness.