He was fifty years old, and his
illness had been cruel, his convalescence slow. "It isn't as if I
weren't all right."
"Oh if you weren't all right I wouldn't look at you!" I tenderly
said.
We had both got up, quickened as by this clearer air, and he had
lighted a cigarette. I had taken a fresh one, which with an
intenser smile, by way of answer to my exclamation, he applied to
the flame of his match. "If I weren't better I shouldn't have
thought of THAT!" He flourished his script in his hand.
"I don't want to be discouraging, but that's not true," I returned.
"I'm sure that during the months you lay here in pain you had
visitations sublime. You thought of a thousand things. You think
of more and more all the while. That's what makes you, if you'll
pardon my familiarity, so respectable. At a time when so many
people are spent you come into your second wind. But, thank God,
all the same, you're better! Thank God, too, you're not, as you
were telling me yesterday, 'successful.' If YOU weren't a failure
what would be the use of trying? That's my one reserve on the
subject of your recovery--that it makes you 'score,' as the
newspapers say.
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