"My name is a very, very old name, and I look like a lot of other people. But you say you know who I am. Who am I?"
"It's enough," said he, "that I know. But are you comfortable out there? You're on the porch, aren't you?"
"No; I'm standing on the ground and resting my lazy forehead against the porch railing."
"I'd feel easier if you came on the porch and made yourself comfortable in a chair, just outside my window. And we could talk easier."
There was a sound of light steps and of a chair being dragged.
"I wish you wouldn't sit just round the corner," said Mr. Jonstone presently. "If you sat before the window, sideways, I could see your profile against the sky."
"I'm doing very well where I am, thank you."
"But, please, why shouldn't I see you? Why are you so embarrassed at me?"
"Wouldn't you be embarrassed if you were a girl and had been through the adventure I went through? Wouldn't you be a little embarrassed to see the man who helped you, and look him in the face?"
"Don't you ever want me to see you? Because, if you don't, I will go away from this place in the morning and never come back."
"Somehow, that doesn't appeal to me very much either."
"It feels very happy, and the other hand feels very jealous of it."
"Seriously--are you having a pretty bad time?"
"I am having the time of my life--seriously--the time that lucky men always have once in their lives."
"Are you very impatient for the morphine?"
"I shall not take it when it comes. It is far better knowing what one knows, remembering what one remembers, and looking forward to what a presumptuous fool cannot help but look forward to--it is far better to keep awake; to lie peacefully in the dark, knowing, remembering, and looking forward."
"And just what are you looking forward to?"
"To a long life and a happy one; to the sounds of a voice; to a sudden coming to life of the whole 'Oxford Book of Verse'; to seeing a face."
"I think you are tired. Please don't stay any more if you are tired."
When, at last, Colonel Meredith came, important with morphine and the doctor's instructions, he found his cousin Mr. Bob Jonstone sleeping very quietly and peacefully, a much dog-eared copy of the "Oxford Book of Verse" clasped to his breast.
