The painful smile drew up her lip again. "It's not that." She looked at him with an expression so strangely, lucidly maternal, that he felt as he sometimes had when, as a little boy, he brought his perplexities to his mother. It was the first time that Laura Lou had ever seemed to stoop to him from heights of superior understanding, and he was queerly awed by the mystery of her gaze. "Not that, darling?" he echoed.

Her hand was still moving in his hair. "Wouldn't you have liked it, dear?" he repeated.

"I might have—only I'm too tired." Her hand dropped back to her side. It was always the same old refrain: "I'm too tired." Yet she did not cough any longer, she ate with appetite, she had seemed lately to do her work with less fatigue.

"What makes you so tired, do you suppose?" But he felt the futility of the question. "I'll run down to the grocer's and call up the doctor," he said energetically, clutching at the idea of doing something definite. But Laura Lou sat up in bed and stretched her thin arms out to him. "No, no, no—Vanny, no!"

"But why not, darling?"

"Because I'm not sick—because I don't want him—because there'd be nothing to tell him … " He knew it was on her lips to add: "Because there'd be nothing to pay him with."

"Nonsense, Laura Lou. You must see a doctor."

"What would he say? He'd tell me to take a tonic. I'm all right, Vanny—I'll be up and have breakfast ready in half an hour… . Can't you give me till then?" she pleaded, sobbing; and full of contrition and perplexity he hurried back to the bed. "There, there, child; don't cry… ."

"You'll promise not?"

"I promise… ."