indecision and haggard fears fled, to the telephone. Her lips were set in a grim line, pressed so tightly together they made a thin red gash across her chalky-white bloodless face. Perversely, her mind flew back to that other crisis—when she waited outside the door which closed her from the operating-room in which Petit Jean was being put to sleep, perhaps never to waken again. Then, nerves raw and tingling, she had hovered dangerously near the brink of a collapse in the consciousness that flesh of her flesh was about to die. Now she felt the same quivering nerves stabbing her with fiery daggers as she knew that a thing, close and beautiful and precious, closer to her even than flesh, was even at the moment in danger of destruction, yes, was almost sure to wither up and pass into oblivion. She took the telephone in her hand, for some minutes holding down the receiver with the forefinger of her right hand, even then fearing to take the step which she feared but which she knew must be taken. …
Jimmie was at home. Incredulously he spoke to her, hardly daring to believe that it really was she. Come over, Jimmie, I want to talk with you—to tell you some things you must know, she whispered hoarsely. As she sat on the side of her bed after hanging up the receiver, she stared vacantly ahead of her, wondering, wondering. …
Hardly had she had time to dash a bit of powder on her face and arrange her hair before he rang the bell. She was shocked when she saw him, the first time in several weeks. His face was drawn and there were telltale hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes were far back in his head.
“Mimi, tell me, have you decided? You need not answer now about marrying me—if you don’t want to answer—but won’t you let me try to show you how I love you?” he pleaded. “I’ve suffered agonies, Mimi darling—sometimes I believed I was almost crazy—”
“No—no, Jimmie, you mustn’t say such things to me—I didn’t ask you to come over for that—” Mimi sought to stop him.