Valancy felt pitifully alone. When she could think at all she wondered what it would be like to have someone with her who could sympathise—someone who really cared—just to hold her hand tight, if nothing else—some one just to say, "Yes, I know. It's dreadful—be brave—you'll soon be better;" not some one merely fussy and alarmed.
"I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again," she thought.
I don't care a hang for any cat that hasn't stripes.
"'Who could endure life if it were not for the hope of death?'" murmured Valancy softly—it was of course a quotation from some book of John Foster's.
The car came to a stop beside them. Valancy saw Uncle Wellington and Olive gazing at her in horror from it.
Valancy felt as if she had exchanged her shop-worn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the workshop of the gods.
"John Foster says," quoted Valancy, "'If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.'"
It would really have been so much easier to bear if Valancy had died.
Dr. Stalling dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a finger forever.
It seemed so easy to talk to Barney Snaith, someway—this terrible Barney Snaith of the lurid tales and mysterious past—as easy and natural as if talking to herself.