Now it was my turn to laugh, asking:
“And aren’t you going to confess to kidnapping Charlie Ross and blowing up the Maine?”
We had some more hell–a solid hour of it–before she exhausted herself again. The night dragged through. She got a little more than two hours’ sleep, a half-hour gain over the previous night. I dozed in the chair when I could.
Sometime before daylight I woke to the feel of a hand on my coat. Keeping my breathing regular, I pushed my eyelids far enough apart to squint through the lashes. We had a very dim light in the room, but I thought Gabrielle was in bed, though I couldn’t see whether she was asleep or awake. My head was tilted back to rest on the back of the chair. I couldn’t see the hand that was exploring my inside coat-pocket, nor the arm that came down over my shoulder; but they smelled of the kitchen, so I knew they were brown.
The Mexican woman was standing behind me. Mickey had told me she had a knife. Imagination told me she was holding it in her other hand. Good judgment told me to let her alone. I did that, closing my eyes again. Paper rustled between her fingers, and her hand left my pocket.
I moved my head sleepily then, and changed a foot’s position. When I heard the door close quietly behind me, I sat up and looked around. Gabrielle was sleeping. I counted the bindles in my pocket and found that eight of them had been taken.
Presently Gabrielle opened her eyes. This was the first time since the cure started that she had awakened quietly. Her face was haggard, but not wild-eyed. She looked at the window and asked:
“Isn’t day coming yet?”
“It’s getting light.” I gave her some orange juice. “We’ll get some solid food in you today.”
“I don’t want food. I want morphine.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll get food. You won’t get morphine. Today won’t be like yesterday. You’re over the hump, and the rest of it’s downhill going, though you may hit a couple of rough spots. It’s silly to ask for morphine now. What do you want to do? Have nothing to show for the hell you’ve been through? You’ve got it licked now: stay with it.”
“Have I–have I really got it licked?”
“Yeah. All you’ve got to buck now is nervousness, and the memory of how nice it felt to have a skinful of hop.”
“I can do it,” she said. “I can do it because you say I can.”
She got along fine till late in the morning, when she blew up for an hour or two. But it wasn’t so bad, and I got her straightened out again. When Mary brought up her luncheon I left them together and went downstairs for my own.
Mickey and MacMan were already at the dining room table. Neither of them spoke a word–to one another or to me–during the meal. Since they kept quiet, I did.
When I went back upstairs, Gabnielle, in a green bathrobe, was sitting in the leather rocker that had been my bed for two nights. She had brushed her hair and powdered her face. Her eyes were mostly green, with a lift to the lower lids as if she was hiding a joke. She said with mock solemnity:
“Sit down. I want to talk seriously to you.”
I sat down.
“Why did you go through all this with–for me?” She was really serious now. “You didn’t have to, and it couldn’t have been pleasant. I was–I don’t know how bad I was.” She turned red from forehead to chest. “I know I was revolting, disgusting. I know how I must seem to you now. Why–why did you?”
I said:
“I’m twice your age, sister; an old man. I’m damned if I’ll make a chump of myself by telling you why I did it, why it was neither revolting nor disgusting, why I’d do it again and be glad of the chance.”
She jumped out of her chair, her eyes round and dark, her mouth trembling.
“You mean–?”
“I don’t mean anything that I’ll admit,” I said; “and if you’re going to parade around with that robe hanging open you’re going to get yourself some bronchitis. You ex-hopheads have to be careful about catching cold.”