She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply out of
sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went
hastily to something else: "It is hard for me to realize that you--that you lived a life of your own,
a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish you would
tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when you go
away,"--she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat--"I'll want to
know how to think of you,--who your friends are,--all that."

He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would be
visualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its side street,
as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just parted, her
hands folded before her on the table.

"I shall be working," he said at last. "So will you."

"Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?"

"I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night. You can think of me as never
forgetting you or the Street, working or playing."

Playing! Of course he would not work all the time. And he was going back
to his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls-He did his best then. He told her of the old family house, built by one of
his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the case
for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son then to the
cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had wept when he
decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, he thought
he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions that had been
the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, the choice
room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames, and of his
father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxed warm over it
at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to remember. It brought
back the other things that he wanted to forget.