"Don't say it again! Don't! Don't!" It was indignant expostulation instead
of supplication and the matron instantly exhibited relief.
"Thank goodness, Lana! Your symptoms are fine! You're past the crisis and
are on the mend. Get angrier! Stay angry! It's a healthy sign in any woman
recovering from such a relapse as has been threatening you since you came
back home."
"Will you not drop the topic?" demanded Miss Corson, with as much menace
as a maiden could display by tone and demeanor.
"As your nurse in this period of convalescence," insisted the
imperturbable lady, "I find your temperature encouraging. The higher the
better, in a case like this! But I'd like to register on your chart a
hard-and-fast declaration from you that you'll never again expose yourself
to infection from the same quarter!"
Lana did not make that declaration; she did not reply to her friend.
The two were in the Senator's study. Lana had led the retreat to that
apartment; its wainscoted walls and heavy door shut out in some measure
the racket of hammers and saws.
She walked to the window and pulled aside the curtain and looked out into
the night.
Between Corson Hill and Capitol Hill, in the broad bowl of a valley, most
of the structures of the city of Marion were nested.
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