I don't care who hears. Why should I? If I
weren't ill I'd care. I'd be tongue-tied--I'd have gone on being
tongue-tied for ever. Oh I bless being ill, I bless being ill--I can
say anything, anything--"
"Tussie, don't say it," entreated his mother. "The less you say now
the more grateful you'll be later on. Let her go."
"Listen to her!" cried Tussie, interrupting his kissing of her hands
to look up at Priscilla and smile with a sort of pitying wonder, "Let
you go? Does one let one's life go? One's hope of salvation go? One's
little precious minute of perfect happiness go? When I'm well again I
shall be just as dull and stupid as ever, just such a shy fool, not
able to speak--"
"But it's a gracious state"--stammered poor Priscilla.
"Loving you? Loving you?"
"No, no--not being able to speak. It's always best--"
"It isn't. It's best to be true to one's self, to show honestly what
one feels, as I am now--as I am now--" And he fell to kissing her
hands again.
"Tussie, this isn't being honest," said Lady Shuttleworth sternly,
"it's being feverish.
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