He gave in to my solicitude so far as
to say that he would see about it, but reminded me that it was not he
who was going into the infection. Yes, I said, but there was that
lock of hair and the worsted cuff. Such things did carry contagion,
and he ought to burn them at once.
"Poor Dora!" he said, rather indignantly.
Oh that I had seen them burnt! Oh that I had taken him to Dr.
Kingston's for vaccination before I went away, instead of contenting
myself with the unmeaning, half-incredulous promise to "see about
it!" by which, of course, he meant to mention it when George Yolland
came home. Yet it might have made no difference, for he had been
fondling and smoothing that fatal curl all the time we were talking
over the letter.
He came to the station with me, gave me the kindest messages for
Dora, arranged for my telegraphing reports of her every day--took
care of me as men will do when they seem to think their womankind
incapable without them, making all the more of me because I did not
venture to take Colman, whom I sent to visit her home. He insisted
on Mr. Ben Yolland, who had been detained a day behind his brother,
going in a first-class carriage with me. I leant out at the window
for the parting kiss, and the last sight I had of my dear Harold, as
the train steamed out of the station, was bearing on his shoulder a
fat child--a potter's--who had just arrived by the train, and had
been screaming to his mother to carry him, regardless of the younger
baby and baskets in her arms.
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