“Who’s that?” I said.
“Oh, it is you,” said a girl’s voice.
She came in, closing the door behind her.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She was tall and slim. Under twenty, I guessed. Her hair waved slightly. Chestnut-colored, it was. She was quiet, but one had to notice her—it was the texture of her as well as the line. She had placed my position by my movement and voice. Her gold-brown eyes were looking just over my left shoulder, otherwise I’d have been sure she was studying me.
She did not answer at once. It was an uncertainty which did not seem to suit the rest of her. I went on waiting for her to speak. A lump got into my throat somehow. You see, she was young and she was beautiful. There should have been all life, maybe a wonderful life, before her… And isn’t there something a little sad about youth and beauty in any circumstances?
“You’re going away from here?” she said. It was half question, half statement, in a quiet voice, a little unsteadily.
“I’ve never said that,” I countered.
“No,” she admitted, “but that’s what the others are saying—and they’re right, aren’t they?”
I did not say anything to that. She went on:
“You can’t. You can’t leave them like this. They need you.”
“I’m doing no good here,” I told her. “All the hopes are false.”
“But suppose they turned out not to be false?”
“They can’t—not now. We’d have known by this time.”
“But if they did after all—and you had simply walked out?”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of that? I’m not doing any good, I tell you. I’ve been like the drugs they inject to keep the patient going a little longer—no curative value, just putting it off.”
She did not reply for some seconds. Then she said unsteadily:
“Life is very precious—even like this.” Her control almost cracked.
I could not say anything. She recovered herself.
“You can keep us going. There’s always a chance—just a chance that something may happen, even now.”
I had already said what I thought about that. I did not repeat it.
“It’s so difficult,” she said, as though to herself. “If I could only see you…But then, of course, if I could…Are you young? You sound young.”
“I’m under thirty,” I told her. “And very ordinary.”
“I’m eighteen. It was my birthday—the day the comet came.”
I could not think of anything to say to that that would not seem cruel. The pause drew out. I saw that she was clenching her hands together. Then she dropped them to her sides, the knuckles quite white. She made as if to speak, but did not.
“What is it?” I asked. “What can I do except prolong this a little?”
She bit her lip, then:
“They—they said perhaps you were lonely,” she said. “I thought perhaps if”—her voice faltered, and her knuckles went a little whiter still—“perhaps if you had somebody…I mean, somebody here…you—you might not want to leave us. Perhaps you’d stay with us?”
“Oh God,” I said softly.
I looked at her, standing quite straight, her lips trembling slightly. There should have been suitors clamoring for her lightest smile. She should have been happy and uncaring for a while—then happy in caring. Life should have been enchanting to her, and love very sweet…