The doctor heard the noise as he was going down the corridor and put his head in at my door.
"You come along to the consulting room."
"It's nothing," said I.
"That's not the point," he replied. "With a cough like that you mustn't sit with Fraulein Hollmann.
You come with me."
With strange satisfaction I took off my shirt in the consulting room.
Good health up here seemed almost unjustifiable. You felt like a profiteer or a lead-swinger.
The doctor eyed me curiously.
"You look as if you were pleased," said he, puckering his brow.
Then he examined me carefully.
I contemplated the bright objects against the wall, breathed deep and slow, and quick and short, in and out, as he required.
As I did so, I felt the prickle again and was pleased now to have less advantage over Pat.
"You've taken a chill," said the doctor. "Go to bed for a day or two, or any rate stay in your room.
You mustn't go into Fraulein Hollmann's room."
"Can I talk through the door?" I asked. "Or over the balcony?"
"Over the balcony yes, but only a few minutes, and through the door, too, for that matter, provided you gargle well.
As well as a chill you have smoker's cough."
"And the lungs?" I somehow expected that at least some little detail there might not be quite in order.
I should have felt better in relation to Pat then.
"I could make three sets out of your lungs," declared the doctor. "You're the healthiest person I've seen in a long time.
You have a pretty hard liver, that's all.
You drink too much probably."
He prescribed something for me and I went back.
"Robby," said Pat from her room, "what did he say?"
"I mustn't come in to you, for the time being," I replied through the door. "Strictly forbidden.
Risk of infection."
"You see," said she alarmed, "I always wanted you not to, any more."
"Risk of infecting you, Pat. Not me."
"Don't talk nonsense," said she. "Tell me, truly, what is the matter?"
"That is the truth.
Nurse"—I winked at the nurse, who had just brought me the medicine—"tell Fraulein Hollmann which of us is the more dangerous."
"Herr Lohkamp," declared the nurse. "He is not to be allowed in, so that he won't infect you."
Pat looked incredulously from the nurse to me.
I showed her the medicine through the door.
Then she realised it was true and began to laugh, more and more; she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks, and she started coughing painfully so that the nurse had to run and support her.
"My God, darling," she whispered, "that is too funny!
And how proud you look!"
She was quite gay the whole evening.
Of course I did not leave her to herself, but sat on the balcony till midnight in a thick coat, a scarf round my neck, a cigar in one hand and a glass in the other, a bottle of cognac at my feet, telling her stories of my life. Interrupted and egged on by her soft birdlike laughter I lied for all I was worth, just to see the smile slip into her face.
I made the most of my barking cough'and drank the bottle empty, and next morning was cured.
The fohn came again.
The wind rattled at the windows, the clouds hung low, the snows shifted and slumped and boomed through the nights, and the patients lay awake, irritable and excited, listening out into the darkness.
On sheltered slopes the crocuses began to flower, and on the roads among the sleighs appeared the first high-wheeled vehicles.
Pat grew steadily weaker.
She could not get up any more.
At night she would often have fits of choking.
Then she would turn grey from fear of dying.
I would hold her damp, feeble hands.
"If I can only get through this hour," she coughed, "just this hour, Robby.
It's now they die—"