Pat waked up and looked at me a long time.
"Give me a looking-glass," she whispered then.
"What do you want a looking-glass for?" I asked. "Rest, Pat.
I think you're over it now.
You have hardly airy temperature."
"No," she whispered in her threadbare, burnt-out voice. "Give me the looking-glass."
I walked round the bed, took the looking-glass and let it drop.
It broke in pieces.
"Sorry," said I, "to be so clumsy.
It just dropped out of my hand and now it's in a thousand pieces."
"There's another in my handbag, Robby."
It was a tiny chromium mirror.
I wiped my hand over it to dull the surface, and gave it to Pat.
Laboriously she rubbed it clean and looked into it intently.
"You must go away, darling," she whispered.
"Why?
Don't you like me any longer?"
"You mustn't see me any more.
That isn't me any more."
I took the looking-glass.
"These metal things are no good, Pat.
Just see what I look like in it.
Pale and thin.
Whereas I'm brown and strong.
It's all wavy, the thing is."
"I want you to keep a different memory of me," she whispered. "Go, darling.
I'll see it through now by myself."
I quieted her.
She asked for the mirror again and her handbag.
Then she began powdering her poor emaciated face, her torn lips, the heavy, brown hollows under her eyes. "Just something, darling," said she, trying to smile. "You mustn't see me looking hideous."
"Do what you will," said I, "you will never be hideous.
For me you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
I took away the mirror and the powder box, and laid my hands gently around her head.
After a while she grew restless.
"What is it, Pat?" I asked.
"It ticks so loud," she whispered.
"What? The watch?"
She nodded.
"It's so threatening—"
I took the watch off my wrist.
She looked anxiously at the second hand.
"Throw it away."
I took the watch and flung it against the wall.
"There, it's not ticking any more now.
Now time is standing still.
We've torn it in two.
Now only we two are here; we two, you and me and no one else."
She looked at me.
Her eyes were very big.
"Darling—" she whispered.