Mrs. Phillips indeed "had a room for him." She had rooms a-plenty. There
was the chintz chamber on the third floor, where the Irish poet (who seemed
not to expect very much for himself) had been put; and there was the
larger, handsomer chamber on the second floor, where the Hindoo philosopher
(who had loomed up big and important through a vague Oriental atmosphere)
had been installed in state. It was a Louis Quinze room, and the bed had a
kind of silken canopy and a great deal too much in the way of bolsters and
lace coverings. It was thought that the Hindoo, judging from the report of
the maid next morning, had been moved by some ascetic impulse to sleep not
in the bed but on the floor beside it. This was the room now destined for
Cope; surely one flight of stairs was enough. But there must be no further
practice of asceticism,--least of all by a man who was really ill; so Mrs.
Phillips, snatching a moment from her guests, herself saw the maid remove
the lace pillow-shams and coverlet, and turn down the sheets, and set the
thermos-bottle on the stand beside the reading lamp....
"Don't get up a moment earlier than you feel like doing," she said, at the
door.
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