They took no notice, and, reassured, he said, with a laugh, that the landlady knew exactly what he wanted.

Lifting the dish, he drained it at a gasp, though the milk almost choked him, and, to the apprehension of his hostess, set the bowl spinning on the table like a top.

Another illusion of the disease was his: that he succeeded perfectly in deceiving everybody round him with his pathetic make-believe; and, unlike most deceivers, he deceived himself as well.
The two actions, inconsistent as they were, were reconciled in him, as in all the race of consumptives, by some strange chemistry of the mind and spirit.

He was on the broad, undiverging highway to death; yet, with every final token about him that he was in the enemy's country, surrounded, trapped, soon to be passed unceremoniously inside the citadel at the end of the avenue, he kept signalling back to old friends that all was well, and he told himself that to-morrow the king should have his own again--"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow!" He was not very thin in body; his face was full, and at times his eyes were singularly and fascinatingly bright.

He had colour--that hectic flush which, on his cheek, was almost beautiful.