Sister Yolanda set the cup of milk on the small table standing beside the head of the bed, and bent over the sleeping man, saying in a soft voice:
"Good morning, Captain."
The man opened his eyes with some surprise, for he had not felt anyone come in. He stirred, trying to sit up, and said with a smile:
"Good morning, Sister."
"Still asleep, and it is ten o'clock?"
He moved his left hand, pointing to the newspaper he had been reading:
"I am not asleep; only I grew weary of reading, and of the din of the telegrams and the news printed in the paper, so I closed my eyes to rest."
Then he went on, in a voice like that of children when vexation drives them to disobedience: "Or rather, I am still asleep, because my guardian angel did not wake me this morning either. I once had a guardian angel who cared for me; now he has neglected me and forgotten me, and my waking and my sleeping are all one to him."
"Our guardian angel never leaves us, Captain. He is always with us. But it is we who must seek him with the eye of the spirit in order to see him."
"I, Sister, see only with the eye of the body."
"It is not with the eye of the body that we behold the face of God, Captain."
"As for me, it is enough for the eye of the body that it beholds some of God's angels on earth, Sister."
The nun lowered her lids over her large dark eyes — her lashes
were so long and so thick that they cast a shadow on the tops of her cheeks — and said in her compassionate voice:
"I have brought you the milk you are accustomed to drink every morning at this hour. Won't you drink?"
"Yes, I'll drink."
He said this and stretched out his left hand to help hers hold the cup in balance. Yet he did not drink, but kept looking at her face in silence, slowly savoring in secret the pleasure he felt. Then he asked:
"Why did you not come to wake me from sleep this morning, nor yesterday, nor the day before, nor
