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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14211 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Wanted — A Matchmaker
+
+by Paul Leicester Ford
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “‘Why, Swot,’ cried Constance, ‘nobody is going to
+kill you’”]
+
+
+
+
+To
+Bond and Edith Thomas
+as a Record of Our Friendship
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+ “‘Why, Swot,’ cried Constance,’ nobody is going to kill you’”
+ “Miss Durant sprang out and lifted the head gently”
+ “Constance took the seat at the bedside”
+ “‘I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss Durant,’ hurriedly began the doctor”
+ “The two were quickly seated on the floor”
+
+
+
+
+Wanted: A Match-Maker
+
+
+“You understand, Josie, that I wouldn’t for a moment wish Constance to
+marry without being in love, but—”
+
+Mrs. Durant hesitated long enough to convey the inference that she was
+unfeminine enough to place a value on her own words, and then, the
+pause having led to a change, or, at least, modification of what had
+almost found utterance, she continued, with a touch of petulance which
+suggested that the general principle had in the mind of the speaker a
+special application, “It is certainly a great pity that the modern girl
+should be so unimpressionable!”
+
+“I understand and sympathise with you perfectly, dear,” consolingly
+acceded Mrs. Ferguson. “And Constance has such advantages!”
+
+Quite unnoting that her friend replied to her thought rather than to
+her words, Mrs. Durant responded at once eagerly, yet defensively:
+“That is it. No one will deny that Muriel is quite Constance’s equal in
+mind, and, though perhaps I am not the one to say it, Doris surely
+excels her in looks. Don’t you think so, darling?” she added.
+
+“Unquestionably,” agreed the friend, with much the quality of firm
+promptness with which one would bolt a nauseous pill, or extrude an
+ailing oyster.
+
+“Yet merely because Constance has been out so much longer, and
+therefore is much more experienced, she self—she monopolises the
+attentions of the men; you know she does, Josie.”
+
+“Absolutely,” once more concurred Mrs. Ferguson; and this time, though
+she spoke less quickly, her tone carried greater conviction. “They
+are—well—she—she undoubtedly—that is, she contrives—somehow—to eclipse,
+or at least overshadow them.”
+
+“Exactly. I don’t like to think that she manages—but whether she does
+or not, the results are as bad as if she did; and thoughtlessness—if it
+is only that, which I can’t believe—is quite as blamable as—as more
+intentional scheming.”
+
+“Then of course,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “every one knows about her
+mother’s fortune—and men are so mercenary in these days.”
+
+“Oh, Josie, I don’t like to speak of that myself, but it is such a
+relief to have you say it. That is the whole trouble. What sort of a
+chance have my poor dears, who will inherit so little compared to her
+wealth, and that not till—till we are through with it—against
+Constance? I call it really shameful of her to keep on standing in
+their light!”
+
+“Have you—Couldn’t you let her see—drop a hint—of the unconscious
+injury she is—”
+
+“That is the cruelty of my position,” moaned Mrs. Durant. “I should not
+hesitate a moment, but the world is so ill-natured about stepmothers
+that one has to be over-careful, and with daughters of my own, I’m
+afraid people—perhaps my own husband—would think I was trying to
+sacrifice her to them.”
+
+“But have you no friend you could ask to—?”
+
+“Josie! Would you?” eagerly interrupted Mrs. Durant. “She will be
+influenced, I know, by anything you—”
+
+“Gracious, my dear, I never dreamed of—of you asking me! Why, I don’t
+know her in the least. I couldn’t, really.”
+
+“But for my sake? And you know her as well as—as any one else; for
+Constance has no intimates or—”
+
+“Don’t you see that’s it? I’d as soon think of—of—From me she would
+only take it as an impertinence.”
+
+“I don’t see why everybody stands so in awe of a girl of twenty-three,
+unless it’s because she’s rich,” querulously sighed Mrs. Durant.
+
+“I don’t think it’s that, Anne. It’s her proud face and reserved
+manner. And I believe those are the real reasons for her not marrying.
+However much men may admire her, they—they—Well, it’s your kittenish,
+cuddling kind of a girl they marry.”
+
+“No; you are entirely wrong. Doubtless it is her money, but Constance
+has had plenty of admirers, and if she were
+less self—if she considered the interests of the family—she would have
+married years ago. But she is wholly blind to her duty, and checks or
+rebuffs every man who attempts to show her devotion. And just because
+others take their places, she is puffed up into the belief that she is
+to go through life with an everlasting train of would-be suitors, and
+so enjoys her own triumph, with never a thought of my girls.”
+
+“Why not ask her father to speak to her?”
+
+“My dear! As if I hadn’t, a dozen times at the least,”
+
+“And what does he say?”
+
+“That Constance shows her sense by not caring for the men _I_ invite to
+the house! As if _I_ could help it! Of course with three girls in the
+house one must cultivate dancing-men, and it’s very unfair to blame me
+if they aren’t all one could wish.”
+
+“I thought Constance gave up going to dances last winter?”
+
+“She did, but still I must ask them to my dinners, for if I don’t they
+won’t show Muriel and Doris attention. Mr. Durant should realise that I
+only do it for their sakes; yet to listen to him you’d suppose it was
+my duty to close my doors to dancing-men, and spend my time seeking out
+the kind one never hears of—who certainly don’t know how to dance, and
+who would either not talk at my dinners, or would lecture upon one
+subject to the whole table—just because they are what he calls
+‘purposeful men.’”
+
+“He probably recognises that the society man is not a marrying species,
+while the other is.”
+
+“But there are several who would marry Constance in a minute if she’d
+only give any one of them the smallest encouragement; and that’s what I
+mean when I complain of her being so unimpressionable. Muriel and Doris
+like our set of men well enough, and I don’t see what right she has to
+be so over-particular.”
+
+Mrs. Ferguson rose and began the adjustment of her wrap, while saying,
+“It seems to me there is but one thing for you to do, Anne.”
+
+“What?” eagerly questioned Mrs. Durant.
+
+“Indulge in a little judicious matchmaking,” suggested the friend, as
+she held out her hand.
+
+“It’s utterly useless, Josie. I’ve tried again and again, and every
+time have only done harm.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“She won’t—she is so suspicious. Now, last winter, Weston Curtis was
+sending her flowers and—and, oh, all that sort of thing, and so I
+invited him to dinner several times, and always put him next Constance,
+and tried to help
+him in other ways, until she—well, what do you think that girl did?”
+
+Mrs. Ferguson’s interest led her to drop her outstretched hand.
+“Requested you not to?” she asked.
+
+“Not one word did she have the grace to say to me, Josie, but she wrote
+to him, and asked him not to send her any more flowers! Just think of
+it.”
+
+“Then that’s why he went to India.”
+
+“Yes. Of course if she had come and told me she didn’t care for him, I
+never would have kept on inviting him; but she is so secretive it is
+impossible to tell what she is thinking about. I never dreamed that she
+was conscious that I was trying to—to help her; and I have always been
+so discreet that I think she never would have been if Mr. Durant hadn’t
+begun to joke about it. Only guess, darling, what he said to me once
+right before her, just as I thought I
+was getting her interested in young Schenck!”
+
+“I can’t imagine.”
+
+“Oh, it was some of his Wall Street talk about promoters of trusts
+always securing options on the properties to be taken in, before
+attempting a consolidation, or something of that sort. I shouldn’t have
+known what he meant if the boys hadn’t laughed and looked at Constance.
+And then Jack made matters worse by saying that my interest would be
+satisfied with common stock, but Constance would only accept preferred
+for hers. Men do blurt things out so—and yet they assert that we women
+haven’t tongue discretion. No, dear, with them about it’s perfectly
+useless for me to do so much as lift a finger to marry Constance off,
+let alone her own naturally distrustful nature.”
+
+“Well, then, can’t you get some one to do it for you—some friend of
+hers?”
+
+“I don’t believe there is a person in the world who could influence
+Constance as regards marriage,” moaned Mrs. Durant. “Don’t think that I
+want to sacrifice her, dear; but she really isn’t happy
+herself—for—well—she is a stepdaughter, you know—and so can never quite
+be the same in the family life; and now that she has tired of society,
+she really doesn’t find enough to do to keep busy. Constance wanted to
+go into the Settlement work, but her father wouldn’t hear of it—and
+really, Josie, every one would be happier and better if she only would
+marry—”
+
+“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, mama. I thought you were
+alone,” came a voice from the doorway. “How do you do, Mrs. Ferguson?”
+
+“Oh!” ejaculated both ladies, as they looked up, to find standing in
+the doorway a handsome girl, with clear-cut patrician features, and an
+erect carriage
+which gave her an air of marked distinction.
+
+“I only stopped to ask about the errand you asked me to do when I went
+out,” explained the girl, quietly, as the two women hunted for
+something to say.
+
+“Oh. Yes. Thank you for remembering, darling,” stammered Mrs. Durant,
+finding her voice at last. “Won’t you please order a bunch of something
+sent to Miss Porter—and—and—I’ll be very much obliged if you’ll attend
+to it, Constance, my dear.”
+
+The girl merely nodded her head as she disappeared, but neither woman
+spoke till the front door was heard to close, when Mrs. Durant
+exclaimed, “How long had she been standing there?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I hope she didn’t hear!”
+
+“I don’t think she could have, or she would have shown it more,”
+
+“That doesn’t mean anything. She
+never shows anything outwardly. And really, though I wouldn’t purposely
+have said it to her, I’m not sure that I hope she didn’t hear
+it—for—well, I do wish some one would give her just such advice.”
+
+“My dear, it isn’t a case for advice; it’s a case for match-making,”
+reiterated Mrs. Ferguson, as she once more held out her hand.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Durant thoughtfully went down the steps to her carriage,
+so abstracted from what she was doing that after the footman tucked the
+fur robe about her feet, he stood waiting for his orders; and finally,
+realising his mistress’s unconsciousness, touched his hat and asked,—
+
+“Where to, Miss Constance?”
+
+With a slight start the girl came back from her meditations, and, after
+a moment’s hesitation, gave a direction.
+Then, as the man mounted to his seat and the brougham started, the
+girl’s face, which had hitherto been pale, suddenly flushed, and she
+leaned back in the carriage, so that no one should see her wipe her
+eyes with her handkerchief.
+
+“I do wish,” she murmured, with a slight break in her voice, “that at
+least mama wouldn’t talk about it to outsiders. I—I’d marry to-morrow,
+just to escape it all—if—if—a loveless marriage wasn’t even worse.” The
+girl shivered slightly, and laid her head against the cushioned side,
+as if weary.
+
+She was still so busy with her thoughts that she failed to notice when
+the brougham stopped at the florist’s, and once more was only recalled
+to concrete concerns by the footman opening the door. The ordering of
+some flowers for a débutante evidently steadied her and allowed her to
+regain self-control, for she drove in succession to the jeweller’s
+to select a wedding gift, and to the dressmaker’s for a fitting, at
+each place giving the closest attention to the matter in hand. These
+nominal duties, but in truth pleasures, concluded, nominal pleasures,
+but in truth duties, succeeded them, and the carriage halted at four
+houses long enough to ascertain that the especial objects of Miss
+Durant’s visits “begged to be excused,” or were “not at home,” each of
+which pieces of information, or, to speak more correctly, the handing
+in by the footman, in response to the information, of her card or
+cards, drew forth an unmistakable sigh of relief from that young lady.
+Evidently Miss Durant was bored by people, and this to those
+experienced in the world should be proof that Miss Durant was, in fact,
+badly bored by herself.
+
+One consequence of her escape, however, was that the girl remained with
+an hour which must be got through with
+in some manner, and so, in a voice totally without desire or eagerness,
+she said, “The Park, Wallace;” and in the Park some fifty minutes were
+spent, her greatest variation from the monotony of the wonted and
+familiar roads being an occasional nod of the head to people driving or
+riding, with a glance at those with each, or at the costumes they wore.
+
+It was with a distinct note of anticipation in her voice, therefore,
+that Miss Durant finally ordered, “Home, now, Murdock;” and, if the
+truth were to be told, the chill in her hands and feet, due to the keen
+November cold, with a mental picture of the blazing wood fire of her
+own room, and of the cup of tea that would be drank in front of it, was
+producing almost the first pleasurable prospect of the day to her.
+
+Seemingly the coachman was as eager to be in-doors as his mistress, for
+he whipped up the horses, and the carriage
+was quickly crossing the plaza and speeding down the avenue. Though the
+street was crowded with vehicles and pedestrians, the growing darkness
+put an end to Miss Durant’s nods of recognition, and she leaned back,
+once more buried in her own thoughts.
+
+At Forty-second Street she was sharply recalled from whatever her mind
+was dwelling upon by a sudden jar, due to the checking of the carriage,
+and simultaneously with it came the sound of crashing of glass and
+splintering of wood. So abrupt was the halt that Miss Durant was
+pitched forward, and as she put out her hand to save herself from being
+thrown into the bottom of the brougham, she caught a moment’s glimpse
+of a ragged boy close beside her window, and heard, even above the
+hurly-burly of the pack of carriages and street-crossers, his shrill
+cry,—
+
+“Extry _Woild_’r _Joinal_. Terrible—”
+
+There the words ended, for the distraught horses shied backwards and
+sideways, and the fore wheel, swung outwards by the sharp turn, struck
+the little fellow and threw him down. Miss Durant attempted a warning
+cry, but it was too late; and even as it rang out, the carriage gave a
+jolt and then a jar as it passed over the body. Instantly came a dozen
+warning shouts and shrieks and curses, and the horses reared and
+plunged wildly, with the new fright of something under their feet.
+
+White with terror, the girl caught at the handle, but she did no more
+than throw open the door, for, as if they sprang from the ground, a
+crowd of men were pressing about the brougham. All was confusion for a
+moment; then the tangle of vehicles seemed to open out and the mob of
+people, struggling and gesticulating, fell back before a policeman
+while another, aided by some one,
+caught the heads of the two horses, just as the footman drew out from
+under their feet into the cleared space something which looked like a
+bundle of rags and newspapers.
+
+Thinking of nothing save that limp little body, Miss Durant sprang out,
+and kneeling beside it, lifted the head gently into her lap, and
+smoothed back from the pallid face the unkempt hair. “He isn’t dead,
+Wallace?” she gasped out.
+
+“I don’t think he is, Miss Constance, though he looks like he was bad
+hurt. An’, indeed, Miss Constance, it wasn’t Murdock’s fault. The coupé
+backed right into our pole without—”
+
+“Here,” interrupted a man’s voice from the circle of spectators, “give
+him this;” and some one handed to the girl the cup of a flask half full
+of brandy. Dipping her fingers into it, she rubbed them across the
+mouth and forehead; then, raising the head with one of her
+arms, she parted the lips and poured a few drops between them.
+
+“Now, mum,” suggested the policeman. “Just you let go of it, and we’ll
+lift it to where it can stay till the ambulance gets here.”
+
+“Oh, don’t,” begged Miss Durant. “He shouldn’t be moved until—”
+
+“Like as not it’ll take ten minutes to get it here, and we can’t let
+the street stay blocked like this.”
+
+“Ten minutes!” exclaimed the girl. “Isn’t it possible—We must get help
+sooner, or he—” She broke in upon her own words, “Lift him into my
+carriage, and I’ll take him to the hospital.”
+
+“Can’t let you, miss,” spoke up a police sergeant, who meantime had
+forced his way through the crowd. “Your coachman’s got to stay and
+answer for this.”
+
+“He shall, but not now,” protested Miss Durant. “I will be responsible
+for
+him. Wallace, give them one of my cards from the case in the carriage.”
+
+
+[Illustration: “Miss Durant sprang out and lifted the head gently”]
+
+
+The officer took the bit of pasteboard and looked at it. “That’s all
+right, miss,” he said. “Here, Casey, together now and easy.”
+
+The two big men in uniform lifted the urchin as if he were without
+weight, and laid him as gently as might be on the seat of the brougham.
+This done, the roundsman dropped the small front seat, helped Miss
+Durant in, and once she was seated upon it, took his place beside her.
+The sergeant closed the door, gave an order to the coachman, and,
+wheeling about, the carriage turned up the avenue, followed by the eyes
+of the crowd and by a trail of the more curious.
+
+“Better give it another swig, mum,” counselled her companion; and the
+girl, going on her knees, raised the head, and administered a second
+swallow of the brandy. She did not resume her seat,
+but kept her arm about the boy, in an attempt to render his position
+easier. It was a wizened, pinched little face she gazed down at, and
+now the mouth was drawn as if there was physical suffering, even in the
+unconsciousness. Neither head nor hands had apparently ever known soap,
+but the dirt only gave picturesqueness, and, indeed, to Miss Durant an
+added pathos; and the tears came into her eyes as she noted that under
+the ragged coat was only a flimsy cotton shirt, so bereft of buttons
+that the whole chest was exposed to the cold which but a little while
+before the girl, clad in furs and sheltered by the carriage, had yet
+found so nipping. She raised her free hand and laid it gently on the
+exposed breast, and slightly shivered as she felt how little warmth
+there was.
+
+“Please put the fur rug over him,” she requested; and her companion
+pulled it
+from under their feet, and laid it over the coiled-up legs and body.
+
+The weight, or the second dose of the stimulant, had an effect, for
+Miss Durant felt the body quiver, and then the eyes unclosed. At first
+they apparently saw nothing, but slowly the dulness left them, and
+they, and seemingly the whole face, sharpened into comprehension, and
+then, as they fastened on the blue coat of the policeman, into the
+keenest apprehension.
+
+“Say,” he moaned, “I didn’t do nuttin’, dis time, honest.”
+
+“I ain’t takin’ you to the station-house,” denied the officer,
+colouring and looking sideways at his companion.
+
+“You were run over, and we are carrying you to where a doctor can see
+how much you are hurt,” said the gently.
+
+The eyes of the boy turned to hers, and the face lost some of its
+fright and
+suspicion. “Is dat on de level?” he asked, after a moment’s scrutiny.
+“Youse oin’t runnin’ me in?”
+
+“No,” answered Miss Durant. “We are taking you to the hospital.”
+
+“De horspital!” exclaimed the little chap, his eyes brightening. “Is
+Ise in de rattler?”
+
+“The what?” asked Constance.
+
+“De rattler,” repeated the questioner, “de ding-dong.”
+
+“No, you ain’t in no ambulance,” spoke up the officer. “You’re in this
+young lady’s carriage.”
+
+The look of hope and pride faded out of the boy’s face. “Ise oin’t
+playin’ in no sorter luck dese days,” he sighed. Suddenly the
+expression of alarm reappeared in his face. “Wheer’s me papes?”
+
+“They’re all right. Don’t you work yourself up over them,” said the
+roundsman, heartily.
+
+“Youse didn’t let de udder newsies swipe dem, did youse?” the lad
+appealed anxiously.
+
+“I’ll pay you for every one you lost,” offered Constance. “How many did
+you have?”
+
+The ragamuffin stared at her for a moment, his face an essence of
+disbelief.
+
+“Ah, hell!” he ejaculated. “Wot’s dis song an’ dance youse givin’ us?”
+
+“Really, I will,” insisted the girl. She reached back of her and took
+her purse from the rack, and as well as she could with her one hand
+opened it.
+
+The sight of the bills and coin brought doubt to the sceptic. “Say,” he
+demanded, his eyes burning with avidity, “does youse mean dat? Dere
+oin’t no crawl in dis?”
+
+“No. How much were they worth?”
+
+The boy hesitated, and scanned her face, as if he were measuring the
+girl more than he was his loss. “Dere wuz
+twinty _Joinals_” he said, speaking slowly, and his eyes watching her
+as a cat might a mouse, “an’—an’—twinty _Woilds_—an’—an’ tirty
+_Telegrams_— an’—an’—” He drew a fresh breath, as if needing strength,
+shot an apprehensive glance at the roundsman, and went on hurriedly, in
+a lower voice, “an’ tirty-five _Posts_—”
+
+“Ah, g’long with you,” broke in the policeman, disgustedly. “He didn’t
+have mor’n twenty in all, that I know.”
+
+“Hope I may die if Ise didn’t have all dem papes, boss,” protested the
+boy.
+
+“You deserve to be run in, that’s what you do,” asserted the officer of
+the law, angrily.
+
+“Oh, don’t threaten him,” begged Miss Durant.
+
+“Don’t you be fooled by him, mum. He ain’t the kind as sells _Posts_,
+an’ if he was, he wouldn’t have more’n five.”
+
+“It’s de gospel trute Ise chuckin’ at youse dis time,” asserted the
+youngster.
+
+“Gospel Ananias—!” began the officer.
+
+“Never mind,” interrupted Miss Durant. “Would ten dollars pay for them
+all?”
+
+“Ah, I know’d youse wuz tryin’ to stuff me,” dejectedly exclaimed the
+boy; then, in an evident attempt to save his respect for his own
+acuteness, he added: “But youse didn’t. I seed de goime youse wuz
+settin’ up right from de start.”
+
+Out of the purse Constance, with some difficulty, drew a crisp
+ten-dollar bill, the boy watching the one-handed operation half
+doubtingly and half eagerly; and when it was finally achieved, at the
+first movement of her hand toward him, his arm shot out, and the money
+was snatched, more than taken. With the quick motion, however, the look
+of eagerness and joy changed to one of agony; he gave a
+sharp cry, and, despite the grime, the cheeks whitened perceptibly.
+
+“Oh, please stay quiet,” implored Miss Durant. “You mustn’t move.”
+
+“Hully gee, but dat hurted!” gasped the youngster, yet clinging to the
+new wealth. He lay quiet for a few breaths; then, as if he feared the
+sight of the bill might in time tempt a change of mind in the giver, he
+stole the hand to his trousers pocket and endeavoured to smuggle the
+money into it, his teeth set, but his lips trembling, with the pain the
+movement cost him.
+
+Not understanding the fear in the boy’s mind, Constance put her free
+hand down and tried to assist him; but the instant he felt her fingers,
+his tightened violently. “Youse guv it me,” he wailed. “Didn’t she guv
+it me?” he appealed desperately to the policeman.
+
+“I’m only trying to help put it in your pocket,” explained the girl.
+
+“Ah, chase youseself!” exclaimed the doubter, contemptuously. “Dat
+don’t go wid me. Nah!”
+
+“What doesn’t go?” bewilderedly questioned Miss Durant.
+
+“Wotcher tink youse up aginst? Suttin’ easy? Well, I guess not! Youse
+don’t get youse pickers in me pocket on dat racket.”
+
+“She ain’t goin’ to take none of your money!” asserted the policeman,
+indignantly. “Can’t you tell a real lady when you see her?”
+
+“Den let her quit tryin’ to go tru me,” protested the anxious
+capitalist; and Constance desisted from her misinterpreted attempt,
+with a laugh which died as the little fellow, at last successful in his
+endeavour to secrete the money, moaned again at the pain it cost him.
+
+“Shall we never get there?” she demanded impatiently, and, as if an
+answer were granted her, the carriage slowed,
+and turning, passed into a porte-cochère, in which the shoes of the
+horses rang out sharply, and halted.
+
+“Stay quiet a bit, mum,” advised the policeman, as he got out; and
+Constance remained, still supporting the urchin, until two men with a
+stretcher appeared, upon which they lifted the little sufferer, who
+screamed with pain that even this gentlest of handling cost him.
+
+Her heart wrung with sympathy for him, Miss Durant followed after them
+into the reception-ward. At the door she hesitated, in doubt as to
+whether it was right or proper for her to follow, till the sight of a
+nurse reassured her, and she entered; but her boldness carried her no
+farther than to stand quietly while the orderlies set down the litter.
+Without a moment’s delay the nurse knelt beside the boy, and with her
+scissors began slitting up the sleeves of the tattered coat.
+
+“Hey! Wotcher up to?” demanded the waif, suspiciously.
+
+“I’m getting you ready for the doctor,” said the nurse, soothingly.
+“It’s all right.”
+
+“Toin’t nuttin’ of de sort,” moaned the boy. “Youse spoilin’ me cloes,
+an’ if youse wuzn’t a loidy, you’d get youse face poked in, dat’s wot
+would happen to youse.”
+
+Constance came forward and laid her hand on the little fellow’s cheek.
+“Don’t mind,” she said, “and I’ll give you a new suit of clothes.”
+
+“Wen?” came the quick question.
+
+“To-morrow.”
+
+“Does youse mean dat? Honest? Dere oin’t no string to dis?”
+
+“Honest,” echoed the girl, heartily.
+
+Reassured, the boy lay quietly while the nurse completed the
+dismemberment of the ragged coat, the apology for a shirt, and the bit
+of twine which served in lieu
+of suspenders. But the moment she began on the trousers, the wail was
+renewed.
+
+“Quit, I say, or I’ll soak de two of youse; see if I don’t. Ah, won’t
+youse—” The words became inarticulate howls which the prayers and
+assurances of the two women could not lessen.
+
+“Now, then, stop this noise and tell me what is the matter,” ordered a
+masculine voice; and turning from the boy, Constance found a tall,
+strong-featured man with tired-looking eyes standing at the other side
+of the litter.
+
+Hopeful that the diversion might mean assistance, the waif’s howls once
+more became lingual. “Dey’s tryin’ to swipe me money, boss,” he whined.
+“Hope I may die if deys oin’t.”
+
+“And where is your money?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Wotcher want to know for?” demanded the urchin, with recurrent
+suspicion in his face.
+
+“It’s in the pocket of his trousers, Dr. Armstrong,” said the nurse.
+
+Without the slightest attempt to reassure the boy, the doctor forced
+loose the boy’s hold on the pocket, and inserting his hand, drew out
+the ten-dollar bill and a medley of small coins.
+
+“Now,” he said, “I’ve taken your money, so they can’t. Understand?”
+
+The urchin began to snivel.
+
+“Ah, you have no right to be so cruel to him,” protested Miss Durant.
+“It’s perfectly natural. Just think how we would feel if we didn’t
+understand.”
+
+The doctor fumbled for his eye-glasses, but not finding them quickly
+enough, squinted his eyelids in an endeavour to see the speaker. “And
+who are you?” he demanded.
+
+“Why, I am—that is—I am Miss Durant, and—” stuttered the girl.
+
+Not giving her time to finish her speech, Dr. Armstrong asked, “Why are
+you here?” while searching for his glasses.
+
+“I did not mean to intrude,” explained Constance, flushing, “only it
+was my fault, and it hurts me to see him suffer more than seems
+necessary.”
+
+Abandoning the search for his glasses, and apparently unheeding of her
+explanation, the doctor began a hasty examination of the now naked boy,
+passing his hand over trunk and limbs with a firm touch that paid no
+heed to the child’s outcries, though each turned the onlooker faint and
+cold.
+
+Her anxiety presently overcoming the sense of rebuke, the overwrought
+girl asked, “He will live, won’t he?”
+
+The man straightened up from his examination. “Except for some
+contusion,” he replied, “it apparently is only a leg and a couple of
+ribs broken.” His voice and manner conveyed the idea that legs and ribs
+were but canes and corsets.
+“Take him into the accident ward,” he directed to the orderlies, “and
+I’ll attend to him presently.”
+
+“I will not have this boy neglected,” Constance said, excitedly and
+warmly. “Furthermore, I insist that he receive instant treatment, and
+not wait _your_ convenience.”
+
+Once again Dr. Armstrong began feeling for his glasses, as he asked,
+“Are you connected with this hospital, Miss Durant?”
+
+“No, but it was my carriage ran over him, and—”
+
+“And is it because you ran over the boy, Miss Durant,” he interrupted,
+“that you think it is your right to come here and issue instructions
+for our treatment of him?”
+
+“It is every one’s right to see that assistance is given to an injured
+person as quickly as possible,” retorted the girl, though flushing,
+“and to protest if human
+suffering, perhaps life itself, is made to wait the convenience of one
+who is paid to save both.”
+
+Finally discovering and adjusting his glasses, Dr. Armstrong eyed Miss
+Durant with a quality of imperturbability at once irritating and
+embarrassing. “I beg your pardon for the hasty remark I just made,” he
+apologised. “Not having my second sight at command, I did not realise I
+was speaking to so young a girl, and therefore I allowed myself to be
+offended, which was foolish. If you choose to go with the patient, I
+trust you will satisfy yourself that no one in this hospital is lacking
+in duty or kindness.”
+
+With a feeling much akin to that she had formerly suffered at the
+conclusion of her youthful spankings, Constance followed hurriedly
+after the orderlies, only too thankful that a reason had been given her
+permitting an escape from those steady eyes and amused accents, which
+she was still feeling when the litter was set down beside an empty bed.
+
+“Has dat slob tooken me money for keeps?” whimpered the boy the moment
+the orderlies had departed.
+
+“No, no,” Constance assured him, her hand in his.
+
+“Den w’y’d he pinch it so quick?”
+
+“He’s going to take care of it for you, that’s all.”
+
+“Will he guv me a wroten pape sayin’ dat?”
+
+“See,” said the girl, only eager to relieve his anxiety, “here is my
+purse, and there is a great deal more money in it than you had, and
+I’ll leave it with you, and if he doesn’t return you your money, why,
+you shall have mine.”
+
+“Youse cert’in dere’s more den Ise had?”
+
+“Certain. Look, here are two tens and three fives and a one, besides
+some change.”
+
+“Dat’s all hunky!” joyfully ejaculated the urchin. “Now, den, wheer kin
+we sneak it so he don’t git his hooks on it?”
+
+“This is to be your bed, and let’s hide it under the pillow,” suggested
+Constance, feeling as if she were playing a game. “Then you can feel of
+it whenever you want.”
+
+“Dat’s de way to steal a base off ’im,” acceded the waif. “We’ll show
+dese guys wese oin’t no bunch of easy grapes.”
+
+Scarcely was the purse concealed when a nurse appeared with a pail of
+water and rolls of some cloth, and after her came the doctor.
+
+“Now, my boy,” he said, with a kindness and gentleness in his voice
+which surprised Constance, “I’ve got to hurt you a little, and let’s
+see how brave you can be.” He took hold of the left leg the ankle and
+stretched it, at the same
+time manipulating the calf with the fingers of his other hand.
+
+The boy gave a cry of pain, and clutched Constance’s arm, squeezing it
+so as to almost make her scream; but she set her teeth determinedly and
+took his other hand in hers.
+
+At a word the nurse grasped the limb and held it as it was placed,
+while the doctor took one of the rolls, and, dipping it in the water,
+unrolled it round and round the leg, with a rapidity and deftness which
+had, to Constance, a quality of fascination in it. A second wet bandage
+was wound over the first, then a dry one, and the leg was gently laid
+back on the litter. “Take his temperature,” ordered the doctor, as he
+began to apply strips of adhesive plaster to the injured ribs; and
+though it required some persuasion by the nurse and Constance, the
+invalid finally was persuaded to let the little glass lie under his
+tongue. His
+task completed, Dr. Armstrong withdrew the tube and glanced at it.
+
+“Dat medicine oin’t got much taste, boss,” announced the urchin,
+cheerfully, “but it soytenly done me lots of good.”
+
+The doctor looked up at Constance with a pleasant smile. “There’s both
+the sense and the nonsense of the Christian Science idiocy,” he said;
+and half in response to his smile and half in nervous relief, Constance
+laughed merrily.
+
+“I am glad for anything that makes him feel better,” she replied; then,
+colouring once more, she added, “and will you let me express my regret
+for my impulsive words a little while ago, and my thanks to you for
+relieving the suffering for which I am, to a certain extent,
+responsible?”
+
+“There is no necessity for either, Miss Durant, though I am grateful
+for both,” he replied.
+
+“Will there be much suffering?”
+
+“Probably no more than ordinarily occurs in such simple fractures,”
+said the doctor; “and we’ll certainly do our best that there shall not
+be.”
+
+“And may I see him to-morrow?”
+
+“Certainly, if you come between eleven and one.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Constance. “And one last favour. Will you tell me the
+way to my carriage?”
+
+“If you will permit me, I’ll see you to it,” offered Dr. Armstrong.
+
+With an acknowledgment of the head, Constance turned and took the boy’s
+hand and said a good-bye.
+
+“Do you suppose all newsboys are so dreadfully sharp and suspicious?”
+she asked of her guide, as they began to descend the stairs, more
+because she was conscious that he was eyeing her with steady scrutiny
+than for any other reason.
+
+“I suppose the life is closer to that of the wild beast than anything
+we have in so-called civilisation. Even a criminal has his pals, but,
+like the forest animal, everyone—even his own kind—is an enemy to the
+street waif.”
+
+“It must be terrible to suspect and fear even kindness,” sighed the
+girl, with a slight shudder. “I shall try to teach him what it means.”
+
+“There does not appear to be any carriage here, Miss Durant,” announced
+her escort.
+
+“Surely there must be. The men can’t have been so stupid as not to
+wait!”
+
+The doctor tapped on the window of the lodge. “Didn’t this lady’s
+carriage remain here?” he asked, when the porter had opened it.
+
+“It stayed till the policeman came down, doctor. He ordered it to go to
+the police-station, and got in it.”
+
+“I forgot that my coachman must answer for the accident. Is there a
+cab-stand near here?”
+
+Dr. Armstrong looked into her eyes, with an amusement which yet did not
+entirely obliterate the look of admiration, of which the girl was
+becoming more and more conscious. “The denizens of Avenue A have
+several cab-stands, of course,” he replied, “but they prefer to keep
+them over on Fifth Avenue.”
+
+“It was a foolish question, I suppose” coldly retorted Constance, quite
+as moved thereto by the scrutiny as by the words, “but I did not even
+notice where the carriage was driving when we came here. Can you tell
+me the nearest car line which will take me to Washington Square?”
+
+“As it is five blocks away, and the neighbourhood is not of the nicest,
+I shall take the liberty of walking with you to it.”
+
+“Really, I would rather not. I haven’t the slightest fear,” protested
+the girl, eager to escape both the observation and the obligation.
+
+“But I have,” calmly said her companion, as if his wish were the only
+thing to be considered.
+
+For a moment Miss Durant vacillated, then, with a very slight
+inclination of her head, conveying the smallest quantity of consent and
+acknowledgment she could express, she walked out of the porte-cochere.
+
+The doctor put himself beside her, and; they turned down the street,
+but not one word did she say. “If he will force his society upon me, I
+will at least show him my dislike of it,” was her thought.
+
+Obviously Dr. Armstrong was not disturbed by Miss Durant’s programme,
+for the whole distance was walked in silence; and even when they halted
+on the corner, he said nothing, though the girl was conscious that his
+eyes still studied her face.
+
+“I will not be the first to speak,” she vowed to herself; but minute
+after minute
+passed without the slightest attempt or apparent wish on his part, and
+finally she asked, “Are you sure this line is running?”
+
+Her attendant pointed up the street. “That yellow light is your car. I
+don’t know why the intervals are so long this evening. Usually—”
+
+He was interrupted by the girl suddenly clutching at her dress, and
+then giving an exclamation of real consternation.
+
+“What is it?” he questioned.
+
+“Why, I—nothing—that is, I think—I prefer to walk home, after all,” she
+stammered.
+
+“You mustn’t do that. It’s over two miles, and through a really rough
+district.”
+
+“I choose to, none the less,” answered Constance, starting across the
+street.
+
+“Then you will have to submit to my safeguard for some time longer,
+Miss Durant,” asserted the doctor, as he overtook her.
+
+Constance stopped. “Dr. Armstrong,” she said, “I trust you will not
+insist on accompanying me farther, when I tell you I haven’t the
+slightest fear of anything.”
+
+“You have no fear, Miss Durant,” he answered, “because you are too
+young and inexperienced to even know the possibilities. This is no part
+of the city for you to walk alone in after dark. Your wisest course is
+to take a car, but if you prefer not, you had best let me go with you.”
+
+“I choose not to take a car,” replied the girl, warmly, “and you have
+no right to accompany me against my wish.”
+
+Dr. Armstrong raised his hat. “I beg your pardon. I did not realize
+that my presence was not desired,” he said.
+
+Angry at both herself and him, Constance merely bowed, and walked on.
+“I don’t see why men have to torment
+me so,” she thought, as she hurried along. “His face was really
+interesting, and if he only wouldn’t begin like—He never would have
+behaved so if—if I weren’t—” Miss Durant checked even her thoughts from
+the word “beautiful,” and allowed the words “well dressed” to explain
+her magnetism to the other sex. Then, as if to salve her conscience of
+her own hypocrisy, she added, “It really is an advantage to a girl, if
+she doesn’t want to be bothered by men, to be born plain.”
+
+The truth of her thought was brought home to her with unexpected
+suddenness, for as she passed a strip of sidewalk made light by the
+glare from a saloon brilliant with gas, a man just coming out of its
+door stared boldly, and then joined her.
+
+“Ahem!” he said.
+
+The girl quickened her pace, but the intruder only lengthened his.
+
+“Cold night, isn’t it, darling?” he remarked, and tried to take her
+arm.
+
+Constance shrank away from the familiarity with a loathing and fear
+which, as her persecutor followed, drove her to the curb.
+
+“How dare you?” she burst out, finding he was not to be avoided.
+
+“Now don’t be silly, and—”
+
+There the sentence ended, for the man was jerked backwards by the
+collar, and then shot forward, with a shove, full length into the
+gutter.
+
+“I feared you would need assistance, Miss Durant, and so took the
+liberty of following you at a distance,” explained Dr. Armstrong, as
+the cur picked himself up and slunk away.
+
+“You are very— Thank you deeply for your kindness, Dr. Armstrong,”
+gasped the girl, her voice trembling. “I ought to have been guided by
+your advice and taken the car, but the truth
+is, I suddenly remembered - that is, I happened to be without any
+money, and was ashamed to ask you for a loan. Now, if you’ll lend me
+five cents, I shall be most grateful.”
+
+“It is said to be a feminine trait never to think of contingencies,”
+remarked the doctor, “and I think, Miss Durant, that your suggested
+five cents has a tendency in that direction. I will walk with you to
+Lexington Avenue, which is now your nearest line, and if you still
+persist then in refusing my escort, I shall insist that you become my
+debtor for at least a dollar.”
+
+“I really need not take you any further than the car, thank you, Dr.
+Armstrong, for I can get a cab at Twenty-third Street.”
+
+It was a short walk to the car line,—too short, indeed, for Miss Durant
+to express her sense of obligation as she wished,—and she tried, even
+as she was
+mounting the steps, to say a last word, but the car swept her away with
+the sentence half spoken; and with a want of dignity that was not
+customary in her, she staggered to a seat. Then as she tendered a
+dollar bill to the conductor, she remarked to herself,—
+
+“Now, that’s a man I’d like for a friend, if only he wouldn’t be
+foolish.”
+
+At eleven on the following morning, Miss Durant’s carriage once more
+stopped at the hospital door; and, bearing a burden of flowers, and
+followed by the footman carrying a large basket, Constance entered the
+ward, and made her way to the waif’s bedside.
+
+“Good-morning,” she said to Dr. Armstrong, who stood beside the next
+patient. “How is our invalid doing?”
+
+“Good-morning,” responded the doctor, taking the hand she held out. “I
+think—”
+
+“We’s takin’ life dead easy, dat’s wot wese is,” came the prompt
+interruption from the pillow, in a voice at once youthful yet worn.
+“Say, dis oin’t no lead pipe cinch, oh, no!”
+
+It was a very different face the girl found, for soap and water had
+worked wonders with it, and the scissors and brush had reduced the
+tangled shag of hair to order. Yet the ferret eyes and the alert,
+over-sharp expression were unchanged.
+
+“I’ve brought you some flowers and goodies,” said Miss Durant. “I don’t
+know how much of it will be good for him,” she went on to the doctor,
+apologetically, “but I hope some will do.” Putting the flowers on the
+bed, from the basket she produced in succession two bottles of port, a
+mould of wine jelly, a jar of orange marmalade, a box of wafers, and a
+dish of grapes, apples, and bananas.
+
+“Gee! Won’t Ise have a hell of a gorge!” joyfully burst out the
+invalid.
+
+“We’ll see about that,” remarked Dr. Armstrong, smiling. “He can have
+all the other things you’ve brought, in reason, Miss Durant, except the
+wine. That must wait till we see how much fever he develops to-day,”
+
+“He is doing well?”
+
+“So far, yes.”
+
+“That is a great relief to me. And, Dr. Armstrong, in returning your
+loan to me, will you let me say once again how grateful I am to you for
+all your kindness, for which I thanked you so inadequately last night?
+I deserved all that came to me, and can only wonder how you ever
+resisted saying, ‘I told you so.’”
+
+“I have been too often wrong in my own diagnosing to find any
+satisfaction or triumph in the mistakes of others,” said the doctor, as
+he took the bill the
+girl held out to him, and, let it be confessed, the fingers that held
+it, “nor can I regret anything which gave me an opportunity to serve
+you.”
+
+The speaker put an emphasis on the last word, and eyed Miss Durant in a
+way that led her to hastily withdraw her fingers, and turn away from
+his unconcealed admiration. It was to find the keen eyes of the urchin
+observing them with the closest attention; and as she realised it, she
+coloured, half in embarrassment and half in irritation.
+
+“How is your leg?” she asked, in an attempt to divert the boy’s
+attention and to conceal her own feeling.
+
+“Say. Did youse know dey done it up in plaster, so dat it’s stiff as a
+bat?” responded the youngster, eagerly. “Wish de udder kids could see
+it, for dey’ll never believe it w’en Ise tells ’em. I’ll show it to
+youse if youse want?” he offered, in his joy over the novelty.
+
+“I saw it put on,” said Constance. “Don’t you remember?”
+
+“Why, cert! Ise remembers now dat—” A sudden change came over the boy’s
+face. “Wheer’s dem cloes youse promised me?” he demanded.
+
+“Oh, I entirely forgot—”
+
+“Ah, forgit youse mudder! Youse a peach, oin’t youse?” contemptuously
+broke in the child.
+
+Miss Durant and Dr. Armstrong both burst out laughing.
+
+“Youse t’ink youse a smarty, but Ise know’d de hull time it wuz only a
+big bluff dat youse wuz tryin’ to play on me, an’ it didn’t go wid me,
+nah!” went on the youngster, in an aggrieved tone.
+
+“Isn’t he perfectly incorrigible?” sighed Constance.
+
+“Ise oin’t,” denied the boy, indignantly. “Deyse only had me up onct.”
+
+With the question the girl had turned to Dr. Armstrong; then, finding
+his eyes
+still intently studying her, she once more gave her attention to the
+waif.
+
+“Really, I did forget them,” she asserted. “You shall have a new suit
+long before you need it.”
+
+“Cert’in dat oin’t no fake extry youse shoutin’?”
+
+“Truly. How old are you?”
+
+“Wotcher want to know for?” suspiciously asked the boy.
+
+“So I can buy a suit for that age.”
+
+“Dat goes. Ise ate.”
+
+“And what’s your name?”
+
+“Swot.”
+
+“What?” exclaimed the girl.
+
+“Nah. Swot,” he corrected.
+
+“How do you spell it?”
+
+“Dun’no’. Dat’s wot de newsies calls me, ’cause of wot Ise says to de
+preacher man.”
+
+“And what was that?”
+
+“It wuz one of dem religious mugs wot comes Sunday to de Mulberry Park,
+see, an’ dat day he wuz gassin’ to us kids ’bout lettin’ a guy as had
+hit youse onct doin’ it ag’in; an’ w’en he’d pumped hisself empty, he
+says to me, says he, ‘If a bad boy fetched youse a lick on youse cheek,
+wot would youse do to ’im?’ An’ Ise says, ‘I’d swot ’im in de gob, or
+punch ’im in de slats,’ says I; an’ so de swipes calls me by dat noime.
+Honest, now, oin’t dat kinder talk jus’ sickenin’?”
+
+“But you must have another name,” suggested Miss Durant, declining to
+commit herself on that question.
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“And what is that?”
+
+“McGarrigle.”
+
+“And have you no father or mother?”
+
+“Nah.”
+
+“Or brothers or sisters?”
+
+“Nah. Ise oin’t got nuttin’.”
+
+“Where do you live?”
+
+“Ah, rubber!” disgustedly remarked
+Swot. “Say, dis oin’t no police court, see?”
+
+During all these questions, and to a certain extent their cause,
+Constance had been quite conscious that the doctor was still watching
+her, and now she once more turned to him, to say, with an inflection of
+disapproval,—
+
+“When I spoke to you just now, Dr. Armstrong, I did not mean to
+interrupt you in your duties, and you must not let me detain you from
+them.”
+
+“I had made my morning rounds long before you came, Miss Durant,”
+equably answered the doctor, “and had merely come back for a moment to
+take a look at one of the patients.”
+
+“I feared you were neglecting—were allowing my arrival to interfere
+with more important matters,” replied Miss Durant, frigidly. “I never
+knew a denser man,” she added to herself, again seeking to ignore his
+presence by giving her attention to Swot. “I should have brought a book
+with me to-day, to read aloud to you, but I had no idea what kind of a
+story would interest you. If you know of one, I’ll get it and come
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Gee, Ise in it dis time wid bote feet, oin’t Ise? Say, will youse git
+one of de Old Sleuts? Deys de peachiest books dat wuz ever wroten.”
+
+“I will, if my bookshop has one, or can get it for me in time.”
+
+“There is little chance of your getting it there, Miss Durant,”
+interposed Dr. Armstrong; “but there is a place not far from here where
+stories of that character are kept; and if it will save you any
+trouble, I’ll gladly get one of them for you.”
+
+“I have already overtaxed your kindness,” replied Constance, “and so
+will not trouble you in this.”
+
+“It would be no trouble.”
+
+“Thank you, but I shall enjoy the search myself.”
+
+“Say,” broke in the urchin. “Youse ought to let de doc do it. Don’t
+youse see dat he wants to, ’cause he’s stuck on youse?”
+
+“Then I’ll come to-morrow and read to you, Swot,” hastily remarked Miss
+Durant, pulling her veil over her face. “Good-bye.” Without heeding the
+boy’s “Dat’s fine,” or giving Dr. Armstrong a word of farewell, she
+went hurrying along the ward, and then downstairs, to her carriage. Yet
+once within its shelter, the girl leaned back and laughed merrily.
+“It’s perfectly absurd for him to behave so before all the nurses and
+patients, and he ought to know better. It is to be hoped _that_ was a
+sufficiently broad hint for his comprehension, and that henceforth he
+won’t do it.”
+
+Yet it must be confessed that the boy’s remark frequently recurred that
+day to
+Miss Durant; and if it had no other result, it caused her to devote an
+amount of thought to Dr. Armstrong quite out of proportion to the
+length of the acquaintance.
+
+Whatever the inward effect, Miss Durant could discover no outward
+evidence that Swot’s bombshell had moved Dr. Armstrong a particle more
+than her less pointed attempts to bring to him a realisation that he
+was behaving in a manner displeasing to her. When she entered the ward
+the next morning, the doctor was again there, and this time at the
+waif’s bedside, making avoidance of him out of the question. So with a
+“this-is-my-busy-day” manner, she gave him the briefest of greetings,
+and then turned to the boy.
+
+“I’ve brought you some more goodies, Swot, and I found the story,” she
+announced triumphantly.
+
+“Say, youse a winner, dat’s wot youse is; oin’t she, doc? Wot’s de
+noime?”
+
+Constance held up to him the red and yellow covered tale. “_The
+Cracksman’s Spoil, or Young Sleuth’s Double Artifice”_ she read out
+proudly.
+
+“Ah, g’way! Dat oin’t no good. Say, dey didn’t do a t’ing to youse, did
+dey?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Dey sold youse fresh, dat’s wot dey did. De Young Sleut books oin’t no
+good. Dey’s nuttin’ but a fake extry.”
+
+“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Constance, crestfallenly. “It took me the whole
+afternoon to find it, but I did think it was what you wanted.”
+
+“I was sceptical of your being able to get even an approach to newsboy
+literature, Miss Durant,” said Dr. Armstrong, “and so squandered the
+large sum of a dime myself. I think this is the genuine article, isn’t
+it?” he asked, as he handed
+to the boy a pamphlet labelled _Old Sleuth on the Trail_.
+
+“Dat’s de real t’ing,” jubilantly acceded Swot. “Say, oin’t de women
+doisies for havin’ bases stole off ’em? Didn’t Ise give youse de warm
+tip to let de doc git it?”
+
+“You should thank him for saving you from my stupid blunder,” answered
+the girl, artfully avoiding all possibility of personal obligation.
+“Would you like me to read it to you now?”
+
+“Wouldn’t Ise, just!”
+
+Still ignoring Dr. Armstrong, Constance took the seat at the bedside,
+and opening the book, launched into the wildest sea of blood-letting
+and crime. Yet thrillingly as it began, she was not oblivious to the
+fact that for some minutes the doctor stood watching her, and she was
+quite conscious of when he finally moved away, noiselessly as he went.
+Once he was gone, she was
+more at her ease; yet clearly her conscience troubled her a little, for
+in her carriage she again gave expression to some thought by remarking
+aloud, “It was rude, of course, but if he will behave so, it really
+isn’t my fault.”
+
+
+[Illustration: “Constance took the seat at the bedside”]
+
+
+The gory tale, in true serial style, was “continued” the next and
+succeeding mornings, to the enthralment of the listener and the
+amusement of the reader, the latter finding in her occupation as well a
+convenient reason for avoiding or putting a limit to the doctor’s
+undisguised endeavours to share, if not, indeed, to monopolise, her
+attention. Even serials, however, have an end, and on the morning of
+the sixth reading the impossibly shrewd detective successfully put out
+of existence, or safely incarcerated each one of the numerous
+scoundrels who had hitherto triumphed over the law, and Constance
+closed the book.
+
+“Hully gee!” sighed Swot, contentedly.
+“Say, dat Old Sleut, he’s up to de limit, oin’t he? It don’t matter wot
+dey does, he works it so’s de hull push comes his way, don’t he?”
+
+“He certainly was very far-seeing,” Constance conceded; “but what a
+pity it is that he—that he wasn’t in some finer calling.”
+
+“Finer wot?”
+
+“How much nobler it would have been if, instead of taking life, he had
+been saving it—like Dr. Armstrong, for instance,” she added, to bring
+her idea within the comprehension of the boy.
+
+“Ah, dat’s de talk for religious mugs an’ goils,” contemptuously
+exclaimed the waif, “but it guv’s me de sore ear. It don’t go wid me,
+not one little bit.”
+
+“Aren’t you grateful to Dr. Armstrong for all he’s done for you?”
+
+“Bet youse life,” assented Swot; “but Ise oin’t goin’ to be no doctor,
+nah! Ise goin’ to git on de force, dat’s de racket Ise outer. Say, will
+youse read me anudder of dem stories?”
+
+“Gladly, if I can find the right kind this time.”
+
+The boy raised his head to look about the ward. “Hey, doc,” called his
+cracked treble.
+
+“Hush, don’t!” protested the girl.
+
+“W’y not?”
+
+Before she could frame a reason, the doctor was at the bedside. “What
+is it?” he asked.
+
+“Say, wese got tru wid dis story, an’ Miss Constance says she’ll read
+me anudder, but dey’ll set de goime up on her, sure, she bein’ a goil;
+so will youse buy de real t’ing?”
+
+“That I will.”
+
+“Dat’s hunky.” Then he appealed to Constance. “Say, will youse pay for
+it?” he requested.
+
+“And why should she?” inquired Dr. Armstrong.
+
+“’Cause she’s got de dough, an Ise heard de nurse loidies talkin’ ’bout
+youse, an’ dey said dat youse wuz poor.”
+
+It was the doctor’s turn to colour, and flush he did.
+
+“Swot and I will both be very grateful, Dr. Armstrong, if you will get
+us another of the Old Sleuth books,” spoke up Miss Durant, hastily.
+
+“Won’t youse guv ’im de price?” reiterated the urchin.
+
+“Then we’ll expect it to-morrow morning,” went on the girl; and for the
+first time in days she held out her hand to Dr. Armstrong, “And thank
+you in advance for your kindness. Good-morning.”
+
+“Rats!” she heard, as she walked away. “I didn’t tink she’d do de grand
+sneak like dat, doc, jus’ ’cause I tried to touch her for de cash.”
+
+Constance slowed one step, then resumed her former pace. “He surely— Of
+course he’ll understand why I hurried away,” she murmured.
+
+Blind as he might be, Dr. Armstrong was not blind to the geniality of
+Miss Durant’s greeting the next morning, or the warmth of her thanks
+for the cheap-looking dime novel. She chatted pleasantly with him some
+moments before beginning on the new tale; and even when she at last
+opened the book, there was a subtle difference in the way she did it
+that made it include instead of exclude him from a share in the
+reading. And this was equally true of the succeeding days.
+
+The new doings of Old Sleuth did not achieve the success that the
+previous ones had. The invalid suddenly developed both restlessness and
+inattention, with such a tendency to frequent interruptions as to make
+reading well-nigh impossible.
+
+“Really, Swot,” Constance was driven
+to threaten one morning, when he had broken in on the narrative for the
+seventh time with questions which proved that he was giving no heed to
+the book, “unless you lie quieter, and don’t interrupt so often, I
+shall not go on reading.”
+
+“Dat goes,” acceded the little fellow; yet before she had so much as
+finished a page he asked, “Say, did youse ever play craps?”
+
+“No,” she answered, with a touch of severity.
+
+“It’s a jim dandy goime, Ise tells youse. Like me to learn youse?”
+
+“No,” replied the girl, as she closed the book.
+
+“Goils never oin’t no good,” remarked Swot, discontentedly.
+
+Really irritated, Miss Durant rose and adjusted her boa. “Swot,” she
+said, “you are the most ungrateful boy I ever knew, and I’m not merely
+not going to read any more to-day, but I have a good
+mind not to come to-morrow, just to punish you.”
+
+“Ah, chase youseself!” was the response. “Youse can’t pass dat gold
+brick on me, well, I guess!”
+
+“What are you talking about?” indignantly asked Constance.
+
+“Tink Ise oin’t onter youse curves? Tink Ise don’t hear wot de nurse
+loidies says? Gee! Ise know w’y youse so fond of comin’ here.”
+
+“Why do I come here?” asked Constance, in a voice full of warning.
+
+The tone was wasted on the boy.
+
+“’Cause youse dead gone on de doc.”
+
+“I am sorry you don’t know better than to talk like that, Swot,” said
+the girl, quietly, “because I wanted to be good to you, and now you
+have put an end to my being able to be. You will have to get some one
+else to read to you after this. Good-bye.” She passed her hand kindly
+over his forehead, and
+turned to find that Dr. Armstrong was standing close behind her, and
+must have overheard more or less of what had been said. Without a word,
+and looking straight before her, Constance walked away.
+
+Once out of the hospital, her conscience was not altogether easy; and
+though she kept away the next day, she sent her footman with the usual
+gift of fruits and other edibles; and this she did again on the morning
+following.
+
+“Of course he didn’t mean to be so atrociously impertinent,” she
+sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel
+way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. “But I can’t, in
+self-respect, go to him any more.”
+
+These explanations were confided to her double in the mirror, as she
+eyed the effect of a new gown, donned for a dinner; and while she still
+studied the
+eminently satisfactory total, she was interrupted by a knock at the
+door, and her maid brought her a card the footman handed in.
+
+Constance took it, looked astonished, then frowned slightly, and
+finally glanced again in the mirror. Without a word, she took her
+gloves and fan from the maid, and descended to the drawing-room.
+
+“Good-evening, Dr. Armstrong,” she said, coolly.
+
+“I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss Durant,” awkwardly and
+hurriedly began the doctor, “because nothing else would satisfy Swot
+McGarrigle. I trust you will understand that I—He—he is to undergo an
+operation, and—well, I told him it was impossible, but he still begged
+me so to ask you, that I hadn’t the heart to refuse him.”
+
+
+[Illustration: “‘I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss
+Durant,’ hurriedly began the doctor”]
+
+
+“An operation!” cried Constance.
+
+“Don’t be alarmed. It’s really nothing serious. He—Perhaps you may have
+noticed how restless and miserable he has been lately. It is due, we
+have decided, to one of the nerves of the leg having been lacerated,
+and so I am going to remove it, to end the suffering, which is now
+pretty keen.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed the girl, regretfully. “I didn’t dream of
+it, and so was hard on him, and said I wouldn’t come any more.”
+
+“He has missed your visits very much, Miss Durant, and we found it very
+hard to comfort him each morning, when only your servant came.”
+
+“Has he really? I thought they were nothing to him.”
+
+“If you knew that class better, you would appreciate that they are
+really grateful and warm-hearted, but they fear to show their feelings,
+and, besides, could not express them, even if they had the
+words, which they don’t. But if you could hear the little chap sing
+your praises to the nurses and to me, you would not think him
+heartless. ‘My loidy’ is his favourite description of you.”
+
+“He wants to see me?” questioned the girl, eagerly.
+
+“Yes. Like most of the poorer class, Miss Durant,” explained the
+doctor, “he has a great dread of the knife. To make him less frantic, I
+promised that I would come to you with his wish; and though I would not
+for a moment have you present at the actual operation, if you could
+yield so far as to come to him for a few minutes, and assure him that
+we are going to do it for his own good, I think it will make him more
+submissive.”
+
+“When do you want me?” asked Miss Durant.
+
+“It is—I am to operate as soon as I can get back to the hospital, Miss
+Durant.
+It has been regrettably postponed as it is.”
+
+The girl stood hesitating for a moment. “But what am I to do about my
+dinner?”
+
+Dr. Armstrong’s eyes travelled over her from head to foot, taking in
+the charming gown of satin and lace, the strings of pearls about her
+exquisite throat and wrists, and all the other details which made up
+such a beautiful picture. “I forgot,” he said, quietly, “that society
+duties now take precedence over all others.” Then, with an instant
+change of manner, he went on: “You do yourself an injustice, I think,
+Miss Durant, in even questioning what you are going to do. You know you
+are coming to the boy.”
+
+For the briefest instant the girl returned his intent look, trying to
+fathom what enabled him to speak with such absolute surety; then she
+said, “Let us
+lose no time,” as she turned back into the hall and hurried out of the
+front door, not even attending to the doctor’s protest about her going
+without a wrap; and she only said to him at the carriage door, “You
+will drive with me, of course, Dr. Armstrong?” Then to the footman,
+“Tell Murdock, the hospital, Maxwell, but you are to go at once to Mrs.
+Purdy, and say I shall be prevented from coming to her to-night by a
+call that was not to be disregarded,”
+
+“It was madness of you, Miss Durant, to come out without a cloak, and I
+insist on your wearing this,” said the doctor, the moment the carriage
+had started, as he removed his own overcoat.
+
+“Oh, I forgot—but I mustn’t take it from you, Dr. Armstrong.”
+
+“Have no thought of me. I am twice as warmly clad as you, and am better
+protected than usual.”
+
+Despite her protest he placed it about
+Constance’s shoulders and buttoned it up. “You know,” he said, “the
+society girl with her bare throat and arms is at once the marvel and
+the despair of us doctors, for every dinner or ball ought to have its
+death-list from pneumonia; but it never—”
+
+“Will it be a very painful operation?” asked the girl.
+
+“Not at all; and the anaesthetic prevents consciousness. If Swot were a
+little older, I should not have had to trouble you. It is a curious
+fact that boys, as a rule, face operations more bravely than any other
+class of patient we have.”
+
+“I wonder why that is?” queried Constance.
+
+“It is due to the same ambition which makes cigarette-smokers of them—a
+desire to be thought manly.”
+
+Once the carriage reached the hospital, Constance followed the doctor
+up the
+stairs and through the corridor. “Let me relieve you of the coat, Miss
+Durant,” he advised, and took it from her and passed it over to one of
+the orderlies. Then, opening a door, he made way for her to enter.
+
+
+[Illustration: “The two were quickly seated on the floot”]
+
+
+Constance passed into a medium-sized room, which a first glance showed
+her to be completely lined with marble; but there her investigations
+ceased, for her eyes rested on the glass table upon which lay the
+little fellow, while beside him stood a young doctor and a nurse. At
+the sound of her footsteps the boy turned his head till he caught sight
+of her, when, after an instant’s stare, he surprised the girl by hiding
+his eyes and beginning to cry.
+
+“Ise knowed all along youse wuz goin’ to kill me,” he sobbed.
+
+“Why, Swot,” cried Constance, going to his side. “Nobody is going to
+kill you.”
+
+The hands were removed from the eyes, and still full of tears, they
+blinkingly stared a moment at the girl.
+
+“Hully gee! Is dat youse?” he ejaculated. “Ise tought youse wuz de
+angel come for me.”
+
+“You may go many years in society, Miss Durant, without winning another
+compliment so genuine,” remarked Dr. Armstrong, smiling. “Nor is it
+surprising that he was misled,” he added.
+
+Constance smiled in return as she answered, “And it only proves how the
+value of a compliment is not in its truthfulness, but in its being
+truth to the one who speaks it.”
+
+“Say, youse won’t let dem do nuttin’ bad to me, will youse?” implored
+the boy.
+
+“They are only going to help you, Swot,” the girl assured him, as she
+took his hand.
+
+“Den w’y do dey want to put me to sleep for?”
+
+“To spare you suffering,”
+
+“Dis oin’t no knock-out drops, or dat sorter goime? Honest?”
+
+“No. I won’t let them do you any harm.”
+
+“Will youse watch dem all de time dey’s doin’ tings to me?”
+
+“Yes. And if you’ll be quiet and take it nicely, I’ll bring you a
+present to-morrow.”
+
+“Dat’s grand! Wot’ll youse guv me? Say, don’t do dat,” he protested, as
+the nurse applied the sponge and cone to his face.
+
+“Lie still, Swot,” said Constance, soothingly, “and tell me what you
+would best like me to give you. Shall it be a box of building-blocks—or
+some soldiers—or a fire-engine—or—”
+
+“Nah. Ise don’t want nuttin’ but one ting—an’ dat’s—wot wuz Ise
+tinkin’—Ise forgits wot it wuz—lemme see—Wot’s de matter? Wheer is
+youse all?—” The little frame relaxed and lay quiet.
+
+“That is all you can do for us, Miss Durant,” said Dr. Armstrong.
+
+“May I not stay, as I promised him I would?” begged Constance.
+
+“Can you bear the sight of blood?”
+
+“I don’t know—but see—I’ll turn my back.” Suiting the action to the
+word, the girl faced so that, still holding Swot’s hand, she was
+looking away from the injured leg.
+
+A succession of low-spoken orders to his assistants was the doctor’s
+way of telling her that he left her to do as she chose, She stood
+quietly for a few minutes, but presently her desire to know the
+progress of the operation, and her anxiety over the outcome, proved too
+strong for her, and she turned her head to take a furtive glance. She
+did not
+look away again, but with a strange mixture of fascination and
+squeamishness, she watched as the bleeding was stanched with sponges,
+each artery tied, and each muscle drawn aside, until finally the nerve
+was reached and removed; and she could not but feel both wonder and
+admiration as she noted how Dr. Armstrong’s hands, at other times
+seemingly so much in his way, now did their work so skilfully and
+rapidly. Not till the operation was over, and the resulting wound was
+being sprayed with antiseptics, did the girl realize how cold and faint
+she felt, or how she was trembling. Dropping the hand of the boy, she
+caught at the operating-table, and then the room turned black.
+
+“It’s really nothing,” she asserted. “I only felt dizzy for an instant.
+Why! Where am I?”
+
+“You fainted away, Miss Durant, and we brought you here,” explained the
+nurse, once again applying the salts. The woman rose and went to the
+door. “She is conscious now, Dr. Armstrong.”
+
+As the doctor entered Constance tried to rise, but a motion of his hand
+checked her. “Sit still a little yet, Miss Durant,” he ordered
+peremptorily. From a cupboard he produced a plate of crackers and a
+glass of milk, and brought them to her.
+
+“I really don’t want anything,” declared the girl.
+
+“You are to eat something at once,” insisted Dr. Armstrong, in a very
+domineering manner.
+
+He held the glass to her lips, and Constance, after a look at his face,
+took a swallow of the milk, and then a piece of cracker he broke off.
+
+“How silly of me to behave so,” she said, as she munched.
+
+“The folly was mine in letting you
+stay in the room when you had had no dinner. That was enough to knock
+up any one,” answered the doctor. “Here.” Once again the glass was held
+to her lips, and once again, after a look at his face, Constance drank,
+and then accepted a second bit of cracker from his fingers.
+
+“Do you keep these especially for faint-minded women?” she asked,
+trying to make a joke of the incident.
+
+“This is my particular sanctum, Miss Durant; and as I have a
+reprehensible habit of night-work, I keep them as a kind of sleeping
+potion.”
+
+Constance glanced about the room with more interest, and as she noticed
+the simplicity and the bareness, Swot’s remark concerning the doctor’s
+poverty came back to her. Only many books and innumerable glass
+bottles, a microscope, and other still more mysterious instruments,
+seemed to save it from the
+tenement-house, if not, indeed, the prison, aspect.
+
+“Are you wondering how it is possible for any one to live in such a
+way?” asked the doctor, as his eyes followed hers about the room.
+
+“If you will have my thought,” answered Constance, “it was that I am in
+the cave of the modern hermit, who, instead of seeking solitude,
+because of the sins of mankind, seeks it that he may do them good.”
+
+“We have each had a compliment to-night,” replied Dr. Armstrong, his
+face lighting up.
+
+The look in his eyes brought something into the girl’s thoughts, and
+with a slight effort she rose. “I think I am well enough now to relieve
+you of my intrusion,” she said.
+
+“You will not be allowed to leave the hermit’s cell till you have
+finished the cracker and the milk,” affirmed the man.
+“I only regret that I can’t keep up the character by offering you
+locusts and wild honey.”
+
+“At least don’t think it necessary to stay here with me,” said Miss
+Durant, as she dutifully began to eat and drink again. “If—oh—the
+operation—How is Swot?”
+
+“Back in the ward, though not yet conscious.”
+
+“And the operation?”
+
+“Absolutely successful.”
+
+“Despite my interruption?”
+
+“Another marvel to us M.D.’s is the way so sensitive a thing as a woman
+will hold herself in hand by sheer nerve force when it is necessary.
+You did not faint till the operation was completed.”
+
+“Now may I go?” asked the girl, with a touch of archness, as she held
+up the glass and the plate, both empty.
+
+“Yes, if you will let me share your carriage. Having led you into this
+predicament,
+the least I feel I can do is to see you safely out of it.”
+
+“Now the hermit is metamorphosing himself into a knight,” laughed
+Constance, merrily, “with a distressed damsel on his hands. I really
+need not put you to the trouble, but I shall be glad if you will take
+me home.”
+
+Once again the doctor put his overcoat about her, and they descended
+the stairs and entered the brougham.
+
+“Tell me the purpose of all those instruments I saw in your room,” she
+asked as they started.
+
+“They are principally for the investigation of bacteria. Not being
+ambitious to spend my life doctoring whooping-cough and indigestion, I
+am striving to make a scientist of myself.”
+
+“Then that is why you prefer hospital work?”
+
+“No. I happen to have been born
+with my own living to make in the world, and when I had worked my way
+through the medical school, I only too gladly became ‘Interne’ here,
+not because it is what I wish to do, but because I need the salary.”
+
+“Yet it seems such a noble work.”
+
+“Don’t think I depreciate it, but what I am doing is only remedial What
+I hope to do is to prevent.”
+
+“How is it possible?”
+
+“For four years my every free hour has been given to studying what is
+now called tuberculosis, and my dream is to demonstrate that it is in
+fact the parent disease—a breaking down—disintegration—of the bodily
+substance—the tissue, or cell—and to give to the world a specific.”
+
+“How splendid!” exclaimed Constance. “And you believe you can?”
+
+“Every day makes me more sure that both demonstration and specific are
+possible
+—but it is unlikely that I shall be the one to do it.”
+
+“I do not see why?”
+
+“Because there are many others studying the disease who are free from
+the necessity of supporting themselves, and so can give far more time
+and money to the investigation than is possible for me. Even the
+scientist must be rich in these days, Miss Durant, if he is to win the
+great prizes.”
+
+“Won’t you tell me something about yourself?” requested Constance,
+impulsively.
+
+“There really is nothing worth while yet. I was left an orphan young,
+in the care of an uncle who was able to do no better for me than to get
+me a place in a drug-store. By doing the night-work it was possible to
+take the course at the medical college; and as I made a good record,
+this position was offered to me.”
+
+“It—you could make it interesting if you tried.”
+
+“I’m afraid I am not a realist, Miss Durant. I dream of a future that
+shall be famous by the misery and death I save the world from, but my
+past is absolutely eventless.”
+
+As he ended, the carriage drew up at the house, and the doctor helped
+her out.
+
+“You will take Dr. Armstrong back to the hospital, Murdock,” she
+ordered.
+
+“Thank you, but I really prefer a walk before going to _my_ social
+intimates, the bacilli,” answered the doctor, as he went up the steps
+with her. Then, after he had rung the bell, he held out his hand and
+said: “Miss Durant, I need scarcely say, after what I have just told
+you, that my social training has been slight—so slight that I was quite
+unaware that the old adage, ‘Even a cat may look at a king,’ was no
+longer a fact until I overheard
+what was said the other day. My last wish is to keep you from coming to
+the hospital, and in expressing my regret at having been the cause of
+embarrassment to you, I wish to add a pledge that henceforth, if you
+will resume your visits, you and Swot shall be free from my intrusion.
+Good-night,” he ended, as he started down the steps.
+
+“But I never—really I have no right to exclude—nor do I wish—”
+protested the girl; and then, as the servant opened the front door,
+even this halting attempt at an explanation ceased. She echoed a
+“Good-night,” adding, “and thank you for all your kindness,” and very
+much startled and disturbed the footman, as she passed into the
+hallway, by audibly remarking, “Idiot!”
+
+She went upstairs slowly, as if thinking, and once in her room, seated
+herself at her desk and commenced a note. Before she had written a page
+she tore the
+paper in two and began anew. Twice she repeated this proceeding; then
+rose in evident irritation, and, walking to her fire, stood looking
+down into the flame. “I’ll think out what I had better do when I’m not
+so tired,” she finally remarked, as she rang for her maid. But once in
+bed, her thoughts, or the previous strain, kept her long hours awake;
+and when at last she dropped into unconsciousness her slumber was made
+miserable by dreams mixing in utter confusion operating-room and
+dinner, guests and microbes—dreams in which she was alternately
+striving to explain something to Dr. Armstrong, who could not be
+brought to understand, or to conceal something he was determined to
+discover. Finally she found herself stretched on the dinner-table, the
+doctor, knife in hand, standing over her, with the avowed intention of
+opening her heart to learn some secret, and it was her helpless
+protests
+and struggles which brought consciousness to her—to discover that she
+had slept far into the morning.
+
+With the one thought of a visit to the hospital during the permitted
+hours, she made a hasty toilet, followed by an equally speedy
+breakfast, and was actually on her way downstairs when she recalled her
+promise of a gift. A glance at her watch told her that there was not
+time to go to the shops, and hurrying back to her room, she glanced
+around for something among the knick-knacks scattered about. Finding
+nothing that she could conceive of as bringing pleasure to the waif,
+she took from a drawer of her desk a photograph of herself, and
+descended to the carriage.
+
+She had reason to be thankful for her recollection, as, once her
+greetings, and questions to the nurse about the patient’s condition
+were made, Swot demanded,
+
+“Wheer’s dat present dat youse promised me?”
+
+“I did not have time this morning to get something especially for you,”
+she explained, handing him the portrait, “so for want of anything
+better, I’ve brought you my picture.”
+
+The urchin took the gift and looked at both sides. “Wotinell’s dat good
+for?” he demanded contemptuously.
+
+“I thought—hoped it might please you, as showing you that I had
+forgiven—that I liked you.”
+
+“Ah, git on de floor an’ look at youseself,” disgustedly remarked Swot.
+“Dat talk don’t cut no ice wid me. W’y didn’t youse ask wot Ise wants?”
+
+“And what would you like?”
+
+“Will youse guv me a pistol?”
+
+“Why, what would you do with it?”
+
+“I’d trow a scare into de big newsies w’en dey starts to chase me off
+de good beats.”
+
+“Really, Swot, I don’t think I ought to give you anything so dangerous.
+You are very young to—”
+
+“Ah! Youse a goil, an’ deyse born frightened. Bet youse life, if youse
+ask de doc, he won’t tink it nuttin’ to be scared of.”
+
+“He isn’t here this morning,” remarked Constance, for some reason
+looking fixedly at the glove she was removing as she spoke.
+
+The urchin raised his head and peered about. “Dat’s funny!” he
+exclaimed. “It’s de first time he oin’t bin here w’en youse wuz at de
+bat.”
+
+“Has he seen you this morning?”
+
+“Why, cert!”
+
+The girl opened the dime novel and found the page at which the
+interruption had occurred, hesitated an instant, and remarked, “The
+next time he comes you might say that I would like to see him for a
+moment—to ask if I had better give
+you a pistol.” This said, she hastily began on the book. Thrillingly as
+the pursuits and pursuit of the criminal classes were pictured,
+however, there came several breaks in the reading; and had any keenly
+observant person been watching Miss Durant, he would have noticed that
+these pauses invariably happened whenever some one entered the ward.
+
+It was made evident to her that she and Swot gave value to entirely
+different parts of her message to the doctor; for, no sooner did she
+reach the waif’s bedside the next morning than the invalid announced,—
+
+“Say, Ise done my best to jolly de doc, but he stuck to it dat youse
+oughtn’t to guv me no pistol.”
+
+“Didn’t you tell him what I asked you to say?” demanded Constance,
+anxiously.
+
+“Soytenly. Ise says to ’im dat youse wanted to know wot he tought, an’
+he
+went back on me. Ise didn’t tink he’d trun me down like dat!”
+
+“I might better have written him,” murmured Miss Durant, thoughtfully.
+She sat for some time silently pondering, till the waif asked,—
+
+“Say, youse goin’ to guv me dat present just de same, oin’t youse?”
+
+“Yes, I’ll give you a present,” acceded the girl, opening the book. “I
+think, Swot,” she continued, “that we’ll have to trouble Dr. Armstrong
+for another Old Sleuth, as we shall probably finish this to-day. And
+tell him this time it is my turn to pay for it,” From her purse she
+produced a dime, started to give it to the boy, hastily drew back her
+hand, and replacing the coin, substituted for it a dollar bill. Then
+she began reading rapidly—so rapidly that the end of the story was
+attained some twenty minutes before the visitors’ time had expired.
+
+“Say,” was her greeting on the following day, as Swot held up another
+lurid-looking tale and the dollar bill, “Ise told de doc youse wuzn’t
+willin’ dat he, bein’ poor, should bleed de cash dis time, an’ dat
+youse guv me dis to—”
+
+“You didn’t put it that way, Swot?” demanded Miss Durant.
+
+“Wot way?”
+
+“That I said he was poor.”
+
+“Soytenly.”
+
+“Oh, Swot, how could you?”
+
+“Wot’s de matter?”
+
+“I never said that! Was he—was he—What did he say?”
+
+“Nuttin’ much, ’cept dat I wuz to guv youse back de dough, for de books
+wuz on ’im.”
+
+“I’m afraid you have pained him, Swot, and you certainly have pained
+me. Did he seem hurt or offended?”
+
+“Nop.”
+
+“I wish you would tell him I shall be greatly obliged if he will come
+to the ward to-morrow, for I wish to see him. Now don’t alter this
+message, please, Swot.”
+
+That her Mercury did her bidding more effectively was proved by her
+finding the doctor at the bedside when she arrived the next day.
+
+“Swot told me that you wished to see me, Miss Durant,” he said.
+
+“Yes, and I’m very much obliged to you for waiting. I—How soon will it
+be possible for him to be up?”
+
+“He is doing so famously that we’ll have him out of bed by Monday, I
+hope.”
+
+“I promised him a present, and I want to have a Christmas tree for him,
+if he can come to it.”
+
+“Wot’s dat?” came the quick question from the bed.
+
+“If you don’t know, I’m going to let it be a surprise to you, Swot. Do
+you think he will be well enough to come to my house? Of course I’ll
+send my carriage.”
+
+“If he continues to improve, he certainly will be.”
+
+“Say, is dat de ting dey has for de mugs wot goes to Sunday-school, an’
+dat dey has a party for?”
+
+“Yes, only this tree will be only for you, Swot,”
+
+“Youse oin’t goin’ to have no udder swipes but me?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Den who’ll git all de presents wot’s on de tree?” inquired Swot,
+suggestively.
+
+“Guess!” laughed Constance.
+
+“Will dey all be for me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Hully gee! But dat’s grand! Ise in it up to de limit, doc, oin’t Ise?”
+exclaimed the waif, turning to the doctor.
+
+Dr. Armstrong smiled and nodded his head, but something in his face or
+manner seemed to give a change to the boy’s thoughts, for, after eyeing
+him intently, he said to Constance,—
+
+“Oin’t youse goin’ to invite de doc?”
+
+Miss Durant coloured as she said, with a touch of eagerness yet
+shyness, “Dr. Armstrong, I intended to ask you, and it will give me a
+great deal of pleasure if you will come to Swot’s and my festival.” And
+when the doctor seemed to hesitate, she added, “Please!” in a way that
+would have very much surprised any man of her own circle.
+
+“Thank you, Miss Durant; I’ll gladly come, if you are sure I sha’n’t be
+an interloper.”
+
+“Not at all,” responded the girl. “On the contrary, it would be sadly
+incomplete without you—”
+
+“Say,” broke in the youngster, “growed-up folks don’t git tings off de
+tree, does dey?”
+
+Both Constance and the doctor laughed at the obvious fear in the boy’s
+mind.
+
+“No, Swot,” the man replied; “and I’ve had my Christmas gift from Miss
+Durant already.”
+
+“Wot wuz dat?”
+
+“Ask her,” replied Dr. Armstrong, as he walked away.
+
+“Wot have youse guv ’im?”
+
+Constance laughed, and blushed still more deeply, as, after a slight
+pause, she replied, “It’s my turn, Swot, to say ‘rubber’?” This said,
+she stooped impulsively and kissed the boy’s forehead. “You are a dear,
+Swot,” she asserted, warmly.
+
+With the mooting of the Christmas tree, the interest in Old Sleuth
+markedly declined, being succeeded by innumerable
+surmises of the rapidly convalescing boy as to the probable nature and
+number of the gifts it would bear. In this he was not discouraged by
+Miss Durant, who, once the readings were discontinued, brought a bit of
+fancy-work for occupation.
+
+“Wot’s dat?” he inquired, the first time she produced it.
+
+“A case for handkerchiefs.”
+
+“For me?”
+
+“Did you ever have a handkerchief?”
+
+“Nop. An’ I’d radder have suttin’ else.”
+
+“Can you keep a secret, Swot?”
+
+“Bet youse life.”
+
+“This is for Dr. Armstrong.”
+
+Swot regarded it with new interest. “Youse goin’ to s’prise ’im?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Den youse must sneak it quick w’en he comes in.”
+
+“Haven’t you noticed that he doesn’t come here any longer, Swot?”
+quietly responded the girl, her head bowed over the work.
+
+“Oin’t dat luck!”
+
+“Why?” asked Constance, looking up in surprise.
+
+“’Cause youse can work on de present,” explained Swot. “Say,” he
+demanded after a pause, “if dere’s anyting on de tree dat Ise don’t
+cares for, can Ise give it to de doc?”
+
+“Certainly. Or better still, if you’ll find out what he would like,
+I’ll let you make him a present.”
+
+“Youse payin’ for it?” anxiously questioned the boy.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Dat’s Jim Dandy!”
+
+Miss Durant recurred to this offer twice in the succeeding week, but to
+her surprise, found Swot’s apparent enthusiasm over the gift had
+entirely cooled, and his one object was a seeming desire to avoid all
+discussion of it.
+
+“Don’t you want to give him something, or haven’t you found out what he
+wants?” she was driven to ask.
+
+“Oh, dat’s all right. Don’t youse tire youself ’bout dat,” was his
+mysterious reply. Nor could she extract anything more satisfactory.
+
+It was a very different Swot McGarrigle who was helped into Miss
+Durant’s carriage by the doctor on Christmas eve from the one who had
+been lifted out at the hospital some six weeks before. The wizened face
+had filled out into roundness, and the long-promised new clothes,
+donned for the first time in honor of the event, even more transformed
+him; so changed him, in fact, that Constance hesitated for an instant
+in her welcome, in doubt if it were he.
+
+“I have the tree in my own room, because I wanted all the fun to
+ourselves,” she explained, as she led the way upstairs, “and downstairs
+we should almost certainly be interrupted by callers, or something. But
+before you go, Dr. Armstrong, I want you to meet my family, and of
+course they all want to see Swot.”
+
+It was not a large nor particularly brilliant tree, but to Swot it was
+everything that was beautiful. At first he was afraid to approach, but
+after a little Constance persuaded him into a walk around it, and
+finally tempted him, by an artful mention of what was in one of the
+larger packages at the base, to treat it more familiarly. Once the ice
+was broken, the two were quickly seated on the floor, Constance cutting
+strings, and Swot giving shouts of delight at each new treasure.
+Presently, in especial joy over some prize, the boy turned to show
+it to the doctor, to discover that he was standing well back, watching,
+rather than sharing, in the pleasure of the two; and, as the little
+chap discovered the aloofness, he leaned over and whispered something
+to the girl.
+
+“I want to, but can’t get the courage yet,” whispered back Constance.
+“I don’t know what is the matter with me, Swot,” she added, blushing.
+
+“Like me to guv it to ’im?”
+
+“Oh, will you, Swot?” she eagerly demanded. “It’s the parcel in
+tissue-paper on my desk over there.”
+
+The waif rose to his feet and trotted to the place indicated. He gave a
+quick glance back at Miss Durant, and seeing that she was leaning over
+a bundle, he softly unfolded the tissue-paper, slipped something from
+his newly possessed breast pocket into the handkerchief-case, and
+refolded the paper. He crossed the room to where the doctor was
+standing,
+and handed him the parcel, with the remark, “Dat’s for youse, from Miss
+Constance an’ me, doc.” Then scurrying back to the side of the girl, he
+confided to her, “Ise guv de doc a present, too.”
+
+“What was it?” asked Constance, still not looking up.
+
+“Go an’ ask ’im,” chuckled Swot.
+
+Turned away as she might be, she was not unconscious of the doctor’s
+movements, and she was somewhat puzzled when, instead of coming to her
+with thanks, he crossed the room to a bay-window, where he was hidden
+by the tree from both of them. From that point he still further
+astonished her by the request,—
+
+“Can you—will you please come here for a moment, Miss Durant?”
+
+Constance rose and walked to where he stood. “I hope you like my gift?”
+she asked.
+
+“You could have given me nothing I have so wanted—nothing I shall
+treasure more,” said the man, speaking low and fervently. “But did you
+realise what this would mean to me?” As he spoke, he raised his hand,
+and Constance saw, not the handkerchief-case, but a photograph of
+herself.
+
+“Oh!” she gasped. “Where—I didn’t—that was a picture I gave to Swot.
+The case is my gift,”
+
+The doctor’s hand dropped, and all the hope and fire went from his
+eyes. “I beg your pardon for being so foolish, Miss Durant. I—I lost my
+senses for a moment—or I would have known that you never—that the other
+was your gift.” He stooped to pick it up from the floor where he had
+dropped it. “Thank you very deeply for your kindness, and—and try to
+forget my folly.”
+
+“I—I—couldn’t understand why Swot suddenly—why he—I never dreamed of
+his doing it,” faltered the girl.
+
+“His and my knowledge of social conventions are about on a par,”
+responded the man, with a set look to his mouth. “Shall I give it back
+to him or to you?”
+
+Constance drew a deep breath. “It wasn’t—my—gift—but—but—I don’t mind
+your keeping it if you wish.”
+
+“You mean—?” cried Dr. Armstrong, incredulously.
+
+“Oh,” said the girl, hurriedly, “isn’t that enough, now? Please, oh,
+please—wait—for a little.”
+
+The doctor caught her hand and kissed it. “Till death, if you ask it!”
+he said.
+
+Five minutes later Swot abstracted himself sufficiently from his gifts
+to
+peep around the tree and ecstatically inquire,—
+
+“Say, oin’t dis de doisiest Christmas dat ever wuz?”
+
+“Yes,” echoed the two in the bay-window.
+
+“Did youse like me present, doc?”
+
+“Yes,” reiterated the doctor, with something in his voice that gave the
+word tenfold meaning.
+
+“Ise tought youse ’ud freeze to it, an’ it wuzn’t no sorter good to
+me.”
+
+Constance laughed happily. “Still, I’m very glad I gave it to you,
+Swot,” she said, with a glance of the eyes, half shy and half arch, at
+the man beside her.
+
+“Did youse like Miss Constance’s present too, doc?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the doctor, “especially the one you haven’t seen, Swot.”
+
+“Wot wuz dat?”
+
+“A something called hope—which is the finest thing in the world.”
+
+“No. There is one thing better,” said Miss Durant.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Love!” whispered Constance, softly.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14211 ***