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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14506-0.txt b/14506-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8eb7dc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/14506-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5784 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14506 *** + + The White Linen Nurse + + By Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + + Author of "Molly Make-Believe," "The Sick-a-Bed Lady," etc., etc. + + 1913 + + + + +TO MAURICE HOWE RICHARDSON + +WHO LOVED ROMANCE ALMOST AS MUCH AS HE LOVED SURGERY, THIS LITTLE STORY +IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED IN TOKEN OF TWO PERSONS' UNFADING MEMORIES + + + + +THE WHITE LINEN NURSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The White Linen Nurse was so tired that her noble expression ached. + +Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached +and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing +of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like +a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two +tugging wire-gray wrinkles her persistently conscientious sickroom smile +seemed to be whanging aimlessly against her front teeth. The sensation +certainly was very unpleasant. + +Looking back thus on the three spine-curving, chest-cramping, +foot-twinging, ether-scented years of her hospital training, it dawned +on the White Linen Nurse very suddenly that nothing of her ever had +felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression! + +Impulsively she sprang for the prim white mirror that capped her prim +white bureau and stood staring up into her own entrancing, +bright-colored Novia Scotian reflection with tense and unwonted +interest. + +Except for the unmistakable smirk which fatigue had clawed into her +plastic young mouth-lines there was certainly nothing special the matter +with what she saw. + +"Perfectly good face!" she attested judicially with no more than common +courtesy to her progenitors. "Perfectly good and tidy looking face! If +only--if only--" her breath caught a trifle. "If only--it didn't look so +disgustingly noble and--hygienic--and dollish!" + +All along the back of her neck little sharp prickly pains began suddenly +to sting and burn. + +"Silly--simpering--pink and white puppet!" she scolded squintingly, +"I'll teach you how to look like a real girl!" + +Very threateningly she raised herself to her tiptoes and thrust her +glowing, corporeal face right up into the moulten, elusive, +quick-silver face in the mirror. Pink for pink, blue for blue, gold for +gold, dollish smirk for dollish smirk, the mirror mocked her seething +inner fretfulness. + +"Why--darn you!" she gasped. "Why--darn you! Why, you looked more human +than that when you left the Annapolis Valley three years ago! There were +at least--tears in your face then, and--cinders, and--your mother's best +advice, and the worry about the mortgage, and--and--the blush of Joe +Hazeltine's kiss!" + +Furtively with the tip of her index-finger she started to search her +imperturbable pink cheek for the spot where Joe Hazeltine's kiss had +formerly flamed. + +"My hands are all right, anyway!" she acknowledged with infinite relief. +Triumphantly she raised both strong, stub-fingered, exaggeratedly +executive hands to the level of her childish blue eyes and stood +surveying the mirrored effect with ineffable satisfaction. "Why my hands +are--dandy!" she gloated. "Why they're perfectly--dandy! Why they're +wonderful! Why they're--." Then suddenly and fearfully she gave a +shrill little scream. "But they don't go with my silly doll-face!" she +cried. "Why, they don't! They don't! They go with the Senior Surgeon's +scowling Heidelberg eyes! They go with the Senior Surgeon's grim gray +jaw! They go with the--! Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?" + +Dizzily, with her stubby finger-tips prodded deep into every jaded +facial muscle that she could compass, she staggered towards the air, and +dropping down into the first friendly chair that bumped against her +knees, sat staring blankly out across the monotonous city roofs that +flanked her open window,--trying very, very hard for the first time in +her life, to consider the General-Phenomenon-of-Being-a-Trained-Nurse. + +All around and about her, inexorable as anesthesia, horrid as the hush +of tomb or public library, lurked the painfully unmistakable sense of +institutional restraint. Mournfully to her ear from some remote kitcheny +region of pots and pans a browsing spoon tinkled forth from time to time +with soft-muffled resonance. Up and down every clammy white corridor +innumerable young feet, born to prance and stamp, were creeping +stealthily to and fro in rubber-heeled whispers. Along the somber +fire-escape just below her windowsill, like a covey of snubbed doves, +six or eight of her classmates were cooing and crooning together with +excessive caution concerning the imminent graduation exercises that were +to take place at eight o'clock that very evening. Beyond her dreariest +ken of muffled voices, beyond her dingiest vista of slate and brick, on +a far faint hillside, a far faint streak of April green went roaming +jocundly skyward. Altogether sluggishly, as though her nostrils were +plugged with warm velvet, the smell of spring and ether and scorched +mutton-chops filtered in and out, in and out, in and out, of her +abnormally jaded senses. + +Taken all in all it was not a propitious afternoon for any girl as tired +and as pretty as the White Linen Nurse to be considering the general +phenomenon of anything--except April! + +In the real country, they tell me, where the Young Spring runs wild and +bare as a nymph through every dull brown wood and hay-gray meadow, the +blasé farmer-lad will not even lift his eyes from the plow to watch the +pinkness of her passing. But here in the prudish brick-minded city where +the Young Spring at her friskiest is nothing more audacious than a +sweltering, winter-swathed madcap, who has impishly essayed some fine +morning to tiptoe down street in her soft, sloozily, green, +silk-stockinged feet, the whole hob-nailed population reels back aghast +and agrin before the most innocent flash of the rogue's green-veiled +toes. And then, suddenly snatching off its own cumbersome winter +foot-habits, goes chasing madly after her, in its own prankish, +vari-colored socks. + +Now the White Linen Nurse's socks were black, and cotton at that, a +combination incontestably sedate. And the White Linen Nurse had waded +barefoot through too many posied country pastures to experience any +ordinary city thrill over the sight of a single blade of grass pushing +scarily through a crack in the pavement, or puny, concrete-strangled +maple tree flushing wanly to the smoky sky. Indeed for three hustling, +square-toed, rubber-heeled city years the White Linen Nurse had never +even stopped to notice whether the season was flavored with frost or +thunder. But now, unexplainably, just at the end of it all, sitting +innocently there at her own prim little bed-room window, staring +innocently out across indomitable roof-tops,--with the crackle of glory +and diplomas already ringing in her ears,--she heard, instead, for the +first time in her life, the gaily dare-devil voice of the spring, a +hoydenish challenge flung back at her, leaf-green, from the crest of a +winter-scarred hill. + +"Hello, White Linen Nurse!" screamed the saucy city spring. "Hello, +White Linen Nurse! Take off your homely starched collar! Or your silly +candy-box cap! Or any other thing that feels maddeningly artificial! And +come out! And be very wild!" + +Like a puppy dog cocking its head towards some strange, unfamiliar +sound, the White Linen Nurse cocked her head towards the lure of the +green-crested hill. Still wrestling conscientiously with the +General-Phenomenon-of-Being-a-Trained-Nurse she found her collar +suddenly very tight, the tiny cap inexpressibly heavy and vexatious. +Timidly she removed the collar--and found that the removal did not rest +her in the slightest. Equally timidly she removed the cap--and found +that even that removal did not rest her in the slightest. Then very, +very slowly, but very, very permeatingly and completely, it dawned on +the White Linen Nurse that never while eyes were blue, and hair gold, +and lips red, would she ever find rest again until she had removed her +noble expression! + +With a jerk that started the pulses in her temples throbbing like two +toothaches she straightened up in her chair. All along the back of her +neck the little blonde curls began to crisp very ticklingly at their +roots. + +Still staring worriedly out over the old city's slate-gray head to that +inciting prance of green across the farthest horizon she felt her whole +being kindle to an indescribable passion of revolt against all Hushed +Places. Seething with fatigue, smoldering with ennui, she experienced +suddenly a wild, almost incontrollable impulse to sing, to shout, to +scream from the housetops, to mock somebody, to defy everybody, to break +laws, dishes, heads,--anything in fact that would break with a crash! +And then at last, over the hills and far away, with all the outraged +world at her heels, to run! And run! And run! And run! And run! And +laugh! Till her feet raveled out! And her lungs burst! And there was +nothing more left of her at all,--ever--ever--any more! + +Discordantly into this rapturously pagan vision of pranks and posies +broke one of her room-mates all awhiff with ether, awhirr with starch. + +Instantly with the first creak of the door-handle the White Linen Nurse +was on her feet, breathless, resentful, grotesquely defiant. + +"Get out of here, Zillah Forsyth!" she cried furiously. "Get out of +here--quick!--and leave me alone! I want to think!" + +Perfectly serenely the newcomer advanced into the room. With her pale, +ivory-tinted cheeks, her great limpid brown eyes, her soft dark hair +parted madonna-like across her beautiful brow, her whole face was like +some exquisite, composite picture of all the saints of history. Her +voice also was amazingly tranquil. + +"Oh, Fudge!" she drawled. "What's eating you, Rae Malgregor? I won't +either get out! It's my room just as much as it is yours! And Helene's +just as much as it is ours! And besides," she added more briskly, "it's +four o'clock now, and with graduation at eight and the dance afterwards, +if we don't get our stuff packed up now, when in thunder shall we get it +done?" Quite irrelevantly she began to laugh. Her laugh was perceptibly +shriller than her speaking voice. "Say, Rae!" she confided. "That +minister I nursed through pneumonia last winter wants me to pose as +'Sanctity' for a stained-glass window in his new church! Isn't he the +softie?" + +"Shall--you--do--it?" quizzed Rae Malgregor a trifle tensely. + +"Shall I do it?" mocked the newcomer. "Well, you just watch me! Four +mornings a week in June--at full week's wages? Fresh Easter lilies every +day? White silk angel-robes? All the high-souls and high-paints +kowtowing around me? Why it would be more fun than a box of monkeys! +Sure I'll do it!" + +Expeditiously as she spoke the newcomer reached up for the framed motto +over her own ample mirror and yanking it down with one single tug began +to busy herself adroitly with a snarl in the picture-cord. Like a withe +of willow yearning over a brook her slender figure curved to the task. +Very scintillatingly the afternoon light seemed to brighten suddenly +across her lap. _You'll Be a Long Time Dead!_ glinted the motto through +its sun-dazzled glass. + +Still panting with excitement, still bristling with resentment, Rae +Malgregor stood surveying the intrusion and the intruder. A dozen +impertinent speeches were rioting in her mind. Twice her mouth opened +and shut before she finally achieved the particular opprobrium that +completely satisfied her. + +"Bah! You look like a--Trained Nurse!" she blurted forth at last with +hysterical triumph. + +"So do you!" said the newcomer amiably. + +With a little gasp of dismay Rae Malgregor sprang suddenly forward. Her +eyes were flooded with tears. + +"Why, that's just exactly what's the matter with me!" she cried. "My +face is all worn out trying to look like a Trained Nurse! Oh, Zillah, +how do you know you were meant to be a Trained Nurse? How does anybody +know? Oh, Zillah! Save me! Save me!" + +Languorously Zillah Forsyth looked up from her work, and laughed. Her +laugh was like the accidental tinkle of sleighbells in mid-summer, +vaguely disquieting, a shiver of frost across the face of a lily. + +"Save you from what, you great big overgrown, tow-headed doll-baby?" she +questioned blandly. "For Heaven's sake, the only thing you need is to go +back to whatever toy-shop you came from and get a new head. What in +Creation's the matter with you lately, anyway? Oh, of course, you've had +rotten luck this past month, but what of it? That's the trouble with you +country girls. You haven't got any stamina." + +With slow, shuffling-footed astonishment Rae Malgregor stepped out into +the center of the room. "Country girls," she repeated blankly. "Why, +you're a country girl yourself!" + +"I _am_ not!" snapped Zillah Forsyth. "I'll have you understand that +there are nine thousand people in the town I come from--and not a rube +among them. Why I tended soda fountain in the swellest drug-store there +a whole year before I even thought of taking up nursing. And I wasn't as +green--when I was six months old--as you are now!" + +Slowly with a soft-snuggling sigh of contentment she raised her slim +white fingers to coax her dusky hair a little looser, a little farther +down, a little more madonna-like across her sweet, mild forehead, then +snatching out abruptly at a convenient shirt-waist began with +extraordinary skill to apply its dangly lace sleeves as a protective +bandage for the delicate glass-faced motto still in her lap, placed the +completed parcel with inordinate scientific precision in the exact +corner of her packing-box, and then went on very diligently, very +zealously, to strip the men's photographs from the mirror on her bureau. +There were twenty-seven photographs in all, and for each one she had +already cut and prepared a small square of perfectly fresh, perfectly +immaculate white tissue wrapping-paper. No one so transcendently +fastidious, so exquisitely neat, in all her personal habits had ever +trained in that particular hospital before. + +Very soberly the doll-faced girl stood watching the men's pleasant +paper countenances smooth away one by one into their chaste white +veilings, until at last quite without warning she poked an accusing, +inquisitive finger directly across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder. + +"Zillah!" she demanded peremptorily. "All the year I've wanted to know! +All the year every other girl in our class has wanted to know! Where did +you ever get that picture of the Senior Surgeon? He never gave it to you +in the world! He didn't! He didn't! He's not that kind!" + +Deeply into Zillah Forsyth's pale, ascetic cheek dawned a most amazing +dimple. "Sort of jarred you girls some, didn't it," she queried, "to see +me strutting round with a photo of the Senior Surgeon?" The little cleft +in her chin showed suddenly with almost startling distinctness. "Well, +seeing it's you," she grinned, "and the year's all over, and there's +nobody left that I can worry about it any more, I don't mind telling you +in the least that I--bought it out of a photographer's show-case! +There! Are you satisfied now?" + +With easy nonchalance she picked up the picture in question and +scrutinized it shrewdly. + +"Lord! What a face!" she attested. "Nothing but granite! Hack him with a +knife and he wouldn't bleed but just chip off into pebbles!" With +exaggerated contempt she shrugged her supple shoulders. "Bah! How I hate +a man like that! There's no fun in him!" A little abruptly she turned +and thrust the photograph into Rae Malgregor's hand. "You can have it if +you want to," she said. "I'll trade it to you for that lace corset-cover +of yours!" + +Like water dripping through a sieve the photograph slid through Rae +Malgregor's frightened fingers. With nervous apology she stooped and +picked it up again and held it gingerly by one remotest corner. Her eyes +were quite wide with horror. + +"Oh, of course I'd like the--picture, well enough," she stammered. "But +it wouldn't seem--exactly respectful to--to trade it for a +corset-cover." + +"Oh, very well," drawled Zillah Forsyth. "Tear it up then!" + +Expeditiously with frank, non-sentimental fingers Rae Malgregor tore the +tough cardboard across, and again across, and once again across, and +threw the conglomerate fragments into the waste-basket. And her +expression all the time was no more, no less, than the expression of a +person who would infinitely rather execute his own pet dog or cat than +risk the possible bungling of an outsider. Then like a small child +trotting with infinite relief to its own doll-house she trotted over to +her bureau, extracted the lace corset-cover, and came back with it in +her hand to lean across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder again and watch the +men's faces go slipping off into oblivion. Once again, abruptly without +warning, she halted the process with a breathless exclamation. + +"Oh, of course this waist is the only one I've got with ribbons in it," +she asserted irrelevantly. "But I'm perfectly willing to trade it for +that picture!" she pointed out with unmistakably explicit finger-tip. + +Chucklingly Zillah Forsyth withdrew the special photograph from its +half-completed wrappings. + +"Oh! Him?" she said. "Oh, that's a chap I met on the train last summer. +He's a brakeman or something. He's a--" + +Perfectly unreluctantly Rae Malgregor dropped the fluff of lace and +ribbons into Zillah's lap and reached out with cheerful voraciousness to +annex the young man's picture to her somewhat bleak possessions. "Oh, I +don't care a rap who he is," she interrupted briskly. "But he's sort of +cute-looking, and I've got an empty frame at home just that odd size, +and Mother's crazy for a new picture to stick up over the kitchen +mantelpiece. She gets so tired of seeing nothing but the faces of people +she knows all about." + +Sharply Zillah Forsyth turned and stared up into the younger girl's +face, and found no guile to whet her stare against. + +"Well of all the ridiculous--unmitigated greenhorns!" she began. +"Well--is that all you wanted him for? Why, I supposed you wanted to +write to him! Why, I supposed--" + +For the first time an expression not altogether dollish darkened across +Rae Malgregor's garishly juvenile blondeness. + +"Maybe I'm not quite as green as you think I am!" she flared up +stormily. With this sharp flaring-up every single individual pulse in +her body seemed to jerk itself suddenly into conscious activity again +like the soft, plushy pound-pound-pound of a whole stocking-footed +regiment of pain descending single file upon her for her hysterical +undoing. "Maybe I've had a good deal more experience than you give me +credit for!" she hastened excitedly to explain. "I tell you--I tell you +I've been engaged!" she blurted forth with a bitter sort of triumph. + +With a palpable flicker of interest Zillah Forsyth looked back across +her shoulder. "Engaged? How many times?" she asked quite bluntly. + +As though the whole monogamous groundwork of civilization was threatened +by the question, Rae Malgregor's hands went clutching at her breast. +"Why, once!" she gasped. "Why, once!" + +Convulsively Zillah Forsyth began to rock herself to and fro. "Oh +Lordy!" she chuckled. "Oh Lordy, Lordy! Why I've been engaged four times +just this past year!" In a sudden passion of fastidiousness she bent +down over the particular photograph in her hand and snatching at a +handkerchief began to rub diligently at a small smouch of dust in one +corner of the cardboard. Something in the effort of rubbing seemed to +jerk her small round chin into almost angular prominence. "And before +I'm through," she added, at least two notes below her usual alto tones, +"And before I'm through--I'm going to get engaged to--every profession +that there is on the surface of the globe!" Quite helplessly the thin +paper skin of the photograph peeled off in company with the smouch of +dust. "And when I marry," she ejaculated fiercely, "and when I +marry--I'm going to marry a man who will take me to every place that +there is--on the surface of the globe! And after that--!" + +"After what?" interrogated a brand new voice from the doorway. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It was the other room-mate this time. The only real aristocrat in +the whole graduating class, high-browed, high-cheekboned,--eyes like +some far-sighted young prophet,--mouth even yet faintly arrogant +with the ineradicable consciousness of caste,--a plain, eager, +stripped-for-a-long-journey type of face,--this was Helene Churchill. +There was certainly no innocuous bloom of country hills and pastures in +this girl's face, nor any seething small-town passion pounding +indiscriminately at all the doors of experience. The men and women who +had bred Helene Churchill had been the breeders also of brick and +granite cities since the world was new. + +Like one infinitely more accustomed to treading on Persian carpets than +on painted floors she came forward into the room. + +"Hello, children!" she said casually, and began at once without further +parleying to take down the motto that graced her own bureau-top. + +It was the era when almost everybody in the world had a motto over his +bureau. Helene Churchill's motto was: _Inasmuch As Ye Have Done It Unto +One Of The Least Of These Ye Have Done It Unto Me_. On a scroll of +almost priceless parchment the text was illuminated with inimitable +Florentine skill and color. A little carelessly, after the manner of +people quite accustomed to priceless things, she proceeded now to roll +the parchment into its smallest possible circumference, humming +exclusively to herself all the while an intricate little air from an +Italian opera. + +So the three faces foiled each other, sober city girl, pert town girl, +bucolic country girl,--a hundred fundamental differences rampant between +them, yet each fervid, adolescent young mouth tamed to the same +monotonous, drolly exaggerated expression of complacency that +characterizes the faces of all people who, in a distinctive uniform, for +a reasonably satisfactory living wage, make an actual profession of +righteous deeds. + +Indeed among all the thirty or more varieties of noble expression which +an indomitable Superintendent had finally succeeded in inculcating into +her graduating class, no other physiognomies had responded more +plastically perhaps than these three to the merciless imprint of the +great _hospital machine_ which, in pursuance of its one repetitive +design, _discipline_, had coaxed Zillah Forsyth into the semblance of a +lady, snubbed Helene Churchill into the substance of plain womanhood, +and, still uncertain just what to do with Rae Malgregor's rollicking +rural immaturity, had frozen her face temporarily into the smugly +dimpled likeness of a fancy French doll rigged out as a nurse for some +gilt-edged hospital fair. + +With characteristic desire to keep up in every way with her more mature, +better educated classmates, to do everything, in fact, so fast, so well, +that no one should possibly guess that she hadn't yet figured out just +why she was doing it at all, Rae Malgregor now with quickly readjusted +cap and collar began to hurl herself into the task of her own packing. +From her open bureau drawer, with a sudden impish impulse towards +worldly wisdom, she extracted first of all the photograph of the young +brakeman. + +"See, Helene! My new beau!" she giggled experimentally. + +In mild-eyed surprise Helene Churchill glanced up from her work. "_Your_ +beau?" she corrected. "Why, that's Zillah's picture." + +"Well, it's mine now!" snapped Rae Malgregor with unexpected edginess. +"It's mine now all right. Zillah said I could have him! Zillah said I +could--write to him--if I wanted to!" she finished a bit breathlessly. + +Wider and wider Helene Churchill's eyes dilated. "Write to a man--whom +you don't know?" she gasped. "Why, Rae! Why, it isn't even--very +nice--to have a picture of a man you don't know!" + +Mockingly to the edge of her strong white teeth Rae Malgregor's tongue +crept out in pink derision. "Bah!" she taunted. "What's 'nice'? That's +the whole matter with you, Helene Churchill! You never stop to consider +whether anything's fun or not; all you care is whether it's 'nice'!" +Excitedly she turned to meet the cheap little wink from Zillah's +sainted eyes. "Bah! What's 'nice'?" she persisted a little lamely. Then +suddenly all the pertness within her crumbled into nothingness. +"That's--the--whole trouble with you, Zillah Forsyth!" she stammered. +"You never give a hang whether anything's nice or not; all you care is +whether it's fun!" Quite helplessly she began to wring her hands. "Oh, +how do I know which one of you girls to follow?" she demanded wildly. +"How do I know anything? How does anybody know anything?" + +Like a smoldering fuse the rambling query crept back into the inner +recesses of her brain and fired once more the one great question that +lay dormant there. Impetuously she ran forward and stared into Helene +Churchill's face. "How do you know you were meant to be a Trained Nurse, +Helene Churchill?" she began all over again. "How does anybody know she +was really meant to be one? How can anybody, I mean, be perfectly sure?" +Like a drowning man clutching out at the proverbial straw, she clutched +at the parchment in Helene Churchill's hand. "I mean--where did you get +your motto, Helene Churchill?" she persisted with increasing +irritability. "If--you don't tell me--I'll tear the whole thing to +pieces!" + +With a startled frown Helene Churchill jerked back out of reach. "What's +the matter with you, Rae?" she quizzed sharply, and then turning round +quite casually to her book-case began to draw from the shelves one by one +her beloved Marcus Aurelius, Wordsworth, Robert Browning. "Oh, I did so +want to go to China," she confided irrelevantly. "But my family have +just written me that they won't stand for it. So I suppose I'll have to +go into tenement work here in the city instead." With a visible effort +she jerked her mind back again to the feverish question in Rae +Malgregor's eyes. "Oh, you want to know where I got my motto?" she +asked. A flash of intuition brightened suddenly across her +absent-mindedness. "Oh!" she smiled, "you mean you want to know--just +what the incident was that first made me decide to--devote my life +to--to humanity?" + +"Yes!" snapped Rae Malgregor. + +A little shyly Helene Churchill picked up her copy of Marcus Aurelius +and cuddled her cheek against its tender Morocco cover. "Really?" she +questioned with palpable hesitation. "Really you want to know? Why, +why--it's rather a--sacred little story to me. I wouldn't exactly want +to have anybody--laugh about it." + +"I'll laugh if I want to!" attested Zillah Forsyth forcibly from the +other side of the room. + +Like a pugnacious boy, Rae Malgregor's fluent fingers doubled up into +two firm fists. + +"I'll punch her if she even looks as though she wanted to!" she signaled +surreptitiously to Helene. + +Shrewdly for an instant the city girl's narrowing eyes challenged and +appraised the country girl's desperate sincerity. Then quite abruptly +she began her little story. + +"Why, it was on an Easter Sunday--Oh, ages and ages ago," she faltered. +"Why, I couldn't have been more than nine years old at the time." A +trifle self-consciously she turned her face away from Zillah Forsyth's +supercilious smile. "And I was coming home from a Sunday school festival +in my best white muslin dress with a big pot of purple pansies in my +hand," she hastened somewhat nervously to explain. "And just at the edge +of the gutter there was a dreadful drunken man lying in the mud with a +great crowd of cruel people teasing and tormenting him. And, +because--because I couldn't think of anything else to do about it, +I--I walked right up to the poor old creature,--scared as I could +be--and--and I presented him with my pot of purple pansies. And +everybody of course began to laugh, to scream, I mean, and shout with +amusement. And I, of course, began to cry. And the old drunken man +straightened up very oddly for an instant, with his battered hat in one +hand and the pot of pansies in the other,--and he raised the pot of +pansies very high, as though it had been a glass of rarest wine--and +bowed to me as--reverently as though he had been toasting me at my +father's table at some very grand dinner. And 'Inasmuch!' he said. Just +that,--'Inasmuch!' So that's how I happened to go into nursing!" she +finished as abruptly as she had begun. Like some wonderful +phosphorescent manifestation her whole shining soul seemed to flare +forth suddenly through her plain face. + +With honest perplexity Zillah Forsyth looked up from her work. + +"So that's--how you happened to go into nursing?" she quizzed +impatiently. Her long, straight nose was all puckered tight with +interrogation. Her dove-like eyes were fairly dilated with slow-dawning +astonishment. "You--don't--mean?" she gasped. "You don't mean that--just +for that--?" Incredulously she jumped to her feet and stood staring +blankly into the city girl's strangely illuminated features. + +"Well, if I were a swell--like you!" she scoffed, "it would take a heap +sight more than a drunken man munching pansies and rum and Bible-texts +to--to jolt me out of my limousines and steam yachts and Adirondack +bungalows!" + +Quite against all intention Helene Churchill laughed. She did not often +laugh. Just for an instant her eyes and Zillah Forsyth's clashed +together in the irremediable antagonism of caste,--the Plebeian's +scornful impatience with the Aristocrat, equaled only by the +Aristocrat's condescending patience with the Plebeian. + +It was no more than right that the Aristocrat should recover her +self-possession first. "Never mind about your understanding. Zillah +dear," she said softly. "Your hair is the most beautiful thing I ever +saw in my life!" + +Along Zillah Forsyth's ivory cheek an incongruous little flush of red +began to show. With much more nonchalance than was really necessary she +pointed towards her half-packed trunk. + +"It wasn't--Sunday school--I was coming home from--when I got my motto!" +she remarked dryly, with a wink at no one in particular. "And, so far as +I know," she proceeded with increasing sarcasm, "the man who inspired my +noble life was not in any way--particularly addicted to the use of +alcoholic beverages!" As though her collar was suddenly too tight she +rammed her finger down between her stiff white neck-band and her soft +white throat. "He was a--New York doctor!" she hastened somewhat airily +to explain. "Gee! But he was a swell! And he was spending his summer +holiday up in the same Maine town where I was tending soda fountain. +And he used to drop into the drug-store, nights, after cigars and +things. And he used to tell me stories about the drugs and things, +sitting up there on the counter swinging his legs and pointing out this +and that,--quinine, ipecac, opium, hasheesh,--all the silly patent +medicines, every sloppy soothing syrup! Lordy! He knew 'em as though +they were people! Where they come from! Where they're going to! Yarns +about the tropics that would kink the hair along the nape of your neck! +Jokes about your own town's soup-kettle pharmacology that would make you +yell for joy! Gee! But the things that man had seen and known! Gee! But +the things that man could make you see and know! And he had an +automobile," she confided proudly. "It was one of those billion dollar +French cars. And I lived just round the corner from the drug-store. But +we used to ride home by way of--New Hampshire!" + +Almost imperceptibly her breath began to quicken. "Gee! Those nights!" +she muttered. "Rain or shine, moon or thunder,--tearing down those +country roads at forty miles an hour, singing, hollering, whispering! +It was him that taught me to do my hair like this--instead of all the +cheap rats and pompadours every other kid in town was wearing," she +asserted, quite irrelevantly; then stopped with a quick, furtive glance +of suspicion towards both her listeners and mouthed her way delicately +back to the beginning of her sentence again. "It was _he_ that taught me +to do my hair like this," she repeated with the faintest possible +suggestion of hauteur. + +For one reason or another along the exquisitely chaste curve of her +cheek a narrow streak of red began to show again. + +"And he went away very sudden at the last," she finished hurriedly. "It +seems he was married all the time." Blandly she turned her wonderful +face to the caressing light. "And--I hope he goes to Hell!" she added +perfectly simply. + +With a little gasp of astonishment, shock, suspicion, distaste, Helene +Churchill reached out an immediate conscientious hand to her. + +"Oh, Zillah!" she began. "Oh, poor Zillah dear! I'm so--sorry! I'm so--" + +Absolutely serenely, through a mask of insolence and ice, Zillah +Forsyth ignored the proffered hand. + +"I don't know what particular call you've got to be sorry for me, Helene +Churchill," she drawled languidly. "I've got my character, same as +you've got yours. And just about nine times as many good looks. And when +it comes to nursing--" Like an alto song pierced suddenly by one shrill +treble note, the girl's immobile face sharpened transiently with a +single jagged flash of emotion. "And when it comes to nursing? Ha! +Helene Churchill! You can lead your class all you want to with your +silk-lined manners and your fuddy-duddy book-talk! But when genteel +people like you are moping round all ready to fold your patients' hands +on their breasts and murmur 'Thy will be done,'--why, that's the time +that little 'yours truly' is just beginning to roll up her sleeves and +get to work!" + +With real passion her slender fingers went clutching again at her harsh +linen collar. "It isn't you, Helene Churchill," she taunted, "that's +ever been to the Superintendent on your bended knees and begged for the +rabies cases--and the small-pox! Gee! You like nursing because you +think it's pious to like it! But I like it--_because I like it!"_ From +brow to chin as though fairly stricken with sincerity her whole bland +face furrowed startlingly with crude expressiveness. "The smell of +ether!" she stammered. "It's like wine to me! The clang of the ambulance +gong? I'd rather hear it than fire-engines! I'd crawl on my hands and +knees a hundred miles to watch a major operation! I wish there was a +war! I'd give my life to see a cholera epidemic!" + +Abruptly as it came the passion faded from her face, leaving every +feature tranquil again, demure, exaggeratedly innocent. With saccharine +sweetness she turned to Rae Malgregor. + +"Now, Little One," she mocked, "tell us the story of your lovely life. +Having heard me coyly confess that I went into nursing because I had +such a crush on this world,--and Helene here brazenly affirm that she +went into nursing because she had such a crush on the world to +come,--it's up to you now to confide to us just how you happened to take +up so noble an endeavor! Had you seen some of the young house doctors' +beautiful, smiling faces depicted in the hospital catalogue? Or was it +for the sake of the Senior Surgeon's grim, gray mug that you jilted your +poor plow-boy lover way up in the Annapolis Valley?" + +"Why, Zillah!" gasped the country girl. "Why, I think you 're perfectly +awful! Why, Zillah Forsyth! Don't you ever say a thing like that again! +You can joke all you want to about the flirty young Internes. They're +nothing but fellows. But it isn't--it isn't respectful--for you to talk +like that about the Senior Surgeon. He's too--too terrifying!" she +finished in an utter panic of consternation. + +"Oh, now I know it was the Senior Surgeon that made you jilt your +country beau!" taunted Zillah Forsyth with soft alto sarcasm. + +"I didn't, either, jilt Joe Hazeltine!" stormed Rae Malgregor +explosively. Backed up against her bureau, eyes flaming, breast heaving, +little candy-box cap all tossed askew over her left ear, she stood +defying her tormentor. "I didn't, either, jilt Joe Hazeltine!" she +reasserted passionately. "It was Joe Hazeltine that jilted me! And we +'d been going together since we were kids! And now he's married the +dominie's daughter and they've got a kid of their own most as old as he +and I were when we first began courting each other. And it's all because +I insisted on being a trained nurse," she finished shrilly. + +With an expression of real shock Helene Churchill peered up from her +lowly seat on the floor. + +"You mean?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "You mean that he didn't want +you to be a trained nurse? You mean that he wasn't big enough,--wasn't +fine enough to appreciate the nobility of the profession?" + +"Nobility nothing!" snapped Rae Malgregor. "It was me scrubbing strange +men with alcohol that he couldn't stand for! And I don't know as I +exactly blame him," she added huskily. "It certainly is a good deal of a +liberty when you stop to think about it." + +Quite incongruously her big, childish, blue eyes narrowed suddenly into +two dark, calculating slits. "It's comic," she mused, "how there isn't a +man in the world who would stand letting his wife or daughter or sister +have a male nurse. But look at the jobs we girls get sent out on! It's +very confusing!" + +With sincere appeal she turned to Zillah Forsyth. "And yet--and yet," +she stammered. "And yet--when everything scary that's in you has once +been scared out of you,--why, there's nothing left in you to be scared +_with_ any more, is there?" + +"What? What?" pleaded Helene Churchill. "Say it again! What?" + +"That's what Joe and I quarreled about my first vacation home!" +persisted Rae Malgregor. "It was a traveling salesman's thigh. It was +broken bad. Somebody had to take care of it. So I did! Joe thought it +wasn't modest to be so willing." With a perplexed sort of defiance she +raised her square little chin. "But you see I was willing!" she said. +"I was perfectly willing. Just one single solitary year of hospital +training had made me perfectly willing. And you can't _un_-willing a +willing--even to please your beau, no matter how hard you try!" With a +droll admixture of shyness and disdain she tossed her curly blonde head +a trifle higher. "Shucks!" she attested. "What's a traveling salesman's +thigh?" + +"Shucks yourself!" scoffed Zillah Forsyth. "What's a silly beau or two +up in Nova Scotia to a girl with looks like you? You could have married +that typhoid case a dozen times last winter if you'd crooked your little +finger! Why, the fellow was crazy about you. And he was richer than +Croesus. What queered it?" she demanded bluntly. "Did his mother hate +you?" + +Like one fairly cramped with astonishment Rae Malgregor doubled up very +suddenly at the waist-line, and thrusting her neck oddly forward after +the manner of a startled crane, stood peering sharply round the corner +of the rocking-chair at Zillah Forsyth. + +"Did his mother hate me?" she gasped. "Did--his--mother--hate--me? Well, +what do you think? With me who never even saw plumbing till I came down +here, setting out to explain to her with twenty tiled bathrooms how to +be hygienic though rich? Did his mother hate me? Well, what do you +think? With her who bore him, her who _bore_ him, mind you, kept +waiting down stairs in the hospital ante-room--half an hour every +day--on the raw edge of a rattan chair--waiting--worrying--all old and +gray and scared--while little young, perky, pink and white _me_ is +upstairs--brushing her own son's hair and washing her own son's +face--and altogether getting her own son ready to see his own mother! +And then me obliged to turn her out again in ten minutes, flip as you +please, for fear she'd stayed too long,--while I stay on the rest of the +night? _Did his mother hate me!"_ + +Stealthily as an assassin she crept around the corner of the +rocking-chair and grabbed Zillah Forsyth by her astonished linen +shoulder. + +"Did his mother hate me?" she persisted mockingly. "Did his mother hate +me? Well rather! Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't +hate us? Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't look upon +a trained nurse as her natural born enemy? I don't blame 'em!" she added +chokingly. "Look at the impudent jobs we get sent out on! Quarantined +upstairs for weeks at a time with their inflammable, diphtheritic +bridegrooms--while they sit down stairs--brooding over their wedding +teaspoons! Hiked off indefinitely to Atlantic City with their gouty +bachelor uncles! Hearing their own innocent little sisters' +blood-curdling deathbed deliriums! Snatching their own new-born babies +away from their breasts and showing them, virgin-handed, how to nurse +them better! The impudence of it, I say! The disgusting, confounded +impudence! Doing things perfectly--flippantly--_right_--for twenty-five +dollars a week--and washing--that all the achin' love in the world don't +know how to do right--just for love!" + +Furiously she began to jerk her victim's shoulder. "I tell you it's +awful, Zillah Forsyth!" she insisted. "I tell you I just won't stand +it!" + +With muscles like steel wire Zillah Forsyth scrambled to her feet, and +pushed Rae Malgregor back against the bureau. + +"For Heaven's sake, Rae, shut up!" she said. "What in Creation's the +matter with you to-day? I never saw you act so before!" With real +concern she stared into the girl's turbid eyes. "If you feel like that +about it, what in thunder did you go into nursing for?" she demanded not +unkindly. + +Very slowly Helene Churchill rose from her lowly seat by her precious +book-case and came round and looked at Rae Malgregor rather oddly. +"Yes," faltered Helene Churchill. "What did you go into nursing for?" +The faintest possible taint of asperity was in her voice. + +Quite dumbly for an instant Rae Malgregor's natural timidity stood +battling the almost fanatic professional fervor in Helene Churchill's +frankly open face, the raw, scientific passion, of very different +caliber, but no less intensity, hidden so craftily behind Zillah +Forsyth's plastic features. Then suddenly her own hands went clutching +back at the bureau for support, and all the flaming, raging red went +ebbing out of her cheeks, leaving her lips with hardly blood enough left +to work them. + +"I went into nursing," she mumbled, "and it's God's own truth,--I went +into nursing because--because I thought the uniforms were so cute." + +Furiously, the instant the words were gone from her mouth, she turned +and snarled at Zillah's hooting laughter. + +"Well, I had to do something!" she attested. The defense was like a flat +blade slapping the air. + +Desperately she turned to Helene Churchill's goading, faintly +supercilious smile, and her voice edged suddenly like a twisted sword. +"Well, the uniforms _are_ cute!" she parried. "They are! They are! I bet +you there's more than one girl standing high in the graduating class +to-day who never would have stuck out her first year's bossin' and slops +and worry and death--if she'd had to stick it out in the unimportant +looking clothes she came from home in! Even you, Helene Churchill, with +all your pious talk,--the day they put your coachman's son in as new +Interne and you got called down from the office for failing to stand +when Mr. Young Coachman came into the room, you bawled all night,--you +did,--and swore you'd chuck your whole job and go home the next day--if +it wasn't that you'd just had a life-size photo taken in full nursing +costume to send to your brother's chum at Yale! So there!" + +With a gasp of ineffable satisfaction she turned from Helene Churchill. + +"Sure the uniforms are cute!" she slashed back at Zillah +Forsyth. "That's the whole trouble with 'em. They're so +awfully--masqueradishly--cute! Sure, I could have got engaged to the +Typhoid Boy. It would have been as easy as robbing a babe! But lots of +girls, I notice, get engaged in their uniforms, feeding a patient +perfectly scientifically out of his own silver spoon, who don't seem +to stay engaged so especially long in their own street clothes, bungling +just plain naturally with their own knives and forks! Even you, Zillah +Forsyth," she hacked, "even you who trot round like the Lord's Anointed +in your pure white togs, you're just as Dutchy looking as anybody else, +come to put you in a red hat and a tan coat and a blue skirt!" + +Mechanically she raised her hands to her head as though with some silly +thought of keeping the horrid pain in her temples from slipping to her +throat, her breast, her feet. + +"Sure the uniforms are cute," she persisted a bit thickly. "Sure the +Typhoid Boy was crazy about me! He called me his 'Holy Chorus Girl,' I +heard him--raving in his sleep. Lord save us! What are we to any man but +just that?" she questioned hotly with renewed venom. "Parson, actor, +young sinner, old saint--I ask you frankly, girls, on your word of +honor, was there ever more than one man in ten went through your hands +who didn't turn out soft somewhere before you were through with him? +Mawking about your 'sweet eyes' while you're wrecking your optic nerves +trying to decipher the dose on a poison bottle! Mooning over your +wonderful likeness to the lovely young sister they--never had! Trying to +kiss your finger tips when you're struggling to brush their teeth! +Teasin' you to smoke cigarettes with 'em--when they know it would cost +you your job!" + +Impishly, without any warning, she crooked her knee and pointed at one +homely square-toed shoe in a mincy dancing step. Hoydenishly she threw +out her arms and tried to gather Helene and Zillah both into their +compass. + +"Oh, you Holy Chorus Girls!" she chuckled with maniacal delight. +"Everybody, all together, now! Kick your little kicks! Smile your little +smiles! Tinkle your little thermometers! Steady,--there! +One--two--three--One--two--three!" + +Laughingly Zillah Forsyth slipped from the grasp. "Don't you dare 'holy' +me!" she threatened. + +In real irritation Helene released herself. "I'm no chorus girl," she +said coldly. + +With a little shrill scream of pain Rae Malgregor's hands went flying +back to her temples. Like a person giving orders in a great panic she +turned authoritatively to her two room-mates, her fingers all the while +boring frenziedly into her temples. + +"Now, girls," she warned, "stand well back! If my head bursts, you know, +it's going to burst all to slivers and splinters--like a boiler!" + +"Rae, you're crazy!" hooted Zillah. + +"Just plain vulgar--looney," faltered Helene. + +Both girls reached out simultaneously to push her aside. + +Somewhere in the dusty, indifferent street a bird's note rang out in +one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents +and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae +Malgregor's jangled nerves were waiting for. + +"Oh, I _am_ crazy, am I?" she cried with a new, fierce joy. "Oh, I _am_ +crazy, am I? Well, I'll go ask the Superintendent and see if I am! Oh, +surely they wouldn't try and make me graduate if I really was crazy!" + +Madly she bolted for her bureau, and snatching her own motto down, +crumpled its face securely against her skirt and started for the door. +Just what the motto was no one but herself knew. Sprawling in +paint-brush hieroglyphics on a great flapping sheet of brown +wrapping-paper, the sentiment, whatever it was, had been nailed face +down to the wall for three tantalizing years. + +"No you don't!" cried Zillah now, as she saw the mystery threatening so +meanly to escape her. + +"No you don't!" cried Helene. "You've seen our mottoes--and now we're +going to see yours!" + +Almost crazed with new terror Rae Malgregor went dodging to the +right,--to the left,--to the right again,--cleared the rocking-chair,--a +scuffle with padded hands,--climbed the trunk,--a race with padded +feet,--reached the door-handle at last, yanked the door open, and with +lungs and temper fairly bursting with momentum, shot down the +hall,--down some stairs,--down some more hall,--down some more stairs, +to the Superintendent's office where, with her precious motto still +clutched securely in one hand, she broke upon that dignitary's startled, +near-sighted vision like a young whirl-wind of linen and starch and +flapping brown paper. Breathlessly, without prelude or preamble, she +hurled her grievance into the older woman's grievance-dulled ears. + +"Give me back my own face!" she demanded peremptorily. "Give me back my +own face, I say! And my own hands! I tell you I want my own hands! +Helene and Zillah say I'm insane! And I want to go home!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Like a short-necked animal elongated suddenly to the cervical +proportions of a giraffe, the Superintendent of Nurses reared up +from her stoop-shouldered desk-work and stared forth in speechless +astonishment across the top of her spectacles. + +Exuberantly impertinent, ecstatically self-conscious, Rae Malgregor +repeated her demand. To her parched mouth the very taste of her own +babbling impudence refreshed her like the shock and prickle of cracked +ice. + +"I tell you I want my own face again! And my own hands!" she reiterated +glibly. "I mean the face with the mortgage in it, and the cinders--and +the other human expressions!" she explained. "And the nice grubby +country hands that go with that sort of a face!" + +Very accusingly she raised her finger and shook it at the +Superintendent's perfectly livid countenance. + +"Oh, of course I know I wasn't very much to look at. But at least I +matched! What my hands knew, I mean, my face knew! Pies or plowing or +May-baskets, what my hands knew my face knew! That's the way hands and +faces ought to work together! But you? you with all your rules and your +bossing and your everlasting 'S--sh! S--sh!' you've snubbed all the +know-anything out of my face--and made my hands nothing but two +disconnected machines--for somebody else to run! And I hate you! You're +a Monster! You're a ----, everybody hates you!" + +Mutely then she shut her eyes, bowed her head, and waited for the +Superintendent to smite her dead. The smite she felt quite sure would be +a noisy one. First of all, she reasoned it would fracture her skull. +Naturally then of course it would splinter her spine. Later in all +probability it would telescope her knee-joints. And never indeed now +that she came to think of it had the arches of her feet felt less +capable of resisting so terrible an impact. Quite unconsciously she +groped out a little with one hand to steady herself against the edge of +the desk. + +But the blow when it came was nothing but a cool finger tapping her +pulse. + +"There! There!" crooned the Superintendent's voice with a most amazing +tolerance. + +"But I won't 'there--there'!" snapped Rae Malgregor. Her eyes were wide +open again now, and extravagantly dilated. + +The cool fingers on her pulse seemed to tighten a little. "S--sh! +S--sh!" admonished the Superintendent's mumbling lips. + +"But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" stormed Rae Malgregor. Never before in +her three years' hospital training had she seen her arch-enemy, the +Superintendent, so utterly disarmed of irascible temper and arrogant +dignity, and the sight perplexed and maddened her at one and the same +moment. "But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" Desperately she jerked her curly +blonde head in the direction of the clock on the wall. "Here it's four +o'clock now!" she cried. "And in less than four hours you're going to +try and make me graduate--and go out into the world--God knows +where--and charge innocent people twenty-five dollars a week and +washing, likelier than not, mind you, for these hands," she gestured, +"that don't co-ordinate at all with this face," she grimaced, "but with +the face of one of the House Doctors--or the Senior Surgeon--or even +you--who may be way off in Kamchatka--when I need him most!" she +finished with a confused jumble of accusation and despair. + +Still with unexplainable amiability the Superintendent whirled back into +place in her pivot-chair and with her left hand which had all this time +been rummaging busily in a lower desk drawer proffered Rae Malgregor a +small fold of paper. + +"Here, my dear," she said. "Here's a sedative for you. Take it at once. +It will quiet you perfectly. We all know you've had very hard luck this +past month, but you mustn't worry so about the future." The slightest +possible tinge of purely professional manner crept back into the older +woman's voice. "Certainly, Miss Malgregor, with your judgment--" + +"With my judgment?" cried Rae Malgregor. The phrase was like a red rag +to her. "With my judgment? Great Heavens! That's the whole trouble! I +haven't got any judgment! I've never been allowed to have any judgment! +All I've ever been allowed to have is the judgment of some flirty young +medical student--or the House Doctor!--or the Senior Surgeon!--or you!" + +Her eyes were fairly piteous with terror. + +"Don't you see that my face doesn't know anything?" she faltered, +"except just to smile and smile and smile and say 'Yes, sir--No, +sir--Yes, sir'?" From curly blonde head to square-toed, commonsense +shoes her little body began to quiver suddenly like the advent of a +chill. "Oh, what am I going to do," she begged, "when I'm way off +alone--somewhere--in the mountains--or a tenement--or a palace--and +something happens--and there isn't any judgment round to tell me what +I ought to do?" + +Abruptly in the doorway as though summoned by some purely casual flicker +of the Superintendent's thin fingers another nurse appeared. + +"Yes, I rang," said the Superintendent. "Go and ask the Senior Surgeon +if he can come to me here a moment, immediately." + +"The Senior Surgeon?" gasped Rae Malgregor. "The Senior Surgeon?" With +her hands clutching at her throat she reeled back against the wall for +support. Like a shore bereft in one second of its tide, like a tree +stripped in one second of its leafage, she stood there, utterly stricken +of temper or passion or any animating human emotion whatsoever. + +"Oh, now I'm going to be expelled! Oh, now I know I'm going to +be--expelled!" she moaned listlessly. + +Very vaguely into the farthest radiation of her vision she sensed the +approach of a man. Gray-haired, gray-bearded, gray-suited, grayly +dogmatic as a block of granite, the Senior Surgeon loomed up at last in +the doorway. + +"I'm in a hurry," he growled. "What's the matter?" + +Precipitously Rae Malgregor collapsed into the breach. + +"Oh, there's--nothing at all the matter, sir," she stammered. "It's +only--it's only that I've just decided that I don't want to be a trained +nurse." + +With a gesture of ill-concealed impatience the Superintendent shrugged +the absurd speech aside. + +"Dr. Faber," she said, "won't you just please assure Miss Malgregor once +more that the little Italian boy's death last week was in no conceivable +way her fault,--that nobody blames her in the slightest, or holds her in +any possible way responsible." + +"Why, what nonsense!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "What--!" + +"And the Portuguese woman the week before that," interrupted Rae +Malgregor dully. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Senior Surgeon. "It's nothing but +coincidence! Pure coincidence! It might have happened to anybody!" + +"And she hasn't slept for almost a fortnight." the Superintendent +confided, "nor touched a drop of food or drink, as far as I can make +out, except just black coffee. I've been expecting this break-down for +some days." + +"And-the-young-drug-store-clerk-the-week-before-that," Rae Malgregor +resumed with sing-song monotony. + +Brusquely the Senior Surgeon stepped forward and taking the girl by her +shoulders, jerked her sharply round to the light, and, with firm, +authoritative fingers, rolled one of her eyelids deftly back from its +inordinately dilated pupil. Equally brusquely he turned away again. + +"Nothing but moonshine!" he muttered. "Nothing in the world but too much +coffee dope taken on an empty stomach,--'empty brain,' I'd better have +said! When will you girls ever learn any sense?" With searchlight +shrewdness his eyes flashed back for an instant over the haggard gray +lines that slashed along the corners of her quivering, childish mouth. A +bit temperishly he began to put on his gloves. "Next time you set out to +have a 'brain-storm,' Miss Malgregor," he suggested satirically, "try to +have it about something more sensible than imagining that anybody is +trying to hold you personally responsible for the existence of death in +the world. Bah!" he ejaculated fiercely. "If you are going to fuss like +this over cases hopelessly moribund from the start, what in thunder are +you going to do some fine day when out of a perfectly clear and clean +sky Security itself turns septic and you lose the President of the +United States--or a mother of nine children--with a hang-nail?" + +"But I wasn't fussing, sir!" protested Rae Malgregor with a timid sort +of dignity. "Why, it never had occurred to me for a moment that anybody +blamed me for--anything!" Just from sheer astonishment her hands took a +new clutch into the torn flapping corner of the motto that she still +clung desperately to even at this moment. + +"For Heaven's sake stop crackling that brown paper!" stormed the Senior +Surgeon. + +"But I wasn't crackling the brown paper, sir! It's crackling itself," +persisted Rae Malgregor very softly. The great blue eyes that lifted to +his were brimming full of misery. "Oh, can't I make you understand, +sir?" she stammered. Appealingly she turned to the Superintendent. "Oh, +can't I make anybody understand? All I was trying to say,--all I was +trying to explain, was--that I _don't want to be a trained nurse--after +all_!" + +"Why not?" demanded the Senior Surgeon with a rather noisy click of his +glove fasteners. + +"Because--my--face--is--tired," said the girl quite simply. + +The explosive wrath on the Senior Surgeon's countenance seemed to be +directed suddenly at the Superintendent. + +"Is this an afternoon tea?" he asked tartly. "With six major operations +this morning and a probable meningitis diagnosis ahead of me this +afternoon I think I might be spared the babblings of an hysterical +nurse!" Casually over his shoulder he nodded at the girl. "You're a +fool!" he said, and started for the door. + +Just on the threshold he turned abruptly and looked back. His forehead +was furrowed like a corduroy road and the one rampant question in his +mind at the moment seemed to be mired hopelessly between his bushy +eyebrows. + +"Lord!" he exclaimed a bit flounderingly. "Are _you_ the nurse that +helped me last week on that fractured skull?" + +"Yes, sir," said Rae Malgregor. + +Jerkily the Senior Surgeon retraced his footsteps into the office and +stood facing her as though with some really terrible accusation. + +"And the freak abdominal?" he quizzed sharply. "Was it _you_ who +threaded that needle for me so blamed slowly--and calmly--and surely, +while all the rest of us were jumping up and down and cursing you--for +no brighter reason than that we couldn't have threaded it ourselves if +we'd had all eternity before us and--all creation bleeding to death?" + +"Y-e-s, sir," said Rae Malgregor. + +Quite bluntly the Senior Surgeon reached out and lifted one of her hands +to his scowling professional scrutiny. + +"Gad!" he attested. "What a hand! You're a wonder! Under proper +direction you're a wonder! It was like myself working with twenty +fingers and no thumbs! I never saw anything like it!" + +Almost boyishly the embarrassed flush mounted to his cheeks as he jerked +away again. "Excuse me for not recognizing you," he apologized gruffly. +"But you girls all look so much alike!" + +As though the eloquence of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a +person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly +transfigured face to the Senior Surgeon's grimly astonished gaze. + +"Yes! Yes, sir!" she cried joyously. "That's just exactly what the +trouble is! That's just exactly what I was trying to express, sir! My +face is all worn out trying to 'look alike'! My cheeks are almost sprung +with artificial smiles! My eyes are fairly bulging with unshed tears! My +nose aches like a toothache trying never to turn up at anything! I'm +smothered with the discipline of it! I'm choked with the affectation! I +tell you--I just can't breathe through a trained nurse's face any more! +I tell you, sir, I'm sick to death of being nothing but a type. I want +to look like _myself_! I want to see what Life could do to a silly face +like mine--if it ever got a chance! When other women are crying, I want +the fun of crying! When other women look scared to death, I want the fun +of looking scared to death!" Hysterically again with shrewish emphasis +she began to repeat: "I won't be a nurse! I tell you, I won't! I +_won't_!" + +"Pray what brought you so suddenly to this remarkable decision?" +scoffed the Senior Surgeon. + +"A letter from my father, sir," she confided more quietly. "A letter +about some dogs." + +"Dogs?" hooted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. A trifle speculatively for an +instant she glanced at the Superintendent's face and then back again to +the Senior Surgeon's. "Yes, sir," she repeated with increasing +confidence. "Up in Nova Scotia my father raises hunting-dogs. Oh, no +special fancy kind, sir," she hastened in all honesty to explain. "Just +dogs, you know,--just mixed dogs,--pointers with curly tails,--and +shaggy-coated hounds,--and brindled spaniels, and all that sort of +thing,--just mongrels, you know, but very clever; and people, sir, come +all the way from Boston to buy dogs of him, and once a man came way from +London to learn the secret of his training." + +"Well, what is the secret of his training?" quizzed the Senior Surgeon +with the sudden eager interest of a sportsman. "I should think it would +be pretty hard," he acknowledged, "in a mixed gang like that to decide +just which particular dog was suited to what particular game!" + +"Yes, that's just it, sir," beamed the White Linen Nurse. "A dog, of +course, will chase anything that runs,--that's just dog,--but when a dog +really begins to _care_ for what he's chasing he--wags! That's hunting! +Father doesn't calculate, he says, on training a dog on anything he +doesn't wag on!" + +"Yes, but what's that got to do with you?" asked the Senior Surgeon a +bit impatiently. + +With ill-concealed dismay the White Linen Nurse stood staring blankly at +the Senior Surgeon's gross stupidity. + +"Why, don't you see?" she faltered. "I've been chasing this nursing job +three whole years now--and there's no wag to it!" + +"Oh Hell!" said the Senior Surgeon. If he hadn't said "Oh Hell!" he +would have grinned. And it hadn't been a grinning day, and he certainly +didn't intend to begin grinning at any such late hour as that in the +afternoon. With his dignity once reassured he relaxed then a trifle. +"For Heaven's sake, what _do_ you want to be?" he asked not unkindly. + +With an abrupt effort at self-control Rae Malgregor jerked her head into +at least the outer semblance of a person lost in almost fathomless +thought. + +"Why I'm sure I don't know, sir," she acknowledged worriedly. "But it +would be a great pity, I suppose, to waste all the grand training that's +gone into my hands." With sudden conviction her limp shoulders stiffened +a trifle. "My oldest sister," she stammered, "bosses the laundry in one +of the big hotels in Halifax, and my youngest sister teaches school in +Moncton. But I'm so strong, you know, and I like to move things round +so,--and everything,--maybe--I could get a position somewhere as general +housework girl." + +With a roar of amusement as astonishing to himself as to his listeners, +the Senior Surgeon's chin jerked suddenly upward. + +"You're crazy as a loon!" he confided cordially. "Great Scott! If you +can work up a condition like this on coffee,--what would you do on," he +hesitated grimly, "malted milk?" As unheralded as his amusement, gross +irritability overtook him again. "Will--you--stop--rattling that brown +paper?" he thundered at her. + +Innocently as a child she rebuffed the accusation and ignored the +temper. + +"But I'm not rattling it, sir!" she protested. "I'm simply trying to +hide what's on the other side of it." + +"What is on the other side of it?" demanded the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +With unquestioning docility the girl turned the paper around. + +From behind her desk the austere Superintendent twisted her +neck most informally to decipher the scrawling hieroglyphics. +"_Don't--Ever--Be_--_bumptious_!" she read forth jerkily with a +questioning, incredulous sort of emphasis. + +"Don't ever be bumptious?" squinted the Senior Surgeon perplexedly +through his glasses. + +"Yes," said Rae Malgregor very timidly. "It's my--motto." + +"Your motto?" sniffed the Superintendent. + +"Your motto?" chuckled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, my motto," repeated Rae Malgregor with the slightest perceptible +tinge of resentment. "And it's a perfectly good motto, too! Only, of +course, it hasn't got any style to it. That's why I didn't want the +girls to see it," she confided a bit drearily. Then palpably before +their eyes they saw her spirit leap into ineffable pride. "My Father +gave it to me," she announced briskly. "And my Father said that, when +I came home in June, if I could honestly say that I'd never once been +bumptious--all my three years here,--he'd give me a--heifer! And--" + +"Well I guess you've lost your heifer!" said the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"Lost my heifer?" gasped the girl. Big-eyed and incredulous she stood +for an instant staring back and forth from the Superintendent's face to +the Senior Surgeon's. "You mean?" she stammered, "you mean--that +I've--been--bumptious--just now? You mean--that after all these years +of--meachin' meekness--I've lost--?" + +Plainly even to the Senior Surgeon and the Superintendent the bones in +her knees weakened suddenly like knots of tissue paper. No power on +earth could have made her break discipline by taking a chair while the +Senior Surgeon stood, so she sank limply down to the floor instead, with +two great solemn tears welling slowly through the fingers with which she +tried vainly to cover her face. + +"And the heifer was brown, with one white ear; it was awful cunning," +she confided mumblingly. "And it ate from my hand--all warm and sticky, +like--loving sandpaper." There was no protest in her voice, nor any +whine of complaint, but merely the abject submission to Fate of one who +from earliest infancy had seen other crops blighted by other frosts. +Then tremulously with the air of one who, just as a matter of spiritual +tidiness, would purge her soul of all sad secrets, she lifted her +entrancing, tear-flushed face from her strong, sturdy, utterly +unemotional fingers and stared with amazing blueness, amazing blandness +into the Senior Surgeon's scowling scrutiny. + +"And I'd named her--for you!" she said. "I'd named her--Patience--for +you!" + +Instantly then she scrambled to her knees to try and assuage by some +miraculous apology the horrible shock which she read in the Senior +Surgeon's face. + +"Oh, of course, sir, I know it isn't scientific!" she pleaded +desperately. "Oh, of course, sir, I know it isn't scientific at all! But +up where I live, you know, instead of praying for anybody, we--we name a +young animal--for the virtue that that person--seems to need the most. +And if you tend the young animal carefully--and train it right--! +Why--it's just a superstition, of course, but--Oh, sir!" she floundered +hopelessly, "the virtue you needed most in your business was what I +meant! Oh, really, sir, I never thought of criticizing your character!" + +Gruffly the Senior Surgeon laughed. Embarrassment was in the laugh, and +anger, and a fierce, fiery sort of resentment against both the +embarrassment and the anger,--but no possible trace of amusement. +Impatiently he glanced up at the fast speeding clock. + +"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "I'm an hour late now!" Scowling like a +pirate he clicked the cover of his watch open and shut for an uncertain +instant. Then suddenly he laughed again, and there was nothing +whatsoever in his laugh this time except just amusement. + +"See here, Miss--Bossy Tamer," he said. "If the Superintendent is +willing, go get your hat and coat, and I'll take you out on that +meningitis case with me. It's a thirty mile run if it's a block, and I +guess if you sit on the front seat it will blow the cobwebs out of your +brain--if anything will," he finished not unkindly. + +Like a white hen sensing the approach of some utterly unseen danger the +Superintendent seemed to bristle suddenly in every direction. + +"It's a bit--irregular," she protested in her most even tone. + +"Bah! So are some of the most useful of the French verbs!" snapped the +Senior Surgeon. In the midst of authority his voice could be inestimably +soft and reassuring, but sometimes on the brink of asserting said +authority he had a tone that was distinctly unpleasant. + +"Oh, very well," conceded the Superintendent with some waspishness. + +Hazily for an instant Rae Malgregor stood staring into the +Superintendent's uncordial face. "I'd--I'd apologize," she faltered, +"but I--don't even know what I said. It just blew up!" + +Perfectly coldly and perfectly civilly the Superintendent received the +overture. "It was quite evident, Miss Malgregor, that you were not +altogether responsible at the moment," she conceded in common justice. + +Heavily then, like a person walking in her sleep the girl trailed out of +the room to get her coat and hat. + +Slamming one desk-drawer after another the Superintendent drowned the +sluggish sound of her retreating footsteps. + +"There goes my best nurse!" she said grimly. "My very best nurse! Oh no, +not the most brilliant one, I didn't mean that, but the most reliable! +The most nearly perfect human machine that it has ever been my privilege +to see turned out,--the one girl that week in, week out, month after +month, and year after year, has always done what she's told,--when she +was told,--and the exact way she was told,--without questioning +anything, without protesting anything, without supplementing anything +with some disastrous original conviction of her own--_and look at her +now_!" Tragically the Superintendent rubbed her hand across her worried +brow. "Coffee, you said it was?" she asked skeptically. "Are there any +special antidotes for coffee?" + +With a queer little quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked +his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim +torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring went scurrying through the +tree-tops. + +"What's that you asked?" he quizzed sharply. "Any antidotes for coffee? +Yes. Dozens of them. But none for Spring." + +"Spring?" sniffed the Superintendent. A little shiveringly she reached +out and gathered a white knitted shawl around her shoulders. "Spring? I +don't see what Spring's got to do with Rae Malgregor or any other young +outlaw in my graduating class. If graduation came in November it would +be just the same! They're a set of ingrates, every one of them!" +Vehemently she turned aside to her card-index of names and slapped the +cards through one by one without finding one single soothing exception. +"Yes, sir, a set of ingrates!" she repeated accusingly. "Spend your life +trying to teach them what to do and how to do it! Cram ideas into those +that haven't got any, and yank ideas out of those who have got too many! +Refine them, toughen them, scold them, coax them, everlastingly drill +and discipline them! And then, just as you get them to a place where +they move like clock-work, and you actually believe you can trust them, +then graduation day comes round, and they think they're all safe,--and +every single individual member of the class breaks out and runs a-muck +with the one dare-devil deed she's been itching to do every day the past +three years! Why this very morning I caught the President of the Senior +Class with a breakfast tray in her hands--stealing the cherry out of her +patient's grape fruit. And three of the girls reported for duty as bold +as brass with their hair frizzed tight as a nigger doll's. And the girl +who's going into a convent next week was trying on the laundryman's +derby hat as I came up from lunch. And now, now--" the Superintendent's +voice went suddenly a little hoarse, "and now--here's Miss +Malgregor--intriguing--to get an automobile ride with--_you!_" + +"Eh?" cried the Senior Surgeon with a jump. "What? Is this an Insane +Asylum? Is it a Nervine?" Madly he started for the door. "Order a ton of +bromides!" he called back over his shoulder. "Order a car-load of them! +Saturate the whole place with them! Drown the whole damned place!" + +Half way down the lower hall, all his nerves on edge, all his unwonted +boyish impulsiveness quenched noxiously like a candle flame, he met and +passed Rae Malgregor without a sign of recognition. + +"God! How I hate women!" he kept mumbling to himself as he struggled +clumsily all alone into the torn sleeve lining of his thousand dollar +mink coat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Like a train-traveler coming out of a long, smoky, smothery tunnel +Into the clean-tasting light, the White Linen Nurse came out of the +prudish-smelling hospital into the riotous mud-and-posie promise of the +young April afternoon. + +The God of Hysteria had certainly not deserted her! In all the full +effervescent reaction of her brain-storm,--fairly bubbling with +dimples, fairly foaming with curls,--light-footed, light-hearted, most +ecstatically light-headed, she tripped down into the sunshine as though +the great, harsh, granite steps that marked her descent were nothing +more nor less than a gigantic, old, horny-fingered hand passing her +blithely out to some deliciously unknown Lilliputian adventure. + +As she pranced across the soggy April sidewalk to what she supposed was +the Senior Surgeon's perfectly empty automobile she became conscious +suddenly that the rear seat of the car was already occupied. + +Out from an unseasonable snuggle of sable furs and flaming red hair a +small, peevish face peered forth at her with frank curiosity. + +"Why, hello!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. "Who are you?" + +With unmistakable hostility the haughty little face retreated into its +furs and its red hair. "Hush!" commanded a shrill childish voice. "Hush, +I say! I'm a cripple--and very bad-tempered. Don't speak to me!" + +"Oh, my Glory!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Oh my Glory, Glory, +Glory!" Without any warning whatsoever she felt suddenly like +Nothing-At-All, rigged out in an exceedingly shabby old ulster and an +excessively homely black slouch hat. In a desperate attempt at tangible +tom-boyish nonchalance she tossed her head and thrust her hands down +deep into her big ulster pockets. That the bleak hat reflected no decent +featherish consciousness of being tossed, that the big threadbare +pockets had no bottoms to them, merely completed her startled sense of +having been in some way blotted right out of existence. + +Behind her back the Senior Surgeon's huge fur-coated approach dawned +blissfully like the thud of a rescue party. + +But if the Senior Surgeon's blunt, wholesome invitation to ride had been +perfectly sweet when he prescribed it for her in the Superintendent's +office, the invitation had certainly soured most amazingly in the +succeeding ten minutes. Abruptly now, without any greeting, he reached +out and opened the rear door of the car, and nodded curtly for her to +enter there. + +Instantly across the face of the little crippled girl already ensconced +in the tonneau a single flash of light went zig-zagging crookedly from +brow to chin,--and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill +little voice. "Hello,--Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase +mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the +greeting ended and the taunt began. + +There was nothing subtle however about the way in which the Senior +Surgeon's hand shot out and slammed the tonneau door bang-bang again on +its original passenger. His face was crimson with anger. Brusquely he +pointed to the front seat. + +"You may sit in there, with me, Miss Malgregor!" he thundered. + +"Yes, sir," crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +Meek as an oiled machine she scuttled to her appointed place. Once +More in smothered giggle and unprotesting acquiescence she sensed the +resumption of eternal discipline. Already in just this trice of time +she felt her rampant young mouth resettle tamely into lines of smug, +determinate serenity. Already across her idle lap she felt her clasped +fingers begin to frost and tingle again like a cheerfully non-concerned +bunch of live wires waiting the one authoritative signal to connect +somebody,--anybody,--with this world or the next. Already the facile tip +of her tongue seemed fairly loaded and cocked like a revolver with all +the approximate "Yes, sirs," "No, sirs," that she thought she should +probably need. + +But the only immediate remarks that the Senior Surgeon addressed to any +one were addressed distinctly to the crank of his automobile. + +"Damn having a chauffeur who gets drunk the one day of the year when +you need him most!" he muttered under his breath, as with the same +exquisitely sensitive fingers that could have dissected like a caress +the nervous system of a humming bird, or re-set unbruisingly the broken +wing of a butterfly, he hurled his hundred and eighty pounds of +infuriate brute-strength against the calm, chronic, mechanical +stubbornness of that auto crank. "Damn!" he swore on the upward pull. +"Damn!" he gasped on the downward push. "Damn!" he cursed and sputtered +and spluttered. Purple with effort, bulging-eyed with strain, reeking +with sweat, his frenzied outburst would have terrorized the entire +hospital staff. + +With an odd little twinge of homesickness, the White Linen Nurse slid +cautiously out to the edge of her seat so that she might watch the +struggle better. For thus, with dripping foreheads and knotted +neck-muscles and breaking backs and rankly tempestuous language, did +the untutored men-folk of her own beloved home-land hurl their great +strength against bulls and boulders and refractory forest trees. Very +startlingly as she watched, a brand new thought went zig-zagging through +her consciousness. Was it possible,--was it even so much as remotely +possible--that the great Senior Surgeon,--the great, wonderful, +altogether formidable, altogether unapproachable Senior Surgeon,--was +just a--was just a--? Stripped ruthlessly of all his social +superiority,--of all his professional halo,--of all his scientific +achievement, the Senior Surgeon stood suddenly forth before her--a mere +man--just like other men! _Just exactly_ like other men? Like the sick +drug-clerk? Like the new-born millionaire baby? Like the doddering old +Dutch gaffer? The very delicacy of such a thought drove the blood +panic-stricken from her face. It was the indelicacy of the thought that +brought the blood surging back again to brow, to cheeks, to lips, even +to the tips of her ears. + +Glancing up casually from the roar and rumble of his abruptly repentant +engine the Senior Surgeon swore once more under his breath to think that +any female sitting perfectly idle and non-concerned in a seven thousand +dollar car should have the nerve to flaunt such a furiously strenuous +color. + +Bristling with resentment and mink furs he strode around the fender and +stumbled with increasing irritation across the White Linen Nurse's knees +to his seat. Just for an instant his famous fingers seemed to flash with +apparent inconsequence towards one bit of mechanism and another. Then +like a huge, portentous pill floated on smoothest syrup the car slid +down the yawning street into the congested city. + +Altogether monotonously in terms of pain and dirt and drug and disease +the city wafted itself in and out of the White Linen Nurse's +well-grooved consciousness. From every filthy street corner sodden age +or starved babyhood reached out its fluttering pulse to her. Then, +suddenly sweet as a draught through a fever-tainted room, the squalid +city freshened into jocund, luxuriant suburbs with rollicking tennis +courts, and flaming yellow forsythia blossoms, and green velvet lawns +prematurely posied with pale exotic hyacinths and great scarlet +splotches of lusty tulips. + +Beyond this hectic horticultural outburst the leisurely Spring faded out +again into April's naturally sallow colors. + +Glossy and black as an endless typewriter ribbon, the narrow, tense +State Road seemed to wind itself everlastingly in--and in--and +in--on some hidden spool of the car's mysterious mechanism. +Clickety-Click-Click-Clack,--faster than any human mind could +think,--faster than any human hand could finger,--hurtling up hazardous +hills of thought,--sliding down facile valleys of fancy,--roaring with +emphasis,--shrieking with punctuation,--the great car yielded itself +perforce to Fate's dictation. + +Robbed successively of the city's humanitarian pang, of the suburb's +esthetic pleasure, the White Linen Nurse found herself precipitated +suddenly into a mere blur of sight, a mere chaos of sound. In whizzing +speed and crashing breeze,--houses--fences--meadows--people--slapped +across her eyeballs like pictures on a fan. On and on and on through +kaleidoscopic yellows and rushing grays the great car sped, a purely +mechanical factor in a purely mechanical landscape. + +Rigid with concentration the Senior Surgeon stared like a dead man into +the intrepid, on-coming road. + +Intermittently from her green, plushy laprobes the little crippled girl +struggled to her feet, and sprawling clumsily across whose-ever shoulder +suited her best, raised a brazenly innocent voice, deliberately flatted, +in a shrill and maddeningly repetitive chant of her own making, to the +effect that + +All the birds were there +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And bumble bees crocheted in the trees-- +And bumble bees crocheted in the trees-- +And all the birds were there-- +And--And-- + +Intermittently from the front seat the Senior Surgeon's wooden face +relaxed to the extent of a grim mouth twisting distractedly sideways in +one furious bellow. + +"Will--you--stop--your--_noise_--and--go--back--to--your--seat!" + +Nothing else happened at all until at last, out of unbroken stretches of +winter-staled stubble, a high, formal hemlock hedge and a neat, pebbled +driveway proclaimed the Senior Surgeon's ultimate destination. + +Cautiously now, with an almost tender skill, the big car circled a tiny, +venturesome clump of highway violets and crept through a prancing, +leaping fluff of yellow collie dogs to the door of the big stone house. + +Instantly from inestimable resources a liveried serving man appeared to +help the Surgeon from his car; another, to take the Surgeon's coat; +another, to carry his bag. + +Lingering for an instant to stretch his muscles and shake his great +shoulders, the Senior Surgeon breathed into his cramped lungs a friendly +impulse as well as a scent of budding cherry trees. + +"You may come in with me, if you want to, Miss Malgregor." he conceded. +"It's an extraordinary case. You will hardly see another one like it." +Palpably he lowered his already almost indistinguishable voice. "The boy +is young," he confided, "about your age, I should guess, a college +foot-ball hero, the most superbly perfect specimen of young manhood it +has ever been my privilege to behold. It will be a long case. They have +two nurses already, but would like another. The work ought not to be +hard. Now if they should happen to--fancy you!" In speechless +expressiveness his eyes swept estimatingly over sun-parlors, stables, +garages, Italian gardens, rapturous blue-shadowed mountain views--every +last intimate detail of the mansion's wonderful equipment. + +Like a drowning man feeling his last floating spar wrenched away from +him, the White Linen Nurse dug her finger-nails frantically into every +reachable wrinkle and crevice of the heavily upholstered seat. + +"Oh, but sir, I don't want to go in!" she protested passionately. "I +tell you, sir, I'm quite done with all that sort of thing! It would +break my heart! It would! Oh, sir, this worrying about people for whom +you've got no affection,--it's like sledding without any snow! It grits +right down on your naked nerves. It--" + +Before the Senior Surgeon's glowering, incredulous stare her heart began +to plunge and pound again, but it plunged and pounded no harder, she +realized suddenly, than when in the calm, white hospital precincts she +was obliged to pass his terrifying presence in the corridor and murmur +an inaudible "Good Morning" or "Good Evening." "After all, he's nothing +but a man--nothing but a man--nothing but a mere--ordinary--two-legged +man," she reasoned over and over to herself. With a really desperate +effort she smoothed her frightened face into an expression of utter +guilelessness and peace and smiled unflinchingly right into the Senior +Surgeon's rousing anger as she had once seen an animal-trainer smile +into the snarl of a crouching tiger. + +"Th--ank you very much!" she said. "But I think I won't go in, +sir,--thank you! My--my face is still pretty tired!" + +"Idiot!" snapped the Senior Surgeon as he turned on his heel and started +up the steps. + +From the green plushy robes on the back seat the White Linen Nurse could +have sworn that she heard a sharply ejaculated, maliciously joyful "Ha!" +piped out. But when both she and the Senior Surgeon turned sharply round +to make sure, the Little Crippled Girl, in apparently complete +absorption, sat amiably extracting tuft after tuft of fur from the thumb +of one big sable glove, to the rumbling, sing-song monotone of "He loves +me--Loves me not--Loves me--Loves me not." + +Bristling with unutterable contempt for all femininity, the Senior +Surgeon proceeded up the steps between two solemn-faced lackeys. + +"Father!" wailed a feeble little voice. "Father!" There was no +shrillness in the tone now, nor malice, nor any mischievous thing,--just +desolation, the impulsive, panic-stricken desolation of a little child +left suddenly alone with a stranger. "Father!" the frightened voice +ventured forth a tiny bit louder. But the unheeding Senior Surgeon had +already reached the piazza. "Fat Father!" screamed the little voice. +Barbed now like a shark-hook the phrase ripped through the Senior +Surgeon's dormant sensibilities. As one fairly yanked out of his +thoughts he whirled around in his tracks. + +"What do you want?" he thundered. + +Helplessly the little girl sat staring from a lackey's ill-concealed +grin to her Father's smoldering fury. Quite palpably she began to +swallow with considerable difficulty. Then quick as a flash a +diminutively crafty smile crooked across one corner of her mouth. + +"Father?" she improvised dulcetly. "Father? May--may I--sit--in the +White Linen Nurse's lap?" + +Just for an instant the Senior Surgeon's narrowing eyes probed +mercilessly into the reekingly false little smile. Then altogether +brutally he shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't care where in blazes you sit!" he muttered, and went on into +the house. + +With an air of unalterable finality the massive oak door closed after +him. In the resonant click of its latch the great wrought-iron lock +seemed to smack its lips with ineffable satisfaction. + +Wringing suddenly round with a whish of starched skirts the White Linen +Nurse knelt up in her seat and grinned at the Little Crippled Girl. + +"'Ha'--yourself!" she said. + +Against all possible expectancy the Little Crippled Girl burst out +laughing. The laugh was wild, ecstatic, extravagantly boisterous, yet +awkward withal, and indescribably bumpy, like the first flight of a +cage-cramped bird. + +Quite abruptly the White Linen Nurse sat down again, and commenced +nervously with the wrist of her chamois glove to polish the slightly +tarnished brass lamp at her elbow. Equally abruptly after a minute she +stopped polishing and looked back at the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Would--you--like--to sit in my lap?" she queried conscientiously. + +Insolent with astonishment the Little Girl parried the question. "Why in +blazes--should I want to sit in your lap?" she quizzed harshly. Every +accent of her voice, every remotest intonation, was like the Senior +Surgeon's at his worst. The suddenly forked eyebrow, the snarling twitch +of the upper lip, turned the whole delicate little face into a grotesque +but desperately unconscious caricature of the grim-jawed father. + +As though the father himself had snubbed her for some unimaginable +familiarity the White Linen Nurse winced back in hopeless confusion. +Just for sheer shock, short-circuited with fatigue, a big tear rolled +slowly down one pink cheek. + +Instantly to the edge of her seat the Little Girl jerked herself +forward. "Don't cry, Pretty!" she whispered. "Don't cry! It's my legs. +I've got fat iron braces on my legs. And people don't like to hold me!" + +Half the professional smile came flashing back to the White Linen +Nurse's mouth. + +"Oh, I just adore holding people with iron braces on their legs," she +affirmed, and, leaning over the back of the seat, proceeded with +absolutely perfect mechanical tenderness to gather the poor, puny, +surprised little body into her own strong, shapely arms. Then dutifully +snuggling her shoulder to meet the stubborn little shoulder that refused +to snuggle, to it, and dutifully easing her knees to suit the stubborn +little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down resignedly in +her seat again to await the return of the Senior Surgeon. "There! There! +There!" she began quite instinctively to croon and pat. + +"Don't say 'There! There!'" wailed the Little Girl peevishly. Her body +was suddenly stiff as a ram-rod. "Don't say 'There! There!' If you've +got to make any noise at all, say 'Here! Here!'" + +"Here! Here!" droned the White Linen Nurse. "Here! Here! Here! Here!" On +and on and interminably on, "Here! Here! Here! Here!" + +At the end of about the three-hundred-and-forty-seventh "Here!" the +Little Girl's body relaxed, and she reached up two fragile fingers to +close the White Linen Nurse's mouth. "There! That will do," she sighed +contentedly. "I feel better now. Father does tire me so." + +"Father tires--_you_?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. The giggle that +followed the gasp was not in the remotest degree professional. "Father +tires _you_?" she repeated accusingly. "Why, you silly Little Girl! +Can't you see it's you that makes Father so everlastingly tired?" +Impulsively with her one free hand she turned the Little Girl's listless +face to the light. "What makes you call your nice father 'Fat Father'?" +she asked with real curiosity. "What makes you? He isn't fat at all. +He's just big. Why, what ever possesses you to call him 'Fat Father,' I +say? Can't you see how mad it makes him?" + +"Why, of course it made him mad!" said the Little Girl with plainly +reviving interest. Thrilled with astonishment at the White Linen Nurse's +apparent stupidity she straightened up perkily with inordinately +sparkling eyes. "Why, of course it makes him mad!" she explained +briskly. "That's why I do it! Why, my Parpa--never even looks at +me--unless I make him mad!" + +"S--sh!" said the White Linen Nurse. "Why, you mustn't ever say a thing +like that! Why, your Marma wouldn't like you to say a thing like that!" + +Jerking bumpily back against the White Linen Nurse's unprepared shoulder +the Little Girl prodded a pallid finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse's +vivid cheek. "Silly--Pink and White--Nursie!" she chuckled, "Don't you +know there _isn't_ any Marma?" Cackling with delight over her own +superior knowledge she folded her little arms and began to rock herself +convulsively to and fro. + +"Why, stop!" cried the White Linen Nurse. "Now you stop! Why, you wicked +little creature laughing like that about your poor dead mother! Why, +just think how bad it would make your poor Parpa feel!" + +With instant sobriety the Little Girl stopped rocking, and stared +perplexedly into the White Linen Nurse's shocked eyes. Her own little +face was all wrinkled up with earnestness. + +"But the Parpa--didn't like the Marma!" she explained painstakingly. +"The Parpa--_never_ liked the Marma! That's why he doesn't like me! I +heard Cook telling the Ice Man once when I wasn't more than ten minutes +old!" + +Desperately with one straining hand the White Linen Nurse stretched her +fingers across the Little Girl's babbling mouth. Equally desperately, +with the other hand, she sought to divert the Little Girl's mind by +pushing the fur cap back from her frizzly red hair, and loosening her +sumptuous coat, and jerking down vainly across two painfully obtrusive +white ruffles, the awkwardly short, hideously bright little purple +dress. + +"I think your cap is too hot," she began casually, and then proceeded +with increasing vivacity and conviction to the objects that worried her +most. "And those--those ruffles," she protested, "they don't look a bit +nice being so long!" Resentfully she rubbed an edge of the purple dress +between her fingers. "And a little girl like you,--with such bright red +hair,--oughtn't to wear--purple!" she admonished with real concern. + +"Now whites and blues--and little soft pussy-cat grays--" + +Mumblingly through her finger-muzzled mouth the Little Girl burst into +explanations again. + +"Oh, but when I wear gray," she persisted, "the Parpa--never sees me! +But when I wear purple he cares,--he cares--most awfully!" she boasted +with a bitter sort of triumph. "Why when I wear purple and frizz my hair +hard enough,--no matter who's there, or anything,--he'll stop right off +short in the middle of whatever he's doing--and rear right up so +perfectly beautiful and mad and glorious--and holler right out 'For +Heaven's sake, take that colored Sunday supplement away!'" + +"Your Father's nervous," suggested the White Linen Nurse. + +Almost tenderly the Little Girl reached up and drew the White Linen +Nurse's ear close down to her own snuggling lips. + +"Damned nervous!" she confided laconically. + +Quite against all intention the White Linen Nurse giggled. Floundering +to recover her dignity she plunged into a new error. "Poor little +dev--," she began. + +"Yes," sighed the Little Girl complacently. "That's just what the Parpa +calls me." Fervidly she clasped her little hands together. "Yes, if I +can only make him mad enough daytimes," she asserted, "then at night +when he thinks I'm all asleep he comes and stands by my cribby-house +like a great black shadow-bear and shakes and shakes his most beautiful +head and says, 'Poor little devil--poor little devil.' Oh, if I can only +make him mad enough daytimes!" she cried out ecstatically. + +"Why, you naughty little thing!" scolded the White Linen Nurse with an +unmistakable catch in her voice. "Why, you--naughty--naughty--little +thing!" + +Like the brush of a butterfly's wing the child's hand grazed the White +Linen Nurse's cheek. "I'm a lonely little thing," she confided +wistfully. "Oh, I'm an awfully lonely little thing!" With really +shocking abruptness the old malicious smile came twittering back to her +mouth. "But I'll get even with the Parpa yet!" she threatened joyously, +reaching out with pliant fingers to count the buttons on the White +Linen Nurse's dress. "Oh, I'll get even with the Parpa yet!" In the +midst of the passionate assertion her rigid little mouth relaxed in a +most mild and innocent yawn. + +"Oh, of course," she yawned, "on wash days and ironing days and every +other work day in the week he has to be away cutting up people 'cause +that's his lawful business. But Sundays, when he doesn't really need to +at all, he goes off to some kind of a green, grassy club--all day +long--and plays golf." + +Very palpably her eyelids began to droop. "Where was I?" she asked +sharply. "Oh, yes, 'the green, grassy club.' Well, when I die," she +faltered, "I'm going to die specially on some Sunday when there's a big +golf game,--so he'll just naturally have to give it up and stay home +and--amuse me--and help arrange the flowers. The Parpa's crazy about +flowers. So am I," she added broodingly. "I raised almost a geranium +once. But the Parpa threw it out. It was a good geranium, too. All it +did was just to drip the tiniest-teeniest bit over a book and a writing +and somebody's brains in a dish. He threw it at a cat. It was a good +cat, too. All it did was to--" + +A little jerkily her drooping head bobbed forward and then back again. +Her heavy eyes were almost tight shut by this time, and after a moment's +silence her lips began moving dumbly like one at silent devotions. "I'm +making a little poem, now," she confided at last. "It's about--you and +me. It's a sort of a little prayer." Very, very softly she began to +repeat. + +Now I sit me down to nap +All curled up in a Nursie's lap, +If _she_ should die before I wake-- + +Abruptly she stopped and stared up suspiciously into the White Linen +Nurse's eyes. "Ha!" she mocked, "you thought I was going to say 'If I +should die before I wake,'--didn't you? _Well, I'm not_!" + +"It would have been more generous," acknowledged the White Linen Nurse. + +Very stiffly the Little Girl pursed her lips. "It's plenty generous +enough--when it's all done!" she said severely. "And I'll thank +you,--Miss Malgregor,--not to interrupt me again!" With excessive +deliberateness she went back to the first line of her poem and began +all over again, + +Now I sit me down to nap, +All curled up in a Nursie's lap, +If _she_ should die before I wake, +Give her--give her ten cents--for Jesus' sake! + +"Why that's a--a cunning little prayer," yawned the White Linen Nurse. +Most certainly of course she would have smiled if the yawn hadn't caught +her first. But now in the middle of the yawn it was a great deal easier +to repeat the "very cunning" than to force her lips into any new +expression. "Very cunning--very cunning," she kept crooning +conscientiously. + +Modestly like some other successful authors the Little Girl flapped her +eyelids languidly open and shut for three or four times before she +acknowledged the compliment. "Oh, cunning as any of 'em," she admitted +off-handishly. Only once again did she open either mouth or eyes, and +this time it was merely one eye and half a mouth. "Do my fat iron +braces--hurt you?" she mumbled drowsily. + +"Yes, a little," conceded the White Linen Nurse. + +"Ha! They hurt me--all the time!" gibed the Little Girl. + +Five minutes later, the child who didn't particularly care about being +held, and the girl who didn't particularly care about holding her, were +fast asleep in each other's arms,--a naughty, nagging, restive little +hornet all hushed up and a-dream in the heart of a pink wild-rose! + +Stalking out of the house in his own due time the Senior Surgeon reared +back aghast at the sight. + +"Well--I'll be hanged!" he muttered. "Most everlastingly hanged! Wonder +what they think this is? A somnolent kindergarten show? Talk about +fiddling while Rome burns!" + +Awkwardly, on the top step, he struggled alone into his cumbersome coat. +Every tingling nerve in his body, every shuddering sensibility, was +racked to its utmost capacity over the distressing scenes he had left +behind him in the big house. Back in that luxuriant sickroom, Youth +Incarnate lay stripped, root, branch, leaf, bud, blossom, fruit, of +All its manhood's promise. Back in that erudite library, Culture +Personified, robbed of all its fine philosophy, sat babbling illiterate +street-curses into its quivering hands. Back in that exquisite pink and +gold boudoir, Blonded Fashion, ravished for once of all its artistry, +ran stumbling round and round in interminable circles like a disheveled +hag. In shrill crescendos and discordant basses, with heartpiercing +jaggedness, with blood-curdling raspishness, each one, boy, father, +mother, meddlesome relative, competent or incompetent assistant, +indiscriminate servant, filing his separate sorrow into the Senior +Surgeon's tortured ears! + +With one of those sudden revulsions to materialism which is liable +to overwhelm any man who delves too long at a time in the brutally +unconventional issues of life and death, the Senior Surgeon stepped down +into the subtle, hyacinth-scented sunshine with every latent human greed +in his body clamoring for expression--before it, too, should be hurtled +into oblivion. "Eat, you fool, and drink, you fool, and be merry,--you +fool,--for to-morrow--_even you,--Lendicott R. Faber--may have to die_!" +brawled and re-brawled through his mind like a ribald phonograph tune. + +At the edge of the bottom step a precipitous lilac branch that must have +budded and bloomed in a single hour smote him stingingly across his +cheek. "Laggard!" taunted the lilac branch. + +With the first crunching grit of gravel under his feet, something +transcendently naked and unashamed that was neither Brazen Sorrow nor +Brazen Pain thrilled across his startled consciousness. Over the +rolling, marshy meadow, beyond the succulent willow-hedge that hid the +winding river, up from some fluent, slim canoe, out from a chorus of +virile young tenor voices, a little passionate Love Song--divinely +tender--most incomparably innocent--came stealing palpitantly forth into +that inflammable Spring world without a single vestige of accompaniment +on it! + +Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here, +And Love is Lord of you and me, +There's no bird in brake or brere, +But to his little mate sings he, +"Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here +And Love is Lord of you--and me!" + +Wrenched like a sob out of his own lost youth the Senior Surgeon's +faltering college memories took up the old refrain. + +As I go singing, to my dear, +"Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here, +And Love is Lord of you and me!" + +Just for an instant a dozen long-forgotten pictures lanced themselves +poignantly into his brain,--dingy, uncontrovertible old recitation +rooms where young ideas flashed bright and futile as parade +swords,--elm-shaded slopes where lithe young bodies lolled on green +velvet grasses to expound their harshest cynicisms! Book-history, +book-science, book-economics, book-love,--all the paper passion of all +the paper poets swaggering imperiously on boyish lips that would have +died a thousand bashful deaths before the threatening imminence of a +real girl's kiss! Magic days, with Youth the one glittering, positive +treasure on the Tree of Life--and Woman still a mystery! + +"Woman a mystery?" Harshly the phrase ripped through the Senior +Surgeon's brain. Croakingly in that instant all the grim gray scientific +years re-overtook him, swamped him, strangled him. "Woman a _mystery_? +Oh ye Gods! And Youth? Bah! Youth,--a mere tinsel tinkle on a rotting +Christmas tree!" + +Furiously with renewed venom he turned and threw his weight again upon +the stubbornly resistant crank of his automobile. + +Vaguely disturbed by the noise and vibration the White Linen Nurse +opened her big, drowsy, blue eyes upon him. + +"Don't--jerk--it--so!" she admonished hazily, "You'll wake the Little +Girl!" + +"Well, what about my convenience, I'd like to know?" snapped the Senior +Surgeon in some astonishment. + +Heavily the White Linen Nurse's lashes shadowed down again across her +sleep-flushed cheeks. + +"Oh, never mind--about--that," she mumbled non-concernedly. + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake--wake up there!" bellowed the Senior Surgeon +above the sudden roar of his engine. + +Adroitly for a man of his bulk he ran around the radiator and jumped +into his seat. Joggled unmercifully into wakefulness, the Little Girl +greeted his return with a generous if distinctly non-tactful +demonstration of affection. Grabbing the unwitting fingers of his +momentarily free hand she tapped them proudly against the White Linen +Nurse's plump pink cheek. + +"See! I call her 'Peach'!" she boasted joyously with all the triumphant +air of one who felt assured that mental discrimination such as this +could not possibly fail to impress even a person so naturally obtuse +as--a father. + +"Don't be foolish!" snarled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Who? Me?" gasped the White Linen Nurse in a perfect agony of confusion. + +"Yes! You!" snapped the Senior Surgeon explosively half an hour later +after interminable miles of absolute silence--and dingy yellow +field-stubble--and bare brown alder bushes. + +Truly out of the ascetic habit of his daily life, "where no rain was," +as the Bible would put it, it did seem to him distinctly foolish, not to +say careless, not to say out and out incendiary, for any girl to go +blushing her way like a fire-brand through a world so palpably populated +by young men whose heads were tow, and hearts indisputably tinder, +rather than tender. + +"Yes! You!" he reasserted vehemently at the end of another silent mile. + +Then plainly begrudging this second inexcusable interruption of his most +vital musings concerning Spinal Meningitis he scowled his way savagely +back again into his own grimly established trend of thought. + +Excited by so much perfectly good silence that nobody seemed to be using +the Little Crippled Girl ventured gallantly forth once more into the +hazardous conversational land of grown-ups. + +"Father?" she experimented cautiously with most commendable discretion. + +Fathoms deep in abstraction the Senior Surgeon stared unheeding into the +whizzing black road. Pulses and temperatures and blood-pressures were +seething in his mind; and sharp sticks and jagged stones and the general +possibilities of a puncture; and murmurs of the heart and râles of the +lungs; and a most unaccountable knock-knock-knocking in the engine; and +the probable relation of middle-ear disease; and the perfectly positive +symptoms of optic neuritis; and a damned funny squeak in the steering +gear! + +"Father?" the Little Girl persisted valiantly. + +To add to his original concentration the Senior Surgeon's linen collar +began to chafe him maddeningly under his chin. The annoyance added two +scowls to his already blackly furrowed face, and at least ten miles an +hour to his running time; but nothing whatsoever to his conversational +ability. + +"Father!" the Little Girl whimpered with faltering courage. Then +panic-stricken, as wiser people have been before her, over the dreadful +spookish remoteness of a perfectly normal human being who refuses either +to answer or even to notice your wildest efforts at communication, she +raised her waspish voice in its shrillest, harshest war-cry. "Fat +Father! _Fat Father! F-a-t F-a-t-h-e-r!_" she screeched out frenziedly +at the top of her lungs. + +The gun-shot agony of a wounded rabbit was in the cry, the last gurgling +gasp of strangulation under a murderer's reeking fingers,--catastrophe +unspeakable,--disaster now irrevocable! + +Clamping down his brakes with a wrench that almost tore the insides out +of his engine the Senior Surgeon brought the great car to a staggering +standstill. + +"What is it?" he cried in real terror. "What is it?" + +Limply the Little Girl stretched down from the White Linen Nurse's lap +till she could nick her toe against the shiniest woodwork in sight. +Altogether aimlessly her small chin began to burrow deeper and deeper +into her big fur collar. + +"For Heaven's sake, what do you want?" demanded the Senior Surgeon. Even +yet along his spine the little nerves crinkled with shock and +apprehension. "For Heaven's sake what do you want?" + +Helplessly the child lifted her turbid eyes to his. With unmistakable +appeal her tiny hand went clutching out at one of the big buttons on his +coat. Desperately for an instant she rummaged through her brain for some +remotely adequate answer to this most thunderous question,--and then +retreated precipitously as usual to the sacristy of her own +imagination. + +"All the birds _were_ there, Father!" she confided guilelessly. "All the +birds _were_ there,--with yellow feathers instead of hair! And +bumblebees--crocheted in the trees. And--" + +Short of complete annihilation there was no satisfying vengeance +whatsoever that the Senior Surgeon's exploding passion could wreak upon +his offspring. Complete annihilation being unfeasible at the moment he +merely climbed laboriously out of the car, re-cranked the engine, +climbed laboriously back into his place and started on his way once +more. All the red blustering rage was stripped completely from him. +Startlingly rigid, startlingly white, his face was like the death-mask +of a pirate. + +Pleasantly excited by she-didn't-know-exactly-what, the Little Girl +resumed her beloved falsetto chant, rhythmically all the while with her +puny iron-braced legs beating the tune into the White Linen Nurse's +tender flesh. + +All the birds were there +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And bumblebees crocheted in the trees +And--and--all the birds were there, +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And-- + +Frenziedly as a runaway horse trying to escape from its own pursuing +harness and carriage the Senior Surgeon poured increasing speed into +both his own pace and the pace of his tormentor. Up hill,--down +dale,--screeching through rocky echoes,--swishing through blue-green +spruce-lands,--dodging indomitable boulders,--grazing lax, treacherous +embankments,--the great car scuttled homeward. Huddled behind his +steering wheel like a warrior behind his shield, every body-muscle taut +with strain, every facial muscle diabolically calm, the Senior Surgeon +met and parried successively each fresh onslaught of yard, rod, mile. + +Then suddenly in the first precipitous descent of a mighty hill the +whole earth seemed to drop out from under the car. Down-down-down with +incredible swiftness and smoothness the great machine went diving +towards abysmal space! Up-up-up with incredible bumps and bouncings, +trees, bushes, stonewalls went rushing to the sky! + +Gasping surprisedly towards the Senior Surgeon the White Linen Nurse +saw his grim mouth yank round abruptly in her direction as it yanked +sometimes in the operating-room with some sharp, incisive order of life +or death. Instinctively she leaned forward for the message. + +Not over-loud but strangely distinct the words slapped back into her +straining ears. + +"If--it will rest your face any--to look scared--by all means--do so! +I've lost control of the machine!" called the Senior Surgeon +sardonically across the roar of the wind. + +The phrase excited the White Linen Nurse but it did not remotely +frighten her. She was not in the habit of seeing the Senior Surgeon lose +control of any situation. Merely intoxicated with speed, delirious with +ozone, she snatched up the Little Girl close, to her breast. + +"We're flying!" she cried. "We're dropping from a parachute! We're--!" + +Swoopingly like a sled striking glare, level ice the great car swerved +from the bottom of the hill into a soft rolling meadow. Instantly from +every conceivable direction, like foes in ambush, trees, stumps, rocks +reared up in threatening defiance. + +Tighter and tighter the White Linen Nurse crushed the Little Girl to her +breast. Louder and louder she called in the Little Girl's ear. + +_"Scream!"_ she shouted. _"There might be a bump! Scream louder than a +bump! Scream! Scream! Scream!"_ + +In that first over-whelming, nerve-numbing, heart-crunching terror of +his whole life as the great car tilted up against a stone,--plowed down +into the mushy edge of a marsh,--and skidded completely round, +_crash-bang--_ into a tree, it was the last sound that the Senior +Surgeon heard,--the sound of a woman and child screeching their lungs +out in diabolical exultancy! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +When the White Linen Nurse found anything again she found herself lying +perfectly flat on her back in a reasonably comfortable nest of grass and +leaves. Staring inquisitively up into the sky she thought she noticed a +slight black and blue discoloration towards the west, but more than +that, much to her relief, the firmament did not seem to be seriously +injured. The earth, she feared had not escaped so easily. Even way off +somewhere near the tip of her fingers the ground was as sore--as +sore--as could be--under her touch. Impulsively to her dizzy eyes the +hot tears started, to think that now, tired as she was, she should have +to jump right up in another minute or two and attend to the poor earth. +Fortunately for any really strenuous emergency that might arise there +seemed to be nothing about her own body that hurt at all except a queer, +persistent little pain in her cheek. Not until the Little Crippled +Girl's dirt-smouched face intervened between her own staring eyes and +the sky did she realize that the pain in her cheek was a pinch. + +"Wake up! Wake up!" scolded the Little Crippled Girl shrilly. +"Naughty--Pink and White Nursie! I wanted to hear the bump! You screamed +so loud I couldn't hear the bump!" + +With excessive caution the White Linen Nurse struggled up at last to a +sitting posture, and gazed perplexedly around her. + +It seemed to be a perfectly pleasant field,--acres and acres of mild old +grass tottering palsiedly down to watch some skittish young violets and +bluets frolic in and out of a giggling brook. Up the field? Up the +field? Hazily the White Linen Nurse ground her knuckles into her +incredulous eyes. Up the field, just beyond them, the great empty +automobile stood amiably at rest. From the general appearance of the +stone-wall at the top of the little grassy slope it was palpably evident +that the car had attempted certain vain acrobatic feats before its +failing momentum had forced it into the humiliating ranks of the +back-sliders. + +Still grinding her knuckles into her eyes the White Linen Nurse turned +back to the Little Girl. Under the torn, twisted sable cap one little +eye was hidden completely, but the other eye loomed up rakish and +bruised as a prizefighter's. One sable sleeve was wrenched disastrously +from its arm-hole, and along the edge of the vivid little purple skirt +the ill-favored white ruffles seemed to have raveled out into hopeless +yards and yards and yards of Hamburg embroidery. + +A trifle self-consciously the Little Girl began to gather herself +together. + +"We--we seem to have fallen out of something!" she confided with the air +of one who halves a most precious secret. + +"Yes, I know," said the White Linen Nurse. "But what has become of--your +Father?" + +Worriedly for an instant the Little Girl sat scanning the remotest +corners of the field. Then abruptly with a gasp of real relief she began +to explore with cautious fingers the geographical outline of her black +eye. + +"Oh, never mind about Father," she asserted cheerfully. "I guess--I +guess he got mad and went home." + +"Yes--I know," mused the White Linen Nurse. "But it doesn't +seem--probable." + +"Probable?" mocked the Little Girl most disagreeably. Then suddenly her +little hand went shooting out towards the stranded automobile. + +"Why, there he is!" she screamed. "Under the car! Oh, +Look--Look--Lookey!" + +Laboriously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her knees. Desperately +she tried to ram her fingers like a clog into the whirling dizziness +round her temples. + +"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What's the dose for anybody under a car?" she +babbled idiotically. + +Then with a really herculean effort,--both mental and physical, she +staggered to her feet, and started for the automobile. + +But her knees gave out, and wilting down to the grass she tried to crawl +along on all-fours, till straining wrists sent her back to her feet +again. + +Whenever she tried to walk the Little Girl walked,--whenever she tried +to crawl the Little Girl crawled. + +"Isn't it fun!" the shrill childish voice piped persistently. "Isn't it +just like playing ship-wreck!" + +When they reached the car both woman and child were too utterly +exhausted with breathlessness to do anything except just sit down on the +ground and--stare. + +Sure enough under that monstrous, immovable looking machine the Senior +Surgeon's body lay rammed face-down deep, deep into the grass. + +It was the Little Girl who recovered her breath first. + +"I think he's dead!" she volunteered sagely. "His legs look--awfully +dead--to me!" Only excitement was in the statement. It took a second or +two for her little mind to make any particularly personal application of +such excitement. "I hadn't--exactly--planned--on having him dead!" she +began with imperious resentment. A threat of complete emotional collapse +zig-zagged suddenly across her face. "I won't have him dead! I won't! I +_won't_!" she screamed out stormily. + +In the amazing silence that ensued the White Linen Nurse gathered her +trembling knees up into the circle of her arms and sat there staring at +the Senior Surgeon's prostrate body, and rocking herself feebly to and +fro in a futile effort to collect her scattered senses. + +"Oh, if some one would only tell me what to do,--I know I could do it! +Oh, I know I could do it! If some one would only tell me what to do!" +she kept repeating helplessly. + +Cautiously the Little Girl crept forward on her hands and knees to the +edge of the car and peered speculatively through the great yellow +wheel-spokes. "Father!" she faltered in almost inaudible gentleness. +"Father!" she pleaded in perfectly impotent whisper. + +Impetuously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her own hands and knees +and jostled the Little Girl aside. + +"Fat Father!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. "Fat Father! Fat Father! +_Fat Father!"_ she gibed and taunted with the one call she knew that +had never yet failed to rouse him. + +Perceptibly across the Senior Surgeon's horridly quiet shoulders a +little twitch wrinkled and was gone again. + +"Oh, his heart!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "I must find his heart!" + +Throwing herself prone upon the cool meadowy ground and frantically +reaching out under the running board of the car to her full arm's length +she began to rummage awkwardly hither and yon beneath the heavy weight +of the man in the desperate hope of feeling a heart-beat. + +"Ouch! You tickle me!" spluttered the Senior Surgeon weakly. + +Rolling back quickly with fright and relief the White Linen Nurse burst +forth into one maddening cackle of hysterical laughter. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" +she giggled. "Hi! Hi! Titter! Titter! Titter!" + +Perplexedly at first but with increasing abandon the Little Girl's voice +took up the same idiotic refrain. "Ha-Ha-Ha," she choked. And +"Hi-Hi-Hi!" And "Titter! Titter! Titter!" + +With an agonizing jerk of his neck the Senior Surgeon rooted his +mud-gagged mouth a half inch further towards free and spontaneous +speech. Very laboriously, very painstakingly, he spat out one by one two +stones and a wisp of ground pine and a brackish, prickly tickle of stale +golden-rod. + +"Blankety-blank-blank--BLANK!" he announced in due time, +"Blankety-blank-blank-blank--BLANK! Maybe when you +two--blankety-blank--imbeciles have got through your blankety-blank +cackling you'll have the--blankety-blank decency to save my--my +blankety-blank-blank--blank--_blank-blank_ life!" + +"Ha! Ha! Ha!" persisted the poor helpless White Linen Nurse with the +tears streaming down her cheeks. + +"Hi! Hi! Hi!" snickered the poor Little Girl through her hiccoughs. + +Feeling hopelessly crushed under two tons and a half of car, the Senior +Surgeon closed his eyes for death. No man of his weight, he felt quite +sure, could reasonably expect to survive many minutes longer the +apoplectic, blood-red rage that pounded in his ear-drums. Through his +tight-closed eyelids very, very slowly a red glow seemed to permeate. He +thought it was the fires of Hell. Opening his eyes to meet his fate like +a man he found himself staring impudently close instead into the White +Linen Nurse's furiously flushed face that lay cuddled on one plump cheek +staring impudently close at him. + +"Why--why--get out!" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Very modestly the White Linen Nurse's face retreated a little further +into its blushes. + +"Yes, I know," she protested. "But I'm all through giggling now. I'm +sorry--I'm--" + +In sheer apprehensiveness the Senior Surgeon's features crinkled +wincingly from brow to chin as though struggling vainly to retreat from +the appalling proximity of the girl's face. + +"Your--eyelashes--are too long," he complained querulously. + +"Eh?" jerked the White Linen Nurse's face. "Is it your brain that's +hurt? Oh, sir, do you think it's your brain that's hurt?" + +"It's my stomach!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "I tell you I 'm not +hurt,--I'm just--squashed! I'm paralyzed! If I can't get this car off +me--" + +"Yes, that's just it," beamed the White Linen Nurse's face. "That's just +what I crawled in here to find out,--how to get the car off you. That's +just what I want to find out. I could run for help, of course,--only I +couldn't run, 'cause my knees are so wobbly. It would take hours--and +the car might start or burn up or something while I was gone. But you +don't seem to be caught anywhere on the machinery," she added more +brightly, "it only seems to be sitting on you. So if I could only get +the car off you! But it's so heavy. I had no idea it would be so heavy. +Could I take it apart, do you think? Is there any one place where I +could begin at the beginning and take it all apart?" + +"Take it apart--Hell!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. + +A little twitch of defiance flickered across the White Linen Nurse's +face. "All the same," she asserted stubbornly, "if some one would only +tell me what to do--I know I could do it!" + +Horridly from some unlocatable quarter of the engine an alarming little +tremor quickened suddenly and was hushed again. + +"Get out of here--quick!" stormed the Senior Surgeon's ghastly face. + +"I won't!" said the White Linen Nurse's face. "Until you tell me--what +to do!" + +Brutally for an instant the ingenuous blue eyes and the cynical gray +eyes battled each other. + +"_Can_ you do what you're told?" faltered the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh, yes," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"I mean can you do exactly--what you're told?" gasped the Senior +Surgeon. "Can you follow directions, I mean? Can you follow +them--explicitly? Or are you one of those people who listens only to her +own judgment?" + +"Oh, but I haven't got any--judgment," protested the White Linen Nurse. + +Palpably in the Senior Surgeon's blood-shot eyes the leisurely seeming +diagnosis leaped to precipitous conclusions. + +"Then get out of here--quick--for God's sake--and get to work!" he +ordered. + +Cautiously the White Linen Nurse jerked herself back into freedom and +crawled around and stared at the Senior Surgeon through the wheel-spokes +again. Like one worrying out some intricate mathematical problem his +mental strain was pulsing visibly through his closed eyelids. + +"Yes, sir?" prodded the White Linen Nurse. + +"Keep still!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "I've got to think," he said. +"I've got to work it out! All in a moment you've got to learn to run the +car. All in a moment! It's awful!" + +"Oh, I don't mind, sir," affirmed the White Linen Nurse serenely. + +Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon rooted one cheek into the mud again. "You +don't--_mind_?" he groaned. "You don't--_mind_? Why, you've got to +learn--everything! Everything--from--the very beginning!" + +"Oh, that's all right, sir," crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +Ominously from somewhere a horrid sound creaked again. The Senior +Surgeon did not stop to argue any further. + +"Now come here," ordered the Senior Surgeon. "I'm going to--I'm going +to--" Startlingly his voice weakened,--trailed off into +nothingness,--and rallied suddenly with exaggerated bruskness. "Look +here now! For Heaven's sake use your brains! I'm going to dictate to +you--very slowly--one thing at a time--just what to do!" + +Quite astonishingly the White Linen Nurse sank down on her knees and +began to grin at him. "Oh, no, sir," she said. "I couldn't do it that +way,--not 'one thing at a time.' Oh, no indeed, sir! No!" Absolute +finality was in her voice,--the inviolable stubbornness of the perfectly +good-natured person. + +"You'll do it the way I tell you to!" roared the Senior Surgeon +struggling vainly to ease one shoulder or stretch one knee-joint. + +"Oh, no, sir," beamed the White Linen Nurse. "Not one thing at a time! +Oh, no, I couldn't do it that way! Oh, no, sir, I won't do it that +way--one thing at a time," she persisted hurriedly. "Why, you might +faint away or something might happen--right in the middle of it--right +between one direction and another--and I wouldn't know at all--what to +turn on or off next--and it might take off one of your legs, you know, +or an arm. Oh, no,--not one thing at a time!" + +"Good-by--then," croaked the Senior Surgeon. "I'm as good as dead now." +A single shudder went through him,--a last futile effort to stretch +himself. + +"Good-by," said the White Linen Nurse. "Good-by, sir.--I'd heaps rather +have you die--perfectly whole--like that--of your own accord--than have +me run the risk of starting the car full-tilt and chopping you up so--or +dragging you off so--that you didn't find it convenient to tell me--how +to stop the car." + +"You're a--a--a--" spluttered the Senior Surgeon indistinguishably. + +"Crinkle-crackle," went that mysterious, horrid sound from somewhere in +the machinery. + +"Oh my God!" surrendered the Senior Surgeon. "Do it your own--damned +way! Only--only--" His voice cracked raspingly. + +"Steady! Steady there!" said the White Linen Nurse. Except for a sudden +odd pucker at the end of her nose her expression was still perfectly +serene. "Now begin at the beginning," she begged. "Quick! Tell me +everything--just the way I must do it! Quick--quick--quick!" + +Twice the Senior Surgeon's lips opened and shut with a vain effort to +comply with her request. + +"But you can't do it," he began all over again. "It isn't possible. You +haven't got the mind!" + +"Maybe I haven't," said the White Linen Nurse. "But I've got the memory. +Hurry!" + +"Creak," said the funny little something in the machinery. +"Creak--drip--bubble!" + +"Oh, get in there quick!" surrendered the Senior Surgeon. "Sit down +behind the wheel!" he shouted after her flying footsteps. "Are you +there? For God's sake--are you there? Do you see those two little levers +where your right hand comes? For God's sake--don't you know what a +lever is? Quick now! Do just what I tell you!" + +A little jerkily then, but very clearly, very concisely, the Senior +Surgeon called out to the White Linen Nurse just how every lever, every +pedal should be manipulated to start the car! + +Absolutely accurately, absolutely indelibly the White Linen Nurse +visualized each separate detail in her abnormally retentive mind! + +"But you can't--possibly remember it!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. +"You can't--possibly! And probably the damn car's _bust_ and won't +start--anyway--and--!" Abruptly the speech ended in a guttural snarl of +despair. + +"Don't be a--blight!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. "I've never +forgotten anything yet, sir!" + +Very tensely she straightened up suddenly in her seat. Her expression +was no longer even remotely pleasant. Along her sensitive, fluctuant +nostrils the casual crinkle of distaste and suspicion had deepened +suddenly into sheer dilating terror. + +"Left foot--press down--hard--left pedal!" she began to sing-song to +herself. + +"No! _Right_ foot!--_right_ foot!" corrected the Little Girl +blunderingly from somewhere close in the grass. + +"Inside lever--pull--way--back!" persisted the White Linen Nurse +resolutely as she switched on the current. + +"No! _Outside_ lever! _Outside! Outside_!" contradicted the Little Girl. + +"Shut your darned mouth!" screeched the White Linen Nurse, her hand on +the throttle as she tried the self starter. + +Bruised as he was, wretched, desperately endangered there under the car +the Senior Surgeon could almost have grinned at the girl's terse, +unconscious mimicry of his own most venomous tones. + +Then with all the forty-eight lusty, ebullient years of his life +snatched from his lips like an untasted cup, and one single noxious, +death-flavored second urged,--forced,--crammed down his choking throat, +he felt the great car quicken and start. + +"God!" said the Senior Surgeon. Just "God!" The God of mud, he meant! +The God of brackish grass! The God of a man lying still hopeful under +more than two tons' weight of unaccountable mechanism, with a novice in +full command. + +Up in her crimson leather cushions, free-lunged, free-limbed, the White +Linen Nurse heard the smothered cry. Clear above the whirr of wheels, +the whizz of clogs, the one word sizzled like a red-hot poker across her +chattering consciousness. Tingling through the grasp of her fingers on +the vibrating wheel, stinging through the sole of her foot that hovered +over the throbbing clutch, she sensed the agonized appeal. "Short +lever--spark--long lever--gas!" she persisted resolutely. "It must be +right! It must!" + +Jerkily then, and blatantly unskilfully, with riotous puffs and spinning +of wheels, the great car started,--faltered,--balked a bit,--then +dragged crushingly across the Senior Surgeon's flattened body, and with +a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the +brook--rods away. Clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket +like the smash of a machine-shop the White Linen Nurse jumped out into +the brook, and with one wild terrified glance behind her staggered back +up the long grassy slope to the Senior Surgeon. + +Mechanically through her wooden-feeling lips she forced the greeting +that sounded most cheerful to her. "It's not much fun, sir,--running an +auto," she gasped. "I don't believe I'd like it!" + +Half propped up on one elbow,--still dizzy with mental chaos, still +paralyzed with physical inertia,--the Senior Surgeon lay staring blankly +all around him. Indifferently for an instant his stare included the +White Linen Nurse. Then glowering suddenly at something way beyond her, +his face went perfectly livid. + +"Good God! The--the car's on fire!" he mumbled. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. "Why! Didn't you know it, sir?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Headlong the Senior Surgeon pitched over on the grass,--his last vestige +of self-control stripped from him,--horror unspeakable racking him +sobbingly from head to toe. + +Whimperingly the Little Girl came crawling to him, and settling down +close at his feet began with her tiny lace handkerchief to make futile +dabs at the mud-stains on his gray silk stockings. "Never mind, Father," +she coaxed, "we'll get you clean sometime." + +Nervously the White Linen Nurse bethought her of the brook. "Oh, wait a +minute, sir--and I'll get you a drink of water!" she pleaded. + +Bruskly the Senior Surgeon's hand jerked out and grabbed at her skirt. + +"Don't leave me!" he begged. "For God's sake--don't leave me!" + +Weakly he struggled up again and sat staring piteously at the blazing +car. His unrelinquished clutch on the White Linen Nurse's skirt brought +her sinking softly down beside him like a collapsed balloon. Together +they sat and watched the gaseous yellow flames shoot up into the sky. + +"It's pretty, isn't it?" piped the Little Girl. + +"Eh?" groaned the Senior Surgeon. + +"Father," persisted the shrill little voice. "Father,--do people ever +burn up?" + +"_Eh?_" gasped the Senior Surgeon. Brutally the harsh, shuddering sobs +began to rack and tear again through his great chest. + +"There! There!" crooned the White Linen Nurse, struggling desperately to +her knees. "Let me get--everybody--a drink of water." + +Again the Senior Surgeon's unrelinquished clutch on her skirt jerked her +back to the place beside him. + +"I said _not to leave me_!" he snapped out as roughly as he jerked. + +Before the affrighted look in the White Linen Nurse's face a sheepish, +mirthless grin flickered across one corner of his mouth. + +"Lord! But I'm shaken!" he apologized. "Me--of all people!" Painfully +the red blood mounted to his cheeks. "Me--of all people!" Bluntly he +forced the White Linen Nurse's reluctant gaze to meet his own. "Only +yesterday," he persisted, "I did a laparotomy on a man who had only one +chance in a hundred of pulling through--and I--I scolded him for +fighting off his ether cone,--scolded him--I tell you!" + +"Yes, I know," soothed the White Linen Nurse. "But--" + +"But _nothing_!" growled the Senior Surgeon. "The fear of death? Bah! +All my life I've scoffed at it! _Die_? Yes, of course,--when you have +to,--but with no kick coming! Why, I've been wrecked in a typhoon in the +Gulf of Mexico. And I didn't care! And I've lain for nine days more dead +than alive in an Asiatic cholera camp. And I didn't care! And I've been +locked into my office three hours with a raving maniac and a dynamite +bomb. And I didn't care! And twice in a Pennsylvania mine disaster I've +been the first man down the shaft. And I didn't care! And I've been +shot, I tell you,--and I've been horse-trampled,--and I've been +wolf-bitten. And I've never cared! But to-day--to-day--" Piteously all +the pride and vigor wilted from his great shoulders, leaving him all +huddled up like a woman, with his head on his knees. "But to-day, I've +_got mine!_" he acknowledged brokenly. + +Once again the White Linen Nurse tried to rise. "Oh, please, sir, let me +get you a--drink of water," she suggested helplessly. + +"I said _not to leave me!_" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Perplexedly with big staring eyes the Little Crippled Girl glanced up at +this strange fatherish person who sounded so suddenly small and scared +like herself. Jealous instantly of her own prerogatives she dropped her +futile labors on the mud-stained silk stockings and scrambled +precipitously for the White Linen Nurse's lap where she nestled down +finally after many gyrations, and sat glowering forth at all possible +interlopers. + +"Don't leave any of us!" she ordered with a peremptoriness not unmixed +with supplication. + +"Surely some one will see the fire and come and get us," conceded the +Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes--surely," mused the White Linen Nurse. Just at that moment she was +mostly concerned with adjusting the curve of her shoulder to the curve +of the Little Girl's head. "I could sit more comfortably," she suggested +to the Senior Surgeon, "if you'd let go my skirt." + +"Let go of your skirt? Who's touching your skirt?" gasped the Senior +Surgeon incredulously. Once again the blood mounted darkly to his face. +"I think I'll get up--and walk around a bit," he confided coldly. + +"Do, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Ouchily with a tweak of pain through his sprained back the Senior +Surgeon sat suddenly down again. "I sha'n't get up till I'm good and +ready!" he attested. + +"I wouldn't, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all the while she kept right on +renovating the Little Girl's personal appearance, smoothing a wrinkled +stocking, tucking up obstreperous white ruffles, tugging down +parsimonious purple hems, loosening a pinchy hook, tightening a wobbly +button. Very slowly, very complacently the Little Girl drowsed off to +sleep with her weazened little iron-cased legs stretched stiffly out +before her. "Poor little legs! Poor little legs! Poor little legs!" +crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +"I don't know--as you need to--make a song about it!" winced the Senior +Surgeon. "It's just about the crudest case of complete muscular atrophy +that I've ever seen!" + +Blandly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his. "It +wasn't her 'complete muscular atrophy' that I was thinking about!" she +said. "It's her panties that are so unbecoming!" + +"Eh?" jumped the Senior Surgeon. + +"Poor little legs--poor little legs--poor little legs," resumed the +White Linen Nurse droningly. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all around them April kept right +on--being April. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all around them the grass kept +On growing, and the trees kept right on budding. Very slowly, very +complacently, all around them the blue sky kept right on fading into +its early evening dove-colors. + +Nothing brisk, nothing breathless, nothing even remotely hurried was +there in all the landscape except just the brook,--and the flash of a +bird,--and the blaze of the crackling automobile. + +The White Linen Nurse's nostrils were smooth and calm with the lovely +sappy scent of rabbit-nibbled maple bark and mud-wet arbutus buds. The +White Linen Nurse's mind was full of sumptuous, succulent marsh +marigolds, and fluffy white shad-bush blossoms. + +The Senior Surgeon's nostrils were all puckered up with the stench of +burning varnish. The Senior Surgeon's mind was full of the horrid +thought that he'd forgotten to renew his automobile fire-insurance,--and +that he had a sprained back,--and that his rival colleague had told him +he didn't know how to run an auto anyway--and that the cook had given +notice that morning,--and that he had a sprained back,--and that the +moths had gnawed the knees out of his new dress suit,--and that the +Superintendent of Nurses had had the audacity to send him a bunch of +pink roses for his birthday,--and that the boiler in the kitchen +leaked,--and that he had to go to Philadelphia the next day to read a +paper on "Surgical Methods at the Battle of Waterloo,"--and he hadn't +even begun the paper yet,--and that he had a sprained back,--and that +the wall-paper on his library hung in shreds and tatters waiting for +him to decide between a French fresco effect and an early English +paneling,--and that his little daughter was growing up in wanton +ugliness under the care of coarse, indifferent hirelings,--and that the +laundry robbed him weekly of at least five socks,--and that it would +cost him fully seven thousand dollars to replace this car,--and that he +had a sprained back! + +"It's restful, isn't it?" cooed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Isn't _what_ restful?" glowered the Senior Surgeon. + +"Sitting down!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Contemptuously the Senior Surgeon's mind ignored the interruption and +reverted precipitously to its own immediate problem concerning the +gloomy, black-walnut shadowed entrance hall of his great house, and how +many yards of imported linoleum at $3.45 a yard it would take to +recarpet the "damned hole,"--and how it would have seemed anyway if--if +he hadn't gone home--as usual to the horrid black-walnut shadows that +night--but been carried home instead--feet first and--quite dead--dead, +mind you, with a red necktie on,--and even the cook was out! And they +wouldn't even know where to lay him--but might put him by mistake in +that--in that--in his dead wife's dead--bed! + +Altogether unconsciously a little fluttering sigh of ineffable +contentment escaped the White Linen Nurse. + +"I don't care how long we have to sit here and wait for help," she +announced cheerfully, "because to-morrow, of course, I'll have to get up +and begin all over again--and go to Nova Scotia." + +"Go _where_?" lurched the Senior Surgeon. + +"I'd thank you kindly, sir, not to jerk my skirt quite so hard!" said +the White Linen Nurse just a trifle stiffly. + +Incredulously once more the Senior Surgeon withdrew his detaining hand. +"I'm not even touching your skirt!" he denied desperately. Nothing but +denial and reiterated denial seemed to ease his self-esteem for an +instant. "Why, for Heaven's sake, should I want to hold on to your +skirt?" he demanded peremptorily. "What the deuce--?" he began +blusteringly. "Why in--?" + +Then abruptly he stopped and shot an odd, puzzled glance at the White +Linen Nurse, and right there before her startled eyes she saw every +vestige of human expression fade out of his face as it faded out +sometimes in the operating-room when in the midst of some ghastly, +unforeseen emergency that left all his assistants blinking helplessly +around them, his whole wonderful scientific mind seemed to break up like +some chemical compound into all its meek component parts,--only to +reorganize itself suddenly with some amazing explosive action that +fairly knocked the breath out of all on-lookers--but was pretty apt to +knock the breath into the body of the person most concerned. + +When the Senior Surgeon's scientific mind had reorganized itself to meet +_this_ emergency he found himself infinitely more surprised at the +particular type of explosion that had taken place than any other person +could possibly have been. + +"Miss Malgregor!" he gasped. "Speaking of preferring 'domestic +service,' as you call it,--speaking of preferring domestic service +to--nursing,--how would you like to consider--to consider a position +of--of--well,--call it a--a position of general--heartwork--for a family +of two? Myself and the Little Girl here being the 'two,'--as you +understand," he added briskly. + +"Why, I think it would be grand!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +A trifle mockingly the Senior Surgeon bowed his appreciation. "Your +frank and immediate--enthusiasm," he murmured, "is more, perhaps, than I +had dared to expect." + +"But it would be grand!" said the White Linen Nurse. Before the odd +little smile in the Senior Surgeon's eyes her white forehead puckered +all up with perplexity. Then with her mind still thoroughly unawakened, +her heart began suddenly to pitch and lurch like a frightened horse +whose rider has not even remotely sensed as yet the approach of an +unwonted footfall. "What--did--you--say?" she repeated worriedly. "Just +exactly what was it that you said? I guess--maybe--I didn't understand +just exactly what it was that you said." + +The smile in the Senior Surgeon's eyes deepened a little. "I asked you," +he said, "how you would like to consider a position of 'general +heartwork' in a family of two,--myself and the Little Girl here being +the 'two.' 'Heartwork' was what I said. Yes,--'Heartwork,'--not +housework!" + +"_Heartwork?_" faltered the White Linen Nurse. "_ Heartwork?_ I don't +know what you mean, sir." Like two falling rose-petals her eyelids +fluttered down across her affrighted eyes. "Oh, when I shut my eyes, +sir, and just hear your voice, I know of course, sir, that it's some +sort of a joke. But when I look right at you--I--don't know--what it +is!" + +"Open your eyes and keep them open then till you do find out!" suggested +the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +Defiantly once again the blue eyes and the gray eyes challenged each +other. + +"'Heartwork' was what I said," persisted the Senior Surgeon. Palpably +his narrowing eyes shut out all meaning but one definite one. + +The White Linen Nurse's face went almost as blanched as her dress. +"You're--you're not asking me to--marry you, sir?" she stammered. + +"I suppose I am!" acknowledged the Senior Surgeon. + +"Not marry you!" cried the White Linen Nurse. Distress was in her +voice,--distaste,--unmitigable shock, as though the high gods themselves +had fallen at her feet and splintered off into mere candy fragments. + +"Oh--not _marry_ you, sir?" she kept right on protesting. "Not +be--_engaged_, you mean? Oh, not be _engaged_--and everything?" + +"Well, why not?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +Like a smitten flower the girl's whole body seemed to wilt down into +incalculable weariness. + +"Oh--no--no! I couldn't!" she protested. "Oh, no,--really!" Appealingly +she lifted her great blue eyes to his, and the blueness was all blurred +with tears. "I've--I've been engaged--once--you know," she explained +falteringly. "Why--I was engaged, sir, almost as soon as I was born, and +I stayed engaged till two years ago. That's almost twenty years. That's +a long time, sir. You don't get over it--easy." Very, very gravely she +began to shake her head. "Oh--no--sir! No! Thank you--very much--but +I--I just simply couldn't begin at the beginning and go all through it +again! I haven't got the heart for it! I haven't got the spirit! Carvin' +your initials on trees and--and gadding round to all the Sunday school +picnics--" + +Brutally like a boy the Senior Surgeon threw back his head in one wild +hoot of joy. Infinitely more cautiously as the agonizing pang in his +shoulder lulled down again he proceeded to argue the matter, but the +grin in his face was even yet faintly traceable. + +"Frankly, Miss Malgregor," he affirmed, "I'm infinitely more addicted to +carving people than to carving trees. And as to Sunday school picnics? +Well, really now--I hardly believe that you'd find my demands in that +direction--excessive!" + +Perplexedly the White Linen Nurse tried to stare her way through his +bantering smile to his real meaning. Furiously, as she stared, the red +blood came flushing back into her face. + +"You don't mean for a second that you--that you love me?" she asked +incredulously. + +"No, I don't suppose I do!" acknowledged the Senior Surgeon with equal +bluntness. "But my little kiddie here loves you!" he hastened somewhat +nervously to affirm. "Oh, I'm almost sure that my little kiddie +here--loves you! She needs you anyway! Let it go at that! Call it that +we both--need you!" + +"What you mean is--" corrected the White Linen Nurse, "that needing +somebody--very badly, you've just suddenly decided that that somebody +might as well be me?" + +"Well--if you choose to put it--like that!" said the Senior Surgeon a +bit sulkily. + +"And if there hadn't been an auto accident?" argued the White Linen +Nurse just out of sheer inquisitiveness, "if there hadn't been just +this particular kind of an auto accident--at this particular hour--of +this particular day--of this particular month--with marigolds +and--everything, you probably never would have realized that you did +need anybody?" + +"Maybe not," admitted the Senior Surgeon. + +"U--m--m," said the White Linen Nurse. "And if you'd happened to take +one of the other girls to-day--instead of me,--why then I suppose you'd +have felt that she was the one you really needed? And if you'd taken the +Superintendent of Nurses--instead of any of us girls--you might even +have felt that _she_ was the one you most needed?" + +With surprising agility for a man with a sprained back the Senior +Surgeon wrenched himself around until he faced her quite squarely. + +"Now see here, Miss Malgregor!" he growled. "For Heaven's sake listen +to sense, even if you can't talk it! Here am I, a plain professional +man--making you a plain professional offer. Why in thunder should you +try to fuss me all up because my offer isn't couched in all the +foolish, romantic, lace-paper sort of flub-dubbery that you think such +an offer ought to be couched in? Eh?" + +"Fuss you all up, sir?" protested the White Linen Nurse with real +anxiety. + +"Yes--fuss me all up!" snarled the Senior Surgeon with increasing venom. +"I'm no story-writer! I'm not trying to make up what might have happened +a year from next February in a Chinese junk off the coast of--Nova +Zembla--to a Methodist preacher--and a--and a militant suffragette! What +I'm trying to size up is--just what's happened to you and me--to-day! +For the fact remains that it is to-day! And it is you and I! And there +has been an accident! And out of that accident--and everything that's +gone with it--I have come out--thinking of something that I never +thought of before! And there were marigolds!" he added with unexpected +whimsicality. "You see I don't deny--even the marigolds!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Yes what?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Softly the White Linen Nurse's chin burrowed down a little closer +against the sleeping child's tangled hair. "Why--yes--thank you very +much--but I never shall love again," she said quite definitely. + +"Love?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. "Why, I'm not asking you to love me!" +His face was suddenly crimson. "Why, I'd hate it, if you--loved me! Why, +I'd--" + +"O--h--h," mumbled the White Linen Nurse in new embarrassment. Then +suddenly and surprisingly her chin came tilting bravely up again. "What +do you want?" she asked. + +Helplessly the Senior Surgeon threw out his hands. "My goodness!" he +said. "What do you suppose I want? _I want some one to take care of +us!_" + +Gently the White Linen Nurse shifted her shoulder to accommodate the +shifting little sleepyhead on her breast. + +"You can hire some one for that," she suggested with real relief. + +"I was trying to hire--you!" said the Senior Surgeon quite tersely. + +"Hire me?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Why! Why!" + +Adroitly she slipped both hands under the sleeping child and delivered +the little frail-fleshed, heavily ironed body into the Senior Surgeon's +astonished arms. + +"I--I don't want to hold her," he protested. + +"She--isn't mine!" argued the White Linen Nurse. + +"But I can't talk while I'm holding her!" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +"I can't listen--while I'm holding her!" persisted the White Linen +Nurse. + +Freely now, though cross-legged like a Turk, she jerked herself forward +on the grass and sat probing up into the Senior Surgeon's face like an +excited puppy trying to solve whether the gift in your up-raised hand is +a lump of sugar--or a live coal. + +"You're trying to hire--_me_?" she prompted him nudgingly with her +voice. "Hire me--for money?" + +"Oh my Lord, no!" said the Senior Surgeon. "There are plenty of people I +can hire for money! But they won't stay!" he explained ruefully. "Hang +it all,--they won't stay!" Above his little girl's white, pinched face +his own ruddy countenance furrowed suddenly with unspeakable anxiety. + +"Why, just this last year," he complained, "we've had nine different +housekeepers--and thirteen nursery governesses!" Skilfully as a surgeon, +but awkwardly as a father, he bent to re-adjust the weight of the little +iron leg-braces. "But I tell you--no one will stay with us!" he finished +hotly. "There's--something the matter--with us! I don't seem to have +money enough in the world to make anybody--stay with us!" + +Very wryly, very reluctantly, at one corner of his mouth his sense of +humor ignited in a feeble grin. + +"So you see what I'm trying to do to you, Miss Malgregor, is to--hire +you with something that will just--naturally compel you to stay!" + +If the grin round his mouth strengthened a trifle, so did the anxiety in +his eyes. + +"For Heaven's sake, Miss Malgregor," he pleaded. "Here's a man and a +house and a child all going to--rack and ruin! If you're really and +truly tired of nursing--and are looking for a new job,--what's the +matter with tackling us?" + +"It would be a job!" admitted the White Linen Nurse demurely. + +"Why, it would be a deuce-of-a-job!" confided the Senior Surgeon with no +demureness whatsoever. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Very soberly, very thoughtfully then, across the tangled, snuggling head +of his own and another woman's child, he urged the torments--and the +comforts of his home upon this second woman. + +"What is there about my offer--that you don't like?" he demanded +earnestly. "Is it the whole idea that offends you? Or just the way I put +it? 'General Heartwork for a Family of Two?' What is the matter with +that? Seems a bit cold to you, does it, for a real marriage proposal? Or +is it that it's just a bit too ardent, perhaps, for a mere plain +business proposition?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Yes what?" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes--_sir_," flushed the White Linen Nurse. + +Very meditatively the Senior Surgeon reconsidered his phrasing. +"'General Heartwork for a Family of Two'? U--m--m." Quite abruptly +even the tenseness of his manner faded from him, leaving his face +astonishingly quiet, astonishingly gentle. "But how else, Miss +Malgregor," he queried, "How else should a widower with a child proffer +marriage to a--to a young girl like yourself? Even under conditions +directly antipodal to ours, such a proposition can never be a purely +romantic one. Yet even under conditions as cold and business-like as +ours, there's got to be some vestige of affection in it,--some vestige +at least of the _intelligence_ of affection,--else what gain is there +for my little girl and me over the purely mercenary domestic service +that has racked us up to this time with its garish faithlessness?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"But even if I had loved you, Miss Malgregor," explained the Senior +Surgeon gravely, "my offer of marriage to you would not, I fear, +have been a very great oratorical success. Materialist as I +am,--cynic--scientist,--any harsh thing you choose to call me,--marriage +in some freak, boyish corner of my mind, still defines itself as being +the mutual sharing of a--mutually original experience. Certainly +whether a first marriage be instigated in love or worldliness,--whether +it eventually proves itself bliss, tragedy, or mere sickening ennui, to +two people coming mutually virgin to the consummation of that marriage, +the thrill of establishing publicly a man-and-woman home together is an +emotion that cannot be reduplicated while life lasts." + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Bleakly across the Senior Surgeon's face something gray that was not +years shadowed suddenly and was gone again. + +"Even so, Miss Malgregor," he argued, "even so--without any glittering +romance whatsoever, no woman I believe is very grossly unhappy in +any--affectional place--that she knows distinctly to be her _own_ place. +It's pretty much up to a man then I think,--though it tear him brain +from heart, to explain to a second wife quite definitely just exactly +what place it is that he is offering her in his love,--or his +friendship,--or his mere desperate need. No woman can ever hope to step +successfully into a second-hand home who does not know from her man's +own lips the measure of her predecessor. The respect we owe the dead is +a selfish thing compared to the mercy we owe the living. In my own +case--" + +Unconsciously the White Linen Nurse's lax shoulders quickened, and the +sudden upward tilt of her chin was as frankly interrogative as a French +inflection. "Yes, sir," she said. + +"In my own case," said the Senior Surgeon bluntly, "in my own case, Miss +Malgregor, it is no more than fair to tell you that I--did not love my +wife. And my wife did not love me." Only the muscular twitch in his +throat betrayed the torture that the confession cost him. "The details +of that marriage are unnecessary," he continued with equal bluntness. +"It is enough perhaps to say that she was the daughter of an eminent +surgeon with whom I was exceedingly anxious at that time to be allied, +and that our mating, urged along on both sides as it was by strong +personal ambitions was one of those so-called 'marriages of convenience' +which almost invariably turn out to be marriages of such dire +inconvenience to the two people most concerned. For one year we lived +together in a chaos of experimental acquaintanceship. For two years we +lived together in increasing uncongeniality and distaste. For three +years we lived together in open and acknowledged enmity. At the last, I +am thankful to remember, that we had one year together again that was at +least an--armed truce." + +Darkly the gray shadow and the red flush chased each other once more +across the man's haggard face. + +"I had a theory," he said, "that possibly a child might bridge the chasm +between us. My wife refuted the theory, but submitted herself +reluctantly to the fact. And when she--in giving birth to--my +theory,--the shock, the remorse, the regret, the merciless self-analysis +that I underwent at that time almost convinced me that the whole +miserable failure of our marriage lay entirely on my own shoulders." +Like the stress of mid-summer the tears of sweat started suddenly on his +forehead. "But I am a fair man, I hope,--even to myself, and the cooler, +less-tortured judgment of the subsequent years has practically assured +me that, for types as diametrically opposed as ours, such a thing as +mutual happiness never could have existed." + +Mechanically he bent down and smoothed a tickly lock of hair away from +the little girl's eyelids. + +"And the child is the living physical image of her," he stammered. "The +violent hair,--the ghost-white skin,--the facile mouth,--the arrogant +eyes,--staring--staring--maddeningly reproachful, persistently accusing. +My own stubborn will,--my own hideous temper,--all my own ill-favored +mannerisms--mocked back at me eternally in her mother's--unloved +features." Mirthless as the grin of a skull, the Senior Surgeon's mouth +twisted up a little at one corner. "Maybe I could have borne it better +if she'd been a boy," he acknowledged grimly. "But to see all your +virile--masculine vices come back at you--so sissified--in _skirts_!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +With an unmistakable gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon expanded his +great chest. + +"There! That's done!" he said tersely. "So much for the Past! Now for +the Present! Look at us pretty keenly and judge for yourself! A man and +a very little girl,--not guaranteed,--not even recommended,--offered +merely 'As Is' in the honest trade-phrase of the day,--offered frankly +in an open package,--accepted frankly,--if at all--'at your own risk.' +Not for an instant would I try to deceive you about us! Look at us +closely, I ask, and--decide for yourself! I am forty-eight years old. I +am inexcusably bad-tempered,--very quick to anger, and not, I fear, of +great mercy. I am moody. I am selfish. I am most distinctly unsocial. +But I am not, I believe, stingy,--nor ever intentionally unfair. My +child is a cripple,--and equally bad-tempered as myself. No one but a +mercenary has ever coped with her. And she shows it. We have lived alone +for six years. All of our clothes, and most of our ways, need mending. I +am not one to mince matters, Miss Malgregor, nor has your training, I +trust, made you one from whom truths must be veiled. I am a man with all +a man's needs,--mental, moral, physical. My child is a child with all a +child's needs,--mental, moral, physical. Our house of life is full of +cobwebs. The rooms of affection have long been closed. There will be a +great deal of work to do! And it is not my intention, you see, that you +should misunderstand in any conceivable way either the exact nature or +the exact amount of work and worry involved. I should not want you to +come to me afterwards with a whine, as other workers do, and say 'Oh, +but I didn't know you would expect me to do _this!_ Oh, but I hadn't any +idea you would want me to do _that!_ And I certainly don't see why you +should expect me to give up my Thursday afternoon just because you, +yourself, happened to fall down stairs in the morning and break your +back!'" + +Across the Senior Surgeon's face a real smile lightened suddenly. + +"Really, Miss Malgregor," he affirmed, "I'm afraid there isn't much of +anything that you won't be expected to do! And as to your 'Thursdays +out'? Ha! If you have ever yet found a way to temper the wind of your +obligations to the shorn lamb of your pleasures, you have discovered +something that I myself have never yet succeeded in discovering! And as +to 'wages'? Yes! I want to talk everything quite frankly! In addition +to my average yearly earnings,--which are by no means small,--I have a +reasonably large private fortune. Within normal limits there is no +luxury I think that you cannot hope to have. Also, exclusive of the +independent income which I would like to settle upon you, I should be +very glad to finance for you any reasonable dreams that you may cherish +concerning your family in Nova Scotia. Also,--though the offer looks +small and unimportant to you now, it is liable to loom pretty large +to you later,--also, I will personally guarantee to you--at some time +every year, an unfettered, perfectly independent two months' holiday. +So the offer stands,--my 'name and fame,'--if those mean anything to +you,--financial independence,--an assured 'breathing spell' for at least +two months out of twelve,--and at last but not least,--my eternal +gratitude! 'General Heartwork for a Family of Two'! _There!_ Have I made +the task perfectly clear to you? Not everything to be done all at once, +you know. But immediately where necessity urges it,--gradually as +confidence inspires it,--ultimately if affection justifies it,--every +womanish thing that needs to be done in a man's and a child's neglected +lives? Do you understand?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Oh, and there's one thing more," confided the Senior Surgeon. "It's +something, of course, that I ought to have told you the very first thing +of all!" Nervously he glanced down at the sleeping child, and lowered +his voice to a mumbling monotone. "As regards my actual morals you have +naturally a right to know that I've led a pretty decent sort of +life,--though I probably don't deserve any special credit for that. A +man who knows enough to be a doctor isn't particularly apt to lead any +other kind. Frankly,--as women rate vices I believe I have only one. +What--what--I'm trying to tell you--now--is about that one." A little +defiantly as to chin, a little appealingly as to eye, he emptied his +heart of its last tragic secret. "Through all the male line of my +family, Miss Malgregor, dipsomania runs rampant. Two of my brothers, my +father, my grandfather, my great grandfather before him, have all gone +down as the temperance people would say into 'drunkards' graves.' In my +own case, I have chosen to compromise with the evil. Such a choice, +believe me, has not been made carelessly or impulsively, but out of the +agony and humiliation of--several less successful methods." Hard as a +rock, his face grooved into its granite-like furrows again. "Naturally, +under these existing conditions," he warned her almost threateningly, "I +am not peculiarly susceptible to the mawkishly ignorant and sentimental +protests of--people whose strongest passions are an appetite +for--chocolate candy! For eleven months of the year," he hurried on a +bit huskily, "for eleven months of the year,--eleven months,--each day +reeking from dawn to dark with the driving, nerve-wracking, +heart-wringing work that falls to my profession, I lead an absolutely +abstemious life, touching neither wine nor liquor, nor even indeed tea +or coffee. In the twelfth month,--June always,--I go way, way up into +Canada,--way, way off in the woods to a little log camp I own +there,--with an Indian who has guided me thus for eighteen years. And +live like a--wild man for four gorgeous, care-free, trail-tramping, +salmon-fighting,--whisky-guzzling weeks. It is what your temperance +friends would call a--'spree.' To be quite frank, I suppose it is +what--anybody would call a 'spree.' Then the first of July,--three or +four days past the first of July perhaps,--I come out of the +woods--quite tame again. A little emotionally nervous, perhaps,--a +little temperishly irritable,--a little unduly sensitive about being +greeted as a returned jail-bird,--but most miraculously purged of all +morbid craving for liquor, and with every digital muscle as coolly +steady as yours, and every conscious mental process clamoring cleanly +for its own work again." + +Furtively under his glowering brows he stopped and searched the White +Linen Nurse's imperturbable face. "It's an--established custom, you +understand," he rewarned her. "I'm not advocating it, you +understand,--I'm not defending it. I'm simply calling your attention to +the fact that it is an established custom. If you decide to come to us, +I--I couldn't, you know, at forty-eight--begin all over again to--to +have some one waiting for me on the top step the first of July to tell +me--what a low beast I am--till I go down the steps again--the following +June." + +"No, of course not," conceded the White Linen Nurse. Blandly she lifted +her lovely eyes to his. "Father's like that!" she confided amiably. +"Once a year,--just Easter Sunday only,--he always buys him a brand new +suit of clothes and goes to church. And it does something to him,--I +don't know exactly what, but Easter afternoon he always gets drunk,--oh +mad, fighting drunk is what I mean, and goes out and tries to tear up +the whole county." Worriedly two black thoughts puckered between her +eyebrows. "And always," she said, "he makes Mother and me go up to +Halifax beforehand to pick out the suit for him. It's pretty hard +sometimes," she said, "to find anything dressy enough for the morning, +that's serviceable enough for the afternoon." + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Then suddenly he began to smile again +like a stormy sky from which the last cloud has just been cleared. +"Well, it's all right then, is it? You'll take us?" he asked brightly. + +"Oh, no!" said the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, no, sir! Oh, no indeed, +sir!" Quite perceptibly she jerked her way backward a little on the +grass. "Thank you very much!" she persisted courteously. "It's been very +interesting! I thank you very much for telling me, but--" + +"But what?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +"But it's too quick," said the White Linen Nurse. "No man could tell +like that--just between one eye-wink and another what he wanted about +anything,--let alone marrying a perfect stranger." + +Instantly the Senior Surgeon bridled. "I assure you, my dear young +lady," he retorted, "that I am entirely and completely accustomed to +deciding between 'one wink and another' just exactly what it is that I +want. Indeed, I assure you that there are a good many people living +to-day who wouldn't be living, if it had taken me even as long as a wink +and three-quarters to make up my mind!" + +"Yes, I know, sir," acknowledged the White Linen Nurse. "Yes, of course, +sir," she acquiesced with most commendable humility. "But all the same, +sir, I couldn't do it!" she persisted with inflexible positiveness. +"Why, I haven't enough education," she confessed quite shamelessly. + +"You had enough, I notice, to get into the hospital," drawled the Senior +Surgeon a bit grumpily. "And that's quite as much as most people have, I +assure you! 'A High School education or its equivalent,'--that is the +hospital requirement, I believe?" he questioned tartly. + +"'A High School education or its--equivocation' is what we girls call +it," confessed the White Linen Nurse demurely. "But even so, sir," she +pleaded, "it isn't just my lack of education! It's my brains! I tell +you, sir, I haven't got enough brains to do what you suggest!" + +"I don't mean at all to belittle your brains," grinned the Senior +Surgeon in spite of himself. "Oh, not at all, Miss Malgregor! But you +see it isn't especially brains that I'm looking for! Really what I need +most," he acknowledged frankly, "is an extra pair of hands to go with +the--brains I already possess!" + +"Yes, I know, sir," persisted the White Linen Nurse. "Yes, of +course, sir," she conceded. "Yes, of course, sir, my hands +work--awfully--well--with your face. But all the same," she kindled +suddenly, "all the same, sir, I can't! I won't! I tell you sir, I won't! +Why, I'm not in your world, sir! Why, I'm not in your class! Why--my +folks aren't like your folks! Oh, we're just as good as you--of +course--but we aren't as nice! Oh, we're not nice at all! Really and +truly we're not!" Desperately through her mind she rummaged up and down +for some one conclusive fact that would close this torturing argument +for all time. "Why--my father--eats with his knife," she asserted +triumphantly. + +"Would he be apt to eat with mine?" asked the Senior Surgeon with +extravagant gravity. + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse jumped to the defense of her +father's intrinsic honor. "Oh, no!" she denied with some vehemence. +"Father's never cheeky like that! Father's simple sometimes,--plain, +I mean. Or he might be a bit sharp. But, oh, I'm sure he'd never +be--cheeky! Oh, no, sir! No!" + +"Oh, very well then," grinned the Senior Surgeon. "We can consider +everything all comfortably settled then I suppose?" + +"No, we can't!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. A little awkwardly with +cramped limbs she struggled partly upward from the grass and knelt there +defying the Senior Surgeon from her temporarily superior height. "No, we +can't!" she reiterated wildly. "I tell you I can't, sir! I won't! I +won't! I've been engaged once and it's enough! I tell you, sir, I'm all +engaged out!" + +"What's become of the man you were engaged to?" quizzed the Senior +Surgeon sharply. + +"Why--he's married!" said the White Linen Nurse. "And they've got a +kid!" she added tempestuously. + +"Good! I'm glad of it!" smiled the Senior Surgeon quite amazingly. "Now +he surely won't bother us any more." + +"But I was engaged so long!" protested the White Linen Nurse. "Almost +ever since I was born, I said. It's too long. You don't get over it!" + +"He got over it," remarked the Senior Surgeon laconically. + +"Y-e-s," admitted the White Linen Nurse. "But I tell you it doesn't seem +decent. Not after being engaged--twenty years!" With a little helpless +gesture of appeal she threw out her hands. "Oh, can't I make you +understand, sir?" + +"Why, of course, I understand," said the Senior Surgeon briskly. "You +mean that you and John--" + +"His name was 'Joe,'" corrected the White Linen Nurse. + +With astonishing amiability the Senior Surgeon acknowledged the +correction. "You mean," he said, "you mean that you and--Joe--have been +cradled together so familiarly all your babyhood that on your wedding +night you could most naturally have said 'Let me see--Joe,--it's two +pillows that you always have, isn't it? And a double-fold of blanket at +the foot?' You mean that you and Joe have been washed and scrubbed +together so familiarly all your young childhood that you could identify +Joe's headless body twenty years hence by the kerosene-lamp scar across +his back? You mean that you and Joe have played house together so +familiarly all your young tin-dish days that even your rag dolls called +Joe 'Father'? You mean that since your earliest memory,--until a year or +so ago,--Life has never once been just You and Life, but always You and +Life and Joe? You and Spring and Joe,--You and Summer and Joe,--You and +Autumn and Joe,--You and Winter and Joe,--till every conscious nerve in +your body has been so everlastingly Joed with Joe's Joeness that you +don't believe there 's any experience left in life powerful enough to +eradicate that original impression? Eh?" + +"Yes, sir," flushed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Good! I'm glad of it!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "It doesn't make you +seem quite so alarmingly innocent and remote for a widower to offer +marriage to. Good, I say! I'm glad of it!" + +"Even so--I don't want to," said the White Linen Nurse. "Thank you very +much, sir! But even so, I don't want to." + +"Would you marry--Joe--now if he were suddenly free and wanted you?" +asked the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"Oh, my Lord, no!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Other men are pretty sure to want you," admonished the Senior Surgeon. +"Have you made up your mind--definitely that you'll never marry +anybody?" + +"N--o, not exactly," confessed the White Linen Nurse. + +An odd flicker twitched across the Senior Surgeon's face like a sob in +the brain. + +"What's your first name, Miss Malgregor?" he asked a bit huskily. + +"Rae," she told him with some surprise. + +The Senior Surgeon's eyes narrowed suddenly again. + +"Damn it all, Rae," he said, "_I--want you!_" + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. "If you don't +mind, sir," she cried, "I'll run down to the brook and get myself a +drink of water!" + +Impishly like a child, muscularly like a man, the Senior Surgeon +clutched out at the flapping corner of her coat. + +"No you don't!" he laughed, "till you've given me my definite +answer--yes or no!" + +Breathlessly the White Linen Nurse spun round in her tracks. Her breast +was heaving with ill-suppressed sobs. Her eyes were blurred with tears. +"You've no business--to hurry me so!" she protested passionately. "It +isn't fair!--It isn't kind!" + +Sluggishly in the Senior Surgeon's jolted arms the Little Girl woke from +her feverish nap and peered up perplexedly through the gray dusk into +her father's face. + +"Where's--my kitty?" she asked hazily. + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Harshly the little iron leg-braces clanked together. + +In an instant the White Linen Nurse was on her knees in the grass. "You +don't hold her right, sir!" she expostulated. Deftly with little soft, +darting touches, interrupted only by rubbing her knuckles into her own +tears, she reached out and eased successively the bruise of a buckle or +the dragging weight on a little cramped hip. + +Still drowsily, still hazily, with little smacking gasps and gulping +swallows, the child worried her way back again into consciousness. + +"All the birds _were_ there, Father," she droned forth feebly from her +sweltering mink-fur nest. + +All the birds _were_ there +With yellow feathers instead of--hair, +And bumble bees--and bumble bees-- +And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--? + +Frenziedly she began to burrow the back of her head into her Father's +shoulder. "And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--?" + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake--'buzzed' in the trees!" interpolated the Senior +Surgeon. + +Rigidly from head to foot the little body in his arms stiffened +suddenly. As one who saw the supreme achievement of a life-time swept +away by some one careless joggle of an infinitesimal part, the Little +Girl stared up agonizingly into her father's face. "Oh, I don't +think--'buzzed' was the word!" she began convulsively. "Oh, I don't +think--!" + +Startlingly through the twilight the Senior Surgeon felt the White Linen +Nurse's rose-red lips come smack against his ear. + +"Darn you! Can't you say 'crocheted' in the trees?" sobbed the White +Linen Nurse. + +Grotesquely for an instant the Senior Surgeon's eyes and the White Linen +Nurse's eyes glared at each other in frank antagonism. + +Then suddenly the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing. "Oh, very well!" he +surrendered. "'Crocheted in the trees'!" + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse sank back on her heels and began to +clap her hands. + +"Oh, now I will! Now I will!" she cried exultantly. + +"Will what?" frowned the Senior Surgeon. + +Abruptly the White Linen Nurse stopped clapping her hands and began to +wring them nervously in her lap instead. "Why--will--will!" she +confessed demurely. + +"Oh!" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "_Oh!"_ Then equally jerkily he began +to pucker his eyebrows. "But for Heaven's sake--what's the 'crocheted +in the trees' got to do with it?" he asked perplexedly. + +"Nothing much," mused the White Linen Nurse very softly. With sudden +alertness she turned her curly blonde head towards the road. "There's +somebody coming!" she said. "I hear a team!" + +Overcome by a bashfulness that tried to escape in jocosity, the Senior +Surgeon gave an odd little choking chuckle. + +"Well, I never thought I should marry a--trained nurse!" he acknowledged +with somewhat hectic blitheness. + +Impulsively the White Linen Nurse reached for her watch and lifted it +close to her twilight-blinded eyes. A sense of ineffable peace crept +suddenly over her. + +"You won't, sir!" she said amiably. + +"It's twenty minutes of nine, now. And the graduation was at eight!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +For any real adventure except dying, June is certainly a most auspicious +month. + +Indeed it was on the very first rain-green, rose-red morning of June +that the White Linen Nurse sallied forth upon her extremely hazardous +adventure of marrying the Senior Surgeon and his naughty little crippled +daughter. + +The wedding was at noon in some kind of a gray granite church. And the +Senior Surgeon was there, of course,--and the necessary witnesses. But +the Little Crippled Girl never turned up at all, owing--it proved +later,--to a more than usually violent wrangle with whomever dressed +her, concerning the general advisability of sporting turquoise-colored +stockings with her brightest little purple dress. + +The Senior Surgeon's stockings, if you really care to know, were gray. +And the Senior Surgeon's suit was gray. And he looked altogether very +huge and distinguished,--and no more strikingly unhappy than any +bridegroom looks in a gray granite church. + +And the White Linen Nurse,--no longer now truly a White Linen Nurse but +just an ordinary, every-day, silk-and-cloth lady of any color she chose, +wore something rather coat-y and grand and bluish, and was distractingly +pretty of course but most essentially unfamiliar,--and just a tiny bit +awkward and bony-wristed looking,--as even an Admiral is apt to be on +his first day out of uniform. + +Then as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, the bride and groom went +to a wonderful green and gold café all built of marble and lined with +music, and had a little lunch. What I really mean, of course, is that +they had a very large lunch, but didn't eat any of it! + +Then in a taxi-cab, just exactly like any other taxi-cab, the White +Linen Nurse drove home alone to the Senior Surgeon's great, gloomy house +to find her brand new step-daughter still screaming over the turquoise +colored stockings. + +And the Senior Surgeon in a Canadian-bound train, just exactly like any +other Canadian-bound train, started off alone,--as usual, on his annual +June "spree." + +Please don't think for a moment that it was the Senior Surgeon who was +responsible for the general eccentricities of this amazing wedding day. +No indeed! The Senior Surgeon didn't _want_ to be married the first day +of June! He _said_ he didn't! He _growled_ he didn't! He _snarled_ he +didn't! He _swore_ he didn't! And when he finished saying and growling +and snarling and swearing,--and looked up at the White Linen Nurse for a +confirmation of his opinion, the White Linen Nurse smiled perfectly +amiably and said, "Yes, sir!" + +Then the Senior Surgeon gave a great gasp of relief and announced +resonantly, "Well, it's all settled then? We'll be married some time in +July,--after I get home from Canada?" And when the White Linen Nurse +kept on smiling perfectly amiably and said, "Oh, no, sir! Oh, no, thank +you, sir! It wouldn't seem exactly legal to me to be married any other +month but June!" Then the Senior Surgeon went absolutely dumb with rage +that this mere chit of a girl,--and a trained nurse, too,--should dare +to thwart his personal and professional convenience. But the White Linen +Nurse just drooped her pretty blonde head and blushed and blushed and +blushed and said, "I was only marrying you, sir, to--accommodate +you--sir,--and if June doesn't accommodate you--I'd rather go to Japan +with that monoideic somnambulism case. It's very interesting. And it +sails June second." Then "Oh, Hell with the 'monoideic somnambulism +case'!" the Senior Surgeon would protest. + +Really it took the Senior Surgeon quite a long while to work out the +three special arguments that should best protect him, he thought, from +the horridly embarrassing idea of being married in June. + +"But you can't get ready so soon!" he suggested at last with real +triumph. "You've no idea how long it takes a girl to get ready to be +married! There are so many people she has to tell,--and everything!" + +"There's never but two that she's got to tell--or bust!" conceded the +White Linen Nurse with perfect candor. "Just the woman she loves the +most--and the woman she hates the worst. I'll write my mother to-morrow. +But I told the Superintendent of Nurses yesterday." + +"The deuce you did!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +Almost caressingly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to +his. "Yes, sir," she said, "and she looked as sick as a young +undertaker. I can't imagine what ailed her." + +"Eh?" choked the Senior Surgeon. "But the house now," he hastened to +contend. "The house now needs a lot of fixing over! It's all run down! +It's all--everything! We never in the world could get it into shape by +the first of June! For Heaven's sake, now that we've got money enough to +make it right, let's go slow and make it perfectly right!" + +A little nervously the White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the +pages of her memorandum book. "I've always had money enough to 'go slow +and make things perfectly right,'" she confided a bit wistfully. "Never +in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren't guaranteed, or a +dress that wouldn't wash, or a hat that wasn't worth at least three +re-pressings. What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to +have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I +wanted to,--so that I could afford to take chances, I mean. Here's this +wall-paper now,"--tragically she pointed to some figuring in her +note-book--"it's got peacocks on it--life size--in a queen's garden--and +I wanted it for the dining-room. Maybe it would fade! Maybe we'd get +tired of it! Maybe it would poison us! Slam it on one week--and slash it +off the next! I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir! I thought +maybe--while you were way off in Canada--" + +Eagerly the Senior Surgeon jerked his chair a little nearer to +his--fiancée's. + +"Now, my dear girl," he said. "That's just what I want to explain! +That's just what I want to explain! Just what I want to explain! +To--er--explain!" he continued a bit falteringly. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very deliberately the Senior Surgeon removed a fleck of dust from one of +his cuffs. + +"All this talk of yours--about wanting to be married the same day I +start off on my--Canadian trip!" he contended. "Why, it's all damned +nonsense!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very conscientiously the Senior Surgeon began to search for a fleck of +dust on his other cuff. + +"Why my--my dear girl," he persisted. "It's absurd! It's outrageous! Why +people would--would hoot at us! Why they'd think--!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Why, my dear girl," sweated the Senior Surgeon. "Even though you and I +understand perfectly well the purely formal, business-like conditions of +our marriage, we must at least for sheer decency's sake keep up a +certain semblance of marital conventionality--before the world! Why, if +we were married at noon the first day of June--as you suggest,--and I +should go right off alone as usual--on my Canadian trip--and you should +come back alone to the house--why, people would think--would think that +I didn't care anything about you!" + +"But you don't," said the White Linen Nurse serenely. + +"Why, they'd think," choked the Senior Surgeon. "They'd think you were +trying your--darndest--to get rid of me!" + +"I am," said the White Linen Nurse complacently. + +With a muttered ejaculation the Senior Surgeon jumped to his feet and +stood glaring down at her. + +Quite ingenuously the White Linen Nurse met and parried the glare. + +"A gentleman--and a red-haired kiddie--and a great walloping house--all +at once! It's too much!" she confided genially. "Thank you just the +same, but I'd rather take them gradually. First of all, sir, you see, +I've got to teach the little kiddie to like me! And then there's a +green-tiled paper with floppity sea gulls on it--that I want to try for +the bath-room! And--and--" Ecstatically she clapped her hands together. +"Oh, sir! There are such loads and loads of experiments I want to try +while you are off on your spree!" + +"S--h--h!" cried the Senior Surgeon. His face was suddenly +blanched,--his mouth, twitching like the mouth of one stricken with +almost insupportable pain. "For God's sake, Miss Malgregor!" he pleaded, +"can't you call it my--Canadian trip?" + +Wider and wider the White Linen Nurse opened her big blue eyes at him. + +"But it is a 'spree,' sir!" she attested resolutely. "And my father +says--" Still resolutely her young mouth curved to its original +assertion, but from under her heavy-shadowing eyelashes a little blue +smile crept softly out. "When my father's got a lame trotting horse, +sir, that he's trying to shuck off his hands," she faltered, "he doesn't +ever go round mournful-like with his head hanging--telling folks about +his wonderful trotter that's just 'the littlest, teeniest, tiniest +bit--lame.' Oh no! What father does is to call up every one he knows +within twenty miles and tell 'em, 'Say Tom,--Bill,--Harry,'--or whatever +his name is--'what in the deuce do you suppose I've got over here in my +barn? A lame horse--that wants to trot! Lamer than the deuce, you know! +But can do a mile in 2.40.'" Faintly the little blue smile quickened +again in the White Linen Nurse's eyes. "And the barn will be full of men +in half an hour!" she said. "Somehow nobody wants a trotter that's lame! +But almost anybody seems willing to risk a lame horse--that's plucky +enough to trot!" + +"What's the 'lame trotting horse' got to do with--me?" snarled the +Senior Surgeon incisively. + +Darkly the White Linen Nurse's lashes fringed down across her cheeks. + +"Nothing much," she said, "Only--" + +"Only what?" demanded the Senior Surgeon. A little more roughly than he +realized he stooped down and took the White Linen Nurse by her +shoulders, and jerked her sharply round to the light. "Only _what?_" he +insisted peremptorily. + +Almost plaintively she lifted her eyes to his. "Only--my father says," +she confided obediently, "my father says if you've got a worse +foot--for Heaven's sake put it forward--and get it over with! + +"So--I've _got_ to call it a 'spree'!" smiled the White Linen Nurse. +"'Cause when I think of marrying a--_surgeon_--that goes off and gets +drunk every June--it--it scares me almost to my death! But--" Abruptly +the red smile faded from her lips, the blue smile from her eyes. +"But--when I think of marrying a--June drunk--that's got the grit to +pull up absolutely straight as a die and be a _surgeon_--all the other +'leven months in the year--" Dartingly she bent down and kissed the +Senior Surgeon's astonished wrist. "Oh, then I think you're perfectly +_grand_!" she sobbed. + +Awkwardly the Senior Surgeon pulled away and began to pace the floor. + +"You're a--good little girl, Rae Malgregor," he mumbled huskily. "A good +little girl. I truly believe you're the kind that will--see me through." +Poignantly in his eyes humiliation overwhelmed the mist. Perversely in +its turn resentment overtook the humiliation. "But I won't be married in +June!" he reasserted bombastically. "I won't! I won't! I won't! I tell +you I positively refuse to have a lot of damn fools speculating about my +private affairs! Wondering why I didn't take you! Wondering why I didn't +stay home with you! I tell you I won't! I simply won't!" + +"Yes, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +With a real gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon stopped his eternal pacing +of the floor. + +"Bully for you!" he said. "You mean then we'll be married some time in +July after I get back from my--trip?" + +"Oh, no, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +"But Great Heavens!" shouted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," the White Linen Nurse began all over again. Dreamily +planning out her wedding gown, her lips without the slightest conscious +effort on her part were already curving into shape for her alternate +"No, sir." + +"You're an idiot!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +A little reproachfully the White Linen Nurse came frowning out of her +reverie. "Would it do just as well for traveling, do you think?" she +asked, with real concern. + +"Eh? What?" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"I mean--does Japan spot?" queried the White Linen Nurse. "Would it spot +a serge, I mean?" + +"Oh, Hell with Japan!" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Now perhaps you will understand just exactly how it happened that the +Senior Surgeon and the White Linen Nurse _were_ married on the first day +of June, and just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon went +off alone as usual on his Canadian trip, and just exactly how it +happened that the White Linen Nurse came home alone to the Senior +Surgeon's great, gloomy house, to find her brand new step-daughter still +screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. Everything now is +perfectly comfortably explained except the turquoise-colored stockings. +Nobody could explain the turquoise-colored stockings! + +But even a little child could explain the ensuing June! Oh, June was +perfectly wonderful that year! Bud, blossom, bird-song, breeze,--rioting +headlong through the Land. Warm days sweet and lush as a green-house +vapor! Crisp nights faintly metallic like the scent of stars! +Hurdy-gurdies romping tunefully on every street-corner! Even the Ash-Man +flushing frankly pink across his dusty cheek-bones! + +Like two fairies who had sublet a giant's cave the White Linen Nurse and +the Little Crippled Girl turned themselves loose upon the Senior +Surgeon's gloomy old house. + +It certainly was a gloomy old house, but handsome withal,--square and +brown and substantial, and most generously gardened within high brick +walls. Except for dusting the lilac bushes with the hose, and weeding a +few rusty leaves out of the privet hedge, and tacking up three or four +scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree +boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house? +Oh ye gods! All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly +from the back door to the barn, sweating workmen scuttled back and +forth till nary a guilty piece of black walnut furniture had escaped. +All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly from +ceilings to floors, sweltering workmen scurried up and down step-ladders +stripping dingy papers from dingier plasterings. + +When the White Linen Nurse wasn't busy renovating the big house--or the +little step-daughter, she was writing to the Senior Surgeon. She wrote +twice. + +"Dear Dr. Faber," the first letter said. + + * * * * * + +DEAR DR. FABER, + +How do you do? Thank you very much, for saying you didn't care what in +thunder I did to the house. It looks _sweet_. I've put white fluttery +muslin curtains most everywhere. And you've got a new solid-gold-looking +bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most +scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pink was wrong +for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out. And now +that's settled for all time. + +I am very, very, very, very busy. Something strange and new happens +every day. Yesterday it was three ladies and a plumber. One of the +ladies was just selling soap, but I didn't buy any. It was horrid soap. +The other two were calling ladies,--a silk one and a velvet one. The +silk one tried to be nasty to me. Right to my face she told me I was +more of a lady than she had dared to hope. And I told her I was sorry +for that as you'd had one "lady" and it didn't work. Was that all right? +But the other lady was nice. And I took her out in the kitchen with me +while I was painting the woodwork, and right there in her white kid +gloves she laughed and showed me how to mix the paint pearl gray. _She_ +was nice. It was your sister-in-law. + +I like being married, Dr. Faber. I like it lots better than I thought I +would. It's fun being the biggest person in the house. Respectfully +yours, RAE MALGREGOR,--AS WAS. + +P.S. Oh, I hope it wasn't wrong, but in your ulster pocket, when I went +to put it away, I found a bottle of something that smelt as though it +had been forgotten.--I threw it out. + + * * * * * + +It was this letter that drew the only definite message from the +itinerant bridegroom. + +"Kindly refrain from rummaging in my ulster pockets," wrote the Senior +Surgeon quite briefly. "The 'thing' you threw out happened to be the +cerebellum and medulla of an extremely eminent English Theologian!" + +"Even so,--it was sour," telegraphed the White Linen Nurse in a perfect +agony of remorse and humiliation. + +The telegram took an Indian with a birch canoe two days to deliver, and +cost the Senior Surgeon twelve dollars. Just impulsively the Senior +Surgeon decided to make no further comments on domestic affairs,--at +that particular range. + +Very fortunately for this impulse the White Linen Nurse's second letter +concerned itself almost entirely with matters quite extraneous to the +home. + +"Dear Dr. Faber," the second letter ran. + + * * * * * + +DEAR DR. FABER, + +Somehow I don't seem to care so much just now about being the biggest +person in the house. Something awful has happened. Zillah Forsyth is +dead. Really dead, I mean. And she died in great heroism. You remember +Zillah Forsyth, don't you? She was one of my room-mates,--not the gooder +one, you know,--not the swell,--that was Helene Churchill. But Zillah? +Oh you know! Zillah was the one you sent out on that Fractured Elbow +case. It was a Yale student, you remember? And there was some trouble +about kissing,--and she got sent home? And now everybody's crying +because Zillah _can't_ kiss anybody any more! Isn't everything the +limit? Well, it wasn't a fractured Yale student she got sent out on this +time. If it had been, she might have been living yet. What they sent her +out on this time was a Senile Dementia,--an old lady more than eighty +years old. And they were in a sanitarium or something like that. And +there was a fire in the night. And the old lady just up and positively +refused to escape. And Zillah had to push her and shove her and yank her +and carry her--out the window--along the gutters--round the chimneys. +And the old lady bit Zillah right through the hand,--but Zillah wouldn't +let go. And the old lady tried to drown Zillah under a bursted water +tank,--but Zillah wouldn't let go. And everybody hollered to Zillah to +cut loose and save herself,--but Zillah wouldn't let go. And a wall +fell, and everything, and oh, it was awful,--but Zillah never let go. +And the old lady that wasn't any good to any one,--not even herself, got +saved of course. But Zillah? Oh, Zillah got hurt bad, sir! We saw her at +the hospital, Helene and I. She sent for us about something. Oh, it was +awful! Not a thing about her that you'd know except just her great +solemn eyes mooning out at you through a gob of white cotton, and her +red mouth lipping sort of twitchy at the edge of a bandage. Oh it was +awful! But Zillah didn't seem to care so much. There was a new Interne +there,--a Japanese, and I guess she was sort of taken with him. "But +my God, Zillah," I said, "_your_ life was worth more than that old +dame's!" + +"Shut your noise!" says Zillah. "It was my job. And there's no kick +coming." Helene burst right out crying, she did. "Shut _your_ noise, +too!" says Zillah, just as cool as you please. "Bah! There's other lives +and other chances!" + +"Oh, you do believe that now?" cries Helene. "Oh, you do believe that +now,--what the Bible promises you?" That was when Zillah shrugged her +shoulders so funny,--the little way she had. Gee, but her eyes were big! +"I don't pretend to know--what--your old Bible says," she choked. "It +was--the Yale feller--who was tellin' me." + +That's all, Dr. Faber. It was her shrugging her shoulders so funny that +brought on the hemorrhage. + +Oh, we had an awful time, sir, going home in the carriage,--Helene and +I. We both cried, of course, because Zillah was dead, but after we got +through crying for that, Helene kept right on crying because she +couldn't understand why a brave girl like Zillah _had_ to be dead. Gee! +But Helene takes things hard. Ladies do, I guess. + +I hope you're having a pleasant spree. + +Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of the wall-paperers is living here at +the house with us just now. We use him so much it's truly a good deal +more convenient. And he's a real nice young fellow, and he plays the +piano finely, and he comes from up my way. And it seemed more neighborly +anyway. It's so large in the house at night, just now, and so creaky in +the garden. + +With kindest regards, good-by for now, from RAE. + +P.S. + +Don't tell your guide or _any one!_ But Helene sent Zillah's mother a +check for fifteen hundred dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. And all +Zillah asked for that day was just a little blue serge suit. It seems +she'd promised her kid sister a little blue serge suit for July. And it +sort of worried her. + +Helene sent the little blue serge suit too! And a hat! The hat had +bluebells on it. Do you think when you come home--if I haven't spent too +much money on wall-papers--that I could have a blue hat with bluebells +on it? Excuse me for bothering you--but you forgot to leave me enough +money. + + * * * * * + +It was some indefinite, pleasant time on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of +June, that the Senior Surgeon received this second letter. + +It was Friday the twenty-sixth of June, exactly at dawn, that the Senior +Surgeon started homeward. + +Nobody looks very well in the dawn. Certainly the Senior Surgeon didn't. +Heavily as a man wading through a bog of dreams, he stumbled out of his +cabin into the morning. Under his drowsy, brooding eyes appalling +shadows circled. Behind his sunburn,--deeper than his tan, something +sinister and uncanny lurked wanly like the pallor of a soul. + +Yet the Senior Surgeon had been most blamelessly abed and asleep since +griddle-cake time the previous evening. + +Only the mountains and the forest and the lake had been out all night. +For seventy miles of Canadian wilderness only the mountains and the +forest and the lake stood actually convicted of having been out all +night. Dank and white with its vaporous vigil the listless lake kindled +wanly to the new day's breeze. Blue with cold a precipitous mountain +peak lurched craggedly home through a rift in the fog. Drenched with +mist, bedraggled with dew, a green-feathered pine tree lay guzzling +insatiably at a leaf-brown pool. Monotonous as a sob the waiting birch +canoe slosh-sloshed against the beach. + +There was no romantic smell of red roses in this June landscape. Just +tobacco smoke, and the faint reminiscent fragrance of fried trout, and +the mournful, sizzling, pungent consciousness of a camp-fire quenched +for a whole year with a tinful of wet coffee grounds. + +Gliding out cautiously into the lake as though the mere splash of a +paddle might shatter the whole glassy surface, the Indian Guide +propounded the question that was uppermost in his mind. + +"Cutting your trip a bit short this year,--ain't you, Boss?" quizzed the +Indian guide. + +Out from his muffling mackinaw collar the Senior Surgeon parried the +question with an amazingly novel sense of embarrassment. + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered with studied lightness. "There are one +or two things at home that are bothering me a little." + +"A woman, eh?" said the Indian Guide laconically. + +"A woman?" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "A--woman? Oh, ye gods! No! +It's wall paper!" + +Then suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of his passionate refutation +the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing,--boisterously, hilariously like a +crazy school-boy. Bluntly from an overhanging ledge of rock the echo of +his laugh came mocking back at him. Down from some unvisioned mountain +fastness the echo of that echo came wafting faintly to him. + +The Senior Surgeon's laugh was made of teeth and tongue and palate and a +purely convulsive physical impulse. But the echo's laugh was a phantasy +of mist and dawn and inestimable balsam-scented spaces where little +green ferns and little brown beasties and soft-breasted birdlings +frolicked eternally in pristine sweetness. + +Seven miles further down the lake, at the beginning of the rapids, the +Indian Guide spoke again. Racking the canoe between two +rocks,--paddling, panting, pushing, sweating, the Indian Guide lifted +his voice high,--piercing, above the swirling roar of waters. + +"Eh, Boss!" shouted the Indian Guide. "I ain't never heard you laugh +before!" + +Neither man spoke again more than once or twice during the long, +strenuous hours that were left to them. + +The Indian Guide was very busy in his stolid mind trying to figure out +just how many rows of potatoes could be planted fruitfully between his +front door and his cow-shed. I don't know what the Senior Surgeon was +trying to figure out. + +It was just four days later from a rolling, musty-cushioned hack that +the Senior Surgeon disembarked at his own front gate. + +Even though a man likes home no better than he likes--tea, few men would +deny the soothing effect of home at the end of a long fussy railroad +journey. Five o'clock, also, of a late June afternoon is a peculiarly +wonderful time to be arriving home,--especially if that home has a +garden around it so that you are thereby not rushed precipitously upon +the house itself, as upon a cup without a saucer, but can toy visually +with the whole effect before you quench your thirst with the actual +draught. + +Very, very deliberately, with his clumsy rod-case in one hand, and his +heavy grip in the other, the Senior Surgeon started up the long, broad +gravel path to the house. For a man walking as slow as he was, his heart +was beating most extraordinarily fast. He was not accustomed to +heart-palpitation. The symptom worried him a trifle. Incidentally also +his lungs felt strangely stifled with the scent of June. Close at his +right an effulgent white and gold syringa bush flaunted its cloying +sweetness into his senses. Close at his left a riotous bloom of phlox +clamored red-blue-purple-lavender-pink into his dazzled vision. +Multi-colored pansies tiptoed velvet-footed across the grass. In soft +murky mystery a flame-tinted smoke tree loomed up here and there like a +faintly rouged ghost. Over everything, under everything, through +everything, lurked a certain strange, novel, vibrating consciousness of +_occupancy_. Bees in the rose bushes! Bobolinks in the trees! A woman's +work-basket in the curve of the hammock! A doll's tea set sprawling +cheerfully in the middle of the broad gravel path! + +It was not until the Senior Surgeon had actually stepped into the tiny +cream pitcher that he noticed the presence of the doll's tea set. + +It was what the Senior Surgeon said as he stepped out of the cream +pitcher that summoned the amazing apparition from a ragged green hole in +the privet hedge. Startlingly white, startlingly professional,--dress, +cap, apron and all,--a miniature white linen nurse sprang suddenly out +at him like a tricky dwarf in a moving picture show. Just at that +particular moment the Senior Surgeon's nerves were in no condition to +wrestle with apparitions. Simultaneously as the clumsy rod-case dropped +from his hand, the expression of enthusiasm dropped from the face of the +miniature white linen nurse. + +"Oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear! Have _you_ come home?" wailed the +familiar, shrill little voice. + +Sheepishly the Senior Surgeon picked up his rod-case. The noises in his +head were crashing like cracked bells. Desperately with a boisterous +irritability he sought to cover also the lurching pound-pound-pound of +his heart. + +"What in Hell are you rigged out like that for?" he demanded stormily. + +With equal storminess the Little Girl protested the question. + +"Peach said I could!" she attested passionately. "Peach said I could! +She did! She did! I tell you I didn't want her to marry us--that day! I +was afraid, I was! I cried, I did! I had a convulsion! They thought it +was stockings! So Peach said if it would make me feel any gooderer, I +could be the cruel new step-mother. And she'd be the unloved +offspring--with her hair braided all yellow fluffikins down her back!" + +"Where _is_--Miss Malgregor?" asked the Senior Surgeon sharply. + +Irrelevantly the Little Girl sank down on the gravel walk and began to +gather up her scattered dishes. + +"And it's fun to go to bed--now," she confided amiably. "'Cause every +night I put Peach to bed at eight o'clock and she's so naughty always I +have to stay with her! And then all of a sudden it's morning--like going +through a black room without knowing it!" + +"I said--where _is_ Miss Malgregor?" repeated the Senior Surgeon with +increasing sharpness. + +Thriftily the Little Girl bent down to lap a bubble of cream from the +broken pitcher. + +"Oh, she's out in the summer house with the Wall Paper Man," she mumbled +indifferently. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Altogether jerkily the Senior Surgeon started up the walk for his own +perfectly formal and respectable brown stone mansion. Deep down in his +lurching heart he felt a sudden most inordinate desire to reach that +brown stone mansion just as quickly as possible. But abruptly even to +himself he swerved off instead at the yellow sassafras tree and plunged +quite wildly through a mass of broken sods towards the rickety, +no-account cedar summer house. + +Startled by the crackle and thud of his approach the two young figures +in the summer house jumped precipitously to their feet, and limply +untwining their arms from each other's necks stood surveying the Senior +Surgeon in unspeakable consternation,--the White Linen Nurse and a blue +overalled lad most unconscionably mated in radiant youth and agonized +confusion. + +"Oh, my Lord, Sir!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, my Lord, Sir! I +wasn't looking for _you_--for another week!" + +"Evidently not!" said the Senior Surgeon incisively. "This is the second +time this evening that I've been led to infer that my home-coming was +distinctly inopportune!" + +Very slowly, very methodically, he put down first his precious rod-case +and then his grip. His brain seemed fairly foaming with blood and +confusion. Along the swelling veins of his arms a dozen primitive +instincts went surging to his fists. + +Then quite brazenly before his eyes the White Linen Nurse reached out +and took the lad's hand again. + +"Oh, forgive me, Dr. Faber!" she faltered. "This is my brother!" + +"Your _brother?--what?--eh?_" choked the Senior Surgeon. Bluntly he +reached out and crushed the young fellow's fingers in his own. "Glad to +see you, Son!" he muttered with a sickish sort of grin, and turning +abruptly, picked up his baggage again and started for the big house. + +Half a step behind him his White Linen Bride followed softly. + +At the edge of the piazza he turned for an instant and eyed her a bit +quizzically. With her big credulous blue eyes, and her great mop of +yellow hair braided childishly down her back, she looked inestimably +more juvenile and innocent than his own little shrewd-faced six-year-old +whom he had just left domestically ensconced in the middle of the broad +gravel path. + +"For Heaven's sake, Miss Malgregor," he asked. "For Heaven's sake--why +didn't you tell me that the Wall Paper Man was your--brother?" + +Very contritely the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into +the soft collar of her dress and as bashfully as a child one finger +came stealing up to the edge of her red, red lips. + +"I was afraid you'd think I was--cheeky--having any of my family come +and live with us--so soon," she murmured almost inaudibly. + +"Well, what did you think I'd think you were--if he wasn't your +brother?" asked the Senior Surgeon sardonically. + +"Very--economical, I hoped!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +"All the same!" snapped the Senior Surgeon, with an irrelevance +surprising even to himself. "All the same do you think it sounds quite +right and proper for a child to call her--step-mother--'Peach'?" + +Again the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into the +soft collar of her dress. "I don't suppose it is--usual," she +admitted reluctantly. "The children next door, I notice, call +theirs--'Cross-Patch.'" + +With a gesture of impatience the Senior Surgeon proceeded up the +steps,--yanked open the old-fashioned shuttered door, and burst quite +breathlessly and unprepared upon his most amazingly reconstructed +house. All in one single second chintzes,--muslins,--pale blonde +maples,--riotous canary birds,--stormed revolutionary upon his outraged +eyes. Reeling back utterly aghast before the sight, he stood there +staring dumbly for an instant at what he considered,--and rightly +too,--the absolute wreck of his black walnut home. + +"It looks like--Hell!" he muttered feebly. + +"Yes, _isn't_ it sweet?" conceded the White Linen Nurse with +unmistakable joyousness. "And your library--" Triumphantly she threw +back the door to his grim work-shop. + +"Good God!" stammered the Senior Surgeon. "You've made it--pink!" + +Rapturously the White Linen Nurse began to clasp and unclasp her hands. +"I knew you'd love it!" she said. + +Half dazed with bewilderment the Senior Surgeon started to brush an +imaginary haze from his eyes but paused mid-way in the gesture and +pointed back instead to a dapper little hall-table that seemed to be +exhausting its entire blonde strength in holding up a slender green vase +with a single pink rose in it. Like a caged animal buffeting for escape +against each successive bar that incased it, the man's frenzied +irritation hurled itself hopefully against this one more chance for +explosive exit. + +"What--have--you--done--with the big--black--escritoire that +stood--there?" he demanded accusingly. + +"Escritoire?--Escritoire?" worried the White Linen Nurse. "Why--why--I'm +afraid I must have mislaid it." + +"Mislaid it?" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "Mislaid it? It weighed +three hundred pounds!" + +"Oh, it did?" questioned the White Linen Nurse with great, blue-eyed +interest. Still mulling apparently over the fascinating weight of the +escritoire she climbed up suddenly into a chair and with the fluffy +broom-shaped end of her extraordinarily long braid of hair went angling +wildy off into space after an illusive cobweb. + +Faster and faster the Senior Surgeon's temper began to search for a new +point of exit. + +"What do you suppose the--servants think of you?" he stormed. "Running +round like that with your hair in a pig-tail like a--kid?" + +"Servants?" cooed the White Linen Nurse. "Servants?" Very quietly she +jumped down from the chair and came and stood looking up into the Senior +Surgeon's hectic face. "Why, there aren't any servants," she explained +patiently. "I've dismissed every one of them. We're doing our own work +now!" + +"Doing 'our own work'?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Quite worriedly the White Linen Nurse stepped back a little. "Why, +wasn't that right?" she pleaded. "Wasn't it right? Why, I thought people +always did their own work when they were first married!" With sudden +apprehensiveness she glanced round over her shoulder at the hall clock, +and darting out through a side door, returned almost instantly with a +fierce-looking knife. + +"I'm so late now and everything," she confided. "Could you peel the +potatoes for me?" + +"No, I couldn't!" said the Senior Surgeon shortly. Equally shortly he +turned on his heel, and reaching out once more for his rod-case and grip +went on up the stairs to his own room. + +One of the pleasantest things about arriving home very late in the +afternoon is the excuse it gives you for loafing in your own room while +other people are getting supper. No existent domestic sound in the whole +twenty-four hours is as soothing at the end of a long journey as the +sound of other people getting supper. + +Stretched out full length in a big easy chair by his bed-room window, +with his favorite pipe bubbling rhythmically between his gleaming +white teeth, the Senior Surgeon studied his new "solid gold bed" and +his new sage green wall-paper and his new dust-colored rug, to the +faint, far-away accompaniment of soft thudding feet, and a girl's +laugh, and a child's prattle, and the tink-tink-tinkle of +glass,--china,--silver,--all scurrying consciously to the service +of one man,--and that man,--_himself_. + +Very, very slowly, in that special half hour an inscrutable little smile +printed itself experimentally across the right hand corner of the +Senior Surgeon's upper lip. + +While that smile was still in its infancy he jumped up suddenly and +forced his way across the hall to his dead wife's room,--the one +ghost-room of his house and his life,--and there with his hand on the +turning door knob,--tense with reluctance,--goose-fleshed with +strain,--his breath gasped out of him whether or no with the one +word--"Alice!" + +And behold! There was no room there! + +Lurching back from the threshold, as from the brink of an elevator well, +the Senior Surgeon found himself staring foolishly into a most sumptuous +linen closet, tiered like an Aztec cliff with home after home for +pleasant prosy blankets, and gaily fringed towels, and cheerful white +sheets reeking most conscientiously of cedar and lavender. Tiptoeing +cautiously into the mystery he sensed at one astonished, grateful glance +how the change of a partition, the re-adjustment of a proportion, had +purged like a draft of fresh air the stale gloom of an ill-favored +memory. Yet so inevitable did it suddenly seem for a linen closet to be +built right there,--so inevitable did it suddenly seem for the child's +meager play-room to be enlarged just there, that to save his soul he +could not estimate whether the happy plan had originated in a purely +practical brain or a purely compassionate heart. + +Half proud of the brain, half touched by the heart, he passed on +exploringly through the new play-room out into the hall again. + +Quite distinctly now through the aperture of the back stairs the kitchen +voices came wafting up to him. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" wailed his Little Girl's peevish voice. "Now +that--that Man's come back again--I suppose we'll have to eat in the +dining-room--all the time!" + +"'That Man' happens to be your darling father!" admonished the White +Linen Nurse's laughing voice. + +"Even so," wailed the Little Girl, "I love you best." + +"Even so," laughed the White Linen Nurse, "I love _you_ best!" + +"Just the same," cried the Little Girl shrilly, "just the same--let's +put the cream pitcher way up high somewhere--so he can't step in it!" + +As though from a head tilted suddenly backward the White Linen Nurse's +laugh rang out in joyous abandon. + +Impulsively the Senior Surgeon started to grin. Then equally impulsively +the grin soured on his lips. So they thought he was clumsy? Eh? +Resentfully he stared down at his hands,--those wonderfully +dexterous,--yes, ambidexterous hands that were the aching envy of all +his colleagues. Interruptingly as he stared the voice of the young Wall +Paper Man rose buoyantly from the lower hallway. + +"Supper's all ready, sir!" called the cordial voice. + +For some inexplainable reason, at that particular moment, almost nothing +in the world could have irritated the Senior Surgeon more keenly than to +be invited to his own supper,--in his own house,--by a stranger. Fuming +with a new sense of injury and injustice he started heavily down the +stairs to the dining-room. + +Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon's chair with a laudable +desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might occur, +the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital rebuff. + +"What do you think this is? An autopsy?" demanded the Senior Surgeon +tartly. "For Heaven's sake--sit down!" + +Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place. + +The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success though the +room was entrancing,--the cloth, snow-white--the silver, radiant,--the +guinea chicken beyond reproach. + +Swept and garnished to an alarming degree the young Wall Paper Man +presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to +make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home. + +Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the +Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her +insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt and +pepper shakers she could reach. + +Once when the young Wall Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of +putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole +table with the violence of her warning kick. + +Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, "Say, +Peach,--what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight +against the minister's bantam?" the White Linen Nurse choked piteously +over her food. + +Twice some one spoke about this year's weather. + +Twice some one volunteered an illuminating remark about last year's +weather. + +Except for these four diversions restraint indescribable hung like a +horrid pall over the feast. + +Next to feeling unwelcome in your friend's house, nothing certainly is +more wretchedly disconcerting than to feel unwelcome in your own house! + +Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to grab up all the knives within reach +and ram them successively into his own mouth just to prove to the young +Wall Paper Man what a--what a devil of a good fellow he was himself! +Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to tell the White Linen Nurse about the +pet bantam of his own boyhood days--that he bet a dollar could lick any +bantam her father ever dreamed of owning! Grimly the Senior Surgeon +longed to talk dolls,--dishes,--kittens,--yes, even cream pitchers, to +his Little Daughter, to talk anything in fact--to _any one_,--to +talk--sing--shout _anything_--that should make him, at least for the +time being, one at heart, one at head, one at table, with this +astonishingly offish bunch of youngsters! + +But grimly instead,--out of his frazzled nerves,--out of his innate +spiritual bashfulness, he merely roared forth, "Where are the potatoes?" + +"Potatoes?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Potatoes? Oh, potatoes?" she +finished more blithely. "Why, yes, of course! Don't you remember--you +didn't have time to peel them for me? I was so disappointed!" + +"You were so disappointed?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "You?--you?" + +Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and +shook her tiny fist right in her father's face. + +"Now, Lendicott Paber!" she screamed. "Don't you start in--sassing--my +darling little Peach!" + +"_Peach?_" snorted the Senior Surgeon. With almost supernatural calm he +put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression of +absolutely inflexible purpose. "Don't you--ever," he warned her, +"ever--ever--let me hear you call--this woman 'Peach' again!" + +A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and +straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her +little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable +peace. + +"Why--Lendicott Faber!" she persisted heroically. + +"_Lendicott?_" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "What are +_you_--'Lendicotting' _me_ for?" + +Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began +to beat upon the table. + +"Why, you dear Silly!" she cried. "Why, if I'm the new Marma, I've got +to call you 'Lendicott'! And Peach has got to call you 'Fat Father'!" + +Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his +feet. The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war +nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there +before. + +"God!" he said. "This gives me the _willies_!" and strode tempestuously +from the room. + +Out in his own work-shop fortunately,--whatever the grotesque new +pinkness,--whatever the grotesque new perkiness--his great free +walking-spaces had not been interfered with. Slamming his door +triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous +pace-pace-pace that had characterized for eighteen years his first +night's return to--the obligations of civilization. + +Sharply around the corner of his old battered desk the little path +started,--wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little path +furrowed,--wistfully at the deep bay-window where his favorite lilac +bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his +return, the little path faltered,--and went on again,--on and on and +on,--into the alcove where his instruments glistened,--up to the +fireplace where his college trophy-cups tarnished! Listlessly the Senior +Surgeon re-commenced his yearly vigil. Up and down,--up and down,--round +and round,--on and on and on,--through interminable dusks to +unattainable dawns,--a glutted, bacchanalian Soul sweating its own way +back to sanctity and leanness! Nerves always were in that vigil,--raw, +rattling nerves clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their +sedatives. Thirst also was in that vigil,--no mere whimpering tickle of +the palate, but a drought of the tissues,--a consuming fire of the +bones! Hurt pride was also there, and festering humiliation! + +But more rasping, this particular night, than nerves, more poignant than +thirst, more dangerously excitative even than remorse, hunger rioted in +him,--hunger, the one worst enemy of the Senior Surgeon's cause,--the +simple, silly, no-account,--gnawing,--drink-provocative hunger of an +empty stomach. And 'one other hunger was also there,--a sudden fierce +new lust for Life and Living,--a passion bare of love yet pure of +wantonness,--a passion primitive,--protective,--inexorably +proprietary,--engendered strangely in that one mad, suspicious moment at +the edge of the summer house when every outraged male instinct in him +had leaped to prove that--love or no love--the woman was--_his_. Up and +down,--up and down,--round and round,--eight o'clock found the Senior +Surgeon still pacing. + +At half past eight the young Wall Paper Man came to say good-by to him. + +"As long as Sister won't be alone any more, I guess I'll be moving on," +beamed the Wall Paper Man. "There's a dance at home Saturday night. And +I've got a girl of my own!" he confided genially. + +"Come again," urged the Senior Surgeon. "Come again when you can stay +longer!" + +With one honest prayer in stock, and at least two purely automatic +social speeches of this sort, no man needs to flounder altogether +hopelessly for words in any ordinary emergency of life. Thus with no +more mental interruption than the two-minute break in time, the Senior +Surgeon then resumed his bitter-thoughted pacing. + +At nine o'clock, however,--patroling his long rangy book-shelves, he +sensed with a very different feeling through his heavy oak door, the +soft whirring swish of skirts and the breathy twitter of muffled voices. +Faintly to his acute ears came the sound of his little daughter's +temperish protest, "I won't! I won't!" and the White Linen Nurse's +fervid pleading, "Oh, you must,--you must!" and the Little Girl's +mumbled ultimatum, "Well, I won't unless _you_ do!" + +Irascibly he crossed the room and yanked the door open abruptly upon +their surprise and confusion. His nerves were very sore. + +"What in thunder do you want?" he snarled. + +Nervously for an instant the White Linen Nurse tugged at the Little +Girl's hand. Nervously for an instant the Little Girl tugged at the +White Linen Nurse's hand. Then with a swallow like a sob the White Linen +Nurse lifted her glowing face to his. + +"K--kiss us good night!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Telescopically all in that startling second, vision after vision beat +down like blows upon the Senior Surgeon's senses! The pink, pink flush +of the girl! The lure of her! The amazing sweetness! The physical +docility! Oh ye gods,--the docility! Every trend of her birth,--of her +youth,--of her training,--forcing her now--if he chose it--to +unquestioning submission to his will and his judgment! Faster and faster +the temptation surged through his pulses! The path from her lips to her +ear was such a little path,--the plea so quick to make, so short,--"I +want you _now!_" + +"K--kiss us good night!" urged the Big Girl's unsuspecting lips. "Kiss +us good night!" mocked the Little Girl's tremulous echo. + +Then explosively with the noblest rudeness of his life, "No, I _won't!_" +said the Senior Surgeon, and slammed the door in their faces. + +Falteringly up the stairs he heard the two ascending,--speechless with +surprise, perhaps,--stunned by his roughness,--still hand in hand, +probably,--still climbing slowly bed-ward,--the soft, smooth, patient +footfall of the White Linen Nurse and the jerky, laborious +clang-clang-clang of a little dragging iron-braced leg. + +Up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on,--the Senior Surgeon +resumed his pacing. Under his eyes great shadows darkened. Along the +corners of his mouth the lines furrowed like gray scars. Up and +down,--round and round,--on and on and on--and on! + +At ten o'clock, sitting bolt upright in her bed with her worried eyes +straining bluely out across the Little Girl's somnolent form into +unfathomable darkness, the White Linen Nurse in the throb of her own +heart began to keep pace with that faint, horrid thud-thud-thud in the +room below. Was he passing the book-case now? Had he reached the +bay-window? Was he dawdling over those glistening scalpels? Would his +nerves remember the flask in that upper desk drawer? Up and down,--round +and round,--on and on,--the harrowing sound continued. + +Resolutely at last she scrambled out of her snug nest, and hurrying into +her great warm, pussy-gray wrapper began at once very practically, very +unemotionally, with matches and alcohol and a shiny glass jar to prepare +a huge steaming cup of malted milk. Beef-steak was infinitely better, +she knew, or eggs, of course, but if she should venture forth to the +kitchen for real substantiate the Senior Surgeon, she felt quite +positive, would almost certainly hear her and stop her. So very +stealthily thus like the proverbial assassin she crept down the front +stairs with the innocent malted milk cup in her hand, and then with her +knuckles just on the verge of rapping against the grimly inhospitable +door, went suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty whether to advance or +retreat. + +Once again through the sombre inert wainscoting, exactly as if a soul +had creaked, the Senior Surgeon sensed the threatening, intrusive +presence of an unseen personality. Once again he strode across the room +and jerked the door open with terrifying anger and resentment. + +As though frozen there on his threshold by Her own little bare feet,--as +though strangled there in his doorway by her own great mop of golden +hair,--stolid and dumb as a pink-cheeked graven image the White Linen +Nurse thrust the cup out awkwardly at him. + +Absolutely without comment, as though she trotted on purely professional +business and the case involved was of mutual concern to them both, the +Senior Surgeon took the cup from her hand and closed the door again in +her face. + +At eleven o'clock she came again,--just as pink,--just as blue,--just as +gray,--just as golden. And the cup of malted milk she brought with her +was just as huge,--just as hot,--just as steaming,--only this time she +had smuggled two raw eggs into it. + +Once more the Senior Surgeon took the cup without comment and shut the +door in her face. + +At twelve o'clock she came again. The Senior Surgeon was unusually +loquacious this time. + +"Have you any more malted milk?" he asked tersely. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Go and get it!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned +with the half depleted bottle. Frankly interested she recrossed the +threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands of +the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her +tiptoes she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on +the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs. + +Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the malted +milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly into +his waste basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen Nurse by +the shoulders and marched her out of the room. + +"For God's sake!" he said, "get out of this room! And stay out!" + +_Bang_! the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang the lock +bit into its catch. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself--all alone +there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. "Y-e-s, sir," she +repeated softly. + +With a slightly sardonic grin on his face the Senior Surgeon resumed his +pacing. Up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on! + +At one o'clock in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning he stopped +long enough to light his hearthfire. + +At two o'clock he stopped again to pile on a trifle more wood. + +At three o'clock he dallied for an instant to close a window. The new +day seemed strangely cold. + +At four o'clock, dawn the wonder,--the miracle,--the long despaired +of,--quickened wanly across the East. Then suddenly,--more like a +phosphorescent breeze than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came +wafting through the green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over! + +Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new +beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White +Linen Nurse sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a little gray heap +on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human body is +not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously through the +nerves of his stomach. + +"What are you doing here?" he fairly screamed at her. + +"Just keeping you company, sir," yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before +her hand could reach her mouth again another great childish yawn +overwhelmed her. "Just--watching with you, sir," she finished more or +less inarticulately. + +"Watching with--me?" snarled the Senior Surgeon resentfully. +"Why--should--you--watch--with--me?" + +Like the frightened flash of a bird the heavy lashes went swooping down +across the pink cheeks and lifted as suddenly again. "Because you're +my--_man!_" yawned the White Linen Nurse. + +Almost roughly the Senior Surgeon reached down and pulled the White +Linen Nurse to her feet. + +"God!" said the Senior Surgeon. In his strained, husky voice the word +sounded like an oath. Grotesquely a little smile went scudding zig-zag +across his haggard face. With an impulse absolutely alien to him he +reached out abruptly again and raised the White Linen Nurse's hand to +his lips. "_'Good_ God' was what I meant--Miss Malgregor!" he grinned a +bit sheepishly. + +Quite bruskly then he turned and looked at his watch. + +"I'd like my breakfast just as soon now as you can possibly get it!" he +ordered peremptorily,--in his own morbid pathological emergency no more +stopping to consider the White Linen Nurse's purely normal fatigue, than +he in any pathological emergency of hers would have stopped to consider +his own comfort,--safety,--or even perhaps, life! + +Joyously then like a prisoner just turned loose, he went swinging up the +stairs to recreate himself with a smoke and a shave and a great, +splashing, cold shower-bath. + +Only one thing seemed to really trouble him now. At the top of the +stairs he stopped for an instant and cocked his head a bit worriedly +towards the drawing-room where from some slow-brightening alcove +bird-carol after bird-carol went fluting shrilly up into the morning. + +"Is that--those blasted canaries?" he asked briefly. + +Very companionably the White Linen Nurse cocked her own towsled head on +one side and listened with him for half a moment. + +"Only four of them are blasted canaries," she corrected very gently. +"The fifth one is a paroquet that I got at a mark-down because it was a +widowed bird and wouldn't mate again." + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse and started for the kitchen. + +No one but the Senior Surgeon himself breakfasted in state at five +o'clock that morning. Snug and safe in her crib upstairs the Little +Crippled Girl slumbered peacefully on through the general disturbance. +And as for the White Linen Nurse herself,--what with chilling and +rechilling melons,--and broiling and unbroiling steaks,--and making and +remaking coffee,--and hunting frantically for a different-sized water +glass,--or a prettier colored plate, there was no time for anything +except an occasional hurried surreptitious nibble half way between the +stove and the table. + +Yet in all that raucous early morning hour together neither man nor girl +suffered towards the other the slightest personal sense of contrition or +resentment, for each mind was trained equally fairly,--whether reacting +on its own case or another's--to differentiate pretty readily between +mean nerves and a--mean spirit. + +Only once in fact across the intervening chasm of crankiness did the +Senior Surgeon hurl a smile that was even remotely self-conscious or +conciliatory. Glancing up suddenly from a particularly sharp and +disagreeable speech, he noted the White Linen Nurse's red lips mumbling +softly one to the other. + +"Are you specially--religious,--Miss Malgregor?" he grinned quite +abruptly. + +"No, not specially, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. "Why, sir?" + +"Oh, it 's only--" grinned the Senior Surgeon dourly, "it's only that +every time I'm especially ugly to you, I see your lips moving as though +in 'silent prayer' as they call it--and I was just wondering--if there +was any special formula you used with me--that kept you +so--everlastingly--damned serene. Is there?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"What is it?" demanded the Senior Surgeon quite bluntly. + +"Do I have to tell?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. A little tremulously +in her hand the empty cup she was carrying rattled against its saucer. +"Do I have to tell?" she repeated pleadingly. + +A delirious little thrill of power went fluttering through the Senior +Surgeon's heart. + +"Yes, you have to tell me!" he announced quite seriously. + +In absolute submission to his demand, though with very palpable +reluctance, the White Linen Nurse came forward to the table, put down +the cup and saucer, and began to finger a trifle nervously at the cloth. + +"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean any harm, sir," she stammered. "But all I +say is,--honest and truly all I say is,--'Bah! He's nothing but a +man--nothing but a man--nothing but a man!' over and over and +over,--just that, sir!" + +Uproariously the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his +feet. + +"I guess after all I'll have to let the little kid call +you--'Peach'--one day a week!" he acknowledged jocosely. + +With infinite seriousness then he tossed back his great splendid +head,--shook himself free apparently from all unhappy memories,--and +started for his work-room,--a great gorgeously vital, extraordinarily +talented, gray-haired _boy_ lusting joyously for his own work and play +again--after a month's distressing illness! + +From the edge of the hall he turned round and made a really boyish +grimace at her. + +"Now if I only had the horns or the cloven hoof--that you think I have," +he called, "what an easy time I'd make of it, raking over all the +letters and ads. that are stacked up on my desk!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Only once did he come back into the kitchen or dining-room for anything. +It was at seven o'clock. And the White Linen Nurse was still washing +dishes. + +As radiant as a gray-haired god he towered up in the doorway. The boyish +rejuvenation in him was even more startling than before. + +"I'm feeling so much like a fighting cock this morning," he said, "I +think I'll tackle that paper on surgical diseases of the pancreas that I +have to read at Baltimore next month!" A little startlingly the gray +lines furrowed into his cheeks again. "For Heaven's sake--see that I'm +not disturbed by anything!" he admonished her warningly. + +It must have been almost eight o'clock when the ear-splitting scream +from upstairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken +into the hall. + +"Oh, Peach! Peach!" yelled the Little Girl's frenzied voice. "Come quick +and see--what Fat Father's doing _now_--out on the piazza!" + +Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that +opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hung himself, she +tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the "morning after"? + +But staunchly and reassuringly from the further end of the _piazza_ the +Senior Surgeon's broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily and +in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing of the +piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty bird cages. +Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy releasing the +last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched with ink and +behind his left ear a fountain pen dallied daringly. + +At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse's step the Senior +Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance. + +"Well, now, I imagine," he said, "well, now, I imagine I've really made +you--mad!" + +"No, not mad, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, +sir,--but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand +she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying +yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. "Savage cats will +get them!" + +"It's a choice of their lives--or mine!" said the Senior Surgeon +tersely. + +"Yes, sir," droned the White Linen Nurse. + +Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her. "For Heaven's +sake--do you think--canary birds are more valuable than I am?" he +demanded stentoriously. + +Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great, sad, round tear +rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse's flushed cheek. + +"N--o,--not more valuable," conceded the White Linen Nurse. "But +more--c-cunning." + +Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon's hair a flush of real contrition +spread hotly. + +"Why--Rae!" he stammered. "Why, what a beast I am! Why--! Why!" In +sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate +excuse,--some adequate explanation. "Why, I'm sure I didn't mean to make +you feel badly," he persisted. "Only I've lived alone so long that I +suppose I've just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing if I +wanted it and--throwing it away if I didn't! And canary birds, now? +Well--really--" he began to glower all over again. "Oh, thunder!" he +finished abruptly, "I guess I'll go on down to the hospital where I +belong!" + +A little wistfully the White Linen Nurse stepped forward. "The +hospital?" she said. "Oh,--the hospital? Do you think that perhaps you +could come home a little bit earlier than usual--to-night--and--and help +me catch--just one of the canaries?" + +"What?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. Incredulously with a very inky finger +he pointed at his own breast. "What? I?" he demanded. "I? Come +home--early--from the hospital to help--you--catch a canary?" + +Disgustedly without further comment he turned and stalked back again +into the house. + +The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later. +Watching his exit down the long gravel path the Little Crippled Girl +commented audibly on the matter. + +"Peach! Peach!" called the Little Crippled Girl. "What makes Fat Father +walk so--surprised?" + +People at the hospital also commented upon him. + +"Gee!" giggled the new nurses. "We bet he 's a Tartar! But isn't his +hair cute? And say--" gossiped the new nurses, "is it really true that +that Malgregor girl was pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and +he wouldn't let her out till she'd promised to marry him? Isn't it +_awful?_ Isn't it _romantic_?" + +"Why! Dr. Faber 's back!" fluttered the senior nurses. "Isn't he +wonderful? Isn't he beautiful? But, oh, say," they worried, "what do +you suppose Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare +talk _things_ to him,--just plain every-day _things_,--hats, and going +to the theater, and what to have for breakfast?--breakfast?" they +gasped. "Why, yes, of course!" they reasoned more sanely. "Steak? Eggs? +Even oatmeal? Why, people had to eat--no matter how wonderful they were! +But evenings?" they speculated more darkly. "But evenings?" In the whole +range of human experience--was it even so much as remotely imaginable +that--evenings--the Senior Surgeon and--Rae Malgregor--sat in the +hammock and held hands? "Oh, Gee!" blanched the senior nurses. + +"Good-morning, Dr. Faber!" greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from +behind her austere office desk. + +"Good-morning, Miss Hartzen!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"Have you had a pleasant trip?" quizzed the Superintendent of Nurses. + +"Exceptionally so, thank you!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"And--Mrs. Faber,--is she well?" persisted the Superintendent of Nurses +conscientiously. + +"Mrs. Faber?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. "Mrs. Faber? Oh, yes! Why, of +course! Yes, indeed--she's extraordinarily well! I never saw her +better!" + +"She must have been--very lonely without you--this past month?" rasped +the Superintendent of Nurses--perfectly politely. + +"Yes--she was," flushed the Senior Surgeon. "She--she suffered--keenly!" + +"And you, too?" drawled the Superintendent of Nurses. "It must have been +very hard for you." + +"Yes, it was!" sweated the Senior Surgeon. "I suffered keenly, too!" + +Distractedly he glanced back at the open door. An extraordinarily large +number of nurses, internes, orderlies, seemed to be having errands up +and down the corridor that allowed them a peculiarly generous length of +neck to stretch into the Superintendent's office. + +"Great Heavens!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "What 's the matter with +everybody this morning?" Tempestuously he started for the door. "Hurry +up my cases, please, Miss Hartzen!" he ordered. "Send them to the +operating room! And let me get to work!" + +At eleven o'clock, absolutely calm, absolutely cool,--pure as a girl in +his fresh, white operating clothes--cleaner,--skin, hair, teeth, +hands,--than any girl who ever walked the face of the earth, in a white +tiled room as surgically clean as himself, with three or four small, +glistening instruments still boiling, steaming hot--and half a dozen +breathless assistants almost as immaculate as himself, with his gown, +cap and mask adjusted, his gloves finally on, and the faintest possible +little grin twitching oddly at the corner of his mouth, he "went in" as +they say, to a new born baby's tortured, twisted spine--and took +out--fifty years perhaps of hunched-back pain and shame and morbid +passions flourishing banefully in the dark shades of a disordered life. + +At half-past twelve he did an appendix operation on the only son of his +best friend. At one o'clock he did another appendix operation. Whom it +was on didn't matter. It couldn't have been worse on--any one. At +half-past one no one remembered to feed him. At two, in another man's +operation, he saw the richest merchant in the city go wafted out into +eternity on the fumes of ether taken for the lancing of a stye. At three +o'clock, passing the open door of one of the public waiting-rooms, an +Italian peasant woman rushed out and spat in his face because her +tubercular daughter had just died at the sanitarium where the Senior +Surgeon's money had sent her. Only in this one wild, defiling moment did +the lust for alcohol surge up in him again, surge clamorously, brutally, +absolutely mercilessly, as though in all the known cleansants of the +world only interminable raw whisky was hot enough to cauterize a +polluted consciousness. At half past three, as soon as he could change +his clothes again, he re-broke and re-set an acrobat's priceless leg. At +five o'clock, more to rest himself than anything else, he went up to the +autopsy amphitheater to look over an exhibit of enlarged hearts, whose +troubles were permanently over. + +At six o'clock just as he was leaving the great building with all its +harrowing sights, sounds, and smells, a peremptory telephone call from +one of the younger surgeons of the city summoned him back into the +stuffy office again. + +"Dr. Faber?" + +"Yes." + +"This is Merkley!" + +"Yes." + +"Can you come immediately and help me with that fractured skull case I +was telling you about this morning? We'll have to trepan right away!" + +"Trepan nothing!" grunted the Senior Surgeon. "I've got to go home early +to-night--and help catch a canary." + +"Catch a--what?" gasped the younger surgeon. + +"A canary!" grinned the Senior Surgeon mirthlessly. + +"A--_what?_" roared the younger man. + +"Oh, shut up, you damned fool! Of course I'll come!" said the Senior +Surgeon. + +There was no "boy" left in the Senior Surgeon when he reached home that +night. + +Gray with road-travel, haggard with strain and fatigue, it was long, +long after the rosy sunset time,--long, long after the yellow supper +light, that he came dragging up through the sweet-scented dusk of the +garden and threw himself down without greeting of any sort on the top +step of the piazza where the White Linen Nurse's skirts glowed palely +through the gloom. + +"Well, I put a canary bird back into its cage for you!" he confided +laconically. "It was a little chap's soul. It sure would have gotten +away before morning." + +"Who was the man that tried to turn it loose--_this_ time?" asked the +White Linen Nurse. + +"I didn't say that anybody did!" growled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh," said the White Linen Nurse. "Oh." Quite palpably a little shiver +of flesh and starch went rustling through her. "I've had a wonderful +day, too!" she confided softly. "I've cleaned the attic and darned nine +pairs of your stockings and bought a sewing-machine--and started to make +you a white silk negligee shirt for a surprise!" + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +The jerk seemed to liberate suddenly the faint vibration of dishes and +the sound of ice knocking lusciously against a glass. + +"Oh, have you had any supper, sir?" asked the White Linen Nurse. + +With a prodigious sigh the Senior Surgeon threw his head back against +the piazza railing and stretched his legs a little further out along the +piazza floor. + +"Supper?" he groaned. "No! Nor dinner! Nor breakfast! Nor any +other--blankety-blank meal as far back as I can remember!" Janglingly +in his voice, fatigue, hunger, nerves, crashed together like the +slammed notes of a piano. "But I wouldn't--move--now," he snarled, +"if all the blankety-blank-blank foods in Christendom--were piled +blankety-blank-blank high--on all the blankety-blank-blank tables--in +this whole blankety-blank-blank house!" + +Ecstatically the White Linen Nurse clapped her hands. "Oh, that's just +exactly what I hoped you'd say!" she cried. "'Cause the supper's--right +here!" + +"Here?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. Tempestuously he began all over +again. "I--tell--you--I--wouldn't--lift--my--little finger--if all the +blankety-blank-blank-blank--" + +"Oh, Goody then!" said the White Linen Nurse. "'Cause now I can feed +you! I sort of miss fussing with the canary birds," she added wistfully. + +"Feed me?" roared the Senior Surgeon. Again something started a lump of +ice tinkling faintly in a thin glass. "Feed me?" he began all over +again. + +Yet with a fragrant strawberry half as big as a peach held out suddenly +under his nose, just from sheer, irresistible instinct he bit out at +it--and nipped the White Linen Nurse's finger instead. + +"Ouch--sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Mumblingly down from an upstairs window, as from a face flatted +smouchingly against a wire screen, a peremptory summons issued. + +"Peach!--Peach!" called an angry little voice. "If you don't come to +bed--now--I'll--I'll say my curses instead of my prayers!" + +A trifle nervously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. + +"Maybe I'd--better go?" she said. + +"Maybe--you had!" said the Senior Surgeon quite definitely. + +At the edge of the threshold the White Linen Nurse turned for an +instant. + +"Good-night, Dr. Faber!" she whispered. + +"Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"Good-night--_what?_" gasped the White Linen Nurse. + +"Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber," repeated the Senior Surgeon. + +Clutching at her skirts as though a mouse were after her, the White +Linen Nurse went scuttling up the stairs. + +Very late--on into the night--the Senior Surgeon lay there on his piazza +floor staring out into his garden. Very companionably from time to time, +like a tame firefly, a little bright spark hovered and glowed for an +instant above the bowl of his pipe. Puff-puff-puff, doze-doze-doze, +throb-throb-throb,--on and on and on and on--into the sweet-scented +night. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +So the days passed. And the nights. And more days. And more nights. +July--August,--on and on and on. + +Strenuous, nerve-racking, heart-breaking surgical days--broken maritally +only by the pleasant, soft-worded greeting at the gate, or the +practical, homely appeal of good food cooked with heart as well as +hands, or the tingling, inciting masculine consciousness of there being +a woman's--blush in the house! + +Strenuous, house-working, child-nursing, home-making, domestic +days--broken maritally only by the jaded, harsh word at the gate, the +explosive criticism of food, the deadening, depressing, feminine +consciousness of there being a man's--vicious temper in the house! + +Now and again in one big automobile or another the White Linen Nurse and +the Senior Surgeon rode out together, always and forever with the Little +Crippled Girl sitting between them,--the other woman's little crippled +girl. Now and again in the late summer afternoons the White Linen Nurse +and the Senior Surgeon strolled together through the rainbow-colored +garden, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the other +woman's little crippled girl, tagging close behind them with her little +sad, clanking leg. Now and again in the long sweet summer evenings the +White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon sat on the clematis-shadowed +porch together, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the +other woman's little crippled girl, mocking them querulously from some +vague upper window. + +Now and again across the mutually ghost-haunted chasm that separated +them flashed the incontrovertible signal of sex and sense, as once when +a new Interne, grossly bungling, stepped to the hospital window with a +colleague to watch the Senior Surgeon's car roll away as usual with its +two feminine passengers. + +"What makes the Chief so stingy with that big handsome girl of his?" +queried the new Interne a bit resentfully. "He won't ever bring her into +the hospital!--won't ever ask any of us young chaps out to his house! +And some of us come mighty near to being eligible, too!--Who's he saving +her for, anyway?--A saint?--A miracle-worker?--A millionaire medicine +man?--They don't exist, you know!" + +"I'm saving her for myself!" snapped the Senior Surgeon most +disconcertingly from the doorway. "She--she happens to be my wife, not +my daughter,--thank you!" + +When the Senior Surgeon went home that night he carried a big bunch of +magazines and a box of candy as large as his head tucked courtingly +under his arm. + +Now and again across the chasm that separated them flashed the +incontrovertible signal of mutual trust and appreciation, as when once, +after a particularly violent vocal outburst on the Senior Surgeon's +part, he sobered down very suddenly and said: + +"Rae Malgregor,--do you realize that in all the weeks we've been +together you've never once nagged me about my swearing? Not a word,--not +a single word!" + +"I'm not very used to--words," smiled the White Linen Nurse hopefully. +"All I know how to nag with is--is raw eggs! If we could only get those +nerves of yours padded just once, sir! The swearing would get well of +itself." + +In August the Senior Surgeon suggested sincerely that the house was much +too big for the White Linen Nurse to run all alone, but conceded equally +sincerely, under the White Linen Nurse's vehement protest, that +servants, particularly new servants did creak considerably round a +house, and that maybe "just for the present" at least, until he finished +his very nervous paper on brain tumors perhaps it would be better to +stay "just by ourselves." + +In September the White Linen Nurse wanted very much to go home to Nova +Scotia to her sister's wedding but the Senior Surgeon was trying a very +complicated and worrisome new brace on the Little Girl's leg and it +didn't seem quite kind to go. In October she planned her trip all over +again. She was going to take the Little Crippled Girl with her this +time. But with their trunks already packed and waiting in the hall, the +Senior Surgeon came home from the hospital with a septic finger--and it +didn't seem quite best to leave him. + +"Well, how do you like being married _now?_" asked the Senior Surgeon a +bit ironically in his work-room that night, after the White Linen Nurse +had stood for an hour with evil-smelling washes, and interminable +bandages trying to fix that finger the precise, particular way that he +thought it ought to be fixed. "Well--how do you like--being married +_now?_" he insisted trenchantly. + +"Oh, I like it all right, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. A little bit +wanly this time she smiled her pluck up into the Senior Surgeon's +questioning face. "Oh, I like it all right, sir! Oh, of course, sir," +she confided thoughtfully--"Oh, of course, sir--it isn't quite as fancy +as being engaged--or quite as free and easy as being--single. But +still--" she admitted with desperate honesty--"but still there's a sort +of--a sort of a combination importance and--and comfort about it, sir, +like a--like a velvet suit--the second year, sir." + +"Is that--all?" quizzed the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"That's all--so far, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +In November the White Linen Nurse caught a bit of cold that pulled her +down a little. But the Senior Surgeon didn't notice it specially among +all the virulent ills he lived and worked with from day to day. And then +when the cold disappeared, Indian Summer came like a reeking sweat after +a chill! And the house _was_ big! And the Little Crippled Girl _was_ +pretty difficult to manage now and then! And the Senior Surgeon, no +matter how hard he tried not to, did succeed somehow in creating more or +less of a disturbance--at least every other day or two! + +And then suddenly, one balmy gold and crimson Indian Summer morning, +standing out on the piazza trying to hear what the Little Crippled Girl +was calling from the window and what the Senior Surgeon was calling from +the gate, the White Linen Nurse fell right down in her tracks, brutally, +bulkily, like a worn-out horse, and lay as she fell, a huddled white +heap across the gray piazza. + +"Oh, Father! Come quick! Come quick! Peach has deaded herself!" yelled +the Little Girl's frantic voice. + +Just with his foot on the step of his car the Senior Surgeon heard the +cry and came speeding back up the long walk. Already there before him +the Little Girl knelt raining passionate, agonized kisses on her beloved +playmate's ghastly white face. + +"Leave her alone!" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "Leave her alone, I +say!" + +Bruskly he pushed the Little Girl aside and knelt to cradle his own ear +against the White Linen Nurse's heart. + +"Oh, it's all right," he growled, and gathered the White Linen Nurse +right up in his arms--she was startlingly lighter than he had +supposed--and carried her up the stairs and put her to bed like a child +in the great sumptuous guest-room, in a great sumptuous nest of all the +best linens and blankets, with the Little Crippled Girl superintending +the task with many hysterical suggestions and sharp staccato +interruptions. For once in his life the Senior Surgeon did not stop to +quarrel with his daughter. + +Rallying limply from her swoon the White Linen Nurse stared out with +hazy perplexity at last from her dimpling white pillows to see the +Senior Surgeon standing amazingly at the guest-room bureau with a glass +and a medicine-dropper in his hand, and the Little Crippled Girl hanging +apparently by her narrow peaked chin across the foot-board of the bed. + +Gazing down worriedly at the lace-ruffled sleeve of her night-dress the +White Linen Nurse made her first public speech to the--world at large. + +"Who--put--me--to--bed?" whispered the White Linen Nurse. + +Ecstatically the Little Crippled Girl began to pound her fists on the +foot-board of the bed. + +"Father did!" she cried in unmistakable triumph. "All the little hooks! +All the little buttons!--_wasn't_ it cunning?" + +The Senior Surgeon would hardly have been human if he hadn't glanced +back suddenly over his shoulder at the White Linen Nurse's precipitously +changing color. Quite irrepressibly, as he saw the red, red blood come +surging home again into her cheeks, a little short chuckling laugh +escaped him. + +"I guess you'll live--now," he remarked dryly. + +Then because a Senior Surgeon can't stay home on the mere impulse of the +moment from a great rushing hospital, just because one member of his +household happens to faint perfectly innocently in the morning, he +hurried on to his work again. And saved a little boy, and lost a little +girl, and mended a fractured thigh, and eased a gun-shot wound, and came +dashing home at noon in one of his thousand-dollar hours to feel the +White Linen Nurse's pulse and broil her a bit of tenderloin steak with +his own thousand-dollar hands,--and then went dashing off again to do +one major operation or another, telephoned home once or twice during the +afternoon to make sure that everything was all right, and finding that +the White Linen Nurse was comfortably up and about again, went sprinting +off fifty miles somewhere on a meningitis consultation, and came +dragging home at last, somewhere near midnight, to a big black house +brightened only by a single light in the kitchen where the White Linen +Nurse went tiptoeing softly from stove to pantry in deft preparation of +an appetizing supper for him. + +Quite roughly again without smile or appreciation the Senior Surgeon +took her by the shoulders and turned her out of the kitchen, and started +her up the stairs. + +"Are you an--idiot?" he said. "Are you an--imbecile?" he came back and +called up the stairs to her just as she was disappearing from the upper +landing. + +Then up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the Senior Surgeon +began suddenly to pace again. + +Only, for some unexplainable reason to the White Linen Nurse upstairs, +his work-room didn't seem quite large enough for his pacing this night +Along the broad piazza she heard his footsteps creak. Far, far into the +morning, lying warm and snug in her own little bed, she heard his +footsteps crackling through the wet-leafed garden paths. + +Yet the Senior Surgeon didn't look an atom jaded or forlorn when he came +down to breakfast the next morning. He had on a brand new gray suit that +fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the glad glow of +his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks as he swung +around the corner of the table and dropped down into his place with an +odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently towards the White +Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl who already waited him there at +either end of the table. + +"Oh, Father, isn't it lovely to have my darling--darling Peach all well +again!" beamed the Little Crippled Girl with unusual friendliness. + +"Speaking of your--'darling Peach,'" said the Senior Surgeon quite +abruptly. "Speaking of your 'darling Peach,'--I'm going to--take her +away with me to-day--for a week or so." + +"Eh?" jumped the Little Crippled Girl. + +"What? What, sir?" stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast. But +the little twinkle around his eyes belied in some way the utter +prosiness of the act. + +"For a little trip," he confided amiably. "A little holiday!" + +A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork +and stared at him, blue-eyed and wondering as a child. + +"A holiday?" she gasped. "To a--beach, you mean? Would there be a--a +roller-coaster? I've never seen a roller-coaster!" + +"Eh?" laughed the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh, I'm going, too! I'm going, too!" piped the Little Crippled Girl. + +Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table +and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp. + +"Going _three_, you mean?" he glowered at his little daughter. "Going +_three_?" His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as diction +was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace that +accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a +benediction. "Not by a--damned sight!" beamed the Senior Surgeon. "This +little trip is just for Peach and me!" + +"But--sir?" fluttered the White Linen Nurse. Her face was suddenly +pinker than any rose that ever bloomed. + +With an impulse absolutely novel to him the Senior Surgeon turned and +swung his little daughter very gently to his shoulder. + +"Your Aunt Agnes is coming to stay with _you_--in just about ten +minutes!" he affirmed. "That's--what's going to happen to _you!_ And +maybe there'll be a pony--a white pony." + +"But Peach is so--pleasant!" wailed the Little Crippled Girl. "Peach is +so pleasant!" she began to scream and kick. + +"So it seems!" growled the Senior Surgeon. "And she's--dying of it!" + +Tearfully the Little Girl wriggled down to the ground, and hobbled +around and thrust her finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse's blushiest +cheek. + +"I don't want--Peach--to--die," she admitted worriedly. "But I don't +want anybody to take her away!" + +"The pony is--very white," urged the Senior Surgeon with a diplomacy +quite alien to him. + +Abruptly the Little Girl turned and faced him. "What color is Aunt +Agnes?" she asked vehemently. + +"Aunt Agnes is--pretty white, too," attested the Senior Surgeon. + +With the faintest possible tinge of superciliousness the Little Girl +lifted her sharp chin a trifle higher. + +"If it's just a perfectly plain white pony," she said, "I'd rather have +Peach. But if it's a white pony with black blots on it, and if it can +pull a little cart, and if I can whip it with a little switch, and if it +will eat sugar-lumps out of my hand,--and if its name is--is--'Beautiful +Pretty-Thing'--" + +"Its name has always been--'Beautiful Pretty-Thing,' I'm quite sure!" +insisted the Senior Surgeon. Inadvertently as he spoke he reached out +and put a hand very lightly on the White Linen Nurse's shoulder. + +Instantly into the Little Girl's suspicious face flushed a furiously +uncontrollable flame of jealousy and resentment. Madly she turned upon +her father. + +"You're a liar!" she screamed. "There _is_ no white pony! You're a +robber! You're a--a--drunk! You shan't have my darling Peach!" And threw +herself frenziedly into the White Linen Nurse's lap. + +Impatiently the Senior Surgeon disentangled the little clinging arms, +and raising the White Linen Nurse to her feet pushed her emphatically +towards the hall. + +"Go to my work-room," he said. "Quickly! I want to talk with you!" + +A moment later he joined her there, and shut and locked the door behind +him. The previous night's loss of sleep showed plainly in his face now, +and the hospital strain of the day before, and of the day before that, +and of the day before _that_. + +Heavily, moodily, he crossed the room and threw himself down in his desk +chair with the White Linen Nurse still standing before him as though she +were nothing but a--white linen nurse. All the splendor was suddenly +gone from him, all the radiance, all the exultant purpose. + +"Well, Rae Malgregor," he grinned mirthlessly. "The little kid is right, +though I certainly don't know where she got her information. I _am_ a +Liar. The pony's name is not yet 'Beautiful Pretty-Thing'! I _am_ +a--Drunk. I was drunk most of June! I _am_ a Robber! I have taken you +out of your youth--and the love-chances of your youth,--and shut you up +here in this great, gloomy old house of mine--to be my slave--and my +child's slave--and--" + +"Pouf!" said the White Linen Nurse. "It would seem--silly--now, sir,--to +marry a boy!" + +"And I've been a beast to you!" persisted the Senior Surgeon. "From the +very first day you belonged to me I've been a--beast to you,--venting +brutally on your youth, on your sweetness, on your patience,--all the +work, the worry, the wear and tear, the abnormal strain and stress of +my disordered days--and years,--and I've let my little girl vent also on +you all the pang and pain of _her_ disordered days! And because in this +great, gloomy, rackety house it seemed suddenly like a miracle from +heaven to have service that was soft-footed, gentle-handed, +pleasant-hearted, I've let you shoulder all the hideous drudgery,--the +care,--one horrid homely task after another piling up-up-up--till you +dropped in your tracks yesterday--still smiling!" + +"But I got a good deal out of it, even so, sir!" protested the White +Linen Nurse. "See, sir!" she smiled. "I've got real lines in my +face--now--like other women! I'm not a doll any more! I'm not a--" + +"Yes!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. "And I might just as kindly have +carved those lines with my knife! But I was going to make it all up to +you to-day!" he hurried. "I swear I was! Even in one short little week I +could have done it! You wouldn't have known me! I was going to take you +away,--just you and me! I would have been a Saint! I swear I would! I +would have given you such a great, wonderful, child-hearted holiday--as +you never dreamed of in all your unselfish life! A holiday all +_you--you--you!_ You could have--dug in the sand if you'd wanted to! +Gad! I'd have dug in the sand--if you'd wanted me to! And now it's all +gone from me, all the will, all the sheer positive self-assurance that I +could have carried the thing through--absolutely selflessly. That little +girl's sneering taunt? The ghost of her mother--in that taunt? God! When +anybody knocks you just in your decency it doesn't harm you specially! +But when they knock you in your Wanting-To-Be-Decent it--it undermines +you somewhere. I don't know exactly how! I'm nothing but a man +again--now, just a plain, every day, greedy, covetous, physical man--on +the edge of a holiday, the first clean holiday in twenty years,--that he +no longer dares to take!" + +A little swayingly the White Linen Nurse shifted her standing weight +from one foot to the other. + +"I'm sorry, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "I'd like to have seen a +roller-coaster, sir!" + +Just for an instant a gleam of laughter went brightening across the +Senior Surgeon's brooding face, and was gone again. + +"Rae Malgregor, come here!" he ordered quite sharply. + +Very softly, very glidingly, like the footfall of a person who has never +known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly and sliding in +cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood there with her +back braced against the desk, her fingers straying idly up and down the +edges of the desk, staring up into his face all readiness, all +attention, like a soldier waiting further orders. + +So near was she that he could almost hear the velvet heart-throb of +her,--the little fluttering swallow,--yet by some strange, persistent +aloofness of her, some determinate virginity, not a fold of her gown, +not an edge, not a thread, seemed to even so much as graze his knee, +seemed to even so much as shadow his hand,--lest it short-circuit +thereby the seething currents of their variant emotions. + +With extraordinary intentness for a moment the Senior Surgeon sat +staring into the girl's eyes, the blue, blue eyes too full of childish +questioning yet to flinch with either consciousness or embarrassment. + +"After all, Rae Malgregor," he smiled at last, faintly--"After all, Rae +Malgregor,--Heaven knows when I shall ever get--another holiday!" + +"Yes, sir?" said the White Linen Nurse. + +With apparent irrelevance he reached for his ivory paper-cutter and +began bending it dangerously between his adept fingers. + +"How long have you been with me, Rae Malgregor?" he asked quite +abruptly. + +"Four months--actually with you, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Do you happen to remember the exact phrasing of my--proposal of +marriage to you?" he asked shrewdly. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "You called it 'general +heartwork for a family of two'!" + +A little grimly before her steady gaze the Senior Surgeon's own eyes +fell, and rallied again almost instantly with a gaze as even and direct +as hers. + +"Well," he smiled. "Through the whole four months I seem to have kept my +part of the contract all right--and held you merely as a--drudge in my +home. Have you then decided, once and for all time,--whether you are +going to stay on with us--or whether you will 'give notice' as other +drudges have done?" + +With a little backward droop of one shoulder the White Linen Nurse began +to finger nervously at the desk behind her, and turning half way round +as though to estimate what damage she was doing, exposed thus merely the +profile of her pink face, of her white throat, to the Senior Surgeon's +questioning eyes. + +"I shall never--give notice, sir!" fluttered the white throat. + +"Are you perfectly sure?" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +The pink in the White Linen Nurse's profiled cheek deepened a little. + +"Perfectly sure, sir!" attested the carmine lips. + +Like the crack of a pistol the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory paper +cutter in two. + +"All right then!" he said. "Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don't take your +eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own mind, +here and now, that it was best for you--as well as for me--that you +should come away with me now--for this week,--not as my guest as I had +planned,--but as my wife,--even if you were not quite ready for it in +your heart,--even if you were not yet remotely ready for it,--would you +come because I told you to come?" + +Heavily under her white, white eyelids, heavily under her black, black +lashes, the girl's eyes struggled up to meet his own. + +"Yes, sir," whispered the White Linen Nurse. + +Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk, and +stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of +words seemed either necessary or dignified to him. + +"Go and pack your suit-case quickly then!" he ordered. "I want to get +away from here within half an hour!" + +But before the girl had half crossed the room he called to her suddenly, +his whole bearing and manner miraculously changed, and his face in that +moment as haggard as if a whole lifetime's struggle was packed into it. + +"Rae Malgregor," he drawled mockingly. "This thing shall be--barter way +through to the end,--with the credit always on your side of the account. +In exchange for the gift--of yourself--your--wonderful self--and the +trust that goes with it, I will give you,--God help me,--the ugliest +thing in my life. And God knows I have broken faith with myself once or +twice but--never have I broken my word to another! From now on,--in +token of your trust in me,--for whatever the bitter gift is worth to +you,--as long as you stay with me,--my Junes shall be yours--to do +with--as you please!" + +"What, sir?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "_What_, sir?" + +Softly, almost stealthily, she was half way back across the room to him, +when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of +appeal and defiance. + +"All the same, sir!" she cried passionately, "all the same, sir,--the +place is too hard for the small pay I get! Oh, I will do what I +promised!" she attested with increasing passion. "I will never leave +you! And I will mother your little girl! And I will servant your big +house! And I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you +whatever you wish! And I will never flinch from any hardship you impose +on me--nor whine over any pain,--on and on and on--all my days--all my +years--till I drop in my tracks again and--die--as you say 'still +smiling'! All the same!" she reiterated wildly, "the place is too hard! +It always was too hard! It always will be too hard--for such small pay!" + +"For such small pay?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Around his heart a horrid clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly +through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to +rehearse themselves. + +"You mean, Miss Malgregor," he said a bit brokenly. "You mean--that +I--haven't been generous enough with you?" + +"Yes, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. + +All the storm and passion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a +frightened girl again, flushing pink-white, pink-white, pink-white, +before the Senior Surgeon's scathing stare. One step, two steps, three, +she advanced towards him. + +"Oh, I mean, sir," she whispered, "oh, I mean, sir,--that I'm just an +ordinary, ignorant country girl and you--are further above me than the +moon from the sea! I couldn't expect you to--love me, sir! I couldn't +even dream of your loving me! _But I do think you might like me just a +little bit with your heart!_" + +"What?" flushed the Senior Surgeon. "_What?_" + +Whacketty-bang against the window pane sounded the Little Crippled +Girl's knuckled fists! Darkly against the window pane squashed the +Little Crippled Girl's staring face. + +"Father!" screamed the shrill voice. "Father! There's a white lady here +with two black ladies washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?" + +With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to +laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. +Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse's ear made just a +whisper, not a kiss. + +"God bless you!--_hurry!_" he said. "And let's get out of here before +any telephone message catches me!" + +Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza, and greeted his +sister-in-law. + +"Hello, Agnes!" he said. + +"Hello, yourself!" smiled his sister-in-law. + +"How's everything?" he enquired politely. + +"How's everything with you?" parried his sister-in-law. + +Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of +thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her +luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general +situation. The Senior Surgeon's sister-in-law was always studying +something. Last year it was archaeology,--the year before, +basketry,--this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like +that,--next year again it might be book-binding. + +"So you and your pink and white shepherdess are going off on a little +trip together?" she queried banteringly. "The girl's a darling, +Lendicott! I haven't had as much sport in a long time as I had that +afternoon last June when I came in my best calling-clothes and--helped +her paint the kitchen woodwork! And I had come prepared to be a bit +nasty, Lendicott! In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well 'fess +up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty!" + +"She seems to have a way," smiled the Senior Surgeon, "she seems to have +a way of disarming people's unpleasant intentions." + +A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the +Senior Surgeon's. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely +worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature +just about as cheer fully, and just about as effectually, as one open +fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless one often achieved much +comfort by keeping close to "Aunt Agnes's" humorous mouth, for Aunt +Agnes knew a thing or two,--Aunt Agnes did,--and the things that she +made a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable. + +"Why, Lendicott Faber," she rallied him now. "Why, you're as nervous as +a school-boy! Why, I believe--I believe that you're going courting!" + +More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White Linen +Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge +wedding-suit with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of relief +the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on down the path +to his car and his chauffeur leaving the two women temporarily alone. + +When he returned to the piazza the Woman-of-the-World and the +Girl-not-at-all-of-the-World were bidding each other a really +affectionate good-by, and the woman's face looked suddenly just a little +bit old but the girl's cheeks were most inordinately blooming. + +In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him. + +"Good-by, Lendicott, old man!" she said. "And good luck to you!" A +little slyly out of her shrewd gray eyes, she glanced up sideways at +him. "You've got the devil's own temper, Lendicott dear," she teased, +"and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth +you've run a-muck more than once in your life,--but there's one thing I +will say for you,--though it prove you a dear Stupid: you never were +over-quick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with +you!" + +"To what woman do you particularly refer?" mocked the Senior Surgeon +impatiently. + +Quite brazenly to her own heart which never yet apparently had stirred +the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent +banter. + +"Maybe I refer to--myself," she laughed, "and maybe to the only--other +lady present!" + +"Oh!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. + +"You do me much honor, Agnes," bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite +resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse's +quickly averted face. + +A little oddly for an instant the older woman's glance hung on his. +"More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber!" she said, and kept +right on smiling. + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen +Nurse. + +Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with +the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Your father and I are--going away," she pleaded. "Won't +you--please--kiss us good-by?" + +"I've only got one kiss," sulked the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Give it to your--father!" pleaded the White Linen Nurse. + +Amazingly all in a second the ugliness vanished from the little face. +Dartlingly like a bird the Child swooped down and planted one large +round kiss on the Senior Surgeon's astonished boot. + +"Beautiful Father!" she cried, "I kiss your feet!" + +Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the +walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson. + +Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed falteringly. +Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone. And once she +dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown woodbine. + +Missing the sound or the shadow of her the Senior Surgeon turned +suddenly to wait. So startled was she by his intentness, so flustered, +so affrighted, that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon thought that +she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt madly back to the house. +Then quite unexpectedly she gave an odd, muffled little cry, and ran +swiftly to him like a child, and slipped her bare hand trustingly into +his. And they went on together to the car. + +With his foot already half lifted to the step the Senior Surgeon turned +abruptly around and lifted his hat and stood staring back bareheaded for +some unexplainable reason at the two silent figures on the piazza. + +"Rae," he said perplexedly, "Rae, I don't seem to know just why--but +somehow I'd like to have you kiss your hand to Aunt Agnes!" + +Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers from his and +wafted two kisses, one to "Aunt Agnes" and one to the Little Crippled +Girl. + +Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon climbed up into the +tonneau of the car where they had never, never sat alone before, and the +Senior Surgeon gave a curt order to his man and the big car started off +again into--interminable spaces. + +Mutely without a word, without a glance passing between them the Senior +Surgeon held out his hand to her once more, as though the absence of her +hand in his was suddenly a lonesomeness not to be endured again while +life lasted. + +Whizz--whizz--whizz--whirr--whirr--whirr the ribbony road began to roll +up again on that hidden spool under the car. + +When the chauffeur's mind seemed sufficiently absorbed in speed and +sound the Senior Surgeon bent down a little mockingly and mumbled his +lips inarticulately at the White Linen Nurse. + +"See!" he laughed. "I've got a text, too, to keep my courage up! Of +course you look like an angel!" he teased closer and closer to her +flaming face. "But all the time to myself--to reassure myself--I just +keep saying--' Bah! She 's nothing but a Woman--nothing but a +Woman--nothing but a Woman'!" + +Within the Senior Surgeon's warm, firm grasp the White Linen Nurse's +calm hand quickened suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full +bloom. + +"Oh, don't--talk, sir," she whispered. "Oh, don't talk, sir! +Just--listen!" + +"Listen? Listen to what?" laughed the Senior Surgeon. + +From under the heavy lashes that shadowed the flaming cheeks the Soul of +the Girl who was to be his peered up at the Soul of the Man who was to +be hers,--_and saluted what she saw!_ + +"Oh, my heart, sir!" whispered the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, my heart! My +heart! my _heart_!" + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The White Linen Nurse, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14506 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96d2d33 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14506 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14506) diff --git a/old/14506.txt b/old/14506.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df47d30 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14506.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6177 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The White Linen Nurse, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The White Linen Nurse + +Author: Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14506] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE LINEN NURSE *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Shimmin, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + The White Linen Nurse + + By Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + + Author of "Molly Make-Believe," "The Sick-a-Bed Lady," etc., etc. + + 1913 + + + + +TO MAURICE HOWE RICHARDSON + +WHO LOVED ROMANCE ALMOST AS MUCH AS HE LOVED SURGERY, THIS LITTLE STORY +IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED IN TOKEN OF TWO PERSONS' UNFADING MEMORIES + + + + +THE WHITE LINEN NURSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The White Linen Nurse was so tired that her noble expression ached. + +Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached +and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing +of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like +a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two +tugging wire-gray wrinkles her persistently conscientious sickroom smile +seemed to be whanging aimlessly against her front teeth. The sensation +certainly was very unpleasant. + +Looking back thus on the three spine-curving, chest-cramping, +foot-twinging, ether-scented years of her hospital training, it dawned +on the White Linen Nurse very suddenly that nothing of her ever had +felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression! + +Impulsively she sprang for the prim white mirror that capped her prim +white bureau and stood staring up into her own entrancing, +bright-colored Novia Scotian reflection with tense and unwonted +interest. + +Except for the unmistakable smirk which fatigue had clawed into her +plastic young mouth-lines there was certainly nothing special the matter +with what she saw. + +"Perfectly good face!" she attested judicially with no more than common +courtesy to her progenitors. "Perfectly good and tidy looking face! If +only--if only--" her breath caught a trifle. "If only--it didn't look so +disgustingly noble and--hygienic--and dollish!" + +All along the back of her neck little sharp prickly pains began suddenly +to sting and burn. + +"Silly--simpering--pink and white puppet!" she scolded squintingly, +"I'll teach you how to look like a real girl!" + +Very threateningly she raised herself to her tiptoes and thrust her +glowing, corporeal face right up into the moulten, elusive, +quick-silver face in the mirror. Pink for pink, blue for blue, gold for +gold, dollish smirk for dollish smirk, the mirror mocked her seething +inner fretfulness. + +"Why--darn you!" she gasped. "Why--darn you! Why, you looked more human +than that when you left the Annapolis Valley three years ago! There were +at least--tears in your face then, and--cinders, and--your mother's best +advice, and the worry about the mortgage, and--and--the blush of Joe +Hazeltine's kiss!" + +Furtively with the tip of her index-finger she started to search her +imperturbable pink cheek for the spot where Joe Hazeltine's kiss had +formerly flamed. + +"My hands are all right, anyway!" she acknowledged with infinite relief. +Triumphantly she raised both strong, stub-fingered, exaggeratedly +executive hands to the level of her childish blue eyes and stood +surveying the mirrored effect with ineffable satisfaction. "Why my hands +are--dandy!" she gloated. "Why they're perfectly--dandy! Why they're +wonderful! Why they're--." Then suddenly and fearfully she gave a +shrill little scream. "But they don't go with my silly doll-face!" she +cried. "Why, they don't! They don't! They go with the Senior Surgeon's +scowling Heidelberg eyes! They go with the Senior Surgeon's grim gray +jaw! They go with the--! Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?" + +Dizzily, with her stubby finger-tips prodded deep into every jaded +facial muscle that she could compass, she staggered towards the air, and +dropping down into the first friendly chair that bumped against her +knees, sat staring blankly out across the monotonous city roofs that +flanked her open window,--trying very, very hard for the first time in +her life, to consider the General-Phenomenon-of-Being-a-Trained-Nurse. + +All around and about her, inexorable as anesthesia, horrid as the hush +of tomb or public library, lurked the painfully unmistakable sense of +institutional restraint. Mournfully to her ear from some remote kitcheny +region of pots and pans a browsing spoon tinkled forth from time to time +with soft-muffled resonance. Up and down every clammy white corridor +innumerable young feet, born to prance and stamp, were creeping +stealthily to and fro in rubber-heeled whispers. Along the somber +fire-escape just below her windowsill, like a covey of snubbed doves, +six or eight of her classmates were cooing and crooning together with +excessive caution concerning the imminent graduation exercises that were +to take place at eight o'clock that very evening. Beyond her dreariest +ken of muffled voices, beyond her dingiest vista of slate and brick, on +a far faint hillside, a far faint streak of April green went roaming +jocundly skyward. Altogether sluggishly, as though her nostrils were +plugged with warm velvet, the smell of spring and ether and scorched +mutton-chops filtered in and out, in and out, in and out, of her +abnormally jaded senses. + +Taken all in all it was not a propitious afternoon for any girl as tired +and as pretty as the White Linen Nurse to be considering the general +phenomenon of anything--except April! + +In the real country, they tell me, where the Young Spring runs wild and +bare as a nymph through every dull brown wood and hay-gray meadow, the +blasé farmer-lad will not even lift his eyes from the plow to watch the +pinkness of her passing. But here in the prudish brick-minded city where +the Young Spring at her friskiest is nothing more audacious than a +sweltering, winter-swathed madcap, who has impishly essayed some fine +morning to tiptoe down street in her soft, sloozily, green, +silk-stockinged feet, the whole hob-nailed population reels back aghast +and agrin before the most innocent flash of the rogue's green-veiled +toes. And then, suddenly snatching off its own cumbersome winter +foot-habits, goes chasing madly after her, in its own prankish, +vari-colored socks. + +Now the White Linen Nurse's socks were black, and cotton at that, a +combination incontestably sedate. And the White Linen Nurse had waded +barefoot through too many posied country pastures to experience any +ordinary city thrill over the sight of a single blade of grass pushing +scarily through a crack in the pavement, or puny, concrete-strangled +maple tree flushing wanly to the smoky sky. Indeed for three hustling, +square-toed, rubber-heeled city years the White Linen Nurse had never +even stopped to notice whether the season was flavored with frost or +thunder. But now, unexplainably, just at the end of it all, sitting +innocently there at her own prim little bed-room window, staring +innocently out across indomitable roof-tops,--with the crackle of glory +and diplomas already ringing in her ears,--she heard, instead, for the +first time in her life, the gaily dare-devil voice of the spring, a +hoydenish challenge flung back at her, leaf-green, from the crest of a +winter-scarred hill. + +"Hello, White Linen Nurse!" screamed the saucy city spring. "Hello, +White Linen Nurse! Take off your homely starched collar! Or your silly +candy-box cap! Or any other thing that feels maddeningly artificial! And +come out! And be very wild!" + +Like a puppy dog cocking its head towards some strange, unfamiliar +sound, the White Linen Nurse cocked her head towards the lure of the +green-crested hill. Still wrestling conscientiously with the +General-Phenomenon-of-Being-a-Trained-Nurse she found her collar +suddenly very tight, the tiny cap inexpressibly heavy and vexatious. +Timidly she removed the collar--and found that the removal did not rest +her in the slightest. Equally timidly she removed the cap--and found +that even that removal did not rest her in the slightest. Then very, +very slowly, but very, very permeatingly and completely, it dawned on +the White Linen Nurse that never while eyes were blue, and hair gold, +and lips red, would she ever find rest again until she had removed her +noble expression! + +With a jerk that started the pulses in her temples throbbing like two +toothaches she straightened up in her chair. All along the back of her +neck the little blonde curls began to crisp very ticklingly at their +roots. + +Still staring worriedly out over the old city's slate-gray head to that +inciting prance of green across the farthest horizon she felt her whole +being kindle to an indescribable passion of revolt against all Hushed +Places. Seething with fatigue, smoldering with ennui, she experienced +suddenly a wild, almost incontrollable impulse to sing, to shout, to +scream from the housetops, to mock somebody, to defy everybody, to break +laws, dishes, heads,--anything in fact that would break with a crash! +And then at last, over the hills and far away, with all the outraged +world at her heels, to run! And run! And run! And run! And run! And +laugh! Till her feet raveled out! And her lungs burst! And there was +nothing more left of her at all,--ever--ever--any more! + +Discordantly into this rapturously pagan vision of pranks and posies +broke one of her room-mates all awhiff with ether, awhirr with starch. + +Instantly with the first creak of the door-handle the White Linen Nurse +was on her feet, breathless, resentful, grotesquely defiant. + +"Get out of here, Zillah Forsyth!" she cried furiously. "Get out of +here--quick!--and leave me alone! I want to think!" + +Perfectly serenely the newcomer advanced into the room. With her pale, +ivory-tinted cheeks, her great limpid brown eyes, her soft dark hair +parted madonna-like across her beautiful brow, her whole face was like +some exquisite, composite picture of all the saints of history. Her +voice also was amazingly tranquil. + +"Oh, Fudge!" she drawled. "What's eating you, Rae Malgregor? I won't +either get out! It's my room just as much as it is yours! And Helene's +just as much as it is ours! And besides," she added more briskly, "it's +four o'clock now, and with graduation at eight and the dance afterwards, +if we don't get our stuff packed up now, when in thunder shall we get it +done?" Quite irrelevantly she began to laugh. Her laugh was perceptibly +shriller than her speaking voice. "Say, Rae!" she confided. "That +minister I nursed through pneumonia last winter wants me to pose as +'Sanctity' for a stained-glass window in his new church! Isn't he the +softie?" + +"Shall--you--do--it?" quizzed Rae Malgregor a trifle tensely. + +"Shall I do it?" mocked the newcomer. "Well, you just watch me! Four +mornings a week in June--at full week's wages? Fresh Easter lilies every +day? White silk angel-robes? All the high-souls and high-paints +kowtowing around me? Why it would be more fun than a box of monkeys! +Sure I'll do it!" + +Expeditiously as she spoke the newcomer reached up for the framed motto +over her own ample mirror and yanking it down with one single tug began +to busy herself adroitly with a snarl in the picture-cord. Like a withe +of willow yearning over a brook her slender figure curved to the task. +Very scintillatingly the afternoon light seemed to brighten suddenly +across her lap. _You'll Be a Long Time Dead!_ glinted the motto through +its sun-dazzled glass. + +Still panting with excitement, still bristling with resentment, Rae +Malgregor stood surveying the intrusion and the intruder. A dozen +impertinent speeches were rioting in her mind. Twice her mouth opened +and shut before she finally achieved the particular opprobrium that +completely satisfied her. + +"Bah! You look like a--Trained Nurse!" she blurted forth at last with +hysterical triumph. + +"So do you!" said the newcomer amiably. + +With a little gasp of dismay Rae Malgregor sprang suddenly forward. Her +eyes were flooded with tears. + +"Why, that's just exactly what's the matter with me!" she cried. "My +face is all worn out trying to look like a Trained Nurse! Oh, Zillah, +how do you know you were meant to be a Trained Nurse? How does anybody +know? Oh, Zillah! Save me! Save me!" + +Languorously Zillah Forsyth looked up from her work, and laughed. Her +laugh was like the accidental tinkle of sleighbells in mid-summer, +vaguely disquieting, a shiver of frost across the face of a lily. + +"Save you from what, you great big overgrown, tow-headed doll-baby?" she +questioned blandly. "For Heaven's sake, the only thing you need is to go +back to whatever toy-shop you came from and get a new head. What in +Creation's the matter with you lately, anyway? Oh, of course, you've had +rotten luck this past month, but what of it? That's the trouble with you +country girls. You haven't got any stamina." + +With slow, shuffling-footed astonishment Rae Malgregor stepped out into +the center of the room. "Country girls," she repeated blankly. "Why, +you're a country girl yourself!" + +"I _am_ not!" snapped Zillah Forsyth. "I'll have you understand that +there are nine thousand people in the town I come from--and not a rube +among them. Why I tended soda fountain in the swellest drug-store there +a whole year before I even thought of taking up nursing. And I wasn't as +green--when I was six months old--as you are now!" + +Slowly with a soft-snuggling sigh of contentment she raised her slim +white fingers to coax her dusky hair a little looser, a little farther +down, a little more madonna-like across her sweet, mild forehead, then +snatching out abruptly at a convenient shirt-waist began with +extraordinary skill to apply its dangly lace sleeves as a protective +bandage for the delicate glass-faced motto still in her lap, placed the +completed parcel with inordinate scientific precision in the exact +corner of her packing-box, and then went on very diligently, very +zealously, to strip the men's photographs from the mirror on her bureau. +There were twenty-seven photographs in all, and for each one she had +already cut and prepared a small square of perfectly fresh, perfectly +immaculate white tissue wrapping-paper. No one so transcendently +fastidious, so exquisitely neat, in all her personal habits had ever +trained in that particular hospital before. + +Very soberly the doll-faced girl stood watching the men's pleasant +paper countenances smooth away one by one into their chaste white +veilings, until at last quite without warning she poked an accusing, +inquisitive finger directly across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder. + +"Zillah!" she demanded peremptorily. "All the year I've wanted to know! +All the year every other girl in our class has wanted to know! Where did +you ever get that picture of the Senior Surgeon? He never gave it to you +in the world! He didn't! He didn't! He's not that kind!" + +Deeply into Zillah Forsyth's pale, ascetic cheek dawned a most amazing +dimple. "Sort of jarred you girls some, didn't it," she queried, "to see +me strutting round with a photo of the Senior Surgeon?" The little cleft +in her chin showed suddenly with almost startling distinctness. "Well, +seeing it's you," she grinned, "and the year's all over, and there's +nobody left that I can worry about it any more, I don't mind telling you +in the least that I--bought it out of a photographer's show-case! +There! Are you satisfied now?" + +With easy nonchalance she picked up the picture in question and +scrutinized it shrewdly. + +"Lord! What a face!" she attested. "Nothing but granite! Hack him with a +knife and he wouldn't bleed but just chip off into pebbles!" With +exaggerated contempt she shrugged her supple shoulders. "Bah! How I hate +a man like that! There's no fun in him!" A little abruptly she turned +and thrust the photograph into Rae Malgregor's hand. "You can have it if +you want to," she said. "I'll trade it to you for that lace corset-cover +of yours!" + +Like water dripping through a sieve the photograph slid through Rae +Malgregor's frightened fingers. With nervous apology she stooped and +picked it up again and held it gingerly by one remotest corner. Her eyes +were quite wide with horror. + +"Oh, of course I'd like the--picture, well enough," she stammered. "But +it wouldn't seem--exactly respectful to--to trade it for a +corset-cover." + +"Oh, very well," drawled Zillah Forsyth. "Tear it up then!" + +Expeditiously with frank, non-sentimental fingers Rae Malgregor tore the +tough cardboard across, and again across, and once again across, and +threw the conglomerate fragments into the waste-basket. And her +expression all the time was no more, no less, than the expression of a +person who would infinitely rather execute his own pet dog or cat than +risk the possible bungling of an outsider. Then like a small child +trotting with infinite relief to its own doll-house she trotted over to +her bureau, extracted the lace corset-cover, and came back with it in +her hand to lean across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder again and watch the +men's faces go slipping off into oblivion. Once again, abruptly without +warning, she halted the process with a breathless exclamation. + +"Oh, of course this waist is the only one I've got with ribbons in it," +she asserted irrelevantly. "But I'm perfectly willing to trade it for +that picture!" she pointed out with unmistakably explicit finger-tip. + +Chucklingly Zillah Forsyth withdrew the special photograph from its +half-completed wrappings. + +"Oh! Him?" she said. "Oh, that's a chap I met on the train last summer. +He's a brakeman or something. He's a--" + +Perfectly unreluctantly Rae Malgregor dropped the fluff of lace and +ribbons into Zillah's lap and reached out with cheerful voraciousness to +annex the young man's picture to her somewhat bleak possessions. "Oh, I +don't care a rap who he is," she interrupted briskly. "But he's sort of +cute-looking, and I've got an empty frame at home just that odd size, +and Mother's crazy for a new picture to stick up over the kitchen +mantelpiece. She gets so tired of seeing nothing but the faces of people +she knows all about." + +Sharply Zillah Forsyth turned and stared up into the younger girl's +face, and found no guile to whet her stare against. + +"Well of all the ridiculous--unmitigated greenhorns!" she began. +"Well--is that all you wanted him for? Why, I supposed you wanted to +write to him! Why, I supposed--" + +For the first time an expression not altogether dollish darkened across +Rae Malgregor's garishly juvenile blondeness. + +"Maybe I'm not quite as green as you think I am!" she flared up +stormily. With this sharp flaring-up every single individual pulse in +her body seemed to jerk itself suddenly into conscious activity again +like the soft, plushy pound-pound-pound of a whole stocking-footed +regiment of pain descending single file upon her for her hysterical +undoing. "Maybe I've had a good deal more experience than you give me +credit for!" she hastened excitedly to explain. "I tell you--I tell you +I've been engaged!" she blurted forth with a bitter sort of triumph. + +With a palpable flicker of interest Zillah Forsyth looked back across +her shoulder. "Engaged? How many times?" she asked quite bluntly. + +As though the whole monogamous groundwork of civilization was threatened +by the question, Rae Malgregor's hands went clutching at her breast. +"Why, once!" she gasped. "Why, once!" + +Convulsively Zillah Forsyth began to rock herself to and fro. "Oh +Lordy!" she chuckled. "Oh Lordy, Lordy! Why I've been engaged four times +just this past year!" In a sudden passion of fastidiousness she bent +down over the particular photograph in her hand and snatching at a +handkerchief began to rub diligently at a small smouch of dust in one +corner of the cardboard. Something in the effort of rubbing seemed to +jerk her small round chin into almost angular prominence. "And before +I'm through," she added, at least two notes below her usual alto tones, +"And before I'm through--I'm going to get engaged to--every profession +that there is on the surface of the globe!" Quite helplessly the thin +paper skin of the photograph peeled off in company with the smouch of +dust. "And when I marry," she ejaculated fiercely, "and when I +marry--I'm going to marry a man who will take me to every place that +there is--on the surface of the globe! And after that--!" + +"After what?" interrogated a brand new voice from the doorway. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It was the other room-mate this time. The only real aristocrat in +the whole graduating class, high-browed, high-cheekboned,--eyes like +some far-sighted young prophet,--mouth even yet faintly arrogant +with the ineradicable consciousness of caste,--a plain, eager, +stripped-for-a-long-journey type of face,--this was Helene Churchill. +There was certainly no innocuous bloom of country hills and pastures in +this girl's face, nor any seething small-town passion pounding +indiscriminately at all the doors of experience. The men and women who +had bred Helene Churchill had been the breeders also of brick and +granite cities since the world was new. + +Like one infinitely more accustomed to treading on Persian carpets than +on painted floors she came forward into the room. + +"Hello, children!" she said casually, and began at once without further +parleying to take down the motto that graced her own bureau-top. + +It was the era when almost everybody in the world had a motto over his +bureau. Helene Churchill's motto was: _Inasmuch As Ye Have Done It Unto +One Of The Least Of These Ye Have Done It Unto Me_. On a scroll of +almost priceless parchment the text was illuminated with inimitable +Florentine skill and color. A little carelessly, after the manner of +people quite accustomed to priceless things, she proceeded now to roll +the parchment into its smallest possible circumference, humming +exclusively to herself all the while an intricate little air from an +Italian opera. + +So the three faces foiled each other, sober city girl, pert town girl, +bucolic country girl,--a hundred fundamental differences rampant between +them, yet each fervid, adolescent young mouth tamed to the same +monotonous, drolly exaggerated expression of complacency that +characterizes the faces of all people who, in a distinctive uniform, for +a reasonably satisfactory living wage, make an actual profession of +righteous deeds. + +Indeed among all the thirty or more varieties of noble expression which +an indomitable Superintendent had finally succeeded in inculcating into +her graduating class, no other physiognomies had responded more +plastically perhaps than these three to the merciless imprint of the +great _hospital machine_ which, in pursuance of its one repetitive +design, _discipline_, had coaxed Zillah Forsyth into the semblance of a +lady, snubbed Helene Churchill into the substance of plain womanhood, +and, still uncertain just what to do with Rae Malgregor's rollicking +rural immaturity, had frozen her face temporarily into the smugly +dimpled likeness of a fancy French doll rigged out as a nurse for some +gilt-edged hospital fair. + +With characteristic desire to keep up in every way with her more mature, +better educated classmates, to do everything, in fact, so fast, so well, +that no one should possibly guess that she hadn't yet figured out just +why she was doing it at all, Rae Malgregor now with quickly readjusted +cap and collar began to hurl herself into the task of her own packing. +From her open bureau drawer, with a sudden impish impulse towards +worldly wisdom, she extracted first of all the photograph of the young +brakeman. + +"See, Helene! My new beau!" she giggled experimentally. + +In mild-eyed surprise Helene Churchill glanced up from her work. "_Your_ +beau?" she corrected. "Why, that's Zillah's picture." + +"Well, it's mine now!" snapped Rae Malgregor with unexpected edginess. +"It's mine now all right. Zillah said I could have him! Zillah said I +could--write to him--if I wanted to!" she finished a bit breathlessly. + +Wider and wider Helene Churchill's eyes dilated. "Write to a man--whom +you don't know?" she gasped. "Why, Rae! Why, it isn't even--very +nice--to have a picture of a man you don't know!" + +Mockingly to the edge of her strong white teeth Rae Malgregor's tongue +crept out in pink derision. "Bah!" she taunted. "What's 'nice'? That's +the whole matter with you, Helene Churchill! You never stop to consider +whether anything's fun or not; all you care is whether it's 'nice'!" +Excitedly she turned to meet the cheap little wink from Zillah's +sainted eyes. "Bah! What's 'nice'?" she persisted a little lamely. Then +suddenly all the pertness within her crumbled into nothingness. +"That's--the--whole trouble with you, Zillah Forsyth!" she stammered. +"You never give a hang whether anything's nice or not; all you care is +whether it's fun!" Quite helplessly she began to wring her hands. "Oh, +how do I know which one of you girls to follow?" she demanded wildly. +"How do I know anything? How does anybody know anything?" + +Like a smoldering fuse the rambling query crept back into the inner +recesses of her brain and fired once more the one great question that +lay dormant there. Impetuously she ran forward and stared into Helene +Churchill's face. "How do you know you were meant to be a Trained Nurse, +Helene Churchill?" she began all over again. "How does anybody know she +was really meant to be one? How can anybody, I mean, be perfectly sure?" +Like a drowning man clutching out at the proverbial straw, she clutched +at the parchment in Helene Churchill's hand. "I mean--where did you get +your motto, Helene Churchill?" she persisted with increasing +irritability. "If--you don't tell me--I'll tear the whole thing to +pieces!" + +With a startled frown Helene Churchill jerked back out of reach. "What's +the matter with you, Rae?" she quizzed sharply, and then turning round +quite casually to her book-case began to draw from the shelves one by one +her beloved Marcus Aurelius, Wordsworth, Robert Browning. "Oh, I did so +want to go to China," she confided irrelevantly. "But my family have +just written me that they won't stand for it. So I suppose I'll have to +go into tenement work here in the city instead." With a visible effort +she jerked her mind back again to the feverish question in Rae +Malgregor's eyes. "Oh, you want to know where I got my motto?" she +asked. A flash of intuition brightened suddenly across her +absent-mindedness. "Oh!" she smiled, "you mean you want to know--just +what the incident was that first made me decide to--devote my life +to--to humanity?" + +"Yes!" snapped Rae Malgregor. + +A little shyly Helene Churchill picked up her copy of Marcus Aurelius +and cuddled her cheek against its tender Morocco cover. "Really?" she +questioned with palpable hesitation. "Really you want to know? Why, +why--it's rather a--sacred little story to me. I wouldn't exactly want +to have anybody--laugh about it." + +"I'll laugh if I want to!" attested Zillah Forsyth forcibly from the +other side of the room. + +Like a pugnacious boy, Rae Malgregor's fluent fingers doubled up into +two firm fists. + +"I'll punch her if she even looks as though she wanted to!" she signaled +surreptitiously to Helene. + +Shrewdly for an instant the city girl's narrowing eyes challenged and +appraised the country girl's desperate sincerity. Then quite abruptly +she began her little story. + +"Why, it was on an Easter Sunday--Oh, ages and ages ago," she faltered. +"Why, I couldn't have been more than nine years old at the time." A +trifle self-consciously she turned her face away from Zillah Forsyth's +supercilious smile. "And I was coming home from a Sunday school festival +in my best white muslin dress with a big pot of purple pansies in my +hand," she hastened somewhat nervously to explain. "And just at the edge +of the gutter there was a dreadful drunken man lying in the mud with a +great crowd of cruel people teasing and tormenting him. And, +because--because I couldn't think of anything else to do about it, +I--I walked right up to the poor old creature,--scared as I could +be--and--and I presented him with my pot of purple pansies. And +everybody of course began to laugh, to scream, I mean, and shout with +amusement. And I, of course, began to cry. And the old drunken man +straightened up very oddly for an instant, with his battered hat in one +hand and the pot of pansies in the other,--and he raised the pot of +pansies very high, as though it had been a glass of rarest wine--and +bowed to me as--reverently as though he had been toasting me at my +father's table at some very grand dinner. And 'Inasmuch!' he said. Just +that,--'Inasmuch!' So that's how I happened to go into nursing!" she +finished as abruptly as she had begun. Like some wonderful +phosphorescent manifestation her whole shining soul seemed to flare +forth suddenly through her plain face. + +With honest perplexity Zillah Forsyth looked up from her work. + +"So that's--how you happened to go into nursing?" she quizzed +impatiently. Her long, straight nose was all puckered tight with +interrogation. Her dove-like eyes were fairly dilated with slow-dawning +astonishment. "You--don't--mean?" she gasped. "You don't mean that--just +for that--?" Incredulously she jumped to her feet and stood staring +blankly into the city girl's strangely illuminated features. + +"Well, if I were a swell--like you!" she scoffed, "it would take a heap +sight more than a drunken man munching pansies and rum and Bible-texts +to--to jolt me out of my limousines and steam yachts and Adirondack +bungalows!" + +Quite against all intention Helene Churchill laughed. She did not often +laugh. Just for an instant her eyes and Zillah Forsyth's clashed +together in the irremediable antagonism of caste,--the Plebeian's +scornful impatience with the Aristocrat, equaled only by the +Aristocrat's condescending patience with the Plebeian. + +It was no more than right that the Aristocrat should recover her +self-possession first. "Never mind about your understanding. Zillah +dear," she said softly. "Your hair is the most beautiful thing I ever +saw in my life!" + +Along Zillah Forsyth's ivory cheek an incongruous little flush of red +began to show. With much more nonchalance than was really necessary she +pointed towards her half-packed trunk. + +"It wasn't--Sunday school--I was coming home from--when I got my motto!" +she remarked dryly, with a wink at no one in particular. "And, so far as +I know," she proceeded with increasing sarcasm, "the man who inspired my +noble life was not in any way--particularly addicted to the use of +alcoholic beverages!" As though her collar was suddenly too tight she +rammed her finger down between her stiff white neck-band and her soft +white throat. "He was a--New York doctor!" she hastened somewhat airily +to explain. "Gee! But he was a swell! And he was spending his summer +holiday up in the same Maine town where I was tending soda fountain. +And he used to drop into the drug-store, nights, after cigars and +things. And he used to tell me stories about the drugs and things, +sitting up there on the counter swinging his legs and pointing out this +and that,--quinine, ipecac, opium, hasheesh,--all the silly patent +medicines, every sloppy soothing syrup! Lordy! He knew 'em as though +they were people! Where they come from! Where they're going to! Yarns +about the tropics that would kink the hair along the nape of your neck! +Jokes about your own town's soup-kettle pharmacology that would make you +yell for joy! Gee! But the things that man had seen and known! Gee! But +the things that man could make you see and know! And he had an +automobile," she confided proudly. "It was one of those billion dollar +French cars. And I lived just round the corner from the drug-store. But +we used to ride home by way of--New Hampshire!" + +Almost imperceptibly her breath began to quicken. "Gee! Those nights!" +she muttered. "Rain or shine, moon or thunder,--tearing down those +country roads at forty miles an hour, singing, hollering, whispering! +It was him that taught me to do my hair like this--instead of all the +cheap rats and pompadours every other kid in town was wearing," she +asserted, quite irrelevantly; then stopped with a quick, furtive glance +of suspicion towards both her listeners and mouthed her way delicately +back to the beginning of her sentence again. "It was _he_ that taught me +to do my hair like this," she repeated with the faintest possible +suggestion of hauteur. + +For one reason or another along the exquisitely chaste curve of her +cheek a narrow streak of red began to show again. + +"And he went away very sudden at the last," she finished hurriedly. "It +seems he was married all the time." Blandly she turned her wonderful +face to the caressing light. "And--I hope he goes to Hell!" she added +perfectly simply. + +With a little gasp of astonishment, shock, suspicion, distaste, Helene +Churchill reached out an immediate conscientious hand to her. + +"Oh, Zillah!" she began. "Oh, poor Zillah dear! I'm so--sorry! I'm so--" + +Absolutely serenely, through a mask of insolence and ice, Zillah +Forsyth ignored the proffered hand. + +"I don't know what particular call you've got to be sorry for me, Helene +Churchill," she drawled languidly. "I've got my character, same as +you've got yours. And just about nine times as many good looks. And when +it comes to nursing--" Like an alto song pierced suddenly by one shrill +treble note, the girl's immobile face sharpened transiently with a +single jagged flash of emotion. "And when it comes to nursing? Ha! +Helene Churchill! You can lead your class all you want to with your +silk-lined manners and your fuddy-duddy book-talk! But when genteel +people like you are moping round all ready to fold your patients' hands +on their breasts and murmur 'Thy will be done,'--why, that's the time +that little 'yours truly' is just beginning to roll up her sleeves and +get to work!" + +With real passion her slender fingers went clutching again at her harsh +linen collar. "It isn't you, Helene Churchill," she taunted, "that's +ever been to the Superintendent on your bended knees and begged for the +rabies cases--and the small-pox! Gee! You like nursing because you +think it's pious to like it! But I like it--_because I like it!"_ From +brow to chin as though fairly stricken with sincerity her whole bland +face furrowed startlingly with crude expressiveness. "The smell of +ether!" she stammered. "It's like wine to me! The clang of the ambulance +gong? I'd rather hear it than fire-engines! I'd crawl on my hands and +knees a hundred miles to watch a major operation! I wish there was a +war! I'd give my life to see a cholera epidemic!" + +Abruptly as it came the passion faded from her face, leaving every +feature tranquil again, demure, exaggeratedly innocent. With saccharine +sweetness she turned to Rae Malgregor. + +"Now, Little One," she mocked, "tell us the story of your lovely life. +Having heard me coyly confess that I went into nursing because I had +such a crush on this world,--and Helene here brazenly affirm that she +went into nursing because she had such a crush on the world to +come,--it's up to you now to confide to us just how you happened to take +up so noble an endeavor! Had you seen some of the young house doctors' +beautiful, smiling faces depicted in the hospital catalogue? Or was it +for the sake of the Senior Surgeon's grim, gray mug that you jilted your +poor plow-boy lover way up in the Annapolis Valley?" + +"Why, Zillah!" gasped the country girl. "Why, I think you 're perfectly +awful! Why, Zillah Forsyth! Don't you ever say a thing like that again! +You can joke all you want to about the flirty young Internes. They're +nothing but fellows. But it isn't--it isn't respectful--for you to talk +like that about the Senior Surgeon. He's too--too terrifying!" she +finished in an utter panic of consternation. + +"Oh, now I know it was the Senior Surgeon that made you jilt your +country beau!" taunted Zillah Forsyth with soft alto sarcasm. + +"I didn't, either, jilt Joe Hazeltine!" stormed Rae Malgregor +explosively. Backed up against her bureau, eyes flaming, breast heaving, +little candy-box cap all tossed askew over her left ear, she stood +defying her tormentor. "I didn't, either, jilt Joe Hazeltine!" she +reasserted passionately. "It was Joe Hazeltine that jilted me! And we +'d been going together since we were kids! And now he's married the +dominie's daughter and they've got a kid of their own most as old as he +and I were when we first began courting each other. And it's all because +I insisted on being a trained nurse," she finished shrilly. + +With an expression of real shock Helene Churchill peered up from her +lowly seat on the floor. + +"You mean?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "You mean that he didn't want +you to be a trained nurse? You mean that he wasn't big enough,--wasn't +fine enough to appreciate the nobility of the profession?" + +"Nobility nothing!" snapped Rae Malgregor. "It was me scrubbing strange +men with alcohol that he couldn't stand for! And I don't know as I +exactly blame him," she added huskily. "It certainly is a good deal of a +liberty when you stop to think about it." + +Quite incongruously her big, childish, blue eyes narrowed suddenly into +two dark, calculating slits. "It's comic," she mused, "how there isn't a +man in the world who would stand letting his wife or daughter or sister +have a male nurse. But look at the jobs we girls get sent out on! It's +very confusing!" + +With sincere appeal she turned to Zillah Forsyth. "And yet--and yet," +she stammered. "And yet--when everything scary that's in you has once +been scared out of you,--why, there's nothing left in you to be scared +_with_ any more, is there?" + +"What? What?" pleaded Helene Churchill. "Say it again! What?" + +"That's what Joe and I quarreled about my first vacation home!" +persisted Rae Malgregor. "It was a traveling salesman's thigh. It was +broken bad. Somebody had to take care of it. So I did! Joe thought it +wasn't modest to be so willing." With a perplexed sort of defiance she +raised her square little chin. "But you see I was willing!" she said. +"I was perfectly willing. Just one single solitary year of hospital +training had made me perfectly willing. And you can't _un_-willing a +willing--even to please your beau, no matter how hard you try!" With a +droll admixture of shyness and disdain she tossed her curly blonde head +a trifle higher. "Shucks!" she attested. "What's a traveling salesman's +thigh?" + +"Shucks yourself!" scoffed Zillah Forsyth. "What's a silly beau or two +up in Nova Scotia to a girl with looks like you? You could have married +that typhoid case a dozen times last winter if you'd crooked your little +finger! Why, the fellow was crazy about you. And he was richer than +Croesus. What queered it?" she demanded bluntly. "Did his mother hate +you?" + +Like one fairly cramped with astonishment Rae Malgregor doubled up very +suddenly at the waist-line, and thrusting her neck oddly forward after +the manner of a startled crane, stood peering sharply round the corner +of the rocking-chair at Zillah Forsyth. + +"Did his mother hate me?" she gasped. "Did--his--mother--hate--me? Well, +what do you think? With me who never even saw plumbing till I came down +here, setting out to explain to her with twenty tiled bathrooms how to +be hygienic though rich? Did his mother hate me? Well, what do you +think? With her who bore him, her who _bore_ him, mind you, kept +waiting down stairs in the hospital ante-room--half an hour every +day--on the raw edge of a rattan chair--waiting--worrying--all old and +gray and scared--while little young, perky, pink and white _me_ is +upstairs--brushing her own son's hair and washing her own son's +face--and altogether getting her own son ready to see his own mother! +And then me obliged to turn her out again in ten minutes, flip as you +please, for fear she'd stayed too long,--while I stay on the rest of the +night? _Did his mother hate me!"_ + +Stealthily as an assassin she crept around the corner of the +rocking-chair and grabbed Zillah Forsyth by her astonished linen +shoulder. + +"Did his mother hate me?" she persisted mockingly. "Did his mother hate +me? Well rather! Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't +hate us? Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't look upon +a trained nurse as her natural born enemy? I don't blame 'em!" she added +chokingly. "Look at the impudent jobs we get sent out on! Quarantined +upstairs for weeks at a time with their inflammable, diphtheritic +bridegrooms--while they sit down stairs--brooding over their wedding +teaspoons! Hiked off indefinitely to Atlantic City with their gouty +bachelor uncles! Hearing their own innocent little sisters' +blood-curdling deathbed deliriums! Snatching their own new-born babies +away from their breasts and showing them, virgin-handed, how to nurse +them better! The impudence of it, I say! The disgusting, confounded +impudence! Doing things perfectly--flippantly--_right_--for twenty-five +dollars a week--and washing--that all the achin' love in the world don't +know how to do right--just for love!" + +Furiously she began to jerk her victim's shoulder. "I tell you it's +awful, Zillah Forsyth!" she insisted. "I tell you I just won't stand +it!" + +With muscles like steel wire Zillah Forsyth scrambled to her feet, and +pushed Rae Malgregor back against the bureau. + +"For Heaven's sake, Rae, shut up!" she said. "What in Creation's the +matter with you to-day? I never saw you act so before!" With real +concern she stared into the girl's turbid eyes. "If you feel like that +about it, what in thunder did you go into nursing for?" she demanded not +unkindly. + +Very slowly Helene Churchill rose from her lowly seat by her precious +book-case and came round and looked at Rae Malgregor rather oddly. +"Yes," faltered Helene Churchill. "What did you go into nursing for?" +The faintest possible taint of asperity was in her voice. + +Quite dumbly for an instant Rae Malgregor's natural timidity stood +battling the almost fanatic professional fervor in Helene Churchill's +frankly open face, the raw, scientific passion, of very different +caliber, but no less intensity, hidden so craftily behind Zillah +Forsyth's plastic features. Then suddenly her own hands went clutching +back at the bureau for support, and all the flaming, raging red went +ebbing out of her cheeks, leaving her lips with hardly blood enough left +to work them. + +"I went into nursing," she mumbled, "and it's God's own truth,--I went +into nursing because--because I thought the uniforms were so cute." + +Furiously, the instant the words were gone from her mouth, she turned +and snarled at Zillah's hooting laughter. + +"Well, I had to do something!" she attested. The defense was like a flat +blade slapping the air. + +Desperately she turned to Helene Churchill's goading, faintly +supercilious smile, and her voice edged suddenly like a twisted sword. +"Well, the uniforms _are_ cute!" she parried. "They are! They are! I bet +you there's more than one girl standing high in the graduating class +to-day who never would have stuck out her first year's bossin' and slops +and worry and death--if she'd had to stick it out in the unimportant +looking clothes she came from home in! Even you, Helene Churchill, with +all your pious talk,--the day they put your coachman's son in as new +Interne and you got called down from the office for failing to stand +when Mr. Young Coachman came into the room, you bawled all night,--you +did,--and swore you'd chuck your whole job and go home the next day--if +it wasn't that you'd just had a life-size photo taken in full nursing +costume to send to your brother's chum at Yale! So there!" + +With a gasp of ineffable satisfaction she turned from Helene Churchill. + +"Sure the uniforms are cute!" she slashed back at Zillah +Forsyth. "That's the whole trouble with 'em. They're so +awfully--masqueradishly--cute! Sure, I could have got engaged to the +Typhoid Boy. It would have been as easy as robbing a babe! But lots of +girls, I notice, get engaged in their uniforms, feeding a patient +perfectly scientifically out of his own silver spoon, who don't seem +to stay engaged so especially long in their own street clothes, bungling +just plain naturally with their own knives and forks! Even you, Zillah +Forsyth," she hacked, "even you who trot round like the Lord's Anointed +in your pure white togs, you're just as Dutchy looking as anybody else, +come to put you in a red hat and a tan coat and a blue skirt!" + +Mechanically she raised her hands to her head as though with some silly +thought of keeping the horrid pain in her temples from slipping to her +throat, her breast, her feet. + +"Sure the uniforms are cute," she persisted a bit thickly. "Sure the +Typhoid Boy was crazy about me! He called me his 'Holy Chorus Girl,' I +heard him--raving in his sleep. Lord save us! What are we to any man but +just that?" she questioned hotly with renewed venom. "Parson, actor, +young sinner, old saint--I ask you frankly, girls, on your word of +honor, was there ever more than one man in ten went through your hands +who didn't turn out soft somewhere before you were through with him? +Mawking about your 'sweet eyes' while you're wrecking your optic nerves +trying to decipher the dose on a poison bottle! Mooning over your +wonderful likeness to the lovely young sister they--never had! Trying to +kiss your finger tips when you're struggling to brush their teeth! +Teasin' you to smoke cigarettes with 'em--when they know it would cost +you your job!" + +Impishly, without any warning, she crooked her knee and pointed at one +homely square-toed shoe in a mincy dancing step. Hoydenishly she threw +out her arms and tried to gather Helene and Zillah both into their +compass. + +"Oh, you Holy Chorus Girls!" she chuckled with maniacal delight. +"Everybody, all together, now! Kick your little kicks! Smile your little +smiles! Tinkle your little thermometers! Steady,--there! +One--two--three--One--two--three!" + +Laughingly Zillah Forsyth slipped from the grasp. "Don't you dare 'holy' +me!" she threatened. + +In real irritation Helene released herself. "I'm no chorus girl," she +said coldly. + +With a little shrill scream of pain Rae Malgregor's hands went flying +back to her temples. Like a person giving orders in a great panic she +turned authoritatively to her two room-mates, her fingers all the while +boring frenziedly into her temples. + +"Now, girls," she warned, "stand well back! If my head bursts, you know, +it's going to burst all to slivers and splinters--like a boiler!" + +"Rae, you're crazy!" hooted Zillah. + +"Just plain vulgar--looney," faltered Helene. + +Both girls reached out simultaneously to push her aside. + +Somewhere in the dusty, indifferent street a bird's note rang out in +one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents +and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae +Malgregor's jangled nerves were waiting for. + +"Oh, I _am_ crazy, am I?" she cried with a new, fierce joy. "Oh, I _am_ +crazy, am I? Well, I'll go ask the Superintendent and see if I am! Oh, +surely they wouldn't try and make me graduate if I really was crazy!" + +Madly she bolted for her bureau, and snatching her own motto down, +crumpled its face securely against her skirt and started for the door. +Just what the motto was no one but herself knew. Sprawling in +paint-brush hieroglyphics on a great flapping sheet of brown +wrapping-paper, the sentiment, whatever it was, had been nailed face +down to the wall for three tantalizing years. + +"No you don't!" cried Zillah now, as she saw the mystery threatening so +meanly to escape her. + +"No you don't!" cried Helene. "You've seen our mottoes--and now we're +going to see yours!" + +Almost crazed with new terror Rae Malgregor went dodging to the +right,--to the left,--to the right again,--cleared the rocking-chair,--a +scuffle with padded hands,--climbed the trunk,--a race with padded +feet,--reached the door-handle at last, yanked the door open, and with +lungs and temper fairly bursting with momentum, shot down the +hall,--down some stairs,--down some more hall,--down some more stairs, +to the Superintendent's office where, with her precious motto still +clutched securely in one hand, she broke upon that dignitary's startled, +near-sighted vision like a young whirl-wind of linen and starch and +flapping brown paper. Breathlessly, without prelude or preamble, she +hurled her grievance into the older woman's grievance-dulled ears. + +"Give me back my own face!" she demanded peremptorily. "Give me back my +own face, I say! And my own hands! I tell you I want my own hands! +Helene and Zillah say I'm insane! And I want to go home!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Like a short-necked animal elongated suddenly to the cervical +proportions of a giraffe, the Superintendent of Nurses reared up +from her stoop-shouldered desk-work and stared forth in speechless +astonishment across the top of her spectacles. + +Exuberantly impertinent, ecstatically self-conscious, Rae Malgregor +repeated her demand. To her parched mouth the very taste of her own +babbling impudence refreshed her like the shock and prickle of cracked +ice. + +"I tell you I want my own face again! And my own hands!" she reiterated +glibly. "I mean the face with the mortgage in it, and the cinders--and +the other human expressions!" she explained. "And the nice grubby +country hands that go with that sort of a face!" + +Very accusingly she raised her finger and shook it at the +Superintendent's perfectly livid countenance. + +"Oh, of course I know I wasn't very much to look at. But at least I +matched! What my hands knew, I mean, my face knew! Pies or plowing or +May-baskets, what my hands knew my face knew! That's the way hands and +faces ought to work together! But you? you with all your rules and your +bossing and your everlasting 'S--sh! S--sh!' you've snubbed all the +know-anything out of my face--and made my hands nothing but two +disconnected machines--for somebody else to run! And I hate you! You're +a Monster! You're a ----, everybody hates you!" + +Mutely then she shut her eyes, bowed her head, and waited for the +Superintendent to smite her dead. The smite she felt quite sure would be +a noisy one. First of all, she reasoned it would fracture her skull. +Naturally then of course it would splinter her spine. Later in all +probability it would telescope her knee-joints. And never indeed now +that she came to think of it had the arches of her feet felt less +capable of resisting so terrible an impact. Quite unconsciously she +groped out a little with one hand to steady herself against the edge of +the desk. + +But the blow when it came was nothing but a cool finger tapping her +pulse. + +"There! There!" crooned the Superintendent's voice with a most amazing +tolerance. + +"But I won't 'there--there'!" snapped Rae Malgregor. Her eyes were wide +open again now, and extravagantly dilated. + +The cool fingers on her pulse seemed to tighten a little. "S--sh! +S--sh!" admonished the Superintendent's mumbling lips. + +"But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" stormed Rae Malgregor. Never before in +her three years' hospital training had she seen her arch-enemy, the +Superintendent, so utterly disarmed of irascible temper and arrogant +dignity, and the sight perplexed and maddened her at one and the same +moment. "But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" Desperately she jerked her curly +blonde head in the direction of the clock on the wall. "Here it's four +o'clock now!" she cried. "And in less than four hours you're going to +try and make me graduate--and go out into the world--God knows +where--and charge innocent people twenty-five dollars a week and +washing, likelier than not, mind you, for these hands," she gestured, +"that don't co-ordinate at all with this face," she grimaced, "but with +the face of one of the House Doctors--or the Senior Surgeon--or even +you--who may be way off in Kamchatka--when I need him most!" she +finished with a confused jumble of accusation and despair. + +Still with unexplainable amiability the Superintendent whirled back into +place in her pivot-chair and with her left hand which had all this time +been rummaging busily in a lower desk drawer proffered Rae Malgregor a +small fold of paper. + +"Here, my dear," she said. "Here's a sedative for you. Take it at once. +It will quiet you perfectly. We all know you've had very hard luck this +past month, but you mustn't worry so about the future." The slightest +possible tinge of purely professional manner crept back into the older +woman's voice. "Certainly, Miss Malgregor, with your judgment--" + +"With my judgment?" cried Rae Malgregor. The phrase was like a red rag +to her. "With my judgment? Great Heavens! That's the whole trouble! I +haven't got any judgment! I've never been allowed to have any judgment! +All I've ever been allowed to have is the judgment of some flirty young +medical student--or the House Doctor!--or the Senior Surgeon!--or you!" + +Her eyes were fairly piteous with terror. + +"Don't you see that my face doesn't know anything?" she faltered, +"except just to smile and smile and smile and say 'Yes, sir--No, +sir--Yes, sir'?" From curly blonde head to square-toed, commonsense +shoes her little body began to quiver suddenly like the advent of a +chill. "Oh, what am I going to do," she begged, "when I'm way off +alone--somewhere--in the mountains--or a tenement--or a palace--and +something happens--and there isn't any judgment round to tell me what +I ought to do?" + +Abruptly in the doorway as though summoned by some purely casual flicker +of the Superintendent's thin fingers another nurse appeared. + +"Yes, I rang," said the Superintendent. "Go and ask the Senior Surgeon +if he can come to me here a moment, immediately." + +"The Senior Surgeon?" gasped Rae Malgregor. "The Senior Surgeon?" With +her hands clutching at her throat she reeled back against the wall for +support. Like a shore bereft in one second of its tide, like a tree +stripped in one second of its leafage, she stood there, utterly stricken +of temper or passion or any animating human emotion whatsoever. + +"Oh, now I'm going to be expelled! Oh, now I know I'm going to +be--expelled!" she moaned listlessly. + +Very vaguely into the farthest radiation of her vision she sensed the +approach of a man. Gray-haired, gray-bearded, gray-suited, grayly +dogmatic as a block of granite, the Senior Surgeon loomed up at last in +the doorway. + +"I'm in a hurry," he growled. "What's the matter?" + +Precipitously Rae Malgregor collapsed into the breach. + +"Oh, there's--nothing at all the matter, sir," she stammered. "It's +only--it's only that I've just decided that I don't want to be a trained +nurse." + +With a gesture of ill-concealed impatience the Superintendent shrugged +the absurd speech aside. + +"Dr. Faber," she said, "won't you just please assure Miss Malgregor once +more that the little Italian boy's death last week was in no conceivable +way her fault,--that nobody blames her in the slightest, or holds her in +any possible way responsible." + +"Why, what nonsense!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "What--!" + +"And the Portuguese woman the week before that," interrupted Rae +Malgregor dully. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Senior Surgeon. "It's nothing but +coincidence! Pure coincidence! It might have happened to anybody!" + +"And she hasn't slept for almost a fortnight." the Superintendent +confided, "nor touched a drop of food or drink, as far as I can make +out, except just black coffee. I've been expecting this break-down for +some days." + +"And-the-young-drug-store-clerk-the-week-before-that," Rae Malgregor +resumed with sing-song monotony. + +Brusquely the Senior Surgeon stepped forward and taking the girl by her +shoulders, jerked her sharply round to the light, and, with firm, +authoritative fingers, rolled one of her eyelids deftly back from its +inordinately dilated pupil. Equally brusquely he turned away again. + +"Nothing but moonshine!" he muttered. "Nothing in the world but too much +coffee dope taken on an empty stomach,--'empty brain,' I'd better have +said! When will you girls ever learn any sense?" With searchlight +shrewdness his eyes flashed back for an instant over the haggard gray +lines that slashed along the corners of her quivering, childish mouth. A +bit temperishly he began to put on his gloves. "Next time you set out to +have a 'brain-storm,' Miss Malgregor," he suggested satirically, "try to +have it about something more sensible than imagining that anybody is +trying to hold you personally responsible for the existence of death in +the world. Bah!" he ejaculated fiercely. "If you are going to fuss like +this over cases hopelessly moribund from the start, what in thunder are +you going to do some fine day when out of a perfectly clear and clean +sky Security itself turns septic and you lose the President of the +United States--or a mother of nine children--with a hang-nail?" + +"But I wasn't fussing, sir!" protested Rae Malgregor with a timid sort +of dignity. "Why, it never had occurred to me for a moment that anybody +blamed me for--anything!" Just from sheer astonishment her hands took a +new clutch into the torn flapping corner of the motto that she still +clung desperately to even at this moment. + +"For Heaven's sake stop crackling that brown paper!" stormed the Senior +Surgeon. + +"But I wasn't crackling the brown paper, sir! It's crackling itself," +persisted Rae Malgregor very softly. The great blue eyes that lifted to +his were brimming full of misery. "Oh, can't I make you understand, +sir?" she stammered. Appealingly she turned to the Superintendent. "Oh, +can't I make anybody understand? All I was trying to say,--all I was +trying to explain, was--that I _don't want to be a trained nurse--after +all_!" + +"Why not?" demanded the Senior Surgeon with a rather noisy click of his +glove fasteners. + +"Because--my--face--is--tired," said the girl quite simply. + +The explosive wrath on the Senior Surgeon's countenance seemed to be +directed suddenly at the Superintendent. + +"Is this an afternoon tea?" he asked tartly. "With six major operations +this morning and a probable meningitis diagnosis ahead of me this +afternoon I think I might be spared the babblings of an hysterical +nurse!" Casually over his shoulder he nodded at the girl. "You're a +fool!" he said, and started for the door. + +Just on the threshold he turned abruptly and looked back. His forehead +was furrowed like a corduroy road and the one rampant question in his +mind at the moment seemed to be mired hopelessly between his bushy +eyebrows. + +"Lord!" he exclaimed a bit flounderingly. "Are _you_ the nurse that +helped me last week on that fractured skull?" + +"Yes, sir," said Rae Malgregor. + +Jerkily the Senior Surgeon retraced his footsteps into the office and +stood facing her as though with some really terrible accusation. + +"And the freak abdominal?" he quizzed sharply. "Was it _you_ who +threaded that needle for me so blamed slowly--and calmly--and surely, +while all the rest of us were jumping up and down and cursing you--for +no brighter reason than that we couldn't have threaded it ourselves if +we'd had all eternity before us and--all creation bleeding to death?" + +"Y-e-s, sir," said Rae Malgregor. + +Quite bluntly the Senior Surgeon reached out and lifted one of her hands +to his scowling professional scrutiny. + +"Gad!" he attested. "What a hand! You're a wonder! Under proper +direction you're a wonder! It was like myself working with twenty +fingers and no thumbs! I never saw anything like it!" + +Almost boyishly the embarrassed flush mounted to his cheeks as he jerked +away again. "Excuse me for not recognizing you," he apologized gruffly. +"But you girls all look so much alike!" + +As though the eloquence of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a +person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly +transfigured face to the Senior Surgeon's grimly astonished gaze. + +"Yes! Yes, sir!" she cried joyously. "That's just exactly what the +trouble is! That's just exactly what I was trying to express, sir! My +face is all worn out trying to 'look alike'! My cheeks are almost sprung +with artificial smiles! My eyes are fairly bulging with unshed tears! My +nose aches like a toothache trying never to turn up at anything! I'm +smothered with the discipline of it! I'm choked with the affectation! I +tell you--I just can't breathe through a trained nurse's face any more! +I tell you, sir, I'm sick to death of being nothing but a type. I want +to look like _myself_! I want to see what Life could do to a silly face +like mine--if it ever got a chance! When other women are crying, I want +the fun of crying! When other women look scared to death, I want the fun +of looking scared to death!" Hysterically again with shrewish emphasis +she began to repeat: "I won't be a nurse! I tell you, I won't! I +_won't_!" + +"Pray what brought you so suddenly to this remarkable decision?" +scoffed the Senior Surgeon. + +"A letter from my father, sir," she confided more quietly. "A letter +about some dogs." + +"Dogs?" hooted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. A trifle speculatively for an +instant she glanced at the Superintendent's face and then back again to +the Senior Surgeon's. "Yes, sir," she repeated with increasing +confidence. "Up in Nova Scotia my father raises hunting-dogs. Oh, no +special fancy kind, sir," she hastened in all honesty to explain. "Just +dogs, you know,--just mixed dogs,--pointers with curly tails,--and +shaggy-coated hounds,--and brindled spaniels, and all that sort of +thing,--just mongrels, you know, but very clever; and people, sir, come +all the way from Boston to buy dogs of him, and once a man came way from +London to learn the secret of his training." + +"Well, what is the secret of his training?" quizzed the Senior Surgeon +with the sudden eager interest of a sportsman. "I should think it would +be pretty hard," he acknowledged, "in a mixed gang like that to decide +just which particular dog was suited to what particular game!" + +"Yes, that's just it, sir," beamed the White Linen Nurse. "A dog, of +course, will chase anything that runs,--that's just dog,--but when a dog +really begins to _care_ for what he's chasing he--wags! That's hunting! +Father doesn't calculate, he says, on training a dog on anything he +doesn't wag on!" + +"Yes, but what's that got to do with you?" asked the Senior Surgeon a +bit impatiently. + +With ill-concealed dismay the White Linen Nurse stood staring blankly at +the Senior Surgeon's gross stupidity. + +"Why, don't you see?" she faltered. "I've been chasing this nursing job +three whole years now--and there's no wag to it!" + +"Oh Hell!" said the Senior Surgeon. If he hadn't said "Oh Hell!" he +would have grinned. And it hadn't been a grinning day, and he certainly +didn't intend to begin grinning at any such late hour as that in the +afternoon. With his dignity once reassured he relaxed then a trifle. +"For Heaven's sake, what _do_ you want to be?" he asked not unkindly. + +With an abrupt effort at self-control Rae Malgregor jerked her head into +at least the outer semblance of a person lost in almost fathomless +thought. + +"Why I'm sure I don't know, sir," she acknowledged worriedly. "But it +would be a great pity, I suppose, to waste all the grand training that's +gone into my hands." With sudden conviction her limp shoulders stiffened +a trifle. "My oldest sister," she stammered, "bosses the laundry in one +of the big hotels in Halifax, and my youngest sister teaches school in +Moncton. But I'm so strong, you know, and I like to move things round +so,--and everything,--maybe--I could get a position somewhere as general +housework girl." + +With a roar of amusement as astonishing to himself as to his listeners, +the Senior Surgeon's chin jerked suddenly upward. + +"You're crazy as a loon!" he confided cordially. "Great Scott! If you +can work up a condition like this on coffee,--what would you do on," he +hesitated grimly, "malted milk?" As unheralded as his amusement, gross +irritability overtook him again. "Will--you--stop--rattling that brown +paper?" he thundered at her. + +Innocently as a child she rebuffed the accusation and ignored the +temper. + +"But I'm not rattling it, sir!" she protested. "I'm simply trying to +hide what's on the other side of it." + +"What is on the other side of it?" demanded the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +With unquestioning docility the girl turned the paper around. + +From behind her desk the austere Superintendent twisted her +neck most informally to decipher the scrawling hieroglyphics. +"_Don't--Ever--Be_--_bumptious_!" she read forth jerkily with a +questioning, incredulous sort of emphasis. + +"Don't ever be bumptious?" squinted the Senior Surgeon perplexedly +through his glasses. + +"Yes," said Rae Malgregor very timidly. "It's my--motto." + +"Your motto?" sniffed the Superintendent. + +"Your motto?" chuckled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, my motto," repeated Rae Malgregor with the slightest perceptible +tinge of resentment. "And it's a perfectly good motto, too! Only, of +course, it hasn't got any style to it. That's why I didn't want the +girls to see it," she confided a bit drearily. Then palpably before +their eyes they saw her spirit leap into ineffable pride. "My Father +gave it to me," she announced briskly. "And my Father said that, when +I came home in June, if I could honestly say that I'd never once been +bumptious--all my three years here,--he'd give me a--heifer! And--" + +"Well I guess you've lost your heifer!" said the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"Lost my heifer?" gasped the girl. Big-eyed and incredulous she stood +for an instant staring back and forth from the Superintendent's face to +the Senior Surgeon's. "You mean?" she stammered, "you mean--that +I've--been--bumptious--just now? You mean--that after all these years +of--meachin' meekness--I've lost--?" + +Plainly even to the Senior Surgeon and the Superintendent the bones in +her knees weakened suddenly like knots of tissue paper. No power on +earth could have made her break discipline by taking a chair while the +Senior Surgeon stood, so she sank limply down to the floor instead, with +two great solemn tears welling slowly through the fingers with which she +tried vainly to cover her face. + +"And the heifer was brown, with one white ear; it was awful cunning," +she confided mumblingly. "And it ate from my hand--all warm and sticky, +like--loving sandpaper." There was no protest in her voice, nor any +whine of complaint, but merely the abject submission to Fate of one who +from earliest infancy had seen other crops blighted by other frosts. +Then tremulously with the air of one who, just as a matter of spiritual +tidiness, would purge her soul of all sad secrets, she lifted her +entrancing, tear-flushed face from her strong, sturdy, utterly +unemotional fingers and stared with amazing blueness, amazing blandness +into the Senior Surgeon's scowling scrutiny. + +"And I'd named her--for you!" she said. "I'd named her--Patience--for +you!" + +Instantly then she scrambled to her knees to try and assuage by some +miraculous apology the horrible shock which she read in the Senior +Surgeon's face. + +"Oh, of course, sir, I know it isn't scientific!" she pleaded +desperately. "Oh, of course, sir, I know it isn't scientific at all! But +up where I live, you know, instead of praying for anybody, we--we name a +young animal--for the virtue that that person--seems to need the most. +And if you tend the young animal carefully--and train it right--! +Why--it's just a superstition, of course, but--Oh, sir!" she floundered +hopelessly, "the virtue you needed most in your business was what I +meant! Oh, really, sir, I never thought of criticizing your character!" + +Gruffly the Senior Surgeon laughed. Embarrassment was in the laugh, and +anger, and a fierce, fiery sort of resentment against both the +embarrassment and the anger,--but no possible trace of amusement. +Impatiently he glanced up at the fast speeding clock. + +"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "I'm an hour late now!" Scowling like a +pirate he clicked the cover of his watch open and shut for an uncertain +instant. Then suddenly he laughed again, and there was nothing +whatsoever in his laugh this time except just amusement. + +"See here, Miss--Bossy Tamer," he said. "If the Superintendent is +willing, go get your hat and coat, and I'll take you out on that +meningitis case with me. It's a thirty mile run if it's a block, and I +guess if you sit on the front seat it will blow the cobwebs out of your +brain--if anything will," he finished not unkindly. + +Like a white hen sensing the approach of some utterly unseen danger the +Superintendent seemed to bristle suddenly in every direction. + +"It's a bit--irregular," she protested in her most even tone. + +"Bah! So are some of the most useful of the French verbs!" snapped the +Senior Surgeon. In the midst of authority his voice could be inestimably +soft and reassuring, but sometimes on the brink of asserting said +authority he had a tone that was distinctly unpleasant. + +"Oh, very well," conceded the Superintendent with some waspishness. + +Hazily for an instant Rae Malgregor stood staring into the +Superintendent's uncordial face. "I'd--I'd apologize," she faltered, +"but I--don't even know what I said. It just blew up!" + +Perfectly coldly and perfectly civilly the Superintendent received the +overture. "It was quite evident, Miss Malgregor, that you were not +altogether responsible at the moment," she conceded in common justice. + +Heavily then, like a person walking in her sleep the girl trailed out of +the room to get her coat and hat. + +Slamming one desk-drawer after another the Superintendent drowned the +sluggish sound of her retreating footsteps. + +"There goes my best nurse!" she said grimly. "My very best nurse! Oh no, +not the most brilliant one, I didn't mean that, but the most reliable! +The most nearly perfect human machine that it has ever been my privilege +to see turned out,--the one girl that week in, week out, month after +month, and year after year, has always done what she's told,--when she +was told,--and the exact way she was told,--without questioning +anything, without protesting anything, without supplementing anything +with some disastrous original conviction of her own--_and look at her +now_!" Tragically the Superintendent rubbed her hand across her worried +brow. "Coffee, you said it was?" she asked skeptically. "Are there any +special antidotes for coffee?" + +With a queer little quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked +his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim +torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring went scurrying through the +tree-tops. + +"What's that you asked?" he quizzed sharply. "Any antidotes for coffee? +Yes. Dozens of them. But none for Spring." + +"Spring?" sniffed the Superintendent. A little shiveringly she reached +out and gathered a white knitted shawl around her shoulders. "Spring? I +don't see what Spring's got to do with Rae Malgregor or any other young +outlaw in my graduating class. If graduation came in November it would +be just the same! They're a set of ingrates, every one of them!" +Vehemently she turned aside to her card-index of names and slapped the +cards through one by one without finding one single soothing exception. +"Yes, sir, a set of ingrates!" she repeated accusingly. "Spend your life +trying to teach them what to do and how to do it! Cram ideas into those +that haven't got any, and yank ideas out of those who have got too many! +Refine them, toughen them, scold them, coax them, everlastingly drill +and discipline them! And then, just as you get them to a place where +they move like clock-work, and you actually believe you can trust them, +then graduation day comes round, and they think they're all safe,--and +every single individual member of the class breaks out and runs a-muck +with the one dare-devil deed she's been itching to do every day the past +three years! Why this very morning I caught the President of the Senior +Class with a breakfast tray in her hands--stealing the cherry out of her +patient's grape fruit. And three of the girls reported for duty as bold +as brass with their hair frizzed tight as a nigger doll's. And the girl +who's going into a convent next week was trying on the laundryman's +derby hat as I came up from lunch. And now, now--" the Superintendent's +voice went suddenly a little hoarse, "and now--here's Miss +Malgregor--intriguing--to get an automobile ride with--_you!_" + +"Eh?" cried the Senior Surgeon with a jump. "What? Is this an Insane +Asylum? Is it a Nervine?" Madly he started for the door. "Order a ton of +bromides!" he called back over his shoulder. "Order a car-load of them! +Saturate the whole place with them! Drown the whole damned place!" + +Half way down the lower hall, all his nerves on edge, all his unwonted +boyish impulsiveness quenched noxiously like a candle flame, he met and +passed Rae Malgregor without a sign of recognition. + +"God! How I hate women!" he kept mumbling to himself as he struggled +clumsily all alone into the torn sleeve lining of his thousand dollar +mink coat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Like a train-traveler coming out of a long, smoky, smothery tunnel +Into the clean-tasting light, the White Linen Nurse came out of the +prudish-smelling hospital into the riotous mud-and-posie promise of the +young April afternoon. + +The God of Hysteria had certainly not deserted her! In all the full +effervescent reaction of her brain-storm,--fairly bubbling with +dimples, fairly foaming with curls,--light-footed, light-hearted, most +ecstatically light-headed, she tripped down into the sunshine as though +the great, harsh, granite steps that marked her descent were nothing +more nor less than a gigantic, old, horny-fingered hand passing her +blithely out to some deliciously unknown Lilliputian adventure. + +As she pranced across the soggy April sidewalk to what she supposed was +the Senior Surgeon's perfectly empty automobile she became conscious +suddenly that the rear seat of the car was already occupied. + +Out from an unseasonable snuggle of sable furs and flaming red hair a +small, peevish face peered forth at her with frank curiosity. + +"Why, hello!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. "Who are you?" + +With unmistakable hostility the haughty little face retreated into its +furs and its red hair. "Hush!" commanded a shrill childish voice. "Hush, +I say! I'm a cripple--and very bad-tempered. Don't speak to me!" + +"Oh, my Glory!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Oh my Glory, Glory, +Glory!" Without any warning whatsoever she felt suddenly like +Nothing-At-All, rigged out in an exceedingly shabby old ulster and an +excessively homely black slouch hat. In a desperate attempt at tangible +tom-boyish nonchalance she tossed her head and thrust her hands down +deep into her big ulster pockets. That the bleak hat reflected no decent +featherish consciousness of being tossed, that the big threadbare +pockets had no bottoms to them, merely completed her startled sense of +having been in some way blotted right out of existence. + +Behind her back the Senior Surgeon's huge fur-coated approach dawned +blissfully like the thud of a rescue party. + +But if the Senior Surgeon's blunt, wholesome invitation to ride had been +perfectly sweet when he prescribed it for her in the Superintendent's +office, the invitation had certainly soured most amazingly in the +succeeding ten minutes. Abruptly now, without any greeting, he reached +out and opened the rear door of the car, and nodded curtly for her to +enter there. + +Instantly across the face of the little crippled girl already ensconced +in the tonneau a single flash of light went zig-zagging crookedly from +brow to chin,--and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill +little voice. "Hello,--Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase +mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the +greeting ended and the taunt began. + +There was nothing subtle however about the way in which the Senior +Surgeon's hand shot out and slammed the tonneau door bang-bang again on +its original passenger. His face was crimson with anger. Brusquely he +pointed to the front seat. + +"You may sit in there, with me, Miss Malgregor!" he thundered. + +"Yes, sir," crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +Meek as an oiled machine she scuttled to her appointed place. Once +More in smothered giggle and unprotesting acquiescence she sensed the +resumption of eternal discipline. Already in just this trice of time +she felt her rampant young mouth resettle tamely into lines of smug, +determinate serenity. Already across her idle lap she felt her clasped +fingers begin to frost and tingle again like a cheerfully non-concerned +bunch of live wires waiting the one authoritative signal to connect +somebody,--anybody,--with this world or the next. Already the facile tip +of her tongue seemed fairly loaded and cocked like a revolver with all +the approximate "Yes, sirs," "No, sirs," that she thought she should +probably need. + +But the only immediate remarks that the Senior Surgeon addressed to any +one were addressed distinctly to the crank of his automobile. + +"Damn having a chauffeur who gets drunk the one day of the year when +you need him most!" he muttered under his breath, as with the same +exquisitely sensitive fingers that could have dissected like a caress +the nervous system of a humming bird, or re-set unbruisingly the broken +wing of a butterfly, he hurled his hundred and eighty pounds of +infuriate brute-strength against the calm, chronic, mechanical +stubbornness of that auto crank. "Damn!" he swore on the upward pull. +"Damn!" he gasped on the downward push. "Damn!" he cursed and sputtered +and spluttered. Purple with effort, bulging-eyed with strain, reeking +with sweat, his frenzied outburst would have terrorized the entire +hospital staff. + +With an odd little twinge of homesickness, the White Linen Nurse slid +cautiously out to the edge of her seat so that she might watch the +struggle better. For thus, with dripping foreheads and knotted +neck-muscles and breaking backs and rankly tempestuous language, did +the untutored men-folk of her own beloved home-land hurl their great +strength against bulls and boulders and refractory forest trees. Very +startlingly as she watched, a brand new thought went zig-zagging through +her consciousness. Was it possible,--was it even so much as remotely +possible--that the great Senior Surgeon,--the great, wonderful, +altogether formidable, altogether unapproachable Senior Surgeon,--was +just a--was just a--? Stripped ruthlessly of all his social +superiority,--of all his professional halo,--of all his scientific +achievement, the Senior Surgeon stood suddenly forth before her--a mere +man--just like other men! _Just exactly_ like other men? Like the sick +drug-clerk? Like the new-born millionaire baby? Like the doddering old +Dutch gaffer? The very delicacy of such a thought drove the blood +panic-stricken from her face. It was the indelicacy of the thought that +brought the blood surging back again to brow, to cheeks, to lips, even +to the tips of her ears. + +Glancing up casually from the roar and rumble of his abruptly repentant +engine the Senior Surgeon swore once more under his breath to think that +any female sitting perfectly idle and non-concerned in a seven thousand +dollar car should have the nerve to flaunt such a furiously strenuous +color. + +Bristling with resentment and mink furs he strode around the fender and +stumbled with increasing irritation across the White Linen Nurse's knees +to his seat. Just for an instant his famous fingers seemed to flash with +apparent inconsequence towards one bit of mechanism and another. Then +like a huge, portentous pill floated on smoothest syrup the car slid +down the yawning street into the congested city. + +Altogether monotonously in terms of pain and dirt and drug and disease +the city wafted itself in and out of the White Linen Nurse's +well-grooved consciousness. From every filthy street corner sodden age +or starved babyhood reached out its fluttering pulse to her. Then, +suddenly sweet as a draught through a fever-tainted room, the squalid +city freshened into jocund, luxuriant suburbs with rollicking tennis +courts, and flaming yellow forsythia blossoms, and green velvet lawns +prematurely posied with pale exotic hyacinths and great scarlet +splotches of lusty tulips. + +Beyond this hectic horticultural outburst the leisurely Spring faded out +again into April's naturally sallow colors. + +Glossy and black as an endless typewriter ribbon, the narrow, tense +State Road seemed to wind itself everlastingly in--and in--and +in--on some hidden spool of the car's mysterious mechanism. +Clickety-Click-Click-Clack,--faster than any human mind could +think,--faster than any human hand could finger,--hurtling up hazardous +hills of thought,--sliding down facile valleys of fancy,--roaring with +emphasis,--shrieking with punctuation,--the great car yielded itself +perforce to Fate's dictation. + +Robbed successively of the city's humanitarian pang, of the suburb's +esthetic pleasure, the White Linen Nurse found herself precipitated +suddenly into a mere blur of sight, a mere chaos of sound. In whizzing +speed and crashing breeze,--houses--fences--meadows--people--slapped +across her eyeballs like pictures on a fan. On and on and on through +kaleidoscopic yellows and rushing grays the great car sped, a purely +mechanical factor in a purely mechanical landscape. + +Rigid with concentration the Senior Surgeon stared like a dead man into +the intrepid, on-coming road. + +Intermittently from her green, plushy laprobes the little crippled girl +struggled to her feet, and sprawling clumsily across whose-ever shoulder +suited her best, raised a brazenly innocent voice, deliberately flatted, +in a shrill and maddeningly repetitive chant of her own making, to the +effect that + +All the birds were there +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And bumble bees crocheted in the trees-- +And bumble bees crocheted in the trees-- +And all the birds were there-- +And--And-- + +Intermittently from the front seat the Senior Surgeon's wooden face +relaxed to the extent of a grim mouth twisting distractedly sideways in +one furious bellow. + +"Will--you--stop--your--_noise_--and--go--back--to--your--seat!" + +Nothing else happened at all until at last, out of unbroken stretches of +winter-staled stubble, a high, formal hemlock hedge and a neat, pebbled +driveway proclaimed the Senior Surgeon's ultimate destination. + +Cautiously now, with an almost tender skill, the big car circled a tiny, +venturesome clump of highway violets and crept through a prancing, +leaping fluff of yellow collie dogs to the door of the big stone house. + +Instantly from inestimable resources a liveried serving man appeared to +help the Surgeon from his car; another, to take the Surgeon's coat; +another, to carry his bag. + +Lingering for an instant to stretch his muscles and shake his great +shoulders, the Senior Surgeon breathed into his cramped lungs a friendly +impulse as well as a scent of budding cherry trees. + +"You may come in with me, if you want to, Miss Malgregor." he conceded. +"It's an extraordinary case. You will hardly see another one like it." +Palpably he lowered his already almost indistinguishable voice. "The boy +is young," he confided, "about your age, I should guess, a college +foot-ball hero, the most superbly perfect specimen of young manhood it +has ever been my privilege to behold. It will be a long case. They have +two nurses already, but would like another. The work ought not to be +hard. Now if they should happen to--fancy you!" In speechless +expressiveness his eyes swept estimatingly over sun-parlors, stables, +garages, Italian gardens, rapturous blue-shadowed mountain views--every +last intimate detail of the mansion's wonderful equipment. + +Like a drowning man feeling his last floating spar wrenched away from +him, the White Linen Nurse dug her finger-nails frantically into every +reachable wrinkle and crevice of the heavily upholstered seat. + +"Oh, but sir, I don't want to go in!" she protested passionately. "I +tell you, sir, I'm quite done with all that sort of thing! It would +break my heart! It would! Oh, sir, this worrying about people for whom +you've got no affection,--it's like sledding without any snow! It grits +right down on your naked nerves. It--" + +Before the Senior Surgeon's glowering, incredulous stare her heart began +to plunge and pound again, but it plunged and pounded no harder, she +realized suddenly, than when in the calm, white hospital precincts she +was obliged to pass his terrifying presence in the corridor and murmur +an inaudible "Good Morning" or "Good Evening." "After all, he's nothing +but a man--nothing but a man--nothing but a mere--ordinary--two-legged +man," she reasoned over and over to herself. With a really desperate +effort she smoothed her frightened face into an expression of utter +guilelessness and peace and smiled unflinchingly right into the Senior +Surgeon's rousing anger as she had once seen an animal-trainer smile +into the snarl of a crouching tiger. + +"Th--ank you very much!" she said. "But I think I won't go in, +sir,--thank you! My--my face is still pretty tired!" + +"Idiot!" snapped the Senior Surgeon as he turned on his heel and started +up the steps. + +From the green plushy robes on the back seat the White Linen Nurse could +have sworn that she heard a sharply ejaculated, maliciously joyful "Ha!" +piped out. But when both she and the Senior Surgeon turned sharply round +to make sure, the Little Crippled Girl, in apparently complete +absorption, sat amiably extracting tuft after tuft of fur from the thumb +of one big sable glove, to the rumbling, sing-song monotone of "He loves +me--Loves me not--Loves me--Loves me not." + +Bristling with unutterable contempt for all femininity, the Senior +Surgeon proceeded up the steps between two solemn-faced lackeys. + +"Father!" wailed a feeble little voice. "Father!" There was no +shrillness in the tone now, nor malice, nor any mischievous thing,--just +desolation, the impulsive, panic-stricken desolation of a little child +left suddenly alone with a stranger. "Father!" the frightened voice +ventured forth a tiny bit louder. But the unheeding Senior Surgeon had +already reached the piazza. "Fat Father!" screamed the little voice. +Barbed now like a shark-hook the phrase ripped through the Senior +Surgeon's dormant sensibilities. As one fairly yanked out of his +thoughts he whirled around in his tracks. + +"What do you want?" he thundered. + +Helplessly the little girl sat staring from a lackey's ill-concealed +grin to her Father's smoldering fury. Quite palpably she began to +swallow with considerable difficulty. Then quick as a flash a +diminutively crafty smile crooked across one corner of her mouth. + +"Father?" she improvised dulcetly. "Father? May--may I--sit--in the +White Linen Nurse's lap?" + +Just for an instant the Senior Surgeon's narrowing eyes probed +mercilessly into the reekingly false little smile. Then altogether +brutally he shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't care where in blazes you sit!" he muttered, and went on into +the house. + +With an air of unalterable finality the massive oak door closed after +him. In the resonant click of its latch the great wrought-iron lock +seemed to smack its lips with ineffable satisfaction. + +Wringing suddenly round with a whish of starched skirts the White Linen +Nurse knelt up in her seat and grinned at the Little Crippled Girl. + +"'Ha'--yourself!" she said. + +Against all possible expectancy the Little Crippled Girl burst out +laughing. The laugh was wild, ecstatic, extravagantly boisterous, yet +awkward withal, and indescribably bumpy, like the first flight of a +cage-cramped bird. + +Quite abruptly the White Linen Nurse sat down again, and commenced +nervously with the wrist of her chamois glove to polish the slightly +tarnished brass lamp at her elbow. Equally abruptly after a minute she +stopped polishing and looked back at the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Would--you--like--to sit in my lap?" she queried conscientiously. + +Insolent with astonishment the Little Girl parried the question. "Why in +blazes--should I want to sit in your lap?" she quizzed harshly. Every +accent of her voice, every remotest intonation, was like the Senior +Surgeon's at his worst. The suddenly forked eyebrow, the snarling twitch +of the upper lip, turned the whole delicate little face into a grotesque +but desperately unconscious caricature of the grim-jawed father. + +As though the father himself had snubbed her for some unimaginable +familiarity the White Linen Nurse winced back in hopeless confusion. +Just for sheer shock, short-circuited with fatigue, a big tear rolled +slowly down one pink cheek. + +Instantly to the edge of her seat the Little Girl jerked herself +forward. "Don't cry, Pretty!" she whispered. "Don't cry! It's my legs. +I've got fat iron braces on my legs. And people don't like to hold me!" + +Half the professional smile came flashing back to the White Linen +Nurse's mouth. + +"Oh, I just adore holding people with iron braces on their legs," she +affirmed, and, leaning over the back of the seat, proceeded with +absolutely perfect mechanical tenderness to gather the poor, puny, +surprised little body into her own strong, shapely arms. Then dutifully +snuggling her shoulder to meet the stubborn little shoulder that refused +to snuggle, to it, and dutifully easing her knees to suit the stubborn +little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down resignedly in +her seat again to await the return of the Senior Surgeon. "There! There! +There!" she began quite instinctively to croon and pat. + +"Don't say 'There! There!'" wailed the Little Girl peevishly. Her body +was suddenly stiff as a ram-rod. "Don't say 'There! There!' If you've +got to make any noise at all, say 'Here! Here!'" + +"Here! Here!" droned the White Linen Nurse. "Here! Here! Here! Here!" On +and on and interminably on, "Here! Here! Here! Here!" + +At the end of about the three-hundred-and-forty-seventh "Here!" the +Little Girl's body relaxed, and she reached up two fragile fingers to +close the White Linen Nurse's mouth. "There! That will do," she sighed +contentedly. "I feel better now. Father does tire me so." + +"Father tires--_you_?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. The giggle that +followed the gasp was not in the remotest degree professional. "Father +tires _you_?" she repeated accusingly. "Why, you silly Little Girl! +Can't you see it's you that makes Father so everlastingly tired?" +Impulsively with her one free hand she turned the Little Girl's listless +face to the light. "What makes you call your nice father 'Fat Father'?" +she asked with real curiosity. "What makes you? He isn't fat at all. +He's just big. Why, what ever possesses you to call him 'Fat Father,' I +say? Can't you see how mad it makes him?" + +"Why, of course it made him mad!" said the Little Girl with plainly +reviving interest. Thrilled with astonishment at the White Linen Nurse's +apparent stupidity she straightened up perkily with inordinately +sparkling eyes. "Why, of course it makes him mad!" she explained +briskly. "That's why I do it! Why, my Parpa--never even looks at +me--unless I make him mad!" + +"S--sh!" said the White Linen Nurse. "Why, you mustn't ever say a thing +like that! Why, your Marma wouldn't like you to say a thing like that!" + +Jerking bumpily back against the White Linen Nurse's unprepared shoulder +the Little Girl prodded a pallid finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse's +vivid cheek. "Silly--Pink and White--Nursie!" she chuckled, "Don't you +know there _isn't_ any Marma?" Cackling with delight over her own +superior knowledge she folded her little arms and began to rock herself +convulsively to and fro. + +"Why, stop!" cried the White Linen Nurse. "Now you stop! Why, you wicked +little creature laughing like that about your poor dead mother! Why, +just think how bad it would make your poor Parpa feel!" + +With instant sobriety the Little Girl stopped rocking, and stared +perplexedly into the White Linen Nurse's shocked eyes. Her own little +face was all wrinkled up with earnestness. + +"But the Parpa--didn't like the Marma!" she explained painstakingly. +"The Parpa--_never_ liked the Marma! That's why he doesn't like me! I +heard Cook telling the Ice Man once when I wasn't more than ten minutes +old!" + +Desperately with one straining hand the White Linen Nurse stretched her +fingers across the Little Girl's babbling mouth. Equally desperately, +with the other hand, she sought to divert the Little Girl's mind by +pushing the fur cap back from her frizzly red hair, and loosening her +sumptuous coat, and jerking down vainly across two painfully obtrusive +white ruffles, the awkwardly short, hideously bright little purple +dress. + +"I think your cap is too hot," she began casually, and then proceeded +with increasing vivacity and conviction to the objects that worried her +most. "And those--those ruffles," she protested, "they don't look a bit +nice being so long!" Resentfully she rubbed an edge of the purple dress +between her fingers. "And a little girl like you,--with such bright red +hair,--oughtn't to wear--purple!" she admonished with real concern. + +"Now whites and blues--and little soft pussy-cat grays--" + +Mumblingly through her finger-muzzled mouth the Little Girl burst into +explanations again. + +"Oh, but when I wear gray," she persisted, "the Parpa--never sees me! +But when I wear purple he cares,--he cares--most awfully!" she boasted +with a bitter sort of triumph. "Why when I wear purple and frizz my hair +hard enough,--no matter who's there, or anything,--he'll stop right off +short in the middle of whatever he's doing--and rear right up so +perfectly beautiful and mad and glorious--and holler right out 'For +Heaven's sake, take that colored Sunday supplement away!'" + +"Your Father's nervous," suggested the White Linen Nurse. + +Almost tenderly the Little Girl reached up and drew the White Linen +Nurse's ear close down to her own snuggling lips. + +"Damned nervous!" she confided laconically. + +Quite against all intention the White Linen Nurse giggled. Floundering +to recover her dignity she plunged into a new error. "Poor little +dev--," she began. + +"Yes," sighed the Little Girl complacently. "That's just what the Parpa +calls me." Fervidly she clasped her little hands together. "Yes, if I +can only make him mad enough daytimes," she asserted, "then at night +when he thinks I'm all asleep he comes and stands by my cribby-house +like a great black shadow-bear and shakes and shakes his most beautiful +head and says, 'Poor little devil--poor little devil.' Oh, if I can only +make him mad enough daytimes!" she cried out ecstatically. + +"Why, you naughty little thing!" scolded the White Linen Nurse with an +unmistakable catch in her voice. "Why, you--naughty--naughty--little +thing!" + +Like the brush of a butterfly's wing the child's hand grazed the White +Linen Nurse's cheek. "I'm a lonely little thing," she confided +wistfully. "Oh, I'm an awfully lonely little thing!" With really +shocking abruptness the old malicious smile came twittering back to her +mouth. "But I'll get even with the Parpa yet!" she threatened joyously, +reaching out with pliant fingers to count the buttons on the White +Linen Nurse's dress. "Oh, I'll get even with the Parpa yet!" In the +midst of the passionate assertion her rigid little mouth relaxed in a +most mild and innocent yawn. + +"Oh, of course," she yawned, "on wash days and ironing days and every +other work day in the week he has to be away cutting up people 'cause +that's his lawful business. But Sundays, when he doesn't really need to +at all, he goes off to some kind of a green, grassy club--all day +long--and plays golf." + +Very palpably her eyelids began to droop. "Where was I?" she asked +sharply. "Oh, yes, 'the green, grassy club.' Well, when I die," she +faltered, "I'm going to die specially on some Sunday when there's a big +golf game,--so he'll just naturally have to give it up and stay home +and--amuse me--and help arrange the flowers. The Parpa's crazy about +flowers. So am I," she added broodingly. "I raised almost a geranium +once. But the Parpa threw it out. It was a good geranium, too. All it +did was just to drip the tiniest-teeniest bit over a book and a writing +and somebody's brains in a dish. He threw it at a cat. It was a good +cat, too. All it did was to--" + +A little jerkily her drooping head bobbed forward and then back again. +Her heavy eyes were almost tight shut by this time, and after a moment's +silence her lips began moving dumbly like one at silent devotions. "I'm +making a little poem, now," she confided at last. "It's about--you and +me. It's a sort of a little prayer." Very, very softly she began to +repeat. + +Now I sit me down to nap +All curled up in a Nursie's lap, +If _she_ should die before I wake-- + +Abruptly she stopped and stared up suspiciously into the White Linen +Nurse's eyes. "Ha!" she mocked, "you thought I was going to say 'If I +should die before I wake,'--didn't you? _Well, I'm not_!" + +"It would have been more generous," acknowledged the White Linen Nurse. + +Very stiffly the Little Girl pursed her lips. "It's plenty generous +enough--when it's all done!" she said severely. "And I'll thank +you,--Miss Malgregor,--not to interrupt me again!" With excessive +deliberateness she went back to the first line of her poem and began +all over again, + +Now I sit me down to nap, +All curled up in a Nursie's lap, +If _she_ should die before I wake, +Give her--give her ten cents--for Jesus' sake! + +"Why that's a--a cunning little prayer," yawned the White Linen Nurse. +Most certainly of course she would have smiled if the yawn hadn't caught +her first. But now in the middle of the yawn it was a great deal easier +to repeat the "very cunning" than to force her lips into any new +expression. "Very cunning--very cunning," she kept crooning +conscientiously. + +Modestly like some other successful authors the Little Girl flapped her +eyelids languidly open and shut for three or four times before she +acknowledged the compliment. "Oh, cunning as any of 'em," she admitted +off-handishly. Only once again did she open either mouth or eyes, and +this time it was merely one eye and half a mouth. "Do my fat iron +braces--hurt you?" she mumbled drowsily. + +"Yes, a little," conceded the White Linen Nurse. + +"Ha! They hurt me--all the time!" gibed the Little Girl. + +Five minutes later, the child who didn't particularly care about being +held, and the girl who didn't particularly care about holding her, were +fast asleep in each other's arms,--a naughty, nagging, restive little +hornet all hushed up and a-dream in the heart of a pink wild-rose! + +Stalking out of the house in his own due time the Senior Surgeon reared +back aghast at the sight. + +"Well--I'll be hanged!" he muttered. "Most everlastingly hanged! Wonder +what they think this is? A somnolent kindergarten show? Talk about +fiddling while Rome burns!" + +Awkwardly, on the top step, he struggled alone into his cumbersome coat. +Every tingling nerve in his body, every shuddering sensibility, was +racked to its utmost capacity over the distressing scenes he had left +behind him in the big house. Back in that luxuriant sickroom, Youth +Incarnate lay stripped, root, branch, leaf, bud, blossom, fruit, of +All its manhood's promise. Back in that erudite library, Culture +Personified, robbed of all its fine philosophy, sat babbling illiterate +street-curses into its quivering hands. Back in that exquisite pink and +gold boudoir, Blonded Fashion, ravished for once of all its artistry, +ran stumbling round and round in interminable circles like a disheveled +hag. In shrill crescendos and discordant basses, with heartpiercing +jaggedness, with blood-curdling raspishness, each one, boy, father, +mother, meddlesome relative, competent or incompetent assistant, +indiscriminate servant, filing his separate sorrow into the Senior +Surgeon's tortured ears! + +With one of those sudden revulsions to materialism which is liable +to overwhelm any man who delves too long at a time in the brutally +unconventional issues of life and death, the Senior Surgeon stepped down +into the subtle, hyacinth-scented sunshine with every latent human greed +in his body clamoring for expression--before it, too, should be hurtled +into oblivion. "Eat, you fool, and drink, you fool, and be merry,--you +fool,--for to-morrow--_even you,--Lendicott R. Faber--may have to die_!" +brawled and re-brawled through his mind like a ribald phonograph tune. + +At the edge of the bottom step a precipitous lilac branch that must have +budded and bloomed in a single hour smote him stingingly across his +cheek. "Laggard!" taunted the lilac branch. + +With the first crunching grit of gravel under his feet, something +transcendently naked and unashamed that was neither Brazen Sorrow nor +Brazen Pain thrilled across his startled consciousness. Over the +rolling, marshy meadow, beyond the succulent willow-hedge that hid the +winding river, up from some fluent, slim canoe, out from a chorus of +virile young tenor voices, a little passionate Love Song--divinely +tender--most incomparably innocent--came stealing palpitantly forth into +that inflammable Spring world without a single vestige of accompaniment +on it! + +Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here, +And Love is Lord of you and me, +There's no bird in brake or brere, +But to his little mate sings he, +"Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here +And Love is Lord of you--and me!" + +Wrenched like a sob out of his own lost youth the Senior Surgeon's +faltering college memories took up the old refrain. + +As I go singing, to my dear, +"Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here, +And Love is Lord of you and me!" + +Just for an instant a dozen long-forgotten pictures lanced themselves +poignantly into his brain,--dingy, uncontrovertible old recitation +rooms where young ideas flashed bright and futile as parade +swords,--elm-shaded slopes where lithe young bodies lolled on green +velvet grasses to expound their harshest cynicisms! Book-history, +book-science, book-economics, book-love,--all the paper passion of all +the paper poets swaggering imperiously on boyish lips that would have +died a thousand bashful deaths before the threatening imminence of a +real girl's kiss! Magic days, with Youth the one glittering, positive +treasure on the Tree of Life--and Woman still a mystery! + +"Woman a mystery?" Harshly the phrase ripped through the Senior +Surgeon's brain. Croakingly in that instant all the grim gray scientific +years re-overtook him, swamped him, strangled him. "Woman a _mystery_? +Oh ye Gods! And Youth? Bah! Youth,--a mere tinsel tinkle on a rotting +Christmas tree!" + +Furiously with renewed venom he turned and threw his weight again upon +the stubbornly resistant crank of his automobile. + +Vaguely disturbed by the noise and vibration the White Linen Nurse +opened her big, drowsy, blue eyes upon him. + +"Don't--jerk--it--so!" she admonished hazily, "You'll wake the Little +Girl!" + +"Well, what about my convenience, I'd like to know?" snapped the Senior +Surgeon in some astonishment. + +Heavily the White Linen Nurse's lashes shadowed down again across her +sleep-flushed cheeks. + +"Oh, never mind--about--that," she mumbled non-concernedly. + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake--wake up there!" bellowed the Senior Surgeon +above the sudden roar of his engine. + +Adroitly for a man of his bulk he ran around the radiator and jumped +into his seat. Joggled unmercifully into wakefulness, the Little Girl +greeted his return with a generous if distinctly non-tactful +demonstration of affection. Grabbing the unwitting fingers of his +momentarily free hand she tapped them proudly against the White Linen +Nurse's plump pink cheek. + +"See! I call her 'Peach'!" she boasted joyously with all the triumphant +air of one who felt assured that mental discrimination such as this +could not possibly fail to impress even a person so naturally obtuse +as--a father. + +"Don't be foolish!" snarled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Who? Me?" gasped the White Linen Nurse in a perfect agony of confusion. + +"Yes! You!" snapped the Senior Surgeon explosively half an hour later +after interminable miles of absolute silence--and dingy yellow +field-stubble--and bare brown alder bushes. + +Truly out of the ascetic habit of his daily life, "where no rain was," +as the Bible would put it, it did seem to him distinctly foolish, not to +say careless, not to say out and out incendiary, for any girl to go +blushing her way like a fire-brand through a world so palpably populated +by young men whose heads were tow, and hearts indisputably tinder, +rather than tender. + +"Yes! You!" he reasserted vehemently at the end of another silent mile. + +Then plainly begrudging this second inexcusable interruption of his most +vital musings concerning Spinal Meningitis he scowled his way savagely +back again into his own grimly established trend of thought. + +Excited by so much perfectly good silence that nobody seemed to be using +the Little Crippled Girl ventured gallantly forth once more into the +hazardous conversational land of grown-ups. + +"Father?" she experimented cautiously with most commendable discretion. + +Fathoms deep in abstraction the Senior Surgeon stared unheeding into the +whizzing black road. Pulses and temperatures and blood-pressures were +seething in his mind; and sharp sticks and jagged stones and the general +possibilities of a puncture; and murmurs of the heart and râles of the +lungs; and a most unaccountable knock-knock-knocking in the engine; and +the probable relation of middle-ear disease; and the perfectly positive +symptoms of optic neuritis; and a damned funny squeak in the steering +gear! + +"Father?" the Little Girl persisted valiantly. + +To add to his original concentration the Senior Surgeon's linen collar +began to chafe him maddeningly under his chin. The annoyance added two +scowls to his already blackly furrowed face, and at least ten miles an +hour to his running time; but nothing whatsoever to his conversational +ability. + +"Father!" the Little Girl whimpered with faltering courage. Then +panic-stricken, as wiser people have been before her, over the dreadful +spookish remoteness of a perfectly normal human being who refuses either +to answer or even to notice your wildest efforts at communication, she +raised her waspish voice in its shrillest, harshest war-cry. "Fat +Father! _Fat Father! F-a-t F-a-t-h-e-r!_" she screeched out frenziedly +at the top of her lungs. + +The gun-shot agony of a wounded rabbit was in the cry, the last gurgling +gasp of strangulation under a murderer's reeking fingers,--catastrophe +unspeakable,--disaster now irrevocable! + +Clamping down his brakes with a wrench that almost tore the insides out +of his engine the Senior Surgeon brought the great car to a staggering +standstill. + +"What is it?" he cried in real terror. "What is it?" + +Limply the Little Girl stretched down from the White Linen Nurse's lap +till she could nick her toe against the shiniest woodwork in sight. +Altogether aimlessly her small chin began to burrow deeper and deeper +into her big fur collar. + +"For Heaven's sake, what do you want?" demanded the Senior Surgeon. Even +yet along his spine the little nerves crinkled with shock and +apprehension. "For Heaven's sake what do you want?" + +Helplessly the child lifted her turbid eyes to his. With unmistakable +appeal her tiny hand went clutching out at one of the big buttons on his +coat. Desperately for an instant she rummaged through her brain for some +remotely adequate answer to this most thunderous question,--and then +retreated precipitously as usual to the sacristy of her own +imagination. + +"All the birds _were_ there, Father!" she confided guilelessly. "All the +birds _were_ there,--with yellow feathers instead of hair! And +bumblebees--crocheted in the trees. And--" + +Short of complete annihilation there was no satisfying vengeance +whatsoever that the Senior Surgeon's exploding passion could wreak upon +his offspring. Complete annihilation being unfeasible at the moment he +merely climbed laboriously out of the car, re-cranked the engine, +climbed laboriously back into his place and started on his way once +more. All the red blustering rage was stripped completely from him. +Startlingly rigid, startlingly white, his face was like the death-mask +of a pirate. + +Pleasantly excited by she-didn't-know-exactly-what, the Little Girl +resumed her beloved falsetto chant, rhythmically all the while with her +puny iron-braced legs beating the tune into the White Linen Nurse's +tender flesh. + +All the birds were there +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And bumblebees crocheted in the trees +And--and--all the birds were there, +With yellow feathers instead of hair, +And-- + +Frenziedly as a runaway horse trying to escape from its own pursuing +harness and carriage the Senior Surgeon poured increasing speed into +both his own pace and the pace of his tormentor. Up hill,--down +dale,--screeching through rocky echoes,--swishing through blue-green +spruce-lands,--dodging indomitable boulders,--grazing lax, treacherous +embankments,--the great car scuttled homeward. Huddled behind his +steering wheel like a warrior behind his shield, every body-muscle taut +with strain, every facial muscle diabolically calm, the Senior Surgeon +met and parried successively each fresh onslaught of yard, rod, mile. + +Then suddenly in the first precipitous descent of a mighty hill the +whole earth seemed to drop out from under the car. Down-down-down with +incredible swiftness and smoothness the great machine went diving +towards abysmal space! Up-up-up with incredible bumps and bouncings, +trees, bushes, stonewalls went rushing to the sky! + +Gasping surprisedly towards the Senior Surgeon the White Linen Nurse +saw his grim mouth yank round abruptly in her direction as it yanked +sometimes in the operating-room with some sharp, incisive order of life +or death. Instinctively she leaned forward for the message. + +Not over-loud but strangely distinct the words slapped back into her +straining ears. + +"If--it will rest your face any--to look scared--by all means--do so! +I've lost control of the machine!" called the Senior Surgeon +sardonically across the roar of the wind. + +The phrase excited the White Linen Nurse but it did not remotely +frighten her. She was not in the habit of seeing the Senior Surgeon lose +control of any situation. Merely intoxicated with speed, delirious with +ozone, she snatched up the Little Girl close, to her breast. + +"We're flying!" she cried. "We're dropping from a parachute! We're--!" + +Swoopingly like a sled striking glare, level ice the great car swerved +from the bottom of the hill into a soft rolling meadow. Instantly from +every conceivable direction, like foes in ambush, trees, stumps, rocks +reared up in threatening defiance. + +Tighter and tighter the White Linen Nurse crushed the Little Girl to her +breast. Louder and louder she called in the Little Girl's ear. + +_"Scream!"_ she shouted. _"There might be a bump! Scream louder than a +bump! Scream! Scream! Scream!"_ + +In that first over-whelming, nerve-numbing, heart-crunching terror of +his whole life as the great car tilted up against a stone,--plowed down +into the mushy edge of a marsh,--and skidded completely round, +_crash-bang--_ into a tree, it was the last sound that the Senior +Surgeon heard,--the sound of a woman and child screeching their lungs +out in diabolical exultancy! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +When the White Linen Nurse found anything again she found herself lying +perfectly flat on her back in a reasonably comfortable nest of grass and +leaves. Staring inquisitively up into the sky she thought she noticed a +slight black and blue discoloration towards the west, but more than +that, much to her relief, the firmament did not seem to be seriously +injured. The earth, she feared had not escaped so easily. Even way off +somewhere near the tip of her fingers the ground was as sore--as +sore--as could be--under her touch. Impulsively to her dizzy eyes the +hot tears started, to think that now, tired as she was, she should have +to jump right up in another minute or two and attend to the poor earth. +Fortunately for any really strenuous emergency that might arise there +seemed to be nothing about her own body that hurt at all except a queer, +persistent little pain in her cheek. Not until the Little Crippled +Girl's dirt-smouched face intervened between her own staring eyes and +the sky did she realize that the pain in her cheek was a pinch. + +"Wake up! Wake up!" scolded the Little Crippled Girl shrilly. +"Naughty--Pink and White Nursie! I wanted to hear the bump! You screamed +so loud I couldn't hear the bump!" + +With excessive caution the White Linen Nurse struggled up at last to a +sitting posture, and gazed perplexedly around her. + +It seemed to be a perfectly pleasant field,--acres and acres of mild old +grass tottering palsiedly down to watch some skittish young violets and +bluets frolic in and out of a giggling brook. Up the field? Up the +field? Hazily the White Linen Nurse ground her knuckles into her +incredulous eyes. Up the field, just beyond them, the great empty +automobile stood amiably at rest. From the general appearance of the +stone-wall at the top of the little grassy slope it was palpably evident +that the car had attempted certain vain acrobatic feats before its +failing momentum had forced it into the humiliating ranks of the +back-sliders. + +Still grinding her knuckles into her eyes the White Linen Nurse turned +back to the Little Girl. Under the torn, twisted sable cap one little +eye was hidden completely, but the other eye loomed up rakish and +bruised as a prizefighter's. One sable sleeve was wrenched disastrously +from its arm-hole, and along the edge of the vivid little purple skirt +the ill-favored white ruffles seemed to have raveled out into hopeless +yards and yards and yards of Hamburg embroidery. + +A trifle self-consciously the Little Girl began to gather herself +together. + +"We--we seem to have fallen out of something!" she confided with the air +of one who halves a most precious secret. + +"Yes, I know," said the White Linen Nurse. "But what has become of--your +Father?" + +Worriedly for an instant the Little Girl sat scanning the remotest +corners of the field. Then abruptly with a gasp of real relief she began +to explore with cautious fingers the geographical outline of her black +eye. + +"Oh, never mind about Father," she asserted cheerfully. "I guess--I +guess he got mad and went home." + +"Yes--I know," mused the White Linen Nurse. "But it doesn't +seem--probable." + +"Probable?" mocked the Little Girl most disagreeably. Then suddenly her +little hand went shooting out towards the stranded automobile. + +"Why, there he is!" she screamed. "Under the car! Oh, +Look--Look--Lookey!" + +Laboriously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her knees. Desperately +she tried to ram her fingers like a clog into the whirling dizziness +round her temples. + +"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What's the dose for anybody under a car?" she +babbled idiotically. + +Then with a really herculean effort,--both mental and physical, she +staggered to her feet, and started for the automobile. + +But her knees gave out, and wilting down to the grass she tried to crawl +along on all-fours, till straining wrists sent her back to her feet +again. + +Whenever she tried to walk the Little Girl walked,--whenever she tried +to crawl the Little Girl crawled. + +"Isn't it fun!" the shrill childish voice piped persistently. "Isn't it +just like playing ship-wreck!" + +When they reached the car both woman and child were too utterly +exhausted with breathlessness to do anything except just sit down on the +ground and--stare. + +Sure enough under that monstrous, immovable looking machine the Senior +Surgeon's body lay rammed face-down deep, deep into the grass. + +It was the Little Girl who recovered her breath first. + +"I think he's dead!" she volunteered sagely. "His legs look--awfully +dead--to me!" Only excitement was in the statement. It took a second or +two for her little mind to make any particularly personal application of +such excitement. "I hadn't--exactly--planned--on having him dead!" she +began with imperious resentment. A threat of complete emotional collapse +zig-zagged suddenly across her face. "I won't have him dead! I won't! I +_won't_!" she screamed out stormily. + +In the amazing silence that ensued the White Linen Nurse gathered her +trembling knees up into the circle of her arms and sat there staring at +the Senior Surgeon's prostrate body, and rocking herself feebly to and +fro in a futile effort to collect her scattered senses. + +"Oh, if some one would only tell me what to do,--I know I could do it! +Oh, I know I could do it! If some one would only tell me what to do!" +she kept repeating helplessly. + +Cautiously the Little Girl crept forward on her hands and knees to the +edge of the car and peered speculatively through the great yellow +wheel-spokes. "Father!" she faltered in almost inaudible gentleness. +"Father!" she pleaded in perfectly impotent whisper. + +Impetuously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her own hands and knees +and jostled the Little Girl aside. + +"Fat Father!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. "Fat Father! Fat Father! +_Fat Father!"_ she gibed and taunted with the one call she knew that +had never yet failed to rouse him. + +Perceptibly across the Senior Surgeon's horridly quiet shoulders a +little twitch wrinkled and was gone again. + +"Oh, his heart!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "I must find his heart!" + +Throwing herself prone upon the cool meadowy ground and frantically +reaching out under the running board of the car to her full arm's length +she began to rummage awkwardly hither and yon beneath the heavy weight +of the man in the desperate hope of feeling a heart-beat. + +"Ouch! You tickle me!" spluttered the Senior Surgeon weakly. + +Rolling back quickly with fright and relief the White Linen Nurse burst +forth into one maddening cackle of hysterical laughter. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" +she giggled. "Hi! Hi! Titter! Titter! Titter!" + +Perplexedly at first but with increasing abandon the Little Girl's voice +took up the same idiotic refrain. "Ha-Ha-Ha," she choked. And +"Hi-Hi-Hi!" And "Titter! Titter! Titter!" + +With an agonizing jerk of his neck the Senior Surgeon rooted his +mud-gagged mouth a half inch further towards free and spontaneous +speech. Very laboriously, very painstakingly, he spat out one by one two +stones and a wisp of ground pine and a brackish, prickly tickle of stale +golden-rod. + +"Blankety-blank-blank--BLANK!" he announced in due time, +"Blankety-blank-blank-blank--BLANK! Maybe when you +two--blankety-blank--imbeciles have got through your blankety-blank +cackling you'll have the--blankety-blank decency to save my--my +blankety-blank-blank--blank--_blank-blank_ life!" + +"Ha! Ha! Ha!" persisted the poor helpless White Linen Nurse with the +tears streaming down her cheeks. + +"Hi! Hi! Hi!" snickered the poor Little Girl through her hiccoughs. + +Feeling hopelessly crushed under two tons and a half of car, the Senior +Surgeon closed his eyes for death. No man of his weight, he felt quite +sure, could reasonably expect to survive many minutes longer the +apoplectic, blood-red rage that pounded in his ear-drums. Through his +tight-closed eyelids very, very slowly a red glow seemed to permeate. He +thought it was the fires of Hell. Opening his eyes to meet his fate like +a man he found himself staring impudently close instead into the White +Linen Nurse's furiously flushed face that lay cuddled on one plump cheek +staring impudently close at him. + +"Why--why--get out!" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Very modestly the White Linen Nurse's face retreated a little further +into its blushes. + +"Yes, I know," she protested. "But I'm all through giggling now. I'm +sorry--I'm--" + +In sheer apprehensiveness the Senior Surgeon's features crinkled +wincingly from brow to chin as though struggling vainly to retreat from +the appalling proximity of the girl's face. + +"Your--eyelashes--are too long," he complained querulously. + +"Eh?" jerked the White Linen Nurse's face. "Is it your brain that's +hurt? Oh, sir, do you think it's your brain that's hurt?" + +"It's my stomach!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "I tell you I 'm not +hurt,--I'm just--squashed! I'm paralyzed! If I can't get this car off +me--" + +"Yes, that's just it," beamed the White Linen Nurse's face. "That's just +what I crawled in here to find out,--how to get the car off you. That's +just what I want to find out. I could run for help, of course,--only I +couldn't run, 'cause my knees are so wobbly. It would take hours--and +the car might start or burn up or something while I was gone. But you +don't seem to be caught anywhere on the machinery," she added more +brightly, "it only seems to be sitting on you. So if I could only get +the car off you! But it's so heavy. I had no idea it would be so heavy. +Could I take it apart, do you think? Is there any one place where I +could begin at the beginning and take it all apart?" + +"Take it apart--Hell!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. + +A little twitch of defiance flickered across the White Linen Nurse's +face. "All the same," she asserted stubbornly, "if some one would only +tell me what to do--I know I could do it!" + +Horridly from some unlocatable quarter of the engine an alarming little +tremor quickened suddenly and was hushed again. + +"Get out of here--quick!" stormed the Senior Surgeon's ghastly face. + +"I won't!" said the White Linen Nurse's face. "Until you tell me--what +to do!" + +Brutally for an instant the ingenuous blue eyes and the cynical gray +eyes battled each other. + +"_Can_ you do what you're told?" faltered the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh, yes," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"I mean can you do exactly--what you're told?" gasped the Senior +Surgeon. "Can you follow directions, I mean? Can you follow +them--explicitly? Or are you one of those people who listens only to her +own judgment?" + +"Oh, but I haven't got any--judgment," protested the White Linen Nurse. + +Palpably in the Senior Surgeon's blood-shot eyes the leisurely seeming +diagnosis leaped to precipitous conclusions. + +"Then get out of here--quick--for God's sake--and get to work!" he +ordered. + +Cautiously the White Linen Nurse jerked herself back into freedom and +crawled around and stared at the Senior Surgeon through the wheel-spokes +again. Like one worrying out some intricate mathematical problem his +mental strain was pulsing visibly through his closed eyelids. + +"Yes, sir?" prodded the White Linen Nurse. + +"Keep still!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "I've got to think," he said. +"I've got to work it out! All in a moment you've got to learn to run the +car. All in a moment! It's awful!" + +"Oh, I don't mind, sir," affirmed the White Linen Nurse serenely. + +Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon rooted one cheek into the mud again. "You +don't--_mind_?" he groaned. "You don't--_mind_? Why, you've got to +learn--everything! Everything--from--the very beginning!" + +"Oh, that's all right, sir," crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +Ominously from somewhere a horrid sound creaked again. The Senior +Surgeon did not stop to argue any further. + +"Now come here," ordered the Senior Surgeon. "I'm going to--I'm going +to--" Startlingly his voice weakened,--trailed off into +nothingness,--and rallied suddenly with exaggerated bruskness. "Look +here now! For Heaven's sake use your brains! I'm going to dictate to +you--very slowly--one thing at a time--just what to do!" + +Quite astonishingly the White Linen Nurse sank down on her knees and +began to grin at him. "Oh, no, sir," she said. "I couldn't do it that +way,--not 'one thing at a time.' Oh, no indeed, sir! No!" Absolute +finality was in her voice,--the inviolable stubbornness of the perfectly +good-natured person. + +"You'll do it the way I tell you to!" roared the Senior Surgeon +struggling vainly to ease one shoulder or stretch one knee-joint. + +"Oh, no, sir," beamed the White Linen Nurse. "Not one thing at a time! +Oh, no, I couldn't do it that way! Oh, no, sir, I won't do it that +way--one thing at a time," she persisted hurriedly. "Why, you might +faint away or something might happen--right in the middle of it--right +between one direction and another--and I wouldn't know at all--what to +turn on or off next--and it might take off one of your legs, you know, +or an arm. Oh, no,--not one thing at a time!" + +"Good-by--then," croaked the Senior Surgeon. "I'm as good as dead now." +A single shudder went through him,--a last futile effort to stretch +himself. + +"Good-by," said the White Linen Nurse. "Good-by, sir.--I'd heaps rather +have you die--perfectly whole--like that--of your own accord--than have +me run the risk of starting the car full-tilt and chopping you up so--or +dragging you off so--that you didn't find it convenient to tell me--how +to stop the car." + +"You're a--a--a--" spluttered the Senior Surgeon indistinguishably. + +"Crinkle-crackle," went that mysterious, horrid sound from somewhere in +the machinery. + +"Oh my God!" surrendered the Senior Surgeon. "Do it your own--damned +way! Only--only--" His voice cracked raspingly. + +"Steady! Steady there!" said the White Linen Nurse. Except for a sudden +odd pucker at the end of her nose her expression was still perfectly +serene. "Now begin at the beginning," she begged. "Quick! Tell me +everything--just the way I must do it! Quick--quick--quick!" + +Twice the Senior Surgeon's lips opened and shut with a vain effort to +comply with her request. + +"But you can't do it," he began all over again. "It isn't possible. You +haven't got the mind!" + +"Maybe I haven't," said the White Linen Nurse. "But I've got the memory. +Hurry!" + +"Creak," said the funny little something in the machinery. +"Creak--drip--bubble!" + +"Oh, get in there quick!" surrendered the Senior Surgeon. "Sit down +behind the wheel!" he shouted after her flying footsteps. "Are you +there? For God's sake--are you there? Do you see those two little levers +where your right hand comes? For God's sake--don't you know what a +lever is? Quick now! Do just what I tell you!" + +A little jerkily then, but very clearly, very concisely, the Senior +Surgeon called out to the White Linen Nurse just how every lever, every +pedal should be manipulated to start the car! + +Absolutely accurately, absolutely indelibly the White Linen Nurse +visualized each separate detail in her abnormally retentive mind! + +"But you can't--possibly remember it!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. +"You can't--possibly! And probably the damn car's _bust_ and won't +start--anyway--and--!" Abruptly the speech ended in a guttural snarl of +despair. + +"Don't be a--blight!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. "I've never +forgotten anything yet, sir!" + +Very tensely she straightened up suddenly in her seat. Her expression +was no longer even remotely pleasant. Along her sensitive, fluctuant +nostrils the casual crinkle of distaste and suspicion had deepened +suddenly into sheer dilating terror. + +"Left foot--press down--hard--left pedal!" she began to sing-song to +herself. + +"No! _Right_ foot!--_right_ foot!" corrected the Little Girl +blunderingly from somewhere close in the grass. + +"Inside lever--pull--way--back!" persisted the White Linen Nurse +resolutely as she switched on the current. + +"No! _Outside_ lever! _Outside! Outside_!" contradicted the Little Girl. + +"Shut your darned mouth!" screeched the White Linen Nurse, her hand on +the throttle as she tried the self starter. + +Bruised as he was, wretched, desperately endangered there under the car +the Senior Surgeon could almost have grinned at the girl's terse, +unconscious mimicry of his own most venomous tones. + +Then with all the forty-eight lusty, ebullient years of his life +snatched from his lips like an untasted cup, and one single noxious, +death-flavored second urged,--forced,--crammed down his choking throat, +he felt the great car quicken and start. + +"God!" said the Senior Surgeon. Just "God!" The God of mud, he meant! +The God of brackish grass! The God of a man lying still hopeful under +more than two tons' weight of unaccountable mechanism, with a novice in +full command. + +Up in her crimson leather cushions, free-lunged, free-limbed, the White +Linen Nurse heard the smothered cry. Clear above the whirr of wheels, +the whizz of clogs, the one word sizzled like a red-hot poker across her +chattering consciousness. Tingling through the grasp of her fingers on +the vibrating wheel, stinging through the sole of her foot that hovered +over the throbbing clutch, she sensed the agonized appeal. "Short +lever--spark--long lever--gas!" she persisted resolutely. "It must be +right! It must!" + +Jerkily then, and blatantly unskilfully, with riotous puffs and spinning +of wheels, the great car started,--faltered,--balked a bit,--then +dragged crushingly across the Senior Surgeon's flattened body, and with +a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the +brook--rods away. Clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket +like the smash of a machine-shop the White Linen Nurse jumped out into +the brook, and with one wild terrified glance behind her staggered back +up the long grassy slope to the Senior Surgeon. + +Mechanically through her wooden-feeling lips she forced the greeting +that sounded most cheerful to her. "It's not much fun, sir,--running an +auto," she gasped. "I don't believe I'd like it!" + +Half propped up on one elbow,--still dizzy with mental chaos, still +paralyzed with physical inertia,--the Senior Surgeon lay staring blankly +all around him. Indifferently for an instant his stare included the +White Linen Nurse. Then glowering suddenly at something way beyond her, +his face went perfectly livid. + +"Good God! The--the car's on fire!" he mumbled. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. "Why! Didn't you know it, sir?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Headlong the Senior Surgeon pitched over on the grass,--his last vestige +of self-control stripped from him,--horror unspeakable racking him +sobbingly from head to toe. + +Whimperingly the Little Girl came crawling to him, and settling down +close at his feet began with her tiny lace handkerchief to make futile +dabs at the mud-stains on his gray silk stockings. "Never mind, Father," +she coaxed, "we'll get you clean sometime." + +Nervously the White Linen Nurse bethought her of the brook. "Oh, wait a +minute, sir--and I'll get you a drink of water!" she pleaded. + +Bruskly the Senior Surgeon's hand jerked out and grabbed at her skirt. + +"Don't leave me!" he begged. "For God's sake--don't leave me!" + +Weakly he struggled up again and sat staring piteously at the blazing +car. His unrelinquished clutch on the White Linen Nurse's skirt brought +her sinking softly down beside him like a collapsed balloon. Together +they sat and watched the gaseous yellow flames shoot up into the sky. + +"It's pretty, isn't it?" piped the Little Girl. + +"Eh?" groaned the Senior Surgeon. + +"Father," persisted the shrill little voice. "Father,--do people ever +burn up?" + +"_Eh?_" gasped the Senior Surgeon. Brutally the harsh, shuddering sobs +began to rack and tear again through his great chest. + +"There! There!" crooned the White Linen Nurse, struggling desperately to +her knees. "Let me get--everybody--a drink of water." + +Again the Senior Surgeon's unrelinquished clutch on her skirt jerked her +back to the place beside him. + +"I said _not to leave me_!" he snapped out as roughly as he jerked. + +Before the affrighted look in the White Linen Nurse's face a sheepish, +mirthless grin flickered across one corner of his mouth. + +"Lord! But I'm shaken!" he apologized. "Me--of all people!" Painfully +the red blood mounted to his cheeks. "Me--of all people!" Bluntly he +forced the White Linen Nurse's reluctant gaze to meet his own. "Only +yesterday," he persisted, "I did a laparotomy on a man who had only one +chance in a hundred of pulling through--and I--I scolded him for +fighting off his ether cone,--scolded him--I tell you!" + +"Yes, I know," soothed the White Linen Nurse. "But--" + +"But _nothing_!" growled the Senior Surgeon. "The fear of death? Bah! +All my life I've scoffed at it! _Die_? Yes, of course,--when you have +to,--but with no kick coming! Why, I've been wrecked in a typhoon in the +Gulf of Mexico. And I didn't care! And I've lain for nine days more dead +than alive in an Asiatic cholera camp. And I didn't care! And I've been +locked into my office three hours with a raving maniac and a dynamite +bomb. And I didn't care! And twice in a Pennsylvania mine disaster I've +been the first man down the shaft. And I didn't care! And I've been +shot, I tell you,--and I've been horse-trampled,--and I've been +wolf-bitten. And I've never cared! But to-day--to-day--" Piteously all +the pride and vigor wilted from his great shoulders, leaving him all +huddled up like a woman, with his head on his knees. "But to-day, I've +_got mine!_" he acknowledged brokenly. + +Once again the White Linen Nurse tried to rise. "Oh, please, sir, let me +get you a--drink of water," she suggested helplessly. + +"I said _not to leave me!_" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Perplexedly with big staring eyes the Little Crippled Girl glanced up at +this strange fatherish person who sounded so suddenly small and scared +like herself. Jealous instantly of her own prerogatives she dropped her +futile labors on the mud-stained silk stockings and scrambled +precipitously for the White Linen Nurse's lap where she nestled down +finally after many gyrations, and sat glowering forth at all possible +interlopers. + +"Don't leave any of us!" she ordered with a peremptoriness not unmixed +with supplication. + +"Surely some one will see the fire and come and get us," conceded the +Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes--surely," mused the White Linen Nurse. Just at that moment she was +mostly concerned with adjusting the curve of her shoulder to the curve +of the Little Girl's head. "I could sit more comfortably," she suggested +to the Senior Surgeon, "if you'd let go my skirt." + +"Let go of your skirt? Who's touching your skirt?" gasped the Senior +Surgeon incredulously. Once again the blood mounted darkly to his face. +"I think I'll get up--and walk around a bit," he confided coldly. + +"Do, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Ouchily with a tweak of pain through his sprained back the Senior +Surgeon sat suddenly down again. "I sha'n't get up till I'm good and +ready!" he attested. + +"I wouldn't, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all the while she kept right on +renovating the Little Girl's personal appearance, smoothing a wrinkled +stocking, tucking up obstreperous white ruffles, tugging down +parsimonious purple hems, loosening a pinchy hook, tightening a wobbly +button. Very slowly, very complacently the Little Girl drowsed off to +sleep with her weazened little iron-cased legs stretched stiffly out +before her. "Poor little legs! Poor little legs! Poor little legs!" +crooned the White Linen Nurse. + +"I don't know--as you need to--make a song about it!" winced the Senior +Surgeon. "It's just about the crudest case of complete muscular atrophy +that I've ever seen!" + +Blandly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his. "It +wasn't her 'complete muscular atrophy' that I was thinking about!" she +said. "It's her panties that are so unbecoming!" + +"Eh?" jumped the Senior Surgeon. + +"Poor little legs--poor little legs--poor little legs," resumed the +White Linen Nurse droningly. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all around them April kept right +on--being April. + +Very slowly, very complacently, all around them the grass kept +On growing, and the trees kept right on budding. Very slowly, very +complacently, all around them the blue sky kept right on fading into +its early evening dove-colors. + +Nothing brisk, nothing breathless, nothing even remotely hurried was +there in all the landscape except just the brook,--and the flash of a +bird,--and the blaze of the crackling automobile. + +The White Linen Nurse's nostrils were smooth and calm with the lovely +sappy scent of rabbit-nibbled maple bark and mud-wet arbutus buds. The +White Linen Nurse's mind was full of sumptuous, succulent marsh +marigolds, and fluffy white shad-bush blossoms. + +The Senior Surgeon's nostrils were all puckered up with the stench of +burning varnish. The Senior Surgeon's mind was full of the horrid +thought that he'd forgotten to renew his automobile fire-insurance,--and +that he had a sprained back,--and that his rival colleague had told him +he didn't know how to run an auto anyway--and that the cook had given +notice that morning,--and that he had a sprained back,--and that the +moths had gnawed the knees out of his new dress suit,--and that the +Superintendent of Nurses had had the audacity to send him a bunch of +pink roses for his birthday,--and that the boiler in the kitchen +leaked,--and that he had to go to Philadelphia the next day to read a +paper on "Surgical Methods at the Battle of Waterloo,"--and he hadn't +even begun the paper yet,--and that he had a sprained back,--and that +the wall-paper on his library hung in shreds and tatters waiting for +him to decide between a French fresco effect and an early English +paneling,--and that his little daughter was growing up in wanton +ugliness under the care of coarse, indifferent hirelings,--and that the +laundry robbed him weekly of at least five socks,--and that it would +cost him fully seven thousand dollars to replace this car,--and that he +had a sprained back! + +"It's restful, isn't it?" cooed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Isn't _what_ restful?" glowered the Senior Surgeon. + +"Sitting down!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Contemptuously the Senior Surgeon's mind ignored the interruption and +reverted precipitously to its own immediate problem concerning the +gloomy, black-walnut shadowed entrance hall of his great house, and how +many yards of imported linoleum at $3.45 a yard it would take to +recarpet the "damned hole,"--and how it would have seemed anyway if--if +he hadn't gone home--as usual to the horrid black-walnut shadows that +night--but been carried home instead--feet first and--quite dead--dead, +mind you, with a red necktie on,--and even the cook was out! And they +wouldn't even know where to lay him--but might put him by mistake in +that--in that--in his dead wife's dead--bed! + +Altogether unconsciously a little fluttering sigh of ineffable +contentment escaped the White Linen Nurse. + +"I don't care how long we have to sit here and wait for help," she +announced cheerfully, "because to-morrow, of course, I'll have to get up +and begin all over again--and go to Nova Scotia." + +"Go _where_?" lurched the Senior Surgeon. + +"I'd thank you kindly, sir, not to jerk my skirt quite so hard!" said +the White Linen Nurse just a trifle stiffly. + +Incredulously once more the Senior Surgeon withdrew his detaining hand. +"I'm not even touching your skirt!" he denied desperately. Nothing but +denial and reiterated denial seemed to ease his self-esteem for an +instant. "Why, for Heaven's sake, should I want to hold on to your +skirt?" he demanded peremptorily. "What the deuce--?" he began +blusteringly. "Why in--?" + +Then abruptly he stopped and shot an odd, puzzled glance at the White +Linen Nurse, and right there before her startled eyes she saw every +vestige of human expression fade out of his face as it faded out +sometimes in the operating-room when in the midst of some ghastly, +unforeseen emergency that left all his assistants blinking helplessly +around them, his whole wonderful scientific mind seemed to break up like +some chemical compound into all its meek component parts,--only to +reorganize itself suddenly with some amazing explosive action that +fairly knocked the breath out of all on-lookers--but was pretty apt to +knock the breath into the body of the person most concerned. + +When the Senior Surgeon's scientific mind had reorganized itself to meet +_this_ emergency he found himself infinitely more surprised at the +particular type of explosion that had taken place than any other person +could possibly have been. + +"Miss Malgregor!" he gasped. "Speaking of preferring 'domestic +service,' as you call it,--speaking of preferring domestic service +to--nursing,--how would you like to consider--to consider a position +of--of--well,--call it a--a position of general--heartwork--for a family +of two? Myself and the Little Girl here being the 'two,'--as you +understand," he added briskly. + +"Why, I think it would be grand!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +A trifle mockingly the Senior Surgeon bowed his appreciation. "Your +frank and immediate--enthusiasm," he murmured, "is more, perhaps, than I +had dared to expect." + +"But it would be grand!" said the White Linen Nurse. Before the odd +little smile in the Senior Surgeon's eyes her white forehead puckered +all up with perplexity. Then with her mind still thoroughly unawakened, +her heart began suddenly to pitch and lurch like a frightened horse +whose rider has not even remotely sensed as yet the approach of an +unwonted footfall. "What--did--you--say?" she repeated worriedly. "Just +exactly what was it that you said? I guess--maybe--I didn't understand +just exactly what it was that you said." + +The smile in the Senior Surgeon's eyes deepened a little. "I asked you," +he said, "how you would like to consider a position of 'general +heartwork' in a family of two,--myself and the Little Girl here being +the 'two.' 'Heartwork' was what I said. Yes,--'Heartwork,'--not +housework!" + +"_Heartwork?_" faltered the White Linen Nurse. "_ Heartwork?_ I don't +know what you mean, sir." Like two falling rose-petals her eyelids +fluttered down across her affrighted eyes. "Oh, when I shut my eyes, +sir, and just hear your voice, I know of course, sir, that it's some +sort of a joke. But when I look right at you--I--don't know--what it +is!" + +"Open your eyes and keep them open then till you do find out!" suggested +the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +Defiantly once again the blue eyes and the gray eyes challenged each +other. + +"'Heartwork' was what I said," persisted the Senior Surgeon. Palpably +his narrowing eyes shut out all meaning but one definite one. + +The White Linen Nurse's face went almost as blanched as her dress. +"You're--you're not asking me to--marry you, sir?" she stammered. + +"I suppose I am!" acknowledged the Senior Surgeon. + +"Not marry you!" cried the White Linen Nurse. Distress was in her +voice,--distaste,--unmitigable shock, as though the high gods themselves +had fallen at her feet and splintered off into mere candy fragments. + +"Oh--not _marry_ you, sir?" she kept right on protesting. "Not +be--_engaged_, you mean? Oh, not be _engaged_--and everything?" + +"Well, why not?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +Like a smitten flower the girl's whole body seemed to wilt down into +incalculable weariness. + +"Oh--no--no! I couldn't!" she protested. "Oh, no,--really!" Appealingly +she lifted her great blue eyes to his, and the blueness was all blurred +with tears. "I've--I've been engaged--once--you know," she explained +falteringly. "Why--I was engaged, sir, almost as soon as I was born, and +I stayed engaged till two years ago. That's almost twenty years. That's +a long time, sir. You don't get over it--easy." Very, very gravely she +began to shake her head. "Oh--no--sir! No! Thank you--very much--but +I--I just simply couldn't begin at the beginning and go all through it +again! I haven't got the heart for it! I haven't got the spirit! Carvin' +your initials on trees and--and gadding round to all the Sunday school +picnics--" + +Brutally like a boy the Senior Surgeon threw back his head in one wild +hoot of joy. Infinitely more cautiously as the agonizing pang in his +shoulder lulled down again he proceeded to argue the matter, but the +grin in his face was even yet faintly traceable. + +"Frankly, Miss Malgregor," he affirmed, "I'm infinitely more addicted to +carving people than to carving trees. And as to Sunday school picnics? +Well, really now--I hardly believe that you'd find my demands in that +direction--excessive!" + +Perplexedly the White Linen Nurse tried to stare her way through his +bantering smile to his real meaning. Furiously, as she stared, the red +blood came flushing back into her face. + +"You don't mean for a second that you--that you love me?" she asked +incredulously. + +"No, I don't suppose I do!" acknowledged the Senior Surgeon with equal +bluntness. "But my little kiddie here loves you!" he hastened somewhat +nervously to affirm. "Oh, I'm almost sure that my little kiddie +here--loves you! She needs you anyway! Let it go at that! Call it that +we both--need you!" + +"What you mean is--" corrected the White Linen Nurse, "that needing +somebody--very badly, you've just suddenly decided that that somebody +might as well be me?" + +"Well--if you choose to put it--like that!" said the Senior Surgeon a +bit sulkily. + +"And if there hadn't been an auto accident?" argued the White Linen +Nurse just out of sheer inquisitiveness, "if there hadn't been just +this particular kind of an auto accident--at this particular hour--of +this particular day--of this particular month--with marigolds +and--everything, you probably never would have realized that you did +need anybody?" + +"Maybe not," admitted the Senior Surgeon. + +"U--m--m," said the White Linen Nurse. "And if you'd happened to take +one of the other girls to-day--instead of me,--why then I suppose you'd +have felt that she was the one you really needed? And if you'd taken the +Superintendent of Nurses--instead of any of us girls--you might even +have felt that _she_ was the one you most needed?" + +With surprising agility for a man with a sprained back the Senior +Surgeon wrenched himself around until he faced her quite squarely. + +"Now see here, Miss Malgregor!" he growled. "For Heaven's sake listen +to sense, even if you can't talk it! Here am I, a plain professional +man--making you a plain professional offer. Why in thunder should you +try to fuss me all up because my offer isn't couched in all the +foolish, romantic, lace-paper sort of flub-dubbery that you think such +an offer ought to be couched in? Eh?" + +"Fuss you all up, sir?" protested the White Linen Nurse with real +anxiety. + +"Yes--fuss me all up!" snarled the Senior Surgeon with increasing venom. +"I'm no story-writer! I'm not trying to make up what might have happened +a year from next February in a Chinese junk off the coast of--Nova +Zembla--to a Methodist preacher--and a--and a militant suffragette! What +I'm trying to size up is--just what's happened to you and me--to-day! +For the fact remains that it is to-day! And it is you and I! And there +has been an accident! And out of that accident--and everything that's +gone with it--I have come out--thinking of something that I never +thought of before! And there were marigolds!" he added with unexpected +whimsicality. "You see I don't deny--even the marigolds!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Yes what?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Softly the White Linen Nurse's chin burrowed down a little closer +against the sleeping child's tangled hair. "Why--yes--thank you very +much--but I never shall love again," she said quite definitely. + +"Love?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. "Why, I'm not asking you to love me!" +His face was suddenly crimson. "Why, I'd hate it, if you--loved me! Why, +I'd--" + +"O--h--h," mumbled the White Linen Nurse in new embarrassment. Then +suddenly and surprisingly her chin came tilting bravely up again. "What +do you want?" she asked. + +Helplessly the Senior Surgeon threw out his hands. "My goodness!" he +said. "What do you suppose I want? _I want some one to take care of +us!_" + +Gently the White Linen Nurse shifted her shoulder to accommodate the +shifting little sleepyhead on her breast. + +"You can hire some one for that," she suggested with real relief. + +"I was trying to hire--you!" said the Senior Surgeon quite tersely. + +"Hire me?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Why! Why!" + +Adroitly she slipped both hands under the sleeping child and delivered +the little frail-fleshed, heavily ironed body into the Senior Surgeon's +astonished arms. + +"I--I don't want to hold her," he protested. + +"She--isn't mine!" argued the White Linen Nurse. + +"But I can't talk while I'm holding her!" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +"I can't listen--while I'm holding her!" persisted the White Linen +Nurse. + +Freely now, though cross-legged like a Turk, she jerked herself forward +on the grass and sat probing up into the Senior Surgeon's face like an +excited puppy trying to solve whether the gift in your up-raised hand is +a lump of sugar--or a live coal. + +"You're trying to hire--_me_?" she prompted him nudgingly with her +voice. "Hire me--for money?" + +"Oh my Lord, no!" said the Senior Surgeon. "There are plenty of people I +can hire for money! But they won't stay!" he explained ruefully. "Hang +it all,--they won't stay!" Above his little girl's white, pinched face +his own ruddy countenance furrowed suddenly with unspeakable anxiety. + +"Why, just this last year," he complained, "we've had nine different +housekeepers--and thirteen nursery governesses!" Skilfully as a surgeon, +but awkwardly as a father, he bent to re-adjust the weight of the little +iron leg-braces. "But I tell you--no one will stay with us!" he finished +hotly. "There's--something the matter--with us! I don't seem to have +money enough in the world to make anybody--stay with us!" + +Very wryly, very reluctantly, at one corner of his mouth his sense of +humor ignited in a feeble grin. + +"So you see what I'm trying to do to you, Miss Malgregor, is to--hire +you with something that will just--naturally compel you to stay!" + +If the grin round his mouth strengthened a trifle, so did the anxiety in +his eyes. + +"For Heaven's sake, Miss Malgregor," he pleaded. "Here's a man and a +house and a child all going to--rack and ruin! If you're really and +truly tired of nursing--and are looking for a new job,--what's the +matter with tackling us?" + +"It would be a job!" admitted the White Linen Nurse demurely. + +"Why, it would be a deuce-of-a-job!" confided the Senior Surgeon with no +demureness whatsoever. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Very soberly, very thoughtfully then, across the tangled, snuggling head +of his own and another woman's child, he urged the torments--and the +comforts of his home upon this second woman. + +"What is there about my offer--that you don't like?" he demanded +earnestly. "Is it the whole idea that offends you? Or just the way I put +it? 'General Heartwork for a Family of Two?' What is the matter with +that? Seems a bit cold to you, does it, for a real marriage proposal? Or +is it that it's just a bit too ardent, perhaps, for a mere plain +business proposition?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Yes what?" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes--_sir_," flushed the White Linen Nurse. + +Very meditatively the Senior Surgeon reconsidered his phrasing. +"'General Heartwork for a Family of Two'? U--m--m." Quite abruptly +even the tenseness of his manner faded from him, leaving his face +astonishingly quiet, astonishingly gentle. "But how else, Miss +Malgregor," he queried, "How else should a widower with a child proffer +marriage to a--to a young girl like yourself? Even under conditions +directly antipodal to ours, such a proposition can never be a purely +romantic one. Yet even under conditions as cold and business-like as +ours, there's got to be some vestige of affection in it,--some vestige +at least of the _intelligence_ of affection,--else what gain is there +for my little girl and me over the purely mercenary domestic service +that has racked us up to this time with its garish faithlessness?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"But even if I had loved you, Miss Malgregor," explained the Senior +Surgeon gravely, "my offer of marriage to you would not, I fear, +have been a very great oratorical success. Materialist as I +am,--cynic--scientist,--any harsh thing you choose to call me,--marriage +in some freak, boyish corner of my mind, still defines itself as being +the mutual sharing of a--mutually original experience. Certainly +whether a first marriage be instigated in love or worldliness,--whether +it eventually proves itself bliss, tragedy, or mere sickening ennui, to +two people coming mutually virgin to the consummation of that marriage, +the thrill of establishing publicly a man-and-woman home together is an +emotion that cannot be reduplicated while life lasts." + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Bleakly across the Senior Surgeon's face something gray that was not +years shadowed suddenly and was gone again. + +"Even so, Miss Malgregor," he argued, "even so--without any glittering +romance whatsoever, no woman I believe is very grossly unhappy in +any--affectional place--that she knows distinctly to be her _own_ place. +It's pretty much up to a man then I think,--though it tear him brain +from heart, to explain to a second wife quite definitely just exactly +what place it is that he is offering her in his love,--or his +friendship,--or his mere desperate need. No woman can ever hope to step +successfully into a second-hand home who does not know from her man's +own lips the measure of her predecessor. The respect we owe the dead is +a selfish thing compared to the mercy we owe the living. In my own +case--" + +Unconsciously the White Linen Nurse's lax shoulders quickened, and the +sudden upward tilt of her chin was as frankly interrogative as a French +inflection. "Yes, sir," she said. + +"In my own case," said the Senior Surgeon bluntly, "in my own case, Miss +Malgregor, it is no more than fair to tell you that I--did not love my +wife. And my wife did not love me." Only the muscular twitch in his +throat betrayed the torture that the confession cost him. "The details +of that marriage are unnecessary," he continued with equal bluntness. +"It is enough perhaps to say that she was the daughter of an eminent +surgeon with whom I was exceedingly anxious at that time to be allied, +and that our mating, urged along on both sides as it was by strong +personal ambitions was one of those so-called 'marriages of convenience' +which almost invariably turn out to be marriages of such dire +inconvenience to the two people most concerned. For one year we lived +together in a chaos of experimental acquaintanceship. For two years we +lived together in increasing uncongeniality and distaste. For three +years we lived together in open and acknowledged enmity. At the last, I +am thankful to remember, that we had one year together again that was at +least an--armed truce." + +Darkly the gray shadow and the red flush chased each other once more +across the man's haggard face. + +"I had a theory," he said, "that possibly a child might bridge the chasm +between us. My wife refuted the theory, but submitted herself +reluctantly to the fact. And when she--in giving birth to--my +theory,--the shock, the remorse, the regret, the merciless self-analysis +that I underwent at that time almost convinced me that the whole +miserable failure of our marriage lay entirely on my own shoulders." +Like the stress of mid-summer the tears of sweat started suddenly on his +forehead. "But I am a fair man, I hope,--even to myself, and the cooler, +less-tortured judgment of the subsequent years has practically assured +me that, for types as diametrically opposed as ours, such a thing as +mutual happiness never could have existed." + +Mechanically he bent down and smoothed a tickly lock of hair away from +the little girl's eyelids. + +"And the child is the living physical image of her," he stammered. "The +violent hair,--the ghost-white skin,--the facile mouth,--the arrogant +eyes,--staring--staring--maddeningly reproachful, persistently accusing. +My own stubborn will,--my own hideous temper,--all my own ill-favored +mannerisms--mocked back at me eternally in her mother's--unloved +features." Mirthless as the grin of a skull, the Senior Surgeon's mouth +twisted up a little at one corner. "Maybe I could have borne it better +if she'd been a boy," he acknowledged grimly. "But to see all your +virile--masculine vices come back at you--so sissified--in _skirts_!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +With an unmistakable gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon expanded his +great chest. + +"There! That's done!" he said tersely. "So much for the Past! Now for +the Present! Look at us pretty keenly and judge for yourself! A man and +a very little girl,--not guaranteed,--not even recommended,--offered +merely 'As Is' in the honest trade-phrase of the day,--offered frankly +in an open package,--accepted frankly,--if at all--'at your own risk.' +Not for an instant would I try to deceive you about us! Look at us +closely, I ask, and--decide for yourself! I am forty-eight years old. I +am inexcusably bad-tempered,--very quick to anger, and not, I fear, of +great mercy. I am moody. I am selfish. I am most distinctly unsocial. +But I am not, I believe, stingy,--nor ever intentionally unfair. My +child is a cripple,--and equally bad-tempered as myself. No one but a +mercenary has ever coped with her. And she shows it. We have lived alone +for six years. All of our clothes, and most of our ways, need mending. I +am not one to mince matters, Miss Malgregor, nor has your training, I +trust, made you one from whom truths must be veiled. I am a man with all +a man's needs,--mental, moral, physical. My child is a child with all a +child's needs,--mental, moral, physical. Our house of life is full of +cobwebs. The rooms of affection have long been closed. There will be a +great deal of work to do! And it is not my intention, you see, that you +should misunderstand in any conceivable way either the exact nature or +the exact amount of work and worry involved. I should not want you to +come to me afterwards with a whine, as other workers do, and say 'Oh, +but I didn't know you would expect me to do _this!_ Oh, but I hadn't any +idea you would want me to do _that!_ And I certainly don't see why you +should expect me to give up my Thursday afternoon just because you, +yourself, happened to fall down stairs in the morning and break your +back!'" + +Across the Senior Surgeon's face a real smile lightened suddenly. + +"Really, Miss Malgregor," he affirmed, "I'm afraid there isn't much of +anything that you won't be expected to do! And as to your 'Thursdays +out'? Ha! If you have ever yet found a way to temper the wind of your +obligations to the shorn lamb of your pleasures, you have discovered +something that I myself have never yet succeeded in discovering! And as +to 'wages'? Yes! I want to talk everything quite frankly! In addition +to my average yearly earnings,--which are by no means small,--I have a +reasonably large private fortune. Within normal limits there is no +luxury I think that you cannot hope to have. Also, exclusive of the +independent income which I would like to settle upon you, I should be +very glad to finance for you any reasonable dreams that you may cherish +concerning your family in Nova Scotia. Also,--though the offer looks +small and unimportant to you now, it is liable to loom pretty large +to you later,--also, I will personally guarantee to you--at some time +every year, an unfettered, perfectly independent two months' holiday. +So the offer stands,--my 'name and fame,'--if those mean anything to +you,--financial independence,--an assured 'breathing spell' for at least +two months out of twelve,--and at last but not least,--my eternal +gratitude! 'General Heartwork for a Family of Two'! _There!_ Have I made +the task perfectly clear to you? Not everything to be done all at once, +you know. But immediately where necessity urges it,--gradually as +confidence inspires it,--ultimately if affection justifies it,--every +womanish thing that needs to be done in a man's and a child's neglected +lives? Do you understand?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Oh, and there's one thing more," confided the Senior Surgeon. "It's +something, of course, that I ought to have told you the very first thing +of all!" Nervously he glanced down at the sleeping child, and lowered +his voice to a mumbling monotone. "As regards my actual morals you have +naturally a right to know that I've led a pretty decent sort of +life,--though I probably don't deserve any special credit for that. A +man who knows enough to be a doctor isn't particularly apt to lead any +other kind. Frankly,--as women rate vices I believe I have only one. +What--what--I'm trying to tell you--now--is about that one." A little +defiantly as to chin, a little appealingly as to eye, he emptied his +heart of its last tragic secret. "Through all the male line of my +family, Miss Malgregor, dipsomania runs rampant. Two of my brothers, my +father, my grandfather, my great grandfather before him, have all gone +down as the temperance people would say into 'drunkards' graves.' In my +own case, I have chosen to compromise with the evil. Such a choice, +believe me, has not been made carelessly or impulsively, but out of the +agony and humiliation of--several less successful methods." Hard as a +rock, his face grooved into its granite-like furrows again. "Naturally, +under these existing conditions," he warned her almost threateningly, "I +am not peculiarly susceptible to the mawkishly ignorant and sentimental +protests of--people whose strongest passions are an appetite +for--chocolate candy! For eleven months of the year," he hurried on a +bit huskily, "for eleven months of the year,--eleven months,--each day +reeking from dawn to dark with the driving, nerve-wracking, +heart-wringing work that falls to my profession, I lead an absolutely +abstemious life, touching neither wine nor liquor, nor even indeed tea +or coffee. In the twelfth month,--June always,--I go way, way up into +Canada,--way, way off in the woods to a little log camp I own +there,--with an Indian who has guided me thus for eighteen years. And +live like a--wild man for four gorgeous, care-free, trail-tramping, +salmon-fighting,--whisky-guzzling weeks. It is what your temperance +friends would call a--'spree.' To be quite frank, I suppose it is +what--anybody would call a 'spree.' Then the first of July,--three or +four days past the first of July perhaps,--I come out of the +woods--quite tame again. A little emotionally nervous, perhaps,--a +little temperishly irritable,--a little unduly sensitive about being +greeted as a returned jail-bird,--but most miraculously purged of all +morbid craving for liquor, and with every digital muscle as coolly +steady as yours, and every conscious mental process clamoring cleanly +for its own work again." + +Furtively under his glowering brows he stopped and searched the White +Linen Nurse's imperturbable face. "It's an--established custom, you +understand," he rewarned her. "I'm not advocating it, you +understand,--I'm not defending it. I'm simply calling your attention to +the fact that it is an established custom. If you decide to come to us, +I--I couldn't, you know, at forty-eight--begin all over again to--to +have some one waiting for me on the top step the first of July to tell +me--what a low beast I am--till I go down the steps again--the following +June." + +"No, of course not," conceded the White Linen Nurse. Blandly she lifted +her lovely eyes to his. "Father's like that!" she confided amiably. +"Once a year,--just Easter Sunday only,--he always buys him a brand new +suit of clothes and goes to church. And it does something to him,--I +don't know exactly what, but Easter afternoon he always gets drunk,--oh +mad, fighting drunk is what I mean, and goes out and tries to tear up +the whole county." Worriedly two black thoughts puckered between her +eyebrows. "And always," she said, "he makes Mother and me go up to +Halifax beforehand to pick out the suit for him. It's pretty hard +sometimes," she said, "to find anything dressy enough for the morning, +that's serviceable enough for the afternoon." + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Then suddenly he began to smile again +like a stormy sky from which the last cloud has just been cleared. +"Well, it's all right then, is it? You'll take us?" he asked brightly. + +"Oh, no!" said the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, no, sir! Oh, no indeed, +sir!" Quite perceptibly she jerked her way backward a little on the +grass. "Thank you very much!" she persisted courteously. "It's been very +interesting! I thank you very much for telling me, but--" + +"But what?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +"But it's too quick," said the White Linen Nurse. "No man could tell +like that--just between one eye-wink and another what he wanted about +anything,--let alone marrying a perfect stranger." + +Instantly the Senior Surgeon bridled. "I assure you, my dear young +lady," he retorted, "that I am entirely and completely accustomed to +deciding between 'one wink and another' just exactly what it is that I +want. Indeed, I assure you that there are a good many people living +to-day who wouldn't be living, if it had taken me even as long as a wink +and three-quarters to make up my mind!" + +"Yes, I know, sir," acknowledged the White Linen Nurse. "Yes, of course, +sir," she acquiesced with most commendable humility. "But all the same, +sir, I couldn't do it!" she persisted with inflexible positiveness. +"Why, I haven't enough education," she confessed quite shamelessly. + +"You had enough, I notice, to get into the hospital," drawled the Senior +Surgeon a bit grumpily. "And that's quite as much as most people have, I +assure you! 'A High School education or its equivalent,'--that is the +hospital requirement, I believe?" he questioned tartly. + +"'A High School education or its--equivocation' is what we girls call +it," confessed the White Linen Nurse demurely. "But even so, sir," she +pleaded, "it isn't just my lack of education! It's my brains! I tell +you, sir, I haven't got enough brains to do what you suggest!" + +"I don't mean at all to belittle your brains," grinned the Senior +Surgeon in spite of himself. "Oh, not at all, Miss Malgregor! But you +see it isn't especially brains that I'm looking for! Really what I need +most," he acknowledged frankly, "is an extra pair of hands to go with +the--brains I already possess!" + +"Yes, I know, sir," persisted the White Linen Nurse. "Yes, of +course, sir," she conceded. "Yes, of course, sir, my hands +work--awfully--well--with your face. But all the same," she kindled +suddenly, "all the same, sir, I can't! I won't! I tell you sir, I won't! +Why, I'm not in your world, sir! Why, I'm not in your class! Why--my +folks aren't like your folks! Oh, we're just as good as you--of +course--but we aren't as nice! Oh, we're not nice at all! Really and +truly we're not!" Desperately through her mind she rummaged up and down +for some one conclusive fact that would close this torturing argument +for all time. "Why--my father--eats with his knife," she asserted +triumphantly. + +"Would he be apt to eat with mine?" asked the Senior Surgeon with +extravagant gravity. + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse jumped to the defense of her +father's intrinsic honor. "Oh, no!" she denied with some vehemence. +"Father's never cheeky like that! Father's simple sometimes,--plain, +I mean. Or he might be a bit sharp. But, oh, I'm sure he'd never +be--cheeky! Oh, no, sir! No!" + +"Oh, very well then," grinned the Senior Surgeon. "We can consider +everything all comfortably settled then I suppose?" + +"No, we can't!" screamed the White Linen Nurse. A little awkwardly with +cramped limbs she struggled partly upward from the grass and knelt there +defying the Senior Surgeon from her temporarily superior height. "No, we +can't!" she reiterated wildly. "I tell you I can't, sir! I won't! I +won't! I've been engaged once and it's enough! I tell you, sir, I'm all +engaged out!" + +"What's become of the man you were engaged to?" quizzed the Senior +Surgeon sharply. + +"Why--he's married!" said the White Linen Nurse. "And they've got a +kid!" she added tempestuously. + +"Good! I'm glad of it!" smiled the Senior Surgeon quite amazingly. "Now +he surely won't bother us any more." + +"But I was engaged so long!" protested the White Linen Nurse. "Almost +ever since I was born, I said. It's too long. You don't get over it!" + +"He got over it," remarked the Senior Surgeon laconically. + +"Y-e-s," admitted the White Linen Nurse. "But I tell you it doesn't seem +decent. Not after being engaged--twenty years!" With a little helpless +gesture of appeal she threw out her hands. "Oh, can't I make you +understand, sir?" + +"Why, of course, I understand," said the Senior Surgeon briskly. "You +mean that you and John--" + +"His name was 'Joe,'" corrected the White Linen Nurse. + +With astonishing amiability the Senior Surgeon acknowledged the +correction. "You mean," he said, "you mean that you and--Joe--have been +cradled together so familiarly all your babyhood that on your wedding +night you could most naturally have said 'Let me see--Joe,--it's two +pillows that you always have, isn't it? And a double-fold of blanket at +the foot?' You mean that you and Joe have been washed and scrubbed +together so familiarly all your young childhood that you could identify +Joe's headless body twenty years hence by the kerosene-lamp scar across +his back? You mean that you and Joe have played house together so +familiarly all your young tin-dish days that even your rag dolls called +Joe 'Father'? You mean that since your earliest memory,--until a year or +so ago,--Life has never once been just You and Life, but always You and +Life and Joe? You and Spring and Joe,--You and Summer and Joe,--You and +Autumn and Joe,--You and Winter and Joe,--till every conscious nerve in +your body has been so everlastingly Joed with Joe's Joeness that you +don't believe there 's any experience left in life powerful enough to +eradicate that original impression? Eh?" + +"Yes, sir," flushed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Good! I'm glad of it!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "It doesn't make you +seem quite so alarmingly innocent and remote for a widower to offer +marriage to. Good, I say! I'm glad of it!" + +"Even so--I don't want to," said the White Linen Nurse. "Thank you very +much, sir! But even so, I don't want to." + +"Would you marry--Joe--now if he were suddenly free and wanted you?" +asked the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"Oh, my Lord, no!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Other men are pretty sure to want you," admonished the Senior Surgeon. +"Have you made up your mind--definitely that you'll never marry +anybody?" + +"N--o, not exactly," confessed the White Linen Nurse. + +An odd flicker twitched across the Senior Surgeon's face like a sob in +the brain. + +"What's your first name, Miss Malgregor?" he asked a bit huskily. + +"Rae," she told him with some surprise. + +The Senior Surgeon's eyes narrowed suddenly again. + +"Damn it all, Rae," he said, "_I--want you!_" + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. "If you don't +mind, sir," she cried, "I'll run down to the brook and get myself a +drink of water!" + +Impishly like a child, muscularly like a man, the Senior Surgeon +clutched out at the flapping corner of her coat. + +"No you don't!" he laughed, "till you've given me my definite +answer--yes or no!" + +Breathlessly the White Linen Nurse spun round in her tracks. Her breast +was heaving with ill-suppressed sobs. Her eyes were blurred with tears. +"You've no business--to hurry me so!" she protested passionately. "It +isn't fair!--It isn't kind!" + +Sluggishly in the Senior Surgeon's jolted arms the Little Girl woke from +her feverish nap and peered up perplexedly through the gray dusk into +her father's face. + +"Where's--my kitty?" she asked hazily. + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +Harshly the little iron leg-braces clanked together. + +In an instant the White Linen Nurse was on her knees in the grass. "You +don't hold her right, sir!" she expostulated. Deftly with little soft, +darting touches, interrupted only by rubbing her knuckles into her own +tears, she reached out and eased successively the bruise of a buckle or +the dragging weight on a little cramped hip. + +Still drowsily, still hazily, with little smacking gasps and gulping +swallows, the child worried her way back again into consciousness. + +"All the birds _were_ there, Father," she droned forth feebly from her +sweltering mink-fur nest. + +All the birds _were_ there +With yellow feathers instead of--hair, +And bumble bees--and bumble bees-- +And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--? + +Frenziedly she began to burrow the back of her head into her Father's +shoulder. "And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--?" + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake--'buzzed' in the trees!" interpolated the Senior +Surgeon. + +Rigidly from head to foot the little body in his arms stiffened +suddenly. As one who saw the supreme achievement of a life-time swept +away by some one careless joggle of an infinitesimal part, the Little +Girl stared up agonizingly into her father's face. "Oh, I don't +think--'buzzed' was the word!" she began convulsively. "Oh, I don't +think--!" + +Startlingly through the twilight the Senior Surgeon felt the White Linen +Nurse's rose-red lips come smack against his ear. + +"Darn you! Can't you say 'crocheted' in the trees?" sobbed the White +Linen Nurse. + +Grotesquely for an instant the Senior Surgeon's eyes and the White Linen +Nurse's eyes glared at each other in frank antagonism. + +Then suddenly the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing. "Oh, very well!" he +surrendered. "'Crocheted in the trees'!" + +Precipitously the White Linen Nurse sank back on her heels and began to +clap her hands. + +"Oh, now I will! Now I will!" she cried exultantly. + +"Will what?" frowned the Senior Surgeon. + +Abruptly the White Linen Nurse stopped clapping her hands and began to +wring them nervously in her lap instead. "Why--will--will!" she +confessed demurely. + +"Oh!" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "_Oh!"_ Then equally jerkily he began +to pucker his eyebrows. "But for Heaven's sake--what's the 'crocheted +in the trees' got to do with it?" he asked perplexedly. + +"Nothing much," mused the White Linen Nurse very softly. With sudden +alertness she turned her curly blonde head towards the road. "There's +somebody coming!" she said. "I hear a team!" + +Overcome by a bashfulness that tried to escape in jocosity, the Senior +Surgeon gave an odd little choking chuckle. + +"Well, I never thought I should marry a--trained nurse!" he acknowledged +with somewhat hectic blitheness. + +Impulsively the White Linen Nurse reached for her watch and lifted it +close to her twilight-blinded eyes. A sense of ineffable peace crept +suddenly over her. + +"You won't, sir!" she said amiably. + +"It's twenty minutes of nine, now. And the graduation was at eight!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +For any real adventure except dying, June is certainly a most auspicious +month. + +Indeed it was on the very first rain-green, rose-red morning of June +that the White Linen Nurse sallied forth upon her extremely hazardous +adventure of marrying the Senior Surgeon and his naughty little crippled +daughter. + +The wedding was at noon in some kind of a gray granite church. And the +Senior Surgeon was there, of course,--and the necessary witnesses. But +the Little Crippled Girl never turned up at all, owing--it proved +later,--to a more than usually violent wrangle with whomever dressed +her, concerning the general advisability of sporting turquoise-colored +stockings with her brightest little purple dress. + +The Senior Surgeon's stockings, if you really care to know, were gray. +And the Senior Surgeon's suit was gray. And he looked altogether very +huge and distinguished,--and no more strikingly unhappy than any +bridegroom looks in a gray granite church. + +And the White Linen Nurse,--no longer now truly a White Linen Nurse but +just an ordinary, every-day, silk-and-cloth lady of any color she chose, +wore something rather coat-y and grand and bluish, and was distractingly +pretty of course but most essentially unfamiliar,--and just a tiny bit +awkward and bony-wristed looking,--as even an Admiral is apt to be on +his first day out of uniform. + +Then as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, the bride and groom went +to a wonderful green and gold café all built of marble and lined with +music, and had a little lunch. What I really mean, of course, is that +they had a very large lunch, but didn't eat any of it! + +Then in a taxi-cab, just exactly like any other taxi-cab, the White +Linen Nurse drove home alone to the Senior Surgeon's great, gloomy house +to find her brand new step-daughter still screaming over the turquoise +colored stockings. + +And the Senior Surgeon in a Canadian-bound train, just exactly like any +other Canadian-bound train, started off alone,--as usual, on his annual +June "spree." + +Please don't think for a moment that it was the Senior Surgeon who was +responsible for the general eccentricities of this amazing wedding day. +No indeed! The Senior Surgeon didn't _want_ to be married the first day +of June! He _said_ he didn't! He _growled_ he didn't! He _snarled_ he +didn't! He _swore_ he didn't! And when he finished saying and growling +and snarling and swearing,--and looked up at the White Linen Nurse for a +confirmation of his opinion, the White Linen Nurse smiled perfectly +amiably and said, "Yes, sir!" + +Then the Senior Surgeon gave a great gasp of relief and announced +resonantly, "Well, it's all settled then? We'll be married some time in +July,--after I get home from Canada?" And when the White Linen Nurse +kept on smiling perfectly amiably and said, "Oh, no, sir! Oh, no, thank +you, sir! It wouldn't seem exactly legal to me to be married any other +month but June!" Then the Senior Surgeon went absolutely dumb with rage +that this mere chit of a girl,--and a trained nurse, too,--should dare +to thwart his personal and professional convenience. But the White Linen +Nurse just drooped her pretty blonde head and blushed and blushed and +blushed and said, "I was only marrying you, sir, to--accommodate +you--sir,--and if June doesn't accommodate you--I'd rather go to Japan +with that monoideic somnambulism case. It's very interesting. And it +sails June second." Then "Oh, Hell with the 'monoideic somnambulism +case'!" the Senior Surgeon would protest. + +Really it took the Senior Surgeon quite a long while to work out the +three special arguments that should best protect him, he thought, from +the horridly embarrassing idea of being married in June. + +"But you can't get ready so soon!" he suggested at last with real +triumph. "You've no idea how long it takes a girl to get ready to be +married! There are so many people she has to tell,--and everything!" + +"There's never but two that she's got to tell--or bust!" conceded the +White Linen Nurse with perfect candor. "Just the woman she loves the +most--and the woman she hates the worst. I'll write my mother to-morrow. +But I told the Superintendent of Nurses yesterday." + +"The deuce you did!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +Almost caressingly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to +his. "Yes, sir," she said, "and she looked as sick as a young +undertaker. I can't imagine what ailed her." + +"Eh?" choked the Senior Surgeon. "But the house now," he hastened to +contend. "The house now needs a lot of fixing over! It's all run down! +It's all--everything! We never in the world could get it into shape by +the first of June! For Heaven's sake, now that we've got money enough to +make it right, let's go slow and make it perfectly right!" + +A little nervously the White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the +pages of her memorandum book. "I've always had money enough to 'go slow +and make things perfectly right,'" she confided a bit wistfully. "Never +in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren't guaranteed, or a +dress that wouldn't wash, or a hat that wasn't worth at least three +re-pressings. What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to +have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I +wanted to,--so that I could afford to take chances, I mean. Here's this +wall-paper now,"--tragically she pointed to some figuring in her +note-book--"it's got peacocks on it--life size--in a queen's garden--and +I wanted it for the dining-room. Maybe it would fade! Maybe we'd get +tired of it! Maybe it would poison us! Slam it on one week--and slash it +off the next! I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir! I thought +maybe--while you were way off in Canada--" + +Eagerly the Senior Surgeon jerked his chair a little nearer to +his--fiancée's. + +"Now, my dear girl," he said. "That's just what I want to explain! +That's just what I want to explain! Just what I want to explain! +To--er--explain!" he continued a bit falteringly. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very deliberately the Senior Surgeon removed a fleck of dust from one of +his cuffs. + +"All this talk of yours--about wanting to be married the same day I +start off on my--Canadian trip!" he contended. "Why, it's all damned +nonsense!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Very conscientiously the Senior Surgeon began to search for a fleck of +dust on his other cuff. + +"Why my--my dear girl," he persisted. "It's absurd! It's outrageous! Why +people would--would hoot at us! Why they'd think--!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Why, my dear girl," sweated the Senior Surgeon. "Even though you and I +understand perfectly well the purely formal, business-like conditions of +our marriage, we must at least for sheer decency's sake keep up a +certain semblance of marital conventionality--before the world! Why, if +we were married at noon the first day of June--as you suggest,--and I +should go right off alone as usual--on my Canadian trip--and you should +come back alone to the house--why, people would think--would think that +I didn't care anything about you!" + +"But you don't," said the White Linen Nurse serenely. + +"Why, they'd think," choked the Senior Surgeon. "They'd think you were +trying your--darndest--to get rid of me!" + +"I am," said the White Linen Nurse complacently. + +With a muttered ejaculation the Senior Surgeon jumped to his feet and +stood glaring down at her. + +Quite ingenuously the White Linen Nurse met and parried the glare. + +"A gentleman--and a red-haired kiddie--and a great walloping house--all +at once! It's too much!" she confided genially. "Thank you just the +same, but I'd rather take them gradually. First of all, sir, you see, +I've got to teach the little kiddie to like me! And then there's a +green-tiled paper with floppity sea gulls on it--that I want to try for +the bath-room! And--and--" Ecstatically she clapped her hands together. +"Oh, sir! There are such loads and loads of experiments I want to try +while you are off on your spree!" + +"S--h--h!" cried the Senior Surgeon. His face was suddenly +blanched,--his mouth, twitching like the mouth of one stricken with +almost insupportable pain. "For God's sake, Miss Malgregor!" he pleaded, +"can't you call it my--Canadian trip?" + +Wider and wider the White Linen Nurse opened her big blue eyes at him. + +"But it is a 'spree,' sir!" she attested resolutely. "And my father +says--" Still resolutely her young mouth curved to its original +assertion, but from under her heavy-shadowing eyelashes a little blue +smile crept softly out. "When my father's got a lame trotting horse, +sir, that he's trying to shuck off his hands," she faltered, "he doesn't +ever go round mournful-like with his head hanging--telling folks about +his wonderful trotter that's just 'the littlest, teeniest, tiniest +bit--lame.' Oh no! What father does is to call up every one he knows +within twenty miles and tell 'em, 'Say Tom,--Bill,--Harry,'--or whatever +his name is--'what in the deuce do you suppose I've got over here in my +barn? A lame horse--that wants to trot! Lamer than the deuce, you know! +But can do a mile in 2.40.'" Faintly the little blue smile quickened +again in the White Linen Nurse's eyes. "And the barn will be full of men +in half an hour!" she said. "Somehow nobody wants a trotter that's lame! +But almost anybody seems willing to risk a lame horse--that's plucky +enough to trot!" + +"What's the 'lame trotting horse' got to do with--me?" snarled the +Senior Surgeon incisively. + +Darkly the White Linen Nurse's lashes fringed down across her cheeks. + +"Nothing much," she said, "Only--" + +"Only what?" demanded the Senior Surgeon. A little more roughly than he +realized he stooped down and took the White Linen Nurse by her +shoulders, and jerked her sharply round to the light. "Only _what?_" he +insisted peremptorily. + +Almost plaintively she lifted her eyes to his. "Only--my father says," +she confided obediently, "my father says if you've got a worse +foot--for Heaven's sake put it forward--and get it over with! + +"So--I've _got_ to call it a 'spree'!" smiled the White Linen Nurse. +"'Cause when I think of marrying a--_surgeon_--that goes off and gets +drunk every June--it--it scares me almost to my death! But--" Abruptly +the red smile faded from her lips, the blue smile from her eyes. +"But--when I think of marrying a--June drunk--that's got the grit to +pull up absolutely straight as a die and be a _surgeon_--all the other +'leven months in the year--" Dartingly she bent down and kissed the +Senior Surgeon's astonished wrist. "Oh, then I think you're perfectly +_grand_!" she sobbed. + +Awkwardly the Senior Surgeon pulled away and began to pace the floor. + +"You're a--good little girl, Rae Malgregor," he mumbled huskily. "A good +little girl. I truly believe you're the kind that will--see me through." +Poignantly in his eyes humiliation overwhelmed the mist. Perversely in +its turn resentment overtook the humiliation. "But I won't be married in +June!" he reasserted bombastically. "I won't! I won't! I won't! I tell +you I positively refuse to have a lot of damn fools speculating about my +private affairs! Wondering why I didn't take you! Wondering why I didn't +stay home with you! I tell you I won't! I simply won't!" + +"Yes, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +With a real gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon stopped his eternal pacing +of the floor. + +"Bully for you!" he said. "You mean then we'll be married some time in +July after I get back from my--trip?" + +"Oh, no, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +"But Great Heavens!" shouted the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," the White Linen Nurse began all over again. Dreamily +planning out her wedding gown, her lips without the slightest conscious +effort on her part were already curving into shape for her alternate +"No, sir." + +"You're an idiot!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. + +A little reproachfully the White Linen Nurse came frowning out of her +reverie. "Would it do just as well for traveling, do you think?" she +asked, with real concern. + +"Eh? What?" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"I mean--does Japan spot?" queried the White Linen Nurse. "Would it spot +a serge, I mean?" + +"Oh, Hell with Japan!" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Now perhaps you will understand just exactly how it happened that the +Senior Surgeon and the White Linen Nurse _were_ married on the first day +of June, and just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon went +off alone as usual on his Canadian trip, and just exactly how it +happened that the White Linen Nurse came home alone to the Senior +Surgeon's great, gloomy house, to find her brand new step-daughter still +screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. Everything now is +perfectly comfortably explained except the turquoise-colored stockings. +Nobody could explain the turquoise-colored stockings! + +But even a little child could explain the ensuing June! Oh, June was +perfectly wonderful that year! Bud, blossom, bird-song, breeze,--rioting +headlong through the Land. Warm days sweet and lush as a green-house +vapor! Crisp nights faintly metallic like the scent of stars! +Hurdy-gurdies romping tunefully on every street-corner! Even the Ash-Man +flushing frankly pink across his dusty cheek-bones! + +Like two fairies who had sublet a giant's cave the White Linen Nurse and +the Little Crippled Girl turned themselves loose upon the Senior +Surgeon's gloomy old house. + +It certainly was a gloomy old house, but handsome withal,--square and +brown and substantial, and most generously gardened within high brick +walls. Except for dusting the lilac bushes with the hose, and weeding a +few rusty leaves out of the privet hedge, and tacking up three or four +scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree +boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house? +Oh ye gods! All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly +from the back door to the barn, sweating workmen scuttled back and +forth till nary a guilty piece of black walnut furniture had escaped. +All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly from +ceilings to floors, sweltering workmen scurried up and down step-ladders +stripping dingy papers from dingier plasterings. + +When the White Linen Nurse wasn't busy renovating the big house--or the +little step-daughter, she was writing to the Senior Surgeon. She wrote +twice. + +"Dear Dr. Faber," the first letter said. + + * * * * * + +DEAR DR. FABER, + +How do you do? Thank you very much, for saying you didn't care what in +thunder I did to the house. It looks _sweet_. I've put white fluttery +muslin curtains most everywhere. And you've got a new solid-gold-looking +bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most +scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pink was wrong +for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out. And now +that's settled for all time. + +I am very, very, very, very busy. Something strange and new happens +every day. Yesterday it was three ladies and a plumber. One of the +ladies was just selling soap, but I didn't buy any. It was horrid soap. +The other two were calling ladies,--a silk one and a velvet one. The +silk one tried to be nasty to me. Right to my face she told me I was +more of a lady than she had dared to hope. And I told her I was sorry +for that as you'd had one "lady" and it didn't work. Was that all right? +But the other lady was nice. And I took her out in the kitchen with me +while I was painting the woodwork, and right there in her white kid +gloves she laughed and showed me how to mix the paint pearl gray. _She_ +was nice. It was your sister-in-law. + +I like being married, Dr. Faber. I like it lots better than I thought I +would. It's fun being the biggest person in the house. Respectfully +yours, RAE MALGREGOR,--AS WAS. + +P.S. Oh, I hope it wasn't wrong, but in your ulster pocket, when I went +to put it away, I found a bottle of something that smelt as though it +had been forgotten.--I threw it out. + + * * * * * + +It was this letter that drew the only definite message from the +itinerant bridegroom. + +"Kindly refrain from rummaging in my ulster pockets," wrote the Senior +Surgeon quite briefly. "The 'thing' you threw out happened to be the +cerebellum and medulla of an extremely eminent English Theologian!" + +"Even so,--it was sour," telegraphed the White Linen Nurse in a perfect +agony of remorse and humiliation. + +The telegram took an Indian with a birch canoe two days to deliver, and +cost the Senior Surgeon twelve dollars. Just impulsively the Senior +Surgeon decided to make no further comments on domestic affairs,--at +that particular range. + +Very fortunately for this impulse the White Linen Nurse's second letter +concerned itself almost entirely with matters quite extraneous to the +home. + +"Dear Dr. Faber," the second letter ran. + + * * * * * + +DEAR DR. FABER, + +Somehow I don't seem to care so much just now about being the biggest +person in the house. Something awful has happened. Zillah Forsyth is +dead. Really dead, I mean. And she died in great heroism. You remember +Zillah Forsyth, don't you? She was one of my room-mates,--not the gooder +one, you know,--not the swell,--that was Helene Churchill. But Zillah? +Oh you know! Zillah was the one you sent out on that Fractured Elbow +case. It was a Yale student, you remember? And there was some trouble +about kissing,--and she got sent home? And now everybody's crying +because Zillah _can't_ kiss anybody any more! Isn't everything the +limit? Well, it wasn't a fractured Yale student she got sent out on this +time. If it had been, she might have been living yet. What they sent her +out on this time was a Senile Dementia,--an old lady more than eighty +years old. And they were in a sanitarium or something like that. And +there was a fire in the night. And the old lady just up and positively +refused to escape. And Zillah had to push her and shove her and yank her +and carry her--out the window--along the gutters--round the chimneys. +And the old lady bit Zillah right through the hand,--but Zillah wouldn't +let go. And the old lady tried to drown Zillah under a bursted water +tank,--but Zillah wouldn't let go. And everybody hollered to Zillah to +cut loose and save herself,--but Zillah wouldn't let go. And a wall +fell, and everything, and oh, it was awful,--but Zillah never let go. +And the old lady that wasn't any good to any one,--not even herself, got +saved of course. But Zillah? Oh, Zillah got hurt bad, sir! We saw her at +the hospital, Helene and I. She sent for us about something. Oh, it was +awful! Not a thing about her that you'd know except just her great +solemn eyes mooning out at you through a gob of white cotton, and her +red mouth lipping sort of twitchy at the edge of a bandage. Oh it was +awful! But Zillah didn't seem to care so much. There was a new Interne +there,--a Japanese, and I guess she was sort of taken with him. "But +my God, Zillah," I said, "_your_ life was worth more than that old +dame's!" + +"Shut your noise!" says Zillah. "It was my job. And there's no kick +coming." Helene burst right out crying, she did. "Shut _your_ noise, +too!" says Zillah, just as cool as you please. "Bah! There's other lives +and other chances!" + +"Oh, you do believe that now?" cries Helene. "Oh, you do believe that +now,--what the Bible promises you?" That was when Zillah shrugged her +shoulders so funny,--the little way she had. Gee, but her eyes were big! +"I don't pretend to know--what--your old Bible says," she choked. "It +was--the Yale feller--who was tellin' me." + +That's all, Dr. Faber. It was her shrugging her shoulders so funny that +brought on the hemorrhage. + +Oh, we had an awful time, sir, going home in the carriage,--Helene and +I. We both cried, of course, because Zillah was dead, but after we got +through crying for that, Helene kept right on crying because she +couldn't understand why a brave girl like Zillah _had_ to be dead. Gee! +But Helene takes things hard. Ladies do, I guess. + +I hope you're having a pleasant spree. + +Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of the wall-paperers is living here at +the house with us just now. We use him so much it's truly a good deal +more convenient. And he's a real nice young fellow, and he plays the +piano finely, and he comes from up my way. And it seemed more neighborly +anyway. It's so large in the house at night, just now, and so creaky in +the garden. + +With kindest regards, good-by for now, from RAE. + +P.S. + +Don't tell your guide or _any one!_ But Helene sent Zillah's mother a +check for fifteen hundred dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. And all +Zillah asked for that day was just a little blue serge suit. It seems +she'd promised her kid sister a little blue serge suit for July. And it +sort of worried her. + +Helene sent the little blue serge suit too! And a hat! The hat had +bluebells on it. Do you think when you come home--if I haven't spent too +much money on wall-papers--that I could have a blue hat with bluebells +on it? Excuse me for bothering you--but you forgot to leave me enough +money. + + * * * * * + +It was some indefinite, pleasant time on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of +June, that the Senior Surgeon received this second letter. + +It was Friday the twenty-sixth of June, exactly at dawn, that the Senior +Surgeon started homeward. + +Nobody looks very well in the dawn. Certainly the Senior Surgeon didn't. +Heavily as a man wading through a bog of dreams, he stumbled out of his +cabin into the morning. Under his drowsy, brooding eyes appalling +shadows circled. Behind his sunburn,--deeper than his tan, something +sinister and uncanny lurked wanly like the pallor of a soul. + +Yet the Senior Surgeon had been most blamelessly abed and asleep since +griddle-cake time the previous evening. + +Only the mountains and the forest and the lake had been out all night. +For seventy miles of Canadian wilderness only the mountains and the +forest and the lake stood actually convicted of having been out all +night. Dank and white with its vaporous vigil the listless lake kindled +wanly to the new day's breeze. Blue with cold a precipitous mountain +peak lurched craggedly home through a rift in the fog. Drenched with +mist, bedraggled with dew, a green-feathered pine tree lay guzzling +insatiably at a leaf-brown pool. Monotonous as a sob the waiting birch +canoe slosh-sloshed against the beach. + +There was no romantic smell of red roses in this June landscape. Just +tobacco smoke, and the faint reminiscent fragrance of fried trout, and +the mournful, sizzling, pungent consciousness of a camp-fire quenched +for a whole year with a tinful of wet coffee grounds. + +Gliding out cautiously into the lake as though the mere splash of a +paddle might shatter the whole glassy surface, the Indian Guide +propounded the question that was uppermost in his mind. + +"Cutting your trip a bit short this year,--ain't you, Boss?" quizzed the +Indian guide. + +Out from his muffling mackinaw collar the Senior Surgeon parried the +question with an amazingly novel sense of embarrassment. + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered with studied lightness. "There are one +or two things at home that are bothering me a little." + +"A woman, eh?" said the Indian Guide laconically. + +"A woman?" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "A--woman? Oh, ye gods! No! +It's wall paper!" + +Then suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of his passionate refutation +the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing,--boisterously, hilariously like a +crazy school-boy. Bluntly from an overhanging ledge of rock the echo of +his laugh came mocking back at him. Down from some unvisioned mountain +fastness the echo of that echo came wafting faintly to him. + +The Senior Surgeon's laugh was made of teeth and tongue and palate and a +purely convulsive physical impulse. But the echo's laugh was a phantasy +of mist and dawn and inestimable balsam-scented spaces where little +green ferns and little brown beasties and soft-breasted birdlings +frolicked eternally in pristine sweetness. + +Seven miles further down the lake, at the beginning of the rapids, the +Indian Guide spoke again. Racking the canoe between two +rocks,--paddling, panting, pushing, sweating, the Indian Guide lifted +his voice high,--piercing, above the swirling roar of waters. + +"Eh, Boss!" shouted the Indian Guide. "I ain't never heard you laugh +before!" + +Neither man spoke again more than once or twice during the long, +strenuous hours that were left to them. + +The Indian Guide was very busy in his stolid mind trying to figure out +just how many rows of potatoes could be planted fruitfully between his +front door and his cow-shed. I don't know what the Senior Surgeon was +trying to figure out. + +It was just four days later from a rolling, musty-cushioned hack that +the Senior Surgeon disembarked at his own front gate. + +Even though a man likes home no better than he likes--tea, few men would +deny the soothing effect of home at the end of a long fussy railroad +journey. Five o'clock, also, of a late June afternoon is a peculiarly +wonderful time to be arriving home,--especially if that home has a +garden around it so that you are thereby not rushed precipitously upon +the house itself, as upon a cup without a saucer, but can toy visually +with the whole effect before you quench your thirst with the actual +draught. + +Very, very deliberately, with his clumsy rod-case in one hand, and his +heavy grip in the other, the Senior Surgeon started up the long, broad +gravel path to the house. For a man walking as slow as he was, his heart +was beating most extraordinarily fast. He was not accustomed to +heart-palpitation. The symptom worried him a trifle. Incidentally also +his lungs felt strangely stifled with the scent of June. Close at his +right an effulgent white and gold syringa bush flaunted its cloying +sweetness into his senses. Close at his left a riotous bloom of phlox +clamored red-blue-purple-lavender-pink into his dazzled vision. +Multi-colored pansies tiptoed velvet-footed across the grass. In soft +murky mystery a flame-tinted smoke tree loomed up here and there like a +faintly rouged ghost. Over everything, under everything, through +everything, lurked a certain strange, novel, vibrating consciousness of +_occupancy_. Bees in the rose bushes! Bobolinks in the trees! A woman's +work-basket in the curve of the hammock! A doll's tea set sprawling +cheerfully in the middle of the broad gravel path! + +It was not until the Senior Surgeon had actually stepped into the tiny +cream pitcher that he noticed the presence of the doll's tea set. + +It was what the Senior Surgeon said as he stepped out of the cream +pitcher that summoned the amazing apparition from a ragged green hole in +the privet hedge. Startlingly white, startlingly professional,--dress, +cap, apron and all,--a miniature white linen nurse sprang suddenly out +at him like a tricky dwarf in a moving picture show. Just at that +particular moment the Senior Surgeon's nerves were in no condition to +wrestle with apparitions. Simultaneously as the clumsy rod-case dropped +from his hand, the expression of enthusiasm dropped from the face of the +miniature white linen nurse. + +"Oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear! Have _you_ come home?" wailed the +familiar, shrill little voice. + +Sheepishly the Senior Surgeon picked up his rod-case. The noises in his +head were crashing like cracked bells. Desperately with a boisterous +irritability he sought to cover also the lurching pound-pound-pound of +his heart. + +"What in Hell are you rigged out like that for?" he demanded stormily. + +With equal storminess the Little Girl protested the question. + +"Peach said I could!" she attested passionately. "Peach said I could! +She did! She did! I tell you I didn't want her to marry us--that day! I +was afraid, I was! I cried, I did! I had a convulsion! They thought it +was stockings! So Peach said if it would make me feel any gooderer, I +could be the cruel new step-mother. And she'd be the unloved +offspring--with her hair braided all yellow fluffikins down her back!" + +"Where _is_--Miss Malgregor?" asked the Senior Surgeon sharply. + +Irrelevantly the Little Girl sank down on the gravel walk and began to +gather up her scattered dishes. + +"And it's fun to go to bed--now," she confided amiably. "'Cause every +night I put Peach to bed at eight o'clock and she's so naughty always I +have to stay with her! And then all of a sudden it's morning--like going +through a black room without knowing it!" + +"I said--where _is_ Miss Malgregor?" repeated the Senior Surgeon with +increasing sharpness. + +Thriftily the Little Girl bent down to lap a bubble of cream from the +broken pitcher. + +"Oh, she's out in the summer house with the Wall Paper Man," she mumbled +indifferently. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Altogether jerkily the Senior Surgeon started up the walk for his own +perfectly formal and respectable brown stone mansion. Deep down in his +lurching heart he felt a sudden most inordinate desire to reach that +brown stone mansion just as quickly as possible. But abruptly even to +himself he swerved off instead at the yellow sassafras tree and plunged +quite wildly through a mass of broken sods towards the rickety, +no-account cedar summer house. + +Startled by the crackle and thud of his approach the two young figures +in the summer house jumped precipitously to their feet, and limply +untwining their arms from each other's necks stood surveying the Senior +Surgeon in unspeakable consternation,--the White Linen Nurse and a blue +overalled lad most unconscionably mated in radiant youth and agonized +confusion. + +"Oh, my Lord, Sir!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, my Lord, Sir! I +wasn't looking for _you_--for another week!" + +"Evidently not!" said the Senior Surgeon incisively. "This is the second +time this evening that I've been led to infer that my home-coming was +distinctly inopportune!" + +Very slowly, very methodically, he put down first his precious rod-case +and then his grip. His brain seemed fairly foaming with blood and +confusion. Along the swelling veins of his arms a dozen primitive +instincts went surging to his fists. + +Then quite brazenly before his eyes the White Linen Nurse reached out +and took the lad's hand again. + +"Oh, forgive me, Dr. Faber!" she faltered. "This is my brother!" + +"Your _brother?--what?--eh?_" choked the Senior Surgeon. Bluntly he +reached out and crushed the young fellow's fingers in his own. "Glad to +see you, Son!" he muttered with a sickish sort of grin, and turning +abruptly, picked up his baggage again and started for the big house. + +Half a step behind him his White Linen Bride followed softly. + +At the edge of the piazza he turned for an instant and eyed her a bit +quizzically. With her big credulous blue eyes, and her great mop of +yellow hair braided childishly down her back, she looked inestimably +more juvenile and innocent than his own little shrewd-faced six-year-old +whom he had just left domestically ensconced in the middle of the broad +gravel path. + +"For Heaven's sake, Miss Malgregor," he asked. "For Heaven's sake--why +didn't you tell me that the Wall Paper Man was your--brother?" + +Very contritely the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into +the soft collar of her dress and as bashfully as a child one finger +came stealing up to the edge of her red, red lips. + +"I was afraid you'd think I was--cheeky--having any of my family come +and live with us--so soon," she murmured almost inaudibly. + +"Well, what did you think I'd think you were--if he wasn't your +brother?" asked the Senior Surgeon sardonically. + +"Very--economical, I hoped!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +"All the same!" snapped the Senior Surgeon, with an irrelevance +surprising even to himself. "All the same do you think it sounds quite +right and proper for a child to call her--step-mother--'Peach'?" + +Again the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into the +soft collar of her dress. "I don't suppose it is--usual," she +admitted reluctantly. "The children next door, I notice, call +theirs--'Cross-Patch.'" + +With a gesture of impatience the Senior Surgeon proceeded up the +steps,--yanked open the old-fashioned shuttered door, and burst quite +breathlessly and unprepared upon his most amazingly reconstructed +house. All in one single second chintzes,--muslins,--pale blonde +maples,--riotous canary birds,--stormed revolutionary upon his outraged +eyes. Reeling back utterly aghast before the sight, he stood there +staring dumbly for an instant at what he considered,--and rightly +too,--the absolute wreck of his black walnut home. + +"It looks like--Hell!" he muttered feebly. + +"Yes, _isn't_ it sweet?" conceded the White Linen Nurse with +unmistakable joyousness. "And your library--" Triumphantly she threw +back the door to his grim work-shop. + +"Good God!" stammered the Senior Surgeon. "You've made it--pink!" + +Rapturously the White Linen Nurse began to clasp and unclasp her hands. +"I knew you'd love it!" she said. + +Half dazed with bewilderment the Senior Surgeon started to brush an +imaginary haze from his eyes but paused mid-way in the gesture and +pointed back instead to a dapper little hall-table that seemed to be +exhausting its entire blonde strength in holding up a slender green vase +with a single pink rose in it. Like a caged animal buffeting for escape +against each successive bar that incased it, the man's frenzied +irritation hurled itself hopefully against this one more chance for +explosive exit. + +"What--have--you--done--with the big--black--escritoire that +stood--there?" he demanded accusingly. + +"Escritoire?--Escritoire?" worried the White Linen Nurse. "Why--why--I'm +afraid I must have mislaid it." + +"Mislaid it?" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "Mislaid it? It weighed +three hundred pounds!" + +"Oh, it did?" questioned the White Linen Nurse with great, blue-eyed +interest. Still mulling apparently over the fascinating weight of the +escritoire she climbed up suddenly into a chair and with the fluffy +broom-shaped end of her extraordinarily long braid of hair went angling +wildy off into space after an illusive cobweb. + +Faster and faster the Senior Surgeon's temper began to search for a new +point of exit. + +"What do you suppose the--servants think of you?" he stormed. "Running +round like that with your hair in a pig-tail like a--kid?" + +"Servants?" cooed the White Linen Nurse. "Servants?" Very quietly she +jumped down from the chair and came and stood looking up into the Senior +Surgeon's hectic face. "Why, there aren't any servants," she explained +patiently. "I've dismissed every one of them. We're doing our own work +now!" + +"Doing 'our own work'?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Quite worriedly the White Linen Nurse stepped back a little. "Why, +wasn't that right?" she pleaded. "Wasn't it right? Why, I thought people +always did their own work when they were first married!" With sudden +apprehensiveness she glanced round over her shoulder at the hall clock, +and darting out through a side door, returned almost instantly with a +fierce-looking knife. + +"I'm so late now and everything," she confided. "Could you peel the +potatoes for me?" + +"No, I couldn't!" said the Senior Surgeon shortly. Equally shortly he +turned on his heel, and reaching out once more for his rod-case and grip +went on up the stairs to his own room. + +One of the pleasantest things about arriving home very late in the +afternoon is the excuse it gives you for loafing in your own room while +other people are getting supper. No existent domestic sound in the whole +twenty-four hours is as soothing at the end of a long journey as the +sound of other people getting supper. + +Stretched out full length in a big easy chair by his bed-room window, +with his favorite pipe bubbling rhythmically between his gleaming +white teeth, the Senior Surgeon studied his new "solid gold bed" and +his new sage green wall-paper and his new dust-colored rug, to the +faint, far-away accompaniment of soft thudding feet, and a girl's +laugh, and a child's prattle, and the tink-tink-tinkle of +glass,--china,--silver,--all scurrying consciously to the service +of one man,--and that man,--_himself_. + +Very, very slowly, in that special half hour an inscrutable little smile +printed itself experimentally across the right hand corner of the +Senior Surgeon's upper lip. + +While that smile was still in its infancy he jumped up suddenly and +forced his way across the hall to his dead wife's room,--the one +ghost-room of his house and his life,--and there with his hand on the +turning door knob,--tense with reluctance,--goose-fleshed with +strain,--his breath gasped out of him whether or no with the one +word--"Alice!" + +And behold! There was no room there! + +Lurching back from the threshold, as from the brink of an elevator well, +the Senior Surgeon found himself staring foolishly into a most sumptuous +linen closet, tiered like an Aztec cliff with home after home for +pleasant prosy blankets, and gaily fringed towels, and cheerful white +sheets reeking most conscientiously of cedar and lavender. Tiptoeing +cautiously into the mystery he sensed at one astonished, grateful glance +how the change of a partition, the re-adjustment of a proportion, had +purged like a draft of fresh air the stale gloom of an ill-favored +memory. Yet so inevitable did it suddenly seem for a linen closet to be +built right there,--so inevitable did it suddenly seem for the child's +meager play-room to be enlarged just there, that to save his soul he +could not estimate whether the happy plan had originated in a purely +practical brain or a purely compassionate heart. + +Half proud of the brain, half touched by the heart, he passed on +exploringly through the new play-room out into the hall again. + +Quite distinctly now through the aperture of the back stairs the kitchen +voices came wafting up to him. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" wailed his Little Girl's peevish voice. "Now +that--that Man's come back again--I suppose we'll have to eat in the +dining-room--all the time!" + +"'That Man' happens to be your darling father!" admonished the White +Linen Nurse's laughing voice. + +"Even so," wailed the Little Girl, "I love you best." + +"Even so," laughed the White Linen Nurse, "I love _you_ best!" + +"Just the same," cried the Little Girl shrilly, "just the same--let's +put the cream pitcher way up high somewhere--so he can't step in it!" + +As though from a head tilted suddenly backward the White Linen Nurse's +laugh rang out in joyous abandon. + +Impulsively the Senior Surgeon started to grin. Then equally impulsively +the grin soured on his lips. So they thought he was clumsy? Eh? +Resentfully he stared down at his hands,--those wonderfully +dexterous,--yes, ambidexterous hands that were the aching envy of all +his colleagues. Interruptingly as he stared the voice of the young Wall +Paper Man rose buoyantly from the lower hallway. + +"Supper's all ready, sir!" called the cordial voice. + +For some inexplainable reason, at that particular moment, almost nothing +in the world could have irritated the Senior Surgeon more keenly than to +be invited to his own supper,--in his own house,--by a stranger. Fuming +with a new sense of injury and injustice he started heavily down the +stairs to the dining-room. + +Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon's chair with a laudable +desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might occur, +the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital rebuff. + +"What do you think this is? An autopsy?" demanded the Senior Surgeon +tartly. "For Heaven's sake--sit down!" + +Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place. + +The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success though the +room was entrancing,--the cloth, snow-white--the silver, radiant,--the +guinea chicken beyond reproach. + +Swept and garnished to an alarming degree the young Wall Paper Man +presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to +make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home. + +Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the +Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her +insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt and +pepper shakers she could reach. + +Once when the young Wall Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of +putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole +table with the violence of her warning kick. + +Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, "Say, +Peach,--what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight +against the minister's bantam?" the White Linen Nurse choked piteously +over her food. + +Twice some one spoke about this year's weather. + +Twice some one volunteered an illuminating remark about last year's +weather. + +Except for these four diversions restraint indescribable hung like a +horrid pall over the feast. + +Next to feeling unwelcome in your friend's house, nothing certainly is +more wretchedly disconcerting than to feel unwelcome in your own house! + +Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to grab up all the knives within reach +and ram them successively into his own mouth just to prove to the young +Wall Paper Man what a--what a devil of a good fellow he was himself! +Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to tell the White Linen Nurse about the +pet bantam of his own boyhood days--that he bet a dollar could lick any +bantam her father ever dreamed of owning! Grimly the Senior Surgeon +longed to talk dolls,--dishes,--kittens,--yes, even cream pitchers, to +his Little Daughter, to talk anything in fact--to _any one_,--to +talk--sing--shout _anything_--that should make him, at least for the +time being, one at heart, one at head, one at table, with this +astonishingly offish bunch of youngsters! + +But grimly instead,--out of his frazzled nerves,--out of his innate +spiritual bashfulness, he merely roared forth, "Where are the potatoes?" + +"Potatoes?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Potatoes? Oh, potatoes?" she +finished more blithely. "Why, yes, of course! Don't you remember--you +didn't have time to peel them for me? I was so disappointed!" + +"You were so disappointed?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "You?--you?" + +Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and +shook her tiny fist right in her father's face. + +"Now, Lendicott Paber!" she screamed. "Don't you start in--sassing--my +darling little Peach!" + +"_Peach?_" snorted the Senior Surgeon. With almost supernatural calm he +put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression of +absolutely inflexible purpose. "Don't you--ever," he warned her, +"ever--ever--let me hear you call--this woman 'Peach' again!" + +A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and +straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her +little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable +peace. + +"Why--Lendicott Faber!" she persisted heroically. + +"_Lendicott?_" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "What are +_you_--'Lendicotting' _me_ for?" + +Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began +to beat upon the table. + +"Why, you dear Silly!" she cried. "Why, if I'm the new Marma, I've got +to call you 'Lendicott'! And Peach has got to call you 'Fat Father'!" + +Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his +feet. The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war +nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there +before. + +"God!" he said. "This gives me the _willies_!" and strode tempestuously +from the room. + +Out in his own work-shop fortunately,--whatever the grotesque new +pinkness,--whatever the grotesque new perkiness--his great free +walking-spaces had not been interfered with. Slamming his door +triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous +pace-pace-pace that had characterized for eighteen years his first +night's return to--the obligations of civilization. + +Sharply around the corner of his old battered desk the little path +started,--wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little path +furrowed,--wistfully at the deep bay-window where his favorite lilac +bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his +return, the little path faltered,--and went on again,--on and on and +on,--into the alcove where his instruments glistened,--up to the +fireplace where his college trophy-cups tarnished! Listlessly the Senior +Surgeon re-commenced his yearly vigil. Up and down,--up and down,--round +and round,--on and on and on,--through interminable dusks to +unattainable dawns,--a glutted, bacchanalian Soul sweating its own way +back to sanctity and leanness! Nerves always were in that vigil,--raw, +rattling nerves clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their +sedatives. Thirst also was in that vigil,--no mere whimpering tickle of +the palate, but a drought of the tissues,--a consuming fire of the +bones! Hurt pride was also there, and festering humiliation! + +But more rasping, this particular night, than nerves, more poignant than +thirst, more dangerously excitative even than remorse, hunger rioted in +him,--hunger, the one worst enemy of the Senior Surgeon's cause,--the +simple, silly, no-account,--gnawing,--drink-provocative hunger of an +empty stomach. And 'one other hunger was also there,--a sudden fierce +new lust for Life and Living,--a passion bare of love yet pure of +wantonness,--a passion primitive,--protective,--inexorably +proprietary,--engendered strangely in that one mad, suspicious moment at +the edge of the summer house when every outraged male instinct in him +had leaped to prove that--love or no love--the woman was--_his_. Up and +down,--up and down,--round and round,--eight o'clock found the Senior +Surgeon still pacing. + +At half past eight the young Wall Paper Man came to say good-by to him. + +"As long as Sister won't be alone any more, I guess I'll be moving on," +beamed the Wall Paper Man. "There's a dance at home Saturday night. And +I've got a girl of my own!" he confided genially. + +"Come again," urged the Senior Surgeon. "Come again when you can stay +longer!" + +With one honest prayer in stock, and at least two purely automatic +social speeches of this sort, no man needs to flounder altogether +hopelessly for words in any ordinary emergency of life. Thus with no +more mental interruption than the two-minute break in time, the Senior +Surgeon then resumed his bitter-thoughted pacing. + +At nine o'clock, however,--patroling his long rangy book-shelves, he +sensed with a very different feeling through his heavy oak door, the +soft whirring swish of skirts and the breathy twitter of muffled voices. +Faintly to his acute ears came the sound of his little daughter's +temperish protest, "I won't! I won't!" and the White Linen Nurse's +fervid pleading, "Oh, you must,--you must!" and the Little Girl's +mumbled ultimatum, "Well, I won't unless _you_ do!" + +Irascibly he crossed the room and yanked the door open abruptly upon +their surprise and confusion. His nerves were very sore. + +"What in thunder do you want?" he snarled. + +Nervously for an instant the White Linen Nurse tugged at the Little +Girl's hand. Nervously for an instant the Little Girl tugged at the +White Linen Nurse's hand. Then with a swallow like a sob the White Linen +Nurse lifted her glowing face to his. + +"K--kiss us good night!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Telescopically all in that startling second, vision after vision beat +down like blows upon the Senior Surgeon's senses! The pink, pink flush +of the girl! The lure of her! The amazing sweetness! The physical +docility! Oh ye gods,--the docility! Every trend of her birth,--of her +youth,--of her training,--forcing her now--if he chose it--to +unquestioning submission to his will and his judgment! Faster and faster +the temptation surged through his pulses! The path from her lips to her +ear was such a little path,--the plea so quick to make, so short,--"I +want you _now!_" + +"K--kiss us good night!" urged the Big Girl's unsuspecting lips. "Kiss +us good night!" mocked the Little Girl's tremulous echo. + +Then explosively with the noblest rudeness of his life, "No, I _won't!_" +said the Senior Surgeon, and slammed the door in their faces. + +Falteringly up the stairs he heard the two ascending,--speechless with +surprise, perhaps,--stunned by his roughness,--still hand in hand, +probably,--still climbing slowly bed-ward,--the soft, smooth, patient +footfall of the White Linen Nurse and the jerky, laborious +clang-clang-clang of a little dragging iron-braced leg. + +Up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on,--the Senior Surgeon +resumed his pacing. Under his eyes great shadows darkened. Along the +corners of his mouth the lines furrowed like gray scars. Up and +down,--round and round,--on and on and on--and on! + +At ten o'clock, sitting bolt upright in her bed with her worried eyes +straining bluely out across the Little Girl's somnolent form into +unfathomable darkness, the White Linen Nurse in the throb of her own +heart began to keep pace with that faint, horrid thud-thud-thud in the +room below. Was he passing the book-case now? Had he reached the +bay-window? Was he dawdling over those glistening scalpels? Would his +nerves remember the flask in that upper desk drawer? Up and down,--round +and round,--on and on,--the harrowing sound continued. + +Resolutely at last she scrambled out of her snug nest, and hurrying into +her great warm, pussy-gray wrapper began at once very practically, very +unemotionally, with matches and alcohol and a shiny glass jar to prepare +a huge steaming cup of malted milk. Beef-steak was infinitely better, +she knew, or eggs, of course, but if she should venture forth to the +kitchen for real substantiate the Senior Surgeon, she felt quite +positive, would almost certainly hear her and stop her. So very +stealthily thus like the proverbial assassin she crept down the front +stairs with the innocent malted milk cup in her hand, and then with her +knuckles just on the verge of rapping against the grimly inhospitable +door, went suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty whether to advance or +retreat. + +Once again through the sombre inert wainscoting, exactly as if a soul +had creaked, the Senior Surgeon sensed the threatening, intrusive +presence of an unseen personality. Once again he strode across the room +and jerked the door open with terrifying anger and resentment. + +As though frozen there on his threshold by Her own little bare feet,--as +though strangled there in his doorway by her own great mop of golden +hair,--stolid and dumb as a pink-cheeked graven image the White Linen +Nurse thrust the cup out awkwardly at him. + +Absolutely without comment, as though she trotted on purely professional +business and the case involved was of mutual concern to them both, the +Senior Surgeon took the cup from her hand and closed the door again in +her face. + +At eleven o'clock she came again,--just as pink,--just as blue,--just as +gray,--just as golden. And the cup of malted milk she brought with her +was just as huge,--just as hot,--just as steaming,--only this time she +had smuggled two raw eggs into it. + +Once more the Senior Surgeon took the cup without comment and shut the +door in her face. + +At twelve o'clock she came again. The Senior Surgeon was unusually +loquacious this time. + +"Have you any more malted milk?" he asked tersely. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" beamed the White Linen Nurse. + +"Go and get it!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned +with the half depleted bottle. Frankly interested she recrossed the +threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands of +the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her +tiptoes she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on +the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs. + +Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the malted +milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly into +his waste basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen Nurse by +the shoulders and marched her out of the room. + +"For God's sake!" he said, "get out of this room! And stay out!" + +_Bang_! the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang the lock +bit into its catch. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself--all alone +there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. "Y-e-s, sir," she +repeated softly. + +With a slightly sardonic grin on his face the Senior Surgeon resumed his +pacing. Up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on! + +At one o'clock in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning he stopped +long enough to light his hearthfire. + +At two o'clock he stopped again to pile on a trifle more wood. + +At three o'clock he dallied for an instant to close a window. The new +day seemed strangely cold. + +At four o'clock, dawn the wonder,--the miracle,--the long despaired +of,--quickened wanly across the East. Then suddenly,--more like a +phosphorescent breeze than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came +wafting through the green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over! + +Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new +beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White +Linen Nurse sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a little gray heap +on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human body is +not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously through the +nerves of his stomach. + +"What are you doing here?" he fairly screamed at her. + +"Just keeping you company, sir," yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before +her hand could reach her mouth again another great childish yawn +overwhelmed her. "Just--watching with you, sir," she finished more or +less inarticulately. + +"Watching with--me?" snarled the Senior Surgeon resentfully. +"Why--should--you--watch--with--me?" + +Like the frightened flash of a bird the heavy lashes went swooping down +across the pink cheeks and lifted as suddenly again. "Because you're +my--_man!_" yawned the White Linen Nurse. + +Almost roughly the Senior Surgeon reached down and pulled the White +Linen Nurse to her feet. + +"God!" said the Senior Surgeon. In his strained, husky voice the word +sounded like an oath. Grotesquely a little smile went scudding zig-zag +across his haggard face. With an impulse absolutely alien to him he +reached out abruptly again and raised the White Linen Nurse's hand to +his lips. "_'Good_ God' was what I meant--Miss Malgregor!" he grinned a +bit sheepishly. + +Quite bruskly then he turned and looked at his watch. + +"I'd like my breakfast just as soon now as you can possibly get it!" he +ordered peremptorily,--in his own morbid pathological emergency no more +stopping to consider the White Linen Nurse's purely normal fatigue, than +he in any pathological emergency of hers would have stopped to consider +his own comfort,--safety,--or even perhaps, life! + +Joyously then like a prisoner just turned loose, he went swinging up the +stairs to recreate himself with a smoke and a shave and a great, +splashing, cold shower-bath. + +Only one thing seemed to really trouble him now. At the top of the +stairs he stopped for an instant and cocked his head a bit worriedly +towards the drawing-room where from some slow-brightening alcove +bird-carol after bird-carol went fluting shrilly up into the morning. + +"Is that--those blasted canaries?" he asked briefly. + +Very companionably the White Linen Nurse cocked her own towsled head on +one side and listened with him for half a moment. + +"Only four of them are blasted canaries," she corrected very gently. +"The fifth one is a paroquet that I got at a mark-down because it was a +widowed bird and wouldn't mate again." + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse and started for the kitchen. + +No one but the Senior Surgeon himself breakfasted in state at five +o'clock that morning. Snug and safe in her crib upstairs the Little +Crippled Girl slumbered peacefully on through the general disturbance. +And as for the White Linen Nurse herself,--what with chilling and +rechilling melons,--and broiling and unbroiling steaks,--and making and +remaking coffee,--and hunting frantically for a different-sized water +glass,--or a prettier colored plate, there was no time for anything +except an occasional hurried surreptitious nibble half way between the +stove and the table. + +Yet in all that raucous early morning hour together neither man nor girl +suffered towards the other the slightest personal sense of contrition or +resentment, for each mind was trained equally fairly,--whether reacting +on its own case or another's--to differentiate pretty readily between +mean nerves and a--mean spirit. + +Only once in fact across the intervening chasm of crankiness did the +Senior Surgeon hurl a smile that was even remotely self-conscious or +conciliatory. Glancing up suddenly from a particularly sharp and +disagreeable speech, he noted the White Linen Nurse's red lips mumbling +softly one to the other. + +"Are you specially--religious,--Miss Malgregor?" he grinned quite +abruptly. + +"No, not specially, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. "Why, sir?" + +"Oh, it 's only--" grinned the Senior Surgeon dourly, "it's only that +every time I'm especially ugly to you, I see your lips moving as though +in 'silent prayer' as they call it--and I was just wondering--if there +was any special formula you used with me--that kept you +so--everlastingly--damned serene. Is there?" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"What is it?" demanded the Senior Surgeon quite bluntly. + +"Do I have to tell?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. A little tremulously +in her hand the empty cup she was carrying rattled against its saucer. +"Do I have to tell?" she repeated pleadingly. + +A delirious little thrill of power went fluttering through the Senior +Surgeon's heart. + +"Yes, you have to tell me!" he announced quite seriously. + +In absolute submission to his demand, though with very palpable +reluctance, the White Linen Nurse came forward to the table, put down +the cup and saucer, and began to finger a trifle nervously at the cloth. + +"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean any harm, sir," she stammered. "But all I +say is,--honest and truly all I say is,--'Bah! He's nothing but a +man--nothing but a man--nothing but a man!' over and over and +over,--just that, sir!" + +Uproariously the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his +feet. + +"I guess after all I'll have to let the little kid call +you--'Peach'--one day a week!" he acknowledged jocosely. + +With infinite seriousness then he tossed back his great splendid +head,--shook himself free apparently from all unhappy memories,--and +started for his work-room,--a great gorgeously vital, extraordinarily +talented, gray-haired _boy_ lusting joyously for his own work and play +again--after a month's distressing illness! + +From the edge of the hall he turned round and made a really boyish +grimace at her. + +"Now if I only had the horns or the cloven hoof--that you think I have," +he called, "what an easy time I'd make of it, raking over all the +letters and ads. that are stacked up on my desk!" + +"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +Only once did he come back into the kitchen or dining-room for anything. +It was at seven o'clock. And the White Linen Nurse was still washing +dishes. + +As radiant as a gray-haired god he towered up in the doorway. The boyish +rejuvenation in him was even more startling than before. + +"I'm feeling so much like a fighting cock this morning," he said, "I +think I'll tackle that paper on surgical diseases of the pancreas that I +have to read at Baltimore next month!" A little startlingly the gray +lines furrowed into his cheeks again. "For Heaven's sake--see that I'm +not disturbed by anything!" he admonished her warningly. + +It must have been almost eight o'clock when the ear-splitting scream +from upstairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken +into the hall. + +"Oh, Peach! Peach!" yelled the Little Girl's frenzied voice. "Come quick +and see--what Fat Father's doing _now_--out on the piazza!" + +Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that +opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hung himself, she +tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the "morning after"? + +But staunchly and reassuringly from the further end of the _piazza_ the +Senior Surgeon's broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily and +in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing of the +piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty bird cages. +Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy releasing the +last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched with ink and +behind his left ear a fountain pen dallied daringly. + +At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse's step the Senior +Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance. + +"Well, now, I imagine," he said, "well, now, I imagine I've really made +you--mad!" + +"No, not mad, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, +sir,--but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand +she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying +yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. "Savage cats will +get them!" + +"It's a choice of their lives--or mine!" said the Senior Surgeon +tersely. + +"Yes, sir," droned the White Linen Nurse. + +Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her. "For Heaven's +sake--do you think--canary birds are more valuable than I am?" he +demanded stentoriously. + +Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great, sad, round tear +rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse's flushed cheek. + +"N--o,--not more valuable," conceded the White Linen Nurse. "But +more--c-cunning." + +Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon's hair a flush of real contrition +spread hotly. + +"Why--Rae!" he stammered. "Why, what a beast I am! Why--! Why!" In +sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate +excuse,--some adequate explanation. "Why, I'm sure I didn't mean to make +you feel badly," he persisted. "Only I've lived alone so long that I +suppose I've just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing if I +wanted it and--throwing it away if I didn't! And canary birds, now? +Well--really--" he began to glower all over again. "Oh, thunder!" he +finished abruptly, "I guess I'll go on down to the hospital where I +belong!" + +A little wistfully the White Linen Nurse stepped forward. "The +hospital?" she said. "Oh,--the hospital? Do you think that perhaps you +could come home a little bit earlier than usual--to-night--and--and help +me catch--just one of the canaries?" + +"What?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. Incredulously with a very inky finger +he pointed at his own breast. "What? I?" he demanded. "I? Come +home--early--from the hospital to help--you--catch a canary?" + +Disgustedly without further comment he turned and stalked back again +into the house. + +The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later. +Watching his exit down the long gravel path the Little Crippled Girl +commented audibly on the matter. + +"Peach! Peach!" called the Little Crippled Girl. "What makes Fat Father +walk so--surprised?" + +People at the hospital also commented upon him. + +"Gee!" giggled the new nurses. "We bet he 's a Tartar! But isn't his +hair cute? And say--" gossiped the new nurses, "is it really true that +that Malgregor girl was pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and +he wouldn't let her out till she'd promised to marry him? Isn't it +_awful?_ Isn't it _romantic_?" + +"Why! Dr. Faber 's back!" fluttered the senior nurses. "Isn't he +wonderful? Isn't he beautiful? But, oh, say," they worried, "what do +you suppose Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare +talk _things_ to him,--just plain every-day _things_,--hats, and going +to the theater, and what to have for breakfast?--breakfast?" they +gasped. "Why, yes, of course!" they reasoned more sanely. "Steak? Eggs? +Even oatmeal? Why, people had to eat--no matter how wonderful they were! +But evenings?" they speculated more darkly. "But evenings?" In the whole +range of human experience--was it even so much as remotely imaginable +that--evenings--the Senior Surgeon and--Rae Malgregor--sat in the +hammock and held hands? "Oh, Gee!" blanched the senior nurses. + +"Good-morning, Dr. Faber!" greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from +behind her austere office desk. + +"Good-morning, Miss Hartzen!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"Have you had a pleasant trip?" quizzed the Superintendent of Nurses. + +"Exceptionally so, thank you!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"And--Mrs. Faber,--is she well?" persisted the Superintendent of Nurses +conscientiously. + +"Mrs. Faber?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. "Mrs. Faber? Oh, yes! Why, of +course! Yes, indeed--she's extraordinarily well! I never saw her +better!" + +"She must have been--very lonely without you--this past month?" rasped +the Superintendent of Nurses--perfectly politely. + +"Yes--she was," flushed the Senior Surgeon. "She--she suffered--keenly!" + +"And you, too?" drawled the Superintendent of Nurses. "It must have been +very hard for you." + +"Yes, it was!" sweated the Senior Surgeon. "I suffered keenly, too!" + +Distractedly he glanced back at the open door. An extraordinarily large +number of nurses, internes, orderlies, seemed to be having errands up +and down the corridor that allowed them a peculiarly generous length of +neck to stretch into the Superintendent's office. + +"Great Heavens!" snapped the Senior Surgeon. "What 's the matter with +everybody this morning?" Tempestuously he started for the door. "Hurry +up my cases, please, Miss Hartzen!" he ordered. "Send them to the +operating room! And let me get to work!" + +At eleven o'clock, absolutely calm, absolutely cool,--pure as a girl in +his fresh, white operating clothes--cleaner,--skin, hair, teeth, +hands,--than any girl who ever walked the face of the earth, in a white +tiled room as surgically clean as himself, with three or four small, +glistening instruments still boiling, steaming hot--and half a dozen +breathless assistants almost as immaculate as himself, with his gown, +cap and mask adjusted, his gloves finally on, and the faintest possible +little grin twitching oddly at the corner of his mouth, he "went in" as +they say, to a new born baby's tortured, twisted spine--and took +out--fifty years perhaps of hunched-back pain and shame and morbid +passions flourishing banefully in the dark shades of a disordered life. + +At half-past twelve he did an appendix operation on the only son of his +best friend. At one o'clock he did another appendix operation. Whom it +was on didn't matter. It couldn't have been worse on--any one. At +half-past one no one remembered to feed him. At two, in another man's +operation, he saw the richest merchant in the city go wafted out into +eternity on the fumes of ether taken for the lancing of a stye. At three +o'clock, passing the open door of one of the public waiting-rooms, an +Italian peasant woman rushed out and spat in his face because her +tubercular daughter had just died at the sanitarium where the Senior +Surgeon's money had sent her. Only in this one wild, defiling moment did +the lust for alcohol surge up in him again, surge clamorously, brutally, +absolutely mercilessly, as though in all the known cleansants of the +world only interminable raw whisky was hot enough to cauterize a +polluted consciousness. At half past three, as soon as he could change +his clothes again, he re-broke and re-set an acrobat's priceless leg. At +five o'clock, more to rest himself than anything else, he went up to the +autopsy amphitheater to look over an exhibit of enlarged hearts, whose +troubles were permanently over. + +At six o'clock just as he was leaving the great building with all its +harrowing sights, sounds, and smells, a peremptory telephone call from +one of the younger surgeons of the city summoned him back into the +stuffy office again. + +"Dr. Faber?" + +"Yes." + +"This is Merkley!" + +"Yes." + +"Can you come immediately and help me with that fractured skull case I +was telling you about this morning? We'll have to trepan right away!" + +"Trepan nothing!" grunted the Senior Surgeon. "I've got to go home early +to-night--and help catch a canary." + +"Catch a--what?" gasped the younger surgeon. + +"A canary!" grinned the Senior Surgeon mirthlessly. + +"A--_what?_" roared the younger man. + +"Oh, shut up, you damned fool! Of course I'll come!" said the Senior +Surgeon. + +There was no "boy" left in the Senior Surgeon when he reached home that +night. + +Gray with road-travel, haggard with strain and fatigue, it was long, +long after the rosy sunset time,--long, long after the yellow supper +light, that he came dragging up through the sweet-scented dusk of the +garden and threw himself down without greeting of any sort on the top +step of the piazza where the White Linen Nurse's skirts glowed palely +through the gloom. + +"Well, I put a canary bird back into its cage for you!" he confided +laconically. "It was a little chap's soul. It sure would have gotten +away before morning." + +"Who was the man that tried to turn it loose--_this_ time?" asked the +White Linen Nurse. + +"I didn't say that anybody did!" growled the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh," said the White Linen Nurse. "Oh." Quite palpably a little shiver +of flesh and starch went rustling through her. "I've had a wonderful +day, too!" she confided softly. "I've cleaned the attic and darned nine +pairs of your stockings and bought a sewing-machine--and started to make +you a white silk negligee shirt for a surprise!" + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. + +The jerk seemed to liberate suddenly the faint vibration of dishes and +the sound of ice knocking lusciously against a glass. + +"Oh, have you had any supper, sir?" asked the White Linen Nurse. + +With a prodigious sigh the Senior Surgeon threw his head back against +the piazza railing and stretched his legs a little further out along the +piazza floor. + +"Supper?" he groaned. "No! Nor dinner! Nor breakfast! Nor any +other--blankety-blank meal as far back as I can remember!" Janglingly +in his voice, fatigue, hunger, nerves, crashed together like the +slammed notes of a piano. "But I wouldn't--move--now," he snarled, +"if all the blankety-blank-blank foods in Christendom--were piled +blankety-blank-blank high--on all the blankety-blank-blank tables--in +this whole blankety-blank-blank house!" + +Ecstatically the White Linen Nurse clapped her hands. "Oh, that's just +exactly what I hoped you'd say!" she cried. "'Cause the supper's--right +here!" + +"Here?" snapped the Senior Surgeon. Tempestuously he began all over +again. "I--tell--you--I--wouldn't--lift--my--little finger--if all the +blankety-blank-blank-blank--" + +"Oh, Goody then!" said the White Linen Nurse. "'Cause now I can feed +you! I sort of miss fussing with the canary birds," she added wistfully. + +"Feed me?" roared the Senior Surgeon. Again something started a lump of +ice tinkling faintly in a thin glass. "Feed me?" he began all over +again. + +Yet with a fragrant strawberry half as big as a peach held out suddenly +under his nose, just from sheer, irresistible instinct he bit out at +it--and nipped the White Linen Nurse's finger instead. + +"Ouch--sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. + +Mumblingly down from an upstairs window, as from a face flatted +smouchingly against a wire screen, a peremptory summons issued. + +"Peach!--Peach!" called an angry little voice. "If you don't come to +bed--now--I'll--I'll say my curses instead of my prayers!" + +A trifle nervously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. + +"Maybe I'd--better go?" she said. + +"Maybe--you had!" said the Senior Surgeon quite definitely. + +At the edge of the threshold the White Linen Nurse turned for an +instant. + +"Good-night, Dr. Faber!" she whispered. + +"Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber!" said the Senior Surgeon. + +"Good-night--_what?_" gasped the White Linen Nurse. + +"Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber," repeated the Senior Surgeon. + +Clutching at her skirts as though a mouse were after her, the White +Linen Nurse went scuttling up the stairs. + +Very late--on into the night--the Senior Surgeon lay there on his piazza +floor staring out into his garden. Very companionably from time to time, +like a tame firefly, a little bright spark hovered and glowed for an +instant above the bowl of his pipe. Puff-puff-puff, doze-doze-doze, +throb-throb-throb,--on and on and on and on--into the sweet-scented +night. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +So the days passed. And the nights. And more days. And more nights. +July--August,--on and on and on. + +Strenuous, nerve-racking, heart-breaking surgical days--broken maritally +only by the pleasant, soft-worded greeting at the gate, or the +practical, homely appeal of good food cooked with heart as well as +hands, or the tingling, inciting masculine consciousness of there being +a woman's--blush in the house! + +Strenuous, house-working, child-nursing, home-making, domestic +days--broken maritally only by the jaded, harsh word at the gate, the +explosive criticism of food, the deadening, depressing, feminine +consciousness of there being a man's--vicious temper in the house! + +Now and again in one big automobile or another the White Linen Nurse and +the Senior Surgeon rode out together, always and forever with the Little +Crippled Girl sitting between them,--the other woman's little crippled +girl. Now and again in the late summer afternoons the White Linen Nurse +and the Senior Surgeon strolled together through the rainbow-colored +garden, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the other +woman's little crippled girl, tagging close behind them with her little +sad, clanking leg. Now and again in the long sweet summer evenings the +White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon sat on the clematis-shadowed +porch together, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the +other woman's little crippled girl, mocking them querulously from some +vague upper window. + +Now and again across the mutually ghost-haunted chasm that separated +them flashed the incontrovertible signal of sex and sense, as once when +a new Interne, grossly bungling, stepped to the hospital window with a +colleague to watch the Senior Surgeon's car roll away as usual with its +two feminine passengers. + +"What makes the Chief so stingy with that big handsome girl of his?" +queried the new Interne a bit resentfully. "He won't ever bring her into +the hospital!--won't ever ask any of us young chaps out to his house! +And some of us come mighty near to being eligible, too!--Who's he saving +her for, anyway?--A saint?--A miracle-worker?--A millionaire medicine +man?--They don't exist, you know!" + +"I'm saving her for myself!" snapped the Senior Surgeon most +disconcertingly from the doorway. "She--she happens to be my wife, not +my daughter,--thank you!" + +When the Senior Surgeon went home that night he carried a big bunch of +magazines and a box of candy as large as his head tucked courtingly +under his arm. + +Now and again across the chasm that separated them flashed the +incontrovertible signal of mutual trust and appreciation, as when once, +after a particularly violent vocal outburst on the Senior Surgeon's +part, he sobered down very suddenly and said: + +"Rae Malgregor,--do you realize that in all the weeks we've been +together you've never once nagged me about my swearing? Not a word,--not +a single word!" + +"I'm not very used to--words," smiled the White Linen Nurse hopefully. +"All I know how to nag with is--is raw eggs! If we could only get those +nerves of yours padded just once, sir! The swearing would get well of +itself." + +In August the Senior Surgeon suggested sincerely that the house was much +too big for the White Linen Nurse to run all alone, but conceded equally +sincerely, under the White Linen Nurse's vehement protest, that +servants, particularly new servants did creak considerably round a +house, and that maybe "just for the present" at least, until he finished +his very nervous paper on brain tumors perhaps it would be better to +stay "just by ourselves." + +In September the White Linen Nurse wanted very much to go home to Nova +Scotia to her sister's wedding but the Senior Surgeon was trying a very +complicated and worrisome new brace on the Little Girl's leg and it +didn't seem quite kind to go. In October she planned her trip all over +again. She was going to take the Little Crippled Girl with her this +time. But with their trunks already packed and waiting in the hall, the +Senior Surgeon came home from the hospital with a septic finger--and it +didn't seem quite best to leave him. + +"Well, how do you like being married _now?_" asked the Senior Surgeon a +bit ironically in his work-room that night, after the White Linen Nurse +had stood for an hour with evil-smelling washes, and interminable +bandages trying to fix that finger the precise, particular way that he +thought it ought to be fixed. "Well--how do you like--being married +_now?_" he insisted trenchantly. + +"Oh, I like it all right, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. A little bit +wanly this time she smiled her pluck up into the Senior Surgeon's +questioning face. "Oh, I like it all right, sir! Oh, of course, sir," +she confided thoughtfully--"Oh, of course, sir--it isn't quite as fancy +as being engaged--or quite as free and easy as being--single. But +still--" she admitted with desperate honesty--"but still there's a sort +of--a sort of a combination importance and--and comfort about it, sir, +like a--like a velvet suit--the second year, sir." + +"Is that--all?" quizzed the Senior Surgeon bluntly. + +"That's all--so far, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +In November the White Linen Nurse caught a bit of cold that pulled her +down a little. But the Senior Surgeon didn't notice it specially among +all the virulent ills he lived and worked with from day to day. And then +when the cold disappeared, Indian Summer came like a reeking sweat after +a chill! And the house _was_ big! And the Little Crippled Girl _was_ +pretty difficult to manage now and then! And the Senior Surgeon, no +matter how hard he tried not to, did succeed somehow in creating more or +less of a disturbance--at least every other day or two! + +And then suddenly, one balmy gold and crimson Indian Summer morning, +standing out on the piazza trying to hear what the Little Crippled Girl +was calling from the window and what the Senior Surgeon was calling from +the gate, the White Linen Nurse fell right down in her tracks, brutally, +bulkily, like a worn-out horse, and lay as she fell, a huddled white +heap across the gray piazza. + +"Oh, Father! Come quick! Come quick! Peach has deaded herself!" yelled +the Little Girl's frantic voice. + +Just with his foot on the step of his car the Senior Surgeon heard the +cry and came speeding back up the long walk. Already there before him +the Little Girl knelt raining passionate, agonized kisses on her beloved +playmate's ghastly white face. + +"Leave her alone!" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "Leave her alone, I +say!" + +Bruskly he pushed the Little Girl aside and knelt to cradle his own ear +against the White Linen Nurse's heart. + +"Oh, it's all right," he growled, and gathered the White Linen Nurse +right up in his arms--she was startlingly lighter than he had +supposed--and carried her up the stairs and put her to bed like a child +in the great sumptuous guest-room, in a great sumptuous nest of all the +best linens and blankets, with the Little Crippled Girl superintending +the task with many hysterical suggestions and sharp staccato +interruptions. For once in his life the Senior Surgeon did not stop to +quarrel with his daughter. + +Rallying limply from her swoon the White Linen Nurse stared out with +hazy perplexity at last from her dimpling white pillows to see the +Senior Surgeon standing amazingly at the guest-room bureau with a glass +and a medicine-dropper in his hand, and the Little Crippled Girl hanging +apparently by her narrow peaked chin across the foot-board of the bed. + +Gazing down worriedly at the lace-ruffled sleeve of her night-dress the +White Linen Nurse made her first public speech to the--world at large. + +"Who--put--me--to--bed?" whispered the White Linen Nurse. + +Ecstatically the Little Crippled Girl began to pound her fists on the +foot-board of the bed. + +"Father did!" she cried in unmistakable triumph. "All the little hooks! +All the little buttons!--_wasn't_ it cunning?" + +The Senior Surgeon would hardly have been human if he hadn't glanced +back suddenly over his shoulder at the White Linen Nurse's precipitously +changing color. Quite irrepressibly, as he saw the red, red blood come +surging home again into her cheeks, a little short chuckling laugh +escaped him. + +"I guess you'll live--now," he remarked dryly. + +Then because a Senior Surgeon can't stay home on the mere impulse of the +moment from a great rushing hospital, just because one member of his +household happens to faint perfectly innocently in the morning, he +hurried on to his work again. And saved a little boy, and lost a little +girl, and mended a fractured thigh, and eased a gun-shot wound, and came +dashing home at noon in one of his thousand-dollar hours to feel the +White Linen Nurse's pulse and broil her a bit of tenderloin steak with +his own thousand-dollar hands,--and then went dashing off again to do +one major operation or another, telephoned home once or twice during the +afternoon to make sure that everything was all right, and finding that +the White Linen Nurse was comfortably up and about again, went sprinting +off fifty miles somewhere on a meningitis consultation, and came +dragging home at last, somewhere near midnight, to a big black house +brightened only by a single light in the kitchen where the White Linen +Nurse went tiptoeing softly from stove to pantry in deft preparation of +an appetizing supper for him. + +Quite roughly again without smile or appreciation the Senior Surgeon +took her by the shoulders and turned her out of the kitchen, and started +her up the stairs. + +"Are you an--idiot?" he said. "Are you an--imbecile?" he came back and +called up the stairs to her just as she was disappearing from the upper +landing. + +Then up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the Senior Surgeon +began suddenly to pace again. + +Only, for some unexplainable reason to the White Linen Nurse upstairs, +his work-room didn't seem quite large enough for his pacing this night +Along the broad piazza she heard his footsteps creak. Far, far into the +morning, lying warm and snug in her own little bed, she heard his +footsteps crackling through the wet-leafed garden paths. + +Yet the Senior Surgeon didn't look an atom jaded or forlorn when he came +down to breakfast the next morning. He had on a brand new gray suit that +fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the glad glow of +his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks as he swung +around the corner of the table and dropped down into his place with an +odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently towards the White +Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl who already waited him there at +either end of the table. + +"Oh, Father, isn't it lovely to have my darling--darling Peach all well +again!" beamed the Little Crippled Girl with unusual friendliness. + +"Speaking of your--'darling Peach,'" said the Senior Surgeon quite +abruptly. "Speaking of your 'darling Peach,'--I'm going to--take her +away with me to-day--for a week or so." + +"Eh?" jumped the Little Crippled Girl. + +"What? What, sir?" stammered the White Linen Nurse. + +Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast. But +the little twinkle around his eyes belied in some way the utter +prosiness of the act. + +"For a little trip," he confided amiably. "A little holiday!" + +A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork +and stared at him, blue-eyed and wondering as a child. + +"A holiday?" she gasped. "To a--beach, you mean? Would there be a--a +roller-coaster? I've never seen a roller-coaster!" + +"Eh?" laughed the Senior Surgeon. + +"Oh, I'm going, too! I'm going, too!" piped the Little Crippled Girl. + +Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table +and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp. + +"Going _three_, you mean?" he glowered at his little daughter. "Going +_three_?" His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as diction +was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace that +accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a +benediction. "Not by a--damned sight!" beamed the Senior Surgeon. "This +little trip is just for Peach and me!" + +"But--sir?" fluttered the White Linen Nurse. Her face was suddenly +pinker than any rose that ever bloomed. + +With an impulse absolutely novel to him the Senior Surgeon turned and +swung his little daughter very gently to his shoulder. + +"Your Aunt Agnes is coming to stay with _you_--in just about ten +minutes!" he affirmed. "That's--what's going to happen to _you!_ And +maybe there'll be a pony--a white pony." + +"But Peach is so--pleasant!" wailed the Little Crippled Girl. "Peach is +so pleasant!" she began to scream and kick. + +"So it seems!" growled the Senior Surgeon. "And she's--dying of it!" + +Tearfully the Little Girl wriggled down to the ground, and hobbled +around and thrust her finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse's blushiest +cheek. + +"I don't want--Peach--to--die," she admitted worriedly. "But I don't +want anybody to take her away!" + +"The pony is--very white," urged the Senior Surgeon with a diplomacy +quite alien to him. + +Abruptly the Little Girl turned and faced him. "What color is Aunt +Agnes?" she asked vehemently. + +"Aunt Agnes is--pretty white, too," attested the Senior Surgeon. + +With the faintest possible tinge of superciliousness the Little Girl +lifted her sharp chin a trifle higher. + +"If it's just a perfectly plain white pony," she said, "I'd rather have +Peach. But if it's a white pony with black blots on it, and if it can +pull a little cart, and if I can whip it with a little switch, and if it +will eat sugar-lumps out of my hand,--and if its name is--is--'Beautiful +Pretty-Thing'--" + +"Its name has always been--'Beautiful Pretty-Thing,' I'm quite sure!" +insisted the Senior Surgeon. Inadvertently as he spoke he reached out +and put a hand very lightly on the White Linen Nurse's shoulder. + +Instantly into the Little Girl's suspicious face flushed a furiously +uncontrollable flame of jealousy and resentment. Madly she turned upon +her father. + +"You're a liar!" she screamed. "There _is_ no white pony! You're a +robber! You're a--a--drunk! You shan't have my darling Peach!" And threw +herself frenziedly into the White Linen Nurse's lap. + +Impatiently the Senior Surgeon disentangled the little clinging arms, +and raising the White Linen Nurse to her feet pushed her emphatically +towards the hall. + +"Go to my work-room," he said. "Quickly! I want to talk with you!" + +A moment later he joined her there, and shut and locked the door behind +him. The previous night's loss of sleep showed plainly in his face now, +and the hospital strain of the day before, and of the day before that, +and of the day before _that_. + +Heavily, moodily, he crossed the room and threw himself down in his desk +chair with the White Linen Nurse still standing before him as though she +were nothing but a--white linen nurse. All the splendor was suddenly +gone from him, all the radiance, all the exultant purpose. + +"Well, Rae Malgregor," he grinned mirthlessly. "The little kid is right, +though I certainly don't know where she got her information. I _am_ a +Liar. The pony's name is not yet 'Beautiful Pretty-Thing'! I _am_ +a--Drunk. I was drunk most of June! I _am_ a Robber! I have taken you +out of your youth--and the love-chances of your youth,--and shut you up +here in this great, gloomy old house of mine--to be my slave--and my +child's slave--and--" + +"Pouf!" said the White Linen Nurse. "It would seem--silly--now, sir,--to +marry a boy!" + +"And I've been a beast to you!" persisted the Senior Surgeon. "From the +very first day you belonged to me I've been a--beast to you,--venting +brutally on your youth, on your sweetness, on your patience,--all the +work, the worry, the wear and tear, the abnormal strain and stress of +my disordered days--and years,--and I've let my little girl vent also on +you all the pang and pain of _her_ disordered days! And because in this +great, gloomy, rackety house it seemed suddenly like a miracle from +heaven to have service that was soft-footed, gentle-handed, +pleasant-hearted, I've let you shoulder all the hideous drudgery,--the +care,--one horrid homely task after another piling up-up-up--till you +dropped in your tracks yesterday--still smiling!" + +"But I got a good deal out of it, even so, sir!" protested the White +Linen Nurse. "See, sir!" she smiled. "I've got real lines in my +face--now--like other women! I'm not a doll any more! I'm not a--" + +"Yes!" groaned the Senior Surgeon. "And I might just as kindly have +carved those lines with my knife! But I was going to make it all up to +you to-day!" he hurried. "I swear I was! Even in one short little week I +could have done it! You wouldn't have known me! I was going to take you +away,--just you and me! I would have been a Saint! I swear I would! I +would have given you such a great, wonderful, child-hearted holiday--as +you never dreamed of in all your unselfish life! A holiday all +_you--you--you!_ You could have--dug in the sand if you'd wanted to! +Gad! I'd have dug in the sand--if you'd wanted me to! And now it's all +gone from me, all the will, all the sheer positive self-assurance that I +could have carried the thing through--absolutely selflessly. That little +girl's sneering taunt? The ghost of her mother--in that taunt? God! When +anybody knocks you just in your decency it doesn't harm you specially! +But when they knock you in your Wanting-To-Be-Decent it--it undermines +you somewhere. I don't know exactly how! I'm nothing but a man +again--now, just a plain, every day, greedy, covetous, physical man--on +the edge of a holiday, the first clean holiday in twenty years,--that he +no longer dares to take!" + +A little swayingly the White Linen Nurse shifted her standing weight +from one foot to the other. + +"I'm sorry, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "I'd like to have seen a +roller-coaster, sir!" + +Just for an instant a gleam of laughter went brightening across the +Senior Surgeon's brooding face, and was gone again. + +"Rae Malgregor, come here!" he ordered quite sharply. + +Very softly, very glidingly, like the footfall of a person who has never +known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly and sliding in +cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood there with her +back braced against the desk, her fingers straying idly up and down the +edges of the desk, staring up into his face all readiness, all +attention, like a soldier waiting further orders. + +So near was she that he could almost hear the velvet heart-throb of +her,--the little fluttering swallow,--yet by some strange, persistent +aloofness of her, some determinate virginity, not a fold of her gown, +not an edge, not a thread, seemed to even so much as graze his knee, +seemed to even so much as shadow his hand,--lest it short-circuit +thereby the seething currents of their variant emotions. + +With extraordinary intentness for a moment the Senior Surgeon sat +staring into the girl's eyes, the blue, blue eyes too full of childish +questioning yet to flinch with either consciousness or embarrassment. + +"After all, Rae Malgregor," he smiled at last, faintly--"After all, Rae +Malgregor,--Heaven knows when I shall ever get--another holiday!" + +"Yes, sir?" said the White Linen Nurse. + +With apparent irrelevance he reached for his ivory paper-cutter and +began bending it dangerously between his adept fingers. + +"How long have you been with me, Rae Malgregor?" he asked quite +abruptly. + +"Four months--actually with you, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. + +"Do you happen to remember the exact phrasing of my--proposal of +marriage to you?" he asked shrewdly. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "You called it 'general +heartwork for a family of two'!" + +A little grimly before her steady gaze the Senior Surgeon's own eyes +fell, and rallied again almost instantly with a gaze as even and direct +as hers. + +"Well," he smiled. "Through the whole four months I seem to have kept my +part of the contract all right--and held you merely as a--drudge in my +home. Have you then decided, once and for all time,--whether you are +going to stay on with us--or whether you will 'give notice' as other +drudges have done?" + +With a little backward droop of one shoulder the White Linen Nurse began +to finger nervously at the desk behind her, and turning half way round +as though to estimate what damage she was doing, exposed thus merely the +profile of her pink face, of her white throat, to the Senior Surgeon's +questioning eyes. + +"I shall never--give notice, sir!" fluttered the white throat. + +"Are you perfectly sure?" insisted the Senior Surgeon. + +The pink in the White Linen Nurse's profiled cheek deepened a little. + +"Perfectly sure, sir!" attested the carmine lips. + +Like the crack of a pistol the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory paper +cutter in two. + +"All right then!" he said. "Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don't take your +eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own mind, +here and now, that it was best for you--as well as for me--that you +should come away with me now--for this week,--not as my guest as I had +planned,--but as my wife,--even if you were not quite ready for it in +your heart,--even if you were not yet remotely ready for it,--would you +come because I told you to come?" + +Heavily under her white, white eyelids, heavily under her black, black +lashes, the girl's eyes struggled up to meet his own. + +"Yes, sir," whispered the White Linen Nurse. + +Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk, and +stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of +words seemed either necessary or dignified to him. + +"Go and pack your suit-case quickly then!" he ordered. "I want to get +away from here within half an hour!" + +But before the girl had half crossed the room he called to her suddenly, +his whole bearing and manner miraculously changed, and his face in that +moment as haggard as if a whole lifetime's struggle was packed into it. + +"Rae Malgregor," he drawled mockingly. "This thing shall be--barter way +through to the end,--with the credit always on your side of the account. +In exchange for the gift--of yourself--your--wonderful self--and the +trust that goes with it, I will give you,--God help me,--the ugliest +thing in my life. And God knows I have broken faith with myself once or +twice but--never have I broken my word to another! From now on,--in +token of your trust in me,--for whatever the bitter gift is worth to +you,--as long as you stay with me,--my Junes shall be yours--to do +with--as you please!" + +"What, sir?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "_What_, sir?" + +Softly, almost stealthily, she was half way back across the room to him, +when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of +appeal and defiance. + +"All the same, sir!" she cried passionately, "all the same, sir,--the +place is too hard for the small pay I get! Oh, I will do what I +promised!" she attested with increasing passion. "I will never leave +you! And I will mother your little girl! And I will servant your big +house! And I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you +whatever you wish! And I will never flinch from any hardship you impose +on me--nor whine over any pain,--on and on and on--all my days--all my +years--till I drop in my tracks again and--die--as you say 'still +smiling'! All the same!" she reiterated wildly, "the place is too hard! +It always was too hard! It always will be too hard--for such small pay!" + +"For such small pay?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. + +Around his heart a horrid clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly +through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to +rehearse themselves. + +"You mean, Miss Malgregor," he said a bit brokenly. "You mean--that +I--haven't been generous enough with you?" + +"Yes, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. + +All the storm and passion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a +frightened girl again, flushing pink-white, pink-white, pink-white, +before the Senior Surgeon's scathing stare. One step, two steps, three, +she advanced towards him. + +"Oh, I mean, sir," she whispered, "oh, I mean, sir,--that I'm just an +ordinary, ignorant country girl and you--are further above me than the +moon from the sea! I couldn't expect you to--love me, sir! I couldn't +even dream of your loving me! _But I do think you might like me just a +little bit with your heart!_" + +"What?" flushed the Senior Surgeon. "_What?_" + +Whacketty-bang against the window pane sounded the Little Crippled +Girl's knuckled fists! Darkly against the window pane squashed the +Little Crippled Girl's staring face. + +"Father!" screamed the shrill voice. "Father! There's a white lady here +with two black ladies washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?" + +With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to +laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. +Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse's ear made just a +whisper, not a kiss. + +"God bless you!--_hurry!_" he said. "And let's get out of here before +any telephone message catches me!" + +Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza, and greeted his +sister-in-law. + +"Hello, Agnes!" he said. + +"Hello, yourself!" smiled his sister-in-law. + +"How's everything?" he enquired politely. + +"How's everything with you?" parried his sister-in-law. + +Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of +thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her +luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general +situation. The Senior Surgeon's sister-in-law was always studying +something. Last year it was archaeology,--the year before, +basketry,--this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like +that,--next year again it might be book-binding. + +"So you and your pink and white shepherdess are going off on a little +trip together?" she queried banteringly. "The girl's a darling, +Lendicott! I haven't had as much sport in a long time as I had that +afternoon last June when I came in my best calling-clothes and--helped +her paint the kitchen woodwork! And I had come prepared to be a bit +nasty, Lendicott! In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well 'fess +up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty!" + +"She seems to have a way," smiled the Senior Surgeon, "she seems to have +a way of disarming people's unpleasant intentions." + +A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the +Senior Surgeon's. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely +worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature +just about as cheer fully, and just about as effectually, as one open +fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless one often achieved much +comfort by keeping close to "Aunt Agnes's" humorous mouth, for Aunt +Agnes knew a thing or two,--Aunt Agnes did,--and the things that she +made a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable. + +"Why, Lendicott Faber," she rallied him now. "Why, you're as nervous as +a school-boy! Why, I believe--I believe that you're going courting!" + +More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White Linen +Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge +wedding-suit with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of relief +the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on down the path +to his car and his chauffeur leaving the two women temporarily alone. + +When he returned to the piazza the Woman-of-the-World and the +Girl-not-at-all-of-the-World were bidding each other a really +affectionate good-by, and the woman's face looked suddenly just a little +bit old but the girl's cheeks were most inordinately blooming. + +In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him. + +"Good-by, Lendicott, old man!" she said. "And good luck to you!" A +little slyly out of her shrewd gray eyes, she glanced up sideways at +him. "You've got the devil's own temper, Lendicott dear," she teased, +"and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth +you've run a-muck more than once in your life,--but there's one thing I +will say for you,--though it prove you a dear Stupid: you never were +over-quick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with +you!" + +"To what woman do you particularly refer?" mocked the Senior Surgeon +impatiently. + +Quite brazenly to her own heart which never yet apparently had stirred +the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent +banter. + +"Maybe I refer to--myself," she laughed, "and maybe to the only--other +lady present!" + +"Oh!" gasped the White Linen Nurse. + +"You do me much honor, Agnes," bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite +resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse's +quickly averted face. + +A little oddly for an instant the older woman's glance hung on his. +"More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber!" she said, and kept +right on smiling. + +"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen +Nurse. + +Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with +the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Your father and I are--going away," she pleaded. "Won't +you--please--kiss us good-by?" + +"I've only got one kiss," sulked the Little Crippled Girl. + +"Give it to your--father!" pleaded the White Linen Nurse. + +Amazingly all in a second the ugliness vanished from the little face. +Dartlingly like a bird the Child swooped down and planted one large +round kiss on the Senior Surgeon's astonished boot. + +"Beautiful Father!" she cried, "I kiss your feet!" + +Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the +walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson. + +Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed falteringly. +Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone. And once she +dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown woodbine. + +Missing the sound or the shadow of her the Senior Surgeon turned +suddenly to wait. So startled was she by his intentness, so flustered, +so affrighted, that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon thought that +she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt madly back to the house. +Then quite unexpectedly she gave an odd, muffled little cry, and ran +swiftly to him like a child, and slipped her bare hand trustingly into +his. And they went on together to the car. + +With his foot already half lifted to the step the Senior Surgeon turned +abruptly around and lifted his hat and stood staring back bareheaded for +some unexplainable reason at the two silent figures on the piazza. + +"Rae," he said perplexedly, "Rae, I don't seem to know just why--but +somehow I'd like to have you kiss your hand to Aunt Agnes!" + +Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers from his and +wafted two kisses, one to "Aunt Agnes" and one to the Little Crippled +Girl. + +Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon climbed up into the +tonneau of the car where they had never, never sat alone before, and the +Senior Surgeon gave a curt order to his man and the big car started off +again into--interminable spaces. + +Mutely without a word, without a glance passing between them the Senior +Surgeon held out his hand to her once more, as though the absence of her +hand in his was suddenly a lonesomeness not to be endured again while +life lasted. + +Whizz--whizz--whizz--whirr--whirr--whirr the ribbony road began to roll +up again on that hidden spool under the car. + +When the chauffeur's mind seemed sufficiently absorbed in speed and +sound the Senior Surgeon bent down a little mockingly and mumbled his +lips inarticulately at the White Linen Nurse. + +"See!" he laughed. "I've got a text, too, to keep my courage up! Of +course you look like an angel!" he teased closer and closer to her +flaming face. "But all the time to myself--to reassure myself--I just +keep saying--' Bah! She 's nothing but a Woman--nothing but a +Woman--nothing but a Woman'!" + +Within the Senior Surgeon's warm, firm grasp the White Linen Nurse's +calm hand quickened suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full +bloom. + +"Oh, don't--talk, sir," she whispered. "Oh, don't talk, sir! +Just--listen!" + +"Listen? Listen to what?" laughed the Senior Surgeon. + +From under the heavy lashes that shadowed the flaming cheeks the Soul of +the Girl who was to be his peered up at the Soul of the Man who was to +be hers,--_and saluted what she saw!_ + +"Oh, my heart, sir!" whispered the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, my heart! My +heart! my _heart_!" + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The White Linen Nurse, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE LINEN NURSE *** + +***** This file should be named 14506.txt or 14506.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/0/14506/ + +Produced by Robert Shimmin, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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