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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/15473-8.txt b/15473-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..754cdbf --- /dev/null +++ b/15473-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9703 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Stories, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +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: Love Stories + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: March 26, 2005 [EBook #15473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + + LOVE STORIES + + + +THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY +Publishers NEW YORK + + +PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT +WITH GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +Copyright, 1919, By George H. Doran Company + +Copyright, 1912, 1913, 1916, by the Curtis Publishing Company +Copyright, 1912, by The McClure Publications, Inc. +Copyright, 1917, by The Metropolitan Magazine Co. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + I + TWENTY-TWO + + II + JANE + + III + IN THE PAVILION + + IV + GOD'S FOOL + + V + THE MIRACLE + + VI + "ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!" + + VII + THE GAME + + + + +LOVE STORIES + + + + +TWENTY-TWO + + +I + +The Probationer's name was really Nella Jane Brown, but she was +entered in the training school as N. Jane Brown. However, she meant +when she was accepted to be plain Jane Brown. Not, of course, that +she could ever be really plain. + +People on the outside of hospitals have a curious theory about +nurses, especially if they are under twenty. They believe that they +have been disappointed in love. They never think that they may +intend to study medicine later on, or that they may think nursing is +a good and honourable career, or that they may really like to care +for the sick. + +The man in this story had the theory very hard. + +When he opened his eyes after the wall of the warehouse dropped, N. +Jane Brown was sitting beside him. She had been practising counting +pulses on him, and her eyes were slightly upturned and very earnest. + +There was a strong odour of burnt rags in the air, and the man +sniffed. Then he put a hand to his upper lip--the right hand. She +was holding his left. + +"Did I lose anything besides this?" he inquired. His little +moustache was almost entirely gone. A gust of fire had accompanied +the wall. + +"Your eyebrows," said Jane Brown. + +The man--he was as young for a man as Jane Brown was for a +nurse--the man lay quite still for a moment. Then: + +"I'm sorry to undeceive you," he said. "But my right leg is off." + +He said it lightly, because that is the way he took things. But he +had a strange singing in his ears. + +"I'm afraid it's broken. But you still have it." She smiled. She had +a very friendly smile. "Have you any pain anywhere?" + +He was terribly afraid she would go away and leave him, so, although +he was quite comfortable, owing to a hypodermic he had had, he +groaned slightly. He was, at that time, not particularly interested +in Jane Brown, but he did not want to be alone. He closed his eyes +and said feebly: + +"Water!" + +She gave him a teaspoonful, bending over him and being careful not +to spill it down his neck. Her uniform crackled when she moved. It +had rather too much starch in it. + +The man, whose name was Middleton, closed his eyes. Owing to the +morphia, he had at least a hundred things he wished to discuss. The +trouble was to fix on one out of the lot. + +"I feel like a bit of conversation," he observed. "How about you?" + +Then he saw that she was busy again. She held an old-fashioned +hunting-case watch in her hand, and her eyes were fixed on his +chest. At each rise and fall of the coverlet her lips moved. Mr. +Middleton, who was feeling wonderful, experimented. He drew four +very rapid breaths, and four very slow ones. He was rewarded by +seeing her rush to a table and write something on a sheet of yellow +paper. + +"Resparation, very iregular," was what she wrote. She was not a +particularly good speller. + +After that Mr. Middleton slept for what he felt was a day and a +night. It was really ten minutes by the hunting-case watch. Just +long enough for the Senior Surgical Interne, known in the school as +the S.S.I., to wander in, feel his pulse, approve of Jane Brown, and +go out. + +Jane Brown had risen nervously when he came in, and had proffered +him the order book and a clean towel, as she had been instructed. He +had, however, required neither. He glanced over the record, changed +the spelling of "resparation," arranged his tie at the mirror, took +another look at Jane Brown, and went out. He had not spoken. + +It was when his white-linen clad figure went out that Middleton +wakened and found it was the same day. He felt at once like +conversation, and he began immediately. But the morphia did a +curious thing to him. He was never afterward able to explain it. It +made him create. He lay there and invented for Jane Brown a +fictitious person, who was himself. This person, he said, was a +newspaper reporter, who had been sent to report the warehouse fire. +He had got too close, and a wall had come down on him. He invented +the newspaper, too, but, as Jane Brown had come from somewhere else, +she did not notice this. + +In fact, after a time he felt that she was not as really interested +as she might have been, so he introduced a love element. He was, as +has been said, of those who believe that nurses go into hospitals +because of being blighted. So he introduced a Mabel, suppressing her +other name, and boasted, in a way he afterward remembered with +horror, that Mabel was in love with him. She was, he related, +something or other on his paper. + +At the end of two hours of babbling, a businesslike person in a +cap--the Probationer wears no cap--relieved Jane Brown, and spilled +some beef tea down his neck. + +Now, Mr. Middleton knew no one in that city. He had been motoring +through, and he had, on seeing the warehouse burning, abandoned his +machine for a closer view. He had left it with the engine running, +and, as a matter of fact, it ran for four hours, when it died of +starvation, and was subsequently interred in a city garage. However, +he owned a number of cars, so he wasted no thought on that one. He +was a great deal more worried about his eyebrows, and, naturally, +about his leg. + +When he had been in the hospital ten hours it occurred to him to +notify his family. But he put it off for two reasons: first, it +would be a lot of trouble; second, he had no reason to think they +particularly wanted to know. They all had such a lot of things to +do, such as bridge and opening country houses and going to the +Springs. They were really overwhelmed, without anything new, and +they had never been awfully interested in him anyhow. + +He was not at all bitter about it. + +That night Mr. Middleton--but he was now officially "Twenty-two," by +that system of metonymy which designates a hospital private patient +by the number of his room--that night "Twenty-two" had rather a bad +time, between his leg and his conscience. Both carried on +disgracefully. His leg stabbed, and his conscience reminded him of +Mabel, and that if one is going to lie, there should at least be a +reason. To lie out of the whole cloth----! + +However, toward morning, with what he felt was the entire +pharmacopoeia inside him, and his tongue feeling like a tar roof, he +made up his mind to stick to his story, at least as far as the young +lady with the old-fashioned watch was concerned. He had a sort of +creed, which shows how young he was, that one should never explain +to a girl. + +There was another reason still. There had been a faint sparkle in +the eyes of the young lady with the watch while he was lying to her. +He felt that she was seeing him in heroic guise, and the thought +pleased him. It was novel. + +To tell the truth, he had been getting awfully bored with himself +since he left college. Everything he tried to do, somebody else +could do so much better. And he comforted himself with this, that he +would have been a journalist if he could, or at least have published +a newspaper. He knew what was wrong with about a hundred newspapers. + +He decided to confess about Mabel, but to hold fast to journalism. +Then he lay in bed and watched for the Probationer to come back. + +However, here things began to go wrong. He did not see Jane Brown +again. There were day nurses and night nurses and reliefs, and +_internes_ and Staff and the Head Nurse and the First Assistant +and--everything but Jane Brown. And at last he inquired for her. + +"The first day I was in here," he said to Miss Willoughby, "there +was a little girl here without a cap. I don't know her name. But I +haven't seen her since." + +Miss Willoughby, who, if she had been disappointed in love, had +certainly had time to forget it, Miss Willoughby reflected. + +"Without a cap? Then it was only one of the probationers." + +"You don't remember which one?" + +But she only observed that probationers were always coming and +going, and it wasn't worth while learning their names until they +were accepted. And that, anyhow, probationers should never be sent +to private patients, who are paying a lot and want the best. + +"Really," she added, "I don't know what the school is coming to. +Since this war in Europe every girl wants to wear a uniform and be +ready to go to the front if we have trouble. All sorts of silly +children are applying. We have one now, on this very floor, not a +day over nineteen." + +"Who is she?" asked Middleton. He felt that this was the one. She +was so exactly the sort Miss Willoughby would object to. + +"Jane Brown," snapped Miss Willoughby. "A little, namby-pamby, +mush-and-milk creature, afraid of her own shadow." + +Now, Jane Brown, at that particular moment, was sitting in her +little room in the dormitory, with the old watch ticking on the +stand so she would not over-stay her off duty. She was aching with +fatigue from her head, with its smooth and shiny hair, to her feet, +which were in a bowl of witch hazel and hot water. And she was +crying over a letter she was writing. + +Jane Brown had just come from her first death. It had taken place in +H ward, where she daily washed window-sills, and disinfected stands, +and carried dishes in and out. And it had not been what she had +expected. In the first place, the man had died for hours. She had +never heard of this. She had thought of death as coming quickly--a +glance of farewell, closing eyes, and--rest. But for hours and hours +the struggle had gone on, a fight for breath that all the ward could +hear. And he had not closed his eyes at all. They were turned up, +and staring. + +The Probationer had suffered horribly, and at last she had gone +behind the screen and folded her hands and closed her eyes, and said +very low: + +"Dear God--please take him quickly." + +He had stopped breathing almost immediately. But that may have been +a coincidence. + +However, she was not writing that home. Between gasps she was +telling the humours of visiting day in the ward, and of how kind +every one was to her, which, if not entirely true, was not entirely +untrue. They were kind enough when they had time to be, or when they +remembered her. Only they did not always remember her. + +She ended by saying that she was quite sure they meant to accept her +when her three months was up. It was frightfully necessary that she +be accepted. + +She sent messages to all the little town, which had seen her off +almost _en masse_. And she added that the probationers received the +regular first-year allowance of eight dollars a month, and she could +make it do nicely--which was quite true, unless she kept on breaking +thermometers when she shook them down. + +At the end she sent her love to everybody, including even worthless +Johnny Fraser, who cut the grass and scrubbed the porches; and, of +course, to Doctor Willie. He was called Doctor Willie because his +father, who had taken him into partnership long ago, was Doctor +Will. It never had seemed odd, although Doctor Willie was now +sixty-five, and a saintly soul. + +Curiously enough, her letter was dated April first. Under that very +date, and about that time of the day, a health officer in a near-by +borough was making an entry regarding certain coloured gentlemen +shipped north from Louisiana to work on a railroad. Opposite the +name of one Augustus Baird he put a cross. This indicated that +Augustus Baird had not been vaccinated. + +By the sixth of April "Twenty-two" had progressed from splints to a +plaster cast, and was being most awfully bored. Jane Brown had not +returned, and there was a sort of relentless maturity about the +nurses who looked after him that annoyed him. + +Lying there, he had a good deal of time to study them, and somehow +his recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did not +seem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He could +not, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior Surgical +Interne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedly +bullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes too +small for her, as to their days off duty. + +Twenty-two began to learn things about the hospital. For instance, +the day nurse, while changing his pillow slips, would observe that +Nineteen was going to be operated on that day, and close her lips +over further information. But when the afternoon relief, while +giving him his toothbrush after lunch, said there was a most +interesting gall-stone case in nineteen, and the night nurse, in +reply to a direct question, told Nineteen's name, but nothing else, +Twenty-two had a fair working knowledge of the day's events. + +He seemed to learn about everything but Jane Brown. He knew when a +new baby came, and was even given a glimpse of one, showing, he +considered, about the colour and general contour of a maraschino +cherry. And he learned soon that the god of the hospital is the +Staff, although worship did not blind the nurses to their +weaknesses. Thus the older men, who had been trained before the day +of asepsis and modern methods, were revered but carefully watched. +They would get out of scrubbing their hands whenever they could, and +they hated their beards tied up with gauze. The nurses, keen, +competent and kindly, but shrewd, too, looked after these elderly +recalcitrants; loved a few, hated some, and presented to the world +unbroken ranks for their defence. + +Twenty-two learned also the story of the First Assistant, who was in +love with one of the Staff, who was married, and did not care for +her anyhow. So she wore tight shoes, and was always beautifully +waved, and read Browning. + +She had a way of coming in and saying brightly, as if to reassure +herself: + +"Good morning, Twenty-two. Well, God is still in His heaven, and +all's well with the world." + +Twenty-two got to feeling awfully uncomfortable about her. She used +to bring him flowers and sit down a moment to rest her feet, which +generally stung. And she would stop in the middle of a sentence and +look into space, but always with a determined smile. + +He felt awfully uncomfortable. She was so neat and so efficient--and +so tragic. He tried to imagine being hopelessly in love, and trying +to live on husks of Browning. Not even Mrs. Browning. + +The mind is a curious thing. Suddenly, from thinking of Mrs. +Browning, he thought of N. Jane Brown. Of course not by that +ridiculous name. He had learned that she was stationed on that +floor. And in the same flash he saw the Senior Surgical Interne +swanking about in white ducks and just the object for a probationer +to fall in love with. He lay there, and pulled the beginning of the +new moustache, and reflected. The First Assistant was pinning a +spray of hyacinth in her cap. + +"Look here," he said. "Why can't I be put in a wheeled chair and get +about? One that I can manipulate myself," he added craftily. + +She demurred. Indeed, everybody demurred when he put it up to them. +But he had gone through the world to the age of twenty-four, getting +his own way about ninety-seven per cent. of the time. He got it this +time, consisting of a new cast, which he named Elizabeth, and a +roller-chair, and he spent a full day learning how to steer himself +around. + +Then, on the afternoon of the third day, rolling back toward the +elevator and the _terra incognita_ which lay beyond, he saw a sign. +He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with a +plan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and it said: + +"No private patients allowed beyond here." + +Twenty-two sat in his chair and stared at it. The plaster cast +stretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket. +With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he was +well dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort of +college-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchased +for him. His other things were in that extremely expensive English +car which the city was storing. + +The plain truth is that Twenty-two was looking for Jane Brown. Since +she had not come to him, he must go to her. He particularly wanted +to set her right as to Mabel. And he felt, too, that that trick +about respirations had not been entirely fair. + +He was, of course, not in the slightest degree in love with her. He +had only seen her once, and then he had had a broken leg and a +quarter grain of morphia and a burned moustache and no eyebrows left +to speak of. + +But there was the sign. It was hung to a nail beside the elevator +shaft. And far beyond, down the corridor, was somebody in a blue +dress and no cap. It might be anybody, but again---- + +Twenty-two looked around. The elevator had just gone down at its +usual rate of a mile every two hours. In the convalescent parlour, +where private patients _en negligée_ complained about the hospital +food, the nurse in charge was making a new cap. Over all the +hospital brooded an after-luncheon peace. + +Twenty-two wheeled up under the sign and considered his average of +ninety-seven per cent. Followed in sequence these events: (a) +Twenty-two wheeled back to the parlour, where old Mr. Simond's cane +leaned against a table, and, while engaging that gentleman in +conversation, possessed himself of the cane. (b) Wheeled back to the +elevator. (c) Drew cane from beneath blanket. (d) Unhooked sign with +cane and concealed both under blanket. (e) Worked his way back along +the forbidden territory, past I and J until he came to H ward. + +Jane Brown was in H ward. + +She was alone, and looking very professional. There is nothing quite +so professional as a new nurse. She had, indeed, reached a point +where, if she took a pulse three times, she got somewhat similar +results. There had been a time when they had run something like +this: 56--80--120---- + +Jane Brown was taking pulses. It was a visiting day, and all the +beds had fresh white spreads, tucked in neatly at the foot. In the +exact middle of the centre table with its red cloth, was a vase of +yellow tulips. The sun came in and turned them to golden flame. + +Jane Brown was on duty alone and taking pulses with one eye while +she watched the visitors with the other. She did the watching better +than she did the pulses. For instance, she was distinctly aware that +Stanislas Krzykolski's wife, in the bed next the end, had just slid +a half-dozen greasy cakes, sprinkled with sugar, under his pillow. +She knew, however, that not only grease but love was in those cakes, +and she did not intend to confiscate them until after Mrs. +Krzykolski had gone. + +More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers, +walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with a +rouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hung +over the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, not +only the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass basins, +the fireplace fender, and the Probationer's hair. + +Twenty-two sat unnoticed in the doorway. A young girl, very lame, +with a mandolin, had just entered the ward. In the little stir of +her arrival, Twenty-two had time to see that Jane Brown was worth +even all the trouble he had taken, and more. Really, to see Jane +Brown properly, she should have always been seen in the sun. She was +that sort. + +The lame girl sat down in the centre of the ward, and the buzz died +away. She was not pretty, and she was very nervous. Twenty-two +frowned a trifle. + +"Poor devils," he said to himself. But Jane Brown put away her +hunting-case watch, and the lame girl swept the ward with soft eyes +that had in them a pity that was almost a benediction. + +Then she sang. Her voice was like her eyes, very sweet and rather +frightened, but tender. And suddenly something a little hard and +selfish in Twenty-two began to be horribly ashamed of itself. And, +for no earthly reason in the world, he began to feel like a cumberer +of the earth. Before she had finished the first song, he was +thinking that perhaps when he was getting about again, he might run +over to France for a few months in the ambulance service. A fellow +really ought to do his bit. + +At just about that point Jane Brown turned and saw him. And although +he had run all these risks to get to her, and even then had an +extremely cold tin sign lying on his knee under the blanket, at +first she did not know him. The shock of this was almost too much +for him. In all sorts of places people were glad to see him, +especially women. He was astonished, but it was good for him. + +She recognised him almost immediately, however, and flushed a +little, because she knew he had no business there. She was awfully +bound up with rules. + +"I came back on purpose to see you," said Twenty-two, when at last +the lame girl had limped away. "Because, that day I came in and you +looked after me, you know, I--must have talked a lot of nonsense." + +"Morphia makes some people talk," she said. It was said in an exact +copy of the ward nurse's voice, a frightfully professional and +impersonal tone. + +"But," said Twenty-two, stirring uneasily, "I said a lot that wasn't +true. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. Now that about a girl +named Mabel, for instance----" + +He stirred again, because, after all, what did it matter what he had +said? She was gazing over the ward. She was not interested in him. +She had almost forgotten him. And as he stirred Mr. Simond's cane +fell out. It was immediately followed by the tin sign, which only +gradually subsided, face up, on the bare floor, in a slowly +diminishing series of crashes. + +Jane Brown stooped and picked them both up and placed them on his +lap. Then, very stern, she marched out of the ward into the +corridor, and there subsided into quiet hysterics of mirth. +Twenty-two, who hated to be laughed at, followed her in the chair, +looking extremely annoyed. + +"What else was I to do?" he demanded, after a time. "Of course, if +you report it, I'm gone." + +"What do you intend to do with it now?" she asked. All her +professional manner had gone, and she looked alarmingly young. + +"If I put it back, I'll only have to steal it again. Because I am +absolutely bored to death in that room of mine. I have played a +thousand games of solitaire." + +The Probationer looked around. There was no one in sight. + +"I should think," she suggested, "that if you slipped it behind that +radiator, no one would ever know about it." + +Fortunately, the ambulance gong set up a clamour below the window +just then, and no one heard one of the hospital's most cherished +rules going, as one may say, into the discard. + +The Probationer leaned her nose against the window and looked down. +A coloured man was being carried in on a stretcher. Although she did +not know it--indeed, never did know it--the coloured gentleman in +question was one Augustus Baird. + +Soon afterward Twenty-two squeaked--his chair needed +oiling--squeaked back to his lonely room and took stock. He found +that he was rid of Mabel, but was still a reporter, hurt in doing +his duty. He had let this go because he saw that duty was a sort of +fetish with the Probationer. And since just now she liked him for +what she thought he was, why not wait to tell her until she liked +him for himself? + +He hoped she was going to like him, because she was going to see him +a lot. Also, he liked her even better than he had remembered that he +did. She had a sort of thoroughbred look that he liked. And he liked +the way her hair was soft and straight and shiny. And he liked the +way she was all business and no nonsense. And the way she counted +pulses, with her lips moving and a little frown between her +eyebrows. And he liked her for being herself--which is, after all, +the reason why most men like the women they like, and extremely +reasonable. + +The First Assistant loaned him Browning that afternoon, and he read +"Pippa Passes." He thought Pippa must have looked like the +Probationer. + +The Head was a bit querulous that evening. The Heads of Training +Schools get that way now and then, although they generally reveal it +only to the First Assistant. They have to do so many irreconcilable +things, such as keeping down expenses while keeping up requisitions, +and remembering the different sorts of sutures the Staff likes, and +receiving the Ladies' Committee, and conducting prayers and +lectures, and knowing by a swift survey of a ward that the stands +have been carbolised and all the toe-nails cut. Because it is +amazing the way toe-nails grow in bed. + +The Head would probably never have come out flatly, but she had a +wretched cold, and the First Assistant was giving her a mustard +footbath, which was very hot. The Head sat up with a blanket over +her shoulders, and read lists while her feet took on the blush of +ripe apples. And at last she said: + +"How is that Probationer with the ridiculous name getting along?" + +The First Assistant poured in more hot water. + +"N. Jane?" she asked. "Well, she's a nice little thing, and she +seems willing. But, of course----" + +The Head groaned. + +"Nineteen!" she said. "And no character at all. I detest fluttery +people. She flutters the moment I go into the ward." + +The First Assistant sat back and felt of her cap, which was of +starched tulle and was softening a bit from the steam. She felt a +thrill of pity for the Probationer. She, too, had once felt fluttery +when the Head came in. + +"She is very anxious to stay," she observed. "She works hard, too. +I----" + +"She has no personality, no decision," said the Head, and sneezed +twice. She was really very wretched, and so she was unfair. "She is +pretty and sweet. But I cannot run my training school on prettiness +and sweetness. Has Doctor Harvard come in yet?" + +"I--I think not," said the First Assistant. She looked up quickly, +but the Head was squeezing a lemon in a cup of hot water beside her. + +Now, while the Head was having a footbath, and Twenty-two was having +a stock-taking, and Augustus Baird was having his symptoms recorded, +Jane Brown was having a shock. + +She heard an unmistakable shuffling of feet in the corridor. + +Sounds take on much significance in a hospital, and probationers +study them, especially footsteps. It gives them a moment sometimes +to think what to do next. + +_Internes_, for instance, frequently wear rubber soles on their +white shoes and have a way of slipping up on one. And the engineer +goes on a half run, generally accompanied by the clanking of a tool +or two. And the elevator man runs, too, because generally the bell +is ringing. And ward patients shuffle about in carpet slippers, and +the pharmacy clerk has a brisk young step, inclined to be jaunty. + +But it is the Staff which is always unmistakable. It comes along the +corridor deliberately, inexorably. It plants its feet firmly and +with authority. It moves with the inevitability of fate, with the +pride of royalty, with the ease of the best made-to-order boots. The +ring of a Staff member's heel on a hospital corridor is the most +authoritative sound on earth. He may be the gentlest soul in the +world, but he will tread like royalty. + +But this was not Staff. Jane Brown knew this sound, and it filled +her with terror. It was the scuffling of four pairs of feet, +carefully instructed not to keep step. It meant, in other words, a +stretcher. But perhaps it was not coming to her. Ah, but it was! + +Panic seized Jane Brown. She knew there were certain things to do, +but they went out of her mind like a cat out of a cellar window. +However, the ward was watching. It had itself, generally speaking, +come in feet first. It knew the procedure. So, instructed by low +voices from the beds around, Jane Brown feverishly tore the spread +off the emergency bed and drew it somewhat apart from its fellows. +Then she stood back and waited. + +Came in four officers from the police patrol. Came in the Senior +Surgical Interne. Came two convalescents from the next ward to stare +in at the door. Came the stretcher, containing a quiet figure under +a grey blanket. + +Twenty-two, at that exact moment, was putting a queen on a ten spot +and pretending there is nothing wrong about cheating oneself. + +In a very short time the quiet figure was on the bed, and the Senior +Surgical Interne was writing in the order book: "Prepare for +operation." + +Jane Brown read it over his shoulder, which is not etiquette. + +"But--I can't," she quavered. "I don't know how. I won't touch him. +He's--he's bloody!" + +Then she took another look at the bed and she saw--Johnny Fraser. + +Now Johnny had, in his small way, played a part in the Probationer's +life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half +dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. +But _that_ Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given +to sitting in the sun. + +Here lay another Johnny Fraser, a quiet one, who might never again +feel the warm earth through his worthless clothes on his worthless +young body. A Johnny of closed eyes and slow, noisy breathing. + +"Why, Johnny!" said the Probationer, in a strangled voice. + +The Senior Surgical Interne was interested. + +"Know him?" he said. + +"He is a boy from home." She was still staring at this quiet, +un-impudent figure. + +The Senior Surgical Interne eyed her with an eye that was only +partially professional. Then he went to the medicine closet and +poured a bit of aromatic ammonia into a glass. + +"Sit down and drink this," he said, in a very masculine voice. He +liked to feel that he could do something for her. Indeed, there was +something almost proprietary in the way he took her pulse. + +Some time after the early hospital supper that evening Twenty-two, +having oiled his chair with some olive oil from his tray, made a +clandestine trip through the twilight of the corridor back of the +elevator shaft. To avoid scandal he pretended interest in other +wards, but he gravitated, as a needle to the pole, to H. And there +he found the Probationer, looking rather strained, and mothering a +quiet figure on a bed. + +He was a trifle puzzled at her distress, for she made no secret of +Johnny's status in the community. What he did not grasp was that +Johnny Fraser was a link between this new and rather terrible world +of the hospital and home. It was not Johnny alone, it was Johnny +scrubbing a home porch and doing it badly, it was Johnny in her +father's old clothes, it was Johnny fishing for catfish in the +creek, or lending his pole to one of the little brothers whose +pictures were on her table in the dormitory. + +Twenty-two felt a certain depression. He reflected rather grimly +that he had been ten days missing and that no one had apparently +given a hang whether he turned up or not. + +"Is he going to live?" he inquired. He could see that the ward nurse +had an eye on him, and was preparing for retreat. + +"O yes," said Jane Brown. "I think so now. The _interne_ says they +have had a message from Doctor Willie. He is coming." There was a +beautiful confidence in her tone. + +Things moved very fast with the Probationer for the next twenty-four +hours. Doctor Willie came, looking weary but smiling benevolently. +Jane Brown met him in a corridor and kissed him, as, indeed, she had +been in the habit of doing since her babyhood. + +"Where is the young rascal?" said Doctor Willie. "Up to his old +tricks, Nellie, and struck by a train." He put a hand under her +chin, which is never done to the members of the training school in a +hospital, and searched her face with his kind old eyes. "Well, how +does it go, Nellie?" + +Jane Brown swallowed hard. + +"All right," she managed. "They want to operate, Doctor Willie." + +"Tut!" he said. "Always in a hurry, these hospitals. We'll wait a +while, I think." + +"Is everybody well at home?" + +It had come to her, you see, what comes to every nurse once in her +training--the thinness of the veil, the terror of calamity, the fear +of death. + +"All well. And----" he glanced around. Only the Senior Surgical +Interne was in sight, and he was out of hearing. "Look here, +Nellie," he said, "I've got a dozen fresh eggs for you in my +satchel. Your mother sent them." + +She nearly lost her professional manner again then. But she only +asked him to warn the boys about automobiles and riding on the backs +of wagons. + +Had any one said Twenty-two to her, she would not have known what +was meant. Not just then, anyhow. + +In the doctors' room that night the Senior Surgical Interne lighted +a cigarette and telephoned to the operating room. + +"That trephining's off," he said, briefly. + +Then he fell to conversation with the Senior Medical, who was rather +worried about a case listed on the books as Augustus Baird, +coloured. + +Twenty-two did not sleep very well that night. He needed exercise, +he felt. But there was something else. Miss Brown had been just a +shade too ready to accept his explanation about Mabel, he felt, so +ready that he feared she had been more polite than sincere. Probably +she still believed there was a Mabel. Not that it mattered, except +that he hated to make a fool of himself. He roused once in the night +and was quite sure he heard her voice down the corridor. He knew +this must be wrong, because they would not make her work all day and +all night, too. + +But, as it happened, it _was_ Jane Brown. The hospital provided +plenty of sleeping time, but now and then there was a slip-up and +somebody paid. There had been a night operation, following on a busy +day, and the operating-room nurses needed help. Out of a sound sleep +the night Assistant had summoned Jane Brown to clean instruments. + +At five o'clock that morning she was still sitting on a stool beside +a glass table, polishing instruments which made her shiver. All +around were things that were spattered with blood. But she looked +anything but fluttery. She was a very grim and determined young +person just then, and professional beyond belief. The other things, +like washing window-sills and cutting toe-nails, had had no +significance. But here she was at last on the edge of mercy. Some +one who might have died had lived that night because of this room, +and these instruments, and willing hands. + +She hoped she would always have willing hands. + +She looked very pale at breakfast the next morning, and rather +older. Also she had a new note of authority in her voice when she +telephoned the kitchen and demanded H ward's soft-boiled eggs. She +washed window-sills that morning again, but no longer was there +rebellion in her soul. She was seeing suddenly how the hospital +required all these menial services, which were not menial at all but +only preparation; that there were little tasks and big ones, and one +graduated from the one to the other. + +She took some flowers from the ward bouquet and put them beside +Johnny's bed--Johnny, who was still lying quiet, with closed eyes. + +The Senior Surgical Interne did a dressing in the ward that morning. +He had been in to see Augustus Baird, and he felt uneasy. He vented +it on Tony, the Italian, with a stiletto thrust in his neck, by +jerking at the adhesive. Tony wailed, and Jane Brown, who was the +"dirty" nurse--which does not mean what it appears to mean, but is +the person who receives the soiled dressings--Jane Brown gritted her +teeth. + +"Keep quiet," said the S.S.I., who was a good fellow, but had never +been stabbed in the neck for running away with somebody else's wife. + +"Eet hurt," said Tony. "Ow." + +Jane Brown turned very pink. + +"Why don't you let me cut it off properly?" she said, in a strangled +tone. + +The total result of this was that Jane Brown was reprimanded by the +First Assistant, and learned some things about ethics. + +"But," she protested, "it was both stupid and cruel. And if I know I +am right----" + +"How are you to know you are right?" demanded the First Assistant, +crossly. Her feet were stinging. "'A little knowledge is a dangerous +thing.'" This was a favorite quotation of hers, although not +Browning. "Nurses in hospitals are there to carry out the doctor's +orders. Not to think or to say what they think unless they are +asked. To be intelligent, but----" + +"But not too intelligent!" said the Probationer. "I see." + +This was duly reported to the Head, who observed that it was merely +what she had expected and extremely pert. Her cold was hardly any +better. + +It was taking the Probationer quite a time to realise her own total +lack of significance in all this. She had been accustomed to men who +rose when a woman entered a room and remained standing as long as +she stood. And now she was in a new world, where she had to rise and +remain standing while a cocky youth in ducks, just out of medical +college, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and took a +_boutonnière_ from the ward bouquet. + +It was probably extremely good for her. + +She was frightfully tired that day, and toward evening the little +glow of service began to fade. There seemed to be nothing to do for +Johnny but to wait. Doctor Willie had seemed to think that nature +would clear matters up there, and had requested no operation. She +smoothed beds and carried cups of water and broke another +thermometer. And she put the eggs from home in the ward pantry and +made egg-nogs of them for Stanislas Krzykolski, who was +unaccountably upset as to stomach. + +She had entirely forgotten Twenty-two. He had stayed away all that +day, in a sort of faint hope that she would miss him. But she had +not. She was feeling rather worried, to tell the truth. For a Staff +surgeon going through the ward, had stopped by Johnny's bed and +examined the pupils of his eyes, and had then exchanged a glance +with the Senior Surgical Interne that had perplexed her. + +In the chapel at prayers that evening all around her the nurses sat +and rested, their tired hands folded in their laps. They talked a +little among themselves, but it was only a buzzing that reached the +Probationer faintly. Some one near was talking about something that +was missing. + +"Gone?" she said. "Of course it is gone. The bath-room man reported +it to me and I went and looked." + +"But who in the world would take it?" + +"My dear," said the first speaker, "who _does_ take things in a +hospital, anyhow? Only--a tin sign!" + +It was then that the Head came in. She swept in; her grey gown, her +grey hair gave her a majesty that filled the Probationer with awe. +Behind her came the First Assistant with the prayer-book and hymnal. +The Head believed in form. + +Jane Brown offered up a little prayer that night for Johnny Fraser, +and another little one without words, that Doctor Willie was right. +She sat and rested her weary young body, and remembered how Doctor +Willie was loved and respected, and the years he had cared for the +whole countryside. And the peace of the quiet room, with the Easter +lilies on the tiny altar, brought rest to her. + +It was when prayers were over that the Head made her announcement. +She rose and looked over the shadowy room, where among the rows of +white caps only the Probationer's head was uncovered, and she said: + +"I have an announcement to make to the training school. One which I +regret, and which will mean a certain amount of hardship and +deprivation. + +"A case of contagion has been discovered in one of the wards, and it +has been considered necessary to quarantine the hospital. The doors +were closed at seven-thirty this evening." + + +II + +Considering that he could not get out anyhow, Twenty-two took the +news of the quarantine calmly. He reflected that, if he was shut in, +Jane Brown was shut in also. He had a wicked hope, at the beginning, +that the Senior Surgical Interne had been shut out, but at nine +o'clock that evening that young gentleman showed up at the door of +his room, said "Cheer-o," came in, helped himself to a cigarette, +gave a professional glance at Twenty-two's toes, which were all that +was un-plastered of the leg, and departing threw back over his +shoulder his sole conversational effort: + +"Hell of a mess, isn't it?" + +Twenty-two took up again gloomily the book he was reading, which was +on Diseases of the Horse, from the hospital library. He was in the +midst of Glanders. + +He had, during most of that day, been making up his mind to let his +family know where he was. He did not think they cared, particularly. +He had no illusions about that. But there was something about Jane +Brown which made him feel like doing the decent thing. It annoyed +him frightfully, but there it was. She was so eminently the sort of +person who believed in doing the decent thing. + +So, about seven o'clock, he had sent the orderly out for stamps and +paper. He imagined that Jane Brown would not think writing home on +hospital stationery a good way to break bad news. But the orderly +had stopped for a chat at the engine house, and had ended by playing +a game of dominoes. When, at ten o'clock, he had returned to the +hospital entrance, the richer by a quarter and a glass of beer, he +had found a strange policeman on the hospital steps, and the doors +locked. + +The quarantine was on. + +Now there are different sorts of quarantines. There is the sort +where a trained nurse and the patient are shut up in a room and +bath, and the family only opens the door and peers in. And there is +the sort where the front door has a placard on it, and the family +goes in and out the back way, and takes a street-car to the office, +the same as usual. And there is the hospital quarantine, which is +the real thing, because hospitals are expected to do things +thoroughly. + +So our hospital was closed up as tight as a jar of preserves. There +were policemen at all the doors, quite suddenly. They locked the +doors and put the keys in their pockets, and from that time on they +opened them only to pass things in, such as newspapers or milk or +groceries or the braver members of the Staff. But not to let +anything out--except the Staff. Supposedly Staffs do not carry +germs. + +And, indeed, even the Staff was not keen about entering. It thought +of a lot of things it ought to do about visiting time, and +prescribed considerably over the telephone. + +At first there was a great deal of confusion, because quite a number +of people had been out on various errands when it happened. And they +came back, and protested to the office that they had only their +uniforms on under their coats, and three dollars; or their slippers +and no hats. Or that they would sue the city. One or two of them got +quite desperate and tried to crawl up the fire-escape, but failed. + +This is of interest chiefly because it profoundly affected Jane +Brown. Miss McAdoo, her ward nurse, had debated whether to wash her +hair that evening, or to take a walk. She had decided on the walk, +and was therefore shut out, along with the Junior Medical, the +kitchen cat, the Superintendent's mother-in-law and six other +nurses. + +The next morning the First Assistant gave Jane Brown charge of H +ward. + +"It's very irregular," she said. "I don't exactly know--you have +only one bad case, haven't you?" + +"Only Johnny." + +The First Assistant absent-mindedly ran a finger over the top of a +table, and examined it for dust. + +"Of course," she said, "it's a great chance for you. Show that you +can handle this ward, and you are practically safe." + +Jane Brown drew a long breath and stood up very straight. Then she +ran her eye over the ward. There was something vaguely reminiscent +of Miss McAdoo in her glance. + +Twenty-two made three brief excursions back along the corridor +that first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremely +professional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over the +ward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch of +blanket, and she pounced on the bed and reduced it to the most +horrible neatness. All the beds looked as if they had been made up +with a carpenter's square. + +On the third trip, however, Jane Brown was writing at the table. +Twenty-two wheeled himself into the doorway and eyed her with +disapproval. + +"What do you mean by sitting down?" he demanded sarcastically. +"Don't you know that now you are in charge you ought to keep +moving?" + +To which she replied, absently: + +"Three buttered toasts, two dry toasts, six soft boiled eggs, and +twelve soups." She was working on the diet slips. + +Then she smiled at him. They were quite old friends already. It is +curious about love and friendship and all those kindred emotions. +They do not grow nearly so fast when people are together as when +they are apart. It is an actual fact that the growth of many an +intimacy is checked by meetings. Because when people are apart it is +what they _are_ that counts, and when they are together it is what +they do and say and look like. Many a beautiful affair has been +ruined because, just as it was going along well, the principals met +again. + +However, all this merely means that Twenty-two and Jane Brown were +infinitely closer friends than four or five meetings really +indicates. + +The ward was very quiet on this late afternoon call of his save for +Johnny's heavy breathing. There is a quiet hour in a hospital, +between afternoon temperatures and the ringing of the bell which +means that the suppers for the wards are on their way--a quiet hour +when over the long rows of beds broods the peace of the ending day. + +It is a melancholy hour, too, because from the streets comes faintly +the echo of feet hurrying home, the eager trot of a horse bound +stableward. To those in the eddy that is the ward comes at this time +a certain heaviness of spirit. Poor thing though home may have been, +they long for it. + +In H ward that late afternoon there was a wave of homesickness in +the air, and on the part of those men who were up and about, who +shuffled up and down the ward in flapping carpet slippers, an +inclination to mutiny. + +"How did they take it?" Twenty-two inquired. She puckered her +eyebrows. + +"They don't like it," she confessed. "Some of them were about ready +to go home and it--_Tony!_" she called sharply. + +For Tony, who had been cunningly standing by the window leading to a +fire-escape, had flung the window up and was giving unmistakable +signs of climbing out and returning to the other man's wife. + +"Tony!" she called, and ran. Tony scrambled up on the sill. A sort +of titter ran over the ward and Tony, now on the platform outside, +waved a derisive hand through the window. + +"Good-bye, mees!" he said, and--disappeared. + +It was not a very dramatic thing, after all. It is chiefly +significant for its effect on Twenty-two, who was obliged to sit +frozen with horror and cursing his broken leg, while Jane Brown +raced a brown little Italian down the fire-escape and caught him at +the foot of it. Tony took a look around. The courtyard gates were +closed and a policeman sat outside on a camp-stool reading the +newspaper. Tony smiled sheepishly and surrendered. + +Some seconds later Tony and Jane Brown appeared on the platform +outside. Jane Brown had Tony by the ear, and she stopped long enough +outside to exchange the ear for his shoulder, by which she shook +him, vigorously. + +Twenty-two turned his chair around and wheeled himself back to his +room. He was filled with a cold rage--because she might have fallen +on the fire-escape and been killed; because he had not been able to +help her; because she was there, looking after the derelicts of +life, when the world was beautiful outside, and she was young; +because to her he was just Twenty-two and nothing more. + +He had seen her exactly six times. + +Jane Brown gave the ward a little talk that night before the night +nurse reported. She stood in the centre of the long room, beside the +tulips, and said that she was going to be alone there, and that she +would have to put the situation up to their sense of honour. If they +tried to escape, they would hurt her. Also they would surely be +caught and brought back. And, because she believed in a combination +of faith and deeds, she took three nails and the linen-room +flatiron, and nailed shut the window onto the fire-escape. + +After that, she brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and +rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and +hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving +motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because +there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she knew +at home. + +After that she sat down and made up her records for the night nurse. +The ward understood, and was perfectly good, trying hard not to muss +its pillows or wrinkle the covers. And struggling, too, with a new +idea. They were prisoners. No more release cards would brighten the +days. For an indefinite period the old Frenchman would moan at +night, and Bader the German would snore, and the Chinaman would +cough. Indefinitely they would eat soft-boiled eggs and rice and +beef-tea and cornstarch. + +The ward felt extremely low in its mind. + + * * * * * + +That night the Senior Surgical Interne went in to play cribbage with +Twenty-two, and received a lecture on leaving a young girl alone in +H with a lot of desperate men. They both grew rather heated over the +discussion and forgot to play cribbage at all. Twenty-two lay awake +half the night, because he had seen clearly that the Senior Surgical +Interne was interested in Jane Brown also, and would probably loaf +around H most of the time since there would be no new cases now. It +was a crowning humiliation to have the night nurse apply to the +Senior Surgical Interne for a sleeping powder for him! + +Toward morning he remembered that he had promised to write out from +memory one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese for the First +Assistant, and he turned on the light and jotted down two lines of +it. He wrote: + + "_For we two look two ways, and cannot shine + With the same sunlight on our brow and hair._"-- + +And then sat up in bed for half an hour looking at it because he was +so awfully afraid it was true of Jane Brown and himself. Not, of +course, that he wanted to shine at all. It was the looking two ways +that hurt. + +The next evening the nurses took their airing on the roof, which was +a sooty place with a parapet, and in the courtyard, which was an +equally sooty place with a wispy fountain. And because the whole +situation was new, they formed in little groups on the wooden +benches and sang, hands folded on white aprons, heads lifted, eyes +upturned to where, above the dimly lighted windows, the stars peered +palely through the smoke. + +The S.S.I. sauntered out. He had thought he saw the Probationer from +his window, and in the new relaxation of discipline he saw a chance +to join her. But the figure he had thought he recognised proved to +be some one else, and he fell to wandering alone up and down the +courtyard. + +He was trying to work out this problem: would the advantage of +marrying early and thus being considered eligible for certain +cases, offset the disadvantage of the extra expense? + +He decided to marry early and hang the expense. + +The days went by, three, then four, and a little line of tension +deepened around Jane Brown's mouth. Perhaps it has not been +mentioned that she had a fighting nose, short and straight, and a +wistful mouth. For Johnny Fraser was still lying in a stupor. + +Jane Brown felt that something was wrong. Doctor Willie came in once +or twice, making the long trip without complaint and without hope of +payment. All his busy life he had worked for the sake of work, and +not for reward. He called her "Nellie," to the delight of the ward, +which began to love him, and he spent a long hour each time by +Johnny's bed. But the Probationer was quick to realise that the +Senior Surgical Interne disapproved of him. + +That young man had developed a tendency to wander into H at odd +hours, and sit on the edge of a table, leaving Jane Brown divided +between proper respect for an _interne_ and fury over the wrinkling +of her table covers. It was during one of these visits that she +spoke of Doctor Willie. + +"Because he is a country practitioner," she said, "you--you +patronise him." + +"Not at all," said the Senior Surgical Interne. "Personally I like +him immensely." + +"Personally!" + +The Senior Surgical Interne waved a hand toward Johnny's bed. + +"Look there," he said. "You don't think that chap's getting any +better, do you?" + +"If," said Jane Brown, with suspicious quiet, "if you think you know +more than a man who has practised for forty years, and saved more +people than you ever saw, why don't you tell him so?" + +There is really no defence for this conversation. Discourse between +a probationer and an _interne_ is supposed to be limited to yea, +yea, and nay, nay. But the circumstances were unusual. + +"Tell him!" exclaimed the Senior Surgical Interne, "and be called +before the Executive Committee and fired! Dear girl, I am +inexpressibly flattered, but the voice of an _interne_ in a hospital +is the voice of one crying in the wilderness." + +Twenty-two, who was out on crutches that day for the first time, and +was looking very big and extremely awkward, Twenty-two looked back +from the elevator shaft and scowled. He seemed always to see a flash +of white duck near the door of H ward. + +To add to his chagrin, the Senior Surgical Interne clapped him on +the back in congratulation a moment later, and nearly upset him. He +had intended to go back to the ward and discuss a plan he had, but +he was very morose those days and really not a companionable person. +He stumped back to his room and resolutely went to bed. + +There he lay for a long time looking at the ceiling, and saying, out +of his misery, things not necessary to repeat. + +So Twenty-two went to bed and sulked, refusing supper, and having +the word "Vicious" marked on his record by the nurse, who hoped he +would see it some time. And Jane Brown went and sat beside a +strangely silent Johnny, and worried. And the Senior Surgical +Interne went down to the pharmacy and thereby altered a number of +things. + +The pharmacy clerk had been shaving--his own bedroom was dark--and +he saw the Senior Surgical Interne in the little mirror hung on the +window frame. + +"Hello," he said, over the soap. "Shut the door." + +The Senior Surgical Interne shut the door, and then sniffed. "Smells +like a bar-room," he commented. + +The pharmacy clerk shaved the left angle of his jaw, and then turned +around. + +"Little experiment of mine," he explained. "Simple syrup, grain +alcohol, a dash of cochineal for colouring, and some flavouring +extract. It's an imitation cordial. Try it." + +The Senior Surgical Interne was not a drinker, but he was willing +to try anything once. So he secured a two-ounce medicine glass, and +filled it. + +"Looks nice," he commented, and tasted it. "It's not bad." + +"Not bad!" said the pharmacy clerk. "You'd pay four dollars a bottle +for that stuff in a hotel. Actual cost here, about forty cents." + +The Senior Surgical Interne sat down and stretched out his legs. He +had the glass in his hand. + +"It's rather sweet," he said. "But it looks pretty." He took another +sip. + +After he had finished it, he got to thinking things over. He felt +about seven feet tall and very important, and not at all like a +voice crying in the wilderness. He had a strong inclination to go +into the Superintendent's office and tell him where he went wrong in +running the institution--which he restrained. And another to go up +to H and tell Jane Brown the truth about Johnny Fraser--which he +yielded to. + +On the way up he gave the elevator man a cigar. + +He was very explicit with Jane Brown. + +"Your man's wrong, that's all there is about it," he said. "I can't +say anything and you can't. But he's wrong. That's an operative +case. The Staff knows it." + +"Then, why doesn't the Staff do it?" + +The Senior Surgical Interne was still feeling very tall. He looked +down at her from a great distance. + +"Because, dear child," he said, "it's your man's case. You ought to +know enough about professional ethics for that." + +He went away, then, and had a violent headache, which he blamed on +confinement and lack of exercise. But he had sowed something in the +Probationer's mind. + +For she knew, suddenly, that he had been right. The Staff had meant +that, then, when they looked at Johnny and shook their heads. The +Staff knew, the hospital knew. Every one knew but Doctor Willie. But +Doctor Willie had the case. Back in her little town Johnny's mother +was looking to Doctor Willie, believing in him, hoping through him. + +That night Twenty-two slept, and Jane Brown lay awake. And down in H +ward Johnny Fraser had a bad spell at that hour toward dawn when the +vitality is low, and men die. He did not die, however. But the night +nurse recorded, "Pulse very thin and iregular," at four o'clock. + +She, too, was not a famous speller. + +During the next morning, while the ward rolled bandages, having +carefully scrubbed its hands first, Jane Brown wrote records--she +did it rather well now--and then arranged the pins in the ward +pincushion. She made concentric circles of safety-pins outside and +common pins inside, with a large H in the centre. But her mind was +not on this artistic bit of creation. It was on Johnny Fraser. + +She made up her mind to speak to Doctor Willie. + +Twenty-two had got over his sulking or his jealousy, or whatever it +was, and during the early hours, those hours when Johnny was hardly +breathing, he had planned something. He thought that he did it to +interest the patients and make them contented, but somewhere in the +back of his mind he knew it was to see more of Jane Brown. He +planned a concert in the chapel. + +So that morning he took Elizabeth, the plaster cast, back to H ward, +where Jane Brown was fixing the pincushion, and had a good minute of +feasting his eyes on her while she was sucking a jabbed finger. She +knew she should have dipped the finger in a solution, but habit is +strong in most of us. + +Twenty-two had a wild desire to offer to kiss the finger and make it +well. This, however, was not habit. It was insanity. He recognised +this himself, and felt more than a trifle worried about it, because +he had been in love quite a number of times before, but he had never +had this sort of feeling. + +He put the concert up to her with a certain amount of anxiety. If +she could sing, or play, or recite--although he hoped she would not +recite--all would be well. But if she refused to take any part, he +did not intend to have a concert. That was flat. + +"I can play," she said, making a neat period after the H on the +pincushion. + +He was awfully relieved. + +"Good," he said. "You know, I like the way you say that. It's +so--well, it's so competent." He got out a notebook and wrote "Miss +Brown, piano selections." + +It was while he was writing that Jane Brown had a sort of mental +picture--the shabby piano at home, kicked below by many childish +feet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sitting +practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, +as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside +the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, +staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To +Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made +for the little ward linen room. + +He found her there a moment later, her arms outstretched on the +table and her face buried in them. Some one had been boiling a +rubber tube and had let the pan go dry. Ever afterward Twenty-two +was to associate the smell of burning rubber with Jane Brown, and +with his first real knowledge that he was in love with her. + +He stumped in after her and closed the door, and might have ruined +everything then and there by taking her in his arms, crutch and +all. But the smell of burning rubber is a singularly permeating one, +and he was kept from one indiscretion by being discovered in +another. + +It was somewhat later that Jane Brown was reprimanded for being +found in the linen room with a private patient. She made no excuse, +but something a little defiant began to grow in her eyes. It was not +that she loved her work less. She was learning, day by day, the +endless sacrifices of this profession she had chosen, its +unselfishness, its grinding hard work, the payment that may lie in a +smile of gratitude, the agony of pain that cannot be relieved. She +went through her days with hands held out for service, and at night, +in the chapel, she whispered soundless little prayers to be +accepted, and to be always gentle and kind. She did not want to +become a machine. She knew, although she had no words for it, the +difference between duty and service. + +But--a little spirit of rebellion was growing in her breast. She did +not understand about Johnny Fraser, for one thing. And the matter of +the linen room hurt. There seemed to be too many rules. + +Then, too, she began to learn that hospitals had limitations. Jane +Brown's hospital had no social worker. Much as she loved the work, +the part that the hospital could not do began to hurt her. Before +the quarantine women with new babies had gone out, without an idea +of where to spend the night. Ailing children had gone home to such +places as she could see from the dormitory windows, where the work +the hospital had begun could not be finished. + +From the roof of the building at night she looked out over a city +that terrified her. The call of a playing child in the street began +to sound to her like the shriek of accident. The very grinding of +the trolley cars, the smoke of the mills, began to mean the +operating room. She thought a great deal, those days, about the +little town she had come from, with its peace and quiet streets. The +city seemed cruel. But now and then she learned that if cities are +cruel, men are kind. + +Thus, on the very day of the concert, the quarantine was broken for +a few minutes. It was broken forcibly, and by an officer of the law. +A little newsie, standing by a fire at the next corner, for the +spring day was cold, had caught fire. The big corner man had seen it +all. He stripped off his overcoat, rolled the boy in it, and ran to +the hospital. Here he was confronted by a brother officer, who was +forbidden to admit him. The corner man did the thing that seemed +quickest. He laid the newsie on the ground, knocked out the +quarantine officer in two blows, broke the glass of the door with a +third, slipped a bolt, and then, his burden in his arms, stalked in. + +It did not lessen the majesty of that entrance that he was crying +all the time. + +The Probationer pondered that story when she heard it. After all, +laws were right and good, but there were higher things than laws. +She went and stood by Johnny's bed for a long time, thinking. + +In the meantime, unexpected talent for the concert had developed. +The piano in the chapel proving out of order, the elevator man +proved to have been a piano tuner. He tuned it with a bone forceps. +Strange places, hospitals, into which drift men from every walk of +life, to find a haven and peace within their quiet walls. Old Tony +had sung, in his youth, in the opera at Milan. A pretty young nurse +went around the corridors muttering bits of "Orphant Annie" to +herself. The Senior Surgical Interne was to sing the "Rosary," and +went about practising to himself. He came into H ward and sang it +through for Jane Brown, with his heart in his clear young eyes. He +sang about the hours he had spent with her being strings of pearls, +and all that, but he was really asking her if she would be willing +to begin life with him in a little house, where she would have to +answer the door-bell and watch telephone calls while he was out. + +Jane Brown felt something of this, too. For she said: "You sing it +beautifully," although he had flatted at least three times. + +He wrote his name on a medicine label and glued it to her hand. It +looked alarmingly possessive. + +Twenty-two presided at the concert that night. He was extravagantly +funny, and the sort of creaking solemnity with which things began +turned to uproarious laughter very soon. + +Everything went off wonderfully. Tony started his selection too +high, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the two +Silversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highland +fling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had to +be scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance driver +gave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment, +dodging chords as he did wagons on the street, and fetching up with +a sort of garrison finish much as he brought in the ambulance. + +But the real musical event of the evening was Jane Brown's playing. +She played Schubert without any notes, because she had been taught +to play Schubert that way. + +And when they called her back, she played little folk songs of the +far places of Europe. Standing around the walls, in wheeled chairs, +on crutches, pale with the hospital pallor, these aliens in their +eddy listened and thrilled. Some of them wept, but they smiled also. + +At the end she played the Minuet, with a sort of flaming look in +her eyes that puzzled Twenty-two. He could not know that she was +playing it to Johnny Fraser, lying with closed eyes in the ward +upstairs. He did not realise that there was a passion of sacrifice +throbbing behind the dignity of the music. + +Doctor Willie had stayed over for the concert. He sat, beaming +benevolently, in the front row, and toward the end he got up and +told some stories. After all, it was Doctor Willie who was the real +hit of the evening. The convalescents rocked with joy in their +roller chairs. Crutches came down in loud applause. When he sat down +he slipped a big hand over Jane Brown's and gave hers a hearty +squeeze. + +"How d'you like me as a parlour entertainer, Nellie?" he whispered. + +She put her other hand over his. Somehow she could not speak. + +The First Assistant called to the Probationer that night as she went +past her door. Lights were out, so the First Assistant had a candle, +and she was rubbing her feet with witch hazel. + +"Come in," she called. "I have been looking for you. I have some +news for you." + +The exaltation of the concert had died away. Jane Brown, in the +candle light, looked small and tired and very, very young. + +"We have watched you carefully," said the First Assistant, who had +her night garments on but had forgotten to take off her cap. +"Although you are young, you have shown ability, and--you are to be +accepted." + +"Thank you, very much," replied Jane Brown, in a strangled tone. + +"At first," said the First Assistant, "we were not sure. You were +very young, and you had such odd ideas. You know that yourself now." + +She leaned down and pressed a sore little toe with her forefinger. +Then she sighed. The mention of Jane Brown's youth had hurt her, +because she was no longer very young. And there were times when she +was tired, when it seemed to her that only youth counted. She felt +that way to-night. + +When Jane Brown had gone on, she blew out her candle and went to +bed, still in her cap. + +Hospitals do not really sleep at night. The elevator man dozes in +his cage, and the night watchman may nap in the engineer's room in +the basement. But the night nurses are always making their sleepless +rounds, and in the wards, dark and quiet, restless figures turn and +sigh. + +Before she went to bed that night, Jane Brown, by devious ways, +slipped back to her ward. It looked strange to her, this cavernous +place, filled with the unlovely noises of sleeping men. By the one +low light near the doorway she went back to Johnny's bed, and sat +down beside him. She felt that this was the place to think things +out. In her room other things pressed in on her; the necessity of +making good for the sake of those at home, her love of the work, and +cowardice. But here she saw things right. + +The night nurse found her there some time later, asleep, her +hunting-case watch open on Johnny's bed and her fingers still on his +quiet wrist. She made no report of it. + +Twenty-two had another sleepless night written in on his record that +night. He sat up and worried. He worried about the way the Senior +Surgical Interne had sung to Jane Brown that night. And he worried +about things he had done and shouldn't have, and things he should +have done and hadn't. Mostly the first. At five in the morning he +wrote a letter to his family telling them where he was, and that he +had been vaccinated and that the letter would be fumigated. He also +wrote a check for an artificial leg for the boy in the children's +ward, and then went to bed and put himself to sleep by reciting the +"Rosary" over and over. His last conscious thought was that the +hours he had spent with a certain person would not make much of a +string of pearls. + +The Probationer went to Doctor Willie the next day. Some of the +exuberance of the concert still bubbled in him, although he shook +his head over Johnny's record. + +"A little slow, Nellie," he said. "A little slow." + +Jane Brown took a long breath. + +"Doctor Willie," she said, "won't you have him operated on?" + +He looked up at her over his spectacles. + +"Operated on? What for?" + +"Well, he's not getting any better," she managed desperately. +"I'm--sometimes I think he'll die while we're waiting for him to get +better." + +He was surprised, but he was not angry. + +"There's no fracture, child," he said gently. "If there is a clot +there, nature is probably better at removing it than we are. The +trouble with you," he said indulgently, "is that you have come here, +where they operate first and regret afterward. Nature is the best +surgeon, child." + +She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. +But even when she spoke she knew she was foredoomed to failure. + +"But--suppose the Staff thinks that he should be?" + +Doctor Willie's kindly mouth set itself into grim lines. + +"The Staff!" he said, and looked at her searchingly. Then his jaws +set at an obstinate angle. + +"Well, Nellie," he said, "I guess one opinion's as good as another +in these cases. And I don't suppose they'll do any cutting and +hacking without my consent." He looked at Johnny's unconscious +figure. "He never amounted to much," he added, "but it's surprising +the way money's been coming in to pay his board here. Your mother +sent five dollars. A good lot of people are interested in him. I +can't see myself going home and telling them he died on the +operating table." + +He patted her on the arm as he went out. + +"Don't get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie," he +said as he was going. "Leave the worrying to me. I'm used to it." + +She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probably +would always be just a little girl to him. He did not take her +seriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quite +despairing. + +The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched him +out with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fine +old head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to a +whole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at the +thought of it. And she had done no good. + +That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-two +on her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawing +a sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eye +larger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could not +possibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover his +excitement. + +"Well, well!" he said. "I knew I was going to have some luck to-day. +My right hand has been itching--or is that a sign of money?" Then he +saw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart. + +"Come and sit down," he said. "And tell me about it." + +But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked out +for a moment. It was from there she said: + +"I have been accepted." + +"Good." But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drew +a long breath. "Well, I suppose your friends should be glad for +you." + +"I didn't come to talk about being accepted," she announced. + +"I don't suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am getting +along?" he inquired humbly. + +"I can see that." + +"You can't see how lonely I am." When she offered nothing to this +speech, he enlarged on it. "When it gets unbearable," he said, "I +sit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn't +make your heart ache, nothing will." + +"I'm afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that." For a +terrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to a +disappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievable +cruelty to tell him about it? + +"I have to talk to somebody," she said simply. "And I came to you, +because you've worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot of +experience. It's--a matter of ethics. But really it's a matter of +life and death." + +He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the lie, +except that it had brought her to him. There was something so direct +and childlike about her. The very way she drew a chair in front of +him, and proceeded, talking rather fast, to lay the matter before +him, touched him profoundly. He felt, somehow, incredibly old and +experienced. + +And then, after all that, to fail her! + +"You see how it is," she finished. "I can't go to the Staff, and +they wouldn't do anything if I did--except possibly put me out. +Because a nurse really only follows orders. And--I've got to stay, +if I can. And Doctor Willie doesn't believe in an operation and +won't see that he's dying. And everybody at home thinks he is right, +because--well," she added hastily, "he's been right a good many +times." + +He listened attentively. His record, you remember, was his own way +some ninety-seven per cent of the time, and at first he would not +believe that this was going to be the three per cent, or a part of +it. + +"Well," he said at last, "we'll just make the Staff turn in and do +it. That's easy." + +"But they won't. They can't." + +"We can't let Johnny die, either, can we?" + +But when at last she was gone, and the room was incredibly empty +without her,--when, to confess a fact that he was exceedingly +shame-faced about, he had wheeled over to the chair she had sat in +and put his cheek against the arm where her hand had rested, when he +was somewhat his own man again and had got over the feeling that his +arms were empty of something they had never held--then it was that +Twenty-two found himself up against the three per cent. + +The hospital's attitude was firm. It could not interfere. It was an +outside patient and an outside doctor. Its responsibility ended with +providing for the care of the patient, under his physician's orders. +It was regretful--but, of course, unless the case was turned over to +the Staff---- + +He went back to the ward to tell her, after it had all been +explained to him. But she was not surprised. He saw that, after all, +she had really known he was going to fail her. + +"It's hopeless," was all she said. "Everybody is right, and +everybody is wrong." + +It was the next day that, going to the courtyard for a breath of +air, she saw a woman outside the iron gate waving to her. It was +Johnny's mother, a forlorn old soul in what Jane Brown recognised as +an old suit of her mother's. + +"Doctor Willie bought my ticket, Miss Nellie," she said nervously. +"It seems like I had to come, even if I couldn't get in. I've been +waiting around most all afternoon. How is he?" + +"He is resting quietly," said Jane Brown, holding herself very +tense, because she wanted to scream. "He isn't suffering at all." + +"Could you tell me which window he's near, Miss Nellie?" + +She pointed out the window, and Johnny Fraser's mother stood, +holding to the bars, peering up at it. Her lips moved, and Jane +Brown knew that she was praying. At last she turned her eyes away. + +"Folks have said a lot about him," she said, "but he was always a +good son to me. If only he'd had a chance--I'd be right worried, +Miss Nellie, if he didn't have Doctor Willie looking after him." + +Jane Brown went into the building. There was just one thing clear in +her mind. Johnny Fraser must have his chance, somehow. + +In the meantime things were not doing any too well in the hospital. +A second case, although mild, had extended the quarantine. +Discontent grew, and threatened to develop into mutiny. Six men +from one of the wards marched _en masse_ to the lower hall, and were +preparing to rush the guards when they were discovered. The Senior +Surgical Interne took two prisoners himself, and became an emergency +case for two stitches and arnica compresses. + +Jane Brown helped to fix him up, and he took advantage of her +holding a dressing basin near his cut lip to kiss her hand, very +respectfully. She would have resented it under other circumstances, +but the Senior Surgical Interne was, even if temporarily, a patient, +and must be humoured. She forgot about the kiss immediately, anyhow, +although he did not. + +Her three months of probation were drawing to a close now, and her +cap was already made and put away in a box, ready for the day she +should don it. But she did not look at it very often. + +And all the time, fighting his battle with youth and vigour, but +with closed eyes, and losing it day by day, was Johnny Fraser. + +Then, one night on the roof, Jane Brown had to refuse the Senior +Surgical Interne. He took it very hard. + +"We'd have been such pals," he said, rather wistfully, after he saw +it was no use. + +"We can be, anyhow." + +"I suppose," he said with some bitterness, "that I'd have stood a +better chance if I'd done as you wanted me to about that fellow in +your ward, gone to the staff and raised hell." + +"I wouldn't have married you," said Jane Brown, "but I'd have +thought you were pretty much of a man." + +The more he thought about that the less he liked it. It almost kept +him awake that night. + +It was the next day that Twenty-two had his idea. He ran true to +form, and carried it back to Jane Brown for her approval. But she +was not enthusiastic. + +"It would help to amuse them, of course, but how can you publish a +newspaper without any news?" she asked, rather listlessly, for her. + +"News! This building is full of news. I have some bits already. +Listen!" He took a notebook out of his pocket. "The stork breaks +quarantine. New baby in O ward. The chief engineer has developed a +boil on his neck. Elevator Man arrested for breaking speed limit. +Wanted, four square inches of cuticle for skin grafting in W. How's +that? And I'm only beginning." + +Jane Brown listened. Somehow, behind Twenty-two's lightness of tone, +she felt something more earnest. She did not put it into words, even +to herself, but she divined something new, a desire to do his bit, +there in the hospital. It was, if she had only known it, a +milestone in a hitherto unmarked career. Twenty-two, who had always +been a man, was by way of becoming a person. + +He explained about publishing it. He used to run a typewriter in +college, and the convalescents could mimeograph it and sell it. +There was a mimeographing machine in the office. + +The Senior Surgical Interne came in just then. Refusing to marry him +had had much the effect of smacking a puppy. He came back, a trifle +timid, but friendly. So he came in just then, and elected himself to +the advertising and circulation department, and gave the Probationer +the society end, although it was not his paper or his idea, and sat +down at once at the table and started a limerick, commencing: + + "_We're here in the city, marooned_" + +However, he never got any further with it, because there are, +apparently, no rhymes for "marooned." He refused "tuned" which +several people offered him, with extreme scorn. + +Up to this point Jane Brown had been rather too worried to think +about Twenty-two. She had grown accustomed to seeing him coming +slowly back toward her ward, his eyes travelling much faster than he +did. Not, of course, that she knew that. And to his being, in a way, +underfoot a part of every day, after the Head had made rounds and +was safely out of the road for a good two hours. + +But two things happened that day to turn her mind in onto her heart. +One was when she heard about the artificial leg. The other was when +she passed the door of his room, where a large card now announced +"Office of the _Quarantine Sentinel_." She passed the door, and she +distinctly heard most un-hospital-like chatter within. Judging from +the shadows on the glass door, too, the room was full. It sounded +joyous and carefree. + +Something in Jane Brown--her mind, probably--turned right around and +looked into her heart, and made an odd discovery. This was that Jane +Brown's heart had sunk about two inches, and was feeling very queer. + +She went straight on, however, and put on a fresh collar in her +little bedroom, and listed her washing and changed her shoes, +because her feet still ached a lot of the time. But she was a brave +person and liked to look things in the face. So before she went back +to the ward, she stood in front of her mirror and said: + +"You're a nice nurse, Nell Brown. To--to talk about duty and brag +about service, and then to act like a fool." + +She went back to the ward and sat beside Johnny. But that night she +went up on the roof again, and sat on the parapet. She could see, +across the courtyard, the dim rectangles of her ward, and around a +corner in plain view, "room Twenty-two." Its occupant was sitting at +the typewriter, and working hard. Or he seemed to be. It was too far +away to be sure. Jane Brown slid down onto the roof, which was not +very clean, and putting her elbows on the parapet, watched him for a +long time. When he got up, at last, and came to the open window, she +hardly breathed. However, he only stood there, looking toward her +but not seeing her. + +Jane Brown put her head on the parapet that night and cried. She +thought she was crying about Johnny Fraser. She might have felt +somewhat comforted had she known that Twenty-two, being tired with +his day's work, had at last given way to most horrible jealousy of +the Senior Surgical Interne, and that his misery was to hers as five +is to one. + +The first number of the _Quarantine Sentinel_ was a great success. +It served in the wards much the same purpose as the magazines +published in the trenches. It relieved the monotony, brought the +different wards together, furnished laughter and gossip. Twenty-two +wrote the editorials, published the paper, with the aid of a couple +of convalescents, and in his leisure drew cartoons. He drew very +well, but all his girls looked like Jane Brown. It caused a ripple +of talk. + +The children from the children's ward distributed them, and went +back from the private rooms bearing tribute of flowers and fruit. +Twenty-two himself developed a most reprehensible habit of +concealing candy in the _Sentinel_ office and smuggling it to his +carriers. Altogether a new and neighbourly feeling seemed to +follow in the wake of the little paper. People who had sulked +in side-by-side rooms began, in the relaxed discipline of +convalescence, to pay little calls about. Crotchety dowagers knitted +socks for new babies. A wave of friendliness swept over every one, +and engulfed particularly Twenty-two. + +In the glow of it he changed perceptibly. This was the first +popularity he had ever earned, and the first he had ever cared a +fi-penny bit about. And, because he valued it, he felt more and more +unworthy of it. + +But it kept him from seeing Jane Brown. He was too busy for many +excursions to the ward, and when he went he was immediately the +centre of an animated group. He hardly ever saw her alone, and when +he did he began to suspect that she pretended duties that might have +waited. + +One day he happened to go back while Doctor Willie was there, and +after that he understood her problem better. + +Through it all Johnny lived. His thin, young body was now hardly an +outline under the smooth, white covering of his bed. He swallowed, +faintly, such bits of liquid as were placed between his lips, but +there were times when Jane Brown's fingers, more expert now, could +find no pulse at all. And still she had found no way to give him his +chance. + +She made a last appeal to Doctor Willie that day, but he only shook +his head gravely. + +"Even if there was an operation now, Nellie," said Doctor Willie +that day, "he could not stand it." + +It was the first time that Twenty-two had known her name was Nellie. + +That was the last day of Jane Brown's probation. On the next day she +was to don her cap. The _Sentinel_ came out with a congratulatory +editorial, and at nine o'clock that night the First Assistant +brought an announcement, in the Head's own writing, for the paper. + +"The Head of the Training School announces with much pleasure the +acceptance of Miss N. Jane Brown as a pupil nurse." + +Twenty-two sat and stared at it for quite a long time. + +That night Jane Brown fought her battle and won. She went to her +room immediately after chapel, and took the family pictures off her +little stand and got out ink and paper. She put the photographs out +of sight, because she knew that they were counting on her, and she +could not bear her mother's eyes. And then she counted her money, +because she had broken another thermometer, and the ticket home was +rather expensive. She had enough, but very little more. + +After that she went to work. + +It took her rather a long time, because she had a great deal to +explain. She had to put her case, in fact. And she was not strong on +either ethics or logic. She said so, indeed, at the beginning. She +said also that she had talked to a lot of people, but that no one +understood how she felt--that there ought to be no professional +ethics, or etiquette, or anything else, where it was life or death. +That she felt hospitals were to save lives and not to save feelings. +It seemed necessary, after that, to defend Doctor Willie--without +naming him, of course. How much good he had done, and how he came to +rely on himself and his own opinion because in the country there was +no one to consult with. + +However, she was not so gentle with the Staff. She said that it was +standing by and letting a patient die, because it was too polite to +interfere, although they had all agreed among themselves that an +operation was necessary. And that if they felt that way, would they +refuse to pull a child from in front of a locomotive because it was +its mother's business, and she didn't know how to do it? + +_Then she signed it._ + +She turned it in at the _Sentinel_ office the next morning while +the editor was shaving. She had to pass it through a crack in the +door. Even that, however, was enough for the editor in question to +see that she wore no cap. + +"But--see here," he said, in a rather lathery voice, "you're +accepted, you know. Where's the--the visible sign?" + +Jane Brown was not quite sure she could speak. However, she managed. + +"After you read that," she said, "you'll understand." + +He read it immediately, of course, growing more and more grave, and +the soap drying on his chin. Its sheer courage made him gasp. + +"Good girl," he said to himself. "Brave little girl. But it finishes +her here, and she knows it." + +He was pretty well cut up about it, too, because while he was +getting it ready he felt as if he was sharpening a knife to stab her +with. Her own knife, too. But he had to be as brave as she was. + +The paper came out at two o'clock. At three the First Assistant, +looking extremely white, relieved Jane Brown of the care of H ward +and sent her to her room. + +Jane Brown eyed her wistfully. + +"I'm not to come back, I suppose?" + +The First Assistant avoided her eyes. + +"I'm afraid not," she said. + +Jane Brown went up the ward and looked down at Johnny Fraser. Then +she gathered up her bandage scissors and her little dressing forceps +and went out. + +The First Assistant took a step after her, but stopped. There were +tears in her eyes. + +Things moved very rapidly in the hospital that day, while the guards +sat outside on their camp-stools and ate apples or read the +newspapers, and while Jane Brown sat alone in her room. + +First of all the Staff met and summoned Twenty-two. He went down in +the elevator--he had lost Elizabeth a few days before, and was using +a cane--ready for trouble. He had always met a fight more than +halfway. It was the same instinct that had taken him to the fire. + +But no one wanted to fight. The Staff was waiting, grave and +perplexed, but rather anxious to put its case than otherwise. It +felt misunderstood, aggrieved, and horribly afraid it was going to +get in the newspapers. But it was not angry. On the contrary, it was +trying its extremely intelligent best to see things from a new +angle. + +The Senior Surgical Interne was waiting outside. He had smoked +eighteen cigarettes since he received his copy of the _Sentinel_, +and was as unhappy as an _interne_ can be. + +"What the devil made you publish it?" he demanded. + +Twenty-two smiled. + +"Because," he said, "I have always had a sneaking desire to publish +an honest paper, one where public questions can be discussed. If +this isn't a public question, I don't know one when I see it." + +But he was not smiling when he went in. + +An hour later Doctor Willie came in. He had brought some flowers for +the children's ward, and his arms were bulging. To his surprise, +accustomed as he was to the somewhat cavalier treatment of the +country practitioner in a big city hospital, he was invited to the +Staff room. + +To the eternal credit of the Staff Jane Brown's part in that painful +half hour was never known. The Staff was careful, too, of Doctor +Willie. They knew they were being irregular, and were most +wretchedly uncomfortable. Also, there being six of them against one, +it looked rather like force, particularly since, after the first two +minutes, every one of them liked Doctor Willie. + +He took it so awfully well. He sat there, with his elbows on a table +beside a withering mass of spring flowers, and faced the +white-coated Staff, and said that he hoped he was man enough to +acknowledge a mistake, and six opinions against one left him nothing +else to do. The Senior Surgical Interne, who had been hating him +for weeks, offered him a cigar. + +He had only one request to make. There was a little girl in the +training school who believed in him, and he would like to go to the +ward and write the order for the operation himself. + +Which he did. But Jane Brown was not there. + +Late that evening the First Assistant, passing along the corridor in +the dormitory, was accosted by a quiet figure in a blue uniform, +without a cap. + +"How is he?" + +The First Assistant was feeling more cheerful than usual. The +operating surgeon had congratulated her on the way things had moved +that day, and she was feeling, as she often did, that, after all, +work was a solace for many troubles. + +"Of course, it is very soon, but he stood it well." She looked up at +Jane Brown, who was taller than she was, but who always, somehow, +looked rather little. There are girls like that. "Look here," she +said, "you must not sit in that room and worry. Run up to the +operating-room and help to clear away." + +She was very wise, the First Assistant. For Jane Brown went, and +washed away some of the ache with the stains of Johnny's operation. +Here, all about her, were the tangible evidences of her triumph, +which was also a defeat. A little glow of service revived in her. +If Johnny lived, it was a small price to pay for a life. If he died, +she had given him his chance. The operating-room nurses were very +kind. They liked her courage, but they were frightened, too. She, +like the others, had been right, but also she was wrong. + +They paid her tribute of little kindnesses, but they knew she must +go. + +It was the night nurse who told Twenty-two that Jane Brown was in +the operating-room. He was still up and dressed at midnight, but the +sheets of to-morrow's editorial lay blank on his table. + +The night nurse glanced at her watch to see if it was time for the +twelve o'clock medicines. + +"There's a rumour going about," she said, "that the quarantine's to +be lifted to-morrow. I'll be rather sorry. It has been a change." + +"To-morrow," said Twenty-two, in a startled voice. + +"I suppose you'll be going out at once?" + +There was a wistful note in her voice. She liked him. He had been an +oasis of cheer in the dreary rounds of the night. A very little +more, and she might have forgotten her rule, which was never to be +sentimentally interested in a patient. + +"I wonder," said Twenty-two, in a curious tone, "if you will give me +my cane?" + +He was clad, at that time, in a hideous bathrobe, purchased by the +orderly, over his night clothing, and he had the expression of a +person who intends to take no chances. + +"Thanks," said Twenty-two. "And--will you send the night watchman +here?" + +The night nurse went out. She had a distinct feeling that something +was about to happen. At least she claimed it later. But she found +the night watchman making coffee in a back pantry, and gave him her +message. + +Some time later Jane Brown stood in the doorway of the +operating-room and gave it a farewell look. Its white floor and +walls were spotless. Shining rows of instruments on clean towels +were ready to put away in the cabinets. The sterilisers glowed in +warm rectangles of gleaming copper. Over all brooded the peace of +order, the quiet of the night. + +Outside the operating-room door she drew a long breath, and faced +the night watchman. She had left something in Twenty-two. Would she +go and get it? + +"It's very late," said Jane Brown. "And it isn't allowed, I'm sure." + +However, what was one more rule to her who had defied them all? A +spirit of recklessness seized her. After all, why not? She would +never see him again. Like the operating-room, she would stand in the +doorway and say a mute little farewell. + +Twenty-two's door was wide open, and he was standing in the centre +of the room, looking out. He had heard her long before she came in +sight, for he, too, had learned the hospital habit of classifying +footsteps. + +He was horribly excited. He had never been so nervous before. He had +made up a small speech, a sort of beginning, but he forgot it the +moment he heard her, and she surprised him in the midst of trying, +agonisingly, to remember it. + +There was a sort of dreadful calm, however, about Jane Brown. + +"The watchman says I have left something here." + +It was clear to him at once that he meant nothing to her. It was in +her voice. + +"You did," he said. And tried to smile. + +"Then--if I may have it----" + +"I wish to heaven you could have it," he said, very rapidly. "I +don't want it. It's darned miserable." + +"It's--what?" + +"It's an ache," he went on, still rather incoherent. "A pain. A +misery." Then, seeing her beginning to put on a professional look: +"No, not that. It's a feeling. Look here," he said, rather more +slowly, "do you mind coming in and closing the door? There's a man +across who's always listening." + +She went in, but she did not close the door. She went slowly, +looking rather pale. + +"What I sent for you for is this," said Twenty-two, "are you going +away? Because I've got to know." + +"I'm being sent away as soon as the quarantine is over. It's--it's +perfectly right. I expected it. Things would soon go to pieces if +the nurses took to--took to doing what I did." + +Suddenly Twenty-two limped across the room and slammed the door +shut, a proceeding immediately followed by an irritated ringing of +bells at the night nurse's desk. Then he turned, his back against +the door. + +"Because I'm going when you do," he said, in a terrible voice. "I'm +going when you go, and wherever you go. I've stood all the waiting +around for a glimpse of you that I'm going to stand." He glared at +her. "For weeks," he said, "I've sat here in this room and listened +for you, and hated to go to sleep for fear you would pass and I +wouldn't be looking through that damned door. And now I've reached +the limit." + +A sort of band which had seemed to be fastened around Jane Brown's +head for days suddenly removed itself to her heart, which became +extremely irregular. + +"And I want to say this," went on Twenty-two, still in a savage +tone. He was horribly frightened, so he blustered. "I don't care +whether you want me or not, you've got to have me. I'm so much in +love with you that it hurts." + +Suddenly Jane Brown's heart settled down into a soft rhythmic +beating that was like a song. After all, life was made up of love +and work, and love came first. + +She faced Twenty-two with brave eyes. + +"I love you, too--so much that it hurts." + +The gentleman across the hall, sitting up in bed, with an angry +thumb on the bell, was electrified to see, on the glass door across, +the silhouette of a young lady without a cap go into the arms of a +very large, masculine silhouette in a dressing-gown. He heard, too, +the thump of a falling cane. + +Late that night Jane Brown, by devious ways, made her way back to H +ward. Johnny was there, a strange Johnny with a bandaged head, but +with open eyes. + +At dawn, the dawn of the day when Jane Brown was to leave the little +world of the hospital for a little world of two, consisting of a man +and a woman, the night nurse found her there, asleep, her fingers +still on Johnny's thin wrist. + +She did not report it. + + + + +JANE + + +I + +Having retired to a hospital to sulk, Jane remained there. The +family came and sat by her bed uncomfortably and smoked, and finally +retreated with defeat written large all over it, leaving Jane to the +continued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers to +match, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-coloured bow on +the corner, and a young nurse with a gift of giving Jane daily the +appearance of a strawberry and vanilla ice rising from a meringue of +bed linen. + +Jane's complaint was temper. The family knew this, and so did +Jane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentle +heart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under the +pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly +under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not +deceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready to +believe that while it was swearing in the hall, Jane was biting +holes in the hand-embroidered face pillow in Room 33. + +It had finally come to be a test of endurance. Jane vowed to stay +at the hospital until the family on bended knee begged her to emerge +and to brighten the world again with her presence. The family, being +her father, said it would be damned if it would, and that if Jane +cared to live on anæmic chicken broth, oatmeal wafers and massage +twice a day for the rest of her life, why, let her. + +The dispute, having begun about whether Jane should or should not +marry a certain person, Jane representing the affirmative and her +father the negative, had taken on new aspects, had grown and +altered, and had, to be brief, become a contest between the +masculine Johnson and the feminine Johnson as to which would take +the count. Not that this appeared on the surface. The masculine +Johnson, having closed the summer home on Jane's defection and gone +back to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, +all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately. Once, indeed, +Father Johnson had motored the forty miles from town, to be told +that Jane was too ill and unhappy to see him, and to have a glimpse, +as he drove furiously away, of Jane sitting pensive at her window in +the pink kimono, gazing over his head at the distant hills and +clearly entirely indifferent to him and his wrath. + +So we find Jane, on a frosty morning in late October, in triumphant +possession of the field--aunts and cousins routed, her father +sulking in town, and the victor herself--or is victor feminine?--and +if it isn't, shouldn't it be?--sitting up in bed staring blankly at +her watch. + +Jane had just wakened--an hour later than usual; she had rung the +bell three times and no one had responded. Jane's famous temper +began to stretch and yawn. At this hour Jane was accustomed +to be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, +alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and finally fresh-linened, coifed +and manicured, to be supported with a heap of fresh pillows and fed +creamed sweet-bread and golden-brown coffee and toast. + +Jane rang again, with a line between her eyebrows. The bell was not +broken. She could hear it distinctly. This was an outrage! She would +report it to the superintendent. She had been ringing for ten +minutes. That little minx of a nurse was flirting somewhere with one +of the internes. + +Jane angrily flung the covers back and got out on her small bare +feet. Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, her +spoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned. In her +sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, +minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helped +her to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, +almost--although Jane herself never suspected this--almost an +amiable young person. + +Jane saw herself in the glass and assumed immediately the two lines +between her eyebrows which were the outward and visible token of +what she had suffered. Then she found her slippers, a pair of +stockings to match and two round bits of pink silk elastic of +private and feminine use, and sat down on the floor to put them on. + +The floor was cold. To Jane's wrath was added indignation. She +hitched herself along the boards to the radiator and put her hand on +it. It was even colder than Jane. + +The family temper was fully awake by this time and ready for +business. Jane, sitting on the icy floor, jerked on her stockings, +snapped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippers +and rose, shivering. She went to the bed, and by dint of careful +manoeuvring so placed the bell between the head of the bed and the +wall that during the remainder of her toilet it rang steadily. + +The remainder of Jane's toilet was rather casual. She flung on the +silk kimono, twisted her hair on top of her head and stuck a pin or +two in it, thus achieving a sort of effect a thousand times more +bewildering than she had ever managed with a curling iron and +twenty seven hair pins, and flinging her door wide stalked into the +hall. At least she meant to stalk, but one does not really stamp +about much in number-two, heelless, pink-satin mules. + +At the first stalk--or stamp--she stopped. Standing uncertainly just +outside her door was a strange man, strangely attired. Jane clutched +her kimono about her and stared. + +"Did--did you--are you ringing?" asked the apparition. It wore a +pair of white-duck trousers, much soiled, a coat that bore the words +"furnace room" down the front in red letters on a white tape, and a +clean and spotless white apron. There was coal dust on its face and +streaks of it in its hair, which appeared normally to be red. + +"There's something the matter with your bell," said the young man. +"It keeps on ringing." + +"I intend it to," said Jane coldly. + +"You can't make a racket like that round here, you know," he +asserted, looking past her into the room. + +"I intend to make all the racket I can until I get some attention." + +"What have you done--put a book on it?" + +"Look here"--Jane added another line to the two between her +eyebrows. In the family this was generally a signal for a retreat, +but of course the young man could not know this, and, besides, he +was red-headed. "Look here," said Jane, "I don't know who you are +and I don't care either, but that bell is going to ring until I get +my bath and some breakfast. And it's going to ring then unless I +stop it." + +The young man in the coal dust and the white apron looked at Jane +and smiled. Then he walked past her into the room, jerked the bed +from the wall and released the bell. + +"Now!" he said as the din outside ceased. "I'm too busy to talk just +at present, but if you do that again I'll take the bell out of the +room altogether. There are other people in the hospital besides +yourself." + +At that he started out and along the hall, leaving Jane speechless. +After he'd gone about a dozen feet he stopped and turned, looking at +Jane reflectively. + +"Do you know anything about cooking?" he asked. + +"I know more about cooking than you do about politeness," she +retorted, white with fury, and went into her room and slammed the +door. She went directly to the bell and put it behind the bed and +set it to ringing again. Then she sat down in a chair and picked up +a book. Had the red-haired person opened the door she was perfectly +prepared to fling the book at him. She would have thrown a hatchet +had she had one. + +As a matter of fact, however, he did not come back. The bell rang +with a soul-satisfying jangle for about two minutes and then died +away, and no amount of poking with a hairpin did any good. It was +clear that the bell had been cut off outside! + +For fifty-five minutes Jane sat in that chair breakfastless, very +casually washed and with the aforesaid Billie Burkeness of hair. +Then, hunger gaining over temper, she opened the door and peered +out. From somewhere near at hand there came a pungent odor of +burning toast. Jane sniffed; then, driven by hunger, she made a +short sally down the hall to the parlour where the nurses on duty +made their headquarters. It was empty. The dismantled bell register +was on the wall, with the bell unscrewed and lying on the mantel +beside it, and the odour of burning toast was stronger than ever. + +Jane padded softly to the odour, following her small nose. It led +her to the pantry, where under ordinary circumstances the patients' +trays were prepared by a pantrymaid, the food being shipped there +from the kitchen on a lift. Clearly the circumstances were not +ordinary. The pantrymaid was not in sight. + +Instead, the red-haired person was standing by the window scraping +busily at a blackened piece of toast. There was a rank odour of +boiling tea in the air. + +"Damnation!" said the red-haired person, and flung the toast into a +corner where there already lay a small heap of charred breakfast +hopes. Then he saw Jane. + +"I fixed the bell, didn't I?" he remarked. "I say, since you claim +to know so much about cooking, I wish you'd make some toast." + +"I didn't say I knew much," snapped Jane, holding her kimono round +her. "I said I knew more than you knew about politeness." + +The red-haired person smiled again, and then, making a deep bow, +with a knife in one hand and a toaster in the other, he said: +"Madam, I prithee forgive me for my untoward conduct of an hour +since. Say but the word and I replace the bell." + +"I won't make any toast," said Jane, looking at the bread with +famished eyes. + +"Oh, very well," said the red-haired person with a sigh. "On your +head be it!" + +"But I'll tell you how to do it," conceded Jane, "if you'll explain +who you are and what you are doing in that costume and where the +nurses are." + +The red-haired person sat down on the edge of the table and looked +at her. + +"I'll make a bargain with you," he said. "There's a convalescent +typhoid in a room near yours who swears he'll go down to the village +for something to eat in his--er--hospital attire unless he's fed +soon. He's dangerous, empty. He's reached the cannibalistic stage. +If he should see you in that ravishing pink thing, I--I wouldn't +answer for the consequences. I'll tell you everything if you'll make +him six large slices of toast and boil him four or five eggs, enough +to hold him for a while. The tea's probably ready; it's been boiling +for an hour." + +Hunger was making Jane human. She gathered up the tail of her +kimono, and stepping daintily into the pantry proceeded to spread +herself a slice of bread and butter. + +"Where is everybody?" she asked, licking some butter off her thumb +with a small pink tongue. + + _Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold, + And the mate of the Nancy brig, + And the bosun tight and the midshipmite, + And the crew of the captain's gig._ + +recited the red-haired person. + +"You!" said Jane with the bread halfway to her mouth. + +"Even I," said the red-haired person. "I'm the superintendent, the +staff, the training school, the cooks, the furnace man and the +ambulance driver." + +Jane was pouring herself a cup of tea, and she put in milk and sugar +and took a sip or two before she would give him the satisfaction of +asking him what he meant. Anyhow, probably she had already guessed. +Jane was no fool. + +"I hope you're getting the salary list," she said, sitting on the +pantry girl's chair and, what with the tea inside and somebody to +quarrel with, feeling more like herself. "My father's one of the +directors, and somebody gets it." + +The red-haired person sat on the radiator and eyed Jane. He looked +slightly stunned, as if the presence of beauty in a Billie Burke +chignon and little else except a kimono was almost too much for him. +From somewhere near by came a terrific thumping, as of some one +pounding a hairbrush on a table. The red-haired person shifted along +the radiator a little nearer Jane, and continued to gloat. + +"Don't let that noise bother you," he said; "that's only the +convalescent typhoid banging for his breakfast. He's been shouting +for food ever since I came at six last night." + +"Is it safe to feed him so much?" + +"I don't know. He hasn't had anything yet. Perhaps if you're ready +you'd better fix him something." + +Jane had finished her bread and tea by this time and remembered her +kimono. + +"I'll go back and dress," she said primly. But he wouldn't hear of +it. + +"He's starving," he objected as a fresh volley of thumps came along +the hall. "I've been trying at intervals since daylight to make him +a piece of toast. The minute I put it on the fire I think of +something I've forgotten, and when I come back it's in flames." + +So Jane cut some bread and put on eggs to boil, and the red-haired +person told his story. + +"You see," he explained, "although I appear to be a furnace man from +the waist up and an interne from the waist down, I am really the new +superintendent." + +"I hope you'll do better than the last one," she said severely. "He +was always flirting with the nurses." + +"I shall never flirt with the nurses," he promised, looking at her. +"Anyhow I shan't have any immediate chance. The other fellow left +last night and took with him everything portable except the +ambulance--nurses, staff, cooks. I wish to Heaven he'd taken the +patients! And he did more than that. He cut the telephone wires!" + +"Well!" said Jane. "Are you going to stand for it?" + +The red-haired man threw up his hands. "The village is with him," he +declared. "It's a factional fight--the village against the +fashionable summer colony on the hill. I cannot telephone from the +village--the telegraph operator is deaf when I speak to him; the +village milkman and grocer sent boys up this morning--look here." +He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read: + + I will not supply the Valley Hospital with any fresh + meats, canned oysters and sausages, or do any plumbing + for the hospital until the reinstatement of Dr. Sheets. + T. CASHDOLLAR, Butcher. + +Jane took the paper and read it again. "Humph!" she commented. +"Old Sheets wrote it himself. Mr. Cashdollar couldn't think +'reinstatement,' let alone spell it." + +"The question is not who wrote it, but what we are to do," said the +red-haired person. "Shall I let old Sheets come back?" + +"If you do," said Jane fiercely, "I shall hate you the rest of my +life." + +And as it was clear by this time that the red-haired person could +imagine nothing more horrible, it was settled then and there that he +should stay. + +"There are only two wards," he said. "In the men's a man named +Higgins is able to be up and is keeping things straight. And in the +woman's ward Mary O'Shaughnessy is looking after them. The furnaces +are the worst. I'd have forgiven almost anything else. I've sat up +all night nursing the fires, but they breathed their last at six +this morning and I guess there's nothing left but to call the +coroner." + +Jane had achieved a tolerable plate of toast by that time and four +eggs. Also she had a fine flush, a combination of heat from the gas +stove and temper. + +"They ought to be ashamed," she cried angrily, "leaving a lot of +sick people!" + +"Oh, as to that," said the red-headed person, "there aren't any +very sick ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and a +convalescent typhoid and a D.T. in a private room. If it wasn't +that Mary O'Shaughnessy----" + +But at the word "neurasthenics" Jane had put down the toaster, and +by the time the unconscious young man had reached the O'Shaughnessy +she was going out the door with her chin up. He called after her, +and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies at +her back until she went into her room. And as hospital doors don't +lock from the inside she pushed the washstand against the knob and +went to bed to keep warm. + +He stood outside and apologised again, and later he brought a tray +of bread and butter and a pot of the tea, which had been boiling for +two hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor. +But Jane refused to get it, and finished her breakfast from a jar of +candied ginger that some one had sent her, and read "Lorna Doone." + +Now and then a sound of terrific hammering would follow the +steampipes and Jane would smile wickedly. By noon she had finished +the ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and the +family had disagreed would think when he heard the way she was being +treated. And by one o'clock she had cried her eyes entirely shut and +had pushed the washstand back from the door. + + +II + +Now a hospital full of nurses and doctors with a bell to summon food +and attention is one thing. A hospital without nurses and doctors, +and with only one person to do everything, and that person mostly in +the cellar, is quite another. Jane was very sad and lonely, and to +add to her troubles the delirium-tremens case down the hall began to +sing "Oh Promise Me" in a falsetto voice and kept it up for hours. + +At three Jane got up and bathed her eyes. She also did her hair, +and thus fortified she started out to find the red-haired person. +She intended to say that she was paying sixty-five dollars a week +and belonged to a leading family, and that she didn't mean to +endure for a moment the treatment she was getting, and being +called a neurasthenic and made to cook for the other patients. + +She went slowly along the hall. The convalescent typhoid heard her +and called. + +"Hey, doc!" he cried. "Hey, doc! Great Scott, man, when do I get +some dinner?" + +Jane quickened her steps and made for the pantry. From somewhere +beyond, the delirium-tremens case was singing happily: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +Jane shivered a little. The person in whom she had been interested +and who had caused her precipitate retirement, if not to a nunnery, +to what answered the same purpose, had been very fond of that song. +He used to sing it, leaning over the piano and looking into her +eyes. + +Jane's nose led her again to the pantry. There was a sort of soupy +odour in the air, and sure enough the red-haired person was there, +very immaculate in fresh ducks, pouring boiling water into three +tea-cups out of a kettle and then dropping a beef capsule into each +cup. + +Now Jane had intended, as I have said, to say that she was being +outrageously treated, and belonged to one of the best families, and +so on. What she really said was piteously: + +"How good it smells!" + +"Doesn't it!" said the red-haired person, sniffing. "Beef capsules. +I've made thirty cups of it so far since one o'clock--the more they +have the more they want. I say, be a good girl and run up to the +kitchen for some more crackers while I carry food to the +convalescent typhoid. He's murderous!" + +"Where are the crackers?" asked Jane stiffly, but not exactly caring +to raise an issue until she was sure of getting something to eat. + +"Store closet in the kitchen, third drawer on the left," said the +red-haired man, shaking some cayenne pepper into one of the cups. +"You might stop that howling lunatic on your way if you will." + +"How?" asked Jane, pausing. + +"Ram a towel down his throat, or--but don't bother. I'll dose him +with this beef tea and red pepper, and he'll be too busy putting out +the fire to want to sing." + +"You wouldn't be so cruel!" said Jane, rather drawing back. The +red-haired person smiled and to Jane it showed that he was actually +ferocious. She ran all the way up for the crackers and down again, +carrying the tin box. There is no doubt that Jane's family would +have promptly swooned had it seen her. + +When she came down there was a sort of after-dinner peace reigning. +The convalescent typhoid, having filled up on milk and beef soup, +had floated off to sleep. "The Chocolate Soldier" had given way to +deep-muttered imprecations from the singer's room. Jane made herself +a cup of bouillon and drank it scalding. She was making the second +when the red-haired person came back with an empty cup. + +"I forgot to explain," he said, "that beef tea and red pepper's the +treatment for our young friend in there. After a man has been +burning his stomach daily with a quart or so of raw booze----" + +"I beg your pardon," said Jane coolly. Booze was not considered good +form on the hill--the word, of course. There was plenty of the +substance. + +"Raw booze," repeated the red-haired person. "Nothing short of red +pepper or dynamite is going to act as a substitute. Why, I'll bet +the inside of that chap's stomach is of the general sensitiveness +and consistency of my shoe." + +"Indeed!" said Jane, coldly polite. In Jane's circle people did not +discuss the interiors of other people's stomachs. The red-haired +person sat on the table with a cup of bouillon in one hand and a +cracker in the other. + +"You know," he said genially, "it's awfully bully of you to come out +and keep me company like this. I never put in such a day. I've given +up fussing with the furnace and got out extra blankets instead. And +I think by night our troubles will be over." He held up the cup and +glanced at Jane, who was looking entrancingly pretty. "To our +troubles being over!" he said, draining the cup, and then found +that he had used the red pepper again by mistake. It took five +minutes and four cups of cold water to enable him to explain what he +meant. + +"By our troubles being over," he said finally when he could speak, +"I mean this: There's a train from town at eight to-night, and if +all goes well it will deposit in the village half a dozen nurses, a +cook or two, a furnace man--good Heavens, I wonder if I forgot a +furnace man!" + +It seemed, as Jane discovered, that the telephone wires being cut, +he had sent Higgins from the men's ward to the village to send some +telegrams for him. + +"I couldn't leave, you see," he explained, "and having some small +reason to believe that I am _persona non grata_ in this vicinity I +sent Higgins." + +Jane had always hated the name Higgins. She said afterward that she +felt uneasy from that moment. The red-haired person, who was not +bad-looking, being tall and straight and having a very decent nose, +looked at Jane, and Jane, having been shut away for weeks--Jane +preened a little and was glad she had done her hair. + +"You looked better the other way," said the red-haired person, +reading her mind in a most uncanny manner. "Why should a girl with +as pretty hair as yours cover it up with a net, anyhow?" + +"You are very disagreeable and--and impertinent," said Jane, +sliding off the table. + +"It isn't disagreeable to tell a girl she has pretty hair," the +red-haired person protested--"or impertinent either." + +Jane was gathering up the remnants of her temper, scattered by the +events of the day. + +"You said I was a neurasthenic," she accused him. "It--it isn't +being a neurasthenic to be nervous and upset and hating the very +sight of people, is it?" + +"Bless my soul!" said the red-haired man. "Then what is it?" Jane +flushed, but he went on tactlessly: "I give you my word, I think you +are the most perfectly"--he gave every appearance of being about to +say "beautiful," but he evidently changed his mind--"the most +perfectly healthy person I have ever looked at," he finished. + +It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under other +circumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in hand +and preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard in +the hall and Higgins stood in the doorway. + +He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and the +corresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also he +was coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with the +other. + +He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge by +the ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly, +having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He'd been told to +report at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted a +boycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or the +entire place could starve to death. + +It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper was +not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort +of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a +chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of the +front door. + +Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was running +toward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flying +legs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in the +knees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight, +and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was of +course because, if anything happened to him, she would be left +entirely alone. And anyhow the D.T. case was singing again and had +rather got on her nerves. + +In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. He had a +wretched-looking creature by the back of the neck and he alternately +pushed and kicked him up the drive. He--the red-haired person--was +whistling and clearly immensely pleased with himself. + +Jane put a little powder on her nose and waited for him to come and +tell her all about it. But he did not come near. This was quite the +cleverest thing he could have done, had he known it. Jane was not +accustomed to waiting in vain. He must have gone directly to the +cellar, half pushing and half kicking the luckless furnace man, for +about four o'clock the radiator began to get warm. + +At five he came and knocked at Jane's door, and on being invited in +he sat down on the bed and looked at her. + +"Well, we've got the furnace going," he said. + +"Then that was the----" + +"Furnace man? Yes." + +"Aren't you afraid to leave him?" queried Jane. "Won't he run off?" + +"Got him locked in a padded cell," he said. "I can take him out to +coal up. The rest of the time he can sit and think of his sins. The +question is--what are we to do next?" + +"I should think," ventured Jane, "that we'd better be thinking about +supper." + +"The beef capsules are gone." + +"But surely there must be something else about--potatoes or things +like that?" + +He brightened perceptibly. "Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, and +there's canned stuff. Higgins can pare potatoes, and there's Mary +O'Shaughnessy. We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs." + +"Fine!" said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day before +she would have said they were her three abominations. + +And with that he called Higgins and Mary O'Shaughnessy and the four +of them went to the kitchen. + +Jane positively shone. She had never realised before how much she +knew about cooking. They built a fire and got kettles boiling and +everybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggs +were ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorched +slightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in +ability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift and +started them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shook +hands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, +sitting side by side on a table. + +They were ravenous. They boiled one egg each and ate it, and then +boiled another and another, and when they finished they found that +Jane had eaten four potatoes, four eggs and unlimited bread and +butter, while the red-haired person had eaten six saucers of stewed +tomatoes and was starting on the seventh. + +"You know," he said over the seventh, "we've got to figure this +thing out. The entire town is solid against us--no use trying to get +to a telephone. And anyhow they've got us surrounded. We're in a +state of siege." + +Jane was beating up an egg in milk for the D.T. patient, the +capsules being exhausted, and the red-haired person was watching her +closely. She had the two vertical lines between her eyes, but they +looked really like lines of endeavour and not temper. + +She stopped beating and looked up. + +"Couldn't I go to the village?" she asked. + +"They would stop you." + +"Then--I think I know what we can do," she said, giving the eggnog a +final whisk. "My people have a summer place on the hill. If you +could get there you could telephone to the city." + +"Could I get in?" + +"I have a key." + +Jane did not explain that the said key had been left by her father, +with the terse hope that if she came to her senses she could get +into the house and get her clothes. + +"Good girl," said the red-headed person and patted her on the +shoulder. "We'll euchre the old skate yet." Curiously, Jane did not +resent either the speech or the pat. + +He took the glass and tied on a white apron. "If our friend doesn't +drink this, I will," he continued. "If he'd seen it in the making, +as I have, he'd be crazy about it." + +He opened the door and stood listening. From below floated up the +refrain: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +"Listen to that!" he said. "Stomach's gone, but still has a heart!" + +Higgins came up the stairs heavily and stopped close by the +red-haired person, whispering something to him. There was a second's +pause. Then the red-haired person gave the eggnog to Higgins and +both disappeared. + +Jane was puzzled. She rather thought the furnace man had got out and +listened for a scuffle, but none came. She did, however, hear the +singing cease below, and then commence with renewed vigour, and she +heard Higgins slowly remounting the stairs. He came in, with the +empty glass and a sheepish expression. Part of the eggnog was +distributed over his person. + +"He wants his nurse, ma'am," said Higgins. "Wouldn't let me near +him. Flung a pillow at me." + +"Where is the doctor?" demanded Jane. + +"Busy," replied Higgins. "One of the women is sick." + +Jane was provoked. She had put some labour into the eggnog. But it +shows the curious evolution going on in her that she got out the +eggs and milk and made another one without protest. Then with her +head up she carried it to the door. + +"You might clear things away, Higgins," she said, and went down the +stairs. Her heart was going rather fast. Most of the men Jane knew +drank more or less, but this was different. She would have turned +back halfway there had it not been for Higgins and for owning +herself conquered. That was Jane's real weakness--she never owned +herself beaten. + +The singing had subsided to a low muttering. Jane stopped outside +the door and took a fresh grip on her courage. Then she pushed the +door open and went in. + +The light was shaded, and at first the tossing figure on the bed was +only a misty outline of greys and whites. She walked over, expecting +a pillow at any moment and shielding the glass from attack with her +hand. + +"I have brought you another eggnog," she began severely, "and if you +spill it----" + +Then she looked down and saw the face on the pillow. + +To her everlasting credit, Jane did not faint. But in that moment, +while she stood staring down at the flushed young face with its +tumbled dark hair and deep-cut lines of dissipation, the man who had +sung to her over the piano, looking love into her eyes, died to her, +and Jane, cold and steady, sat down on the side of the bed and fed +the eggnog, spoonful by spoonful, to his corpse! + +When the blank-eyed young man on the bed had swallowed it all +passively, looking at her with dull, incurious eyes, she went back +to her room and closing the door put the washstand against it. She +did nothing theatrical. She went over to the window and stood +looking out where the trees along the drive were fading in the dusk +from green to grey, from grey to black. And over the transom came +again and again monotonously the refrain: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +Jane fell on her knees beside the bed and buried her wilful head in +the hand-embroidered pillow, and said a little prayer because she +had found out in time. + + +III + +The full realisation of their predicament came with the dusk. The +electric lights were shut off! Jane, crawling into bed tearfully at +half after eight, turned the reading light switch over her head, but +no flood of rosy radiance poured down on the hand-embroidered pillow +with the pink bow. + +Jane sat up and stared round her. Already the outline of her dresser +was faint and shadowy. In half an hour black night would settle down +and she had not even a candle or a box of matches. She crawled out, +panicky, and began in the darkness to don her kimono and slippers. +As she opened the door and stepped into the hall the convalescent +typhoid heard her and set up his usual cry. + +"Hey," he called, "whoever that is come in and fix the lights. +They're broken. And I want some bread and milk. I can't sleep on an +empty stomach!" + +Jane padded on past the room where love lay cold and dead, down the +corridor with its alarming echoes. The house seemed very quiet. At a +corner unexpectedly she collided with some one going hastily. The +result was a crash and a deluge of hot water. Jane got a drop on her +bare ankle, and as soon as she could breathe she screamed. + +"Why don't you look where you're going?" demanded the red-haired +person angrily. "I've been an hour boiling that water, and now it +has to be done over again!" + +"It would do a lot of good to look!" retorted Jane. "But if you +wish I'll carry a bell!" + +"The thing for you to do," said the red-haired person severely, "is +to go back to bed like a good girl and stay there until morning. The +light is cut off." + +"Really!" said Jane. "I thought it had just gone out for a walk. I +daresay I may have a box of matches at least?" + +He fumbled in his pockets without success. + +"Not a match, of course!" he said disgustedly. "Was any one ever in +such an infernal mess? Can't you get back to your room without +matches?" + +"I shan't go back at all unless I have some sort of light," +maintained Jane. "I'm--horribly frightened!" + +The break in her voice caught his attention and he put his hand out +gently and took her arm. + +"Now listen," he said. "You've been brave and fine all day, and +don't stop it now. I--I've got all I can manage. Mary O'Shaughnessy +is----" He stopped. "I'm going to be very busy," he said with half a +groan. "I surely do wish you were forty for the next few hours. But +you'll go back and stay in your room, won't you?" + +He patted her arm, which Jane particularly hated generally. But Jane +had altered considerably since morning. + +"Then you cannot go to the telephone?" + +"Not to-night." + +"And Higgins?" + +"Higgins has gone," he said. "He slipped off an hour ago. We'll have +to manage to-night somehow. Now will you be a good child?" + +"I'll go back," she promised meekly. "I'm sorry I'm not forty." + +He turned her round and started her in the right direction with a +little push. But she had gone only a step or two when she heard him +coming after her quickly. + +"Where are you?" + +"Here," quavered Jane, not quite sure of him or of herself perhaps. + +But when he stopped beside her he didn't try to touch her arm again. +He only said: + +"I wouldn't have you forty for anything in the world. I want you to +be just as you are, very beautiful and young." + +Then, as if he was afraid he would say too much, he turned on his +heel, and a moment after he kicked against the fallen pitcher in the +darkness and awoke a thousand echoes. As for Jane, she put her +fingers to her ears and ran to her room, where she slammed the door +and crawled into bed with burning cheeks. + +Jane was never sure whether it was five minutes later or five +seconds when somebody in the room spoke--from a chair by the window. + +"Do you think," said a mild voice--"do you think you could find me +some bread and butter? Or a glass of milk?" + +Jane sat up in bed suddenly. She knew at once that she had made a +mistake, but she was quite dignified about it. She looked over at +the chair, and the convalescent typhoid was sitting in it, wrapped +in a blanket and looking wan and ghostly in the dusk. + +"I'm afraid I'm in the wrong room," Jane said very stiffly, trying +to get out of the bed with dignity, which is difficult. "The hall is +dark and all the doors look so alike----" + +She made for the door at that and got out into the hall with her +heart going a thousand a minute again. + +"You've forgotten your slippers," called the convalescent typhoid +after her. But nothing would have taken Jane back. + +The convalescent typhoid took the slippers home later and locked +them away in an inner drawer, where he kept one or two things like +faded roses, and old gloves, and a silk necktie that a girl had made +him at college--things that are all the secrets a man keeps from his +wife and that belong in that small corner of his heart which also +he keeps from his wife. But that has nothing to do with Jane. + +Jane went back to her own bed thoroughly demoralised. And sleep +being pretty well banished by that time, she sat up in bed and +thought things over. Before this she had not thought much, only +raged and sulked alternately. But now she thought. She thought about +the man in the room down the hall with the lines of dissipation on +his face. And she thought a great deal about what a silly she had +been, and that it was not too late yet, she being not forty and +"beautiful." It must be confessed that she thought a great deal +about that. Also she reflected that what she deserved was to marry +some person with even a worse temper than hers, who would bully her +at times and generally keep her straight. And from that, of course, +it was only a step to the fact that red-haired people are +proverbially bad-tempered! + +She thought, too, about Mary O'Shaughnessy without another woman +near, and not even a light, except perhaps a candle. Things were +always so much worse in the darkness. And perhaps she might be going +to be very ill and ought to have another doctor! + +Jane seemed to have been reflecting for a long time, when the church +clock far down in the village struck nine. And with the chiming of +the clock was born, full grown, an idea which before it was sixty +seconds of age was a determination. + +In pursuance of the idea Jane once more crawled out of bed and began +to dress; she put on heavy shoes and a short skirt, a coat, and a +motor veil over her hair. The indignation at the defection of the +hospital staff, held in subjection during the day by the necessity +for doing something, now rose and lent speed and fury to her +movements. In an incredibly short time Jane was feeling her way +along the hall and down the staircase, now a well of unfathomable +blackness and incredible rustlings and creakings. + +The front doors were unlocked. Outside there was faint starlight, +the chirp of a sleepy bird, and far off across the valley the +gasping and wheezing of a freight climbing the heavy grade to the +village. + +Jane paused at the drive and took a breath. Then at her best +gymnasium pace, arms close to sides, head up, feet well planted, she +started to run. At the sundial she left the drive and took to the +lawn gleaming with the frost of late October. She stopped running +then and began to pick her way more cautiously. Even at that she +collided heavily with a wire fence marking the boundary, and sat on +the ground for some time after, whimpering over the outrage and +feeling her nose. It was distinctly scratched and swollen. No one +would think her beautiful with a nose like that! + +She had not expected the wire fence. It was impossible to climb and +more difficult to get under. However, she found one place where the +ground dipped, and wormed her way under the fence in most +undignified fashion. It is perfectly certain that had Jane's family +seen her then and been told that she was doing this remarkable thing +for a woman she had never seen before that day, named Mary +O'Shaughnessy, and also for a certain red-haired person of whom it +had never heard, it would have considered Jane quite irrational. But +it is entirely probable that Jane became really rational that night +for the first time in her spoiled young life. + +Jane never told the details of that excursion. Those that came out +in the paper were only guess-work, of course, but it is quite true +that a reporter found scraps of her motor veil on three wire fences, +and there seems to be no reason to doubt, also, that two false curls +were discovered a week later in a cow pasture on her own estate. But +as Jane never wore curls afterward anyhow---- + +Well, Jane got to her own house about eleven and crept in like a +thief to the telephone. There were more rustlings and creakings and +rumblings in the empty house than she had ever imagined, and she +went backward through the hall for fear of something coming after +her. But, which is to the point, she got to the telephone and called +up her father in the city. + +The first message that astonished gentleman got was that a +red-haired person at the hospital was very ill, having run into a +wire fence and bruised a nose, and that he was to bring out at once +from town two doctors, six nurses, a cook and a furnace man! + +After a time, however, as Jane grew calmer, he got it straightened +out, and said a number of things over the telephone anent the +deserting staff that are quite forbidden by the rules both of the +club and of the telephone company. He gave Jane full instructions +about sending to the village and having somebody come up and stay +with her, and about taking a hot footbath and going to bed between +blankets, and when Jane replied meekly to everything "Yes, father," +and "All right, father," he was so stunned by her mildness that he +was certain she must be really ill. + +Not that Jane had any idea of doing all these things. She hung up +the telephone and gathered all the candles from all the candlesticks +on the lower floor, and started back for the hospital. The moon had +come up and she had no more trouble with fencing, but she was +desperately tired. She climbed the drive slowly, coming to frequent +pauses. The hospital, long and low and sleeping, lay before her, +and in one upper window there was a small yellow light. + +Jane climbed the steps and sat down on the top one. She felt very +tired and sad and dejected, and she sat down on the upper step to +think of how useless she was, and how much a man must know to be a +doctor, and that perhaps she would take up nursing in earnest and +amount to something, and---- + +It was about three o'clock in the morning when the red-haired +person, coming down belatedly to close the front doors, saw a +shapeless heap on the porch surrounded by a radius of white-wax +candles, and going up shoved at it with his foot. Whereat the heap +moved slightly and muttered "Lemme shleep." + +The red-haired person said "Good Heavens!" and bending down held a +lighted match to the sleeper's face and stared, petrified. Jane +opened her eyes, sat up and put her hand over her mutilated nose +with one gesture. + +"You!" said the red-haired person. And then mercifully the match +went out. + +"Don't light another," said Jane. "I'm an alarming sight. +Would--would you mind feeling if my nose is broken?" + +He didn't move to examine it. He just kept on kneeling and staring. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded. + +"Over to telephone," said Jane, and yawned. "They're bringing +everybody in automobiles--doctors, nurses, furnace man--oh, dear me, +I hope I mentioned a cook!" + +"Do you mean to say," said the red-haired person wonderingly, "that +you went by yourself across the fields and telephoned to get me out +of this mess?" + +"Not at all," Jane corrected him coolly. "I'm in the mess myself." + +"You'll be ill again." + +"I never was ill," said Jane. "I was here for a mean disposition." + +Jane sat in the moonlight with her hands in her lap and looked at +him calmly. The red-haired person reached over and took both her +hands. + +"You're a heroine," he said, and bending down he kissed first one +and then the other. "Isn't it bad enough that you are beautiful +without your also being brave?" + +Jane eyed him, but he was in deadly earnest. In the moonlight his +hair was really not red at all, and he looked pale and very, very +tired. Something inside of Jane gave a curious thrill that was half +pain. Perhaps it was the dying of her temper, perhaps---- + +"Am I still beautiful with this nose?" she asked. + +"You are everything that a woman should be," he said, and dropping +her hands he got up. He stood there in the moonlight, straight and +young and crowned with despair, and Jane looked up from under her +long lashes. + +"Then why don't you stay where you were?" she asked. + +At that he reached down and took her hands again and pulled her to +her feet. He was very strong. + +"Because if I do I'll never leave you again," he said. "And I must +go." + +He dropped her hands, or tried to, but Jane wasn't ready to be +dropped. + +"You know," she said, "I've told you I'm a sulky, bad-tempered----" + +But at that he laughed suddenly, triumphantly, and put both his arms +round her and held her close. + +"I love you," he said, "and if you are bad-tempered, so am I, only I +think I'm worse. It's a shame to spoil two houses with us, isn't +it?" + +To her eternal shame be it told, Jane never struggled. She simply +held up her mouth to be kissed. + +That is really all the story. Jane's father came with three +automobiles that morning at dawn, bringing with him all that goes to +make up a hospital, from a pharmacy clerk to absorbent cotton, and +having left the new supplies in the office he stamped upstairs to +Jane's room and flung open the door. + +He expected to find Jane in hysterics and the pink silk kimono. + +What he really saw was this: A coal fire was lighted in Jane's +grate, and in a low chair before it, with her nose swollen level +with her forehead, sat Jane, holding on her lap Mary O'Shaughnessy's +baby, very new and magenta-coloured and yelling like a trooper. +Kneeling beside the chair was a tall, red-headed person holding a +bottle of olive oil. + +"Now, sweetest," the red-haired person was saying, "turn him on his +tummy and we'll rub his back. Gee, isn't that a fat back!" + +And as Jane's father stared and Jane anxiously turned the baby, the +red-haired person leaned over and kissed the back of Jane's neck. + +"Jane!" he whispered. + +"Jane!!" said her father. + + + + +IN THE PAVILION + + +I + +Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The story +is to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne to +which no traveller may take with him anything but his sins--and this +with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage--he cast about for some +way to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of his +worldly goods. + +Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant, +having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that might +better have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said to +the Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Come +on--be a sport! It's only a matter of hours." Not that he said it +aloud--he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that. +The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the table +and recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through a +most unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column she +wrote: "Delirious." + +But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four or +thereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but when +it gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeing +green monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor is +walking on his hands--all these things melt away, and one sees one's +past, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, and +is curious about what is coming when one goes over. + +So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of the +hospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try to +devise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studied +law, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against the +Lindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making some +thirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours or +less. + +Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to rest +content with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise mar +the enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at that +moment put the thermometer under his arm. + +Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes, +during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, or +even to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's arm +close to his side and counting his respirations while pretending to +be thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes that +the idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained. +The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye. + +"Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labours--in a low--gear. +No wonder I'm--heated up!" + +The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead. + +"Try to sleep," she said. + +"Time for--that--later," said Billy Grant. "I'll--I'll be a--long +time--dead. I--I wonder whether you'd--do me a--favour." + +"I'll do anything in the world you want." + +She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making her +chin quiver, which would never do--being unprofessional and likely +to get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, she +took his pulse by the throbbing in his neck. + +"One, two, three, four, five, six----" + +"Then--marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an--hour or--two, +you know. You--promised. Come on--be a sport!" + +It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded +"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a Smith +College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she +spelled it just then with two r's. + +Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of his +illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, +and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There were +even times--when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a +cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned--when she +seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment +did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge. + +"You--promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiled +indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows. + +Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion at +six o'clock--cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, he +brought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She went +into the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a clean +collar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then +stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very +lonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomed +large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the +courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying +a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big +railroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches." +He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many +internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the +dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into +a doze, opened his eyes. + +"What--about it?" he asked. "You're not--married already--are you?" + +"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice----" + +"Oh, damn--the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyes +again--but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, and +finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, he +evolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do what +the doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!--upon which, with a +precision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard of +the bed put their thumbs to their noses at him. + +The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from +any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such, +entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could +procure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not +even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the +Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the +doorstep and told him. + +"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said +dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave +everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!" + +The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper +of steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out +a digestive tablet from his surgical bag. + +"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had known +the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according to +report at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet, +and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man who +has first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make one +breathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyond +the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!" + +The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep. +Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of the +monkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with +the symptom record. + +"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his +spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad." + +"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!" + +She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek. + +"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse, +respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--away +from home, too, poor lad!" + +"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?" + +"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well." + +Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, have +walked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what he +said, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one hand +an order blank on which said august personage would presently +inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by +the pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in +the other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into +the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage +to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be +unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's +chest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner; +but every one knows that story. + +Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in +the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a +hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff +Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. + +"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his +arm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposed +to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "We +can't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. When +did you sleep?" + +"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled. +"No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can't +bear to see him--to see him----" + +The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on the +Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed. + +"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, and +I've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?" + +"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm not +hungry--that's all. How long do you think----" + +The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over his +white hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and did +not reply at once. Then, "Perhaps--until morning," he said. + +He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and a +moment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and looking +like a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was just +behind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel over +her arm. + +Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting. + +"Allah--is--great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor--I guess +it's all--over but--the shouting." + + +II + +Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was +quite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But his +feet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one +wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise +he was beautifully comfortable. + +Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sitting +in the dark by the window. + +"Water?" she asked softly, coming to him. + +"Please." His voice was stronger than it had been. + +Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothing +mattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperature +and went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might not +watch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, she +came back into the room. + +"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grant +querulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stiffly +starched, so relentless of collar and cap. + +"I am comfortable." + +"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurse +rather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and take +a nap? I don't need anything." + +"Not--not to-night." + +He understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was too +comfortable. He was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak, +was clear. + +"Would you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of course +you are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again, +sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with no querulous +devil----" + +"Please!" + +"You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded?" + +"Yes." This very low. + +"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's--company, you know." +He was apologetic; under her hand his own burned fire. "I--I spoke +to the Staff about that while you were out of the room." + +"About what?" + +"About your marrying me." + +"What did he say?" She humoured him. + +"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move--are +you?" + +"No. But you must not talk." + +"It's like this. I've got a little property--not much; a little." He +was nervously eager about this. If she knew it amounted to anything +she would refuse, and the Lindley Grants---- "And when I--you +know---- I want to leave it where it will do some good. That little +brother of yours--it would send him through college, or help to." + +Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of the +brother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of the +profession. One does not speak of oneself or one's family. + +"If you won't try to sleep, shall I read to you?" + +"Read what?" + +"I thought--the Bible, if you wouldn't mind." + +"Certainly," he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing; +and if it makes you feel any better---- Will you think over what +I've been saying?" + +"I'll think about it," she said, soothing him like a fretful child, +and brought her Bible. + +The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up her +chair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Across +the courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with here +and there one brighter than the others that told its own story of +sleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carrying +a boisterous night party. + +The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumn +night was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed her +hair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purple +hollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes. + +"The perfect nurse," the head of the training school was fond of +saying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is a +handicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, +silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!" + +Poor Junior Nurse! + +Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, +should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking young +life; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants--which story +does not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation of +the church, and trying to summon from the depths of his +consciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the life +beyond, and what he might or might not expect there. + +What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move his +legs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revenge +of a not particularly forgiving life. + +At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for an +interne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot a +hypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. +He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung on +her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of his +head. + +"About all in!" he said. "Heart's gone--too much booze probably. I'd +stay, but there's nothing to do." + +"Would oxygen----" + +"Oh, you can try it if you like. It's like blowing up a leaking +tire; but if you'll feel better, do it." He yawned and tied the cord +of his bathrobe round him more securely. "I guess you'll be glad to +get back," he observed, looking round the dingy hall. "This place +always gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Good +night." + +The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on the +asphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant. + +"Well?" demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?" + +"If you would only not talk and excite yourself----" + +"Hell!" said Billy Grant, we regret to record. "I've got to do all +the talking I'm going to do right now. I beg your pardon--I didn't +intend to swear." + +"Oh, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like no +deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting. + +"Shall I read again?" + +"No, thank you." + +The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation present +from her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my little +girl!" There is no question but that, when the Nurse's mother gave +that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when +the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had +slapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. "To my little +girl!" said the watch; and across from that--"Three o'clock." + +At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarked +that if it would ease the Nurse any he'd see a preacher. His voice +was weaker again and broken. + +"Not"--he said, struggling--"not that I think--he'll pass me. +But--if you say so--I'll--take a chance." + +All of which was diabolical cunning; for when, as the result of a +telephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man who +counted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silver +communion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in a +slum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare a +broth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man of +God. This he did by urging the need of the Nurse's small brother for +an education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grants +or the extent of his property. + +From four o'clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with what +voice he had. The idea had become an obsession; and minute by +minute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away. +He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set. +And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little to +her and, for some strange reason, so much to him. Perhaps, if she +did it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying. + +At five o'clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding his +pulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes the +Nurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient's arm +with one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married in +a dozen words and a soiled white apron. + +Dawn was creeping in at the windows--a grey city dawn, filled with +soot and the rumbling of early wagons. A smell of damp asphalt from +the courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirped on the sill +where the Nurse had been in the habit of leaving crumbs. Billy +Grant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way, +dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, and signed his +will in a sprawling hand. + +"If only," he muttered, "I could see Lin's face when that's--sprung +on him!" + +The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it. + +"Perhaps," he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word of +God----" + +Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of their +very shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep--asleep with the +thermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and falling +peacefully. + +The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding the +thermometer in place. She had buried her face in the white +counterpane. + +"You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is happier, +and you are none the worse. Shall I keep the paper for you?" + +But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt. +The minister, who had come across the street in a ragged +smoking-coat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edge +of the blanket over her shoulders. + +Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshaved neck, he departed +for the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, in +his shirtsleeves, was sweeping the pavement. There, mindful of the +fact that he had come from the contagious pavilion, the minister +brushed his shabby smoking-coat with a whiskbroom to remove the +germs! + + +III + +Billy Grant, of course, did not die. This was perhaps because only +the good die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been the honour of a +gentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was, therefore, no +particular violence done to his code when his last thoughts--or what +appeared to be his last thoughts--were revenge instead of salvation. + +The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the Lindley +Grants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and a +hereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did not +understand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "Poor +Billy!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however, +was not his reason for hating them. + +Billy Grant fell in love. To give the devil his due, he promptly set +about reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-sodas +as he had been in the habit of doing, and cut out champagne +altogether. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, but gave it up +when he found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, with +things so shaping up that he could rise in the morning without +having a drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best to +warn the girl's family before it was too late. + +"He is a nice boy in some ways," Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on the +occasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a broken +reed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marry +him. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will give +them to you." + +So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, and +Billy Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presented +the ring to a cabman--all of which is exceedingly sordid, but rather +human after all. + +The Nurse, having had no sleep for forty-eight hours, slept for +quite thirty minutes. She wakened at the end of that time and +started up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting for +had come. But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, and +the thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered a +hundred and three. + +At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with a +laudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to drop +in, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and the +Nurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous. + +"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought to +have been called. I told you----" + +"He isn't dead," said the Nurse breathlessly. "He--I think he is +better." + +Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room across +the hall, locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne to +hunt the symptom record for himself--a thing not to be lightly +overlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff. + +The interne looked over the record and whistled. + +"Wouldn't that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "'Pulse very +weak.' 'Pulse almost obliterated.' 'Very talkative.' 'Breathing hard +at four A.M. Cannot swallow.' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from five +o'clock.' 'Pulse stronger.' Temperature one hundred and three.' By +gad, that last prescription of mine was a hit!" + +So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the little +isolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute did the +two people most concerned forget their strange relationship; not for +worlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or she +remembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixed +on her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistful +expression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would find +her in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lap +and a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him. + +He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly's +assistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment in +which he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he had +realised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a cruel +advantage he had used for his own purpose. + +When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone she +brought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the first +personality of their new relationship. + +"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there in +the bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable." + +"I am not small," she said, straightening herself. She had always +hoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall. +You--you are a giant!" + +"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovely +girls for dinner under pretence of marriage----" He stopped his +nonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured. +Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretched +silence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of his +convalescence was always pertinent--food. "Speaking of dinner," he +said hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?" + +She was quite calm when she came back--cool, even smiling; but +Billy Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placed +the glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took her +hand. + +"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; the +usual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and too +late for anything but forgiveness. + +"Forgive you? For not dying?" + +She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside from +dangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house. + +"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. It +took a little time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover on +the stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on the +table. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while each +side got its forces in line. + +"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to change +the figure, a blow below the belt. + +"Why should I hate you?" countered the other side. + +"I should think you would. I forced the thing on you." + +"I need not have done it." + +"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happy +and comfortable----" + +"Oh, if only they don't find it out over there!" she burst out. "If +they do and I have to leave, with Jim----" + +Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw up +her face before any one, she put her arms on the stand and buried +her face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant's +arm. + +Billy Grant had a shocked second. + +"Jim?" + +"My little brother," from the table. + +Billy Grant drew a long breath of relief. For a moment he had +thought---- + +"I wonder--whether I dare to say something to you." Silence from the +table and presumably consent. "Isn't he--don't you think that--I +might be allowed to--to help Jim? It would help me to like myself +again. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself." + +"Won't you tell me why you did it?" she said, suddenly sitting up, +her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so? +You said it was because of a little property you had, but--that +wasn't it--was it?" + +"No." + +"Or because you cared a snap for me." This was affirmation, not +question. + +"No, not that, though I----" + +She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair. + +"Then--why? Why?" + +"For one of the meanest reasons I know--to be even with some people +who had treated me badly." + +The thing was easier now. His flat denial of any sentimental reason +had helped to make it so. + +"A girl that you cared about?" + +"Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough to +be hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble----" + +Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment that +he no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left him +speechless--that he who had taken his hate into the very valley of +death with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley and +his wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A state +of affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants was +alone responsible; now the hate was gone and the state of affairs +persisted. + +"I should like," said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you a +little--if it will not bore you--about myself and the things I have +done that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know, +I'm--I'm not going to hold you to--to the thing I forced you into. +There are ways to fix that." + +Before she would listen, however, she must take his temperature and +give him his medicine, and see that he drank his buttermilk--the +buttermilk last, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer. +The tired lines had gone from under her eyes and she was very lovely +that day. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctor +had slapped her between the shoulders long ago--you know about +that--only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sitting +there with the thermometer in his mouth while she counted his +respirations, pretending to be looking out the window while she did +it, Billy Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorable +she was, in spite of the sad droop of her lips--and found it hard to +say the thing he felt he must. + +"After all," he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is not +irrevocable. I can fix it up so that----" + +"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, and +snapped her watch shut. + +The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down +under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing +him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap. + +"Now!" she said. + +"I am to go on?" + +"Yes, please." + +"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give me +any other diabolical truck to swallow," he said somewhat peevishly, +"will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessional +minutes?" + +"Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, +to his disgust, over his knees. + +This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table near +him and he reached over and covered it with his. + +"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell you +some of the things I have to tell." + +She left it there, after an uneasy stirring. So, sitting there, +looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures in +wheeled chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench--their crutches +beside them--its waterless fountain and its dingy birds, he told her +about the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman and +the ring. And feeling, perhaps in some current from the small hand +under his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turning +away, he told her a great deal he had not meant to tell--ugly +things, many of them--for that was his creed. + +And, because in a hospital one lives many lives vicariously with +many people, what the girl back home would never have understood +this girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as she knew it, was not all +good and not all bad; passion and tenderness, violence and peace, +joy and wretchedness, birth and death--these she had looked on, all +of them, with clear eyes and hands ready to help. + +So Billy Grant laid the good and the bad of his life before her, +knowing that he was burying it with her. When he finished, her hand +on the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over and +kissed her fingers softly. + +After that she read to him, and their talk, if any, was impersonal. +When the orderly had put him back to bed he lay watching her moving +about, rejoicing in her quiet strength, her repose. How well she was +taking it all! If only--but there was no hope of that. She could go +to Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thing +would be as if it had never been. + +At nine o'clock that night the isolation pavilion was ready for the +night. The lights in the sickroom were out. In the hall a nightlight +burned low, Billy Grant was not asleep. He tried counting the +lighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful. + +The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doors +open between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in, +with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleeves +falling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching with +inaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicated +that she was sleeping. + +Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still +very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by +pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping +first one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, even +the weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of a +chairback may become, however shaky, a standing one. + +He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough to +relinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He would +tell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. He +took a step--if only his knees---- + +He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking through +the open door of the room across. + +The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. +Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in their +short white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutching +the counterpane. + +Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort of +groan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapper +held about her, peering into the darkness. + +"I thought I heard--are you worse?" she asked anxiously. + +"I'm all right," he said, hating himself; "just not sleepy. How +about you?" + +"Not asleep yet, but--resting," she replied. + +She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid over +her shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. In +the darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then dropped +them, ashamed. + +"Would you like another blanket?" + +"If there is one near." + +She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over the +bed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place. +He was mustering up his courage to ask for something--a curious +state of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wanted +without asking. + +"I wish you would kiss me--just once!" he said wistfully. And then, +seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that's +the reason I'm not sleeping." + +"Don't be absurd!" + +"Is it so absurd--under the circumstances?" + +"You can sleep quite well if you only try." + +She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then she +hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room. + +"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? And +will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?" + +"But my arms----" + +"Over your head!" + +He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in the +darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed--the tip of +his nose! + + +IV + +She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neither +of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant +thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring +him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured +by the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He +was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have---- He +borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself. + +Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of +his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of +better treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair over +his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done +with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again. + +That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was +troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day +before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his +chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. + +The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, +enlightened her. + +"He has pulled through--God and you alone know how," he said. "But +as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for +liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years---- +Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of +pepsin?" + +The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff +Doctor swallowed and grimaced. + +"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly--for, the stress being +over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled +to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage. + +"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has +been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but +steady. "He is not to have it?" + +"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair +again, but while he's here--by-the-way, you'll have to watch the +orderly. He'll bribe him." + +"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman." + +"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk +too; but he's a drinker--a habitual drinker." + +The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a +chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face +buried in his hands. + +"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. +He's right, you know." + +"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help." + +She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held it +between his. + +"Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me, +you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow--didn't we?" + +She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dying +man, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her hand +in his. Billy Grant thought of it too. + +"Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitterness +was at himself of course. "If--if you'll sit tight I have a fighting +chance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix this +thing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I---- Don't +take your hand away. Please!" + +"I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained. + +"Have I made you cry again?" + +"Again?' + +"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I was +trying to stand, and----" + +She was very dignified at this, with her eyes still wet, and tried +unsuccessfully to take her hand away. + +"If you are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to be +relieved." + +"You wouldn't do that!" + +"Let go of my hand." + +"You wouldn't do that!!" + +"Please! The head nurse is coming." + +He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, remembering the +"perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine." + +The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion, +but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she had +confidence in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion--this +latter, of course, quite _sub rosa_, in view of the above quotation. + +The Head Nurse was a tall woman in white, and was so starchy that +she rattled like a newspaper when she walked. + +"Good morning," she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiled +clothes?" Head nurses are always bothering about soiled clothes; +and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use so +many bandages. + +"Yes, Miss Smith." + +"Meals come over promptly?" + +"Yes, Miss Smith." + +"Getting any sleep?" + +"Oh, yes, plenty--now." + +Miss Smith peered into the hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at the +Nurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient's +room, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her eyebrows rose. + +"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was older than that!" + +"Twenty-nine," said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July." + +"H'm!" commented the Head Nurse. "You evidently know! I had no idea +you were taking care of a boy. It won't do. I'll send over Miss +Hart." + +The Nurse tried to visualise Billy Grant in his times of stress +clutching at Miss Hart's hand, and failed. + +"Jenks is here, of course," she said, Jenks being the orderly. + +The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the head +nurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant, +looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years younger since the +shave, and she set her lips. + +"I am astonished beyond measure," she said. "Miss Hart will relieve +you at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have the +afternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning." + +Miss Smith rattled back across the courtyard and the Nurse stood +watching her; then turned slowly and went into the house to tell +Billy Grant. + +Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point: +that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart talk with the substitute at +two o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that he +would none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say he got the +superintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended to +make a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so little +considered as to change nurses just when he had got used to one, he +would have to alter his plans. Another and more likely story, +because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock a +florist's boy delivered to Miss Smith a box of orchids such as never +had been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said: +"Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that thou gavest." + +Whatever really happened--and only Billy Grant and the lady in +question ever really knew--that night at eight o'clock, with Billy +Grant sitting glumly in his room and Miss Hart studying typhoid +fever in the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion with +her soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyes +shining. And things went on as before--not quite as before; for with +the nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, and +the next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taught +her double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, when +he walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Then +at dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fight +alone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would +waken to the craving again and fight all day. + +"I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff Doctor one +day; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself--now or never." + +The Staff Doctor was no fool and he had heard about the orchids. + +"Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling and +cease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get it +over before you are free again." + +So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty much +himself again--had put on a little flesh and could feel his biceps +rise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt the +craving coming on, and there were days when the little pavilion was +full of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too, +and sent out for some collars. + +Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much of +good fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but he +did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the +strange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Only +once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the +dishes for him--against his protest, for he disliked being waited +on--he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. She +coloured. + +"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring." + +Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment: +"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them +over here?" + +It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had been +in his mind for some time. + +"Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here and +to eat together? It would be more sociable." + +She smiled. + +"It isn't permitted." + +"Do you think--would another box of orchids----" + +She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probably +be expelled." + +He was greatly aggrieved. + +"That's all foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse--any more +unconventional--than your bringing me your extra blanket on a cold +night? Oh, I heard you last night!" + +"Then why didn't you leave it on?" + +"And let you freeze?" + +"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night and +did no one any good." + +Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back. +He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour of +exercise outside the window, he sat inside reading--only apparently +reading, however. + +Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out. + +"Jenks!" called Billy Grant. + +Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man, +rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried meals +and soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twice +during a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet. + +"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of _spiritus +frumenti_. + +"Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "is +that bottle of yours empty?" + +"What bottle?" + +"The one in the closet." + +Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks--a look of man to man, +brother to brother. + +"Not quite, sir--a nip or two." + +"At," suggested Billy Grant, "say--five dollars a nip?" + +Jenks smiled. + +"About that," he said. "Filled?" + +Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate. + +"No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here." + +Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motioned +away. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it with +a curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upper +bureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, +bewildered. + +"Just a little experiment, Jenks," said Billy Grant. + +Jenks understood then and stopped smiling. + +"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant," he said; "it will only make you lose +confidence in yourself when it doesn't work out." + +"But it's going to work out," said Billy Grant. "Would you mind +turning on the cold water?" + +Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant's +eyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, they +were fixed on something in the neighbourhood of the dresser, and at +these times they had a curious, fixed look not unmixed with triumph. +She tried a new arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted the +mirror at a different angle, without effect. + +That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore on +he grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was unmistakable. He +stared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grew +unendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down at him +severely. She could only be severe when he was sitting--when he was +standing she had to look so far up at him, even when she stood on +her tiptoes. + +"What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my cap +crooked?" + +"It is a wonderful cap." + +"Is my face dirty?" + +"It is a won---- No, certainly not." + +"Then would you mind not staring so? You--upset me." + +"I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, and worried her +into a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his head +back and his eyes shut. + +So--the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle lay +undisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceased +running, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently. +That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into the +Nurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it across +the hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side, +and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had been +putting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant was +waiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something in +his face she had not seen there before. + +"Shall we breakfast?" he said. + +"I told you yesterday----" + +"Think a minute," he said softly. "Is there any reason why we should +not breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, but +she did not speak. "Unless--you do not wish to." + +"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to--fix +that----" + +"So I will if you say the word." + +"And--to forget all about it." + +"That," said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as I +live. Do you say the word?" + +"What else can I do?" + +"Then there is somebody else?" + +"Oh, no!" + +He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her. + +"If there is no one else," he said, "and if I tell you that you have +made me a man again----" + +"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward the +egg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand. + +"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?" + +Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in the +little Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would have +looked like a seismic disturbance. + +"I--I have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was looking +down when she said it. + +"Oh, my dear--my dear!" exulted Billy Grant. "It is I who must look +up at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed the +starched hem of her apron. + +The Nurse felt very absurd and a little frightened. + +"If only," she said, backing off--"if only you wouldn't be such a +silly! Jenks is coming!" + +But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height and +looked down at her--a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk at +a club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morning +some weeks before. + +"I love you--love you--love you!" he said, and took her in his arms. + + * * * * * + +Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H.N. +took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed in +losing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked. + +"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a trifle +breathless, the h.n. being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic." + +The H.N. stopped and raised a reproving forefinger. + +"Too much sympathy is a handicap," she orated. "The perfect nurse is +a silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine--this little +building here is the isolation pavilion." + +"An emotionless machine," repeated the applicant. "I see--an e----" + +The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds on +the windowsill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in a +very mussed cap were breakfasting together. And as she looked Billy +Grant bent over across the tray. + +"I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hands, +kissed first one and then the other. + +"It is hard work," said Miss Smith--having made a note that the boys +in the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboard +box on a string from a window--"hard work without sentiment. It is +not a romantic occupation." + +She waved an admonitory hand toward the window, and the box went up +swiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, where +Billy Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face in +her two palms. + +The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandaged +figures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, their +crutches beside them, its waterless fountain and dingy birds. + +The applicant thrilled to it all--joy and suffering, birth and +death, misery and hope, life and love. Love! + +The H.N. turned to her grimly, but her eyes were soft. + +"All this," she said, waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars a +month!" + +"I think," said the applicant shyly, "I should like to come." + + + + +GOD'S FOOL + + +I + +The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives +intellect--and they move the earth. To some He allots heart--and the +beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a +soul, without intelligence--and these, who never grow up, but remain +always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as +if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one colour instead +of many. + +The Dummy was God's fool. Having only a soul and no intelligence, he +lived the life of the soul. Through his faded, childish old blue +eyes he looked out on a world that hurried past him with, at +best, a friendly touch on his shoulder. No man shook his hand in +comradeship. No woman save the little old mother had ever caressed +him. He lived alone in a world of his own fashioning, peopled by +moving, noiseless figures and filled with dreams--noiseless because +the Dummy had ears that heard not and lips that smiled at a +kindness, but that did not speak. + +In this world of his there was no uncharitableness--no sin. There +was a God--why should he not know his Father?--there were brasses to +clean and three meals a day; and there was chapel on Sunday, where +one held a book--the Dummy held his upside down--and felt the +vibration of the organ, and proudly watched the afternoon sunlight +smiling on the polished metal of the chandelier and choir rail. + + * * * * * + +The Probationer sat turning the bandage machine and watching the +Dummy, who was polishing the brass plates on the beds. The plates +said: "Endowed in perpetuity"--by various leading citizens, to whom +God had given His best gifts, both heart and brain. + +"How old do you suppose he is?" she asked, dropping her voice. + +The Senior Nurse was writing fresh labels for the medicine closet, +and for "tincture of myrrh" she wrote absently "tincture of mirth," +and had to tear it up. + +"He can't hear you," she said rather shortly. "How old? Oh, I don't +know. About a hundred, I should think." + +This was, of course, because of his soul, which was all he had, and +which, having existed from the beginning, was incredibly old. The +little dead mother could have told them that he was less than +thirty. + +The Probationer sat winding bandages. Now and then they went +crooked and had to be done again. She was very tired. The creaking +of the bandage machine made her nervous--that and a sort of +disillusionment; for was this her great mission, this sitting in a +silent, sunny ward, where the double row of beds held only querulous +convalescent women? How close was she to life who had come to soothe +the suffering and close the eyes of the dying; who had imagined that +her instruments of healing were a thermometer and a prayer-book; and +who found herself fighting the good fight with a bandage machine +and, even worse, a scrubbing brush and a finetooth comb? + +The Senior Nurse, having finished the M's, glanced up and surprised +a tear on the Probationer's round young cheek. She was wise, having +trained many probationers. + +"Go to first supper, please," she said. First supper is the Senior's +prerogative; but it is given occasionally to juniors and +probationers as a mark of approval, or when the Senior is not +hungry, or when a probationer reaches the breaking point, which is +just before she gets her uniform. + +The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doing +fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. +Glimpses she had of the battle--stretchers going up and down in the +slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; +the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry +of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life +going out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed. + +"I'll put away the bandages first," she said. "That's what you said, +I think--never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?" + +"Right-oh!" said the Senior. + +"Though nothing ever happens back here--does it?' + +"It's about our turn; I'm looking for a burned case." The +Probationer, putting the bandages into a basket, turned and stared. + +"We have had two in to-day in the house," the Senior went on, +starting on the N's and making the capital carefully. "There will be +a third, of course; and we may get it. Cases always seem to run in +threes. While you're straightening the bed I suppose I might as well +go to supper after all." + +So it was the Probationer and the Dummy who received the new case, +while the Senior ate cold salmon and fried potatoes with other +seniors, and inveighed against lectures on Saturday evening and +other things that seniors object to, such as things lost in the +wash, and milk in the coffee instead of cream, and women from the +Avenue who drank carbolic acid and kept the ambulance busy. + +The Probationer was from the country and she had never heard of +the Avenue. And the Dummy, who walked there daily with the +superintendent's dog, knew nothing of its wickedness. In his soul, +where there was nothing but kindness, there was even a feeling of +tenderness for the Avenue. Once the dog had been bitten by a terrier +from one of the houses, and a girl had carried him in and washed the +wounds and bound them up. Thereafter the Dummy had watched for her +and bowed when he saw her. When he did not see her he bowed to the +house. + +The Dummy finished the brass plates and, gathering up his rags and +polish, shuffled to the door. His walk was a patient shamble, but he +covered incredible distances. When he reached the emergency bed he +stopped and pointed to it. The Probationer looked startled. + +"He's tellin' you to get it ready," shrilled Irish Delia, sitting up +in the next bed. "He did that before you was brought in," she called +to Old Maggie across the ward. "Goodness knows how he finds out--but +he knows. Get the spread off the bed, miss. There's something +coming." + + * * * * * + +The Probationer had come from the country and naturally knew nothing +of the Avenue. Sometimes on her off duty she took short walks there, +wondering if the passers-by who stared at her knew that she was a +part of the great building that loomed over the district, happily +ignorant of the real significance of their glances. Once a girl, +sitting behind bowed shutters, had leaned out and smiled at her. + +"Hot to-day, isn't it?" she said. + +The Probationer stopped politely. + +"It's fearful! Is there any place near where I can get some soda +water?" + +The girl in the window stared. + +"There's a drug store two squares down," she said. "And say, if I +were you----" + +"Yes?" + +"Oh, nothing!" said the girl in the window, and quite unexpectedly +slammed the shutters. + +The Probationer had puzzled over it quite a lot. More than once she +walked by the house, but she did not see the smiling girl--only, +curiously enough, one day she saw the Dummy passing the house and +watched him bow and take off his old cap, though there was no one in +sight. + +Sooner or later the Avenue girls get to the hospital. Sometimes it +is because they cannot sleep, and lie and think things over--and +there is no way out; and God hates them--though, of course, there is +that story about Jesus and the Avenue woman. And what is the use of +going home and being asked questions that cannot be answered? So +they try to put an end to things generally--and end up in the +emergency bed, terribly frightened, because it has occurred to them +that if they do not dare to meet the home folks how are they going +to meet the Almighty? + +Or sometimes it is jealousy. Even an Avenue woman must love some +one; and, because she's an elemental creature, if the object of her +affections turns elsewhere she's rather apt to use a knife or a +razor. In that case it is the rival who ends up on the emergency +bed. + +Or the life gets her, as it does sooner or later, and she comes in +with typhoid or a cough, or other things, and lies alone, day after +day, without visitors or inquiries, making no effort to get better, +because--well, why should she? + +And so the Dummy's Avenue Girl met her turn and rode down the street +in a clanging ambulance, and was taken up in the elevator and along +a grey hall to where the emergency bed was waiting; and the +Probationer, very cold as to hands and feet, was sending mental +appeals to the Senior to come--and come quickly. The ward got up on +elbows and watched. Also it told the Probationer what to do. + +"Hot-water bottles and screens," it said variously. "Take her +temperature. Don't be frightened! There'll be a doctor in a minute." + +The girl lay on the bed with her eyes shut. It was Irish Delia who +saw the Dummy and raised a cry. + +"Look at the Dummy!" she said. "He's crying." + +The Dummy's world had always been a small one. There was the +superintendent, who gave him his old clothes; and there was the +engineer, who brought him tobacco; and there were the ambulance +horses, who talked to him now and then without speech. And, of +course, there was his Father. + +Fringing this small inner circle of his heart was a kaleidoscope of +changing faces, nurses, _internes_, patients, visitors--a wall of +life that kept inviolate his inner shrine. And in the holiest place, +where had dwelt only his Father, and not even the superintendent, +the Dummy had recently placed the Avenue Girl. She was his saint, +though he knew nothing of saints. Who can know why he chose her? A +queer trick of the soul perhaps--or was it super-wisdom?--to choose +her from among many saintly women and so enshrine her. + +Or perhaps---- Down in the chapel, in a great glass window, the +young John knelt among lilies and prayed. When, at service on +Sundays, the sunlight came through on to the Dummy's polished choir +rail and candles, the young John had the face of a girl, with short +curling hair, very yellow for the colour scheme. The Avenue Girl had +hair like that and was rather like him in other ways. + +And here she was where all the others had come, and where countless +others would come sooner or later. She was not unconscious and at +Delia's cry she opened her eyes. The Probationer was off filling +water bottles, and only the Dummy, stricken, round-shouldered, +unlovely, stood beside her. + +"Rotten luck, old top!" she said faintly. + +To the Dummy it was a benediction. She could open her eyes. The +miracle of speech was still hers. + +"Cigarette!" explained the Avenue Girl, seeing his eyes still on +her. "Must have gone to sleep with it and dropped it. I'm--all in!" + +"Don't you talk like that," said Irish Delia, bending over from the +next bed. "You'll get well a' right--unless you inhaled. Y'ought to +'a' kept your mouth shut." + +Across the ward Old Maggie had donned her ragged slippers and a blue +calico wrapper and shuffled to the foot of the emergency bed. Old +Maggie was of that vague neighbourhood back of the Avenue, where +squalor and poverty rubbed elbows with vice, and scorned it. + +"Humph!" she said, without troubling to lower her voice. "I've seen +her often. I done her washing once. She's as bad as they make 'em." + +"You shut your mouth!" Irish Delia rose to the defence. "She's in +trouble now and what she was don't matter. You go back to bed or +I'll tell the Head Nurse on you. Look out! The Dummy----" + +The Dummy was advancing on Old Maggie with threatening eyes. As the +woman recoiled he caught her arm in one of his ugly, misshapen hands +and jerked her away from the bed. Old Maggie reeled--almost fell. + +"You all seen that!" she appealed to the ward. "I haven't even spoke +to him and he attacked me! I'll go to the superintendent about it. +I'll----" + +The Probationer hurried in. Her young cheeks were flushed with +excitement and anxiety; her arms were full of jugs, towels, +bandages--anything she could imagine as essential. She found the +Dummy on his knees polishing a bed plate, and the ward in +order--only Old Maggie was grumbling and making her way back to bed; +and Irish Delia was sitting up, with her eyes shining--for had not +the Dummy, who could not hear, known what Old Maggie had said about +the new girl? Had she not said that he knew many things that were +hidden, though God knows how he knew them? + +The next hour saw the Avenue Girl through a great deal. Her burns +were dressed by an _interne_ and she was moved back to a bed at the +end of the ward. The Probationer sat beside her, having refused +supper. The Dummy was gone--the Senior Nurse had shooed him off as +one shoos a chicken. + +"Get out of here! You're always under my feet," she had said--not +unkindly--and pointed to the door. + +The Dummy had stood, with his faded old-young eyes on her, and had +not moved. The Senior, who had the ward supper to serve and beds to +brush out and backs to rub, not to mention having to make up the +emergency bed and clear away the dressings--the Senior tried +diplomacy and offered him an orange from her own corner of the +medicine closet. He shook his head. + +"I guess he wants to know whether that girl from the Avenue's going +to get well," said Irish Delia. "He seems to know her." + +There was a titter through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossiping +tongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward had veered +to contempt. + +"Humph!" said the Senior, and put the orange back. "Why, yes; I +guess she'll get well. But how in Heaven's name am I to let him +know?" + +She was a resourceful person, however, and by pointing to the Avenue +Girl and then nodding reassuringly she got her message of cheer over +the gulf of his understanding. In return the Dummy told her by +gestures how he knew the girl and how she had bound up the leg of +the superintendent's dog. The Senior was a literal person and not +occult; and she was very busy. When the Dummy stooped to indicate +the dog, a foot or so from the ground, she seized that as the key of +the situation. + +"He's trying to let me know that he knew her when she was a baby," +she observed generally. "All right, if that's the case. Come in and +see her when you want to. And now get out, for goodness' sake!" + +The Dummy, with his patient shamble, made his way out of the ward +and stored his polishes for the night in the corner of a +scrub-closet. Then, ignoring supper, he went down the stairs, flight +after flight, to the chapel. The late autumn sun had set behind the +buildings across the courtyard and the lower part of the silent room +was in shadow; but the afterglow came palely through the +stained-glass window, with the young John and tall stalks of white +lilies, and "To the Memory of My Daughter Elizabeth" beneath. + +It was only a coincidence--and not even that to the Dummy--but +Elizabeth had been the Avenue Girl's name not so long ago. + +The Dummy sat down near the door very humbly and gazed at the +memorial window. + + +II + +Time may be measured in different ways--by joys; by throbs of pain; +by instants; by centuries. In a hospital it is marked by night +nurses and day nurses; by rounds of the Staff; by visiting days; by +medicines and temperatures and milk diets and fever baths; by the +distant singing in the chapel on Sundays; by the shift of the +morning sun on the east beds to the evening sun on the beds along +the west windows. + +The Avenue Girl lay alone most of the time. The friendly offices of +the ward were not for her. Private curiosity and possible kindliness +were over-shadowed by a general arrogance of goodness. The ward +flung its virtue at her like a weapon and she raised no defence. In +the first days things were not so bad. She lay in shock for a time, +and there were not wanting hands during the bad hours to lift a cup +of water to her lips; but after that came the tedious time when +death no longer hovered overhead and life was there for the asking. + +The curious thing was that the Avenue Girl did not ask. She lay for +hours without moving, with eyes that seemed tired with looking into +the dregs of life. The Probationer was in despair. + +"She could get better if she would," she said to the _interne_ one +day. The Senior was off duty and they had done the dressing +together. "She just won't try." + +"Perhaps she thinks it isn't worth while," replied the _interne_, +who was drying his hands carefully while the Probationer waited for +the towel. + +She was a very pretty Probationer. + +"She hasn't much to look forward to, you know." + +The Probationer was not accustomed to discussing certain things with +young men, but she had the Avenue Girl on her mind. + +"She has a home--she admits it." She coloured bravely. "Why--why +cannot she go back to it, even now?" + +The _interne_ poured a little rosewater and glycerine into the palm +of one hand and gave the Probationer the bottle. If his fingers +touched hers, she never knew it. + +"Perhaps they'd not want her after--well, they'd never feel the +same, likely. They'd probably prefer to think of her as dead and let +it go at that. There--there doesn't seem to be any way back, you +know." + +He was exceedingly self-conscious. + +"Then life is very cruel," said the Probationer with rather shaky +lips. + +And going back to the Avenue Girl's bed she filled her cup with ice +and straightened her pillows. It was her only way of showing +defiance to a world that mutilated its children and turned them out +to die. The _interne_ watched her as she worked. It rather galled +him to see her touching this patient. He had no particular sympathy +for the Avenue Girl. He was a man, and ruthless, as men are apt to +be in such things. + +The Avenue Girl had no visitors. She had had one or two at +first--pretty girls with tired eyes and apologetic glances; a +negress who got by the hall porter with a box of cigarettes, which +the Senior promptly confiscated; and--the Dummy. Morning and evening +came the Dummy and stood by her bed and worshipped. Morning and +evening he brought tribute--a flower from the masses that came in +daily; an orange, got by no one knows what trickery from the +kitchen; a leadpencil; a box of cheap candies. At first the girl had +been embarrassed by his visits. Later, as the unfriendliness of the +ward grew more pronounced, she greeted him with a faint smile. The +first time she smiled he grew quite pale and shuffled out. Late that +night they found him sitting in the chapel looking at the window, +which was only a blur. + +For certain small services in the ward the Senior depended on the +convalescents--filling drinking cups; passing milk at eleven and +three; keeping the white bedspreads in geometrical order. But the +Avenue Girl was taboo. The boycott had been instituted by Old +Maggie. The rampant respectability of the ward even went so far as +to refuse to wash her in those early morning hours when the night +nurse, flying about with her cap on one ear, was carrying tin basins +about like a blue-and-white cyclone. The Dummy knew nothing of the +washing; the early morning was the time when he polished the brass +doorplate which said: Hospital and Free Dispensary. But he knew +about the drinking cup and after a time that became his +self-appointed task. + +On Sundays he put on his one white shirt and a frayed collar two +sizes too large and went to chapel. At those times he sat with his +prayer book upside down and watched the Probationer who cared for +his lady and who had no cap to hide her shining hair, and the +_interne_, who was glad there was no cap because of the hair. God's +fool he was, indeed, for he liked to look in the _interne's_ eyes, +and did not know an _interne_ cannot marry for years and years, and +that a probationer must not upset discipline by being engaged. God's +fool, indeed, who could see into the hearts of men, but not into +their thoughts or their lives; and who, seeing only thus, on two +dimensions of life and not the third, found the Avenue Girl holy and +worthy of all worship! + + * * * * * + +The Probationer worried a great deal. + +"It must hurt her so!" she said to the Senior. "Did you see them +call that baby away on visiting day for fear she would touch it?" + +"None are so good as the untempted," explained the Senior, who had +been beautiful and was now placid and full of good works. "You +cannot remake the world, child. Bodies are our business here--not +souls." But the next moment she called Old Maggie to her. + +"I've been pretty patient, Maggie," she said. "You know what I mean. +You're the ringleader. Now things are going to change, or--you'll go +back on codliver oil to-night." + +"Yes'm," said Old Maggie meekly, with hate in her heart. She loathed +the codliver oil. + +"Go back and straighten her bed!" commanded the Senior sternly. + +"Now?" + +"Now!" + +"It hurts my back to stoop over," whined Old Maggie, with the ward +watching. "The doctor said that I----" + +The Senior made a move for the medicine closet and the bottles +labelled C. + +"I'm going," whimpered Old Maggie. "Can't you give a body time?" + +And she went down to defeat, with the laughter of the ward in her +ears--down to defeat, for the Avenue Girl would have none of her. + +"You get out of here!" she said fiercely as Old Maggie set to work +at the draw sheet. "Get out quick--or I'll throw this cup in your +face!" + +The Senior was watching. Old Maggie put on an air of benevolence and +called the Avenue Girl an unlovely name under her breath while she +smoothed her pillow. She did not get the cup, but the water out of +it, in her hard old face, and matters were as they had been. + +The Girl did not improve as she should. The _interne_ did the +dressing day after day, while the Probationer helped him--the Senior +disliked burned cases--and talked of skin grafting if a new powder +he had discovered did no good. _Internes_ are always trying out new +things, looking for the great discovery. + +The powder did no good. The day came when, the dressing over and the +white coverings drawn up smoothly again over her slender body, the +Avenue Girl voiced the question that her eyes had asked each time. + +"Am I going to lie in this hole all my life?" she demanded. + +The _interne_ considered. + +"It isn't healing--not very fast anyhow," he said. "If we could get +a little skin to graft on you'd be all right in a jiffy. Can't you +get some friends to come in? It isn't painful and it's over in a +minute." + +"Friends? Where would I get friends of that sort?" + +"Well, relatives then--some of your own people?" + +The Avenue Girl shut her eyes as she did when the dressing hurt her. + +"None that I'd care to see," she said. And the Probationer knew she +lied. The _interne_ shrugged his shoulders. + +"If you think of any let me know. We'll get them here," he said +briskly, and turned to see the Probationer rolling up her sleeve. + +"Please!" she said, and held out a bare white arm. The _interne_ +stared at it stupefied. It was very lovely. + +"I am not at all afraid," urged the Probationer, "and my blood is +good. It would grow--I know it would." + +The _interne_ had hard work not to stoop and kiss the blue veins +that rose to the surface in the inner curve of her elbow. The +dressing screens were up and the three were quite alone. To keep his +voice steady he became stern. + +"Put your sleeve down and don't be a foolish girl!" he, commanded. +"Put your sleeve down!" His eyes said: "You wonder! You beauty! You +brave little girl!" + +Because the Probationer seemed to take her responsibilities rather +to heart, however, and because, when he should have been thinking of +other things, such as calling up the staff and making reports, he +kept seeing that white arm and the resolute face above it, the +_interne_ worked out a plan. + +"I've fixed it, I think," he said, meeting her in a hallway where +he had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known +she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. +He's got a lot of students--fellows studying for the priesthood--and +he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay +'em alive." + +"But--is she a daughter of the church?" asked the Probationer. "And +even if she were, under the circumstances----" + +"What circumstances?" demanded the _interne_. "Here's a poor girl +burned and suffering. The father is not going to ask whether she's +of the anointed." + +The Probationer was not sure. She liked doing things in the open and +with nothing to happen later to make one uncomfortable; but she +spoke to the Senior and the Senior was willing. Her chief trouble, +after all, was with the Avenue Girl herself. + +"I don't want to get well," she said wearily when the thing was put +up to her. "What's the use? I'd just go back to the same old thing; +and when it got too strong for me I'd end up here again or in the +morgue." + +"Tell me where your people live, then, and let me send for them." + +"Why? To have them read in my face what I've been, and go back home +to die of shame?" + +The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl's face. + +"There--there is nothing in your face to hurt them," she said, +flushing--because there were some things the Probationer had never +discussed, even with herself. "You--look sad. Honestly, that's all." + +The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand. The forefinger was +still yellow from cigarettes. + +"What about that?" she sneered. + +"If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?" + +"I'll--perhaps," was the most the Probationer could get. + +Many people would have been discouraged. Even the Senior was a bit +cynical. It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read in +the Avenue Girl's eyes the terrible longing for the things she had +given up--for home and home folks; for a clean slate again. The +Probationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a little +of her hopeful spirit touched the other girl. + +"What day is it?" the Avenue Girl asked once. + +"Friday." + +"That's baking day at home. We bake in an out-oven. Did you ever +smell bread as it comes from an out-oven?" Or: "That's a pretty +shade of blue you nurses wear. It would be nice for working in the +dairy, wouldn't it?" + +"Fine!" said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumph +in her eyes. + + +III + +That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged to +the Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should have +known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed +never to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of Father +Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl's +loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one of +the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the +plate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her more +than once when the Senior was out of the ward. + +And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman with +a hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded a +parrot. + +"Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly. + +"Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day +and stole a parrot--and I want it." + +"The Dummy! But what on earth----" + +"It was my parrot," said the woman. "It belonged to one of my +boarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards--and she owed +me money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him look +me in the eye while I say parrot to him." + +"He cannot speak or hear." + +"You call him. He'll understand me!" + +They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the +stable and haled him into the office. He was very calm--quite +impassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she +raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head. + +"As a matter of fact," said the superintendent, "I don't believe he +ever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'll +get it again." + +They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a dove +above the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen and +filled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all of +parrots or how to care for them. + +Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stain +was coming off--she had been fond of the parrot and now it was close +at hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into a +hospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on the +football field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to account +for--and there was the matter of an alibi. + +"I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe it +because they'd want to believe it," said the Avenue Girl. "But +there's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And--there's a +fellow who wanted to marry me--he knew how sick I was of the old +place and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have to +show Jerry." + +The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. +It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especially +for Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on her +off-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenue +mostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over her +blue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl had +lived with. + +"She got her into all this," thought the Probationer. "She's just +got to see her out." + +It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing the +doorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she had +rung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of the +girl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, and +she stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her. + +"She's dead, is she?" she asked. + +"No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress." + +The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in the +vestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase. + +"One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wants +to come in and speak to you." + +"Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs. + +The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer remembered +putting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot and +finding it difficult to make her understand. + +"Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to go +home--to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going to +say about these last two years?" + +The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was most +uncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned them +again and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round. + +"She's in bad shape, is she?" + +"She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred--not her face, but her +chest and shoulders." + +That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred---- + +"Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was down +to brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was more +comfortable. + +"If you could just come over to the hospital while her people are +there and--and say she'd lived with you all the time----" + +"That's the truth all right!" + +"And--that she worked for you, sewing--she sews very well, she +says. And--oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been--all right, +you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy." + +Now the stout woman was softening--not that she was really hard, but +she had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and good +impulses had a hard time crawling through. + +"I guess I could do that much," she conceded. "She nursed me when I +was down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunk +in the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot that +belongs to me. What about that?" + +The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it +into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the +patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it sat +on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had +smiled benignly. John and the dove--the girl and the parrot! + +"I am sorry about the parrot. I--perhaps I could buy him from you." + +She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried her +munificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money she +had brought from home. + +"Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me." + +The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spread +it out in her lap and counted it twice. + +"I'm afraid that's all," she said. She had hoped the second count +would show up better. "I could bring the rest next month." + +The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stout +woman took it eagerly. + +"He's yours," she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. +When do you want me?" + +"I'll send you word," said the Probationer, and got up. She was +almost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money at +all in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into the +air somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediately +and put on everything fresh, and felt much better--but very +poor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer about +thermometers--that she should not break hers until she had money for +a new one. + + * * * * * + +Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the door +of the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked no +questions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell him +something, but he put up a white hand. + +"What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday is +gone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"--his Irish +eyes twinkled--"and a fine day it will be by the sunset." + +Then he turned to his small army. + +"Boys," he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chances +with his men. I'm going first"--he said fir-rst. "It's a small +thing, as I've told you--a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smiling +and come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the _interne_. + +That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feeny +and the _interne_ go behind the screens, both smiling, and they +watched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but a +little bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outside +the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather +forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no +deserter--only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to +contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation +to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he +remained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over. + +Though the _interne_ had said there was no way back, the first step +had really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself and +with everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer tried +to find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent a +grateful little note to his room: + + Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple? + [Signed] WARD A. + + P.S.--It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful + since it is over. How can I ever thank you? + +The reply came back very quickly: + + Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. WARD A. + [Signed] D.L.S. + + P.S.--Can you come up on the roof for a little air? + +She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodness +nurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; but +a probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedingly +careful--though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. +She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over her +forehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tiny +hairpins, and went up after all--not because she intended to, but +because as she came out of her room the elevator was going up--not +down. She was on the roof almost before she knew it. + +The _interne_ was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they +talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was +expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on +them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told +of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and +the plot. + +The _interne_ stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some +day he would mellow and accept life as it is--not as he would have +it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a +shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was +pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to +have an alibi!" said the Probationer. + +"Oh, of course," very stiffly. + +"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done." + +"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of +course. Only----" + +"Please go on." + +"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled." + +"I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer +stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was +sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He +thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and +her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and +making her plea--and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then +that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney. + +"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!" + +The _interne_ walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of +the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She +had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably +the Probationer would never speak to him again. + +The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee +looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed +the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had +a piece of apple pie in its claw now. + +"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the _interne_ crookedly. + +The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the +parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's +ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it +hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some +instinct of despair had seized him for its own--some conception, +perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the +_interne's_ wrath gave way to impotency. + +"Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly. + + +IV + +The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummy +and smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smile +back now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in the +Avenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes each +morning found a glow of hope--that died, it is true, by noontime; +but it came again with the new day. + +"How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give him +a bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish you +could talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you took +the parrot. It must have been a scream!" + +He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them on +her pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer was +combing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned the +Dummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears in +her eyes. + +"The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said. + +"I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"--the Probationer poised the +comb--"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know." + +They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window. + +"He's about the first decent man I ever knew," said the Avenue +Girl--"and he's a fool!" + +"Either a fool or very, very wise," replied the Probationer. + +The _interne_ and the Probationer were good friends again, but they +had never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. +Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and there +was an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. +He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that he +was entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed a +good scolding--only, of course, it is never the wise people who make +life worth the living. + +And an important thing had happened--the Probationer had been +accepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, though +it generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it on +and putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she knelt +at prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for getting +through when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean and +pure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, +trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went out +that night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot. + +Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more +grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body +and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was +refused politely. + +"You are a part of the institution now," said the _interne_, with +his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot +cripple the institution." + +It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew +the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did +and would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staff +about it. + +"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a +great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do." + +"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the +world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it." + +So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times. +Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the +girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his +bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the +courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over +the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement +pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty +feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly. + +The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained +wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never +one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the +children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real +reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her +arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards. + +"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal +it!" + +The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid, +smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child. +Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to +the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms. + +"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business +to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the +three-o'clock medicines. + +When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and +that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and +grew. + +At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. The +girl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strange +way the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope would +shift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing and +disappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart. + +One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his only +home, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. The +watchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of the +seats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar. + +Rose--who was the stout woman--came early. She wore a purple dress, +with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scorn +and a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusively +behind the screens that surrounded the bed. + +"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn't +get to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?" + +"Do you want to see it?" + +"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'll +blow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all right +for it, isn't it?" + +"All you need to do," said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say that +I've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And--if you can +say anything good----" + +"I'll do that all right," Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bag +on the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave it +to me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say." + +The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working the +creaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From her +chair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she who +announced the coming of destiny. + +"Here comes the father," she confided to the end of the ward. "Guess +the mother couldn't come." + +It was not the father though. It was a young man who hesitated in +the doorway, hat in hand--a tall young man, with a strong and not +unhandsome face. The Probationer, rather twitchy from excitement and +anxiety, felt her heart stop and race on again. Jerry, without a +doubt! + +The meeting was rather constrained. The girl went whiter than her +pillows and half closed her eyes; but Rose, who would have been +terrified at the sight of an elderly farmer, was buoyantly relieved +and at her ease. + +"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I--we didn't realise it had been so bad. +The folks are well; but--I thought I'd better come. They're +expecting you back home." + +"It was nice of you to come," said the girl, avoiding his eyes. +"I--I'm getting along fine." + +"I guess introductions ain't necessary," put in Rose briskly. "I'm +Mrs. Sweeney. She's been living with me--working for me, sewing. +She's sure a fine sewer! She made this suit I'm wearing." + +Poor Rose, with "custom made" on every seam of the purple! But Jerry +was hardly listening. His eyes were on the girl among the pillows. + +"I see," said Jerry slowly. "You haven't said yet, Elizabeth. Are +you going home?" + +"If--they want me." + +"Of course they want you!" Again Rose: "Why shouldn't they? You've +been a good girl and a credit to any family. If they say anything +mean to you you let me know." + +"They'll not be mean to her. I'm sure they'll want to write and +thank you. If you'll just give me your address, Mrs. Sweeney----" + +He had a pencil poised over a notebook. Rose hesitated. Then she +gave her address on the Avenue, with something of bravado in her +voice. After all, what could this country-store clerk know of the +Avenue? Jerry wrote it down carefully. + +"Sweeney--with an e?" he asked politely. + +"With three e's," corrected Rose, and got up with dignity. + +"Well, good-bye, dearie," she said. "You've got your friends now and +you don't need me. I guess you've had your lesson about going to +sleep with a cig--about being careless with fire. Drop me a postal +when you get the time." + +She shook hands with Jerry and rustled and jingled down the ward, +her chin well up. At the door she encountered Old Maggie, her arms +full of bandages. + +"How's the Avenue?" asked Old Maggie. + +Rose, however, like all good actresses, was still in the part +as she made her exit. She passed Old Maggie unheeding, severe +respectability in every line of her figure, every nod of her purple +plumes. She was still in the part when she encountered the +Probationer. + +"It's going like a house afire!" she said. "He swallowed it +all--hook and bait! And--oh, yes, I've got something for you." She +went down into her silver bag and pulled out a roll of bills. "I've +felt meaner'n a dog every time I've thought of you buying that +parrot. I've got a different view of life--maybe--from yours; but +I'm not taking candy from a baby." + +When the Probationer could speak Rose was taking herself and the +purple into the elevator and waving her a farewell. + +"Good-bye!" she said. "If ever you get stuck again just call on me." + +With Rose's departure silence fell behind the screen. The girl broke +it first. + +"They're all well, are they?" + +"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'd +write to her." The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing. +She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. The +post office burned down last summer. They're building a new one. +And--I've been building. I tore down the old place." + +"Are you going to be married, Jerry?" + +"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something to +do; it kept me from--thinking." + +The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew! +Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothing +was any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror of +the thing she was. She would have to go back--to Rose and the +others. He would never take her home. + +Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolising +thermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. The +Avenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationer +was going to the roof--to meet some one who was sincerely repentant +and very meek. + +In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly--one of +those spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts of +people and a melody all their own: + + _'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber, + Far, far away, + Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber-- + Dere's wha de old folks stay._ + +It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in white +wretchedness--and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid in +his chair. + +"Jerry?" + +"Yes." + +"I--I guess I've been pretty far away." + +"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this. + +"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but if +you'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry----" + +"I believe you, Elizabeth." + +"One of the nurses here says----Jerry, won't you look at me?" With +some difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one starts +wrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made +me do it." + +She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life +he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and +he stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've been +hurt that I--am sorry," she went on. "I loathed it! I'd have +finished it all long ago, only--I was afraid." + +"I would rather have found you dead!" + +There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of +suffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtain +of the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced at +his watch. He was quite white. The girl's hand still lay on the +coverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think only +little thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealing +hand the last wall of his house would fall. + +It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with +his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the +screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, +that this, his saint, would go--and not alone--to join the vanishing +circle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at the +time it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at the +screen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand and +stood smiling down at the girl. + +"The only person in the world who believes in me!" said the girl +bitterly. "And he's a fool!" + +The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes there +was the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and the +blur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly he +bent over and placed the man's hand over the girl's. + +The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the white +coverlet. + + * * * * * + +The _interne_ was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had faded +to lavender--to dark purple--to night. + +The Probationer came up at last--not a probationer now, of course; +but she had left off her cap and was much less stately. + +"I'm sorry," she explained; "but I've been terribly busy. It went +off so well!" + +"Of course--if you handled it." + +"You know--don't you?--it was the lover who came. He looks so strong +and good--oh, she is safe now!" + +"That's fine!" said the _interne_ absently. They were sitting on the +parapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. +"Isn't it a glorious evening?" He had the fingers pretty close by +that time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to his +lips. + +"Such a kind little hand!" he said over it. "Such a dear, tender +little hand! My hand!" he said, rather huskily. + +Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. At +his feet the superintendent's dog lay on his side and dreamed of +battle. The Dummy's eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl had +bandaged--how long ago! + +His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among the +lilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked to +him without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all it +was that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. +The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnine +affection. + + + + +THE MIRACLE + + +I + +Big Mary was sweeping the ward with a broom muffled in a white bag. +In the breeze from the open windows, her blue calico wrapper +ballooned about her and made ludicrous her frantic thrusts after the +bits of fluff that formed eddies under the beds and danced in the +spring air. + +She finished her sweeping, and, with the joyous scraps captured in +her dust-pan, stood in the doorway, critically surveying the ward. +It was brilliantly clean and festive; on either side a row of beds, +fresh white for the day; on the centre table a vase of Easter +lilies, and on the record-table near the door a potted hyacinth. The +Nurse herself wore a bunch of violets tucked in her apron-band. One +of the patients had seen the Junior Medical give them to her. The +Eastern sun, shining across the beds, made below them, on the +polished floor, black islands of shadow in a gleaming sea of light. + +And scattered here and there, rocking in chairs or standing at +windows, enjoying the Sunday respite from sewing or the +bandage-machine, women, grotesque and distorted of figure, in +attitudes of weariness and expectancy, with patient eyes awaited +their crucifixion. Behind them, in the beds, a dozen perhaps who had +come up from death and held the miracle in their arms. + +The miracles were small and red, and inclined to feeble and +ineffectual wrigglings. Fists were thrust in the air and brought +down on smiling, pale mother faces. With tight-closed eyes and open +mouths, each miracle squirmed and nuzzled until the mother would +look with pleading eyes at the Nurse. And the Nurse would look +severe and say: + +"Good gracious, Annie Petowski, surely you don't want to feed that +infant again! Do you want the child to have a dilated stomach?" + +Fear of that horrible and mysterious condition, a dilated stomach, +would restrain Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara +for a time. With the wisdom of the serpent, she would give the child +her finger to suck--a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the last +week that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would take +hold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort. +Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiet +hospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then Annie +Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch the +Nurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit from +the ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, close +to Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstatic +gurglings--and peace. + +In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at the +record-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, of +clean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hours +for the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodic +searches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast, +decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne, +too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to the +kitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes. + +But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Her +crown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and her +blue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apron +and sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in for +a moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman, +to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she had +appeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds and +put hot-water bottles in it. + +The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was +"on." Excursions down the corridor by one or another of the +blue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news: + +"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones, +the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "The +doctor with the red mustache has come"--by which it was known that +things were going badly, the staff man having been summoned. + +Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward, +denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usually +regarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the other +women. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young woman +who played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterward +went from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanying +herself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young woman +seated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, and +afterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray of +lilies-of-the-valley on each bedside stand. + +She was escorted around the ward by Elizabeth Miller, known as "Liz" +in Our Alley, and rechristened Elizabeth by the Nurse. Elizabeth +always read the tracts. She had been there four times, and knew all +the nurses and nearly all the doctors. "Liz" had been known, in a +shortage of nurses, to be called into the mysterious room down the +hall to assist; and on those occasions, in an all-enveloping white +gown over her wrapper, with her hair under a cap, she outranked the +queen herself in regalness and authority. + +The lame mandolin-player stopped at the foot of the empty bed. +"Shall I put one here?" she asked, fingering a tract. + +Liz meditated majestically. + +"Well, I guess I would," she said. "Not that it'll do any good." + +"Why?" + +Liz jerked her head toward the corridor. + +"She's not getting on very well," she said; "and, even if she gets +through, she won't read the tract. She held her fingers in her ears +last Sunday while the Bible-reader was here. She's young. Says she +hopes she and the kid'll both die." + +The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward. + +"Then she--isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, she +flushed painfully. + +Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in her +eyes. + +"Well, no," she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She's +a fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do. +Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn't +he be always throwing it up to her?" + +The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophy +of life. + +"Have--have you a baby here?" she asked timidly. + +"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. She +turned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny red +atom, so like the others that only mother love could have +distinguished it. + +"This is mine," she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?" + +The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child. + +"He--he's very little," she said. + +"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last six +months--eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. The +little devil!" + +She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleeping +form. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thing +to say. + +"Does--does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. But +apparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. The +mandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and, +vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door. + +Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, with +tired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table. + +The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From the +blankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan--of +hurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, so +relentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Then +she gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down the +hall. + +The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill, +high wail, a rising and falling note of distress--the voice of a new +soul in protest. She went past with averted face. + +Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl up +bodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood back +and smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips. + +"Well," she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's no +picnic, is it?" + +The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of her +features in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodless +refinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had been +through the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyes +were hard. + +"Go away," she said petulantly. + +Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. + +"You sleep now," she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can have +a cup of tea." + +The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz's +face. + +"I don't want to sleep," she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to live +and so am I!" + + +II + +Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she had +oiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him a +teaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, and +went to her room to put on a fresh uniform. The first thing she did, +when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of her +mother tucked in its frame, and survey herself. When she saw her cap +and the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, she +frowned. + +Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully in +a glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over and +kissed them. After that she felt better. + +She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought her +colour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustled +with each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally she +tucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap, +which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions. + +If she had not gone back to the mirror to see that the general +effect was as crisp as it should be, things would have been +different for Liz, and for the new mother back in the ward. But she +did go back; and there, lying on the floor in front of the bureau, +all folded together, was a piece of white paper exactly as if it has +been tucked in her belt with the violets. + +She opened it rather shakily, and it was a leaf from the ward +order-book, for at the top it said: + + Annie Petowski--may sit up for one hour. + +And below that: + + Goldstein baby--bran baths. + +And below that: + + I love you. E.J. + +"E.J." was the Junior Medical. + +So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, in +the throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, and +found where the page had been torn out of the order-book. + +And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by their +courts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easter +afternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies had +colic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of the +House Committee looked in at the door and said: + +"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always a +sort of benediction." + +The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the new +mother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refined +from the furnace of pain. + +"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving an +odor of peau d'Espagne. + +The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there was +nothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wild +mutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the first +one" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched. + +The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing the +Easter lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed. + +"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under the +blankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which the +girl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed her +savagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought out +her hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it. + +"Now listen to me," said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain't +the only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And what +happened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and they +put the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened get +used to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don't +be a fool!" + +She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There were +other ways. + +The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. She +sat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervals +of taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about Annie +Petowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having bran +baths, and the other thing written below! + +At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and grey +trousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter service +downstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according to +precedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapel +must always wear a frock-coat. + +Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at his +gorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Then +he came back and stood by the table, looking at a record. + +"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect. + +"Ninety-eight." + +"Her pulse is strong?" + +"Yes; she's resting quietly." + +"Good.--And--did you get my note?" + +This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" or +anything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near. + +"Yes." The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up at +him. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him Godspeed with his +wooing, but it made him uncomfortable. + +"Watch her closely," he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent." +And he looked at Liz. + +"Elizabeth," said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fan +her?" + +Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for a +mother, but she had been named when she was very small. + +Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer to +the effect that they were both so damned good to everybody, she +hoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wicked +availeth nothing. + +"You know I meant that," he said, from behind a record. "I--I love +you with all my heart--and if only you----" + +The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I love +you, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, she +put the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth. + +The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in his +frock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never part +properly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling with +happiness. + +And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavish +her new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceiling +and reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all her +despair. + +So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had never +batted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with both +fists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trained +nurse is ever supposed to do. + +She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother. + +But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her. + +"Take the brat away," she said, and went on reading tragedies on the +ceiling. + +Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew. +She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculous +hands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But when +Liz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away. +So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there, +still sleeping. + +The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristic +of great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and here +before her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her. + +"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night," she said, approaching the +table with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospital +carpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the way +she watches the ceiling." + +"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse. + +"Time I had the twins--that's before your time," said Liz--"we had +one like that. She went out the window head first the night after +the baby came, and took the kid with her." + +The Nurse rose with quick decision. + +"We must watch her," she said. "Perhaps if I could find--I think +I'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, and +if Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, take +it from her. The child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm out +for five minutes." + +Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching back +until the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change the +bedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patient +over more than once, which is a high and desirable form of +knowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; their +clean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of the +world and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs to +the telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding. + +The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed with +the Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in her +manicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking the +telephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom. + +"Yes," she said indolently. + +The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmer +tinge. + +"Oh, yes," she said. "How are you?... Claribel? Yes; what about +her?... What!" + +"Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl--seven pounds." + +"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; my +cigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right--go ahead." + +"She's taking it pretty hard, and I--I thought you might help her. +She--she----" + +"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned in +the bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow. +"Twenty enough?" + +"I don't think it's money," said the Nurse, "although she needs that +too; she hasn't any clothes for the baby. But--she's awfully +despondent--almost desperate. Have you any idea who the child's +father is?" + +Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand and +balancing the telephone with the other. + +"She left me a year ago," she said. "Oh, yes; I know now. What time +is it?" + +"Two o'clock." + +"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Rosie. "I'll get the fellow on +the wire and see what he's willing to do. Maybe he'll give her a +dollar or two a week." + +"Do you think you could bring him to see her?" + +"Say, what do you think I am--a missionary?" The Nurse was wise, so +she kept silent. "Well, I'll tell you what I will do. If I can bring +him, I will. How's that yellow-haired she-devil you've got over +there? I've got that fixed all right. She pulled a razor on me +first--I've got witnesses. Well, if I can get Al, I'll do it. So +long." + +It did not occur to the Nurse to deprecate having used an evil +medium toward a righteous end. She took life much as she found it. +And so she tiptoed past the chapel again, where a faint odour of +peau d'Espagne came stealing out into the hall, and where the +children from the children's ward, in roller-chairs and on crutches, +were singing with all their shrill young voices, earnest eyes +uplifted. + +The white Easter lilies on the altar sent their fragrance out over +the gathering, over the nurses, young and placid, over the hopeless +and the hopeful, over the faces where death had passed and left its +inevitable stamp, over bodies freshly risen on this Easter Sunday +to new hope and new life--over the Junior Medical, waiting with the +manuscript of "The Palms" rolled in his hand and his heart singing a +hymn of happiness. + +The Nurse went up to her ward, and put a screen around Claribel, +and, with all her woman's art, tidied the immaculate white bed and +loosened the uncompromising yellow braids, so that the soft hair +fell across Claribel's bloodless forehead and softened the defiance +in her blue eyes. She brought the pink hyacinth in its pot, too, and +placed it on the bedside table. Then she stood off and looked at her +work. It was good. + +Claribel submitted weakly. She had stopped staring at the wall, and +had taken to watching the open window opposite with strange +intentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat to the bedspread +she spoke. + +"Was it a boy--or a girl?" she asked. + +"Girl," said the nurse briskly. "A little beauty, perfect in every +way." + +"A girl--to grow up and go through this hell!" she muttered, and her +eyes wandered back to the window. + +But the Nurse was wise with the accumulated wisdom of a sex that has +had to match strength with wile for ages, and she was not yet ready. +She went into the little room where eleven miracles lay in eleven +cribs, and, although they all looked exactly alike, she selected +Claribel's without hesitation, and carried it to the mysterious room +down the hall--which was no longer a torture-chamber, but a +resplendently white place, all glass and tile and sunlight, and +where she did certain things that are not prescribed in the hospital +rules. + +First of all, she opened a cupboard and took out a baby dress of +lace and insertion,--and everybody knows that such a dress is used +only when a hospital infant is baptised,--and she clothed Claribel's +baby in linen and fine raiment, and because they are very, very red +when they are so new, she dusted it with a bit of talcum--to break +the shock, as you may say. It was very probable that Al had never +seen so new a baby, and it was useless to spoil the joy of +parenthood unnecessarily. For it really was a fine child, and +eventually it would be white and beautiful. + +The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in a +sachet. + +Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put it +back in its crib. And then she rustled starchily back to the +throne-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the place +where it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldstein +baby--bran baths, and the other thing written just below. + + +III + +The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance, +the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medical +staff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty. + +Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms; +and, as the song went on, Liz's eyes fell to her child and stayed +there. + +At three o'clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along the +hall--Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under a +gaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupported +and wrapper-clad. She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however, +and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending it +with a regal gesture to the elevator-man. + +"Here, old sport," she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It's +Easter." + +Such munificence appalled the ward. + +Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al. +The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him +curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the +doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm. + +"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there," he said. But Rosie pulled him +in and presented him to the Nurse. + +Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the open +window, had taken to staring at the ceiling again. + +When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she had +moaned and put her fingers in her ears. + +"Well, I found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a time +locating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky +figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and +just now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him. + +"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you," she said, +and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do the +talking." + +Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and the +mystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen her +last, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure and +accusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision went +through the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look of +black hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and he +was looking at Claribel--a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying now +with closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek. + +The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hat +awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on the +edge of the stiff chair. + +"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease. + +She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutch +at her throat, as if she were smothering. + +"How did you--how did you know I was here?" + +"Saw it in the paper, in the society column." She winced at that, +and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "How +are you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood of +reproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief. + +"I've been pretty bad; I'm better." + +"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The Maginnis +Social Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall." + +The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is as +old as the ages, although she did not know it--why this tragedy of +hers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly on +her breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand. +He picked it up and ran it through his fingers. + +"Hasn't hurt your looks any," he said awkwardly. "You're looking +pretty good." + +With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers. + +"Don't," she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she had +written her problem. + +"How's the--how's the kid?"--after a moment. + +"I don't know--or care." + +There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither did +he know or care. + +"What are you goin' to do with it?" + +"Kill it!" + +Al considered this a moment. Things were bad enough now, without +Claribel murdering the child and making things worse. + +"I wouldn't do that," he said soothingly. "You can put it somewhere, +can't you? Maybe Rosie'll know." + +"I don't want it to live." + +For the first time he realised her despair. She turned on him her +tormented eyes, and he quailed. + +"I'll find a place for it, kid," he said. "It's mine, too. I guess +I'm it, all right." + +"Yours!" She half rose on her elbow, weak as she was. "Yours! Didn't +you throw me over when you found I was going to have it? Yours! Did +you go through hell for twenty-four hours to bring it into the +world? I tell you, it's mine--mine! And I'll do what I want with it. +I'll kill it, and myself too!" + +"You don't know what you're saying!" + +She had dropped back, white and exhausted. + +"Don't I?" she said, and fell silent. + +Al felt defrauded, ill-treated. He had done the right thing; he had +come to see the girl, which wasn't customary in those circles where +Al lived and worked and had his being; he had acknowledged his +responsibility, and even--why, hang it all---- + +"Say the word and I'll marry you," he said magnanimously. + +"I don't want to marry you." + +He drew a breath of relief. Nothing could have been fairer than his +offer, and she had refused it. He wished Rosie had been there to +hear. + +And just then Rosie came. She carried the baby, still faintly +odorous of violets, held tight in unaccustomed arms. She looked +awkward and conscious, but her amused smile at herself was half +tender. + +"Hello, Claribel," she said. "How are you? Just look here, Al! What +do you think of this?" + +Al got up sheepishly and looked at the child. + +"Boy or girl?" he asked politely. + +"Girl; but it's the living image of you," said Rose--for Rose and +the Nurse were alike in the wiles of the serpent. + +"Looks like me!" Al observed caustically. "Looks like an over-ripe +tomato!" + +But he drew himself up a trifle. Somewhere in his young and +hardened soul the germs of parental pride, astutely sowed, had taken +quick root. + +"Feel how heavy she is," Rose commanded. And Al held out two arms +unaccustomed to such tender offices. + +"Heavy! She's about as big as a peanut." + +"Mind her back," said Rose, remembering instructions. + +After her first glance Claribel had not looked at the child. But +now, in its father's arms, it began to whimper. The mother stirred +uneasily, and frowned. + +"Take it away!" she ordered. "I told them not to bring it here." + +The child cried louder. Its tiny red face, under the powder, turned +purple. It beat the air with its fists. Al, still holding it in his +outstretched arms, began vague motions to comfort it, swinging it up +and down and across. But it cried on, drawing up its tiny knees in +spasms of distress. Claribel put her fingers in her ears. + +"You'll have to feed it!" Rose shouted over the din. + +The girl comprehended without hearing, and shook her head in sullen +obstinacy. + +"What do you think of that for noise?" said Al, not without pride. +"She's like me, all right. When I'm hungry, there's hell to pay if +I'm not fed quick. Here,"--he bent down over Claribel,--"you might +as well have dinner now, and stop the row." + +Not ungently, he placed the squirming mass in the baptismal dress +beside the girl on the bed. With the instinct of ages, the baby +stopped wailing and opened her mouth. + +"The little cuss!" cried Al, delighted. "Ain't that me all over? +Little angel-face the minute I get to the table!" + +Unresisting now, Claribel let Rose uncover her firm white breast. +The mother's arm, passively extended by Rose to receive the small +body, contracted around it unconsciously. + +She turned and looked long at the nuzzling, eager mouth, at the red +hand lying trustfully open on her breast, at the wrinkled face, the +indeterminate nose, the throbbing fontanelle where the little life +was already beating so hard. + +"A girl, Rose!" she said. "My God, what am I going to do with her?" + +Rose was not listening. The Junior Medical's turn had come at last. +Downstairs in the chapel, he was standing by the organ, his head +thrown back, his heavy brown hair (which would never stay parted +without the persuasion of brilliantine) bristling with earnestness. + + "_O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay_," + +he sang, and his clear tenor came welling up the staircase to Liz, +and past her to the ward, and to the group behind the screen. + + "_Are strewn this day in festal preparation, + Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away-- + E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare._" + +On the throne-chair by the record-table, the Nurse sat and listened. +And because it was Easter and she was very happy and because of the +thrill in the tenor voice that came up the stairs to her, and +because of the page in the order-book about bran baths and the rest +of it, she cried a little, surreptitiously, and let the tears drop +down on a yellow hospital record. + +The song was almost done. Liz, on the stairs, had fed her baby +twenty minutes too soon, and now it lay, sleeping and sated, in her +lap. Liz sat there, brooding over it, and the last line of the song +came up the staircase. + + "_Blessed is He who comes bringing sal-va-a-a-ation!_" + +the Junior Medical sang. + +The services were over. Downstairs the small crowd dispersed slowly. +The minister shook hands with the nurses at the door, and the Junior +Medical rolled up his song and wondered how soon he could make +rounds upstairs again. + +Liz got up, with her baby in her arms, and padded in to the +throne-chair by the record-table. + +"He can sing some, can't he!" she said. + +"He has a beautiful voice." The Nurse's eyes were shining. + +Liz moved off. Then she turned and came back. + +"I--I know you'll tell me I'm a fool," she said; "but I've decided +to keep the kid, this time. I guess I'll make out, somehow." + +Behind the screen, Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking, +sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltale +clouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, and +Claribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they were +on the child. + +Al leaned forward and put his lips to the arm that circled the baby. + +"I'm sorry, kid," he said. "I guess it was the limit, all right. Do +you hate me?" + +She looked at him, and the hardness and defiance died out of her +eyes. She shook her head. + +"No." + +"Do you--still--like me a little?" + +"Yes," in a whisper. + +"Then what's the matter with you and me and the little mutt getting +married and starting all over--eh?" + +He leaned over and buried his face with a caressing movement in the +hollow of her neck. + +Rose extinguished her cigarette on the foot of the bed, and, careful +of appearances, put the butt in her chatelaine. + +"I guess you two don't need me any more," she said yawning. "I'm +going back home to bed." + + + + +"ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!" + + +I + +There are certain people who will never understand this story, +people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, +too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. +Right is right and wrong is wrong. + +That shadowy No Man's Land between the trenches of virtue and sin, +where most of us fight our battles and are wounded, and even die, +does not exist for them. + +The boy in this story belonged to that class. Even if he reads it he +may not recognise it. But he will not read it or have it read to +him. He will even be somewhat fretful if it comes his way. + +"If that's one of those problem things," he will say, "I don't want +to hear it. I don't see why nobody writes adventure any more." + +Right is right and wrong is wrong. Seven words for a creed, and all +of life to live! + +This is not a war story. But it deals, as must anything that +represents life in this year of our Lord of Peace, with war. With +war in its human relations. Not with guns and trenches, but with +men and women, with a boy and a girl. + +For only in the mass is war vast. To the man in the trench it +reduces itself to the man on his right, the man on his left, the man +across, beyond the barbed wire, and a woman. + +The boy was a Canadian. He was twenty-two and not very tall. His +name in this story is Cecil Hamilton. He had won two medals for +life-saving, each in a leather case. He had saved people from +drowning. When he went abroad to fight he took the medals along. Not +to show. But he felt that the time might come when he would not be +sure of himself. A good many men on the way to war have felt that +way. The body has a way of turning craven, in spite of high +resolves. It would be rather comforting, he felt, to have those +medals somewhere about him at that time. He never looked at them +without a proud little intake of breath and a certain swelling of +the heart. + +On the steamer he found that a medal for running had slipped into +one of the cases. He rather chuckled over that. He had a sense of +humour, in spite of his seven-word creed. And a bit of superstition, +for that night, at dusk, he went out on to the darkened deck and +flung it overboard. + +The steamer had picked him up at Halifax--a cold dawn, with a few +pinched faces looking over the rail. Forgive him if he swaggered up +the gangway. He was twenty-two, he was a lieutenant, and he was a +fighting man. + +The girl in the story saw him then. She was up and about, in a short +sport suit, with a white tam-o'-shanter on her head and a white +woolen scarf tucked round her neck. Under her belted coat she wore a +middy blouse, and when she saw Lieutenant Cecil Hamilton, with +his eager eyes--not unlike her own, his eyes were young and +inquiring--she reached into a pocket of the blouse and dabbed her +lips with a small stick of cold cream. + +Cold air has a way of drying lips. + +He caught her at it, and she smiled. It was all over for him then, +poor lad! + +Afterward, when he was in the trenches, he wondered about that. He +called it "Kismet" to himself. It was really a compound, that first +day or two, of homesickness and a little furtive stirring of anxiety +and the thrill of new adventure that was in his blood. + +On the second afternoon out they had tea together, she in her +steamer chair and he calmly settled next to her, in a chair +belonging to an irritated English lawyer. Afterward he went down to +his cabin, hung round with his new equipment, and put away the +photograph of a very nice Toronto girl, which had been propped up +back of his hairbrushes. + +They got rather well acquainted that first day. + +"You know," he said, with his cup in one hand and a rather stale +cake in the other, "it's awfully bully of you to be so nice to me." + +She let that go. She was looking, as a matter of fact, after a tall +man with heavily fringed eyes and English clothes, who had just gone +by. + +"You know," he confided--he frequently prefaced his speeches with +that--"I was horribly lonely when I came up the gangway. Then I saw +you, and you were smiling. It did me a lot of good." + +"I suppose I really should not have smiled." She came back to him +with rather an effort. "But you caught me, you know. It wasn't +rouge. It was cold cream. I'll show you." + +She unbuttoned her jacket, against his protest, and held out the +little stick. He took it and looked at it. + +"You don't need even this," he said rather severely. He disapproved +of cosmetics. "You have a lovely mouth." + +"It's rather large. Don't you think so?" + +"It's exactly right." + +He was young, and as yet more interested in himself than in anything +in the world. So he sat there and told her who he was, and what he +hoped to do and, rather to his own astonishment, about the medals. + +"How very brave you are!" she said. + +That made him anxious. He hoped she did not think he was swanking. +It was only that he did not make friends easily, and when he did +meet somebody he liked he was apt to forget and talk too much about +himself. He was so afraid that he gulped down his tepid tea in a +hurry and muttered something about letters to write, and got himself +away. The girl stared after him with a pucker between her eyebrows. +And the tall man came and took the place he vacated. + +Things were worrying the girl--whose name, by the way, was Edith. On +programs it was spelled "Edythe," but that was not her fault. Yes, +on programs--Edythe O'Hara. The business manager had suggested +deHara, but she had refused. Not that it mattered much. She had been +in the chorus. She had a little bit of a voice, rather sweet, and +she was divinely young and graceful. + +In the chorus she would have remained, too, but for one of those +queer shifts that alter lives. A girl who did a song and an +eccentric dance had wrenched her knee, and Edith had gone on in her +place. Something of her tomboy youth remained in her, and for a few +minutes, as she frolicked over the stage, she was a youngster, +dancing to her shadow. + +She had not brought down the house, but a man with heavily fringed +eyes, who watched her from the wings, made a note of her name. He +was in America for music-hall material for England, and he was +shrewd after the manner of his kind. Here was a girl who frolicked +on the stage. The English, accustomed to either sensuous or sedate +dancing, would fall hard for her, he decided. Either that, or she +would go "bla." She was a hit or nothing. + +And that, in so many words, he told her that afternoon. + +"Feeling all right?" he asked her. + +"Better than this morning. The wind's gone down, hasn't it?" + +He did not answer her. He sat on the side of the chair and looked +her over. + +"You want to keep well," he warned her. "The whole key to your doing +anything is vitality. That's the word--Life." + +She smiled. It seemed so easy. Life? She was full-fed with the joy +of it. Even as she sat, her active feet in their high-heeled shoes +were aching to be astir. + +"Working in the gymnasium?" he demanded. + +"Two hours a day, morning and evening. Feel." + +She held out her arm to him, and he felt its small, rounded muscle, +with a smile. But his heavily fringed eyes were on her face, and he +kept his hold until she shook it off. + +"Who's the soldier boy?" he asked suddenly. + +"Lieutenant Hamilton. He's rather nice. Don't you think so?" + +"He'll do to play with on the trip. You'll soon lose him in London." + +The winter darkness closed down round them. Stewards were busy +closing ports and windows with fitted cardboards. Through the night +the ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with only +her small port and starboard lights. A sense of exhilaration +possessed Edith. This hurling forward over black water, this sense +of danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something new +and strange, set every nerve to jumping. She threw back her rug, and +getting up went to the rail. Lethway, the manager, followed her. + +"Nervous, aren't you?" + +"Not frightened, anyhow." + +It was then that he told her how he had sized the situation up. She +was a hit or nothing. + +"If you go all right," he said, "you can have the town. London's for +you or against you, especially if you're an American. If you go +flat----" + +"Then what?" + +She had not thought of that. What would she do then? Her salary was +not to begin until the performances started. Her fare and expenses +across were paid, but how about getting back? Even at the best her +salary was small. That had been one of her attractions to Lethway. + +"I'll have to go home, of course," she said. "If they don't like me, +and decide in a hurry, I--I may have to borrow money from you to get +back." + +"Don't worry about that." He put a hand over hers as it lay on the +rail, and when she made no effort to release it he bent down and +kissed her warm fingers. "Don't you worry about that," he repeated. + +She did worry, however. Down in her cabin, not so tidy as the +boy's--littered with her curiously anomalous belongings, a great +bunch of violets in the wash bowl, a cheap toilet set, elaborate +high-heeled shoes, and a plain muslin nightgown hanging to the +door--down there she opened her trunk and got out her contract. +There was nothing in it about getting back home. + +For a few minutes she was panicky. Her hands shook as she put the +document away. She knew life with all the lack of illusion of two +years in the chorus. Even Lethway--not that she minded his casual +caress on the deck. She had seen a lot of that. It meant nothing. +Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you. That was part +of the business. + +But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway's +face that worried her. And there were other things. + +The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances. She +had spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and the +girl's mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken her +away. It had puzzled her at the time. Now she knew. The crowd that +had seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company--that had queered +her, she decided. That and Lethway. + +None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the ocean +with Lethway. They had been envious, as a matter of fact. They had +brought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes of +candy that littered the room. In that half hour before sailing they +had chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart, +cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes. Her +roommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave. And +Mabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair. + +She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was a +winter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down, +sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to had +worn a sweater. So Edith dressed for dinner. + +She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked up +her brown hair daringly smooth and flat. Then she put on her one +evening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets. She rouged +her lips a bit too. + +The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped. + +That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after +that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying +little, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambled +to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or +whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, +and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the +fifty cents into a smoking-room pool. + +The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and, +knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had only +touched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged away +to an evening's bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went +on deck. + +"I'm afraid it's rather lonely for you," he said. "It's always like +this the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly." + +"I don't want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did you +ever see such clothes?" + +"You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night," he +observed. "You look lovely. I hope you don't mind my saying it?" + +She was a downright young person, after all. And there was something +about the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gathered +after a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was even +rather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be an +uplifting influence, she told him about herself that night. + +It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see him +straggling to gain this new point of view. + +"Anyhow," he said at last, "you're not like the others." Then +hastily: "I don't mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Only +one can tell, to look at you, that you are different." He thought +that sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to the +war, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. "I've known a lot of +girls," he added rather loftily. "All sorts of girls." + +It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alone +most of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and the +boy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched a +boxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls from +the stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man in +the company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have a +career. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person very +much. + +He eyed her wistfully when she said that. + +At dusk he told her about the girl in Toronto. + +"It wasn't an engagement, you understand. But we've been awfully +good friends. She came to see me off. It was rather awful. She +cried. She had some sort of silly idea that I'll get hurt." + +It was her turn to look wistful. Oh, they were getting on! When he +went to ask the steward to bring tea to the corner they had found, +she looked after him. She had been so busy with her own worries that +she had not thought much of the significance of his neatly belted +khaki. Suddenly it hurt her. He was going to war. + +She knew little about the war, except from the pictures in +illustrated magazines. Once or twice she had tried to talk about it +with Mabel, but Mabel had only said, "It's fierce!" and changed the +subject. + +The uniforms scattered over the ship and the precautions taken at +night, however, were bringing this thing called war very close to +her. It was just beyond that horizon toward which they were heading. +And even then it was brought nearer to her. + +Under cover of the dusk the girl she had tried to approach came up +and stood beside her. Edith was very distant with her. + +"The nights make me nervous," the girl said. "In the daylight it is +not so bad. But these darkened windows bring it all home to me--the +war, you know." + +"I guess it's pretty bad." + +"It's bad enough. My brother has been wounded. I am going to him." + +Even above the sound of the water Edith caught the thrill in her +voice. It was a new tone to her, the exaltation of sacrifice. + +"I'm sorry," she said. And some subconscious memory of Mabel made +her say: "It's fierce!" + +The girl looked at her. + +"That young officer you're with, he's going, of course. He seems +very young. My brother was older. Thirty." + +"He's twenty-two." + +"He has such nice eyes," said the girl. "I wish----" + +But he was coming back, and she slipped away. + +During tea Cecil caught her eyes on him more than once. He had taken +off his stiff-crowned cap, and the wind blew his dark hair round. + +"I wish you were not going to the war," she said unexpectedly. It +had come home to her, all at once, the potentialities of that trim +uniform. It made her a little sick. + +"It's nice of you to say that." + +There was a new mood on her, of confession, almost of consecration. +He asked her if he might smoke. No one in her brief life had ever +before asked her permission to smoke. + +"I'll have to smoke all I can," he said. "The fellows say cigarettes +are scarce in the trenches. I'm taking a lot over." + +He knew a girl who smoked cigarettes, he said. She was a nice girl +too. He couldn't understand it. The way he felt about it, maybe +a cigarette for a girl wasn't a crime. But it led to other +things--drinking, you know, and all that. + +"The fellows don't respect a girl that smokes," he said. "That's the +plain truth. I've talked to her a lot about it." + +"It wasn't your friend in Toronto, was it?" + +"Good heavens, no!" He repudiated the idea with horror. + +It was the girl who had to readjust her ideas of life that day. She +had been born and raised in that neutral ground between the lines of +right and wrong, and now suddenly her position was attacked and she +must choose sides. She chose. + +"I've smoked a cigarette now and then. If you think it is wrong I'll +not do it any more." + +He was almost overcome, both at the confession and at her +renunciation. To tell the truth, among the older Canadian officers +he had felt rather a boy. Her promise reinstated him in his own +esteem. He was a man, and a girl was offering to give something up +if he wished it. It helped a lot. + +That evening he laid out his entire equipment in his small cabin, +and invited her to see it. He put his mother's picture behind his +brushes, where the other one had been, and when all was ready he +rang for a stewardess. + +"I am going to show a young lady some of my stuff," he explained. +"And as she is alone I wish you'd stay round, will you? I want her +to feel perfectly comfortable." + +The stewardess agreed, and as she was an elderly woman, with a son +at the front, a boy like Cecil, she went back to her close little +room over the engines and cried a little, very quietly. + +It was unfortunate that he did not explain the presence of the +stewardess to the girl. For when it was all over, and she had stood +rather awed before his mother's picture, and rather to his surprise +had smoothed her hair with one of his brushes, she turned to him +outside the door. + +"That stewardess has a lot of nerve," she said. "The idea of +standing in the doorway, rubbering!" + +"I asked her," he explained. "I thought you'd prefer having some one +there." + +She stared at him. + + +II + +Lethway had won the ship's pool that day. In the evening he played +bridge, and won again. He had been drinking a little. Not much, but +enough to make him reckless. + +For the last rubber or two the thought of Edith had obsessed him, +her hand on the rail as he had kissed it, her cool eyes that were at +once so wise and so ignorant, her lithe body in the short skirt and +middy blouse. He found her more alluring, so attired, than she had +been in the scant costume of what to him was always "the show." + +He pondered on that during all of a dummy hand, sitting low in his +chair with his feet thrust far under the table. The show business +was going to the bad. Why? Because nobody connected with it knew +anything about human nature. He formulated a plan, compounded of +liquor and real business acumen, of dressing a chorus, of suggesting +the feminine form instead of showing it, of veiling it in chiffons +of soft colours and sending a draft of air from electric fans in the +wings to set the chiffons in motion. + +"Like the Aurora," he said to himself. "Only not so beefy. Ought to +be a hit. Pretty? It will be the real thing!" + +The thought of Edith in such a costume, playing like a dryad over +the stage, stayed with him when the dummy hand had been played and +he had been recalled to the game by a thump on the shoulder. Edith +in soft, pastel-coloured chiffons, dancing in bare feet to light +string music. A forest setting, of course. Pan. A goat or two. All +that sort of thing. + +On his way down to his cabin he passed her door. He went on, +hesitated, came back and knocked. + +Now Edith had not been able to sleep. Her thrifty soul, trained +against waste, had urged her not to fling her cigarettes overboard, +but to smoke them. + +"And then never again," she said solemnly. + +The result was that she could not get to sleep. Blanketed to the +chin she lay in her bunk, reading. The book had been Mabel's +farewell offering, a thing of perverted ideals, or none, of cheap +sentiment, of erotic thought overlaid with words. The immediate +result of it, when she yawned at last and turned out the light over +her bed, was a new light on the boy. + +"Little prig!" she said to herself, and stretched her round arms +luxuriously above her head. + +Then Lethway rapped. She sat up and listened. Then, grumbling, she +got out and opened the door an inch or two. The lights were low +outside and her own cabin dark. But she knew him. + +"Are we chased?" she demanded. In the back of her mind, fear of +pursuit by a German submarine was dogging her across the Atlantic. + +"Sure we are!" he said. "What are you so stingy about the door for?" + +She recognised his condition out of a not inconsiderable experience +and did her best to force the door shut, but he put his foot over +the sill and smiled. + +"Please go away, Mr. Lethway." + +"I'll go if you'll kiss me good night." + +She calculated the situation, and surrendered. There was nothing +else to do. But when she upturned her face he slipped past her and +into the room. Just inside the door, swinging open and shut with +every roll of the ship, he took her in his arms and kissed her, not +once but many times. + +She did not lose her head. She had an arm free and she rang the +bell. Then she jerked herself loose. + +"I have rung for the stewardess," she said furiously. "If you are +here when she comes I'll ask for help." + +"You young devil!" was all he said, and went, slamming the door +behind him. His rage grew as he reached his own cabin. Damn the +girl, anyhow! He had not meant anything. Here he was, spending money +he might never get back to give her a chance, and she called the +stewardess because he kissed her! + +As for the girl, she went back to bed. For a few moments sheer rage +kept her awake. Then youth and fatigue triumphed and she fell +asleep. Her last thought was of the boy, after all. "He wouldn't do +a thing like that," she reflected. "He's a gentleman. He's the real +thing. He's----" + +Her eyes closed. + +Lethway apologised the next day, apologised with an excess of manner +that somehow made the apology as much of an insult as the act. But +she matched him at that game--took her cue from him, even went him +one better as to manner. When he left her he had begun to feel that +she was no unworthy antagonist. The game would be interesting. And +she had the advantage, if she only knew it. Back of his desire to +get back at her, back of his mocking smile and half-closed eyes, he +was just a trifle mad about her since the night before. + +That is the way things stood when they reached the Mersey. Cecil was +in love with the girl. Very earnestly in love. He did not sleep at +night for thinking about her. He remembered certain semi-harmless +escapades of his college days, and called himself unworthy and +various other things. He scourged himself by leaving her alone in +her steamer chair and walking by at stated intervals. Once, in a +white sweater over a running shirt, he went to the gymnasium and +found her there. She had on a "gym" suit of baggy bloomers and the +usual blouse. He backed away from the door hastily. + +At first he was jealous of Lethway. Then that passed. She confided +to him that she did not like the manager. After that he was sorry +for him. He was sorry for any one she did not like. He bothered +Lethway by walking the deck with him and looking at him with what +Lethway refused to think was compassion. + +But because, contrary to the boy's belief, none of us is quite good +or quite evil, he was kind to the boy. The khaki stood for something +which no Englishman could ignore. + +"Poor little devil!" he said on the last day in the smoking room, +"he's going to a bad time, all right. I was in Africa for eight +years. Boer war and the rest of it. Got run through the thigh in a +native uprising, and they won't have me now. But Africa was cheery +to this war." + +He asked the boy into the smoking room, which he had hitherto +avoided. He had some queer idea that he did not care to take his +uniform in there. Absurd, of course. It made him rather lonely in +the hours Edith spent in her cabin, preparing variations of costume +for the evening out of her small trunk. But he was all man, and he +liked the society of men; so he went at last, with Lethway, and +ordered vichy! + +He had not allowed himself to think much beyond the end of the +voyage. As the ship advanced, war seemed to slip beyond the edge of +his horizon. Even at night, as he lay and tossed, his thoughts were +either of the next day, when he would see Edith again, or of that +indefinite future when he would return, covered with honors, and go +to her, wherever she was. + +He never doubted the honors now. He had something to fight for. The +medals in their cases looked paltry to him, compared with what was +coming. In his sleep he dreamed of the V.C., dreams he was too +modest to put into thoughts in waking hours. + +Then they reached the Mersey. On the last evening of the voyage he +and Edith stood on the upper deck. It was a zone of danger. From +each side of the narrowing river flashlights skimmed the surface of +the water, playing round but never on the darkened ship. Red and +green lights blinked signals. Their progress was a devious one +through the mine-strewn channel. There was a heavy sea even there, +and the small lights on the mast on the pilot boat, as it came to a +stop, described great arcs that seemed, first to starboard, then to +port, to touch the very tips of the waves. + +"I'm not crazy about this," the girl said, as the wind tugged at her +skirts. "It frightens me. Brings the war pretty close, doesn't it?" + +Emotion swelled his heart and made him husky--love and patriotism, +pride and hope, and a hot burst of courage. + +"What if we strike a mine?" she asked. + +"I wouldn't care so much. It would give me a chance to save you." + +Overhead they were signalling the shore with a white light. Along +with the new emotions that were choking him came an unaccustomed +impulse of boastfulness. + +"I can read that," he said when she ignored his offer to save her. +"Of course it's code, but I can spell it out." + +He made a move to step forward and watch the signaler, but she put +her hand on his arm. + +"Don't go. I'm nervous, Cecil," she said. + +She had called him by his first name. It shook him profoundly, that +and the touch of her hand on his arm. + +"Oh, I love you, love you!" he said hoarsely. But he did not try to +take her in his arms, or attempt to caress the hand that still clung +to him. He stood very erect, looking at the shadowy outline of her. +Then, her long scarf blowing toward him, he took the end of it and +kissed that very gravely. + +"I would die for you," he said. + +Then Lethway joined them. + + +III + +London was not kind to him. He had felt, like many Canadians, that +in going to England he was going home. But England was cold. + +Not the people on the streets. They liked the Canadians and they +cheered them when their own regiments went by unhailed. It appealed +to their rampant patriotism that these men had come from across the +sea to join hands with them against common foe. But in the clubs, +where his letters admitted the boy, there was a different +atmosphere. Young British officers were either cool or, much worse, +patronising. They were inclined to suspect that his quiet confidence +was swanking. One day at luncheon he drank a glass of wine, not +because he wanted it but because he did not like to refuse. The +result was unfortunate. It loosened his tongue a bit, and he +mentioned the medals. + +Not noisily, of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. +It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, +greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, but +his heart was heavy in him. + +And it rained. + +It was always raining. He had very little money beyond his pay, and +the constant hiring of taxicabs worried him. Now and then he saw +some one he knew, down from Salisbury for a holiday, but they had +been over long enough to know their way about. They had engagements, +things to buy. He fairly ate his heart out in sheer loneliness. + +There were two hours in the day that redeemed the others. One was +the hour late in the afternoon when, rehearsal over, he took Edith +O'Hara to tea. The other was just before he went to bed, when he +wrote her the small note that reached her every morning with her +breakfast. + +In the seven days before he joined his regiment at Salisbury he +wrote her seven notes. They were candid, boyish scrawls, not love +letters at all. This was one of them: + + _Dear Edith_: I have put in a rotten evening and am just + going to bed. I am rather worried because you looked so + tired to-day. Please don't work too hard. + + I am only writing to say how I look forward each night to + seeing you the next day. I am sending with this a small + bunch of lilies of the valley. They remind me of you. + CECIL. + +The girl saved those letters. She was not in love with him, but he +gave her something no one else had ever offered: a chivalrous +respect that pleased as well as puzzled her. + +Once in a tea shop he voiced his creed, as it pertained to her, over +a plate of muffins. + +"When we are both back home, Edith," he said, "I am going to ask you +something." + +"Why not now?" + +"Because it wouldn't be quite fair to you. I--I may be killed, or +something. That's one thing. Then, it's because of your people." + +That rather stunned her. She had no people. She was going to tell +him that, but she decided not to. She felt quite sure that he +considered "people" essential, and though she felt that, for any +long period of time, these queer ideas and scruples of his would be +difficult to live up to, she intended to do it for that one week. + +"Oh, all right," she said, meekly enough. + +She felt very tender toward him after that, and her new gentleness +made it all hard for him. She caught him looking at her wistfully at +times, and it seemed to her that he was not looking well. His eyes +were hollow, his face thin. She put her hand over his as it lay on +the table. + +"Look here," she said, "you look half sick, or worried, or +something. Stop telling me to take care of myself, and look after +yourself a little better." + +"I'm all right," he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. +That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that +don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." + +On the last night he took her to dinner--a small French restaurant +in a back street in Soho. He had heard about it somewhere. Edith +classed it as soon as she entered. It was too retiring, too demure. +Its very location was clandestine. + +But he never knew. He was divided that night between joy at getting +to his regiment and grief at leaving her. Rather self-engrossed, she +thought. + +They had a table by an open grate fire, with a screen "to shut off +the draft," the waiter said. It gave the modest meal a delightfully +homey air, their isolation and the bright coal fire. For the first +time they learned the joys of mussels boiled in milk, of French +_soufflé_ and other things. + +At the end of the evening he took her back to her cheap hotel in a +taxicab. She expected him to kiss her. Her experience of taxicabs +had been like that. But he did not. He said very little on the way +home, but sat well back and eyed her wistful eyes. She chattered to +cover his silence--of rehearsals, of--with reservations--of Lethway, +of the anticipated London opening. She felt very sad herself. He had +been a tie to America, and he had been much more than that. Though +she did not realise it, he had had a profound effect on her. In +trying to seem what he thought her she was becoming what he thought +her. Her old reckless attitude toward life was gone, or was going. + +The day before she had refused an invitation to a night club, and +called herself a fool for doing it. But she had refused. + +Not that he had performed miracles with her. She was still frankly a +dweller on the neutral ground. But to that instinct that had kept +her up to that time what she would have called "straight" had been +added a new refinement. She was no longer the reckless and romping +girl whose abandon had caught Lethway's eye. + +She had gained a soul, perhaps, and lost a livelihood. + +When they reached the hotel he got out and went in with her. The +hall porter was watching and she held out her hand. But he shook his +head. + +"If I touched your hand," he said, "I would have to take you in my +arms. Good-bye, dear." + +"Good-bye," she said. There were tears in her eyes. It was through a +mist that she saw him, as the elevator went up, standing at salute, +his eyes following her until she disappeared from sight. + + +IV + +Things were going wrong with Lethway. The management was ragging +him, for one thing. + +"Give the girl time," he said almost viciously, at the end of a +particularly bad rehearsal. "She's had a long voyage and she's +tired. Besides," he added, "these acts never do go at rehearsal. +Give me a good house at the opening and she'll show you what she can +do." + +But in his soul he was worried. There was a change in Edith O'Hara. +Even her voice had altered. It was not only her manner to him. That +was marked enough, but he only shrugged his shoulders over it. Time +enough for that when the production was on. + +He had engaged a hoyden, and she was by way of becoming a lady. +During the first week or so he had hoped that it was only the +strangeness of her surroundings. He had been shrewd enough to lay +some of it, however, to Cecil's influence. + +"When your soldier boy gets out of the way," he sneered one day in +the wings, "perhaps you'll get down to earth and put some life in +your work." + +But to his dismay she grew steadily worse. Her dancing was delicate, +accurate, even graceful, but the thing the British public likes to +think typically American, a sort of breezy swagger, was gone. To +bill her in her present state as the Madcap American would be sheer +folly. + +Ten days before the opening he cabled for another girl to take her +place. + +He did not tell her. Better to let her work on, he decided. A German +submarine might sink the ship on which the other girl was coming, +and then where would they be? + +Up to the last, however, he had hopes of Edith. Not that he cared to +save her. But he hated to acknowledge a failure. He disliked to +disavow his own judgment. + +He made a final effort with her, took her one day to luncheon at +Simpson's, and in one of the pewlike compartments, over mutton and +caper sauce, he tried to "talk a little life into her." + +"What the devil has come over you?" he demanded savagely. "You were +larky enough over in New York. There are any number of girls in +London who can do what you are doing now, and do it better." + +"I'm doing just what I did in New York." + +"The hell you are! I could do what you're doing with a jointed doll +and some wires. Now see here, Edith," he said, "either you put some +go into the thing, or you go. That's flat." + +Her eyes filled. + +"I--maybe I'm worried," she said. "Ever since I found out that I've +signed up, with no arrangement about sending me back, it's been on +my mind." + +"Don't you worry about that." + +"But if they put some one on in my place?" + +"You needn't worry about that either. I'll look after you. You know +that. If I hadn't been crazy about you I'd have let you go a week +ago. You know that too." + +She knew the tone, knew instantly where she stood. Knew, too, that +she would not play the first night in London. She went rather white, +but she faced him coolly. + +"Don't look like that," he said. "I'm only telling you that if you +need a friend I'll be there." + +It was two days before the opening, however, when the blow fell. She +had not been sleeping, partly from anxiety about herself, partly +about the boy. Every paper she picked up was full of the horrors of +war. There were columns filled with the names of those who had +fallen. Somehow even his uniform had never closely connected the boy +with death in her mind. He seemed so young. + +She had had a feeling that his very youth would keep him from +danger. War to her was a faintly conceived struggle between men, and +he was a boy. + +But here were boys who had died, boys at nineteen. And the lists of +missing startled her. One morning she read in the personal column a +query, asking if any one could give the details of the death of a +young subaltern. She cried over that. In all her care-free life +never before had she wept over the griefs of others. + +Cecil had sent her his photograph taken in his uniform. Because he +had had it taken to give her he had gazed directly into the eye of +the camera. When she looked at it it returned her glance. She took +to looking at it a great deal. + +Two days before the opening she turned from a dispirited rehearsal +to see Mabel standing in the wings. Then she knew. The end had come. + +Mabel was jaunty, but rather uneasy. + +"You poor dear!" she said, when Edith went to her. "What on earth's +happened? The cable only said--honest, dearie, I feel like a dog!" + +"They don't like me. That's all," she replied wearily, and picked +up her hat and jacket from a chair. But Mabel was curious. +Uncomfortable, too, as she had said. She slipped an arm round +Edith's waist. + +"Say the word and I'll throw them down," she cried. "It looks like +dirty work to me. And you're thin. Honest, dearie, I mean it." + +Her loyalty soothed the girl's sore spirit. + +"I don't know what's come over me," she said. "I've tried hard +enough. But I'm always tired. I--I think it's being so close to the +war." + +Mabel stared at her. There was a war. She knew that. The theatrical +news was being crowded to a back page to make space for disagreeable +diagrams and strange, throaty names. + +"I know. It's fierce, isn't it?" she said. + +Edith took her home, and they talked far into the night. She had +slipped Cecil's picture into the wardrobe before she turned on the +light. Then she explained the situation. + +"It's pep they want, is it?" said Mabel at last. "Well, believe me, +honey, I'll give it to them. And as long as I've got a cent it's +yours." + +They slept together in Edith's narrow bed, two slim young figures +delicately flushed with sleep. As pathetic, had they known it, as +those other sleepers in their untidy billets across the channel. +Almost as hopeless too. Dwellers in the neutral ground. + + +V + +Now war, after all, is to each fighting man an affair of small +numbers, an affair of the men to his right and his left, of the +A.M.S.C. in the rear and of a handful of men across. On his days of +rest the horizon is somewhat expanded. It becomes then a thing of +crowded and muddy village streets, of food and drink and tobacco and +a place to sleep. + +Always, of course, it is a thing of noises. + +This is not a narrative of war. It matters very little, for +instance, how Cecil's regiment left Salisbury and went to Soissons, +in France. What really matters is that at last the Canadian-made +motor lorries moved up their equipment, and that, after digging +practice trenches in the yellow clay of old battlefields, they were +moved up to the front. + +Once there, there seemed to be a great deal of time. It was the lull +before Neuve Chapelle. Cecil's spirit grew heavy with waiting. Once, +back on rest at his billet, he took a long walk over the half-frozen +side roads and came without warning on a main artery. Three traction +engines were taking to the front the first of the great British +guns, so long awaited. He took the news back to his mess. The +general verdict was that there would be something doing now. + +Cecil wrote a letter to Edith that day. He had written before, of +course, but this was different. He wrote first to his mother, just +in case anything happened, a long, boyish letter with a misspelled +word here and there. He said he was very happy and very comfortable, +and that if he did get his he wanted her to know that it was all +perfectly cheerful and not anything like the war correspondents said +it was. He'd had a bully time all his life, thanks to her. He hadn't +let her know often enough how he felt about her, and she knew he was +a dub at writing. There were a great many things worse than "going +out" in a good fight. "It isn't at all as if you could see the +blooming thing coming," he wrote. "You never know it's after you +until you've got it, and then you don't." + +The letter was not to be sent unless he was killed. So he put in a +few anecdotes to let her know exactly how happy and contented he +was. Then he dropped the whole thing in the ten inches of mud and +water he was standing in, and had to copy it all over. + +To Edith he wrote a different sort of letter. He told her that he +loved her. "It's almost more adoration than love," he wrote, while +two men next to him were roaring over a filthy story. "I mean by +that, that I feel every hour of every day how far above me you are. +It's like one of these _fusées_ the Germans are always throwing up +over us at night. It's perfectly dark, and then something bright and +clear and like a star, only nearer, is overhead. Everything looks +different while it floats there. And so, my dear, my dear, +everything has been different to me since I knew you." + +Rather boyish, all of it, but terribly earnest. He said he had +wanted to ask her to marry him, but that the way he felt about it, a +fellow had no right to ask a girl such a thing when he was going to +a war. If he came back he would ask her. And he would love her all +his life. + +The next day, at dawn, he went out with eighty men to an outpost +that had been an abandoned farm. It was rather a forlorn hope. They +had one machine gun. At nine o'clock the enemy opened fire on them +and followed it by an attack. The major in charge went down early. +At two Cecil was standing in the loft of the farmhouse, firing with +a revolver on men who beneath him, outside, were placing dynamite +under a corner of the building. + +To add to the general hopelessness, their own artillery, believing +them all dead, opened fire on the building. They moved their wounded +to the cellar and kept on fighting. + +At eight o'clock that night Cecil's right arm was hanging helpless, +and the building was burning merrily. There were five of them left. +They fixed bayonets and charged the open door. + + * * * * * + +When the boy opened his eyes he was lying in six inches of manure in +a box car. One of his men was standing over him, keeping him from +being trampled on. There was no air and no water. The ammonia fumes +from the manure were stifling. + +The car lurched and jolted along. Cecil opened his eyes now and +then, and at first he begged for water. When he found there was none +he lay still. The men hammered on the door and called for air. They +made frantic, useless rushes at the closed and barred door. Except +Cecil, all were standing. They were herded like cattle, and there +was no room to lie or sit. + +He lay there, drugged by weakness. He felt quite sure that he was +dying, and death was not so bad. He voiced this feebly to the man +who stood over him. + +"It's not so bad," he said. + +"The hell it's not!" said the man. + +For the time Edith was effaced from his mind. He remembered the +wounded men left in the cellar with the building burning over them. +That, and days at home, long before the war. + +Once he said "Mother." The soldier who was now standing astride of +him, the better to keep off the crowding men, thought he was asking +for water again. + +Thirty hours of that, and then air and a little water. Not enough +water. Not all the water in all the cool streams of the earth would +have slaked the thirst of his wound. + +The boy was impassive. He was living in the past. One day he recited +at great length the story of his medals. No one listened. + +And all the time his right arm lay or hung, as he was prone or +erect, a strange right arm that did not belong to him. It did not +even swell. When he touched it the fingers were cold and bluish. It +felt like a dead hand. + +Then, at the end of it all, was a bed, and a woman's voice, and +quiet. + +The woman was large and elderly, and her eyes were very kind. She +stirred something in the boy that had been dead of pain. + +"Edith!" he said. + + +VI + +Mabel had made a hit. Unconscious imitator that she was, she stole +Edith's former recklessness, and added to it something of her own +dash and verve. Lethway, standing in the wings, knew she was not and +never would be Edith. She was not fine enough. Edith at her best +had frolicked. Mabel romped, was almost wanton. He cut out the +string music at the final rehearsal. It did not fit. + +On the opening night the brass notes of the orchestra blared and +shrieked. Mabel's bare feet flew, her loose hair, cut to her ears +and held only by a band over her forehead, kept time in ecstatic +little jerks. When at last she pulled off the fillet and bowed to +the applause, her thick short hair fell over her face as she jerked +her head forward. They liked that. It savoured of the abandoned. She +shook it back, and danced the encore without the fillet. With her +scant chiffons whirling about her knees, her loose hair, her girlish +body, she was the embodiment of young love, of its passion, its +fire. + +Edith had been spring, palpitant with gladness. + +Lethway, looking with tired eyes from the wings, knew that he had +made a commercial success. But back of his sordid methods there was +something of the soul of an artist. And this rebelled. + +But he made a note to try flame-coloured chiffon for Mabel. Edith +was to have danced in the pale greens of a water nymph. + +On the night of her triumph Mabel returned late to Edith's room, +where she was still quartered. She was moving the next day to a +small apartment. With the generosity of her class she had urged +Edith to join her, and Edith had perforce consented. + +"How did it go?" Edith asked from the bed. + +"Pretty well," said Mabel. "Nothing unusual." + +She turned up the light, and from her radiant reflection in the +mirror Edith got the truth. She lay back with a dull, sickening +weight round her heart. Not that Mabel had won, but that she herself +had failed. + +"You're awfully late." + +"I went to supper. Wish you'd been along, dearie. Terribly swell +club of some sort." Then her good resolution forgotten: "I made them +sit up and take notice, all right. Two invitations for supper +to-morrow night and more on the way. And when I saw I'd got the +house going to-night, and remembered what I was being paid for it, +it made me sick." + +"It's better than nothing." + +"Why don't you ask Lethway to take you on in the chorus? It would do +until you get something else." + +"I have asked him. He won't do it." + +Mabel was still standing in front of the mirror. She threw her head +forward so her short hair covered her face, and watched the effect +carefully. Then she came over and sat on the bed. + +"He's a dirty dog," she said. + +The two girls looked at each other. They knew every move in the game +of life, and Lethway's methods were familiar ones. + +"What are you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last. +"Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here," she +said with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enough +ahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, while the drawing's +good." + +"And queer yourself at the start?" said Edith scornfully. "Talk +sense, Mabel, I'm up against it, but don't you worry. I'll get +something." + +But she did not get anything. She was reduced in the next week to +entire dependence on the other girl. And, even with such miracles of +management as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficult +to get along. + +There was a new element too. Edith was incredulous at first, but at +last she faced it. There was a change in Mabel. She was not less +hospitable nor less generous. It was a matter of a point of view. +Success was going to her head. Her indignation at certain phases of +life was changing to tolerance. She found Edith's rampant virtue a +trifle wearing. She took to staying out very late, and coming in +ready to meet Edith's protest with defiant gaiety. She bought +clothes too. + +"You'll have to pay for them sometime," Edith reminded her. + +"I should worry. I've got to look like something if I'm going to go +out at all." + +Edith, who had never thought things out before, had long hours to +think now. And the one thing that seemed clear and undeniable was +that she must not drive Mabel into debt. Debt was the curse of most +of the girls she knew. As long as they were on their own they could +manage. It was the burden of unpaid bills, lightly contracted, that +drove so many of them wrong. + +That night, while Mabel was asleep, she got up and cautiously +lighted the gas. Then she took the boy's photograph out of its +hiding place and propped it on top of her trunk. For a long time she +sat there, her chin in her hands, and looked at it. + +It was the next day that she saw his name among the missing. + +She did not cry, not at first. The time came when it seemed to her +she did nothing else. But at first she only stared. She was too +young and too strong to faint, but things went gray for her. + +And gray they remained--through long spring days and eternal +nights--days when Mabel slept all morning, rehearsed or played in +the afternoons, was away all evening and far into the night. She did +not eat or sleep. She spent money that was meant for food on papers +and journals and searched for news. She made a frantic but +ineffectual effort to get into the War Office. + +She had received his letter two days after she had seen his name +among the missing. She had hardly dared to open it, but having read +it, for days she went round with a strange air of consecration that +left Mabel uneasy. + +"I wish you wouldn't look like that!" she said one morning. "You get +on my nerves." + +But as time went on the feeling that he was dead overcame everything +else. She despaired, rather than grieved. And following despair came +recklessness. He was dead. Nothing else mattered. Lethway, meeting +her one day in Oxford Circus, almost passed her before he knew her. +He stopped her then. + +"Haven't been sick, have you?" + +"Me? No." + +"There's something wrong." + +She did not deny it and he fell into step beside her. + +"Doing anything?" he asked. + +She shook her head. With all the power that was in her she was +hating his tall figure, his heavy-lashed eyes, even the familiar +ulster he wore. + +"I wish you were a sensible young person," he said. But something in +the glance she gave him forbade his going on. It was not an ugly +glance. Rather it was cold, appraising--even, if he had known it, +despairing. + +Lethway had been busy. She had been in the back of his mind rather +often, but other things had crowded her out. This new glimpse of her +fired him again, however. And she had a new quality that thrilled +even through the callus of his soul. The very thing that had +foredoomed her to failure in the theatre appealed to him strongly--a +refinement, a something he did not analyse. + +When she was about to leave him he detained her with a hand on her +arm. + +"You know you can always count on me, don't you?" he said. + +"I know I can't," she flashed back at him with a return of her old +spirit. + +"I'm crazy about you." + +"Old stuff!" she said coolly, and walked off. But there was a tug of +fear at her heart. She told Mabel, but it was typical of the change +that Mabel only shrugged her shoulders. + +It was Lethway's shrewdness that led to his next move. He had tried +bullying, and failed. He had tried fear, with the same lack of +effect. Now he tried kindness. + +She distrusted him at first, but her starved heart was crying out +for the very thing he offered her. As the weeks went on, with no +news of Cecil, she accepted his death stoically at last. Something +of her had died. But in a curious way the boy had put his mark on +her. And as she grew more like the thing he had thought her to be +the gulf between Mabel and herself widened. They had, at last, only +in common their room, their struggle, the contacts of their daily +life. + +And Lethway was now always in the background. He took her for quiet +meals and brought her home early. He promised her that sometime he +would see that she got back home. + +"But not just yet," he added as her colour rose. "I'm selfish, +Edith. Give me a little time to be happy." + +That was a new angle. It had been a part of the boy's quiet creed to +make others happy. + +"Why don't you give me something to do, since you're so crazy to +have me hanging about?" + +"Can't do it. I'm not the management. And they're sore at you. They +think you threw them down." He liked to air his American slang. + +Edith cupped her chin in her hand and looked at him. There was no +mystery about the situation, no shyness in the eyes with which she +appraised him. She was beginning to like him too. + +That night when she got back to Mabel's apartment her mood was +reckless. She went to the window and stood looking at the crooked +and chimney-potted skyline that was London. + +"Oh, what's the use?" she said savagely, and gave up the fight. + +When Mabel came home she told her. + +"I'm going to get out," she said without preamble. + +She caught the relief in Mabel's face, followed by a purely +conventional protest. + +"Although," she hedged cautiously, "I don't know, dearie. People +look at things sensibly these days. You've got to live, haven't you? +They're mighty quick to jail a girl who tries to jump in the river +when she's desperate." + +"I'll probably end there. And I don't much care." + +Mabel gave her a good talking to about that. Her early training had +been in a church which regarded self-destruction as a cardinal sin. +Then business acumen asserted itself: + +"He'll probably put you on somewhere. He's crazy about you, Ede." + +But Edith was not listening. She was standing in front of her opened +trunk tearing into small pieces something that had been lying in the +tray. + + +VII + +Now the boy had tried very hard to die, and failed. The thing that +had happened to him was an unbelievable thing. When he began to use +his tired faculties again, when the ward became not a shadow land +but a room, and the nurse not a presence but a woman, he tried +feebly to move his right arm. + +But it was gone. + +At first he refused to believe it. He could feel it lying there +beside him. It ached and throbbed. The fingers were cramped. But +when he looked it was not there. + +There was not one shock of discovery, but many. For each time he +roused from sleep he had forgotten, and must learn the thing again. + +The elderly German woman stayed close. She was wise, and war had +taught her many things. So when he opened his eyes she was always +there. She talked to him very often of his mother, and he listened +with his eyes on her face--eyes like those of a sick child. + +In that manner they got by the first few days. + +"It won't make any difference to her," he said once. "She'd take me +back if I was only a fragment." Then bitterly: "That's all I am--a +fragment! A part of a man!" + +After a time she knew that there was a some one else, some one he +was definitely relinquishing. She dared not speak to him about it. +His young dignity was militant. But one night, as she dozed beside +him in the chair, he reached the limit of his repression and told +her. + +"An actress!" she cried, sitting bolt upright. "_Du lieber_--an +actress!" + +"Not an actress," he corrected her gravely. "A--a dancer. But good. +She's a very good girl. Even when I was--was whole"--raging +bitterness there--"I was not good enough for her." + +"No actress is good. And dancers!" + +"You don't know what you are talking about," he said roughly, and +turned his back to her. It was almost insulting to have her assist +him to his attitude of contempt, and to prop him in it with pillows +behind his back. Lying there he tried hard to remember that this +woman belonged to his hereditary foes. He was succeeding in hating +her when he felt her heavy hand on his head. + +"Poor boy! Poor little one!" she said. And her voice was husky. + +When at last he was moved from the hospital to the prison camp she +pinned the sleeve of his ragged uniform across his chest and kissed +him, to his great discomfiture. Then she went to the curtained +corner that was her quarters and wept long and silently. + +The prison camp was overcrowded. Early morning and late evening +prisoners were lined up to be counted. There was a medley of +languages--French, English, Arabic, Russian. The barracks were built +round a muddy inclosure in which the men took what exercise they +could. + +One night a boy with a beautiful tenor voice sang Auld Lang Syne +under the boy's window. He stood with his hand on the cuff of his +empty sleeves and listened. And suddenly a great shame filled him, +that with so many gone forever, with men dying every minute of +every hour, back at the lines, he had been so obsessed with himself. +He was still bitter, but the bitterness was that he could not go +back again and fight. + +When he had been in the camp a month he helped two British officers +to escape. One of them had snubbed him in London months before. He +apologised before he left. + +"You're a man, Hamilton," he said. "All you Canadians are men. I've +some things to tell when I get home." + +The boy could not go with them. There would be canals to swim +across, and there was his empty sleeve and weakness. He would never +swim again, he thought. That night, as he looked at the empty beds +of the men who had gone, he remembered his medals and smiled grimly. + +He was learning to use his left hand. He wrote letters home with it +for soldiers who could not write. He went into the prison hospital +and wrote letters for those who would never go home. But he did not +write to the girl. + + * * * * * + +He went back at last, when the hopelessly wounded were exchanged. To +be branded "hopelessly wounded" was to him a stain, a stigma. It put +him among the clutterers of the earth. It stranded him on the shore +of life. Hopelessly wounded! + +For, except what would never be whole, he was well again. True, +confinement and poor food had kept him weak and white. His legs had +a way of going shaky at nightfall. But once he knocked down an +insolent Russian with his left hand, and began to feel his own man +again. That the Russian was weak from starvation did not matter. The +point to the boy was that he had made the attempt. + +Providence has a curious way of letting two lives run along, each +apparently independent of the other. Parallel lines they seem, +hopeless of meeting. Converging lines really, destined, through long +ages, by every deed that has been done to meet at a certain point +and there fuse. + +Edith had left Mabel, but not to go to Lethway. When nothing else +remained that way was open. She no longer felt any horror--only a +great distaste. But two weeks found her at her limit. She, who had +rarely had more than just enough, now had nothing. + +And no glory of sacrifice upheld her. She no longer believed that by +removing the burden of her support she could save Mabel. It was +clear that Mabel would not be saved. To go back and live on her, +under the circumstances, was but a degree removed from the other +thing that confronted her. + +There is just a chance that, had she not known the boy, she would +have killed herself. But again the curious change he had worked in +her manifested itself. He thought suicide a wicked thing. + +"I take it like this," he had said in his eager way: "life's a thing +that's given us for some purpose. Maybe the purpose gets +clouded--I'm afraid I'm an awful duffer at saying what I mean. But +we've got to work it out, do you see? Or--or the whole scheme is +upset." + +It had seemed very clear then. + +Then, on a day when the rare sun made even the rusty silk hats of +clerks on tops of omnibuses to gleam, when the traffic glittered on +the streets and the windows of silversmiths' shops shone painful to +the eye, she met Lethway again. + +The sun had made her reckless. Since the boy was gone life was +wretchedness, but she clung to it. She had given up all hope of +Cecil's return, and what she became mattered to no one else. + +Perhaps, more than anything else, she craved companionship. In +all her crowded young life she had never before been alone. +Companionship and kindness. She would have followed to heel, like +a dog, for a kind word. + +Then she met Lethway. They walked through the park. When he left her +her once clear, careless glance had a suggestion of furtiveness in +it. + +That afternoon she packed her trunk and sent it to an address he +had given her. In her packing she came across the stick of cold +cream, still in the pocket of the middy blouse. She flung it, as +hard as she could, across the room. + +She paid her bill with money Lethway had given her. She had exactly +a sixpence of her own. She found herself in Trafalgar Square late in +the afternoon. The great enlisting posters there caught her eye, +filled her with bitterness. + +"Your king and your country need you," she read. She had needed the +boy, too, but this vast and impersonal thing, his mother country, +had taken him from her--taken him and lost him. She wanted to stand +by the poster and cry to the passing women to hold their men back. +As she now knew she hated Lethway, she hated England. + +She wandered on. Near Charing Cross she spent the sixpence for a +bunch of lilies of the valley, because he had said once that she was +like them. Then she was for throwing them in the street, remembering +the thing she would soon be. + +"For the wounded soldiers," said the flower girl. When she +comprehended that, she made her way into the station. There was a +great crowd, but something in her face made the crowd draw back and +let her through. They nudged each other as she passed. + +"Looking for some one, poor child!" said a girl and, following her, +thrust the flowers she too carried into Edith's hand. She put them +with the others, rather dazed. + + * * * * * + +To Cecil the journey had been a series of tragedies. Not his own. +There were two hundred of them, officers and men, on the boat across +the Channel. Blind, maimed, paralysed, in motley garments, they were +hilariously happy. Every throb of the turbine engines was a thrust +toward home. They sang, they cheered. + +Now and then some one would shout: "Are we downhearted?" And +crutches and canes would come down on the deck to the unanimous +shout: "No!" + +Folkestone had been trying, with its parade of cheerfulness, with +kindly women on the platform serving tea and buns. In the railway +coach to London, where the officers sat, a talking machine played +steadily, and there were masses of flowers, violets and lilies of +the valley. At Charing Cross was a great mass of people, and as they +slowly disembarked he saw that many were crying. He was rather +surprised. He had known London as a cold and unemotional place. It +had treated him as an alien, had snubbed and ignored him. + +He had been prepared to ask nothing of London, and it lay at his +feet in tears. + +Then he saw Edith. + +Perhaps, when in the fullness of years the boy goes over to the +life he so firmly believes awaits him, the one thing he will carry +with him through the open door will be the look in her eyes when she +saw him. Too precious a thing to lose, surely, even then. Such +things make heaven. + +"What did I tell you?" cried the girl who had given Edith her +flowers. "She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Look +out--catch him!" + +But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith he +touched his empty sleeve. + +"As if that would make any difference to her!" said the girl, who +was in black. "Look at her face! She's got him." + +Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanly +tears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of his +empty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together and +the crowd opened to let them by. + + * * * * * + +At nine o'clock that night Lethway stormed through the stage +entrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel's +dressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and went +in. + +The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was having +her pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance. + +"You've got a nerve!" she said coolly. + +"Where's Edith?" + +"I don't know and I don't care. She ran away, when I was stinting +myself to keep her. I'm done. Now you go out and close that door, +and when you want to enter a lady's dressing room, knock." + +He looked at her with blazing hatred. + +"Right-o!" was all he said. And he turned and left her to her +flowers. + +At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, +very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her +in. + +He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hall +porter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers of +his left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as they +followed her, was all that there is of love--love and a new +understanding. + +She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same. +Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of that +shadowy No Man's Land between the lines, where many there were who +fought their battles and were wounded, and even died. + +As he turned and went out two men on crutches were passing along the +quiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, and +stopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison: + +"Are we downhearted? No!" + +Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump. + + + + +THE GAME + + +I + +The Red Un was very red; even his freckles were red rather than +copper-coloured. And he was more prodigal than most kings, for he +had two crowns on his head. Also his hair grew in varying +directions, like a wheatfields after a storm. He wore a coat without +a tail, but with brass buttons to compensate, and a celluloid collar +with a front attached. It was the Red Un's habit to dress first and +wash after, as saving labour; instead of his neck he washed his +collar. + +The Red Un was the Chief Engineer's boy and rather more impressive +than the Chief, who was apt to decry his own greatness. It was the +Red Un's duty to look after the Chief, carry in his meals, make his +bed, run errands, and remind him to get his hair cut now and then. +It was the Red Un's pleasure to assist unassumingly in the +surveillance of that part of the ship where the great god, Steam, +ruled an underworld of trimmers and oilers and stokers and assistant +engineers--and even, with reservations, the Chief. The Red Un kept a +sharp eye on the runs and read the Chief's log daily--so much coal +in the bunkers; so much water in the wells; so many engine-room +miles in twenty-four hours--which, of course, are not sea miles +exactly, there being currents and winds, and God knows what, to +waste steam on. + +The Red Un, like the assistants, was becoming a bear on the speed +market. He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enough +to work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and get +a letter from the management, some current or other will show up--or +a fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends the +bridge yapping for caution. + +The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief's bed by pulling the +counterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath--and got +away with it, the Chief being weary at night. Also, in odd moments +he made life miserable for the crew. Up to shortly before, he had +had to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starved +little body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief's +hair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no manner +of business, hardly used up his activities. However, he did not lie +and he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man. + +The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had taken +for a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and two +set and desperate eyes. After that the big Scot had forgotten all +about him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which had +shrunk in the drying. The liner finished coaling about that time, +took on passengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, +having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third and +dropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race. + +The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the long +voyage--three thousand miles or so without a stop. The gong, and +then Half Ahead!--great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the +grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of +limitless strength. Full Ahead!--and so off again for the great +struggle--man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God against +the upreaching of the sea. + +The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored it +waking, snapped his watch shut. + +"Eleven-eleven!" he said to the Senior Second. "Well, here's luck!" +That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of a +prayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man's +wits count in the great equation. He generally said something to the +effect that "After all, it's up to Thee, O Lord!" + +He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; and +he smiled too, but rather grimly. They were playing a bit of a +game, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks--just an +amusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; the +Second was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of his +head years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate. +Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness for +himself alone? So the Chief, having glanced about and run his hand +caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had +climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and +was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things +that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was +being stared at from behind. + +Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up +to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive +eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the +eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, +turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot +trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw--a small +red-haired boy in a Turkish towel. + +The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing +to lose--not even a pair of breeches--and everything to gain. + +"Please," said the apparition, "the pilot's gone, and you can't put +me off!" + +The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and the +modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a +four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain +softening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his +way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a +little--a surface smile, with fear just behind. + +"The Captain's boy's my size; I could wear his clothes," he +suggested. + +Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman's picture in +his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been +small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, +the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that in +the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his +best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense +of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was +hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as +was his way when excited. + +"And where ha' ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded. + +"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early----" +he hesitated. + +"Don't lie! Where were ye?" + +"In a passenger's room, under a bed. When the passengers came aboard +I had to get out." + +"How did ye get here?" + +This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the +connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess. + +"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this time, rather like the +Senior Second's when the Chief and he had shaken hands. + +"A nigger!" he said. "A coloured fella in a white suit." + +There was not a darky on the boat. The Red Un, whose code was the +truth when possible, but any lie to save a friend--and that's the +code of a gentleman--sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel to +cover as much as possible of his small person. + +"You're lying! Do you know what we do with liars on this ship? We +throw them overboard!" + +"Then I'm thinking," responded the Turkish towel, "that you'll be +needing another Chief Engineer before long!" + +Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip. The previous +one had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple who +had liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled on +his cheek. The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clear +that no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and he +apparently lacked lashes entirely. He rose and took a bathrobe from +a hook on the door. + +"Here," he said; "cover your legs wi' that, and say a prayer if ye' +know wan. The Captain's a verra hard man wi' stowaways." + +The Captain, however, who was a gentleman and a navigator and had a +sense of humour also, was not hard with the Red Un. It being +impracticable to take the boy to him, the great man made a special +visit to the boy. The Red Un, in the Chief's bathrobe, sat on a +chair, with his feet about four inches from the floor, and returned +the Captain's glare with wide blue eyes. + +"Is there any reason, young man, why I shouldn't order you to the +lockup for the balance of this voyage?" the Captain demanded, extra +grim, and trying not to smile. + +"Well," said the Red Un, wiggling his legs nervously, "you'd have to +feed me, wouldn't you? And I might as well work for my keep." + +This being a fundamental truth on which most economics and all +governments are founded, and the Captain having a boy of his own at +home, he gave a grudging consent, for the sake of discipline, to the +Red Un's working for his keep as the Chief's boy, and left. Outside +the door he paused. + +"The little devil's starved," he said. "Put some meat on those +ribs, Chief, and--be a bit easy with him!" + +This last was facetious, the Chief being known to have the heart of +a child. + +So the Red Un went on the payroll of the line, and requisition was +made on the storekeeper for the short-tailed coat and the long +trousers, and on the barber for a hair-cut. And in some curious way +the Red Un and the Chief hit it off. It might have been a matter of +red blood or of indomitable spirit. + +Spirit enough and to spare had the Red Un. On the trip out he had +licked the Captain's boy and the Purser's boy; on the incoming trip +he had lashed the Doctor's boy to his triumphant mast, and only +three days before he had settled a row in the stokehole by putting +hot ashes down the back of a drunken trimmer, and changing his +attitude from menace with a steel shovel to supplication and prayer. + +He had no business in the stokehole, but by that time he knew every +corner of the ship--called the engines by name and the men by +epithets; had named one of the pumps Marguerite, after the Junior +Second's best girl; and had taken violent partisanship in the +eternal rivalry of the liner between the engine room and the bridge. + +"Aw, gwan!" he said to the Captain's boy. "Where'd you and your Old +Man be but for us? In a blasted steel tank, floating about on the +bloomin' sea! What's a ship without insides?" + +The Captain's boy, who was fourteen, and kept his bath sponge in a +rubber bag, and shaved now and then with the Captain's razor, +retorted in kind. + +"You fellows below think you're the whole bally ship!" he said +loftily. "Insides is all right--we need 'em in our business. But +what'd your steel tank do, with the engines goin', if she +wasn't bein' navigated? Steamin' in circles, like a tinklin' +merry-go-round!" + +It was some seconds after this that the Purser, a well-intentioned +but interfering gentleman with a beard, received the kick that put +him in dry dock for two days. + + +II + +They were three days out of New York on the Red Un's second round +trip when the Second, still playing the game and almost despairing, +made a strategic move. The Red Un was laying out the Chief's +luncheon on his desk--a clean napkin for a cloth; a glass; silver; a +plate; and the menu from the first-cabin dining saloon. The menu was +propped against a framed verse: + + _But I ha' lived and I ha' worked! + All thanks to Thee, Most High._ + +And as he placed the menu, the Red Un repeated the words from +McAndrew's hymn. It had rather got him at first; it was a new +philosophy of life. To give thanks for life was understandable, even +if unnecessary. But thanks for work! There was another framed card +above the desk, more within the Red Un's ken: "Cable crossing! Do +not anchor here!" + +The card worked well with the first class, resting in the Chief's +cabin after the arduous labours of seeing the engines. + +The Chief was below, flat on his back in a manhole looking for a +staccato note that did not belong in his trained and orderly chorus. +There was grease in his sandy hair, and the cranks were only a few +inches from his nose. By opening the door the Red Un was able to +command the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is the +roof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walk +on--depending on whether one is used to it or not. The Chief was +naturally not in sight. + +This gave the Red Un two minutes' leeway--two minutes for +exploration. A drawer in the desk, always heretofore locked, was +unfastened--that is, the bolt had been shot before the drawer was +entirely closed. The Red Un was jealous of that drawer. In two +voyages he had learned most of the Chief's history and, lacking one +of his own, had appropriated it to himself. Thus it was not unusual +for him to remark casually, as he stood behind the Chief's chair at +dinner: "We'd better send this here postcard to Cousin Willie, at +Edinburgh." + +"Ou-ay!" the Chief would agree, and tear off the postcard of the +ship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to this +one drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to their +perfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the Red Un's content. + +Now, at last---- Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set him +wiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged his +great babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, yclept +the Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam. + +The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first +he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the +door. Then he found a disappointing something--the lid of a +cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red +Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open +life. But the picture was disappointing--a snapshot of a young +woman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket, +obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poor +spoil this--a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However, +marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For on +its reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn: + + _Ye know how hard an idol dies, + An' what that meant to me-- + E'en tak' it for a sacrifice + Acceptable to Thee._ + +The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she was +dead what did it matter? He was a literal youth--so far, his own +words had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirty +that a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressing +them, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was over +thirty. + +It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. The +alley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Un +eyed him unpleasantly. + +"Sneaking!" said the Second. + +"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un. + +The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of +humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un. + +"Do you know, William," he observed--William was the Red Un's +name--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised +account of what's in that drawer?" + +"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell +you." + +"Three?" said the Second cheerfully. + +"No." + +"Four?" + +"Why don't you look yourself?" + +"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you +volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of, +say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----" + +"What do you want to know for?" + +"I guess you know." + +The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still +playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the +Red Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Seconds +and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped. + +This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and +first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of +the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps +cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of +airtrunks. + +So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedingly +galling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford on +the run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam to +auxiliaries--"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in their +bunks!" as the Third put it. + +The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed and +presumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, which +gives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off the +airpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in the +trunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether the +Chief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had always +wakened. + +It was uncanny. It was worse than that--it was damnable! Did not the +Old Man sleep at all?--not that he was old, but every Chief is the +Old Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and the +engine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds would +shut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down, +wheeze, pant and die--and within two seconds the Chief's bell would +ring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the several +kinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in the +game to the Chief! + +It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the +impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious +search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked +drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in +Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. +They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could do +without sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon. + + * * * * * + +"If at any time," observed the Second pleasantly, "you would like +that cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it." + +"Thanks, old man," said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on the +wall. + +The Second took a step forward and thought better of it. + +"Better think about it!" + +"I was thinking of something else," said the Red Un, still staring +at the wall. The Second followed his eye. The Red Un was gazing +intently at the sign which said: "Cable crossing! Do not anchor +here!" + +As the Second slammed out, the Chief crawled from his manhole and +struggled out of his greasy overalls. Except for his face, he was +quite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaft +revolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where at +the after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, bearded +with scud, out of the water. + +"It looks like weather to-night," he observed, with a twinkle, to +the Fourth. "There'll aye be air wanted." But the Fourth was gazing +at a steam gauge. + + +III + +The Red Un's story, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts--his +temptation, his fall and his redemption. All lives are so divided: a +step back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a little +climb up God's ladder. + +Seven days the liner lay in New York--seven days of early autumn +heat, of blistering decks, of drunken and deserting trimmers, of +creaking gear and grime of coal-dust. The cabin which held the Red +Un and the Purser's boy was breathless. On Sunday the four ship's +boys went to Coney Island and lay in the surf half the afternoon. +The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodies +was Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the waves +move them about, and out of the depths of a deep content making +caustic comments about the human form as revealed by the relentless +sea. + +"That's a pippin!" they would say; or, "My aunt! looks at his legs!" +They voiced their opinions audibly and were ready to back them up +with flight or fight. + +It was there that the Red Un saw the little girl. She had come from +a machine, and her mother stood near. She was not a Coney Islander. +She was first-cabin certainly--silk stockings on her thin ankles, +sheer white frock; no jewelry. She took a snapshot of the four +boys--to their discomfiture--and walked away while they were still +writhing. + +"That for mine!" said the Red Un in one of his rare enthusiasms. + +They had supper--a sandwich and a glass of beer; they would have +preferred pop, but what deep-water man on shore drinks pop?--and +made their way back to the ship by moonlight. The Red Un was terse +in his speech on the car: mostly he ate peanuts abstractedly. If he +evolved any clear idea out of the chaos of his mind it was to wish +she had snapped him in his uniform with the brass buttons. + +The heat continued; the men in the stokehole, keeping up only enough +steam for the dynamos and donkey engines, took turns under the +ventilators or crawled up to the boatdeck at dusk, too exhausted to +dress and go ashore. The swimmers were overboard in the cool river +with the first shadows of night; the Quartermaster, so old that he +dyed his hair for fear he'd be superannuated, lowered his lean body +hand over hand down a rope and sat by the hour on a stringpiece of +the dock, with the water laving his hairy and tattooed old breast. + +The Red Un was forbidden the river. To be honest, he was rather +relieved--not twice does a man dare the river god, having once been +crowned with his slime and water-weed. When the boy grew very hot +he slipped into a second-cabin shower, and stood for luxurious +minutes with streams running off his nose and the ends of his +fingers and splashing about his bony ankles. + +Then, one night, some of the men took as many passengers' lifebelts +and went in. The immediate result was fun combined with safety; the +secondary result was placards over the ship and the dock, forbidding +the use of the ship's lifebelts by the crew. + +From that moment the Red Un was possessed for the river and a +lifebelt. So were the other three. The signs were responsible. +Permitted, a ship's lifebelt was a subterfuge of the cowardly, +white-livered skunks who were afraid of a little water; forbidden, a +ship's lifebelt took on the qualities of enemy's property--to be +reconnoitred, assaulted, captured and turned to personal advantage. + +That very night, then, four small bodies, each naked save for a +lifebelt, barrelshaped and extending from breast almost to knee, +slipped over the side of the ship with awkward splashes and +proceeded to disport themselves in the river. Scolding tugs sent +waves for them to ride; ferries crawled like gigantic bugs with a +hundred staring eyes. They found the Quartermaster on a stringpiece +immersed to the neck and smoking his pipe, and surrounded him--four +small, shouting imps, floating barrels with splashing hands and +kicking feet. + +"Gwan, ye little devils!" said the Quartermaster, clutching the +stringpiece and looking about in the gloom for a weapon. The Red Un, +quite safe and audacious in his cork jacket, turned over on his back +and kicked. + +"Gwan yerself, Methuselah!" he sang. + +They stole the old man's pipe and passed it from mouth to mouth; +they engaged him in innocent converse while one of them pinched his +bare old toe under water, crab-fashion. And at last they prepared to +shin up the rope again and sleep the sleep of the young, the +innocent and the refreshed. + +The Chief was leaning over the rail, just above, smoking! + +He leaned against the rail and smoked for three hours! Eight eyes, +watching him from below, failed to find anything in his face but +contemplation; eight hands puckered like a washerwoman's; eight feet +turned from medium to clean, from clean to bleached--and still the +Chief smoked on. He watched the scolding tugs and the ferryboats +that crawled over the top of the water; he stood in rapt +contemplation of the electric signs in Jersey, while the ship's +bells marked the passage of time to eternity, while the +Quartermaster slept in his bed, while the odours of the river stank +in their nostrils and the pressure of the ship's lifebelts weighed +like lead on their clammy bodies. + +At eight bells--which is midnight--the Chief emptied his +twenty-fourth pipe over the rail and smiled into the gloom beneath. + +"Ye'll better be coming up," he remarked pleasantly. "I'm for +turning in mysel'." + +He wandered away; none of the watch was near. The ship was dark, +save for her riding lights. Hand over puckered hand they struggled +up and wriggled out of the belts; stark naked they ducked through +passageways and alleys, and stowed their damp and cringing forms +between sheets. + +The Red Un served the Chief's breakfast the next morning very +carefully. The Chief's cantaloupe was iced; his kipper covered with +a hot plate; the morning paper propped against McAndrew's hymn. The +Red Un looked very clean and rather bleached. + +The Chief was busy; he read the night reports, which did not amount +to much, the well soundings, and a letter from a man offering to +show him how to increase the efficiency of his engines fifty per +cent, and another offering him a rake-off on a new lubricant. + +Outwardly the Chief was calm--even cold. Inwardly he was rather +uncomfortable: he could feel two blue eyes fixed on his back and +remembered the day he had pulled them out of the river, and how +fixed and desperate they were then. But what was it McAndrew said? +"Law, order, duty an' restraint, obedience, discipline!" + +Besides, if the boys were going to run off with the belts some +damned first-class passenger was likely to get a cabin minus a belt +and might write to the management. The line had had bad luck; it did +not want another black eye. He cleared his throat; the Red Un +dropped a fork. + +"That sort of thing last night won't do, William." + +"N-No, sir." + +"Ye had seen the signs, of course?" + +"Yes, sir." The Red Un never lied to the Chief; it was useless. + +The Chief toyed with his kipper. + +"Ye'll understand I'd ha' preferred dealin' with the matter mysel'; +but it's--gone up higher." + +The Quartermaster, of course! The Chief rose and pretended to glance +over the well soundings. + +"The four of ye will meet me in the Captain's room in fifteen +minutes," he observed casually. + +The Captain was feeding his cat when the Red Un got there. The four +boys lined up uncomfortably; all of them looked clean, subdued, +apprehensive. If they were to be locked up in this sort of weather, +and only three days to sailing time--even a fine would be better. +The Captain stroked the cat and eyed them. + +"Well," he said curtly, "what have you four young imps been up to +now?" + +The four young imps stood panicky. They looked as innocent as choir +boys. The cat, eating her kipper, wheezed. + +"Please, sir," said the Captain's boy solicitously, "Peter has +something in his throat." + +"Perhaps it's a ship's lifebelt," said the Captain grimly, and +caught the Chief's eye. + +The line palpitated; under cover of its confusion the Chief, +standing in the doorway with folded arms, winked swiftly at the +Captain; the next moment he was more dour than ever. + +"You are four upsetters of discipline," said the Captain, suddenly +pounding the table. "You four young monkeys have got the crew by the +ears, and I'm sick of it! Which one of you put the fish in Mrs. +Schmidt's bed?" + +Mrs. Schmidt was a stewardess. The Red Un stepped forward. + +"Who turned the deckhose into the Purser's cabin night before last?" + +"Please," said the Doctor's boy pallidly, "I made a mistake in the +room. I thought----" + +"Who," shouted the Captain, banging again, "cut the Quartermaster's +rope two nights ago and left him sitting under the dock for four +hours?" + +The Purser's boy this time, white to the lips! Fresh panic seized +them; it could hardly be mere arrest if he knew all this; he might +order them hanged from a yardarm or shot at sunrise. He looked like +the latter. The Red Un glanced at the Chief, who looked apprehensive +also, as if the thing was going too far. The Captain may have read +their thoughts, for he said: + +"You're limbs of Satan, all of you, and hanging's too good for you. +What do you say, Chief? How can we make these young scamps lessons +in discipline to the crew?" + +Everybody breathed again and looked at the Chief--who stood tall and +sandy and rather young to be a Chief--in the doorway. + +"Eh, mon," he said, and smiled, "I'm aye a bit severe. Don't ask me +to punish the bairns." + +The Captain sniffed. + +"Severe!" he observed. "You Scots are hard in the head, but soft in +the disposition. Come, Chief--shall they walk the plank?" + +"Good deescipline," assented the Chief, "but it would leave us a bit +shorthanded." + +"True," said the Captain gloomily. + +"I was thinkin'," remarked the Chief diffidently--one hates to think +before the Captain; that's always supposed to be his job. + +"Yes?" + +"That we could make a verra fine example of them and still retain +their services. Ha' ye, by chance, seen a crow hangin' head down in +the field, a warnin' to other mischief-makers?" + +"Ou-ay!" said the Captain, who had a Scotch mother. The line wavered +again; the Captain's boy, who pulled his fingers when he was +excited, cracked three knuckles. + +"It would be good deescipline," continued the Chief, "to stand the +four o' them in ship's belt at the gangway, say for an hour, morning +and evening--clad, ye ken, as they were during the said +infreengements." + +"You're a great man, Chief!" said the Captain. "You hear that, +lads'?" + +"With--with no trousers'?" gasped the Doctor's boy. + +"If you wore trousers last night. If not----" + + * * * * * + +The thing was done that morning. Four small boys, clad only in +ship's belts, above which rose four sheepish heads and freckled +faces, below which shifted and wriggled eight bare legs, stood in +line at the gangway and suffered agonies of humiliation at the hands +of crew and dockmen, grinning customs inspectors, coalpassers, and a +newspaper photographer hunting a human-interest bit for a Sunday +paper. The cooks came up from below and peeped out at them; the +ship's cat took up a position in line and came out in the Sunday +edition as "a fellow conspirator." + +The Red Un, owing to an early training that had considered clothing +desirable rather than essential, was not vitally concerned. The +Quartermaster had charge of the line; he had drawn a mark with chalk +along the deck, and he kept their toes to it by marching up and down +in front of them with a broomhandle over his shoulder. + +"Toe up, you little varmints!" he would snap. "God knows I'd be glad +to get a rap at you--keeping an old man down in the water half the +night! Toe up!" + +Whereupon, aiming an unlucky blow at the Purser's boy, he hit the +Captain's cat. The line snickered. + +It was just after that the Red Un, surmising a snap by the +photographer on the dock and thwarting it by putting his thumb to +his nose, received the shock of his small life. The little girl from +Coney Island, followed by her mother, was on the pier--was showing +every evidence of coming up the gangway to where he stood. Was +coming! Panic seized the Red Un--panic winged with flight. He +turned--to face the Chief. Appeal sprang to the Red Un's lips. + +"Please!" he gasped. "I'm sick, sick as h--, sick as a dog, Chief. +I've got a pain in my chest--I----" + +Curiously enough, the Chief did not answer or even hear. He, too, +was looking at the girl on the gangway and at her mother. The next +moment the Chief was in full flight, ignominious flight, his face, +bleached with the heat of the engine room and the stokehole, set as +no emergency of broken shaft or flying gear had ever seen it. Broken +shaft indeed! A man's life may be a broken shaft. + +The woman and the girl came up the gangway, exidently to inspect +staterooms. The Quartermaster had rallied the Red Un back to the +line and stood before him, brandishing his broomhandle. Black fury +was in the boy's eye; hate had written herself on his soul. His +Chief had ignored his appeal--had left him to his degradation--had +deserted him. + +The girl saw the line, started, blushed, recognised the Red Un--and +laughed! + + +IV + +The great voyage began--began with the band playing and much waving +of flags and display of handkerchiefs; began with the girl and her +mother on board; began with the Chief eating his heart out over coal +and oil vouchers and well soundings and other things; began with the +Red Un in a new celluloid collar, lying awake at night to hate his +master, adding up his injury each day to greater magnitude. + +The voyage began. The gong rang from the bridge. Stand By! said the +twin dials. Half Ahead! Full Ahead! Full Ahead! Man's wits once more +against the upreaching of the sea! The Chief, who knew that +somewhere above was his woman and her child, which was not his, +stood under a ventilator and said the few devout words with which he +commenced each voyage: + +"With Thy help!" And then, snapping his watch: "Three minutes past +ten!" + +The chief engineer of a liner is always a gentleman and frequently a +Christian. He knows, you see, how much his engines can do and how +little. It is not his engines alone that conquer the sea, nor his +engines plus his own mother wit. It is engines plus wit plus _x_, +and the _x_ is God's mercy. Being responsible for two quantities out +of the three of the equation, he prays--if he does--with an eye on a +gauge and an ear open for a cylinder knock. + +There was gossip in the engineers' mess those next days: the Old Man +was going to pieces. A man could stand so many years of the strain +and then where was he? In a land berth, growing fat and paunchy, and +eating his heart out for the sea, or---- The sea got him one way or +another! + +The Senior Second stood out for the Chief. + +"Wrong with him? There's nothing wrong with him," he declared. "If +he was any more on the job than he is I'd resign. He's on the job +twenty-four hours a day, nights included." + +There was a laugh at this; the mess was on to the game. Most of them +were playing it. + +So now we have the Red Un looking for revenge and in idle moments +lurking about the decks where the girl played. He washed his neck +under his collar those days. + +And we have the Chief fretting over his engines, subduing drunken +stokers, quelling the frequent disturbances of Hell Alley, which led +to the firemen's quarters, eating little and smoking much, devising +out of his mental disquietude a hundred possible emergencies +and--keeping away from the passengers. The Junior Second took down +the two parties who came to see the engine room and gave them +lemonade when they came up. The little girl's mother came with the +second party and neither squealed nor asked questions--only at the +door into the stokeholes she stood a moment with dilated eyes. She +was a little woman, still slim, rather tragic. She laid a hand on +the Junior's arm. + +"The--the engineers do not go in there, do they?" + +"Yes, madam. We stand four-hour watches. That is the Senior Second +Engineer on that pile of cinders." + +The Senior Second was entirely black, except for his teeth and the +whites of his eyes. There was a little trouble in a coalbunker; +they had just discovered it. There would be no visitors after this +until the trouble was over. + +The girl's mother said nothing more. The Junior Second led them +around, helping a pretty young woman about and explaining to her. + +"This," he said, smiling at the girl, "is a pump the men have +nicknamed Marguerite, because she takes most of one man's time and +is always giving trouble." + +The young woman tossed her head. + +"Perhaps she would do better if she were left alone," she suggested. + +The girl's mother said nothing, but, before she left, she took one +long look about the engine room. In some such bedlam of noise and +heat _he_ spent his life. She was wrong, of course, to pity him; one +need not measure labour by its conditions or by its cost, but by the +joy of achievement. The woman saw the engines--sinister, menacing, +frightful; the man saw power that answered to his hand--conquest, +victory. The beat that was uproar to her ears was as the throbbing +of his own heart. + +It was after they had gone that the Chief emerged from the forward +stokehole where the trouble was. He had not seen her; she would not +have known him, probably, had they met face to face. He was quite +black and the light of battle gleamed in his eyes. + +They fixed the trouble somehow. It was fire in a coalbunker, one of +the minor exigencies. Fire requiring air they smothered it one way +and another. It did not spread, but it did not quite die. And each +day's run was better than the day before. + +The weather was good. The steerage, hanging over the bow, saw far +below the undercurling spray, white under dark blue--the blue +growing paler, paler still, until the white drops burst to the top +and danced free in the sun. A Greek, going home to Crete to marry a +wife, made all day long tiny boats of coloured paper, weighted with +corks, and sailed them down into the sea. + +"They shall carry back to America my farewells!" he said, smiling. +"This to Pappas, the bootblack, who is my friend. This to a girl +back in America, with eyes--behold that darkest blue, my children; +so are her eyes! And this black one to my sister, who has lost a +child." + +The first class watched the spray also--as it rose to the lip of a +glass. + +Now at last it seemed they would break a record. Then rain set in, +without enough wind to make a sea, but requiring the starboard ports +to be closed. The Senior Second, going on duty at midnight that +night, found his Junior railing at fate and the airpumps going. + +"Shut 'em off!" said the Senior Second furiously. + +"Shut 'em off yourself. I've tried it twice." + +The Senior Second gave a lever a vicious tug and the pump stopped. +Before it had quite lapsed into inertia the Chief's bell rang. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded the Junior sulkily. "The old fox!" + +The Senior cursed. Then he turned abruptly and climbed the steel +ladder he had just descended. The Junior, who was anticipating a +shower and bed, stared after him. + +The Senior thought quickly--that was why he was a Senior. He found +the Red Un's cabin and hammered at the door. Then, finding it was +not locked, he walked in. The Red Un lay perched aloft; the shirt of +his small pajamas had worked up about his neck and his thin torso +lay bare. In one hand he clutched the dead end of a cigarette. The +Senior wakened him by running a forefinger down his ribs, much as a +boy runs a stick along a paling fence. + +"Wha' ish it?" demanded the Red Un in sleepy soprano. And then "Wha' +d'ye want?" in bass. His voice was changing; he sounded like two +people in animated discussion most of the time. + +"You boys want to earn a sovereign?" + +The Purser's boy, who had refused to rouse to this point, sat up in +bed. + +"Whaffor?" he asked. + +"Get the Chief here some way. You"--to the Purser's boy--"go and +tell him the Red Un's ill and asking for him. You"--to the Red +Un--"double up; cry; do something. Start him off for the +doctor--anything, so you keep him ten minutes or so!" + +The Red Un was still drowsy, and between sleeping and waking we are +what we are. + +"I won't do it!" + +The Senior Second held out a gold sovereign on his palm. + +"Don't be a bally little ass!" he said. + +The Red Un, waking full, now remembered that he hated the Chief; for +fear he did not hate him enough, he recalled the lifebelt, and his +legs, and the girl laughing. + +"All right!" he said. "Gwan, Pimples! What'll I have? +Appendiceetis?" + +"Have a toothache," snapped the Senior Second. "Tear off a few +yells--anything to keep him!" + +It worked rather well; plots have a way of being successful in +direct proportion to their iniquity. Beneficent plots, like loving +relatives dressed as Santa Claus, frequently go wrong; while it has +been shown that the leakiest sort of scheme to wreck a bank will go +through with the band playing. + +The Chief came and found the Red Un in agony, holding his jaw. Owing +to the fact that he lay far back in an upper bunk, it took time to +drag him into the light. It took more time to get his mouth open; +once open, the Red Un pointed to a snag that should have given him +trouble if it didn't, and set up a fresh outcry. + +Not until long after could the Red Un recall without shame his share +in that night's work--recall the Chief, stubby hair erect, kind blue +eyes searching anxiously for the offending tooth. Recall it? Would +he ever forget the arm the Chief put about him, and him: "Ou-ay! +laddie; it's a weeked snag!" + +The Chief, to whom God had denied a son of his flesh, had taken Red +Un to his heart, you see--fatherless wharf-rat and childless +engineer; the man acting on the dour Scot principle of chastening +whomsoever he loveth, and the boy cherishing a hate that was really +only hurt love. + +And as the Chief, who had dragged the Red Un out of eternity and was +not minded to see him die of a toothache, took him back to his cabin +the pain grew better, ceased, turned to fright. The ten minutes or +so were over and what would they find? The Chief opened the door; he +had in mind a drop of whisky out of the flask he never touched on a +trip--whisky might help the tooth. + +On the threshold he seemed to scent something amiss. He glanced at +the ceiling over his bunk, where the airtrunk lay, and then--he +looked at the boy. He stooped down and put a hand on the boy's head, +turning it to the light. + +"Tell me now, lad," he said quietly, "did ye or did ye no ha' the +toothache?" + +"It's better now," sullenly. + +"Did ye or did ye no?" + +"No." + +The Chief turned the boy about and pushed him through the doorway +into outer darkness. He said nothing. Down to his very depths he was +hurt. To have lost the game was something; but it was more than +that. Had he been a man of words he might have said that once again +a creature he loved had turned on him to his injury. Being a Scot +and a man of few words he merely said he was damned, and crawled +back into bed. + +The game? Well, that was simple enough. Directly over his pillow, in +the white-painted airtrunk, was a brass plate, fastened with four +screws. In case of anything wrong with the ventilator the plate +could be taken off for purposes of investigation. + +The Chief's scheme had been simplicity itself--so easy that the +Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had +never thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, and +officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shut +off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked +the bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's picture +and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the +back--written out of a sore heart, be sure. And then he took out +the cigar-box lid. + +When he had unscrewed the brass plate over his head he replaced it +with the lid of the cigar-box. So long as the pumps in the engine +room kept the air moving, the lid stayed up by suction. + +When the air stopped the lid fell down on his head; he roused enough +to press a signal button and, as the air started viciously, to +replace the lid. Then, off to the sleep of the just and the crafty +again. And so on _ad infinitum_. + +Of course the game was not over because it was discovered and the +lid gone. There would be other lids. But the snap, the joy, was gone +out of it. It would never again be the same, and the worst of all +was the manner of the betrayal. + +He slept but little the remainder of the night; and, because unrest +travels best from soul to soul at night, when the crowding emotions +of the day give it place, the woman slept little also. She was +thinking of the entrance to the stokehole, where one crouched under +the bellies of furnaces, and where the engineer on duty stood on a +pile of hot cinders. Toward morning her room grew very close: the +air from the ventilator seemed to have ceased. + +Far down in the ship, in a breathless little cabin far aft, the Red +Un kicked the Purser's boy and cried himself to sleep. + + +V + +The old ship made a record the next night that lifted the day's run +to four hundred and twenty. She was not a greyhound, you see. +Generally speaking, she was a nine-day boat. She averaged well under +four hundred miles. The fast boats went by her and slid over the +edge of the sea, throwing her bits of news by wireless over a +shoulder, so to speak. + +The little girl's mother was not a good sailor. She sat almost all +day in a steamer chair, reading or looking out over the rail. Each +day she tore off the postal from the top of her menu and sent it to +the girl's father. She missed him more than she had expected. He had +become a habit; he was solid, dependable, loyal. He had never heard +of the Chief. + +"Dear Daddy," she would write: "Having a splendid voyage so far, but +wish you were here. The baby is having such a good time--so popular; +and won two prizes to-day at the sports! With love, Lily." + +They were all rather like that. She would drop them in the mailbox, +with a tug of tenderness for the man who worked at home. Then she +would go back to her chair and watch the sea, and recall the heat of +the engine room below, and wonder, wonder---- + +It had turned warm again; the edges of the horizon were grey and at +night a low mist lay over the water. Rooms were stifling, humid. The +Red Un discarded pajamas and slept in his skin. The engine-room +watch came up white round the lips and sprawled over the boat deck +without speech. Things were going wrong in the Red Un's small world. +The Chief hardly spoke to him--was grave and quiet, and ate almost +nothing. The Red Un hated himself unspeakably and gave his share of +the sovereign to the Purser's boy. + +The Chief was suffering from lack of exercise in the air as well as +other things. The girl's mother was not sleeping--what with heat and +the memories the sea had revived. On the fifth night out, while the +ship slept, these two met on the deck in the darkness--two shadows +out of the past. The deck was dark, but a ray from a window touched +his face and she knew him. He had not needed light to know her; +every line of her was written on his heart, and for him there was no +one at home to hold in tenderness. + +"I think I knew you were here all the time," she said, and held out +both hands. + +The Chief took one and dropped it. She belonged to the person at +home. He had no thought of forgetting that! + +"I saw your name on the passenger list, but I have been very busy." +He never lapsed into Scotch with her; she had not liked it. "Is +your husband with you?" + +"He could not come just now. I have my daughter." + +Her voice fell rather flat. The Chief could not think of anything to +say. Her child, and not his! He was a one-woman man, you see--and +this was the woman. + +"I have seen her," he said presently. "She's like you, Lily." + +That was a wrong move--the Lily; for it gave her courage to put her +hand on his arm. + +"It is so long since we have met," she said wistfully. "Yesterday, +after I saw the--the place where you lived and--and work----" She +choked; she was emotional, rather weak. Having made the situation +she should have let it alone; but, after all, it is not what the +woman is, but what the man thinks she is. + +The Chief stroked her fingers on his sleeve. + +"It's not bad, Lily," he said. "It's a man's job. I like it." + +"I believe you had forgotten me entirely!" + +The Chief winced. "Isn't that the best thing you could wish me?" he +said. + +"Are you happy?" + +"'I ha' lived and I ha' worked!'" he quoted sturdily. + +Very shortly after that he left her; he made an excuse of being +needed below and swung off, his head high. + + +VI + +They struck the derelict when the mist was thickest, about two that +morning. The Red Un was thrown out of his berth and landed, stark +naked, on the floor. The Purser's boy was on the floor, too, in a +tangle of bedding. There was a sickening silence for a moment, +followed by the sound of opening doors and feet in the passage. +There was very little speech. People ran for the decks. The Purser's +boy ran with them. + +The Red Un never thought of the deck. One of the axioms of the +engine room is that of every man to his post in danger. The Red Un's +post was with his Chief. His bare feet scorched on the steel ladders +and the hot floor plates; he had on only his trousers, held up with +a belt. + +The trouble was in the forward stokehole. Water was pouring in from +the starboard side--was welling up through the floor plates. The +wound was ghastly, fatal! The smouldering in the bunker had weakened +resistance there and her necrosed ribs had given away. The Red Un, +scurrying through the tunnel, was met by a maddened rush of trimmers +and stokers. He went down under them and came up bruised, bleeding, +battling for place. + +"You skunks!" he blubbered. "You crazy cowards! Come back and help!" + +A big stoker stopped and caught the boy's arm. + +"You come on!" he gasped. "The whole thing'll go in a minute. She'll +go down by the head!" + +He tried to catch the boy up in his arms, but the Red Un struck him +on the nose. + +"Let me go, you big stiff!" he cried, and kicked himself free. + +Not all the men had gone. They were working like fiends. It was up +to the bulkhead now. If it held--if it only held long enough to get +the passengers off! + +Not an engineer thought of leaving his place, though they knew, +better even than the deck officers, how mortally the ship was hurt. +They called to their aid every resource of a business that is +nothing but emergencies. Engines plus wit, plus the grace of +God--and the engines were useless. Wits, then, plus Providence. The +pumps made no impression on the roaring flood; they lifted floor +plates to strengthen the bulkheads and worked until it was death to +work longer. Then, fighting for every foot, the little band +retreated to the after stokehole. Lights were out forward. The Chief +was the last to escape. He carried an oil lantern, and squeezed +through the bulkhead door with a wall of water behind him. + +The Red Un cried out, but too late. The Chief, blinded by his +lantern, had stumbled into the pit where a floor plate had been +lifted. When he found his leg was broken he cried to them to go on +and leave him, but they got him out somehow and carried him with +them as they fought and retreated--fought and retreated. He was +still the Chief; he lay on the floor propped up against something +and directed the fight. The something he leaned against was the +strained body of the Red Un, who held him up and sniffled shamefaced +tears. She was down by the head already and rolling like a dying +thing. When the water came into the after stokehole they carried the +Chief into the engine room--the lights were going there. + +There had been no panic on deck. There were boats enough and the +lights gave every one confidence. It was impossible to see the +lights going and believe the ship doomed. Those who knew felt the +list of the decks and hurried with the lowering of the boats; the +ones who saw only the lights wished to go back to their cabins for +clothing and money. + +The woman sat in the Quartermaster's boat, with her daughter in her +arms, and stared at the ship. The Quartermaster said the engineers +were still below and took off his cap. In her feeble way the woman +tried to pray, and found only childish, futile things to say; but in +her mind there was a great wonder--that they, who had once been life +each to the other, should part thus, and that now, as ever, the good +part was hers! The girl looked up into her mother's face. + +"The redhaired little boy, mother--do you think he is safe?" + +"First off, likely," mumbled the Quartermaster grimly. + +All the passengers were off. Under the mist the sea rose and fell +quietly; the boats and rafts had drawn off to a safe distance. The +Greek, who had humour as well as imagination, kept up the spirits of +those about him while he held a child in his arms. + +"Shall we," he inquired gravely, "think you--shall we pay extra to +the company for this excursion?" + + * * * * * + +The battle below had been fought and lost. It was of minutes now. +The Chief had given the order: "Every one for himself!" Some of the +men had gone, climbing to outer safety. The two Seconds had refused +to leave the Chief. All lights were off by that time. The after +stokehole was flooded and water rolled sickeningly in the +engine-pits. Each second it seemed the ship must take its fearful +dive into the quiet sea that so insistently reached up for her. +With infinite labour the Seconds got the Chief up to the fiddley, +twenty feet or less out of a hundred, and straight ladders instead +of a steel staircase. Ten men could not have lifted him without +gear, and there was not time! + +Then, because the rest was hopeless, they left him there, propped +against the wall, with the lantern beside him. He shook hands with +them; the Junior was crying; the Senior went last, and after he had +gone up a little way he turned and came back. + +"I can't do it, Chief!" he said. "I'll stick it out with you." But +the Chief drove him up, with the name of his wife and child. Far up +the shaft he turned and looked down. The lantern glowed faintly +below. + +The Chief sat alone on his grating. He was faint with pain. The +blistering cylinders were growing cold; the steel floor beneath was +awash. More ominous still, as the ship's head sank, came crackings +and groanings from the engines below. They would fall through at the +last, ripping out the bulkheads and carrying her down bow first. + +Pain had made the Chief rather dull. "'I ha' lived and I ha' +worked!'" he said several times--and waited for the end. Into his +stupor came the thought of the woman--and another thought of the +Red Un. Both of them had sold him out, so to speak; but the woman +had grown up with his heart and the boy was his by right of +salvage--only he thought of the woman as he dreamed of her, not as +he had seen her on the deck. He grew rather confused, after a time, +and said: "I ha' loved and I ha' worked!" + +Just between life and death there comes a time when the fight seems +a draw, or as if each side, exhausted, had called a truce. There is +no more struggle, but it is not yet death. The ship lay so. The +upreaching sea had not conquered. The result was inevitable, but not +yet. And in the pause the Red Un came back, came crawling down the +ladder, his indomitable spirit driving his craven little body. + +He had got as far as the boat and safety. The gripping devils of +fear that had followed him up from the engine room still hung to his +throat; but once on deck, with the silent men who were working +against time and eternity, he found he could not do it. He was the +Chief's boy--and the Chief was below and hurt! + +The truce still held. As the ship rolled, water washed about the +foot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders. The Chief tried +desperately to drive him up to the deck and failed. + +"It's no place for you alone," said the Red Un. His voice had +lost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man. +"I'm staying!" And after a hesitating moment he put his small, +frightened paw on the Chief's arm. + +It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief--not love of life, but +love of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole--that was not so +bad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better than +where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather +than live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee. + +"I'm thinking, laddie," he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow." + +The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painful +rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. For +each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot--no more. What he would +not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy. +Halfway up, he clung, exhausted. + +The boy leaned down and held out his hand. + +"I'll pull," he said. "Just hang on to me." + +Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the +silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He was +pulling indeed. + +"About--that airtrunk," he managed to say--"I'm--sorry, sir!" + + * * * * * + +The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection. In the +Quartermaster's boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on her +cheeks. The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired with +living. + +It was the girl, after all, who spied them--two figures--one inert +and almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing a +blue face and two desperate eyes above a ship's lifebelt. + +The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, pale +and tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart. His +eyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache. +He had died and lived again, and what was past was past. + +"I thought," said the woman tremulously--"all night I thought that +you----" + +The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry. His +eyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languid +youngster curled up at his feet, asleep. The woman drew back--as +from an intrusion. + +As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up. His eyes +met the Chief's, and between them passed such a look of +understanding as made for the two one world, one victory! + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Stories, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 15473-8.txt or 15473-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/7/15473/ + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + +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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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: Love Stories + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: March 26, 2005 [EBook #15473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div style="height: 8em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<hr class="long" /> +<h3> + THE WORKS OF +</h3> +<h2> +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART +</h2> +<p><br /></p> +<h1> +LOVE STORIES +</h1> +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/decoration.gif" width="56" height="60" +alt="Title Page Decoration" /> +</center> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center"> +<span class="sc">The Review of Reviews Company</span><br /> + <i>Publishers</i> <span class="sc"> New York</span> +</p> +<p class="note"> + Published by Arrangement with George H. Doran Company. +</p> + +<hr class="long" /> +<p class="note2"> +<i>Copyright, 1919, By George H. Doran Company</i> +</p> +<p class="note2"> +<i>Copyright, 1912, 1913, 1916, by the Curtis Publishing Company</i><br /> +<i>Copyright, 1912, by The McClure Publications, Inc.</i><br /> +<i>Copyright, 1917, by The Metropolitan Magazine Co.</i> +</p> + +<hr class="long" /> + +<h3> CONTENTS </h3> + +<p class="toc">i<br /><a href="#2H_4_0002"> +Twenty-Two +</a></p> +<p class="toc">ii<br /><a href="#2H_4_0003"> +Jane +</a></p> +<p class="toc">iii<br /><a href="#2H_4_0004"> +In the Pavilion +</a></p> +<p class="toc">iv<br /><a href="#2H_4_0005"> +God's Fool +</a></p> +<p class="toc">v<br /><a href="#2H_4_0006"> +The Miracle +</a></p> +<p class="toc">vi<br /><a href="#2H_4_0007"> +"Are We Downhearted? No!" +</a></p> +<p class="toc">vii<br /><a href="#2H_4_0008"> +The Game +</a></p> + +<div style="height: 2em;"><br /><br /></div> + + +<hr class="long" /> + + +<h3> + LOVE STORIES +</h3> + +<hr class="long" /> + +<a name="2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + TWENTY-TWO +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +The Probationer's name was really Nella Jane Brown, but she was +entered in the training school as N. Jane Brown. However, she meant +when she was accepted to be plain Jane Brown. Not, of course, that +she could ever be really plain. +</p> +<p> +People on the outside of hospitals have a curious theory about +nurses, especially if they are under twenty. They believe that they +have been disappointed in love. They never think that they may +intend to study medicine later on, or that they may think nursing is +a good and honourable career, or that they may really like to care +for the sick. +</p> +<p> +The man in this story had the theory very hard. +</p> +<p> +When he opened his eyes after the wall of the warehouse dropped, N. +Jane Brown was sitting beside him. She had been practising counting +pulses on him, and her eyes were slightly upturned and very earnest. +</p> +<p> +There was a strong odour of burnt rags in the air, and the man +sniffed. Then he put a hand to his upper lip—the right hand. She +was holding his left. +</p> +<p> +"Did I lose anything besides this?" he inquired. His little +moustache was almost entirely gone. A gust of fire had accompanied +the wall. +</p> +<p> +"Your eyebrows," said Jane Brown. +</p> +<p> +The man—he was as young for a man as Jane Brown was for a +nurse—the man lay quite still for a moment. Then: +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry to undeceive you," he said. "But my right leg is off." +</p> +<p> +He said it lightly, because that is the way he took things. But he +had a strange singing in his ears. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid it's broken. But you still have it." She smiled. She had +a very friendly smile. "Have you any pain anywhere?" +</p> +<p> +He was terribly afraid she would go away and leave him, so, although +he was quite comfortable, owing to a hypodermic he had had, he +groaned slightly. He was, at that time, not particularly interested +in Jane Brown, but he did not want to be alone. He closed his eyes +and said feebly: +</p> +<p> +"Water!" +</p> +<p> +She gave him a teaspoonful, bending over him and being careful not +to spill it down his neck. Her uniform crackled when she moved. It +had rather too much starch in it. +</p> +<p> +The man, whose name was Middleton, closed his eyes. Owing to the +morphia, he had at least a hundred things he wished to discuss. The +trouble was to fix on one out of the lot. +</p> +<p> +"I feel like a bit of conversation," he observed. "How about you?" +</p> +<p> +Then he saw that she was busy again. She held an old-fashioned +hunting-case watch in her hand, and her eyes were fixed on his +chest. At each rise and fall of the coverlet her lips moved. Mr. +Middleton, who was feeling wonderful, experimented. He drew four +very rapid breaths, and four very slow ones. He was rewarded by +seeing her rush to a table and write something on a sheet of yellow +paper. +</p> +<p> +"Resparation, very iregular," was what she wrote. She was not a +particularly good speller. +</p> +<p> +After that Mr. Middleton slept for what he felt was a day and a +night. It was really ten minutes by the hunting-case watch. Just +long enough for the Senior Surgical Interne, known in the school as +the S.S.I., to wander in, feel his pulse, approve of Jane Brown, and +go out. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown had risen nervously when he came in, and had proffered +him the order book and a clean towel, as she had been instructed. He +had, however, required neither. He glanced over the record, changed +the spelling of "resparation," arranged his tie at the mirror, took +another look at Jane Brown, and went out. He had not spoken. +</p> +<p> +It was when his white-linen clad figure went out that Middleton +wakened and found it was the same day. He felt at once like +conversation, and he began immediately. But the morphia did a +curious thing to him. He was never afterward able to explain it. It +made him create. He lay there and invented for Jane Brown a +fictitious person, who was himself. This person, he said, was a +newspaper reporter, who had been sent to report the warehouse fire. +He had got too close, and a wall had come down on him. He invented +the newspaper, too, but, as Jane Brown had come from somewhere else, +she did not notice this. +</p> +<p> +In fact, after a time he felt that she was not as really interested +as she might have been, so he introduced a love element. He was, as +has been said, of those who believe that nurses go into hospitals +because of being blighted. So he introduced a Mabel, suppressing her +other name, and boasted, in a way he afterward remembered with +horror, that Mabel was in love with him. She was, he related, +something or other on his paper. +</p> +<p> +At the end of two hours of babbling, a businesslike person in a +cap—the Probationer wears no cap—relieved Jane Brown, and spilled +some beef tea down his neck. +</p> +<p> +Now, Mr. Middleton knew no one in that city. He had been motoring +through, and he had, on seeing the warehouse burning, abandoned his +machine for a closer view. He had left it with the engine running, +and, as a matter of fact, it ran for four hours, when it died of +starvation, and was subsequently interred in a city garage. However, +he owned a number of cars, so he wasted no thought on that one. He +was a great deal more worried about his eyebrows, and, naturally, +about his leg. +</p> +<p> +When he had been in the hospital ten hours it occurred to him to +notify his family. But he put it off for two reasons: first, it +would be a lot of trouble; second, he had no reason to think they +particularly wanted to know. They all had such a lot of things to +do, such as bridge and opening country houses and going to the +Springs. They were really overwhelmed, without anything new, and +they had never been awfully interested in him anyhow. +</p> +<p> +He was not at all bitter about it. +</p> +<p> +That night Mr. Middleton—but he was now officially "Twenty-two," by +that system of metonymy which designates a hospital private patient +by the number of his room—that night "Twenty-two" had rather a bad +time, between his leg and his conscience. Both carried on +disgracefully. His leg stabbed, and his conscience reminded him of +Mabel, and that if one is going to lie, there should at least be a +reason. To lie out of the whole cloth——! +</p> +<p> +However, toward morning, with what he felt was the entire +pharmacopœia inside him, and his tongue feeling like a tar roof, he +made up his mind to stick to his story, at least as far as the young +lady with the old-fashioned watch was concerned. He had a sort of +creed, which shows how young he was, that one should never explain +to a girl. +</p> +<p> +There was another reason still. There had been a faint sparkle in +the eyes of the young lady with the watch while he was lying to her. +He felt that she was seeing him in heroic guise, and the thought +pleased him. It was novel. +</p> +<p> +To tell the truth, he had been getting awfully bored with himself +since he left college. Everything he tried to do, somebody else +could do so much better. And he comforted himself with this, that he +would have been a journalist if he could, or at least have published +a newspaper. He knew what was wrong with about a hundred newspapers. +</p> +<p> +He decided to confess about Mabel, but to hold fast to journalism. +Then he lay in bed and watched for the Probationer to come back. +</p> +<p> +However, here things began to go wrong. He did not see Jane Brown +again. There were day nurses and night nurses and reliefs, and +<i>internes</i> and Staff and the Head Nurse and the First Assistant +and—everything but Jane Brown. And at last he inquired for her. +</p> +<p> +"The first day I was in here," he said to Miss Willoughby, "there +was a little girl here without a cap. I don't know her name. But I +haven't seen her since." +</p> +<p> +Miss Willoughby, who, if she had been disappointed in love, had +certainly had time to forget it, Miss Willoughby reflected. +</p> +<p> +"Without a cap? Then it was only one of the probationers." +</p> +<p> +"You don't remember which one?" +</p> +<p> +But she only observed that probationers were always coming and +going, and it wasn't worth while learning their names until they +were accepted. And that, anyhow, probationers should never be sent +to private patients, who are paying a lot and want the best. +</p> +<p> +"Really," she added, "I don't know what the school is coming to. +Since this war in Europe every girl wants to wear a uniform and be +ready to go to the front if we have trouble. All sorts of silly +children are applying. We have one now, on this very floor, not a +day over nineteen." +</p> +<p> +"Who is she?" asked Middleton. He felt that this was the one. She +was so exactly the sort Miss Willoughby would object to. +</p> +<p> +"Jane Brown," snapped Miss Willoughby. "A little, namby-pamby, +mush-and-milk creature, afraid of her own shadow." +</p> +<p> +Now, Jane Brown, at that particular moment, was sitting in her +little room in the dormitory, with the old watch ticking on the +stand so she would not over-stay her off duty. She was aching with +fatigue from her head, with its smooth and shiny hair, to her feet, +which were in a bowl of witch hazel and hot water. And she was +crying over a letter she was writing. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown had just come from her first death. It had taken place in +H ward, where she daily washed window-sills, and disinfected stands, +and carried dishes in and out. And it had not been what she had +expected. In the first place, the man had died for hours. She had +never heard of this. She had thought of death as coming quickly—a +glance of farewell, closing eyes, and—rest. But for hours and hours +the struggle had gone on, a fight for breath that all the ward could +hear. And he had not closed his eyes at all. They were turned up, +and staring. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer had suffered horribly, and at last she had gone +behind the screen and folded her hands and closed her eyes, and said +very low: +</p> +<p> +"Dear God—please take him quickly." +</p> +<p> +He had stopped breathing almost immediately. But that may have been +a coincidence. +</p> +<p> +However, she was not writing that home. Between gasps she was +telling the humours of visiting day in the ward, and of how kind +every one was to her, which, if not entirely true, was not entirely +untrue. They were kind enough when they had time to be, or when they +remembered her. Only they did not always remember her. +</p> +<p> +She ended by saying that she was quite sure they meant to accept her +when her three months was up. It was frightfully necessary that she +be accepted. +</p> +<p> +She sent messages to all the little town, which had seen her off +almost <i>en masse</i>. And she added that the probationers received the +regular first-year allowance of eight dollars a month, and she could +make it do nicely—which was quite true, unless she kept on breaking +thermometers when she shook them down. +</p> +<p> +At the end she sent her love to everybody, including even worthless +Johnny Fraser, who cut the grass and scrubbed the porches; and, of +course, to Doctor Willie. He was called Doctor Willie because his +father, who had taken him into partnership long ago, was Doctor +Will. It never had seemed odd, although Doctor Willie was now +sixty-five, and a saintly soul. +</p> +<p> +Curiously enough, her letter was dated April first. Under that very +date, and about that time of the day, a health officer in a near-by +borough was making an entry regarding certain coloured gentlemen +shipped north from Louisiana to work on a railroad. Opposite the +name of one Augustus Baird he put a cross. This indicated that +Augustus Baird had not been vaccinated. +</p> +<p> +By the sixth of April "Twenty-two" had progressed from splints to a +plaster cast, and was being most awfully bored. Jane Brown had not +returned, and there was a sort of relentless maturity about the +nurses who looked after him that annoyed him. +</p> +<p> +Lying there, he had a good deal of time to study them, and somehow +his recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did not +seem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He could +not, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior Surgical +Interne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedly +bullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes too +small for her, as to their days off duty. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two began to learn things about the hospital. For instance, +the day nurse, while changing his pillow slips, would observe that +Nineteen was going to be operated on that day, and close her lips +over further information. But when the afternoon relief, while +giving him his toothbrush after lunch, said there was a most +interesting gall-stone case in nineteen, and the night nurse, in +reply to a direct question, told Nineteen's name, but nothing else, +Twenty-two had a fair working knowledge of the day's events. +</p> +<p> +He seemed to learn about everything but Jane Brown. He knew when a +new baby came, and was even given a glimpse of one, showing, he +considered, about the colour and general contour of a maraschino +cherry. And he learned soon that the god of the hospital is the +Staff, although worship did not blind the nurses to their +weaknesses. Thus the older men, who had been trained before the day +of asepsis and modern methods, were revered but carefully watched. +They would get out of scrubbing their hands whenever they could, and +they hated their beards tied up with gauze. The nurses, keen, +competent and kindly, but shrewd, too, looked after these elderly +recalcitrants; loved a few, hated some, and presented to the world +unbroken ranks for their defence. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two learned also the story of the First Assistant, who was in +love with one of the Staff, who was married, and did not care for +her anyhow. So she wore tight shoes, and was always beautifully +waved, and read Browning. +</p> +<p> +She had a way of coming in and saying brightly, as if to reassure +herself: +</p> +<p> +"Good morning, Twenty-two. Well, God is still in His heaven, and +all's well with the world." +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two got to feeling awfully uncomfortable about her. She used +to bring him flowers and sit down a moment to rest her feet, which +generally stung. And she would stop in the middle of a sentence and +look into space, but always with a determined smile. +</p> +<p> +He felt awfully uncomfortable. She was so neat and so efficient—and +so tragic. He tried to imagine being hopelessly in love, and trying +to live on husks of Browning. Not even Mrs. Browning. +</p> +<p> +The mind is a curious thing. Suddenly, from thinking of Mrs. +Browning, he thought of N. Jane Brown. Of course not by that +ridiculous name. He had learned that she was stationed on that +floor. And in the same flash he saw the Senior Surgical Interne +swanking about in white ducks and just the object for a probationer +to fall in love with. He lay there, and pulled the beginning of the +new moustache, and reflected. The First Assistant was pinning a +spray of hyacinth in her cap. +</p> +<p> +"Look here," he said. "Why can't I be put in a wheeled chair and get +about? One that I can manipulate myself," he added craftily. +</p> +<p> +She demurred. Indeed, everybody demurred when he put it up to them. +But he had gone through the world to the age of twenty-four, getting +his own way about ninety-seven per cent. of the time. He got it this +time, consisting of a new cast, which he named Elizabeth, and a +roller-chair, and he spent a full day learning how to steer himself +around. +</p> +<p> +Then, on the afternoon of the third day, rolling back toward the +elevator and the <i>terra incognita</i> which lay beyond, he saw a sign. +He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with a +plan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and it said: +</p> +<p> +"No private patients allowed beyond here." +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two sat in his chair and stared at it. The plaster cast +stretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket. +With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he was +well dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort of +college-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchased +for him. His other things were in that extremely expensive English +car which the city was storing. +</p> +<p> +The plain truth is that Twenty-two was looking for Jane Brown. Since +she had not come to him, he must go to her. He particularly wanted +to set her right as to Mabel. And he felt, too, that that trick +about respirations had not been entirely fair. +</p> +<p> +He was, of course, not in the slightest degree in love with her. He +had only seen her once, and then he had had a broken leg and a +quarter grain of morphia and a burned moustache and no eyebrows left +to speak of. +</p> +<p> +But there was the sign. It was hung to a nail beside the elevator +shaft. And far beyond, down the corridor, was somebody in a blue +dress and no cap. It might be anybody, but again—— +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two looked around. The elevator had just gone down at its +usual rate of a mile every two hours. In the convalescent parlour, +where private patients <i>en negligée</i> complained about the hospital +food, the nurse in charge was making a new cap. Over all the +hospital brooded an after-luncheon peace. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two wheeled up under the sign and considered his average of +ninety-seven per cent. Followed in sequence these events: (a) +Twenty-two wheeled back to the parlour, where old Mr. Simond's cane +leaned against a table, and, while engaging that gentleman in +conversation, possessed himself of the cane. (b) Wheeled back to the +elevator. (c) Drew cane from beneath blanket. (d) Unhooked sign with +cane and concealed both under blanket. (e) Worked his way back along +the forbidden territory, past I and J until he came to H ward. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown was in H ward. +</p> +<p> +She was alone, and looking very professional. There is nothing quite +so professional as a new nurse. She had, indeed, reached a point +where, if she took a pulse three times, she got somewhat similar +results. There had been a time when they had run something like +this: 56—80—120—— +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown was taking pulses. It was a visiting day, and all the +beds had fresh white spreads, tucked in neatly at the foot. In the +exact middle of the centre table with its red cloth, was a vase of +yellow tulips. The sun came in and turned them to golden flame. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown was on duty alone and taking pulses with one eye while +she watched the visitors with the other. She did the watching better +than she did the pulses. For instance, she was distinctly aware that +Stanislas Krzykolski's wife, in the bed next the end, had just slid +a half-dozen greasy cakes, sprinkled with sugar, under his pillow. +She knew, however, that not only grease but love was in those cakes, +and she did not intend to confiscate them until after Mrs. +Krzykolski had gone. +</p> +<p> +More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers, +walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with a +rouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hung +over the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, not +only the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass basins, +the fireplace fender, and the Probationer's hair. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two sat unnoticed in the doorway. A young girl, very lame, +with a mandolin, had just entered the ward. In the little stir of +her arrival, Twenty-two had time to see that Jane Brown was worth +even all the trouble he had taken, and more. Really, to see Jane +Brown properly, she should have always been seen in the sun. She was +that sort. +</p> +<p> +The lame girl sat down in the centre of the ward, and the buzz died +away. She was not pretty, and she was very nervous. Twenty-two +frowned a trifle. +</p> +<p> +"Poor devils," he said to himself. But Jane Brown put away her +hunting-case watch, and the lame girl swept the ward with soft eyes +that had in them a pity that was almost a benediction. +</p> +<p> +Then she sang. Her voice was like her eyes, very sweet and rather +frightened, but tender. And suddenly something a little hard and +selfish in Twenty-two began to be horribly ashamed of itself. And, +for no earthly reason in the world, he began to feel like a cumberer +of the earth. Before she had finished the first song, he was +thinking that perhaps when he was getting about again, he might run +over to France for a few months in the ambulance service. A fellow +really ought to do his bit. +</p> +<p> +At just about that point Jane Brown turned and saw him. And although +he had run all these risks to get to her, and even then had an +extremely cold tin sign lying on his knee under the blanket, at +first she did not know him. The shock of this was almost too much +for him. In all sorts of places people were glad to see him, +especially women. He was astonished, but it was good for him. +</p> +<p> +She recognised him almost immediately, however, and flushed a +little, because she knew he had no business there. She was awfully +bound up with rules. +</p> +<p> +"I came back on purpose to see you," said Twenty-two, when at last +the lame girl had limped away. "Because, that day I came in and you +looked after me, you know, I—must have talked a lot of nonsense." +</p> +<p> +"Morphia makes some people talk," she said. It was said in an exact +copy of the ward nurse's voice, a frightfully professional and +impersonal tone. +</p> +<p> +"But," said Twenty-two, stirring uneasily, "I said a lot that wasn't +true. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. Now that about a girl +named Mabel, for instance——" +</p> +<p> +He stirred again, because, after all, what did it matter what he had +said? She was gazing over the ward. She was not interested in him. +She had almost forgotten him. And as he stirred Mr. Simond's cane +fell out. It was immediately followed by the tin sign, which only +gradually subsided, face up, on the bare floor, in a slowly +diminishing series of crashes. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown stooped and picked them both up and placed them on his +lap. Then, very stern, she marched out of the ward into the +corridor, and there subsided into quiet hysterics of mirth. +Twenty-two, who hated to be laughed at, followed her in the chair, +looking extremely annoyed. +</p> +<p> +"What else was I to do?" he demanded, after a time. "Of course, if +you report it, I'm gone." +</p> +<p> +"What do you intend to do with it now?" she asked. All her +professional manner had gone, and she looked alarmingly young. +</p> +<p> +"If I put it back, I'll only have to steal it again. Because I am +absolutely bored to death in that room of mine. I have played a +thousand games of solitaire." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer looked around. There was no one in sight. +</p> +<p> +"I should think," she suggested, "that if you slipped it behind that +radiator, no one would ever know about it." +</p> +<p> +Fortunately, the ambulance gong set up a clamour below the window +just then, and no one heard one of the hospital's most cherished +rules going, as one may say, into the discard. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer leaned her nose against the window and looked down. +A coloured man was being carried in on a stretcher. Although she did +not know it—indeed, never did know it—the coloured gentleman in +question was one Augustus Baird. +</p> +<p> +Soon afterward Twenty-two squeaked—his chair needed +oiling—squeaked back to his lonely room and took stock. He found +that he was rid of Mabel, but was still a reporter, hurt in doing +his duty. He had let this go because he saw that duty was a sort of +fetish with the Probationer. And since just now she liked him for +what she thought he was, why not wait to tell her until she liked +him for himself? +</p> +<p> +He hoped she was going to like him, because she was going to see him +a lot. Also, he liked her even better than he had remembered that he +did. She had a sort of thoroughbred look that he liked. And he liked +the way her hair was soft and straight and shiny. And he liked the +way she was all business and no nonsense. And the way she counted +pulses, with her lips moving and a little frown between her +eyebrows. And he liked her for being herself—which is, after all, +the reason why most men like the women they like, and extremely +reasonable. +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant loaned him Browning that afternoon, and he read +"Pippa Passes." He thought Pippa must have looked like the +Probationer. +</p> +<p> +The Head was a bit querulous that evening. The Heads of Training +Schools get that way now and then, although they generally reveal it +only to the First Assistant. They have to do so many irreconcilable +things, such as keeping down expenses while keeping up requisitions, +and remembering the different sorts of sutures the Staff likes, and +receiving the Ladies' Committee, and conducting prayers and +lectures, and knowing by a swift survey of a ward that the stands +have been carbolised and all the toe-nails cut. Because it is +amazing the way toe-nails grow in bed. +</p> +<p> +The Head would probably never have come out flatly, but she had a +wretched cold, and the First Assistant was giving her a mustard +footbath, which was very hot. The Head sat up with a blanket over +her shoulders, and read lists while her feet took on the blush of +ripe apples. And at last she said: +</p> +<p> +"How is that Probationer with the ridiculous name getting along?" +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant poured in more hot water. +</p> +<p> +"N. Jane?" she asked. "Well, she's a nice little thing, and she +seems willing. But, of course——" +</p> +<p> +The Head groaned. +</p> +<p> +"Nineteen!" she said. "And no character at all. I detest fluttery +people. She flutters the moment I go into the ward." +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant sat back and felt of her cap, which was of +starched tulle and was softening a bit from the steam. She felt a +thrill of pity for the Probationer. She, too, had once felt fluttery +when the Head came in. +</p> +<p> +"She is very anxious to stay," she observed. "She works hard, too. +I——" +</p> +<p> +"She has no personality, no decision," said the Head, and sneezed +twice. She was really very wretched, and so she was unfair. "She is +pretty and sweet. But I cannot run my training school on prettiness +and sweetness. Has Doctor Harvard come in yet?" +</p> +<p> +"I—I think not," said the First Assistant. She looked up quickly, +but the Head was squeezing a lemon in a cup of hot water beside her. +</p> +<p> +Now, while the Head was having a footbath, and Twenty-two was having +a stock-taking, and Augustus Baird was having his symptoms recorded, +Jane Brown was having a shock. +</p> +<p> +She heard an unmistakable shuffling of feet in the corridor. +</p> +<p> +Sounds take on much significance in a hospital, and probationers +study them, especially footsteps. It gives them a moment sometimes +to think what to do next. +</p> +<p> +<i>Internes</i>, for instance, frequently wear rubber soles on their +white shoes and have a way of slipping up on one. And the engineer +goes on a half run, generally accompanied by the clanking of a tool +or two. And the elevator man runs, too, because generally the bell +is ringing. And ward patients shuffle about in carpet slippers, and +the pharmacy clerk has a brisk young step, inclined to be jaunty. +</p> +<p> +But it is the Staff which is always unmistakable. It comes along the +corridor deliberately, inexorably. It plants its feet firmly and +with authority. It moves with the inevitability of fate, with the +pride of royalty, with the ease of the best made-to-order boots. The +ring of a Staff member's heel on a hospital corridor is the most +authoritative sound on earth. He may be the gentlest soul in the +world, but he will tread like royalty. +</p> +<p> +But this was not Staff. Jane Brown knew this sound, and it filled +her with terror. It was the scuffling of four pairs of feet, +carefully instructed not to keep step. It meant, in other words, a +stretcher. But perhaps it was not coming to her. Ah, but it was! +</p> +<p> +Panic seized Jane Brown. She knew there were certain things to do, +but they went out of her mind like a cat out of a cellar window. +However, the ward was watching. It had itself, generally speaking, +come in feet first. It knew the procedure. So, instructed by low +voices from the beds around, Jane Brown feverishly tore the spread +off the emergency bed and drew it somewhat apart from its fellows. +Then she stood back and waited. +</p> +<p> +Came in four officers from the police patrol. Came in the Senior +Surgical Interne. Came two convalescents from the next ward to stare +in at the door. Came the stretcher, containing a quiet figure under +a grey blanket. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two, at that exact moment, was putting a queen on a ten spot +and pretending there is nothing wrong about cheating oneself. +</p> +<p> +In a very short time the quiet figure was on the bed, and the Senior +Surgical Interne was writing in the order book: "Prepare for +operation." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown read it over his shoulder, which is not etiquette. +</p> +<p> +"But—I can't," she quavered. "I don't know how. I won't touch him. +He's—he's bloody!" +</p> +<p> +Then she took another look at the bed and she saw—Johnny Fraser. +</p> +<p> +Now Johnny had, in his small way, played a part in the Probationer's +life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half +dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. +But <i>that</i> Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given +to sitting in the sun. +</p> +<p> +Here lay another Johnny Fraser, a quiet one, who might never again +feel the warm earth through his worthless clothes on his worthless +young body. A Johnny of closed eyes and slow, noisy breathing. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Johnny!" said the Probationer, in a strangled voice. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne was interested. +</p> +<p> +"Know him?" he said. +</p> +<p> +"He is a boy from home." She was still staring at this quiet, +un-impudent figure. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne eyed her with an eye that was only +partially professional. Then he went to the medicine closet and +poured a bit of aromatic ammonia into a glass. +</p> +<p> +"Sit down and drink this," he said, in a very masculine voice. He +liked to feel that he could do something for her. Indeed, there was +something almost proprietary in the way he took her pulse. +</p> +<p> +Some time after the early hospital supper that evening Twenty-two, +having oiled his chair with some olive oil from his tray, made a +clandestine trip through the twilight of the corridor back of the +elevator shaft. To avoid scandal he pretended interest in other +wards, but he gravitated, as a needle to the pole, to H. And there +he found the Probationer, looking rather strained, and mothering a +quiet figure on a bed. +</p> +<p> +He was a trifle puzzled at her distress, for she made no secret of +Johnny's status in the community. What he did not grasp was that +Johnny Fraser was a link between this new and rather terrible world +of the hospital and home. It was not Johnny alone, it was Johnny +scrubbing a home porch and doing it badly, it was Johnny in her +father's old clothes, it was Johnny fishing for catfish in the +creek, or lending his pole to one of the little brothers whose +pictures were on her table in the dormitory. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two felt a certain depression. He reflected rather grimly +that he had been ten days missing and that no one had apparently +given a hang whether he turned up or not. +</p> +<p> +"Is he going to live?" he inquired. He could see that the ward nurse +had an eye on him, and was preparing for retreat. +</p> +<p> +"O yes," said Jane Brown. "I think so now. The <i>interne</i> says they +have had a message from Doctor Willie. He is coming." There was a +beautiful confidence in her tone. +</p> +<p> +Things moved very fast with the Probationer for the next twenty-four +hours. Doctor Willie came, looking weary but smiling benevolently. +Jane Brown met him in a corridor and kissed him, as, indeed, she had +been in the habit of doing since her babyhood. +</p> +<p> +"Where is the young rascal?" said Doctor Willie. "Up to his old +tricks, Nellie, and struck by a train." He put a hand under her +chin, which is never done to the members of the training school in a +hospital, and searched her face with his kind old eyes. "Well, how +does it go, Nellie?" +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown swallowed hard. +</p> +<p> +"All right," she managed. "They want to operate, Doctor Willie." +</p> +<p> +"Tut!" he said. "Always in a hurry, these hospitals. We'll wait a +while, I think." +</p> +<p> +"Is everybody well at home?" +</p> +<p> +It had come to her, you see, what comes to every nurse once in her +training—the thinness of the veil, the terror of calamity, the fear +of death. +</p> +<p> +"All well. And——" he glanced around. Only the Senior Surgical +Interne was in sight, and he was out of hearing. "Look here, +Nellie," he said, "I've got a dozen fresh eggs for you in my +satchel. Your mother sent them." +</p> +<p> +She nearly lost her professional manner again then. But she only +asked him to warn the boys about automobiles and riding on the backs +of wagons. +</p> +<p> +Had any one said Twenty-two to her, she would not have known what +was meant. Not just then, anyhow. +</p> +<p> +In the doctors' room that night the Senior Surgical Interne lighted +a cigarette and telephoned to the operating room. +</p> +<p> +"That trephining's off," he said, briefly. +</p> +<p> +Then he fell to conversation with the Senior Medical, who was rather +worried about a case listed on the books as Augustus Baird, +coloured. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two did not sleep very well that night. He needed exercise, +he felt. But there was something else. Miss Brown had been just a +shade too ready to accept his explanation about Mabel, he felt, so +ready that he feared she had been more polite than sincere. Probably +she still believed there was a Mabel. Not that it mattered, except +that he hated to make a fool of himself. He roused once in the night +and was quite sure he heard her voice down the corridor. He knew +this must be wrong, because they would not make her work all day and +all night, too. +</p> +<p> +But, as it happened, it <i>was</i> Jane Brown. The hospital provided +plenty of sleeping time, but now and then there was a slip-up and +somebody paid. There had been a night operation, following on a busy +day, and the operating-room nurses needed help. Out of a sound sleep +the night Assistant had summoned Jane Brown to clean instruments. +</p> +<p> +At five o'clock that morning she was still sitting on a stool beside +a glass table, polishing instruments which made her shiver. All +around were things that were spattered with blood. But she looked +anything but fluttery. She was a very grim and determined young +person just then, and professional beyond belief. The other things, +like washing window-sills and cutting toe-nails, had had no +significance. But here she was at last on the edge of mercy. Some +one who might have died had lived that night because of this room, +and these instruments, and willing hands. +</p> +<p> +She hoped she would always have willing hands. +</p> +<p> +She looked very pale at breakfast the next morning, and rather +older. Also she had a new note of authority in her voice when she +telephoned the kitchen and demanded H ward's soft-boiled eggs. She +washed window-sills that morning again, but no longer was there +rebellion in her soul. She was seeing suddenly how the hospital +required all these menial services, which were not menial at all but +only preparation; that there were little tasks and big ones, and one +graduated from the one to the other. +</p> +<p> +She took some flowers from the ward bouquet and put them beside +Johnny's bed—Johnny, who was still lying quiet, with closed eyes. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne did a dressing in the ward that morning. +He had been in to see Augustus Baird, and he felt uneasy. He vented +it on Tony, the Italian, with a stiletto thrust in his neck, by +jerking at the adhesive. Tony wailed, and Jane Brown, who was the +"dirty" nurse—which does not mean what it appears to mean, but is +the person who receives the soiled dressings—Jane Brown gritted her +teeth. +</p> +<p> +"Keep quiet," said the S.S.I., who was a good fellow, but had never +been stabbed in the neck for running away with somebody else's wife. +</p> +<p> +"Eet hurt," said Tony. "Ow." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown turned very pink. +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you let me cut it off properly?" she said, in a strangled +tone. +</p> +<p> +The total result of this was that Jane Brown was reprimanded by the +First Assistant, and learned some things about ethics. +</p> +<p> +"But," she protested, "it was both stupid and cruel. And if I know I +am right——" +</p> +<p> +"How are you to know you are right?" demanded the First Assistant, +crossly. Her feet were stinging. "'A little knowledge is a dangerous +thing.'" This was a favorite quotation of hers, although not +Browning. "Nurses in hospitals are there to carry out the doctor's +orders. Not to think or to say what they think unless they are +asked. To be intelligent, but——" +</p> +<p> +"But not too intelligent!" said the Probationer. "I see." +</p> +<p> +This was duly reported to the Head, who observed that it was merely +what she had expected and extremely pert. Her cold was hardly any +better. +</p> +<p> +It was taking the Probationer quite a time to realise her own total +lack of significance in all this. She had been accustomed to men who +rose when a woman entered a room and remained standing as long as +she stood. And now she was in a new world, where she had to rise and +remain standing while a cocky youth in ducks, just out of medical +college, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and took a +<i>boutonnière</i> from the ward bouquet. +</p> +<p> +It was probably extremely good for her. +</p> +<p> +She was frightfully tired that day, and toward evening the little +glow of service began to fade. There seemed to be nothing to do for +Johnny but to wait. Doctor Willie had seemed to think that nature +would clear matters up there, and had requested no operation. She +smoothed beds and carried cups of water and broke another +thermometer. And she put the eggs from home in the ward pantry and +made egg-nogs of them for Stanislas Krzykolski, who was +unaccountably upset as to stomach. +</p> +<p> +She had entirely forgotten Twenty-two. He had stayed away all that +day, in a sort of faint hope that she would miss him. But she had +not. She was feeling rather worried, to tell the truth. For a Staff +surgeon going through the ward, had stopped by Johnny's bed and +examined the pupils of his eyes, and had then exchanged a glance +with the Senior Surgical Interne that had perplexed her. +</p> +<p> +In the chapel at prayers that evening all around her the nurses sat +and rested, their tired hands folded in their laps. They talked a +little among themselves, but it was only a buzzing that reached the +Probationer faintly. Some one near was talking about something that +was missing. +</p> +<p> +"Gone?" she said. "Of course it is gone. The bath-room man reported +it to me and I went and looked." +</p> +<p> +"But who in the world would take it?" +</p> +<p> +"My dear," said the first speaker, "who <i>does</i> take things in a +hospital, anyhow? Only—a tin sign!" +</p> +<p> +It was then that the Head came in. She swept in; her grey gown, her +grey hair gave her a majesty that filled the Probationer with awe. +Behind her came the First Assistant with the prayer-book and hymnal. +The Head believed in form. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown offered up a little prayer that night for Johnny Fraser, +and another little one without words, that Doctor Willie was right. +She sat and rested her weary young body, and remembered how Doctor +Willie was loved and respected, and the years he had cared for the +whole countryside. And the peace of the quiet room, with the Easter +lilies on the tiny altar, brought rest to her. +</p> +<p> +It was when prayers were over that the Head made her announcement. +She rose and looked over the shadowy room, where among the rows of +white caps only the Probationer's head was uncovered, and she said: +</p> +<p> +"I have an announcement to make to the training school. One which I +regret, and which will mean a certain amount of hardship and +deprivation. +</p> +<p> +"A case of contagion has been discovered in one of the wards, and it +has been considered necessary to quarantine the hospital. The doors +were closed at seven-thirty this evening." +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Considering that he could not get out anyhow, Twenty-two took the +news of the quarantine calmly. He reflected that, if he was shut in, +Jane Brown was shut in also. He had a wicked hope, at the beginning, +that the Senior Surgical Interne had been shut out, but at nine +o'clock that evening that young gentleman showed up at the door of +his room, said "Cheer-o," came in, helped himself to a cigarette, +gave a professional glance at Twenty-two's toes, which were all that +was un-plastered of the leg, and departing threw back over his +shoulder his sole conversational effort: +</p> +<p> +"Hell of a mess, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two took up again gloomily the book he was reading, which was +on Diseases of the Horse, from the hospital library. He was in the +midst of Glanders. +</p> +<p> +He had, during most of that day, been making up his mind to let his +family know where he was. He did not think they cared, particularly. +He had no illusions about that. But there was something about Jane +Brown which made him feel like doing the decent thing. It annoyed +him frightfully, but there it was. She was so eminently the sort of +person who believed in doing the decent thing. +</p> +<p> +So, about seven o'clock, he had sent the orderly out for stamps and +paper. He imagined that Jane Brown would not think writing home on +hospital stationery a good way to break bad news. But the orderly +had stopped for a chat at the engine house, and had ended by playing +a game of dominoes. When, at ten o'clock, he had returned to the +hospital entrance, the richer by a quarter and a glass of beer, he +had found a strange policeman on the hospital steps, and the doors +locked. +</p> +<p> +The quarantine was on. +</p> +<p> +Now there are different sorts of quarantines. There is the sort +where a trained nurse and the patient are shut up in a room and +bath, and the family only opens the door and peers in. And there is +the sort where the front door has a placard on it, and the family +goes in and out the back way, and takes a street-car to the office, +the same as usual. And there is the hospital quarantine, which is +the real thing, because hospitals are expected to do things +thoroughly. +</p> +<p> +So our hospital was closed up as tight as a jar of preserves. There +were policemen at all the doors, quite suddenly. They locked the +doors and put the keys in their pockets, and from that time on they +opened them only to pass things in, such as newspapers or milk or +groceries or the braver members of the Staff. But not to let +anything out—except the Staff. Supposedly Staffs do not carry +germs. +</p> +<p> +And, indeed, even the Staff was not keen about entering. It thought +of a lot of things it ought to do about visiting time, and +prescribed considerably over the telephone. +</p> +<p> +At first there was a great deal of confusion, because quite a number +of people had been out on various errands when it happened. And they +came back, and protested to the office that they had only their +uniforms on under their coats, and three dollars; or their slippers +and no hats. Or that they would sue the city. One or two of them got +quite desperate and tried to crawl up the fire-escape, but failed. +</p> +<p> +This is of interest chiefly because it profoundly affected Jane +Brown. Miss McAdoo, her ward nurse, had debated whether to wash her +hair that evening, or to take a walk. She had decided on the walk, +and was therefore shut out, along with the Junior Medical, the +kitchen cat, the Superintendent's mother-in-law and six other +nurses. +</p> +<p> +The next morning the First Assistant gave Jane Brown charge of H +ward. +</p> +<p> +"It's very irregular," she said. "I don't exactly know—you have +only one bad case, haven't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Only Johnny." +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant absent-mindedly ran a finger over the top of a +table, and examined it for dust. +</p> +<p> +"Of course," she said, "it's a great chance for you. Show that you +can handle this ward, and you are practically safe." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown drew a long breath and stood up very straight. Then she +ran her eye over the ward. There was something vaguely reminiscent +of Miss McAdoo in her glance. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two made three brief excursions back along the corridor +that first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremely +professional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over the +ward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch of +blanket, and she pounced on the bed and reduced it to the most +horrible neatness. All the beds looked as if they had been made up +with a carpenter's square. +</p> +<p> +On the third trip, however, Jane Brown was writing at the table. +Twenty-two wheeled himself into the doorway and eyed her with +disapproval. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean by sitting down?" he demanded sarcastically. +"Don't you know that now you are in charge you ought to keep +moving?" +</p> +<p> +To which she replied, absently: +</p> +<p> +"Three buttered toasts, two dry toasts, six soft boiled eggs, and +twelve soups." She was working on the diet slips. +</p> +<p> +Then she smiled at him. They were quite old friends already. It is +curious about love and friendship and all those kindred emotions. +They do not grow nearly so fast when people are together as when +they are apart. It is an actual fact that the growth of many an +intimacy is checked by meetings. Because when people are apart it is +what they <i>are</i> that counts, and when they are together it is what +they do and say and look like. Many a beautiful affair has been +ruined because, just as it was going along well, the principals met +again. +</p> +<p> +However, all this merely means that Twenty-two and Jane Brown were +infinitely closer friends than four or five meetings really +indicates. +</p> +<p> +The ward was very quiet on this late afternoon call of his save for +Johnny's heavy breathing. There is a quiet hour in a hospital, +between afternoon temperatures and the ringing of the bell which +means that the suppers for the wards are on their way—a quiet hour +when over the long rows of beds broods the peace of the ending day. +</p> +<p> +It is a melancholy hour, too, because from the streets comes faintly +the echo of feet hurrying home, the eager trot of a horse bound +stableward. To those in the eddy that is the ward comes at this time +a certain heaviness of spirit. Poor thing though home may have been, +they long for it. +</p> +<p> +In H ward that late afternoon there was a wave of homesickness in +the air, and on the part of those men who were up and about, who +shuffled up and down the ward in flapping carpet slippers, an +inclination to mutiny. +</p> +<p> +"How did they take it?" Twenty-two inquired. She puckered her +eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"They don't like it," she confessed. "Some of them were about ready +to go home and it—<i>Tony!</i>" she called sharply. +</p> +<p> +For Tony, who had been cunningly standing by the window leading to a +fire-escape, had flung the window up and was giving unmistakable +signs of climbing out and returning to the other man's wife. +</p> +<p> +"Tony!" she called, and ran. Tony scrambled up on the sill. A sort +of titter ran over the ward and Tony, now on the platform outside, +waved a derisive hand through the window. +</p> +<p> +"Good-bye, mees!" he said, and—disappeared. +</p> +<p> +It was not a very dramatic thing, after all. It is chiefly +significant for its effect on Twenty-two, who was obliged to sit +frozen with horror and cursing his broken leg, while Jane Brown +raced a brown little Italian down the fire-escape and caught him at +the foot of it. Tony took a look around. The courtyard gates were +closed and a policeman sat outside on a camp-stool reading the +newspaper. Tony smiled sheepishly and surrendered. +</p> +<p> +Some seconds later Tony and Jane Brown appeared on the platform +outside. Jane Brown had Tony by the ear, and she stopped long enough +outside to exchange the ear for his shoulder, by which she shook +him, vigorously. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two turned his chair around and wheeled himself back to his +room. He was filled with a cold rage—because she might have fallen +on the fire-escape and been killed; because he had not been able to +help her; because she was there, looking after the derelicts of +life, when the world was beautiful outside, and she was young; +because to her he was just Twenty-two and nothing more. +</p> +<p> +He had seen her exactly six times. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown gave the ward a little talk that night before the night +nurse reported. She stood in the centre of the long room, beside the +tulips, and said that she was going to be alone there, and that she +would have to put the situation up to their sense of honour. If they +tried to escape, they would hurt her. Also they would surely be +caught and brought back. And, because she believed in a combination +of faith and deeds, she took three nails and the linen-room +flatiron, and nailed shut the window onto the fire-escape. +</p> +<p> +After that, she brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and +rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and +hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving +motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because +there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she knew +at home. +</p> +<p> +After that she sat down and made up her records for the night nurse. +The ward understood, and was perfectly good, trying hard not to muss +its pillows or wrinkle the covers. And struggling, too, with a new +idea. They were prisoners. No more release cards would brighten the +days. For an indefinite period the old Frenchman would moan at +night, and Bader the German would snore, and the Chinaman would +cough. Indefinitely they would eat soft-boiled eggs and rice and +beef-tea and cornstarch. +</p> +<p> +The ward felt extremely low in its mind. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +That night the Senior Surgical Interne went in to play cribbage with +Twenty-two, and received a lecture on leaving a young girl alone in +H with a lot of desperate men. They both grew rather heated over the +discussion and forgot to play cribbage at all. Twenty-two lay awake +half the night, because he had seen clearly that the Senior Surgical +Interne was interested in Jane Brown also, and would probably loaf +around H most of the time since there would be no new cases now. It +was a crowning humiliation to have the night nurse apply to the +Senior Surgical Interne for a sleeping powder for him! +</p> +<p> +Toward morning he remembered that he had promised to write out from +memory one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese for the First +Assistant, and he turned on the light and jotted down two lines of +it. He wrote: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "<i>For we two look two ways, and cannot shine <br /> + With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.</i>"— +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +And then sat up in bed for half an hour looking at it because he was +so awfully afraid it was true of Jane Brown and himself. Not, of +course, that he wanted to shine at all. It was the looking two ways +that hurt. +</p> +<p> +The next evening the nurses took their airing on the roof, which was +a sooty place with a parapet, and in the courtyard, which was an +equally sooty place with a wispy fountain. And because the whole +situation was new, they formed in little groups on the wooden +benches and sang, hands folded on white aprons, heads lifted, eyes +upturned to where, above the dimly lighted windows, the stars peered +palely through the smoke. +</p> +<p> +The S.S.I. sauntered out. He had thought he saw the Probationer from +his window, and in the new relaxation of discipline he saw a chance +to join her. But the figure he had thought he recognised proved to +be some one else, and he fell to wandering alone up and down the +courtyard. +</p> +<p> +He was trying to work out this problem: would the advantage of +marrying early and thus being considered eligible for certain +cases, offset the disadvantage of the extra expense? +</p> +<p> +He decided to marry early and hang the expense. +</p> +<p> +The days went by, three, then four, and a little line of tension +deepened around Jane Brown's mouth. Perhaps it has not been +mentioned that she had a fighting nose, short and straight, and a +wistful mouth. For Johnny Fraser was still lying in a stupor. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown felt that something was wrong. Doctor Willie came in once +or twice, making the long trip without complaint and without hope of +payment. All his busy life he had worked for the sake of work, and +not for reward. He called her "Nellie," to the delight of the ward, +which began to love him, and he spent a long hour each time by +Johnny's bed. But the Probationer was quick to realise that the +Senior Surgical Interne disapproved of him. +</p> +<p> +That young man had developed a tendency to wander into H at odd +hours, and sit on the edge of a table, leaving Jane Brown divided +between proper respect for an <i>interne</i> and fury over the wrinkling +of her table covers. It was during one of these visits that she +spoke of Doctor Willie. +</p> +<p> +"Because he is a country practitioner," she said, "you—you +patronise him." +</p> +<p> +"Not at all," said the Senior Surgical Interne. "Personally I like +him immensely." +</p> +<p> +"Personally!" +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne waved a hand toward Johnny's bed. +</p> +<p> +"Look there," he said. "You don't think that chap's getting any +better, do you?" +</p> +<p> +"If," said Jane Brown, with suspicious quiet, "if you think you know +more than a man who has practised for forty years, and saved more +people than you ever saw, why don't you tell him so?" +</p> +<p> +There is really no defence for this conversation. Discourse between +a probationer and an <i>interne</i> is supposed to be limited to yea, +yea, and nay, nay. But the circumstances were unusual. +</p> +<p> +"Tell him!" exclaimed the Senior Surgical Interne, "and be called +before the Executive Committee and fired! Dear girl, I am +inexpressibly flattered, but the voice of an <i>interne</i> in a hospital +is the voice of one crying in the wilderness." +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two, who was out on crutches that day for the first time, and +was looking very big and extremely awkward, Twenty-two looked back +from the elevator shaft and scowled. He seemed always to see a flash +of white duck near the door of H ward. +</p> +<p> +To add to his chagrin, the Senior Surgical Interne clapped him on +the back in congratulation a moment later, and nearly upset him. He +had intended to go back to the ward and discuss a plan he had, but +he was very morose those days and really not a companionable person. +He stumped back to his room and resolutely went to bed. +</p> +<p> +There he lay for a long time looking at the ceiling, and saying, out +of his misery, things not necessary to repeat. +</p> +<p> +So Twenty-two went to bed and sulked, refusing supper, and having +the word "Vicious" marked on his record by the nurse, who hoped he +would see it some time. And Jane Brown went and sat beside a +strangely silent Johnny, and worried. And the Senior Surgical +Interne went down to the pharmacy and thereby altered a number of +things. +</p> +<p> +The pharmacy clerk had been shaving—his own bedroom was dark—and +he saw the Senior Surgical Interne in the little mirror hung on the +window frame. +</p> +<p> +"Hello," he said, over the soap. "Shut the door." +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne shut the door, and then sniffed. "Smells +like a bar-room," he commented. +</p> +<p> +The pharmacy clerk shaved the left angle of his jaw, and then turned +around. +</p> +<p> +"Little experiment of mine," he explained. "Simple syrup, grain +alcohol, a dash of cochineal for colouring, and some flavouring +extract. It's an imitation cordial. Try it." +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne was not a drinker, but he was willing +to try anything once. So he secured a two-ounce medicine glass, and +filled it. +</p> +<p> +"Looks nice," he commented, and tasted it. "It's not bad." +</p> +<p> +"Not bad!" said the pharmacy clerk. "You'd pay four dollars a bottle +for that stuff in a hotel. Actual cost here, about forty cents." +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne sat down and stretched out his legs. He +had the glass in his hand. +</p> +<p> +"It's rather sweet," he said. "But it looks pretty." He took another +sip. +</p> +<p> +After he had finished it, he got to thinking things over. He felt +about seven feet tall and very important, and not at all like a +voice crying in the wilderness. He had a strong inclination to go +into the Superintendent's office and tell him where he went wrong in +running the institution—which he restrained. And another to go up +to H and tell Jane Brown the truth about Johnny Fraser—which he +yielded to. +</p> +<p> +On the way up he gave the elevator man a cigar. +</p> +<p> +He was very explicit with Jane Brown. +</p> +<p> +"Your man's wrong, that's all there is about it," he said. "I can't +say anything and you can't. But he's wrong. That's an operative +case. The Staff knows it." +</p> +<p> +"Then, why doesn't the Staff do it?" +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne was still feeling very tall. He looked +down at her from a great distance. +</p> +<p> +"Because, dear child," he said, "it's your man's case. You ought to +know enough about professional ethics for that." +</p> +<p> +He went away, then, and had a violent headache, which he blamed on +confinement and lack of exercise. But he had sowed something in the +Probationer's mind. +</p> +<p> +For she knew, suddenly, that he had been right. The Staff had meant +that, then, when they looked at Johnny and shook their heads. The +Staff knew, the hospital knew. Every one knew but Doctor Willie. But +Doctor Willie had the case. Back in her little town Johnny's mother +was looking to Doctor Willie, believing in him, hoping through him. +</p> +<p> +That night Twenty-two slept, and Jane Brown lay awake. And down in H +ward Johnny Fraser had a bad spell at that hour toward dawn when the +vitality is low, and men die. He did not die, however. But the night +nurse recorded, "Pulse very thin and iregular," at four o'clock. +</p> +<p> +She, too, was not a famous speller. +</p> +<p> +During the next morning, while the ward rolled bandages, having +carefully scrubbed its hands first, Jane Brown wrote records—she +did it rather well now—and then arranged the pins in the ward +pincushion. She made concentric circles of safety-pins outside and +common pins inside, with a large H in the centre. But her mind was +not on this artistic bit of creation. It was on Johnny Fraser. +</p> +<p> +She made up her mind to speak to Doctor Willie. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two had got over his sulking or his jealousy, or whatever it +was, and during the early hours, those hours when Johnny was hardly +breathing, he had planned something. He thought that he did it to +interest the patients and make them contented, but somewhere in the +back of his mind he knew it was to see more of Jane Brown. He +planned a concert in the chapel. +</p> +<p> +So that morning he took Elizabeth, the plaster cast, back to H ward, +where Jane Brown was fixing the pincushion, and had a good minute of +feasting his eyes on her while she was sucking a jabbed finger. She +knew she should have dipped the finger in a solution, but habit is +strong in most of us. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two had a wild desire to offer to kiss the finger and make it +well. This, however, was not habit. It was insanity. He recognised +this himself, and felt more than a trifle worried about it, because +he had been in love quite a number of times before, but he had never +had this sort of feeling. +</p> +<p> +He put the concert up to her with a certain amount of anxiety. If +she could sing, or play, or recite—although he hoped she would not +recite—all would be well. But if she refused to take any part, he +did not intend to have a concert. That was flat. +</p> +<p> +"I can play," she said, making a neat period after the H on the +pincushion. +</p> +<p> +He was awfully relieved. +</p> +<p> +"Good," he said. "You know, I like the way you say that. It's +so—well, it's so competent." He got out a notebook and wrote "Miss +Brown, piano selections." +</p> +<p> +It was while he was writing that Jane Brown had a sort of mental +picture—the shabby piano at home, kicked below by many childish +feet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sitting +practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, +as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside +the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, +staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To +Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made +for the little ward linen room. +</p> +<p> +He found her there a moment later, her arms outstretched on the +table and her face buried in them. Some one had been boiling a +rubber tube and had let the pan go dry. Ever afterward Twenty-two +was to associate the smell of burning rubber with Jane Brown, and +with his first real knowledge that he was in love with her. +</p> +<p> +He stumped in after her and closed the door, and might have ruined +everything then and there by taking her in his arms, crutch and +all. But the smell of burning rubber is a singularly permeating one, +and he was kept from one indiscretion by being discovered in +another. +</p> +<p> +It was somewhat later that Jane Brown was reprimanded for being +found in the linen room with a private patient. She made no excuse, +but something a little defiant began to grow in her eyes. It was not +that she loved her work less. She was learning, day by day, the +endless sacrifices of this profession she had chosen, its +unselfishness, its grinding hard work, the payment that may lie in a +smile of gratitude, the agony of pain that cannot be relieved. She +went through her days with hands held out for service, and at night, +in the chapel, she whispered soundless little prayers to be +accepted, and to be always gentle and kind. She did not want to +become a machine. She knew, although she had no words for it, the +difference between duty and service. +</p> +<p> +But—a little spirit of rebellion was growing in her breast. She did +not understand about Johnny Fraser, for one thing. And the matter of +the linen room hurt. There seemed to be too many rules. +</p> +<p> +Then, too, she began to learn that hospitals had limitations. Jane +Brown's hospital had no social worker. Much as she loved the work, +the part that the hospital could not do began to hurt her. Before +the quarantine women with new babies had gone out, without an idea +of where to spend the night. Ailing children had gone home to such +places as she could see from the dormitory windows, where the work +the hospital had begun could not be finished. +</p> +<p> +From the roof of the building at night she looked out over a city +that terrified her. The call of a playing child in the street began +to sound to her like the shriek of accident. The very grinding of +the trolley cars, the smoke of the mills, began to mean the +operating room. She thought a great deal, those days, about the +little town she had come from, with its peace and quiet streets. The +city seemed cruel. But now and then she learned that if cities are +cruel, men are kind. +</p> +<p> +Thus, on the very day of the concert, the quarantine was broken for +a few minutes. It was broken forcibly, and by an officer of the law. +A little newsie, standing by a fire at the next corner, for the +spring day was cold, had caught fire. The big corner man had seen it +all. He stripped off his overcoat, rolled the boy in it, and ran to +the hospital. Here he was confronted by a brother officer, who was +forbidden to admit him. The corner man did the thing that seemed +quickest. He laid the newsie on the ground, knocked out the +quarantine officer in two blows, broke the glass of the door with a +third, slipped a bolt, and then, his burden in his arms, stalked in. +</p> +<p> +It did not lessen the majesty of that entrance that he was crying +all the time. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer pondered that story when she heard it. After all, +laws were right and good, but there were higher things than laws. +She went and stood by Johnny's bed for a long time, thinking. +</p> +<p> +In the meantime, unexpected talent for the concert had developed. +The piano in the chapel proving out of order, the elevator man +proved to have been a piano tuner. He tuned it with a bone forceps. +Strange places, hospitals, into which drift men from every walk of +life, to find a haven and peace within their quiet walls. Old Tony +had sung, in his youth, in the opera at Milan. A pretty young nurse +went around the corridors muttering bits of "Orphant Annie" to +herself. The Senior Surgical Interne was to sing the "Rosary," and +went about practising to himself. He came into H ward and sang it +through for Jane Brown, with his heart in his clear young eyes. He +sang about the hours he had spent with her being strings of pearls, +and all that, but he was really asking her if she would be willing +to begin life with him in a little house, where she would have to +answer the door-bell and watch telephone calls while he was out. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown felt something of this, too. For she said: "You sing it +beautifully," although he had flatted at least three times. +</p> +<p> +He wrote his name on a medicine label and glued it to her hand. It +looked alarmingly possessive. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two presided at the concert that night. He was extravagantly +funny, and the sort of creaking solemnity with which things began +turned to uproarious laughter very soon. +</p> +<p> +Everything went off wonderfully. Tony started his selection too +high, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the two +Silversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highland +fling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had to +be scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance driver +gave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment, +dodging chords as he did wagons on the street, and fetching up with +a sort of garrison finish much as he brought in the ambulance. +</p> +<p> +But the real musical event of the evening was Jane Brown's playing. +She played Schubert without any notes, because she had been taught +to play Schubert that way. +</p> +<p> +And when they called her back, she played little folk songs of the +far places of Europe. Standing around the walls, in wheeled chairs, +on crutches, pale with the hospital pallor, these aliens in their +eddy listened and thrilled. Some of them wept, but they smiled also. +</p> +<p> +At the end she played the Minuet, with a sort of flaming look in +her eyes that puzzled Twenty-two. He could not know that she was +playing it to Johnny Fraser, lying with closed eyes in the ward +upstairs. He did not realise that there was a passion of sacrifice +throbbing behind the dignity of the music. +</p> +<p> +Doctor Willie had stayed over for the concert. He sat, beaming +benevolently, in the front row, and toward the end he got up and +told some stories. After all, it was Doctor Willie who was the real +hit of the evening. The convalescents rocked with joy in their +roller chairs. Crutches came down in loud applause. When he sat down +he slipped a big hand over Jane Brown's and gave hers a hearty +squeeze. +</p> +<p> +"How d'you like me as a parlour entertainer, Nellie?" he whispered. +</p> +<p> +She put her other hand over his. Somehow she could not speak. +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant called to the Probationer that night as she went +past her door. Lights were out, so the First Assistant had a candle, +and she was rubbing her feet with witch hazel. +</p> +<p> +"Come in," she called. "I have been looking for you. I have some +news for you." +</p> +<p> +The exaltation of the concert had died away. Jane Brown, in the +candle light, looked small and tired and very, very young. +</p> +<p> +"We have watched you carefully," said the First Assistant, who had +her night garments on but had forgotten to take off her cap. +"Although you are young, you have shown ability, and—you are to be +accepted." +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, very much," replied Jane Brown, in a strangled tone. +</p> +<p> +"At first," said the First Assistant, "we were not sure. You were +very young, and you had such odd ideas. You know that yourself now." +</p> +<p> +She leaned down and pressed a sore little toe with her forefinger. +Then she sighed. The mention of Jane Brown's youth had hurt her, +because she was no longer very young. And there were times when she +was tired, when it seemed to her that only youth counted. She felt +that way to-night. +</p> +<p> +When Jane Brown had gone on, she blew out her candle and went to +bed, still in her cap. +</p> +<p> +Hospitals do not really sleep at night. The elevator man dozes in +his cage, and the night watchman may nap in the engineer's room in +the basement. But the night nurses are always making their sleepless +rounds, and in the wards, dark and quiet, restless figures turn and +sigh. +</p> +<p> +Before she went to bed that night, Jane Brown, by devious ways, +slipped back to her ward. It looked strange to her, this cavernous +place, filled with the unlovely noises of sleeping men. By the one +low light near the doorway she went back to Johnny's bed, and sat +down beside him. She felt that this was the place to think things +out. In her room other things pressed in on her; the necessity of +making good for the sake of those at home, her love of the work, and +cowardice. But here she saw things right. +</p> +<p> +The night nurse found her there some time later, asleep, her +hunting-case watch open on Johnny's bed and her fingers still on his +quiet wrist. She made no report of it. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two had another sleepless night written in on his record that +night. He sat up and worried. He worried about the way the Senior +Surgical Interne had sung to Jane Brown that night. And he worried +about things he had done and shouldn't have, and things he should +have done and hadn't. Mostly the first. At five in the morning he +wrote a letter to his family telling them where he was, and that he +had been vaccinated and that the letter would be fumigated. He also +wrote a check for an artificial leg for the boy in the children's +ward, and then went to bed and put himself to sleep by reciting the +"Rosary" over and over. His last conscious thought was that the +hours he had spent with a certain person would not make much of a +string of pearls. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer went to Doctor Willie the next day. Some of the +exuberance of the concert still bubbled in him, although he shook +his head over Johnny's record. +</p> +<p> +"A little slow, Nellie," he said. "A little slow." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown took a long breath. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Willie," she said, "won't you have him operated on?" +</p> +<p> +He looked up at her over his spectacles. +</p> +<p> +"Operated on? What for?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, he's not getting any better," she managed desperately. +"I'm—sometimes I think he'll die while we're waiting for him to get +better." +</p> +<p> +He was surprised, but he was not angry. +</p> +<p> +"There's no fracture, child," he said gently. "If there is a clot +there, nature is probably better at removing it than we are. The +trouble with you," he said indulgently, "is that you have come here, +where they operate first and regret afterward. Nature is the best +surgeon, child." +</p> +<p> +She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. +But even when she spoke she knew she was foredoomed to failure. +</p> +<p> +"But—suppose the Staff thinks that he should be?" +</p> +<p> +Doctor Willie's kindly mouth set itself into grim lines. +</p> +<p> +"The Staff!" he said, and looked at her searchingly. Then his jaws +set at an obstinate angle. +</p> +<p> +"Well, Nellie," he said, "I guess one opinion's as good as another +in these cases. And I don't suppose they'll do any cutting and +hacking without my consent." He looked at Johnny's unconscious +figure. "He never amounted to much," he added, "but it's surprising +the way money's been coming in to pay his board here. Your mother +sent five dollars. A good lot of people are interested in him. I +can't see myself going home and telling them he died on the +operating table." +</p> +<p> +He patted her on the arm as he went out. +</p> +<p> +"Don't get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie," he +said as he was going. "Leave the worrying to me. I'm used to it." +</p> +<p> +She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probably +would always be just a little girl to him. He did not take her +seriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quite +despairing. +</p> +<p> +The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched him +out with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fine +old head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to a +whole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at the +thought of it. And she had done no good. +</p> +<p> +That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-two +on her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawing +a sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eye +larger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could not +possibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover his +excitement. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well!" he said. "I knew I was going to have some luck to-day. +My right hand has been itching—or is that a sign of money?" Then he +saw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart. +</p> +<p> +"Come and sit down," he said. "And tell me about it." +</p> +<p> +But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked out +for a moment. It was from there she said: +</p> +<p> +"I have been accepted." +</p> +<p> +"Good." But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drew +a long breath. "Well, I suppose your friends should be glad for +you." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't come to talk about being accepted," she announced. +</p> +<p> +"I don't suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am getting +along?" he inquired humbly. +</p> +<p> +"I can see that." +</p> +<p> +"You can't see how lonely I am." When she offered nothing to this +speech, he enlarged on it. "When it gets unbearable," he said, "I +sit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn't +make your heart ache, nothing will." +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that." For a +terrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to a +disappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievable +cruelty to tell him about it? +</p> +<p> +"I have to talk to somebody," she said simply. "And I came to you, +because you've worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot of +experience. It's—a matter of ethics. But really it's a matter of +life and death." +</p> +<p> +He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the lie, +except that it had brought her to him. There was something so direct +and childlike about her. The very way she drew a chair in front of +him, and proceeded, talking rather fast, to lay the matter before +him, touched him profoundly. He felt, somehow, incredibly old and +experienced. +</p> +<p> +And then, after all that, to fail her! +</p> +<p> +"You see how it is," she finished. "I can't go to the Staff, and +they wouldn't do anything if I did—except possibly put me out. +Because a nurse really only follows orders. And—I've got to stay, +if I can. And Doctor Willie doesn't believe in an operation and +won't see that he's dying. And everybody at home thinks he is right, +because—well," she added hastily, "he's been right a good many +times." +</p> +<p> +He listened attentively. His record, you remember, was his own way +some ninety-seven per cent of the time, and at first he would not +believe that this was going to be the three per cent, or a part of +it. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he said at last, "we'll just make the Staff turn in and do +it. That's easy." +</p> +<p> +"But they won't. They can't." +</p> +<p> +"We can't let Johnny die, either, can we?" +</p> +<p> +But when at last she was gone, and the room was incredibly empty +without her,—when, to confess a fact that he was exceedingly +shame-faced about, he had wheeled over to the chair she had sat in +and put his cheek against the arm where her hand had rested, when he +was somewhat his own man again and had got over the feeling that his +arms were empty of something they had never held—then it was that +Twenty-two found himself up against the three per cent. +</p> +<p> +The hospital's attitude was firm. It could not interfere. It was an +outside patient and an outside doctor. Its responsibility ended with +providing for the care of the patient, under his physician's orders. +It was regretful—but, of course, unless the case was turned over to +the Staff—— +</p> +<p> +He went back to the ward to tell her, after it had all been +explained to him. But she was not surprised. He saw that, after all, +she had really known he was going to fail her. +</p> +<p> +"It's hopeless," was all she said. "Everybody is right, and +everybody is wrong." +</p> +<p> +It was the next day that, going to the courtyard for a breath of +air, she saw a woman outside the iron gate waving to her. It was +Johnny's mother, a forlorn old soul in what Jane Brown recognised as +an old suit of her mother's. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Willie bought my ticket, Miss Nellie," she said nervously. +"It seems like I had to come, even if I couldn't get in. I've been +waiting around most all afternoon. How is he?" +</p> +<p> +"He is resting quietly," said Jane Brown, holding herself very +tense, because she wanted to scream. "He isn't suffering at all." +</p> +<p> +"Could you tell me which window he's near, Miss Nellie?" +</p> +<p> +She pointed out the window, and Johnny Fraser's mother stood, +holding to the bars, peering up at it. Her lips moved, and Jane +Brown knew that she was praying. At last she turned her eyes away. +</p> +<p> +"Folks have said a lot about him," she said, "but he was always a +good son to me. If only he'd had a chance—I'd be right worried, +Miss Nellie, if he didn't have Doctor Willie looking after him." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown went into the building. There was just one thing clear in +her mind. Johnny Fraser must have his chance, somehow. +</p> +<p> +In the meantime things were not doing any too well in the hospital. +A second case, although mild, had extended the quarantine. +Discontent grew, and threatened to develop into mutiny. Six men +from one of the wards marched <i>en masse</i> to the lower hall, and were +preparing to rush the guards when they were discovered. The Senior +Surgical Interne took two prisoners himself, and became an emergency +case for two stitches and arnica compresses. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown helped to fix him up, and he took advantage of her +holding a dressing basin near his cut lip to kiss her hand, very +respectfully. She would have resented it under other circumstances, +but the Senior Surgical Interne was, even if temporarily, a patient, +and must be humoured. She forgot about the kiss immediately, anyhow, +although he did not. +</p> +<p> +Her three months of probation were drawing to a close now, and her +cap was already made and put away in a box, ready for the day she +should don it. But she did not look at it very often. +</p> +<p> +And all the time, fighting his battle with youth and vigour, but +with closed eyes, and losing it day by day, was Johnny Fraser. +</p> +<p> +Then, one night on the roof, Jane Brown had to refuse the Senior +Surgical Interne. He took it very hard. +</p> +<p> +"We'd have been such pals," he said, rather wistfully, after he saw +it was no use. +</p> +<p> +"We can be, anyhow." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose," he said with some bitterness, "that I'd have stood a +better chance if I'd done as you wanted me to about that fellow in +your ward, gone to the staff and raised hell." +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't have married you," said Jane Brown, "but I'd have +thought you were pretty much of a man." +</p> +<p> +The more he thought about that the less he liked it. It almost kept +him awake that night. +</p> +<p> +It was the next day that Twenty-two had his idea. He ran true to +form, and carried it back to Jane Brown for her approval. But she +was not enthusiastic. +</p> +<p> +"It would help to amuse them, of course, but how can you publish a +newspaper without any news?" she asked, rather listlessly, for her. +</p> +<p> +"News! This building is full of news. I have some bits already. +Listen!" He took a notebook out of his pocket. "The stork breaks +quarantine. New baby in O ward. The chief engineer has developed a +boil on his neck. Elevator Man arrested for breaking speed limit. +Wanted, four square inches of cuticle for skin grafting in W. How's +that? And I'm only beginning." +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown listened. Somehow, behind Twenty-two's lightness of tone, +she felt something more earnest. She did not put it into words, even +to herself, but she divined something new, a desire to do his bit, +there in the hospital. It was, if she had only known it, a +milestone in a hitherto unmarked career. Twenty-two, who had always +been a man, was by way of becoming a person. +</p> +<p> +He explained about publishing it. He used to run a typewriter in +college, and the convalescents could mimeograph it and sell it. +There was a mimeographing machine in the office. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne came in just then. Refusing to marry him +had had much the effect of smacking a puppy. He came back, a trifle +timid, but friendly. So he came in just then, and elected himself to +the advertising and circulation department, and gave the Probationer +the society end, although it was not his paper or his idea, and sat +down at once at the table and started a limerick, commencing: +</p> +<p class="center"> + "<i>We're here in the city, marooned</i>" +</p> +<p> +However, he never got any further with it, because there are, +apparently, no rhymes for "marooned." He refused "tuned" which +several people offered him, with extreme scorn. +</p> +<p> +Up to this point Jane Brown had been rather too worried to think +about Twenty-two. She had grown accustomed to seeing him coming +slowly back toward her ward, his eyes travelling much faster than he +did. Not, of course, that she knew that. And to his being, in a way, +underfoot a part of every day, after the Head had made rounds and +was safely out of the road for a good two hours. +</p> +<p> +But two things happened that day to turn her mind in onto her heart. +One was when she heard about the artificial leg. The other was when +she passed the door of his room, where a large card now announced +"Office of the <i>Quarantine Sentinel</i>." She passed the door, and she +distinctly heard most un-hospital-like chatter within. Judging from +the shadows on the glass door, too, the room was full. It sounded +joyous and carefree. +</p> +<p> +Something in Jane Brown—her mind, probably—turned right around and +looked into her heart, and made an odd discovery. This was that Jane +Brown's heart had sunk about two inches, and was feeling very queer. +</p> +<p> +She went straight on, however, and put on a fresh collar in her +little bedroom, and listed her washing and changed her shoes, +because her feet still ached a lot of the time. But she was a brave +person and liked to look things in the face. So before she went back +to the ward, she stood in front of her mirror and said: +</p> +<p> +"You're a nice nurse, Nell Brown. To—to talk about duty and brag +about service, and then to act like a fool." +</p> +<p> +She went back to the ward and sat beside Johnny. But that night she +went up on the roof again, and sat on the parapet. She could see, +across the courtyard, the dim rectangles of her ward, and around a +corner in plain view, "room Twenty-two." Its occupant was sitting at +the typewriter, and working hard. Or he seemed to be. It was too far +away to be sure. Jane Brown slid down onto the roof, which was not +very clean, and putting her elbows on the parapet, watched him for a +long time. When he got up, at last, and came to the open window, she +hardly breathed. However, he only stood there, looking toward her +but not seeing her. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown put her head on the parapet that night and cried. She +thought she was crying about Johnny Fraser. She might have felt +somewhat comforted had she known that Twenty-two, being tired with +his day's work, had at last given way to most horrible jealousy of +the Senior Surgical Interne, and that his misery was to hers as five +is to one. +</p> +<p> +The first number of the <i>Quarantine Sentinel</i> was a great success. +It served in the wards much the same purpose as the magazines +published in the trenches. It relieved the monotony, brought the +different wards together, furnished laughter and gossip. Twenty-two +wrote the editorials, published the paper, with the aid of a couple +of convalescents, and in his leisure drew cartoons. He drew very +well, but all his girls looked like Jane Brown. It caused a ripple +of talk. +</p> +<p> +The children from the children's ward distributed them, and went +back from the private rooms bearing tribute of flowers and fruit. +Twenty-two himself developed a most reprehensible habit of +concealing candy in the <i>Sentinel</i> office and smuggling it to his +carriers. Altogether a new and neighbourly feeling seemed to +follow in the wake of the little paper. People who had sulked +in side-by-side rooms began, in the relaxed discipline of +convalescence, to pay little calls about. Crotchety dowagers knitted +socks for new babies. A wave of friendliness swept over every one, +and engulfed particularly Twenty-two. +</p> +<p> +In the glow of it he changed perceptibly. This was the first +popularity he had ever earned, and the first he had ever cared a +fi-penny bit about. And, because he valued it, he felt more and more +unworthy of it. +</p> +<p> +But it kept him from seeing Jane Brown. He was too busy for many +excursions to the ward, and when he went he was immediately the +centre of an animated group. He hardly ever saw her alone, and when +he did he began to suspect that she pretended duties that might have +waited. +</p> +<p> +One day he happened to go back while Doctor Willie was there, and +after that he understood her problem better. +</p> +<p> +Through it all Johnny lived. His thin, young body was now hardly an +outline under the smooth, white covering of his bed. He swallowed, +faintly, such bits of liquid as were placed between his lips, but +there were times when Jane Brown's fingers, more expert now, could +find no pulse at all. And still she had found no way to give him his +chance. +</p> +<p> +She made a last appeal to Doctor Willie that day, but he only shook +his head gravely. +</p> +<p> +"Even if there was an operation now, Nellie," said Doctor Willie +that day, "he could not stand it." +</p> +<p> +It was the first time that Twenty-two had known her name was Nellie. +</p> +<p> +That was the last day of Jane Brown's probation. On the next day she +was to don her cap. The <i>Sentinel</i> came out with a congratulatory +editorial, and at nine o'clock that night the First Assistant +brought an announcement, in the Head's own writing, for the paper. +</p> +<p> +"The Head of the Training School announces with much pleasure the +acceptance of Miss N. Jane Brown as a pupil nurse." +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two sat and stared at it for quite a long time. +</p> +<p> +That night Jane Brown fought her battle and won. She went to her +room immediately after chapel, and took the family pictures off her +little stand and got out ink and paper. She put the photographs out +of sight, because she knew that they were counting on her, and she +could not bear her mother's eyes. And then she counted her money, +because she had broken another thermometer, and the ticket home was +rather expensive. She had enough, but very little more. +</p> +<p> +After that she went to work. +</p> +<p> +It took her rather a long time, because she had a great deal to +explain. She had to put her case, in fact. And she was not strong on +either ethics or logic. She said so, indeed, at the beginning. She +said also that she had talked to a lot of people, but that no one +understood how she felt—that there ought to be no professional +ethics, or etiquette, or anything else, where it was life or death. +That she felt hospitals were to save lives and not to save feelings. +It seemed necessary, after that, to defend Doctor Willie—without +naming him, of course. How much good he had done, and how he came to +rely on himself and his own opinion because in the country there was +no one to consult with. +</p> +<p> +However, she was not so gentle with the Staff. She said that it was +standing by and letting a patient die, because it was too polite to +interfere, although they had all agreed among themselves that an +operation was necessary. And that if they felt that way, would they +refuse to pull a child from in front of a locomotive because it was +its mother's business, and she didn't know how to do it? +</p> +<p> +<i>Then she signed it.</i> +</p> +<p> +She turned it in at the <i>Sentinel</i> office the next morning while +the editor was shaving. She had to pass it through a crack in the +door. Even that, however, was enough for the editor in question to +see that she wore no cap. +</p> +<p> +"But—see here," he said, in a rather lathery voice, "you're +accepted, you know. Where's the—the visible sign?" +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown was not quite sure she could speak. However, she managed. +</p> +<p> +"After you read that," she said, "you'll understand." +</p> +<p> +He read it immediately, of course, growing more and more grave, and +the soap drying on his chin. Its sheer courage made him gasp. +</p> +<p> +"Good girl," he said to himself. "Brave little girl. But it finishes +her here, and she knows it." +</p> +<p> +He was pretty well cut up about it, too, because while he was +getting it ready he felt as if he was sharpening a knife to stab her +with. Her own knife, too. But he had to be as brave as she was. +</p> +<p> +The paper came out at two o'clock. At three the First Assistant, +looking extremely white, relieved Jane Brown of the care of H ward +and sent her to her room. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown eyed her wistfully. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not to come back, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant avoided her eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid not," she said. +</p> +<p> +Jane Brown went up the ward and looked down at Johnny Fraser. Then +she gathered up her bandage scissors and her little dressing forceps +and went out. +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant took a step after her, but stopped. There were +tears in her eyes. +</p> +<p> +Things moved very rapidly in the hospital that day, while the guards +sat outside on their camp-stools and ate apples or read the +newspapers, and while Jane Brown sat alone in her room. +</p> +<p> +First of all the Staff met and summoned Twenty-two. He went down in +the elevator—he had lost Elizabeth a few days before, and was using +a cane—ready for trouble. He had always met a fight more than +halfway. It was the same instinct that had taken him to the fire. +</p> +<p> +But no one wanted to fight. The Staff was waiting, grave and +perplexed, but rather anxious to put its case than otherwise. It +felt misunderstood, aggrieved, and horribly afraid it was going to +get in the newspapers. But it was not angry. On the contrary, it was +trying its extremely intelligent best to see things from a new +angle. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Surgical Interne was waiting outside. He had smoked +eighteen cigarettes since he received his copy of the <i>Sentinel</i>, +and was as unhappy as an <i>interne</i> can be. +</p> +<p> +"What the devil made you publish it?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Because," he said, "I have always had a sneaking desire to publish +an honest paper, one where public questions can be discussed. If +this isn't a public question, I don't know one when I see it." +</p> +<p> +But he was not smiling when he went in. +</p> +<p> +An hour later Doctor Willie came in. He had brought some flowers for +the children's ward, and his arms were bulging. To his surprise, +accustomed as he was to the somewhat cavalier treatment of the +country practitioner in a big city hospital, he was invited to the +Staff room. +</p> +<p> +To the eternal credit of the Staff Jane Brown's part in that painful +half hour was never known. The Staff was careful, too, of Doctor +Willie. They knew they were being irregular, and were most +wretchedly uncomfortable. Also, there being six of them against one, +it looked rather like force, particularly since, after the first two +minutes, every one of them liked Doctor Willie. +</p> +<p> +He took it so awfully well. He sat there, with his elbows on a table +beside a withering mass of spring flowers, and faced the +white-coated Staff, and said that he hoped he was man enough to +acknowledge a mistake, and six opinions against one left him nothing +else to do. The Senior Surgical Interne, who had been hating him +for weeks, offered him a cigar. +</p> +<p> +He had only one request to make. There was a little girl in the +training school who believed in him, and he would like to go to the +ward and write the order for the operation himself. +</p> +<p> +Which he did. But Jane Brown was not there. +</p> +<p> +Late that evening the First Assistant, passing along the corridor in +the dormitory, was accosted by a quiet figure in a blue uniform, +without a cap. +</p> +<p> +"How is he?" +</p> +<p> +The First Assistant was feeling more cheerful than usual. The +operating surgeon had congratulated her on the way things had moved +that day, and she was feeling, as she often did, that, after all, +work was a solace for many troubles. +</p> +<p> +"Of course, it is very soon, but he stood it well." She looked up at +Jane Brown, who was taller than she was, but who always, somehow, +looked rather little. There are girls like that. "Look here," she +said, "you must not sit in that room and worry. Run up to the +operating-room and help to clear away." +</p> +<p> +She was very wise, the First Assistant. For Jane Brown went, and +washed away some of the ache with the stains of Johnny's operation. +Here, all about her, were the tangible evidences of her triumph, +which was also a defeat. A little glow of service revived in her. +If Johnny lived, it was a small price to pay for a life. If he died, +she had given him his chance. The operating-room nurses were very +kind. They liked her courage, but they were frightened, too. She, +like the others, had been right, but also she was wrong. +</p> +<p> +They paid her tribute of little kindnesses, but they knew she must +go. +</p> +<p> +It was the night nurse who told Twenty-two that Jane Brown was in +the operating-room. He was still up and dressed at midnight, but the +sheets of to-morrow's editorial lay blank on his table. +</p> +<p> +The night nurse glanced at her watch to see if it was time for the +twelve o'clock medicines. +</p> +<p> +"There's a rumour going about," she said, "that the quarantine's to +be lifted to-morrow. I'll be rather sorry. It has been a change." +</p> +<p> +"To-morrow," said Twenty-two, in a startled voice. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you'll be going out at once?" +</p> +<p> +There was a wistful note in her voice. She liked him. He had been an +oasis of cheer in the dreary rounds of the night. A very little +more, and she might have forgotten her rule, which was never to be +sentimentally interested in a patient. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder," said Twenty-two, in a curious tone, "if you will give me +my cane?" +</p> +<p> +He was clad, at that time, in a hideous bathrobe, purchased by the +orderly, over his night clothing, and he had the expression of a +person who intends to take no chances. +</p> +<p> +"Thanks," said Twenty-two. "And—will you send the night watchman +here?" +</p> +<p> +The night nurse went out. She had a distinct feeling that something +was about to happen. At least she claimed it later. But she found +the night watchman making coffee in a back pantry, and gave him her +message. +</p> +<p> +Some time later Jane Brown stood in the doorway of the +operating-room and gave it a farewell look. Its white floor and +walls were spotless. Shining rows of instruments on clean towels +were ready to put away in the cabinets. The sterilisers glowed in +warm rectangles of gleaming copper. Over all brooded the peace of +order, the quiet of the night. +</p> +<p> +Outside the operating-room door she drew a long breath, and faced +the night watchman. She had left something in Twenty-two. Would she +go and get it? +</p> +<p> +"It's very late," said Jane Brown. "And it isn't allowed, I'm sure." +</p> +<p> +However, what was one more rule to her who had defied them all? A +spirit of recklessness seized her. After all, why not? She would +never see him again. Like the operating-room, she would stand in the +doorway and say a mute little farewell. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-two's door was wide open, and he was standing in the centre +of the room, looking out. He had heard her long before she came in +sight, for he, too, had learned the hospital habit of classifying +footsteps. +</p> +<p> +He was horribly excited. He had never been so nervous before. He had +made up a small speech, a sort of beginning, but he forgot it the +moment he heard her, and she surprised him in the midst of trying, +agonisingly, to remember it. +</p> +<p> +There was a sort of dreadful calm, however, about Jane Brown. +</p> +<p> +"The watchman says I have left something here." +</p> +<p> +It was clear to him at once that he meant nothing to her. It was in +her voice. +</p> +<p> +"You did," he said. And tried to smile. +</p> +<p> +"Then—if I may have it——" +</p> +<p> +"I wish to heaven you could have it," he said, very rapidly. "I +don't want it. It's darned miserable." +</p> +<p> +"It's—what?" +</p> +<p> +"It's an ache," he went on, still rather incoherent. "A pain. A +misery." Then, seeing her beginning to put on a professional look: +"No, not that. It's a feeling. Look here," he said, rather more +slowly, "do you mind coming in and closing the door? There's a man +across who's always listening." +</p> +<p> +She went in, but she did not close the door. She went slowly, +looking rather pale. +</p> +<p> +"What I sent for you for is this," said Twenty-two, "are you going +away? Because I've got to know." +</p> +<p> +"I'm being sent away as soon as the quarantine is over. It's—it's +perfectly right. I expected it. Things would soon go to pieces if +the nurses took to—took to doing what I did." +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Twenty-two limped across the room and slammed the door +shut, a proceeding immediately followed by an irritated ringing of +bells at the night nurse's desk. Then he turned, his back against +the door. +</p> +<p> +"Because I'm going when you do," he said, in a terrible voice. "I'm +going when you go, and wherever you go. I've stood all the waiting +around for a glimpse of you that I'm going to stand." He glared at +her. "For weeks," he said, "I've sat here in this room and listened +for you, and hated to go to sleep for fear you would pass and I +wouldn't be looking through that damned door. And now I've reached +the limit." +</p> +<p> +A sort of band which had seemed to be fastened around Jane Brown's +head for days suddenly removed itself to her heart, which became +extremely irregular. +</p> +<p> +"And I want to say this," went on Twenty-two, still in a savage +tone. He was horribly frightened, so he blustered. "I don't care +whether you want me or not, you've got to have me. I'm so much in +love with you that it hurts." +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Jane Brown's heart settled down into a soft rhythmic +beating that was like a song. After all, life was made up of love +and work, and love came first. +</p> +<p> +She faced Twenty-two with brave eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I love you, too—so much that it hurts." +</p> +<p> +The gentleman across the hall, sitting up in bed, with an angry +thumb on the bell, was electrified to see, on the glass door across, +the silhouette of a young lady without a cap go into the arms of a +very large, masculine silhouette in a dressing-gown. He heard, too, +the thump of a falling cane. +</p> +<p> +Late that night Jane Brown, by devious ways, made her way back to H +ward. Johnny was there, a strange Johnny with a bandaged head, but +with open eyes. +</p> +<p> +At dawn, the dawn of the day when Jane Brown was to leave the little +world of the hospital for a little world of two, consisting of a man +and a woman, the night nurse found her there, asleep, her fingers +still on Johnny's thin wrist. +</p> +<p> +She did not report it. +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + JANE +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +Having retired to a hospital to sulk, Jane remained there. The +family came and sat by her bed uncomfortably and smoked, and finally +retreated with defeat written large all over it, leaving Jane to the +continued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers to +match, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-coloured bow on +the corner, and a young nurse with a gift of giving Jane daily the +appearance of a strawberry and vanilla ice rising from a meringue of +bed linen. +</p> +<p> +Jane's complaint was temper. The family knew this, and so did +Jane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentle +heart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under the +pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly +under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not +deceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready to +believe that while it was swearing in the hall, Jane was biting +holes in the hand-embroidered face pillow in Room 33. +</p> +<p> +It had finally come to be a test of endurance. Jane vowed to stay +at the hospital until the family on bended knee begged her to emerge +and to brighten the world again with her presence. The family, being +her father, said it would be damned if it would, and that if Jane +cared to live on anæmic chicken broth, oatmeal wafers and massage +twice a day for the rest of her life, why, let her. +</p> +<p> +The dispute, having begun about whether Jane should or should not +marry a certain person, Jane representing the affirmative and her +father the negative, had taken on new aspects, had grown and +altered, and had, to be brief, become a contest between the +masculine Johnson and the feminine Johnson as to which would take +the count. Not that this appeared on the surface. The masculine +Johnson, having closed the summer home on Jane's defection and gone +back to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, +all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately. Once, indeed, +Father Johnson had motored the forty miles from town, to be told +that Jane was too ill and unhappy to see him, and to have a glimpse, +as he drove furiously away, of Jane sitting pensive at her window in +the pink kimono, gazing over his head at the distant hills and +clearly entirely indifferent to him and his wrath. +</p> +<p> +So we find Jane, on a frosty morning in late October, in triumphant +possession of the field—aunts and cousins routed, her father +sulking in town, and the victor herself—or is victor feminine?—and +if it isn't, shouldn't it be?—sitting up in bed staring blankly at +her watch. +</p> +<p> +Jane had just wakened—an hour later than usual; she had rung the +bell three times and no one had responded. Jane's famous temper +began to stretch and yawn. At this hour Jane was accustomed +to be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, +alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and finally fresh-linened, coifed +and manicured, to be supported with a heap of fresh pillows and fed +creamed sweet-bread and golden-brown coffee and toast. +</p> +<p> +Jane rang again, with a line between her eyebrows. The bell was not +broken. She could hear it distinctly. This was an outrage! She would +report it to the superintendent. She had been ringing for ten +minutes. That little minx of a nurse was flirting somewhere with one +of the internes. +</p> +<p> +Jane angrily flung the covers back and got out on her small bare +feet. Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, her +spoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned. In her +sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, +minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helped +her to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, +almost—although Jane herself never suspected this—almost an +amiable young person. +</p> +<p> +Jane saw herself in the glass and assumed immediately the two lines +between her eyebrows which were the outward and visible token of +what she had suffered. Then she found her slippers, a pair of +stockings to match and two round bits of pink silk elastic of +private and feminine use, and sat down on the floor to put them on. +</p> +<p> +The floor was cold. To Jane's wrath was added indignation. She +hitched herself along the boards to the radiator and put her hand on +it. It was even colder than Jane. +</p> +<p> +The family temper was fully awake by this time and ready for +business. Jane, sitting on the icy floor, jerked on her stockings, +snapped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippers +and rose, shivering. She went to the bed, and by dint of careful +manœuvring so placed the bell between the head of the bed and the +wall that during the remainder of her toilet it rang steadily. +</p> +<p> +The remainder of Jane's toilet was rather casual. She flung on the +silk kimono, twisted her hair on top of her head and stuck a pin or +two in it, thus achieving a sort of effect a thousand times more +bewildering than she had ever managed with a curling iron and +twenty seven hair pins, and flinging her door wide stalked into the +hall. At least she meant to stalk, but one does not really stamp +about much in number-two, heelless, pink-satin mules. +</p> +<p> +At the first stalk—or stamp—she stopped. Standing uncertainly just +outside her door was a strange man, strangely attired. Jane clutched +her kimono about her and stared. +</p> +<p> +"Did—did you—are you ringing?" asked the apparition. It wore a +pair of white-duck trousers, much soiled, a coat that bore the words +"furnace room" down the front in red letters on a white tape, and a +clean and spotless white apron. There was coal dust on its face and +streaks of it in its hair, which appeared normally to be red. +</p> +<p> +"There's something the matter with your bell," said the young man. +"It keeps on ringing." +</p> +<p> +"I intend it to," said Jane coldly. +</p> +<p> +"You can't make a racket like that round here, you know," he +asserted, looking past her into the room. +</p> +<p> +"I intend to make all the racket I can until I get some attention." +</p> +<p> +"What have you done—put a book on it?" +</p> +<p> +"Look here"—Jane added another line to the two between her +eyebrows. In the family this was generally a signal for a retreat, +but of course the young man could not know this, and, besides, he +was red-headed. "Look here," said Jane, "I don't know who you are +and I don't care either, but that bell is going to ring until I get +my bath and some breakfast. And it's going to ring then unless I +stop it." +</p> +<p> +The young man in the coal dust and the white apron looked at Jane +and smiled. Then he walked past her into the room, jerked the bed +from the wall and released the bell. +</p> +<p> +"Now!" he said as the din outside ceased. "I'm too busy to talk just +at present, but if you do that again I'll take the bell out of the +room altogether. There are other people in the hospital besides +yourself." +</p> +<p> +At that he started out and along the hall, leaving Jane speechless. +After he'd gone about a dozen feet he stopped and turned, looking at +Jane reflectively. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know anything about cooking?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"I know more about cooking than you do about politeness," she +retorted, white with fury, and went into her room and slammed the +door. She went directly to the bell and put it behind the bed and +set it to ringing again. Then she sat down in a chair and picked up +a book. Had the red-haired person opened the door she was perfectly +prepared to fling the book at him. She would have thrown a hatchet +had she had one. +</p> +<p> +As a matter of fact, however, he did not come back. The bell rang +with a soul-satisfying jangle for about two minutes and then died +away, and no amount of poking with a hairpin did any good. It was +clear that the bell had been cut off outside! +</p> +<p> +For fifty-five minutes Jane sat in that chair breakfastless, very +casually washed and with the aforesaid Billie Burkeness of hair. +Then, hunger gaining over temper, she opened the door and peered +out. From somewhere near at hand there came a pungent odor of +burning toast. Jane sniffed; then, driven by hunger, she made a +short sally down the hall to the parlour where the nurses on duty +made their headquarters. It was empty. The dismantled bell register +was on the wall, with the bell unscrewed and lying on the mantel +beside it, and the odour of burning toast was stronger than ever. +</p> +<p> +Jane padded softly to the odour, following her small nose. It led +her to the pantry, where under ordinary circumstances the patients' +trays were prepared by a pantrymaid, the food being shipped there +from the kitchen on a lift. Clearly the circumstances were not +ordinary. The pantrymaid was not in sight. +</p> +<p> +Instead, the red-haired person was standing by the window scraping +busily at a blackened piece of toast. There was a rank odour of +boiling tea in the air. +</p> +<p> +"Damnation!" said the red-haired person, and flung the toast into a +corner where there already lay a small heap of charred breakfast +hopes. Then he saw Jane. +</p> +<p> +"I fixed the bell, didn't I?" he remarked. "I say, since you claim +to know so much about cooking, I wish you'd make some toast." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't say I knew much," snapped Jane, holding her kimono round +her. "I said I knew more than you knew about politeness." +</p> +<p> +The red-haired person smiled again, and then, making a deep bow, +with a knife in one hand and a toaster in the other, he said: +"Madam, I prithee forgive me for my untoward conduct of an hour +since. Say but the word and I replace the bell." +</p> +<p> +"I won't make any toast," said Jane, looking at the bread with +famished eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, very well," said the red-haired person with a sigh. "On your +head be it!" +</p> +<p> +"But I'll tell you how to do it," conceded Jane, "if you'll explain +who you are and what you are doing in that costume and where the +nurses are." +</p> +<p> +The red-haired person sat down on the edge of the table and looked +at her. +</p> +<p> +"I'll make a bargain with you," he said. "There's a convalescent +typhoid in a room near yours who swears he'll go down to the village +for something to eat in his—er—hospital attire unless he's fed +soon. He's dangerous, empty. He's reached the cannibalistic stage. +If he should see you in that ravishing pink thing, I—I wouldn't +answer for the consequences. I'll tell you everything if you'll make +him six large slices of toast and boil him four or five eggs, enough +to hold him for a while. The tea's probably ready; it's been boiling +for an hour." +</p> +<p> +Hunger was making Jane human. She gathered up the tail of her +kimono, and stepping daintily into the pantry proceeded to spread +herself a slice of bread and butter. +</p> +<p> +"Where is everybody?" she asked, licking some butter off her thumb +with a small pink tongue. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold,</i> <br /> + <i>And the mate of the Nancy brig,</i> <br /> + <i>And the bosun tight and the midshipmite,</i> <br /> + <i>And the crew of the captain's gig.</i> +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +recited the red-haired person. +</p> +<p> +"You!" said Jane with the bread halfway to her mouth. +</p> +<p> +"Even I," said the red-haired person. "I'm the superintendent, the +staff, the training school, the cooks, the furnace man and the +ambulance driver." +</p> +<p> +Jane was pouring herself a cup of tea, and she put in milk and sugar +and took a sip or two before she would give him the satisfaction of +asking him what he meant. Anyhow, probably she had already guessed. +Jane was no fool. +</p> +<p> +"I hope you're getting the salary list," she said, sitting on the +pantry girl's chair and, what with the tea inside and somebody to +quarrel with, feeling more like herself. "My father's one of the +directors, and somebody gets it." +</p> +<p> +The red-haired person sat on the radiator and eyed Jane. He looked +slightly stunned, as if the presence of beauty in a Billie Burke +chignon and little else except a kimono was almost too much for him. +From somewhere near by came a terrific thumping, as of some one +pounding a hairbrush on a table. The red-haired person shifted along +the radiator a little nearer Jane, and continued to gloat. +</p> +<p> +"Don't let that noise bother you," he said; "that's only the +convalescent typhoid banging for his breakfast. He's been shouting +for food ever since I came at six last night." +</p> +<p> +"Is it safe to feed him so much?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. He hasn't had anything yet. Perhaps if you're ready +you'd better fix him something." +</p> +<p> +Jane had finished her bread and tea by this time and remembered her +kimono. +</p> +<p> +"I'll go back and dress," she said primly. But he wouldn't hear of +it. +</p> +<p> +"He's starving," he objected as a fresh volley of thumps came along +the hall. "I've been trying at intervals since daylight to make him +a piece of toast. The minute I put it on the fire I think of +something I've forgotten, and when I come back it's in flames." +</p> +<p> +So Jane cut some bread and put on eggs to boil, and the red-haired +person told his story. +</p> +<p> +"You see," he explained, "although I appear to be a furnace man from +the waist up and an interne from the waist down, I am really the new +superintendent." +</p> +<p> +"I hope you'll do better than the last one," she said severely. "He +was always flirting with the nurses." +</p> +<p> +"I shall never flirt with the nurses," he promised, looking at her. +"Anyhow I shan't have any immediate chance. The other fellow left +last night and took with him everything portable except the +ambulance—nurses, staff, cooks. I wish to Heaven he'd taken the +patients! And he did more than that. He cut the telephone wires!" +</p> +<p> +"Well!" said Jane. "Are you going to stand for it?" +</p> +<p> +The red-haired man threw up his hands. "The village is with him," he +declared. "It's a factional fight—the village against the +fashionable summer colony on the hill. I cannot telephone from the +village—the telegraph operator is deaf when I speak to him; the +village milkman and grocer sent boys up this morning—look here." +He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + I will not supply the Valley Hospital with any fresh + meats, canned oysters and sausages, or do any plumbing + for the hospital until the reinstatement of Dr. Sheets. +</p> +<p class="ar"><span class="sc">T. Cashdollar</span>, Butcher. +</p> +<p> +Jane took the paper and read it again. "Humph!" she commented. +"Old Sheets wrote it himself. Mr. Cashdollar couldn't think +'reinstatement,' let alone spell it." +</p> +<p> +"The question is not who wrote it, but what we are to do," said the +red-haired person. "Shall I let old Sheets come back?" +</p> +<p> +"If you do," said Jane fiercely, "I shall hate you the rest of my +life." +</p> +<p> +And as it was clear by this time that the red-haired person could +imagine nothing more horrible, it was settled then and there that he +should stay. +</p> +<p> +"There are only two wards," he said. "In the men's a man named +Higgins is able to be up and is keeping things straight. And in the +woman's ward Mary O'Shaughnessy is looking after them. The furnaces +are the worst. I'd have forgiven almost anything else. I've sat up +all night nursing the fires, but they breathed their last at six +this morning and I guess there's nothing left but to call the +coroner." +</p> +<p> +Jane had achieved a tolerable plate of toast by that time and four +eggs. Also she had a fine flush, a combination of heat from the gas +stove and temper. +</p> +<p> +"They ought to be ashamed," she cried angrily, "leaving a lot of +sick people!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, as to that," said the red-headed person, "there aren't any +very sick ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and a +convalescent typhoid and a D.T. in a private room. If it wasn't +that Mary O'Shaughnessy——" +</p> +<p> +But at the word "neurasthenics" Jane had put down the toaster, and +by the time the unconscious young man had reached the O'Shaughnessy +she was going out the door with her chin up. He called after her, +and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies at +her back until she went into her room. And as hospital doors don't +lock from the inside she pushed the washstand against the knob and +went to bed to keep warm. +</p> +<p> +He stood outside and apologised again, and later he brought a tray +of bread and butter and a pot of the tea, which had been boiling for +two hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor. +But Jane refused to get it, and finished her breakfast from a jar of +candied ginger that some one had sent her, and read "Lorna Doone." +</p> +<p> +Now and then a sound of terrific hammering would follow the +steampipes and Jane would smile wickedly. By noon she had finished +the ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and the +family had disagreed would think when he heard the way she was being +treated. And by one o'clock she had cried her eyes entirely shut and +had pushed the washstand back from the door. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Now a hospital full of nurses and doctors with a bell to summon food +and attention is one thing. A hospital without nurses and doctors, +and with only one person to do everything, and that person mostly in +the cellar, is quite another. Jane was very sad and lonely, and to +add to her troubles the delirium-tremens case down the hall began to +sing "Oh Promise Me" in a falsetto voice and kept it up for hours. +</p> +<p> +At three Jane got up and bathed her eyes. She also did her hair, +and thus fortified she started out to find the red-haired person. +She intended to say that she was paying sixty-five dollars a week +and belonged to a leading family, and that she didn't mean to +endure for a moment the treatment she was getting, and being +called a neurasthenic and made to cook for the other patients. +</p> +<p> +She went slowly along the hall. The convalescent typhoid heard her +and called. +</p> +<p> +"Hey, doc!" he cried. "Hey, doc! Great Scott, man, when do I get +some dinner?" +</p> +<p> +Jane quickened her steps and made for the pantry. From somewhere +beyond, the delirium-tremens case was singing happily: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>I—love you o—own—ly,</i> <br /> + <i>I love—but—you.</i> +</p> +<p> +Jane shivered a little. The person in whom she had been interested +and who had caused her precipitate retirement, if not to a nunnery, +to what answered the same purpose, had been very fond of that song. +He used to sing it, leaning over the piano and looking into her +eyes. +</p> +<p> +Jane's nose led her again to the pantry. There was a sort of soupy +odour in the air, and sure enough the red-haired person was there, +very immaculate in fresh ducks, pouring boiling water into three +tea-cups out of a kettle and then dropping a beef capsule into each +cup. +</p> +<p> +Now Jane had intended, as I have said, to say that she was being +outrageously treated, and belonged to one of the best families, and +so on. What she really said was piteously: +</p> +<p> +"How good it smells!" +</p> +<p> +"Doesn't it!" said the red-haired person, sniffing. "Beef capsules. +I've made thirty cups of it so far since one o'clock—the more they +have the more they want. I say, be a good girl and run up to the +kitchen for some more crackers while I carry food to the +convalescent typhoid. He's murderous!" +</p> +<p> +"Where are the crackers?" asked Jane stiffly, but not exactly caring +to raise an issue until she was sure of getting something to eat. +</p> +<p> +"Store closet in the kitchen, third drawer on the left," said the +red-haired man, shaking some cayenne pepper into one of the cups. +"You might stop that howling lunatic on your way if you will." +</p> +<p> +"How?" asked Jane, pausing. +</p> +<p> +"Ram a towel down his throat, or—but don't bother. I'll dose him +with this beef tea and red pepper, and he'll be too busy putting out +the fire to want to sing." +</p> +<p> +"You wouldn't be so cruel!" said Jane, rather drawing back. The +red-haired person smiled and to Jane it showed that he was actually +ferocious. She ran all the way up for the crackers and down again, +carrying the tin box. There is no doubt that Jane's family would +have promptly swooned had it seen her. +</p> +<p> +When she came down there was a sort of after-dinner peace reigning. +The convalescent typhoid, having filled up on milk and beef soup, +had floated off to sleep. "The Chocolate Soldier" had given way to +deep-muttered imprecations from the singer's room. Jane made herself +a cup of bouillon and drank it scalding. She was making the second +when the red-haired person came back with an empty cup. +</p> +<p> +"I forgot to explain," he said, "that beef tea and red pepper's the +treatment for our young friend in there. After a man has been +burning his stomach daily with a quart or so of raw booze——" +</p> +<p> +"I beg your pardon," said Jane coolly. Booze was not considered good +form on the hill—the word, of course. There was plenty of the +substance. +</p> +<p> +"Raw booze," repeated the red-haired person. "Nothing short of red +pepper or dynamite is going to act as a substitute. Why, I'll bet +the inside of that chap's stomach is of the general sensitiveness +and consistency of my shoe." +</p> +<p> +"Indeed!" said Jane, coldly polite. In Jane's circle people did not +discuss the interiors of other people's stomachs. The red-haired +person sat on the table with a cup of bouillon in one hand and a +cracker in the other. +</p> +<p> +"You know," he said genially, "it's awfully bully of you to come out +and keep me company like this. I never put in such a day. I've given +up fussing with the furnace and got out extra blankets instead. And +I think by night our troubles will be over." He held up the cup and +glanced at Jane, who was looking entrancingly pretty. "To our +troubles being over!" he said, draining the cup, and then found +that he had used the red pepper again by mistake. It took five +minutes and four cups of cold water to enable him to explain what he +meant. +</p> +<p> +"By our troubles being over," he said finally when he could speak, +"I mean this: There's a train from town at eight to-night, and if +all goes well it will deposit in the village half a dozen nurses, a +cook or two, a furnace man—good Heavens, I wonder if I forgot a +furnace man!" +</p> +<p> +It seemed, as Jane discovered, that the telephone wires being cut, +he had sent Higgins from the men's ward to the village to send some +telegrams for him. +</p> +<p> +"I couldn't leave, you see," he explained, "and having some small +reason to believe that I am <i>persona non grata</i> in this vicinity I +sent Higgins." +</p> +<p> +Jane had always hated the name Higgins. She said afterward that she +felt uneasy from that moment. The red-haired person, who was not +bad-looking, being tall and straight and having a very decent nose, +looked at Jane, and Jane, having been shut away for weeks—Jane +preened a little and was glad she had done her hair. +</p> +<p> +"You looked better the other way," said the red-haired person, +reading her mind in a most uncanny manner. "Why should a girl with +as pretty hair as yours cover it up with a net, anyhow?" +</p> +<p> +"You are very disagreeable and—and impertinent," said Jane, +sliding off the table. +</p> +<p> +"It isn't disagreeable to tell a girl she has pretty hair," the +red-haired person protested—"or impertinent either." +</p> +<p> +Jane was gathering up the remnants of her temper, scattered by the +events of the day. +</p> +<p> +"You said I was a neurasthenic," she accused him. "It—it isn't +being a neurasthenic to be nervous and upset and hating the very +sight of people, is it?" +</p> +<p> +"Bless my soul!" said the red-haired man. "Then what is it?" Jane +flushed, but he went on tactlessly: "I give you my word, I think you +are the most perfectly"—he gave every appearance of being about to +say "beautiful," but he evidently changed his mind—"the most +perfectly healthy person I have ever looked at," he finished. +</p> +<p> +It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under other +circumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in hand +and preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard in +the hall and Higgins stood in the doorway. +</p> +<p> +He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and the +corresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also he +was coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with the +other. +</p> +<p> +He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge by +the ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly, +having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He'd been told to +report at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted a +boycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or the +entire place could starve to death. +</p> +<p> +It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper was +not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort +of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a +chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of the +front door. +</p> +<p> +Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was running +toward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flying +legs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in the +knees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight, +and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was of +course because, if anything happened to him, she would be left +entirely alone. And anyhow the D.T. case was singing again and had +rather got on her nerves. +</p> +<p> +In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. He had a +wretched-looking creature by the back of the neck and he alternately +pushed and kicked him up the drive. He—the red-haired person—was +whistling and clearly immensely pleased with himself. +</p> +<p> +Jane put a little powder on her nose and waited for him to come and +tell her all about it. But he did not come near. This was quite the +cleverest thing he could have done, had he known it. Jane was not +accustomed to waiting in vain. He must have gone directly to the +cellar, half pushing and half kicking the luckless furnace man, for +about four o'clock the radiator began to get warm. +</p> +<p> +At five he came and knocked at Jane's door, and on being invited in +he sat down on the bed and looked at her. +</p> +<p> +"Well, we've got the furnace going," he said. +</p> +<p> +"Then that was the——" +</p> +<p> +"Furnace man? Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you afraid to leave him?" queried Jane. "Won't he run off?" +</p> +<p> +"Got him locked in a padded cell," he said. "I can take him out to +coal up. The rest of the time he can sit and think of his sins. The +question is—what are we to do next?" +</p> +<p> +"I should think," ventured Jane, "that we'd better be thinking about +supper." +</p> +<p> +"The beef capsules are gone." +</p> +<p> +"But surely there must be something else about—potatoes or things +like that?" +</p> +<p> +He brightened perceptibly. "Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, and +there's canned stuff. Higgins can pare potatoes, and there's Mary +O'Shaughnessy. We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs." +</p> +<p> +"Fine!" said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day before +she would have said they were her three abominations. +</p> +<p> +And with that he called Higgins and Mary O'Shaughnessy and the four +of them went to the kitchen. +</p> +<p> +Jane positively shone. She had never realised before how much she +knew about cooking. They built a fire and got kettles boiling and +everybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggs +were ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorched +slightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in +ability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift and +started them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shook +hands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, +sitting side by side on a table. +</p> +<p> +They were ravenous. They boiled one egg each and ate it, and then +boiled another and another, and when they finished they found that +Jane had eaten four potatoes, four eggs and unlimited bread and +butter, while the red-haired person had eaten six saucers of stewed +tomatoes and was starting on the seventh. +</p> +<p> +"You know," he said over the seventh, "we've got to figure this +thing out. The entire town is solid against us—no use trying to get +to a telephone. And anyhow they've got us surrounded. We're in a +state of siege." +</p> +<p> +Jane was beating up an egg in milk for the D.T. patient, the +capsules being exhausted, and the red-haired person was watching her +closely. She had the two vertical lines between her eyes, but they +looked really like lines of endeavour and not temper. +</p> +<p> +She stopped beating and looked up. +</p> +<p> +"Couldn't I go to the village?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"They would stop you." +</p> +<p> +"Then—I think I know what we can do," she said, giving the eggnog a +final whisk. "My people have a summer place on the hill. If you +could get there you could telephone to the city." +</p> +<p> +"Could I get in?" +</p> +<p> +"I have a key." +</p> +<p> +Jane did not explain that the said key had been left by her father, +with the terse hope that if she came to her senses she could get +into the house and get her clothes. +</p> +<p> +"Good girl," said the red-headed person and patted her on the +shoulder. "We'll euchre the old skate yet." Curiously, Jane did not +resent either the speech or the pat. +</p> +<p> +He took the glass and tied on a white apron. "If our friend doesn't +drink this, I will," he continued. "If he'd seen it in the making, +as I have, he'd be crazy about it." +</p> +<p> +He opened the door and stood listening. From below floated up the +refrain: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>I—love you o—own—ly,</i> <br /> + <i>I love—but—you.</i> +</p> +<p> +"Listen to that!" he said. "Stomach's gone, but still has a heart!" +</p> +<p> +Higgins came up the stairs heavily and stopped close by the +red-haired person, whispering something to him. There was a second's +pause. Then the red-haired person gave the eggnog to Higgins and +both disappeared. +</p> +<p> +Jane was puzzled. She rather thought the furnace man had got out and +listened for a scuffle, but none came. She did, however, hear the +singing cease below, and then commence with renewed vigour, and she +heard Higgins slowly remounting the stairs. He came in, with the +empty glass and a sheepish expression. Part of the eggnog was +distributed over his person. +</p> +<p> +"He wants his nurse, ma'am," said Higgins. "Wouldn't let me near +him. Flung a pillow at me." +</p> +<p> +"Where is the doctor?" demanded Jane. +</p> +<p> +"Busy," replied Higgins. "One of the women is sick." +</p> +<p> +Jane was provoked. She had put some labour into the eggnog. But it +shows the curious evolution going on in her that she got out the +eggs and milk and made another one without protest. Then with her +head up she carried it to the door. +</p> +<p> +"You might clear things away, Higgins," she said, and went down the +stairs. Her heart was going rather fast. Most of the men Jane knew +drank more or less, but this was different. She would have turned +back halfway there had it not been for Higgins and for owning +herself conquered. That was Jane's real weakness—she never owned +herself beaten. +</p> +<p> +The singing had subsided to a low muttering. Jane stopped outside +the door and took a fresh grip on her courage. Then she pushed the +door open and went in. +</p> +<p> +The light was shaded, and at first the tossing figure on the bed was +only a misty outline of greys and whites. She walked over, expecting +a pillow at any moment and shielding the glass from attack with her +hand. +</p> +<p> +"I have brought you another eggnog," she began severely, "and if you +spill it——" +</p> +<p> +Then she looked down and saw the face on the pillow. +</p> +<p> +To her everlasting credit, Jane did not faint. But in that moment, +while she stood staring down at the flushed young face with its +tumbled dark hair and deep-cut lines of dissipation, the man who had +sung to her over the piano, looking love into her eyes, died to her, +and Jane, cold and steady, sat down on the side of the bed and fed +the eggnog, spoonful by spoonful, to his corpse! +</p> +<p> +When the blank-eyed young man on the bed had swallowed it all +passively, looking at her with dull, incurious eyes, she went back +to her room and closing the door put the washstand against it. She +did nothing theatrical. She went over to the window and stood +looking out where the trees along the drive were fading in the dusk +from green to grey, from grey to black. And over the transom came +again and again monotonously the refrain: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>I—love you o—own—ly,</i> <br /> + <i>I love—but—you.</i> +</p> +<p> +Jane fell on her knees beside the bed and buried her wilful head in +the hand-embroidered pillow, and said a little prayer because she +had found out in time. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +The full realisation of their predicament came with the dusk. The +electric lights were shut off! Jane, crawling into bed tearfully at +half after eight, turned the reading light switch over her head, but +no flood of rosy radiance poured down on the hand-embroidered pillow +with the pink bow. +</p> +<p> +Jane sat up and stared round her. Already the outline of her dresser +was faint and shadowy. In half an hour black night would settle down +and she had not even a candle or a box of matches. She crawled out, +panicky, and began in the darkness to don her kimono and slippers. +As she opened the door and stepped into the hall the convalescent +typhoid heard her and set up his usual cry. +</p> +<p> +"Hey," he called, "whoever that is come in and fix the lights. +They're broken. And I want some bread and milk. I can't sleep on an +empty stomach!" +</p> +<p> +Jane padded on past the room where love lay cold and dead, down the +corridor with its alarming echoes. The house seemed very quiet. At a +corner unexpectedly she collided with some one going hastily. The +result was a crash and a deluge of hot water. Jane got a drop on her +bare ankle, and as soon as she could breathe she screamed. +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you look where you're going?" demanded the red-haired +person angrily. "I've been an hour boiling that water, and now it +has to be done over again!" +</p> +<p> +"It would do a lot of good to look!" retorted Jane. "But if you +wish I'll carry a bell!" +</p> +<p> +"The thing for you to do," said the red-haired person severely, "is +to go back to bed like a good girl and stay there until morning. The +light is cut off." +</p> +<p> +"Really!" said Jane. "I thought it had just gone out for a walk. I +daresay I may have a box of matches at least?" +</p> +<p> +He fumbled in his pockets without success. +</p> +<p> +"Not a match, of course!" he said disgustedly. "Was any one ever in +such an infernal mess? Can't you get back to your room without +matches?" +</p> +<p> +"I shan't go back at all unless I have some sort of light," +maintained Jane. "I'm—horribly frightened!" +</p> +<p> +The break in her voice caught his attention and he put his hand out +gently and took her arm. +</p> +<p> +"Now listen," he said. "You've been brave and fine all day, and +don't stop it now. I—I've got all I can manage. Mary O'Shaughnessy +is——" He stopped. "I'm going to be very busy," he said with half a +groan. "I surely do wish you were forty for the next few hours. But +you'll go back and stay in your room, won't you?" +</p> +<p> +He patted her arm, which Jane particularly hated generally. But Jane +had altered considerably since morning. +</p> +<p> +"Then you cannot go to the telephone?" +</p> +<p> +"Not to-night." +</p> +<p> +"And Higgins?" +</p> +<p> +"Higgins has gone," he said. "He slipped off an hour ago. We'll have +to manage to-night somehow. Now will you be a good child?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll go back," she promised meekly. "I'm sorry I'm not forty." +</p> +<p> +He turned her round and started her in the right direction with a +little push. But she had gone only a step or two when she heard him +coming after her quickly. +</p> +<p> +"Where are you?" +</p> +<p> +"Here," quavered Jane, not quite sure of him or of herself perhaps. +</p> +<p> +But when he stopped beside her he didn't try to touch her arm again. +He only said: +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't have you forty for anything in the world. I want you to +be just as you are, very beautiful and young." +</p> +<p> +Then, as if he was afraid he would say too much, he turned on his +heel, and a moment after he kicked against the fallen pitcher in the +darkness and awoke a thousand echoes. As for Jane, she put her +fingers to her ears and ran to her room, where she slammed the door +and crawled into bed with burning cheeks. +</p> +<p> +Jane was never sure whether it was five minutes later or five +seconds when somebody in the room spoke—from a chair by the window. +</p> +<p> +"Do you think," said a mild voice—"do you think you could find me +some bread and butter? Or a glass of milk?" +</p> +<p> +Jane sat up in bed suddenly. She knew at once that she had made a +mistake, but she was quite dignified about it. She looked over at +the chair, and the convalescent typhoid was sitting in it, wrapped +in a blanket and looking wan and ghostly in the dusk. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid I'm in the wrong room," Jane said very stiffly, trying +to get out of the bed with dignity, which is difficult. "The hall is +dark and all the doors look so alike——" +</p> +<p> +She made for the door at that and got out into the hall with her +heart going a thousand a minute again. +</p> +<p> +"You've forgotten your slippers," called the convalescent typhoid +after her. But nothing would have taken Jane back. +</p> +<p> +The convalescent typhoid took the slippers home later and locked +them away in an inner drawer, where he kept one or two things like +faded roses, and old gloves, and a silk necktie that a girl had made +him at college—things that are all the secrets a man keeps from his +wife and that belong in that small corner of his heart which also +he keeps from his wife. But that has nothing to do with Jane. +</p> +<p> +Jane went back to her own bed thoroughly demoralised. And sleep +being pretty well banished by that time, she sat up in bed and +thought things over. Before this she had not thought much, only +raged and sulked alternately. But now she thought. She thought about +the man in the room down the hall with the lines of dissipation on +his face. And she thought a great deal about what a silly she had +been, and that it was not too late yet, she being not forty and +"beautiful." It must be confessed that she thought a great deal +about that. Also she reflected that what she deserved was to marry +some person with even a worse temper than hers, who would bully her +at times and generally keep her straight. And from that, of course, +it was only a step to the fact that red-haired people are +proverbially bad-tempered! +</p> +<p> +She thought, too, about Mary O'Shaughnessy without another woman +near, and not even a light, except perhaps a candle. Things were +always so much worse in the darkness. And perhaps she might be going +to be very ill and ought to have another doctor! +</p> +<p> +Jane seemed to have been reflecting for a long time, when the church +clock far down in the village struck nine. And with the chiming of +the clock was born, full grown, an idea which before it was sixty +seconds of age was a determination. +</p> +<p> +In pursuance of the idea Jane once more crawled out of bed and began +to dress; she put on heavy shoes and a short skirt, a coat, and a +motor veil over her hair. The indignation at the defection of the +hospital staff, held in subjection during the day by the necessity +for doing something, now rose and lent speed and fury to her +movements. In an incredibly short time Jane was feeling her way +along the hall and down the staircase, now a well of unfathomable +blackness and incredible rustlings and creakings. +</p> +<p> +The front doors were unlocked. Outside there was faint starlight, +the chirp of a sleepy bird, and far off across the valley the +gasping and wheezing of a freight climbing the heavy grade to the +village. +</p> +<p> +Jane paused at the drive and took a breath. Then at her best +gymnasium pace, arms close to sides, head up, feet well planted, she +started to run. At the sundial she left the drive and took to the +lawn gleaming with the frost of late October. She stopped running +then and began to pick her way more cautiously. Even at that she +collided heavily with a wire fence marking the boundary, and sat on +the ground for some time after, whimpering over the outrage and +feeling her nose. It was distinctly scratched and swollen. No one +would think her beautiful with a nose like that! +</p> +<p> +She had not expected the wire fence. It was impossible to climb and +more difficult to get under. However, she found one place where the +ground dipped, and wormed her way under the fence in most +undignified fashion. It is perfectly certain that had Jane's family +seen her then and been told that she was doing this remarkable thing +for a woman she had never seen before that day, named Mary +O'Shaughnessy, and also for a certain red-haired person of whom it +had never heard, it would have considered Jane quite irrational. But +it is entirely probable that Jane became really rational that night +for the first time in her spoiled young life. +</p> +<p> +Jane never told the details of that excursion. Those that came out +in the paper were only guess-work, of course, but it is quite true +that a reporter found scraps of her motor veil on three wire fences, +and there seems to be no reason to doubt, also, that two false curls +were discovered a week later in a cow pasture on her own estate. But +as Jane never wore curls afterward anyhow—— +</p> +<p> +Well, Jane got to her own house about eleven and crept in like a +thief to the telephone. There were more rustlings and creakings and +rumblings in the empty house than she had ever imagined, and she +went backward through the hall for fear of something coming after +her. But, which is to the point, she got to the telephone and called +up her father in the city. +</p> +<p> +The first message that astonished gentleman got was that a +red-haired person at the hospital was very ill, having run into a +wire fence and bruised a nose, and that he was to bring out at once +from town two doctors, six nurses, a cook and a furnace man! +</p> +<p> +After a time, however, as Jane grew calmer, he got it straightened +out, and said a number of things over the telephone anent the +deserting staff that are quite forbidden by the rules both of the +club and of the telephone company. He gave Jane full instructions +about sending to the village and having somebody come up and stay +with her, and about taking a hot footbath and going to bed between +blankets, and when Jane replied meekly to everything "Yes, father," +and "All right, father," he was so stunned by her mildness that he +was certain she must be really ill. +</p> +<p> +Not that Jane had any idea of doing all these things. She hung up +the telephone and gathered all the candles from all the candlesticks +on the lower floor, and started back for the hospital. The moon had +come up and she had no more trouble with fencing, but she was +desperately tired. She climbed the drive slowly, coming to frequent +pauses. The hospital, long and low and sleeping, lay before her, +and in one upper window there was a small yellow light. +</p> +<p> +Jane climbed the steps and sat down on the top one. She felt very +tired and sad and dejected, and she sat down on the upper step to +think of how useless she was, and how much a man must know to be a +doctor, and that perhaps she would take up nursing in earnest and +amount to something, and—— +</p> +<p> +It was about three o'clock in the morning when the red-haired +person, coming down belatedly to close the front doors, saw a +shapeless heap on the porch surrounded by a radius of white-wax +candles, and going up shoved at it with his foot. Whereat the heap +moved slightly and muttered "Lemme shleep." +</p> +<p> +The red-haired person said "Good Heavens!" and bending down held a +lighted match to the sleeper's face and stared, petrified. Jane +opened her eyes, sat up and put her hand over her mutilated nose +with one gesture. +</p> +<p> +"You!" said the red-haired person. And then mercifully the match +went out. +</p> +<p> +"Don't light another," said Jane. "I'm an alarming sight. +Would—would you mind feeling if my nose is broken?" +</p> +<p> +He didn't move to examine it. He just kept on kneeling and staring. +</p> +<p> +"Where have you been?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Over to telephone," said Jane, and yawned. "They're bringing +everybody in automobiles—doctors, nurses, furnace man—oh, dear me, +I hope I mentioned a cook!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to say," said the red-haired person wonderingly, "that +you went by yourself across the fields and telephoned to get me out +of this mess?" +</p> +<p> +"Not at all," Jane corrected him coolly. "I'm in the mess myself." +</p> +<p> +"You'll be ill again." +</p> +<p> +"I never was ill," said Jane. "I was here for a mean disposition." +</p> +<p> +Jane sat in the moonlight with her hands in her lap and looked at +him calmly. The red-haired person reached over and took both her +hands. +</p> +<p> +"You're a heroine," he said, and bending down he kissed first one +and then the other. "Isn't it bad enough that you are beautiful +without your also being brave?" +</p> +<p> +Jane eyed him, but he was in deadly earnest. In the moonlight his +hair was really not red at all, and he looked pale and very, very +tired. Something inside of Jane gave a curious thrill that was half +pain. Perhaps it was the dying of her temper, perhaps—— +</p> +<p> +"Am I still beautiful with this nose?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"You are everything that a woman should be," he said, and dropping +her hands he got up. He stood there in the moonlight, straight and +young and crowned with despair, and Jane looked up from under her +long lashes. +</p> +<p> +"Then why don't you stay where you were?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +At that he reached down and took her hands again and pulled her to +her feet. He was very strong. +</p> +<p> +"Because if I do I'll never leave you again," he said. "And I must +go." +</p> +<p> +He dropped her hands, or tried to, but Jane wasn't ready to be +dropped. +</p> +<p> +"You know," she said, "I've told you I'm a sulky, bad-tempered——" +</p> +<p> +But at that he laughed suddenly, triumphantly, and put both his arms +round her and held her close. +</p> +<p> +"I love you," he said, "and if you are bad-tempered, so am I, only I +think I'm worse. It's a shame to spoil two houses with us, isn't +it?" +</p> +<p> +To her eternal shame be it told, Jane never struggled. She simply +held up her mouth to be kissed. +</p> +<p> +That is really all the story. Jane's father came with three +automobiles that morning at dawn, bringing with him all that goes to +make up a hospital, from a pharmacy clerk to absorbent cotton, and +having left the new supplies in the office he stamped upstairs to +Jane's room and flung open the door. +</p> +<p> +He expected to find Jane in hysterics and the pink silk kimono. +</p> +<p> +What he really saw was this: A coal fire was lighted in Jane's +grate, and in a low chair before it, with her nose swollen level +with her forehead, sat Jane, holding on her lap Mary O'Shaughnessy's +baby, very new and magenta-coloured and yelling like a trooper. +Kneeling beside the chair was a tall, red-headed person holding a +bottle of olive oil. +</p> +<p> +"Now, sweetest," the red-haired person was saying, "turn him on his +tummy and we'll rub his back. Gee, isn't that a fat back!" +</p> +<p> +And as Jane's father stared and Jane anxiously turned the baby, the +red-haired person leaned over and kissed the back of Jane's neck. +</p> +<p> +"Jane!" he whispered. +</p> +<p> +"Jane!!" said her father. +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + IN THE PAVILION +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The story +is to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne to +which no traveller may take with him anything but his sins—and this +with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage—he cast about for some +way to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of his +worldly goods. +</p> +<p> +Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant, +having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that might +better have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said to +the Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Come +on—be a sport! It's only a matter of hours." Not that he said it +aloud—he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that. +The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the table +and recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through a +most unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column she +wrote: "Delirious." +</p> +<p> +But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four or +thereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but when +it gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeing +green monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor is +walking on his hands—all these things melt away, and one sees one's +past, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, and +is curious about what is coming when one goes over. +</p> +<p> +So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of the +hospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try to +devise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studied +law, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against the +Lindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making some +thirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours or +less. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to rest +content with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise mar +the enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at that +moment put the thermometer under his arm. +</p> +<p> +Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes, +during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, or +even to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's arm +close to his side and counting his respirations while pretending to +be thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes that +the idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained. +The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye. +</p> +<p> +"Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labours—in a low—gear. +No wonder I'm—heated up!" +</p> +<p> +The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead. +</p> +<p> +"Try to sleep," she said. +</p> +<p> +"Time for—that—later," said Billy Grant. "I'll—I'll be a—long +time—dead. I—I wonder whether you'd—do me a—favour." +</p> +<p> +"I'll do anything in the world you want." +</p> +<p> +She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making her +chin quiver, which would never do—being unprofessional and likely +to get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, she +took his pulse by the throbbing in his neck. +</p> +<p> +"One, two, three, four, five, six——" +</p> +<p> +"Then—marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an—hour or—two, +you know. You—promised. Come on—be a sport!" +</p> +<p> +It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded +"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a Smith +College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she +spelled it just then with two r's. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of his +illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, +and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There were +even times—when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a +cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned—when she +seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment +did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge. +</p> +<p> +"You—promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiled +indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows. +</p> +<p> +Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion at +six o'clock—cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, he +brought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She went +into the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a clean +collar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then +stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very +lonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomed +large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the +courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying +a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big +railroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches." +He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many +internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the +dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into +a doze, opened his eyes. +</p> +<p> +"What—about it?" he asked. "You're not—married already—are you?" +</p> +<p> +"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice——" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, damn—the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyes +again—but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, and +finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, he +evolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do what +the doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!—upon which, with a +precision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard of +the bed put their thumbs to their noses at him. +</p> +<p> +The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from +any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants—and, as such, +entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could +procure—shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not +even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the +Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the +doorstep and told him. +</p> +<p> +"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said +dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave +everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!" +</p> +<p> +The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper +of steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out +a digestive tablet from his surgical bag. +</p> +<p> +"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had known +the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her—according to +report at the time—in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet, +and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man who +has first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make one +breathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyond +the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!" +</p> +<p> +The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep. +Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of the +monkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with +the symptom record. +</p> +<p> +"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his +spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad." +</p> +<p> +"Not wild; he—he wanted me to marry him!" +</p> +<p> +She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek. +</p> +<p> +"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm—pulse, +respiration—look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad—away +from home, too, poor lad!" +</p> +<p> +"You—— Isn't there any hope, doctor?" +</p> +<p> +"None at all—at least, I've never had 'em get well." +</p> +<p> +Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, have +walked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what he +said, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one hand +an order blank on which said august personage would presently +inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by +the pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in +the other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into +the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage +to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be +unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's +chest—which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner; +but every one knows that story. +</p> +<p> +Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in +the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a +hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff +Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. +</p> +<p> +"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his +arm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposed +to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "We +can't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. When +did you sleep?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled. +"No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just—I just can't +bear to see him—to see him——" +</p> +<p> +The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on the +Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed. +</p> +<p> +"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, and +I've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?" +</p> +<p> +"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm not +hungry—that's all. How long do you think——" +</p> +<p> +The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over his +white hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and did +not reply at once. Then, "Perhaps—until morning," he said. +</p> +<p> +He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and a +moment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and looking +like a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was just +behind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel over +her arm. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting. +</p> +<p> +"Allah—is—great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor—I guess +it's all—over but—the shouting." +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was +quite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But his +feet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one +wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise +he was beautifully comfortable. +</p> +<p> +Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sitting +in the dark by the window. +</p> +<p> +"Water?" she asked softly, coming to him. +</p> +<p> +"Please." His voice was stronger than it had been. +</p> +<p> +Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothing +mattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperature +and went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might not +watch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, she +came back into the room. +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grant +querulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stiffly +starched, so relentless of collar and cap. +</p> +<p> +"I am comfortable." +</p> +<p> +"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurse +rather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and take +a nap? I don't need anything." +</p> +<p> +"Not—not to-night." +</p> +<p> +He understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was too +comfortable. He was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak, +was clear. +</p> +<p> +"Would you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of course +you are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again, +sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with no querulous +devil——" +</p> +<p> +"Please!" +</p> +<p> +"You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." This very low. +</p> +<p> +"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's—company, you know." +He was apologetic; under her hand his own burned fire. "I—I spoke +to the Staff about that while you were out of the room." +</p> +<p> +"About what?" +</p> +<p> +"About your marrying me." +</p> +<p> +"What did he say?" She humoured him. +</p> +<p> +"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move—are +you?" +</p> +<p> +"No. But you must not talk." +</p> +<p> +"It's like this. I've got a little property—not much; a little." He +was nervously eager about this. If she knew it amounted to anything +she would refuse, and the Lindley Grants—— "And when I—you +know—— I want to leave it where it will do some good. That little +brother of yours—it would send him through college, or help to." +</p> +<p> +Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of the +brother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of the +profession. One does not speak of oneself or one's family. +</p> +<p> +"If you won't try to sleep, shall I read to you?" +</p> +<p> +"Read what?" +</p> +<p> +"I thought—the Bible, if you wouldn't mind." +</p> +<p> +"Certainly," he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing; +and if it makes you feel any better—— Will you think over what +I've been saying?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll think about it," she said, soothing him like a fretful child, +and brought her Bible. +</p> +<p> +The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up her +chair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Across +the courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with here +and there one brighter than the others that told its own story of +sleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carrying +a boisterous night party. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumn +night was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed her +hair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purple +hollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes. +</p> +<p> +"The perfect nurse," the head of the training school was fond of +saying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is a +handicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, +silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!" +</p> +<p> +Poor Junior Nurse! +</p> +<p> +Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, +should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking young +life; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants—which story +does not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation of +the church, and trying to summon from the depths of his +consciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the life +beyond, and what he might or might not expect there. +</p> +<p> +What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move his +legs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revenge +of a not particularly forgiving life. +</p> +<p> +At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for an +interne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot a +hypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. +He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung on +her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of his +head. +</p> +<p> +"About all in!" he said. "Heart's gone—too much booze probably. I'd +stay, but there's nothing to do." +</p> +<p> +"Would oxygen——" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you can try it if you like. It's like blowing up a leaking +tire; but if you'll feel better, do it." He yawned and tied the cord +of his bathrobe round him more securely. "I guess you'll be glad to +get back," he observed, looking round the dingy hall. "This place +always gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Good +night." +</p> +<p> +The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on the +asphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant. +</p> +<p> +"Well?" demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?" +</p> +<p> +"If you would only not talk and excite yourself——" +</p> +<p> +"Hell!" said Billy Grant, we regret to record. "I've got to do all +the talking I'm going to do right now. I beg your pardon—I didn't +intend to swear." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like no +deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting. +</p> +<p> +"Shall I read again?" +</p> +<p> +"No, thank you." +</p> +<p> +The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation present +from her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my little +girl!" There is no question but that, when the Nurse's mother gave +that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when +the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had +slapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. "To my little +girl!" said the watch; and across from that—"Three o'clock." +</p> +<p> +At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarked +that if it would ease the Nurse any he'd see a preacher. His voice +was weaker again and broken. +</p> +<p> +"Not"—he said, struggling—"not that I think—he'll pass me. +But—if you say so—I'll—take a chance." +</p> +<p> +All of which was diabolical cunning; for when, as the result of a +telephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man who +counted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silver +communion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in a +slum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare a +broth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man of +God. This he did by urging the need of the Nurse's small brother for +an education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grants +or the extent of his property. +</p> +<p> +From four o'clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with what +voice he had. The idea had become an obsession; and minute by +minute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away. +He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set. +And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little to +her and, for some strange reason, so much to him. Perhaps, if she +did it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying. +</p> +<p> +At five o'clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding his +pulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes the +Nurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient's arm +with one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married in +a dozen words and a soiled white apron. +</p> +<p> +Dawn was creeping in at the windows—a grey city dawn, filled with +soot and the rumbling of early wagons. A smell of damp asphalt from +the courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirped on the sill +where the Nurse had been in the habit of leaving crumbs. Billy +Grant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way, +dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, and signed his +will in a sprawling hand. +</p> +<p> +"If only," he muttered, "I could see Lin's face when that's—sprung +on him!" +</p> +<p> +The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps," he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word of +God——" +</p> +<p> +Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of their +very shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep—asleep with the +thermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and falling +peacefully. +</p> +<p> +The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding the +thermometer in place. She had buried her face in the white +counterpane. +</p> +<p> +"You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is happier, +and you are none the worse. Shall I keep the paper for you?" +</p> +<p> +But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt. +The minister, who had come across the street in a ragged +smoking-coat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edge +of the blanket over her shoulders. +</p> +<p> +Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshaved neck, he departed +for the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, in +his shirtsleeves, was sweeping the pavement. There, mindful of the +fact that he had come from the contagious pavilion, the minister +brushed his shabby smoking-coat with a whiskbroom to remove the +germs! +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant, of course, did not die. This was perhaps because only +the good die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been the honour of a +gentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was, therefore, no +particular violence done to his code when his last thoughts—or what +appeared to be his last thoughts—were revenge instead of salvation. +</p> +<p> +The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the Lindley +Grants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and a +hereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did not +understand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "Poor +Billy!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however, +was not his reason for hating them. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant fell in love. To give the devil his due, he promptly set +about reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-sodas +as he had been in the habit of doing, and cut out champagne +altogether. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, but gave it up +when he found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, with +things so shaping up that he could rise in the morning without +having a drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best to +warn the girl's family before it was too late. +</p> +<p> +"He is a nice boy in some ways," Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on the +occasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a broken +reed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marry +him. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will give +them to you." +</p> +<p> +So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, and +Billy Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presented +the ring to a cabman—all of which is exceedingly sordid, but rather +human after all. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse, having had no sleep for forty-eight hours, slept for +quite thirty minutes. She wakened at the end of that time and +started up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting for +had come. But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, and +the thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered a +hundred and three. +</p> +<p> +At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with a +laudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to drop +in, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and the +Nurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous. +</p> +<p> +"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought to +have been called. I told you——" +</p> +<p> +"He isn't dead," said the Nurse breathlessly. "He—I think he is +better." +</p> +<p> +Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room across +the hall, locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne to +hunt the symptom record for himself—a thing not to be lightly +overlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff. +</p> +<p> +The interne looked over the record and whistled. +</p> +<p> +"Wouldn't that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "'Pulse very +weak.' 'Pulse almost obliterated.' 'Very talkative.' 'Breathing hard +at four A.M. Cannot swallow.' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from five +o'clock.' 'Pulse stronger.' Temperature one hundred and three.' By +gad, that last prescription of mine was a hit!" +</p> +<p> +So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the little +isolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute did the +two people most concerned forget their strange relationship; not for +worlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or she +remembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixed +on her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistful +expression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would find +her in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lap +and a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him. +</p> +<p> +He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly's +assistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment in +which he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he had +realised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a cruel +advantage he had used for his own purpose. +</p> +<p> +When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone she +brought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the first +personality of their new relationship. +</p> +<p> +"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there in +the bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable." +</p> +<p> +"I am not small," she said, straightening herself. She had always +hoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall. +You—you are a giant!" +</p> +<p> +"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovely +girls for dinner under pretence of marriage——" He stopped his +nonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured. +Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretched +silence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of his +convalescence was always pertinent—food. "Speaking of dinner," he +said hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?" +</p> +<p> +She was quite calm when she came back—cool, even smiling; but +Billy Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placed +the glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took her +hand. +</p> +<p> +"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; the +usual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and too +late for anything but forgiveness. +</p> +<p> +"Forgive you? For not dying?" +</p> +<p> +She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside from +dangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house. +</p> +<p> +"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. It +took a little time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover on +the stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on the +table. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while each +side got its forces in line. +</p> +<p> +"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to change +the figure, a blow below the belt. +</p> +<p> +"Why should I hate you?" countered the other side. +</p> +<p> +"I should think you would. I forced the thing on you." +</p> +<p> +"I need not have done it." +</p> +<p> +"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happy +and comfortable——" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, if only they don't find it out over there!" she burst out. "If +they do and I have to leave, with Jim——" +</p> +<p> +Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw up +her face before any one, she put her arms on the stand and buried +her face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant's +arm. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant had a shocked second. +</p> +<p> +"Jim?" +</p> +<p> +"My little brother," from the table. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant drew a long breath of relief. For a moment he had +thought—— +</p> +<p> +"I wonder—whether I dare to say something to you." Silence from the +table and presumably consent. "Isn't he—don't you think that—I +might be allowed to—to help Jim? It would help me to like myself +again. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself." +</p> +<p> +"Won't you tell me why you did it?" she said, suddenly sitting up, +her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so? +You said it was because of a little property you had, but—that +wasn't it—was it?" +</p> +<p> +"No." +</p> +<p> +"Or because you cared a snap for me." This was affirmation, not +question. +</p> +<p> +"No, not that, though I——" +</p> +<p> +She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair. +</p> +<p> +"Then—why? Why?" +</p> +<p> +"For one of the meanest reasons I know—to be even with some people +who had treated me badly." +</p> +<p> +The thing was easier now. His flat denial of any sentimental reason +had helped to make it so. +</p> +<p> +"A girl that you cared about?" +</p> +<p> +"Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough to +be hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble——" +</p> +<p> +Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment that +he no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left him +speechless—that he who had taken his hate into the very valley of +death with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley and +his wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A state +of affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants was +alone responsible; now the hate was gone and the state of affairs +persisted. +</p> +<p> +"I should like," said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you a +little—if it will not bore you—about myself and the things I have +done that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know, +I'm—I'm not going to hold you to—to the thing I forced you into. +There are ways to fix that." +</p> +<p> +Before she would listen, however, she must take his temperature and +give him his medicine, and see that he drank his buttermilk—the +buttermilk last, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer. +The tired lines had gone from under her eyes and she was very lovely +that day. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctor +had slapped her between the shoulders long ago—you know about +that—only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sitting +there with the thermometer in his mouth while she counted his +respirations, pretending to be looking out the window while she did +it, Billy Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorable +she was, in spite of the sad droop of her lips—and found it hard to +say the thing he felt he must. +</p> +<p> +"After all," he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is not +irrevocable. I can fix it up so that——" +</p> +<p> +"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, and +snapped her watch shut. +</p> +<p> +The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down +under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing +him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap. +</p> +<p> +"Now!" she said. +</p> +<p> +"I am to go on?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, please." +</p> +<p> +"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give me +any other diabolical truck to swallow," he said somewhat peevishly, +"will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessional +minutes?" +</p> +<p> +"Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, +to his disgust, over his knees. +</p> +<p> +This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table near +him and he reached over and covered it with his. +</p> +<p> +"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell you +some of the things I have to tell." +</p> +<p> +She left it there, after an uneasy stirring. So, sitting there, +looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures in +wheeled chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench—their crutches +beside them—its waterless fountain and its dingy birds, he told her +about the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman and +the ring. And feeling, perhaps in some current from the small hand +under his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turning +away, he told her a great deal he had not meant to tell—ugly +things, many of them—for that was his creed. +</p> +<p> +And, because in a hospital one lives many lives vicariously with +many people, what the girl back home would never have understood +this girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as she knew it, was not all +good and not all bad; passion and tenderness, violence and peace, +joy and wretchedness, birth and death—these she had looked on, all +of them, with clear eyes and hands ready to help. +</p> +<p> +So Billy Grant laid the good and the bad of his life before her, +knowing that he was burying it with her. When he finished, her hand +on the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over and +kissed her fingers softly. +</p> +<p> +After that she read to him, and their talk, if any, was impersonal. +When the orderly had put him back to bed he lay watching her moving +about, rejoicing in her quiet strength, her repose. How well she was +taking it all! If only—but there was no hope of that. She could go +to Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thing +would be as if it had never been. +</p> +<p> +At nine o'clock that night the isolation pavilion was ready for the +night. The lights in the sickroom were out. In the hall a nightlight +burned low, Billy Grant was not asleep. He tried counting the +lighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doors +open between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in, +with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleeves +falling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching with +inaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicated +that she was sleeping. +</p> +<p> +Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still +very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by +pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping +first one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, even +the weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of a +chairback may become, however shaky, a standing one. +</p> +<p> +He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough to +relinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He would +tell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. He +took a step—if only his knees—— +</p> +<p> +He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking through +the open door of the room across. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. +Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in their +short white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutching +the counterpane. +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort of +groan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapper +held about her, peering into the darkness. +</p> +<p> +"I thought I heard—are you worse?" she asked anxiously. +</p> +<p> +"I'm all right," he said, hating himself; "just not sleepy. How +about you?" +</p> +<p> +"Not asleep yet, but—resting," she replied. +</p> +<p> +She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid over +her shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. In +the darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then dropped +them, ashamed. +</p> +<p> +"Would you like another blanket?" +</p> +<p> +"If there is one near." +</p> +<p> +She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over the +bed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place. +He was mustering up his courage to ask for something—a curious +state of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wanted +without asking. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you would kiss me—just once!" he said wistfully. And then, +seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that's +the reason I'm not sleeping." +</p> +<p> +"Don't be absurd!" +</p> +<p> +"Is it so absurd—under the circumstances?" +</p> +<p> +"You can sleep quite well if you only try." +</p> +<p> +She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then she +hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room. +</p> +<p> +"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? And +will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?" +</p> +<p> +"But my arms——" +</p> +<p> +"Over your head!" +</p> +<p> +He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in the +darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed—the tip of +his nose! +</p> +<p class="sec"> +IV +</p> +<p> +She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neither +of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant +thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring +him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured +by the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He +was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have—— He +borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself. +</p> +<p> +Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of +his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of +better treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair over +his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done +with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again. +</p> +<p> +That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was +troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day +before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his +chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, +enlightened her. +</p> +<p> +"He has pulled through—God and you alone know how," he said. "But +as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for +liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years—— +Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of +pepsin?" +</p> +<p> +The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff +Doctor swallowed and grimaced. +</p> +<p> +"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly—for, the stress being +over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled +to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage. +</p> +<p> +"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has +been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but +steady. "He is not to have it?" +</p> +<p> +"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair +again, but while he's here—by-the-way, you'll have to watch the +orderly. He'll bribe him." +</p> +<p> +"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman." +</p> +<p> +"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk +too; but he's a drinker—a habitual drinker." +</p> +<p> +The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a +chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face +buried in his hands. +</p> +<p> +"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. +He's right, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help." +</p> +<p> +She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held it +between his. +</p> +<p> +"Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me, +you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow—didn't we?" +</p> +<p> +She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dying +man, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her hand +in his. Billy Grant thought of it too. +</p> +<p> +"Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitterness +was at himself of course. "If—if you'll sit tight I have a fighting +chance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix this +thing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I—— Don't +take your hand away. Please!" +</p> +<p> +"I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained. +</p> +<p> +"Have I made you cry again?" +</p> +<p> +"Again?' +</p> +<p> +"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I was +trying to stand, and——" +</p> +<p> +She was very dignified at this, with her eyes still wet, and tried +unsuccessfully to take her hand away. +</p> +<p> +"If you are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to be +relieved." +</p> +<p> +"You wouldn't do that!" +</p> +<p> +"Let go of my hand." +</p> +<p> +"You wouldn't do that!!" +</p> +<p> +"Please! The head nurse is coming." +</p> +<p> +He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, remembering the +"perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine." +</p> +<p> +The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion, +but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she had +confidence in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion—this +latter, of course, quite <i>sub rosa</i>, in view of the above quotation. +</p> +<p> +The Head Nurse was a tall woman in white, and was so starchy that +she rattled like a newspaper when she walked. +</p> +<p> +"Good morning," she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiled +clothes?" Head nurses are always bothering about soiled clothes; +and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use so +many bandages. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Miss Smith." +</p> +<p> +"Meals come over promptly?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Miss Smith." +</p> +<p> +"Getting any sleep?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, plenty—now." +</p> +<p> +Miss Smith peered into the hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at the +Nurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient's +room, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her eyebrows rose. +</p> +<p> +"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was older than that!" +</p> +<p> +"Twenty-nine," said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July." +</p> +<p> +"H'm!" commented the Head Nurse. "You evidently know! I had no idea +you were taking care of a boy. It won't do. I'll send over Miss +Hart." +</p> +<p> +The Nurse tried to visualise Billy Grant in his times of stress +clutching at Miss Hart's hand, and failed. +</p> +<p> +"Jenks is here, of course," she said, Jenks being the orderly. +</p> +<p> +The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the head +nurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant, +looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years younger since the +shave, and she set her lips. +</p> +<p> +"I am astonished beyond measure," she said. "Miss Hart will relieve +you at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have the +afternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning." +</p> +<p> +Miss Smith rattled back across the courtyard and the Nurse stood +watching her; then turned slowly and went into the house to tell +Billy Grant. +</p> +<p> +Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point: +that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart talk with the substitute at +two o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that he +would none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say he got the +superintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended to +make a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so little +considered as to change nurses just when he had got used to one, he +would have to alter his plans. Another and more likely story, +because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock a +florist's boy delivered to Miss Smith a box of orchids such as never +had been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said: +"Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that thou gavest." +</p> +<p> +Whatever really happened—and only Billy Grant and the lady in +question ever really knew—that night at eight o'clock, with Billy +Grant sitting glumly in his room and Miss Hart studying typhoid +fever in the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion with +her soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyes +shining. And things went on as before—not quite as before; for with +the nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, and +the next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taught +her double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, when +he walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Then +at dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fight +alone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would +waken to the craving again and fight all day. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff Doctor one +day; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself—now or never." +</p> +<p> +The Staff Doctor was no fool and he had heard about the orchids. +</p> +<p> +"Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling and +cease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get it +over before you are free again." +</p> +<p> +So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty much +himself again—had put on a little flesh and could feel his biceps +rise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt the +craving coming on, and there were days when the little pavilion was +full of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too, +and sent out for some collars. +</p> +<p> +Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much of +good fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but he +did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the +strange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Only +once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the +dishes for him—against his protest, for he disliked being waited +on—he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. She +coloured. +</p> +<p> +"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring." +</p> +<p> +Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment: +"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them +over here?" +</p> +<p> +It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had been +in his mind for some time. +</p> +<p> +"Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here and +to eat together? It would be more sociable." +</p> +<p> +She smiled. +</p> +<p> +"It isn't permitted." +</p> +<p> +"Do you think—would another box of orchids——" +</p> +<p> +She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probably +be expelled." +</p> +<p> +He was greatly aggrieved. +</p> +<p> +"That's all foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse—any more +unconventional—than your bringing me your extra blanket on a cold +night? Oh, I heard you last night!" +</p> +<p> +"Then why didn't you leave it on?" +</p> +<p> +"And let you freeze?" +</p> +<p> +"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night and +did no one any good." +</p> +<p> +Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back. +He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour of +exercise outside the window, he sat inside reading—only apparently +reading, however. +</p> +<p> +Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out. +</p> +<p> +"Jenks!" called Billy Grant. +</p> +<p> +Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man, +rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried meals +and soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twice +during a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of <i>spiritus +frumenti</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "is +that bottle of yours empty?" +</p> +<p> +"What bottle?" +</p> +<p> +"The one in the closet." +</p> +<p> +Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks—a look of man to man, +brother to brother. +</p> +<p> +"Not quite, sir—a nip or two." +</p> +<p> +"At," suggested Billy Grant, "say—five dollars a nip?" +</p> +<p> +Jenks smiled. +</p> +<p> +"About that," he said. "Filled?" +</p> +<p> +Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate. +</p> +<p> +"No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here." +</p> +<p> +Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motioned +away. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it with +a curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upper +bureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, +bewildered. +</p> +<p> +"Just a little experiment, Jenks," said Billy Grant. +</p> +<p> +Jenks understood then and stopped smiling. +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant," he said; "it will only make you lose +confidence in yourself when it doesn't work out." +</p> +<p> +"But it's going to work out," said Billy Grant. "Would you mind +turning on the cold water?" +</p> +<p> +Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant's +eyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, they +were fixed on something in the neighbourhood of the dresser, and at +these times they had a curious, fixed look not unmixed with triumph. +She tried a new arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted the +mirror at a different angle, without effect. +</p> +<p> +That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore on +he grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was unmistakable. He +stared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grew +unendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down at him +severely. She could only be severe when he was sitting—when he was +standing she had to look so far up at him, even when she stood on +her tiptoes. +</p> +<p> +"What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my cap +crooked?" +</p> +<p> +"It is a wonderful cap." +</p> +<p> +"Is my face dirty?" +</p> +<p> +"It is a won—— No, certainly not." +</p> +<p> +"Then would you mind not staring so? You—upset me." +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, and worried her +into a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his head +back and his eyes shut. +</p> +<p> +So—the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle lay +undisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceased +running, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently. +That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into the +Nurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it across +the hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side, +and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had been +putting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant was +waiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something in +his face she had not seen there before. +</p> +<p> +"Shall we breakfast?" he said. +</p> +<p> +"I told you yesterday——" +</p> +<p> +"Think a minute," he said softly. "Is there any reason why we should +not breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, but +she did not speak. "Unless—you do not wish to." +</p> +<p> +"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to—fix +that——" +</p> +<p> +"So I will if you say the word." +</p> +<p> +"And—to forget all about it." +</p> +<p> +"That," said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as I +live. Do you say the word?" +</p> +<p> +"What else can I do?" +</p> +<p> +"Then there is somebody else?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" +</p> +<p> +He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her. +</p> +<p> +"If there is no one else," he said, "and if I tell you that you have +made me a man again——" +</p> +<p> +"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward the +egg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand. +</p> +<p> +"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?" +</p> +<p> +Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in the +little Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would have +looked like a seismic disturbance. +</p> +<p> +"I—I have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was looking +down when she said it. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, my dear—my dear!" exulted Billy Grant. "It is I who must look +up at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed the +starched hem of her apron. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse felt very absurd and a little frightened. +</p> +<p> +"If only," she said, backing off—"if only you wouldn't be such a +silly! Jenks is coming!" +</p> +<p> +But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height and +looked down at her—a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk at +a club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morning +some weeks before. +</p> +<p> +"I love you—love you—love you!" he said, and took her in his arms. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H.N. +took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed in +losing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked. +</p> +<p> +"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a trifle +breathless, the h.n. being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic." +</p> +<p> +The H.N. stopped and raised a reproving forefinger. +</p> +<p> +"Too much sympathy is a handicap," she orated. "The perfect nurse is +a silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine—this little +building here is the isolation pavilion." +</p> +<p> +"An emotionless machine," repeated the applicant. "I see—an e——" +</p> +<p> +The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds on +the windowsill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in a +very mussed cap were breakfasting together. And as she looked Billy +Grant bent over across the tray. +</p> +<p> +"I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hands, +kissed first one and then the other. +</p> +<p> +"It is hard work," said Miss Smith—having made a note that the boys +in the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboard +box on a string from a window—"hard work without sentiment. It is +not a romantic occupation." +</p> +<p> +She waved an admonitory hand toward the window, and the box went up +swiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, where +Billy Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face in +her two palms. +</p> +<p> +The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandaged +figures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, their +crutches beside them, its waterless fountain and dingy birds. +</p> +<p> +The applicant thrilled to it all—joy and suffering, birth and +death, misery and hope, life and love. Love! +</p> +<p> +The H.N. turned to her grimly, but her eyes were soft. +</p> +<p> +"All this," she said, waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars a +month!" +</p> +<p> +"I think," said the applicant shyly, "I should like to come." +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + GOD'S FOOL +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives +intellect—and they move the earth. To some He allots heart—and the +beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a +soul, without intelligence—and these, who never grow up, but remain +always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as +if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one colour instead +of many. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy was God's fool. Having only a soul and no intelligence, he +lived the life of the soul. Through his faded, childish old blue +eyes he looked out on a world that hurried past him with, at +best, a friendly touch on his shoulder. No man shook his hand in +comradeship. No woman save the little old mother had ever caressed +him. He lived alone in a world of his own fashioning, peopled by +moving, noiseless figures and filled with dreams—noiseless because +the Dummy had ears that heard not and lips that smiled at a +kindness, but that did not speak. +</p> +<p> +In this world of his there was no uncharitableness—no sin. There +was a God—why should he not know his Father?—there were brasses to +clean and three meals a day; and there was chapel on Sunday, where +one held a book—the Dummy held his upside down—and felt the +vibration of the organ, and proudly watched the afternoon sunlight +smiling on the polished metal of the chandelier and choir rail. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The Probationer sat turning the bandage machine and watching the +Dummy, who was polishing the brass plates on the beds. The plates +said: "Endowed in perpetuity"—by various leading citizens, to whom +God had given His best gifts, both heart and brain. +</p> +<p> +"How old do you suppose he is?" she asked, dropping her voice. +</p> +<p> +The Senior Nurse was writing fresh labels for the medicine closet, +and for "tincture of myrrh" she wrote absently "tincture of mirth," +and had to tear it up. +</p> +<p> +"He can't hear you," she said rather shortly. "How old? Oh, I don't +know. About a hundred, I should think." +</p> +<p> +This was, of course, because of his soul, which was all he had, and +which, having existed from the beginning, was incredibly old. The +little dead mother could have told them that he was less than +thirty. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer sat winding bandages. Now and then they went +crooked and had to be done again. She was very tired. The creaking +of the bandage machine made her nervous—that and a sort of +disillusionment; for was this her great mission, this sitting in a +silent, sunny ward, where the double row of beds held only querulous +convalescent women? How close was she to life who had come to soothe +the suffering and close the eyes of the dying; who had imagined that +her instruments of healing were a thermometer and a prayer-book; and +who found herself fighting the good fight with a bandage machine +and, even worse, a scrubbing brush and a finetooth comb? +</p> +<p> +The Senior Nurse, having finished the M's, glanced up and surprised +a tear on the Probationer's round young cheek. She was wise, having +trained many probationers. +</p> +<p> +"Go to first supper, please," she said. First supper is the Senior's +prerogative; but it is given occasionally to juniors and +probationers as a mark of approval, or when the Senior is not +hungry, or when a probationer reaches the breaking point, which is +just before she gets her uniform. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doing +fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. +Glimpses she had of the battle—stretchers going up and down in the +slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; +the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry +of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life +going out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed. +</p> +<p> +"I'll put away the bandages first," she said. "That's what you said, +I think—never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?" +</p> +<p> +"Right-oh!" said the Senior. +</p> +<p> +"Though nothing ever happens back here—does it?' +</p> +<p> +"It's about our turn; I'm looking for a burned case." The +Probationer, putting the bandages into a basket, turned and stared. +</p> +<p> +"We have had two in to-day in the house," the Senior went on, +starting on the N's and making the capital carefully. "There will be +a third, of course; and we may get it. Cases always seem to run in +threes. While you're straightening the bed I suppose I might as well +go to supper after all." +</p> +<p> +So it was the Probationer and the Dummy who received the new case, +while the Senior ate cold salmon and fried potatoes with other +seniors, and inveighed against lectures on Saturday evening and +other things that seniors object to, such as things lost in the +wash, and milk in the coffee instead of cream, and women from the +Avenue who drank carbolic acid and kept the ambulance busy. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer was from the country and she had never heard of +the Avenue. And the Dummy, who walked there daily with the +superintendent's dog, knew nothing of its wickedness. In his soul, +where there was nothing but kindness, there was even a feeling of +tenderness for the Avenue. Once the dog had been bitten by a terrier +from one of the houses, and a girl had carried him in and washed the +wounds and bound them up. Thereafter the Dummy had watched for her +and bowed when he saw her. When he did not see her he bowed to the +house. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy finished the brass plates and, gathering up his rags and +polish, shuffled to the door. His walk was a patient shamble, but he +covered incredible distances. When he reached the emergency bed he +stopped and pointed to it. The Probationer looked startled. +</p> +<p> +"He's tellin' you to get it ready," shrilled Irish Delia, sitting up +in the next bed. "He did that before you was brought in," she called +to Old Maggie across the ward. "Goodness knows how he finds out—but +he knows. Get the spread off the bed, miss. There's something +coming." +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The Probationer had come from the country and naturally knew nothing +of the Avenue. Sometimes on her off duty she took short walks there, +wondering if the passers-by who stared at her knew that she was a +part of the great building that loomed over the district, happily +ignorant of the real significance of their glances. Once a girl, +sitting behind bowed shutters, had leaned out and smiled at her. +</p> +<p> +"Hot to-day, isn't it?" she said. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer stopped politely. +</p> +<p> +"It's fearful! Is there any place near where I can get some soda +water?" +</p> +<p> +The girl in the window stared. +</p> +<p> +"There's a drug store two squares down," she said. "And say, if I +were you——" +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, nothing!" said the girl in the window, and quite unexpectedly +slammed the shutters. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer had puzzled over it quite a lot. More than once she +walked by the house, but she did not see the smiling girl—only, +curiously enough, one day she saw the Dummy passing the house and +watched him bow and take off his old cap, though there was no one in +sight. +</p> +<p> +Sooner or later the Avenue girls get to the hospital. Sometimes it +is because they cannot sleep, and lie and think things over—and +there is no way out; and God hates them—though, of course, there is +that story about Jesus and the Avenue woman. And what is the use of +going home and being asked questions that cannot be answered? So +they try to put an end to things generally—and end up in the +emergency bed, terribly frightened, because it has occurred to them +that if they do not dare to meet the home folks how are they going +to meet the Almighty? +</p> +<p> +Or sometimes it is jealousy. Even an Avenue woman must love some +one; and, because she's an elemental creature, if the object of her +affections turns elsewhere she's rather apt to use a knife or a +razor. In that case it is the rival who ends up on the emergency +bed. +</p> +<p> +Or the life gets her, as it does sooner or later, and she comes in +with typhoid or a cough, or other things, and lies alone, day after +day, without visitors or inquiries, making no effort to get better, +because—well, why should she? +</p> +<p> +And so the Dummy's Avenue Girl met her turn and rode down the street +in a clanging ambulance, and was taken up in the elevator and along +a grey hall to where the emergency bed was waiting; and the +Probationer, very cold as to hands and feet, was sending mental +appeals to the Senior to come—and come quickly. The ward got up on +elbows and watched. Also it told the Probationer what to do. +</p> +<p> +"Hot-water bottles and screens," it said variously. "Take her +temperature. Don't be frightened! There'll be a doctor in a minute." +</p> +<p> +The girl lay on the bed with her eyes shut. It was Irish Delia who +saw the Dummy and raised a cry. +</p> +<p> +"Look at the Dummy!" she said. "He's crying." +</p> +<p> +The Dummy's world had always been a small one. There was the +superintendent, who gave him his old clothes; and there was the +engineer, who brought him tobacco; and there were the ambulance +horses, who talked to him now and then without speech. And, of +course, there was his Father. +</p> +<p> +Fringing this small inner circle of his heart was a kaleidoscope of +changing faces, nurses, <i>internes</i>, patients, visitors—a wall of +life that kept inviolate his inner shrine. And in the holiest place, +where had dwelt only his Father, and not even the superintendent, +the Dummy had recently placed the Avenue Girl. She was his saint, +though he knew nothing of saints. Who can know why he chose her? A +queer trick of the soul perhaps—or was it super-wisdom?—to choose +her from among many saintly women and so enshrine her. +</p> +<p> +Or perhaps—— Down in the chapel, in a great glass window, the +young John knelt among lilies and prayed. When, at service on +Sundays, the sunlight came through on to the Dummy's polished choir +rail and candles, the young John had the face of a girl, with short +curling hair, very yellow for the colour scheme. The Avenue Girl had +hair like that and was rather like him in other ways. +</p> +<p> +And here she was where all the others had come, and where countless +others would come sooner or later. She was not unconscious and at +Delia's cry she opened her eyes. The Probationer was off filling +water bottles, and only the Dummy, stricken, round-shouldered, +unlovely, stood beside her. +</p> +<p> +"Rotten luck, old top!" she said faintly. +</p> +<p> +To the Dummy it was a benediction. She could open her eyes. The +miracle of speech was still hers. +</p> +<p> +"Cigarette!" explained the Avenue Girl, seeing his eyes still on +her. "Must have gone to sleep with it and dropped it. I'm—all in!" +</p> +<p> +"Don't you talk like that," said Irish Delia, bending over from the +next bed. "You'll get well a' right—unless you inhaled. Y'ought to +'a' kept your mouth shut." +</p> +<p> +Across the ward Old Maggie had donned her ragged slippers and a blue +calico wrapper and shuffled to the foot of the emergency bed. Old +Maggie was of that vague neighbourhood back of the Avenue, where +squalor and poverty rubbed elbows with vice, and scorned it. +</p> +<p> +"Humph!" she said, without troubling to lower her voice. "I've seen +her often. I done her washing once. She's as bad as they make 'em." +</p> +<p> +"You shut your mouth!" Irish Delia rose to the defence. "She's in +trouble now and what she was don't matter. You go back to bed or +I'll tell the Head Nurse on you. Look out! The Dummy——" +</p> +<p> +The Dummy was advancing on Old Maggie with threatening eyes. As the +woman recoiled he caught her arm in one of his ugly, misshapen hands +and jerked her away from the bed. Old Maggie reeled—almost fell. +</p> +<p> +"You all seen that!" she appealed to the ward. "I haven't even spoke +to him and he attacked me! I'll go to the superintendent about it. +I'll——" +</p> +<p> +The Probationer hurried in. Her young cheeks were flushed with +excitement and anxiety; her arms were full of jugs, towels, +bandages—anything she could imagine as essential. She found the +Dummy on his knees polishing a bed plate, and the ward in +order—only Old Maggie was grumbling and making her way back to bed; +and Irish Delia was sitting up, with her eyes shining—for had not +the Dummy, who could not hear, known what Old Maggie had said about +the new girl? Had she not said that he knew many things that were +hidden, though God knows how he knew them? +</p> +<p> +The next hour saw the Avenue Girl through a great deal. Her burns +were dressed by an <i>interne</i> and she was moved back to a bed at the +end of the ward. The Probationer sat beside her, having refused +supper. The Dummy was gone—the Senior Nurse had shooed him off as +one shoos a chicken. +</p> +<p> +"Get out of here! You're always under my feet," she had said—not +unkindly—and pointed to the door. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy had stood, with his faded old-young eyes on her, and had +not moved. The Senior, who had the ward supper to serve and beds to +brush out and backs to rub, not to mention having to make up the +emergency bed and clear away the dressings—the Senior tried +diplomacy and offered him an orange from her own corner of the +medicine closet. He shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I guess he wants to know whether that girl from the Avenue's going +to get well," said Irish Delia. "He seems to know her." +</p> +<p> +There was a titter through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossiping +tongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward had veered +to contempt. +</p> +<p> +"Humph!" said the Senior, and put the orange back. "Why, yes; I +guess she'll get well. But how in Heaven's name am I to let him +know?" +</p> +<p> +She was a resourceful person, however, and by pointing to the Avenue +Girl and then nodding reassuringly she got her message of cheer over +the gulf of his understanding. In return the Dummy told her by +gestures how he knew the girl and how she had bound up the leg of +the superintendent's dog. The Senior was a literal person and not +occult; and she was very busy. When the Dummy stooped to indicate +the dog, a foot or so from the ground, she seized that as the key of +the situation. +</p> +<p> +"He's trying to let me know that he knew her when she was a baby," +she observed generally. "All right, if that's the case. Come in and +see her when you want to. And now get out, for goodness' sake!" +</p> +<p> +The Dummy, with his patient shamble, made his way out of the ward +and stored his polishes for the night in the corner of a +scrub-closet. Then, ignoring supper, he went down the stairs, flight +after flight, to the chapel. The late autumn sun had set behind the +buildings across the courtyard and the lower part of the silent room +was in shadow; but the afterglow came palely through the +stained-glass window, with the young John and tall stalks of white +lilies, and "To the Memory of My Daughter Elizabeth" beneath. +</p> +<p> +It was only a coincidence—and not even that to the Dummy—but +Elizabeth had been the Avenue Girl's name not so long ago. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy sat down near the door very humbly and gazed at the +memorial window. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Time may be measured in different ways—by joys; by throbs of pain; +by instants; by centuries. In a hospital it is marked by night +nurses and day nurses; by rounds of the Staff; by visiting days; by +medicines and temperatures and milk diets and fever baths; by the +distant singing in the chapel on Sundays; by the shift of the +morning sun on the east beds to the evening sun on the beds along +the west windows. +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl lay alone most of the time. The friendly offices of +the ward were not for her. Private curiosity and possible kindliness +were over-shadowed by a general arrogance of goodness. The ward +flung its virtue at her like a weapon and she raised no defence. In +the first days things were not so bad. She lay in shock for a time, +and there were not wanting hands during the bad hours to lift a cup +of water to her lips; but after that came the tedious time when +death no longer hovered overhead and life was there for the asking. +</p> +<p> +The curious thing was that the Avenue Girl did not ask. She lay for +hours without moving, with eyes that seemed tired with looking into +the dregs of life. The Probationer was in despair. +</p> +<p> +"She could get better if she would," she said to the <i>interne</i> one +day. The Senior was off duty and they had done the dressing +together. "She just won't try." +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps she thinks it isn't worth while," replied the <i>interne</i>, +who was drying his hands carefully while the Probationer waited for +the towel. +</p> +<p> +She was a very pretty Probationer. +</p> +<p> +"She hasn't much to look forward to, you know." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer was not accustomed to discussing certain things with +young men, but she had the Avenue Girl on her mind. +</p> +<p> +"She has a home—she admits it." She coloured bravely. "Why—why +cannot she go back to it, even now?" +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> poured a little rosewater and glycerine into the palm +of one hand and gave the Probationer the bottle. If his fingers +touched hers, she never knew it. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps they'd not want her after—well, they'd never feel the +same, likely. They'd probably prefer to think of her as dead and let +it go at that. There—there doesn't seem to be any way back, you +know." +</p> +<p> +He was exceedingly self-conscious. +</p> +<p> +"Then life is very cruel," said the Probationer with rather shaky +lips. +</p> +<p> +And going back to the Avenue Girl's bed she filled her cup with ice +and straightened her pillows. It was her only way of showing +defiance to a world that mutilated its children and turned them out +to die. The <i>interne</i> watched her as she worked. It rather galled +him to see her touching this patient. He had no particular sympathy +for the Avenue Girl. He was a man, and ruthless, as men are apt to +be in such things. +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl had no visitors. She had had one or two at +first—pretty girls with tired eyes and apologetic glances; a +negress who got by the hall porter with a box of cigarettes, which +the Senior promptly confiscated; and—the Dummy. Morning and evening +came the Dummy and stood by her bed and worshipped. Morning and +evening he brought tribute—a flower from the masses that came in +daily; an orange, got by no one knows what trickery from the +kitchen; a leadpencil; a box of cheap candies. At first the girl had +been embarrassed by his visits. Later, as the unfriendliness of the +ward grew more pronounced, she greeted him with a faint smile. The +first time she smiled he grew quite pale and shuffled out. Late that +night they found him sitting in the chapel looking at the window, +which was only a blur. +</p> +<p> +For certain small services in the ward the Senior depended on the +convalescents—filling drinking cups; passing milk at eleven and +three; keeping the white bedspreads in geometrical order. But the +Avenue Girl was taboo. The boycott had been instituted by Old +Maggie. The rampant respectability of the ward even went so far as +to refuse to wash her in those early morning hours when the night +nurse, flying about with her cap on one ear, was carrying tin basins +about like a blue-and-white cyclone. The Dummy knew nothing of the +washing; the early morning was the time when he polished the brass +doorplate which said: Hospital and Free Dispensary. But he knew +about the drinking cup and after a time that became his +self-appointed task. +</p> +<p> +On Sundays he put on his one white shirt and a frayed collar two +sizes too large and went to chapel. At those times he sat with his +prayer book upside down and watched the Probationer who cared for +his lady and who had no cap to hide her shining hair, and the +<i>interne</i>, who was glad there was no cap because of the hair. God's +fool he was, indeed, for he liked to look in the <i>interne's</i> eyes, +and did not know an <i>interne</i> cannot marry for years and years, and +that a probationer must not upset discipline by being engaged. God's +fool, indeed, who could see into the hearts of men, but not into +their thoughts or their lives; and who, seeing only thus, on two +dimensions of life and not the third, found the Avenue Girl holy and +worthy of all worship! +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The Probationer worried a great deal. +</p> +<p> +"It must hurt her so!" she said to the Senior. "Did you see them +call that baby away on visiting day for fear she would touch it?" +</p> +<p> +"None are so good as the untempted," explained the Senior, who had +been beautiful and was now placid and full of good works. "You +cannot remake the world, child. Bodies are our business here—not +souls." But the next moment she called Old Maggie to her. +</p> +<p> +"I've been pretty patient, Maggie," she said. "You know what I mean. +You're the ringleader. Now things are going to change, or—you'll go +back on codliver oil to-night." +</p> +<p> +"Yes'm," said Old Maggie meekly, with hate in her heart. She loathed +the codliver oil. +</p> +<p> +"Go back and straighten her bed!" commanded the Senior sternly. +</p> +<p> +"Now?" +</p> +<p> +"Now!" +</p> +<p> +"It hurts my back to stoop over," whined Old Maggie, with the ward +watching. "The doctor said that I——" +</p> +<p> +The Senior made a move for the medicine closet and the bottles +labelled C. +</p> +<p> +"I'm going," whimpered Old Maggie. "Can't you give a body time?" +</p> +<p> +And she went down to defeat, with the laughter of the ward in her +ears—down to defeat, for the Avenue Girl would have none of her. +</p> +<p> +"You get out of here!" she said fiercely as Old Maggie set to work +at the draw sheet. "Get out quick—or I'll throw this cup in your +face!" +</p> +<p> +The Senior was watching. Old Maggie put on an air of benevolence and +called the Avenue Girl an unlovely name under her breath while she +smoothed her pillow. She did not get the cup, but the water out of +it, in her hard old face, and matters were as they had been. +</p> +<p> +The Girl did not improve as she should. The <i>interne</i> did the +dressing day after day, while the Probationer helped him—the Senior +disliked burned cases—and talked of skin grafting if a new powder +he had discovered did no good. <i>Internes</i> are always trying out new +things, looking for the great discovery. +</p> +<p> +The powder did no good. The day came when, the dressing over and the +white coverings drawn up smoothly again over her slender body, the +Avenue Girl voiced the question that her eyes had asked each time. +</p> +<p> +"Am I going to lie in this hole all my life?" she demanded. +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> considered. +</p> +<p> +"It isn't healing—not very fast anyhow," he said. "If we could get +a little skin to graft on you'd be all right in a jiffy. Can't you +get some friends to come in? It isn't painful and it's over in a +minute." +</p> +<p> +"Friends? Where would I get friends of that sort?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, relatives then—some of your own people?" +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl shut her eyes as she did when the dressing hurt her. +</p> +<p> +"None that I'd care to see," she said. And the Probationer knew she +lied. The <i>interne</i> shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"If you think of any let me know. We'll get them here," he said +briskly, and turned to see the Probationer rolling up her sleeve. +</p> +<p> +"Please!" she said, and held out a bare white arm. The <i>interne</i> +stared at it stupefied. It was very lovely. +</p> +<p> +"I am not at all afraid," urged the Probationer, "and my blood is +good. It would grow—I know it would." +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> had hard work not to stoop and kiss the blue veins +that rose to the surface in the inner curve of her elbow. The +dressing screens were up and the three were quite alone. To keep his +voice steady he became stern. +</p> +<p> +"Put your sleeve down and don't be a foolish girl!" he, commanded. +"Put your sleeve down!" His eyes said: "You wonder! You beauty! You +brave little girl!" +</p> +<p> +Because the Probationer seemed to take her responsibilities rather +to heart, however, and because, when he should have been thinking of +other things, such as calling up the staff and making reports, he +kept seeing that white arm and the resolute face above it, the +<i>interne</i> worked out a plan. +</p> +<p> +"I've fixed it, I think," he said, meeting her in a hallway where +he had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known +she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. +He's got a lot of students—fellows studying for the priesthood—and +he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay +'em alive." +</p> +<p> +"But—is she a daughter of the church?" asked the Probationer. "And +even if she were, under the circumstances——" +</p> +<p> +"What circumstances?" demanded the <i>interne</i>. "Here's a poor girl +burned and suffering. The father is not going to ask whether she's +of the anointed." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer was not sure. She liked doing things in the open and +with nothing to happen later to make one uncomfortable; but she +spoke to the Senior and the Senior was willing. Her chief trouble, +after all, was with the Avenue Girl herself. +</p> +<p> +"I don't want to get well," she said wearily when the thing was put +up to her. "What's the use? I'd just go back to the same old thing; +and when it got too strong for me I'd end up here again or in the +morgue." +</p> +<p> +"Tell me where your people live, then, and let me send for them." +</p> +<p> +"Why? To have them read in my face what I've been, and go back home +to die of shame?" +</p> +<p> +The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl's face. +</p> +<p> +"There—there is nothing in your face to hurt them," she said, +flushing—because there were some things the Probationer had never +discussed, even with herself. "You—look sad. Honestly, that's all." +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand. The forefinger was +still yellow from cigarettes. +</p> +<p> +"What about that?" she sneered. +</p> +<p> +"If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll—perhaps," was the most the Probationer could get. +</p> +<p> +Many people would have been discouraged. Even the Senior was a bit +cynical. It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read in +the Avenue Girl's eyes the terrible longing for the things she had +given up—for home and home folks; for a clean slate again. The +Probationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a little +of her hopeful spirit touched the other girl. +</p> +<p> +"What day is it?" the Avenue Girl asked once. +</p> +<p> +"Friday." +</p> +<p> +"That's baking day at home. We bake in an out-oven. Did you ever +smell bread as it comes from an out-oven?" Or: "That's a pretty +shade of blue you nurses wear. It would be nice for working in the +dairy, wouldn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Fine!" said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumph +in her eyes. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged to +the Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should have +known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed +never to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of Father +Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl's +loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one of +the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the +plate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her more +than once when the Senior was out of the ward. +</p> +<p> +And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman with +a hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded a +parrot. +</p> +<p> +"Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly. +</p> +<p> +"Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day +and stole a parrot—and I want it." +</p> +<p> +"The Dummy! But what on earth——" +</p> +<p> +"It was my parrot," said the woman. "It belonged to one of my +boarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards—and she owed +me money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him look +me in the eye while I say parrot to him." +</p> +<p> +"He cannot speak or hear." +</p> +<p> +"You call him. He'll understand me!" +</p> +<p> +They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the +stable and haled him into the office. He was very calm—quite +impassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she +raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact," said the superintendent, "I don't believe he +ever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'll +get it again." +</p> +<p> +They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a dove +above the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen and +filled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all of +parrots or how to care for them. +</p> +<p> +Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stain +was coming off—she had been fond of the parrot and now it was close +at hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into a +hospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on the +football field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to account +for—and there was the matter of an alibi. +</p> +<p> +"I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe it +because they'd want to believe it," said the Avenue Girl. "But +there's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And—there's a +fellow who wanted to marry me—he knew how sick I was of the old +place and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have to +show Jerry." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. +It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especially +for Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on her +off-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenue +mostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over her +blue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl had +lived with. +</p> +<p> +"She got her into all this," thought the Probationer. "She's just +got to see her out." +</p> +<p> +It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing the +doorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she had +rung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of the +girl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, and +she stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her. +</p> +<p> +"She's dead, is she?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress." +</p> +<p> +The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in the +vestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase. +</p> +<p> +"One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wants +to come in and speak to you." +</p> +<p> +"Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs. +</p> +<p> +The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer remembered +putting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot and +finding it difficult to make her understand. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to go +home—to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going to +say about these last two years?" +</p> +<p> +The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was most +uncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned them +again and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round. +</p> +<p> +"She's in bad shape, is she?" +</p> +<p> +"She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred—not her face, but her +chest and shoulders." +</p> +<p> +That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred—— +</p> +<p> +"Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was down +to brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was more +comfortable. +</p> +<p> +"If you could just come over to the hospital while her people are +there and—and say she'd lived with you all the time——" +</p> +<p> +"That's the truth all right!" +</p> +<p> +"And—that she worked for you, sewing—she sews very well, she +says. And—oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been—all right, +you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy." +</p> +<p> +Now the stout woman was softening—not that she was really hard, but +she had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and good +impulses had a hard time crawling through. +</p> +<p> +"I guess I could do that much," she conceded. "She nursed me when I +was down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunk +in the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot that +belongs to me. What about that?" +</p> +<p> +The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it +into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the +patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it sat +on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had +smiled benignly. John and the dove—the girl and the parrot! +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry about the parrot. I—perhaps I could buy him from you." +</p> +<p> +She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried her +munificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money she +had brought from home. +</p> +<p> +"Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spread +it out in her lap and counted it twice. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid that's all," she said. She had hoped the second count +would show up better. "I could bring the rest next month." +</p> +<p> +The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stout +woman took it eagerly. +</p> +<p> +"He's yours," she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. +When do you want me?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll send you word," said the Probationer, and got up. She was +almost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money at +all in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into the +air somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediately +and put on everything fresh, and felt much better—but very +poor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer about +thermometers—that she should not break hers until she had money for +a new one. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the door +of the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked no +questions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell him +something, but he put up a white hand. +</p> +<p> +"What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday is +gone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"—his Irish +eyes twinkled—"and a fine day it will be by the sunset." +</p> +<p> +Then he turned to his small army. +</p> +<p> +"Boys," he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chances +with his men. I'm going first"—he said fir-rst. "It's a small +thing, as I've told you—a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smiling +and come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the <i>interne</i>. +</p> +<p> +That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feeny +and the <i>interne</i> go behind the screens, both smiling, and they +watched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but a +little bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outside +the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather +forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no +deserter—only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to +contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation +to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he +remained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over. +</p> +<p> +Though the <i>interne</i> had said there was no way back, the first step +had really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself and +with everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer tried +to find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent a +grateful little note to his room: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple? +</p> +<p class="closing"> [Signed] <span class="sc">Ward A.</span> +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + P.S.—It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful + since it is over. How can I ever thank you? +</p> +<p> +The reply came back very quickly: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. <span class="sc">Ward A.</span> +</p> +<p class="closing"> [Signed] D. L. S. +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + P.S.—Can you come up on the roof for a little air? +</p> +<p> +She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodness +nurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; but +a probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedingly +careful—though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. +She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over her +forehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tiny +hairpins, and went up after all—not because she intended to, but +because as she came out of her room the elevator was going up—not +down. She was on the roof almost before she knew it. +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they +talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was +expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on +them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told +of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and +the plot. +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some +day he would mellow and accept life as it is—not as he would have +it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a +shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was +pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to +have an alibi!" said the Probationer. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, of course," very stiffly. +</p> +<p> +"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done." +</p> +<p> +"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of +course. Only——" +</p> +<p> +"Please go on." +</p> +<p> +"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled." +</p> +<p> +"I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer +stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was +sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He +thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and +her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and +making her plea—and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then +that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney. +</p> +<p> +"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!" +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of +the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She +had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably +the Probationer would never speak to him again. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee +looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed +the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had +a piece of apple pie in its claw now. +</p> +<p> +"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the <i>interne</i> crookedly. +</p> +<p> +The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the +parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's +ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it +hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some +instinct of despair had seized him for its own—some conception, +perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the +<i>interne's</i> wrath gave way to impotency. +</p> +<p> +"Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +IV +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummy +and smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smile +back now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in the +Avenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes each +morning found a glow of hope—that died, it is true, by noontime; +but it came again with the new day. +</p> +<p> +"How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give him +a bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish you +could talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you took +the parrot. It must have been a scream!" +</p> +<p> +He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them on +her pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer was +combing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned the +Dummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears in +her eyes. +</p> +<p> +"The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said. +</p> +<p> +"I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"—the Probationer poised the +comb—"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know." +</p> +<p> +They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window. +</p> +<p> +"He's about the first decent man I ever knew," said the Avenue +Girl—"and he's a fool!" +</p> +<p> +"Either a fool or very, very wise," replied the Probationer. +</p> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> and the Probationer were good friends again, but they +had never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. +Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and there +was an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. +He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that he +was entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed a +good scolding—only, of course, it is never the wise people who make +life worth the living. +</p> +<p> +And an important thing had happened—the Probationer had been +accepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, though +it generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it on +and putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she knelt +at prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for getting +through when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean and +pure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, +trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went out +that night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot. +</p> +<p> +Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more +grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body +and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was +refused politely. +</p> +<p> +"You are a part of the institution now," said the <i>interne</i>, with +his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot +cripple the institution." +</p> +<p> +It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew +the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did +and would not be denied. The <i>interne</i> went to a member of the staff +about it. +</p> +<p> +"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a +great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do." +</p> +<p> +"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the +world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it." +</p> +<p> +So the Dummy bared his old-young arm—not once, but many times. +Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the +girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his +bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the +courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over +the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement +pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty +feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly. +</p> +<p> +The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained +wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never +one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the +children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real +reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her +arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards. +</p> +<p> +"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal +it!" +</p> +<p> +The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid, +smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child. +Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to +the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms. +</p> +<p> +"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business +to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the +three-o'clock medicines. +</p> +<p> +When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and +that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and +grew. +</p> +<p> +At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. The +girl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strange +way the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope would +shift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing and +disappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart. +</p> +<p> +One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his only +home, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. The +watchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of the +seats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar. +</p> +<p> +Rose—who was the stout woman—came early. She wore a purple dress, +with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scorn +and a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusively +behind the screens that surrounded the bed. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn't +get to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Do you want to see it?" +</p> +<p> +"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'll +blow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all right +for it, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"All you need to do," said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say that +I've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And—if you can +say anything good——" +</p> +<p> +"I'll do that all right," Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bag +on the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave it +to me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say." +</p> +<p> +The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working the +creaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From her +chair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she who +announced the coming of destiny. +</p> +<p> +"Here comes the father," she confided to the end of the ward. "Guess +the mother couldn't come." +</p> +<p> +It was not the father though. It was a young man who hesitated in +the doorway, hat in hand—a tall young man, with a strong and not +unhandsome face. The Probationer, rather twitchy from excitement and +anxiety, felt her heart stop and race on again. Jerry, without a +doubt! +</p> +<p> +The meeting was rather constrained. The girl went whiter than her +pillows and half closed her eyes; but Rose, who would have been +terrified at the sight of an elderly farmer, was buoyantly relieved +and at her ease. +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I—we didn't realise it had been so bad. +The folks are well; but—I thought I'd better come. They're +expecting you back home." +</p> +<p> +"It was nice of you to come," said the girl, avoiding his eyes. +"I—I'm getting along fine." +</p> +<p> +"I guess introductions ain't necessary," put in Rose briskly. "I'm +Mrs. Sweeney. She's been living with me—working for me, sewing. +She's sure a fine sewer! She made this suit I'm wearing." +</p> +<p> +Poor Rose, with "custom made" on every seam of the purple! But Jerry +was hardly listening. His eyes were on the girl among the pillows. +</p> +<p> +"I see," said Jerry slowly. "You haven't said yet, Elizabeth. Are +you going home?" +</p> +<p> +"If—they want me." +</p> +<p> +"Of course they want you!" Again Rose: "Why shouldn't they? You've +been a good girl and a credit to any family. If they say anything +mean to you you let me know." +</p> +<p> +"They'll not be mean to her. I'm sure they'll want to write and +thank you. If you'll just give me your address, Mrs. Sweeney——" +</p> +<p> +He had a pencil poised over a notebook. Rose hesitated. Then she +gave her address on the Avenue, with something of bravado in her +voice. After all, what could this country-store clerk know of the +Avenue? Jerry wrote it down carefully. +</p> +<p> +"Sweeney—with an e?" he asked politely. +</p> +<p> +"With three e's," corrected Rose, and got up with dignity. +</p> +<p> +"Well, good-bye, dearie," she said. "You've got your friends now and +you don't need me. I guess you've had your lesson about going to +sleep with a cig—about being careless with fire. Drop me a postal +when you get the time." +</p> +<p> +She shook hands with Jerry and rustled and jingled down the ward, +her chin well up. At the door she encountered Old Maggie, her arms +full of bandages. +</p> +<p> +"How's the Avenue?" asked Old Maggie. +</p> +<p> +Rose, however, like all good actresses, was still in the part +as she made her exit. She passed Old Maggie unheeding, severe +respectability in every line of her figure, every nod of her purple +plumes. She was still in the part when she encountered the +Probationer. +</p> +<p> +"It's going like a house afire!" she said. "He swallowed it +all—hook and bait! And—oh, yes, I've got something for you." She +went down into her silver bag and pulled out a roll of bills. "I've +felt meaner'n a dog every time I've thought of you buying that +parrot. I've got a different view of life—maybe—from yours; but +I'm not taking candy from a baby." +</p> +<p> +When the Probationer could speak Rose was taking herself and the +purple into the elevator and waving her a farewell. +</p> +<p> +"Good-bye!" she said. "If ever you get stuck again just call on me." +</p> +<p> +With Rose's departure silence fell behind the screen. The girl broke +it first. +</p> +<p> +"They're all well, are they?" +</p> +<p> +"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'd +write to her." The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing. +She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. The +post office burned down last summer. They're building a new one. +And—I've been building. I tore down the old place." +</p> +<p> +"Are you going to be married, Jerry?" +</p> +<p> +"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something to +do; it kept me from—thinking." +</p> +<p> +The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew! +Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothing +was any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror of +the thing she was. She would have to go back—to Rose and the +others. He would never take her home. +</p> +<p> +Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolising +thermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. The +Avenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationer +was going to the roof—to meet some one who was sincerely repentant +and very meek. +</p> +<p> +In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly—one of +those spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts of +people and a melody all their own: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber,</i> <br /> + <i>Far, far away,</i> <br /> + <i>Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber—</i> <br /> + <i>Dere's wha de old folks stay.</i> +</p> +<p> +It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in white +wretchedness—and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid in +his chair. +</p> +<p> +"Jerry?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"I—I guess I've been pretty far away." +</p> +<p> +"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this. +</p> +<p> +"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but if +you'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry——" +</p> +<p> +"I believe you, Elizabeth." +</p> +<p> +"One of the nurses here says——Jerry, won't you look at me?" With +some difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one starts +wrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made +me do it." +</p> +<p> +She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life +he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and +he stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've been +hurt that I—am sorry," she went on. "I loathed it! I'd have +finished it all long ago, only—I was afraid." +</p> +<p> +"I would rather have found you dead!" +</p> +<p> +There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of +suffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtain +of the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced at +his watch. He was quite white. The girl's hand still lay on the +coverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think only +little thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealing +hand the last wall of his house would fall. +</p> +<p> +It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with +his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the +screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, +that this, his saint, would go—and not alone—to join the vanishing +circle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at the +time it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at the +screen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand and +stood smiling down at the girl. +</p> +<p> +"The only person in the world who believes in me!" said the girl +bitterly. "And he's a fool!" +</p> +<p> +The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes there +was the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and the +blur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly he +bent over and placed the man's hand over the girl's. +</p> +<p> +The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the white +coverlet. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The <i>interne</i> was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had faded +to lavender—to dark purple—to night. +</p> +<p> +The Probationer came up at last—not a probationer now, of course; +but she had left off her cap and was much less stately. +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry," she explained; "but I've been terribly busy. It went +off so well!" +</p> +<p> +"Of course—if you handled it." +</p> +<p> +"You know—don't you?—it was the lover who came. He looks so strong +and good—oh, she is safe now!" +</p> +<p> +"That's fine!" said the <i>interne</i> absently. They were sitting on the +parapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. +"Isn't it a glorious evening?" He had the fingers pretty close by +that time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to his +lips. +</p> +<p> +"Such a kind little hand!" he said over it. "Such a dear, tender +little hand! My hand!" he said, rather huskily. +</p> +<p> +Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. At +his feet the superintendent's dog lay on his side and dreamed of +battle. The Dummy's eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl had +bandaged—how long ago! +</p> +<p> +His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among the +lilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked to +him without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all it +was that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. +The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnine +affection. +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + THE MIRACLE +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +Big Mary was sweeping the ward with a broom muffled in a white bag. +In the breeze from the open windows, her blue calico wrapper +ballooned about her and made ludicrous her frantic thrusts after the +bits of fluff that formed eddies under the beds and danced in the +spring air. +</p> +<p> +She finished her sweeping, and, with the joyous scraps captured in +her dust-pan, stood in the doorway, critically surveying the ward. +It was brilliantly clean and festive; on either side a row of beds, +fresh white for the day; on the centre table a vase of Easter +lilies, and on the record-table near the door a potted hyacinth. The +Nurse herself wore a bunch of violets tucked in her apron-band. One +of the patients had seen the Junior Medical give them to her. The +Eastern sun, shining across the beds, made below them, on the +polished floor, black islands of shadow in a gleaming sea of light. +</p> +<p> +And scattered here and there, rocking in chairs or standing at +windows, enjoying the Sunday respite from sewing or the +bandage-machine, women, grotesque and distorted of figure, in +attitudes of weariness and expectancy, with patient eyes awaited +their crucifixion. Behind them, in the beds, a dozen perhaps who had +come up from death and held the miracle in their arms. +</p> +<p> +The miracles were small and red, and inclined to feeble and +ineffectual wrigglings. Fists were thrust in the air and brought +down on smiling, pale mother faces. With tight-closed eyes and open +mouths, each miracle squirmed and nuzzled until the mother would +look with pleading eyes at the Nurse. And the Nurse would look +severe and say: +</p> +<p> +"Good gracious, Annie Petowski, surely you don't want to feed that +infant again! Do you want the child to have a dilated stomach?" +</p> +<p> +Fear of that horrible and mysterious condition, a dilated stomach, +would restrain Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara +for a time. With the wisdom of the serpent, she would give the child +her finger to suck—a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the last +week that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would take +hold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort. +Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiet +hospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then Annie +Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch the +Nurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit from +the ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, close +to Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstatic +gurglings—and peace. +</p> +<p> +In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at the +record-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, of +clean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hours +for the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodic +searches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast, +decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne, +too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to the +kitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes. +</p> +<p> +But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Her +crown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and her +blue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apron +and sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in for +a moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman, +to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she had +appeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds and +put hot-water bottles in it. +</p> +<p> +The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was +"on." Excursions down the corridor by one or another of the +blue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news: +</p> +<p> +"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones, +the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "The +doctor with the red mustache has come"—by which it was known that +things were going badly, the staff man having been summoned. +</p> +<p> +Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward, +denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usually +regarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the other +women. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young woman +who played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterward +went from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanying +herself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young woman +seated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, and +afterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray of +lilies-of-the-valley on each bedside stand. +</p> +<p> +She was escorted around the ward by Elizabeth Miller, known as "Liz" +in Our Alley, and rechristened Elizabeth by the Nurse. Elizabeth +always read the tracts. She had been there four times, and knew all +the nurses and nearly all the doctors. "Liz" had been known, in a +shortage of nurses, to be called into the mysterious room down the +hall to assist; and on those occasions, in an all-enveloping white +gown over her wrapper, with her hair under a cap, she outranked the +queen herself in regalness and authority. +</p> +<p> +The lame mandolin-player stopped at the foot of the empty bed. +"Shall I put one here?" she asked, fingering a tract. +</p> +<p> +Liz meditated majestically. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I guess I would," she said. "Not that it'll do any good." +</p> +<p> +"Why?" +</p> +<p> +Liz jerked her head toward the corridor. +</p> +<p> +"She's not getting on very well," she said; "and, even if she gets +through, she won't read the tract. She held her fingers in her ears +last Sunday while the Bible-reader was here. She's young. Says she +hopes she and the kid'll both die." +</p> +<p> +The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward. +</p> +<p> +"Then she—isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, she +flushed painfully. +</p> +<p> +Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in her +eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Well, no," she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She's +a fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do. +Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn't +he be always throwing it up to her?" +</p> +<p> +The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophy +of life. +</p> +<p> +"Have—have you a baby here?" she asked timidly. +</p> +<p> +"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. She +turned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny red +atom, so like the others that only mother love could have +distinguished it. +</p> +<p> +"This is mine," she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?" +</p> +<p> +The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child. +</p> +<p> +"He—he's very little," she said. +</p> +<p> +"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last six +months—eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. The +little devil!" +</p> +<p> +She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleeping +form. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thing +to say. +</p> +<p> +"Does—does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. But +apparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. The +mandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and, +vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door. +</p> +<p> +Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, with +tired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table. +</p> +<p> +The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From the +blankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan—of +hurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, so +relentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Then +she gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down the +hall. +</p> +<p> +The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill, +high wail, a rising and falling note of distress—the voice of a new +soul in protest. She went past with averted face. +</p> +<p> +Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl up +bodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood back +and smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips. +</p> +<p> +"Well," she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's no +picnic, is it?" +</p> +<p> +The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of her +features in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodless +refinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had been +through the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyes +were hard. +</p> +<p> +"Go away," she said petulantly. +</p> +<p> +Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"You sleep now," she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can have +a cup of tea." +</p> +<p> +The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz's +face. +</p> +<p> +"I don't want to sleep," she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to live +and so am I!" +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she had +oiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him a +teaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, and +went to her room to put on a fresh uniform. The first thing she did, +when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of her +mother tucked in its frame, and survey herself. When she saw her cap +and the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, she +frowned. +</p> +<p> +Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully in +a glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over and +kissed them. After that she felt better. +</p> +<p> +She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought her +colour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustled +with each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally she +tucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap, +which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions. +</p> +<p> +If she had not gone back to the mirror to see that the general +effect was as crisp as it should be, things would have been +different for Liz, and for the new mother back in the ward. But she +did go back; and there, lying on the floor in front of the bureau, +all folded together, was a piece of white paper exactly as if it has +been tucked in her belt with the violets. +</p> +<p> +She opened it rather shakily, and it was a leaf from the ward +order-book, for at the top it said: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Annie Petowski—may sit up for one hour. +</p> +<p> +And below that: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Goldstein baby—bran baths. +</p> +<p> +And below that: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + I love you. E. J. +</p> +<p> +"E. J." was the Junior Medical. +</p> +<p> +So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, in +the throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, and +found where the page had been torn out of the order-book. +</p> +<p> +And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by their +courts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easter +afternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies had +colic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of the +House Committee looked in at the door and said: +</p> +<p> +"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always a +sort of benediction." +</p> +<p> +The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the new +mother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refined +from the furnace of pain. +</p> +<p> +"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving an +odor of peau d'Espagne. +</p> +<p> +The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there was +nothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wild +mutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the first +one" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched. +</p> +<p> +The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing the +Easter lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed. +</p> +<p> +"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under the +blankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which the +girl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed her +savagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought out +her hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it. +</p> +<p> +"Now listen to me," said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain't +the only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And what +happened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and they +put the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened get +used to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don't +be a fool!" +</p> +<p> +She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There were +other ways. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. She +sat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervals +of taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about Annie +Petowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having bran +baths, and the other thing written below! +</p> +<p> +At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and grey +trousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter service +downstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according to +precedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapel +must always wear a frock-coat. +</p> +<p> +Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at his +gorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Then +he came back and stood by the table, looking at a record. +</p> +<p> +"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect. +</p> +<p> +"Ninety-eight." +</p> +<p> +"Her pulse is strong?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes; she's resting quietly." +</p> +<p> +"Good.—And—did you get my note?" +</p> +<p> +This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" or +anything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near. +</p> +<p> +"Yes." The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up at +him. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him Godspeed with his +wooing, but it made him uncomfortable. +</p> +<p> +"Watch her closely," he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent." +And he looked at Liz. +</p> +<p> +"Elizabeth," said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fan +her?" +</p> +<p> +Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for a +mother, but she had been named when she was very small. +</p> +<p> +Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer to +the effect that they were both so damned good to everybody, she +hoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wicked +availeth nothing. +</p> +<p> +"You know I meant that," he said, from behind a record. "I—I love +you with all my heart—and if only you——" +</p> +<p> +The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I love +you, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, she +put the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth. +</p> +<p> +The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in his +frock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never part +properly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling with +happiness. +</p> +<p> +And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavish +her new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceiling +and reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all her +despair. +</p> +<p> +So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had never +batted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with both +fists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trained +nurse is ever supposed to do. +</p> +<p> +She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother. +</p> +<p> +But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her. +</p> +<p> +"Take the brat away," she said, and went on reading tragedies on the +ceiling. +</p> +<p> +Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew. +She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculous +hands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But when +Liz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away. +So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there, +still sleeping. +</p> +<p> +The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristic +of great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and here +before her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her. +</p> +<p> +"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night," she said, approaching the +table with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospital +carpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the way +she watches the ceiling." +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse. +</p> +<p> +"Time I had the twins—that's before your time," said Liz—"we had +one like that. She went out the window head first the night after +the baby came, and took the kid with her." +</p> +<p> +The Nurse rose with quick decision. +</p> +<p> +"We must watch her," she said. "Perhaps if I could find—I think +I'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, and +if Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, take +it from her. The child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm out +for five minutes." +</p> +<p> +Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching back +until the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change the +bedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patient +over more than once, which is a high and desirable form of +knowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; their +clean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of the +world and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs to +the telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed with +the Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in her +manicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking the +telephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," she said indolently. +</p> +<p> +The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmer +tinge. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes," she said. "How are you?... Claribel? Yes; what about +her?... What!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl—seven pounds." +</p> +<p> +"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; my +cigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right—go ahead." +</p> +<p> +"She's taking it pretty hard, and I—I thought you might help her. +She—she——" +</p> +<p> +"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned in +the bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow. +"Twenty enough?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't think it's money," said the Nurse, "although she needs that +too; she hasn't any clothes for the baby. But—she's awfully +despondent—almost desperate. Have you any idea who the child's +father is?" +</p> +<p> +Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand and +balancing the telephone with the other. +</p> +<p> +"She left me a year ago," she said. "Oh, yes; I know now. What time +is it?" +</p> +<p> +"Two o'clock." +</p> +<p> +"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Rosie. "I'll get the fellow on +the wire and see what he's willing to do. Maybe he'll give her a +dollar or two a week." +</p> +<p> +"Do you think you could bring him to see her?" +</p> +<p> +"Say, what do you think I am—a missionary?" The Nurse was wise, so +she kept silent. "Well, I'll tell you what I will do. If I can bring +him, I will. How's that yellow-haired she-devil you've got over +there? I've got that fixed all right. She pulled a razor on me +first—I've got witnesses. Well, if I can get Al, I'll do it. So +long." +</p> +<p> +It did not occur to the Nurse to deprecate having used an evil +medium toward a righteous end. She took life much as she found it. +And so she tiptoed past the chapel again, where a faint odour of +peau d'Espagne came stealing out into the hall, and where the +children from the children's ward, in roller-chairs and on crutches, +were singing with all their shrill young voices, earnest eyes +uplifted. +</p> +<p> +The white Easter lilies on the altar sent their fragrance out over +the gathering, over the nurses, young and placid, over the hopeless +and the hopeful, over the faces where death had passed and left its +inevitable stamp, over bodies freshly risen on this Easter Sunday +to new hope and new life—over the Junior Medical, waiting with the +manuscript of "The Palms" rolled in his hand and his heart singing a +hymn of happiness. +</p> +<p> +The Nurse went up to her ward, and put a screen around Claribel, +and, with all her woman's art, tidied the immaculate white bed and +loosened the uncompromising yellow braids, so that the soft hair +fell across Claribel's bloodless forehead and softened the defiance +in her blue eyes. She brought the pink hyacinth in its pot, too, and +placed it on the bedside table. Then she stood off and looked at her +work. It was good. +</p> +<p> +Claribel submitted weakly. She had stopped staring at the wall, and +had taken to watching the open window opposite with strange +intentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat to the bedspread +she spoke. +</p> +<p> +"Was it a boy—or a girl?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"Girl," said the nurse briskly. "A little beauty, perfect in every +way." +</p> +<p> +"A girl—to grow up and go through this hell!" she muttered, and her +eyes wandered back to the window. +</p> +<p> +But the Nurse was wise with the accumulated wisdom of a sex that has +had to match strength with wile for ages, and she was not yet ready. +She went into the little room where eleven miracles lay in eleven +cribs, and, although they all looked exactly alike, she selected +Claribel's without hesitation, and carried it to the mysterious room +down the hall—which was no longer a torture-chamber, but a +resplendently white place, all glass and tile and sunlight, and +where she did certain things that are not prescribed in the hospital +rules. +</p> +<p> +First of all, she opened a cupboard and took out a baby dress of +lace and insertion,—and everybody knows that such a dress is used +only when a hospital infant is baptised,—and she clothed Claribel's +baby in linen and fine raiment, and because they are very, very red +when they are so new, she dusted it with a bit of talcum—to break +the shock, as you may say. It was very probable that Al had never +seen so new a baby, and it was useless to spoil the joy of +parenthood unnecessarily. For it really was a fine child, and +eventually it would be white and beautiful. +</p> +<p> +The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in a +sachet. +</p> +<p> +Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put it +back in its crib. And then she rustled starchily back to the +throne-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the place +where it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldstein +baby—bran baths, and the other thing written just below. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance, +the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medical +staff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty. +</p> +<p> +Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms; +and, as the song went on, Liz's eyes fell to her child and stayed +there. +</p> +<p> +At three o'clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along the +hall—Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under a +gaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupported +and wrapper-clad. She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however, +and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending it +with a regal gesture to the elevator-man. +</p> +<p> +"Here, old sport," she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It's +Easter." +</p> +<p> +Such munificence appalled the ward. +</p> +<p> +Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al. +The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him +curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the +doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm. +</p> +<p> +"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there," he said. But Rosie pulled him +in and presented him to the Nurse. +</p> +<p> +Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the open +window, had taken to staring at the ceiling again. +</p> +<p> +When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she had +moaned and put her fingers in her ears. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a time +locating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky +figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and +just now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him. +</p> +<p> +"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you," she said, +and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do the +talking." +</p> +<p> +Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and the +mystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen her +last, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure and +accusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision went +through the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look of +black hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and he +was looking at Claribel—a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying now +with closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek. +</p> +<p> +The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hat +awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on the +edge of the stiff chair. +</p> +<p> +"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease. +</p> +<p> +She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutch +at her throat, as if she were smothering. +</p> +<p> +"How did you—how did you know I was here?" +</p> +<p> +"Saw it in the paper, in the society column." She winced at that, +and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "How +are you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood of +reproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief. +</p> +<p> +"I've been pretty bad; I'm better." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The Maginnis +Social Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall." +</p> +<p> +The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is as +old as the ages, although she did not know it—why this tragedy of +hers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly on +her breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand. +He picked it up and ran it through his fingers. +</p> +<p> +"Hasn't hurt your looks any," he said awkwardly. "You're looking +pretty good." +</p> +<p> +With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers. +</p> +<p> +"Don't," she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she had +written her problem. +</p> +<p> +"How's the—how's the kid?"—after a moment. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know—or care." +</p> +<p> +There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither did +he know or care. +</p> +<p> +"What are you goin' to do with it?" +</p> +<p> +"Kill it!" +</p> +<p> +Al considered this a moment. Things were bad enough now, without +Claribel murdering the child and making things worse. +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't do that," he said soothingly. "You can put it somewhere, +can't you? Maybe Rosie'll know." +</p> +<p> +"I don't want it to live." +</p> +<p> +For the first time he realised her despair. She turned on him her +tormented eyes, and he quailed. +</p> +<p> +"I'll find a place for it, kid," he said. "It's mine, too. I guess +I'm it, all right." +</p> +<p> +"Yours!" She half rose on her elbow, weak as she was. "Yours! Didn't +you throw me over when you found I was going to have it? Yours! Did +you go through hell for twenty-four hours to bring it into the +world? I tell you, it's mine—mine! And I'll do what I want with it. +I'll kill it, and myself too!" +</p> +<p> +"You don't know what you're saying!" +</p> +<p> +She had dropped back, white and exhausted. +</p> +<p> +"Don't I?" she said, and fell silent. +</p> +<p> +Al felt defrauded, ill-treated. He had done the right thing; he had +come to see the girl, which wasn't customary in those circles where +Al lived and worked and had his being; he had acknowledged his +responsibility, and even—why, hang it all—— +</p> +<p> +"Say the word and I'll marry you," he said magnanimously. +</p> +<p> +"I don't want to marry you." +</p> +<p> +He drew a breath of relief. Nothing could have been fairer than his +offer, and she had refused it. He wished Rosie had been there to +hear. +</p> +<p> +And just then Rosie came. She carried the baby, still faintly +odorous of violets, held tight in unaccustomed arms. She looked +awkward and conscious, but her amused smile at herself was half +tender. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Claribel," she said. "How are you? Just look here, Al! What +do you think of this?" +</p> +<p> +Al got up sheepishly and looked at the child. +</p> +<p> +"Boy or girl?" he asked politely. +</p> +<p> +"Girl; but it's the living image of you," said Rose—for Rose and +the Nurse were alike in the wiles of the serpent. +</p> +<p> +"Looks like me!" Al observed caustically. "Looks like an over-ripe +tomato!" +</p> +<p> +But he drew himself up a trifle. Somewhere in his young and +hardened soul the germs of parental pride, astutely sowed, had taken +quick root. +</p> +<p> +"Feel how heavy she is," Rose commanded. And Al held out two arms +unaccustomed to such tender offices. +</p> +<p> +"Heavy! She's about as big as a peanut." +</p> +<p> +"Mind her back," said Rose, remembering instructions. +</p> +<p> +After her first glance Claribel had not looked at the child. But +now, in its father's arms, it began to whimper. The mother stirred +uneasily, and frowned. +</p> +<p> +"Take it away!" she ordered. "I told them not to bring it here." +</p> +<p> +The child cried louder. Its tiny red face, under the powder, turned +purple. It beat the air with its fists. Al, still holding it in his +outstretched arms, began vague motions to comfort it, swinging it up +and down and across. But it cried on, drawing up its tiny knees in +spasms of distress. Claribel put her fingers in her ears. +</p> +<p> +"You'll have to feed it!" Rose shouted over the din. +</p> +<p> +The girl comprehended without hearing, and shook her head in sullen +obstinacy. +</p> +<p> +"What do you think of that for noise?" said Al, not without pride. +"She's like me, all right. When I'm hungry, there's hell to pay if +I'm not fed quick. Here,"—he bent down over Claribel,—"you might +as well have dinner now, and stop the row." +</p> +<p> +Not ungently, he placed the squirming mass in the baptismal dress +beside the girl on the bed. With the instinct of ages, the baby +stopped wailing and opened her mouth. +</p> +<p> +"The little cuss!" cried Al, delighted. "Ain't that me all over? +Little angel-face the minute I get to the table!" +</p> +<p> +Unresisting now, Claribel let Rose uncover her firm white breast. +The mother's arm, passively extended by Rose to receive the small +body, contracted around it unconsciously. +</p> +<p> +She turned and looked long at the nuzzling, eager mouth, at the red +hand lying trustfully open on her breast, at the wrinkled face, the +indeterminate nose, the throbbing fontanelle where the little life +was already beating so hard. +</p> +<p> +"A girl, Rose!" she said. "My God, what am I going to do with her?" +</p> +<p> +Rose was not listening. The Junior Medical's turn had come at last. +Downstairs in the chapel, he was standing by the organ, his head +thrown back, his heavy brown hair (which would never stay parted +without the persuasion of brilliantine) bristling with earnestness. +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "<i>O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay,</i>" +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +he sang, and his clear tenor came welling up the staircase to Liz, +and past her to the ward, and to the group behind the screen. +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "<i>Are strewn this day in festal preparation,</i> <br /> + <i>Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away—</i> <br /> + <i>E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare.</i>" +</p> +<p> +On the throne-chair by the record-table, the Nurse sat and listened. +And because it was Easter and she was very happy and because of the +thrill in the tenor voice that came up the stairs to her, and +because of the page in the order-book about bran baths and the rest +of it, she cried a little, surreptitiously, and let the tears drop +down on a yellow hospital record. +</p> +<p> +The song was almost done. Liz, on the stairs, had fed her baby +twenty minutes too soon, and now it lay, sleeping and sated, in her +lap. Liz sat there, brooding over it, and the last line of the song +came up the staircase. +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "<i>Blessed is He who comes bringing sal-va-a-a-ation!</i>" +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +the Junior Medical sang. +</p> +<p> +The services were over. Downstairs the small crowd dispersed slowly. +The minister shook hands with the nurses at the door, and the Junior +Medical rolled up his song and wondered how soon he could make +rounds upstairs again. +</p> +<p> +Liz got up, with her baby in her arms, and padded in to the +throne-chair by the record-table. +</p> +<p> +"He can sing some, can't he!" she said. +</p> +<p> +"He has a beautiful voice." The Nurse's eyes were shining. +</p> +<p> +Liz moved off. Then she turned and came back. +</p> +<p> +"I—I know you'll tell me I'm a fool," she said; "but I've decided +to keep the kid, this time. I guess I'll make out, somehow." +</p> +<p> +Behind the screen, Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking, +sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltale +clouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, and +Claribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they were +on the child. +</p> +<p> +Al leaned forward and put his lips to the arm that circled the baby. +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry, kid," he said. "I guess it was the limit, all right. Do +you hate me?" +</p> +<p> +She looked at him, and the hardness and defiance died out of her +eyes. She shook her head. +</p> +<p> +"No." +</p> +<p> +"Do you—still—like me a little?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," in a whisper. +</p> +<p> +"Then what's the matter with you and me and the little mutt getting +married and starting all over—eh?" +</p> +<p> +He leaned over and buried his face with a caressing movement in the +hollow of her neck. +</p> +<p> +Rose extinguished her cigarette on the foot of the bed, and, careful +of appearances, put the butt in her chatelaine. +</p> +<p> +"I guess you two don't need me any more," she said yawning. "I'm +going back home to bed." +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + "ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!" +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +There are certain people who will never understand this story, +people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, +too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. +Right is right and wrong is wrong. +</p> +<p> +That shadowy No Man's Land between the trenches of virtue and sin, +where most of us fight our battles and are wounded, and even die, +does not exist for them. +</p> +<p> +The boy in this story belonged to that class. Even if he reads it he +may not recognise it. But he will not read it or have it read to +him. He will even be somewhat fretful if it comes his way. +</p> +<p> +"If that's one of those problem things," he will say, "I don't want +to hear it. I don't see why nobody writes adventure any more." +</p> +<p> +Right is right and wrong is wrong. Seven words for a creed, and all +of life to live! +</p> +<p> +This is not a war story. But it deals, as must anything that +represents life in this year of our Lord of Peace, with war. With +war in its human relations. Not with guns and trenches, but with +men and women, with a boy and a girl. +</p> +<p> +For only in the mass is war vast. To the man in the trench it +reduces itself to the man on his right, the man on his left, the man +across, beyond the barbed wire, and a woman. +</p> +<p> +The boy was a Canadian. He was twenty-two and not very tall. His +name in this story is Cecil Hamilton. He had won two medals for +life-saving, each in a leather case. He had saved people from +drowning. When he went abroad to fight he took the medals along. Not +to show. But he felt that the time might come when he would not be +sure of himself. A good many men on the way to war have felt that +way. The body has a way of turning craven, in spite of high +resolves. It would be rather comforting, he felt, to have those +medals somewhere about him at that time. He never looked at them +without a proud little intake of breath and a certain swelling of +the heart. +</p> +<p> +On the steamer he found that a medal for running had slipped into +one of the cases. He rather chuckled over that. He had a sense of +humour, in spite of his seven-word creed. And a bit of superstition, +for that night, at dusk, he went out on to the darkened deck and +flung it overboard. +</p> +<p> +The steamer had picked him up at Halifax—a cold dawn, with a few +pinched faces looking over the rail. Forgive him if he swaggered up +the gangway. He was twenty-two, he was a lieutenant, and he was a +fighting man. +</p> +<p> +The girl in the story saw him then. She was up and about, in a short +sport suit, with a white tam-o'-shanter on her head and a white +woolen scarf tucked round her neck. Under her belted coat she wore a +middy blouse, and when she saw Lieutenant Cecil Hamilton, with +his eager eyes—not unlike her own, his eyes were young and +inquiring—she reached into a pocket of the blouse and dabbed her +lips with a small stick of cold cream. +</p> +<p> +Cold air has a way of drying lips. +</p> +<p> +He caught her at it, and she smiled. It was all over for him then, +poor lad! +</p> +<p> +Afterward, when he was in the trenches, he wondered about that. He +called it "Kismet" to himself. It was really a compound, that first +day or two, of homesickness and a little furtive stirring of anxiety +and the thrill of new adventure that was in his blood. +</p> +<p> +On the second afternoon out they had tea together, she in her +steamer chair and he calmly settled next to her, in a chair +belonging to an irritated English lawyer. Afterward he went down to +his cabin, hung round with his new equipment, and put away the +photograph of a very nice Toronto girl, which had been propped up +back of his hairbrushes. +</p> +<p> +They got rather well acquainted that first day. +</p> +<p> +"You know," he said, with his cup in one hand and a rather stale +cake in the other, "it's awfully bully of you to be so nice to me." +</p> +<p> +She let that go. She was looking, as a matter of fact, after a tall +man with heavily fringed eyes and English clothes, who had just gone +by. +</p> +<p> +"You know," he confided—he frequently prefaced his speeches with +that—"I was horribly lonely when I came up the gangway. Then I saw +you, and you were smiling. It did me a lot of good." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose I really should not have smiled." She came back to him +with rather an effort. "But you caught me, you know. It wasn't +rouge. It was cold cream. I'll show you." +</p> +<p> +She unbuttoned her jacket, against his protest, and held out the +little stick. He took it and looked at it. +</p> +<p> +"You don't need even this," he said rather severely. He disapproved +of cosmetics. "You have a lovely mouth." +</p> +<p> +"It's rather large. Don't you think so?" +</p> +<p> +"It's exactly right." +</p> +<p> +He was young, and as yet more interested in himself than in anything +in the world. So he sat there and told her who he was, and what he +hoped to do and, rather to his own astonishment, about the medals. +</p> +<p> +"How very brave you are!" she said. +</p> +<p> +That made him anxious. He hoped she did not think he was swanking. +It was only that he did not make friends easily, and when he did +meet somebody he liked he was apt to forget and talk too much about +himself. He was so afraid that he gulped down his tepid tea in a +hurry and muttered something about letters to write, and got himself +away. The girl stared after him with a pucker between her eyebrows. +And the tall man came and took the place he vacated. +</p> +<p> +Things were worrying the girl—whose name, by the way, was Edith. On +programs it was spelled "Edythe," but that was not her fault. Yes, +on programs—Edythe O'Hara. The business manager had suggested +deHara, but she had refused. Not that it mattered much. She had been +in the chorus. She had a little bit of a voice, rather sweet, and +she was divinely young and graceful. +</p> +<p> +In the chorus she would have remained, too, but for one of those +queer shifts that alter lives. A girl who did a song and an +eccentric dance had wrenched her knee, and Edith had gone on in her +place. Something of her tomboy youth remained in her, and for a few +minutes, as she frolicked over the stage, she was a youngster, +dancing to her shadow. +</p> +<p> +She had not brought down the house, but a man with heavily fringed +eyes, who watched her from the wings, made a note of her name. He +was in America for music-hall material for England, and he was +shrewd after the manner of his kind. Here was a girl who frolicked +on the stage. The English, accustomed to either sensuous or sedate +dancing, would fall hard for her, he decided. Either that, or she +would go "bla." She was a hit or nothing. +</p> +<p> +And that, in so many words, he told her that afternoon. +</p> +<p> +"Feeling all right?" he asked her. +</p> +<p> +"Better than this morning. The wind's gone down, hasn't it?" +</p> +<p> +He did not answer her. He sat on the side of the chair and looked +her over. +</p> +<p> +"You want to keep well," he warned her. "The whole key to your doing +anything is vitality. That's the word—Life." +</p> +<p> +She smiled. It seemed so easy. Life? She was full-fed with the joy +of it. Even as she sat, her active feet in their high-heeled shoes +were aching to be astir. +</p> +<p> +"Working in the gymnasium?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Two hours a day, morning and evening. Feel." +</p> +<p> +She held out her arm to him, and he felt its small, rounded muscle, +with a smile. But his heavily fringed eyes were on her face, and he +kept his hold until she shook it off. +</p> +<p> +"Who's the soldier boy?" he asked suddenly. +</p> +<p> +"Lieutenant Hamilton. He's rather nice. Don't you think so?" +</p> +<p> +"He'll do to play with on the trip. You'll soon lose him in London." +</p> +<p> +The winter darkness closed down round them. Stewards were busy +closing ports and windows with fitted cardboards. Through the night +the ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with only +her small port and starboard lights. A sense of exhilaration +possessed Edith. This hurling forward over black water, this sense +of danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something new +and strange, set every nerve to jumping. She threw back her rug, and +getting up went to the rail. Lethway, the manager, followed her. +</p> +<p> +"Nervous, aren't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Not frightened, anyhow." +</p> +<p> +It was then that he told her how he had sized the situation up. She +was a hit or nothing. +</p> +<p> +"If you go all right," he said, "you can have the town. London's for +you or against you, especially if you're an American. If you go +flat——" +</p> +<p> +"Then what?" +</p> +<p> +She had not thought of that. What would she do then? Her salary was +not to begin until the performances started. Her fare and expenses +across were paid, but how about getting back? Even at the best her +salary was small. That had been one of her attractions to Lethway. +</p> +<p> +"I'll have to go home, of course," she said. "If they don't like me, +and decide in a hurry, I—I may have to borrow money from you to get +back." +</p> +<p> +"Don't worry about that." He put a hand over hers as it lay on the +rail, and when she made no effort to release it he bent down and +kissed her warm fingers. "Don't you worry about that," he repeated. +</p> +<p> +She did worry, however. Down in her cabin, not so tidy as the +boy's—littered with her curiously anomalous belongings, a great +bunch of violets in the wash bowl, a cheap toilet set, elaborate +high-heeled shoes, and a plain muslin nightgown hanging to the +door—down there she opened her trunk and got out her contract. +There was nothing in it about getting back home. +</p> +<p> +For a few minutes she was panicky. Her hands shook as she put the +document away. She knew life with all the lack of illusion of two +years in the chorus. Even Lethway—not that she minded his casual +caress on the deck. She had seen a lot of that. It meant nothing. +Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you. That was part +of the business. +</p> +<p> +But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway's +face that worried her. And there were other things. +</p> +<p> +The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances. She +had spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and the +girl's mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken her +away. It had puzzled her at the time. Now she knew. The crowd that +had seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company—that had queered +her, she decided. That and Lethway. +</p> +<p> +None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the ocean +with Lethway. They had been envious, as a matter of fact. They had +brought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes of +candy that littered the room. In that half hour before sailing they +had chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart, +cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes. Her +roommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave. And +Mabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair. +</p> +<p> +She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was a +winter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down, +sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to had +worn a sweater. So Edith dressed for dinner. +</p> +<p> +She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked up +her brown hair daringly smooth and flat. Then she put on her one +evening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets. She rouged +her lips a bit too. +</p> +<p> +The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped. +</p> +<p> +That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after +that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying +little, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambled +to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or +whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, +and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the +fifty cents into a smoking-room pool. +</p> +<p> +The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and, +knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had only +touched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged away +to an evening's bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went +on deck. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid it's rather lonely for you," he said. "It's always like +this the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly." +</p> +<p> +"I don't want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did you +ever see such clothes?" +</p> +<p> +"You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night," he +observed. "You look lovely. I hope you don't mind my saying it?" +</p> +<p> +She was a downright young person, after all. And there was something +about the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gathered +after a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was even +rather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be an +uplifting influence, she told him about herself that night. +</p> +<p> +It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see him +straggling to gain this new point of view. +</p> +<p> +"Anyhow," he said at last, "you're not like the others." Then +hastily: "I don't mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Only +one can tell, to look at you, that you are different." He thought +that sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to the +war, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. "I've known a lot of +girls," he added rather loftily. "All sorts of girls." +</p> +<p> +It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alone +most of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and the +boy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched a +boxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls from +the stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man in +the company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have a +career. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person very +much. +</p> +<p> +He eyed her wistfully when she said that. +</p> +<p> +At dusk he told her about the girl in Toronto. +</p> +<p> +"It wasn't an engagement, you understand. But we've been awfully +good friends. She came to see me off. It was rather awful. She +cried. She had some sort of silly idea that I'll get hurt." +</p> +<p> +It was her turn to look wistful. Oh, they were getting on! When he +went to ask the steward to bring tea to the corner they had found, +she looked after him. She had been so busy with her own worries that +she had not thought much of the significance of his neatly belted +khaki. Suddenly it hurt her. He was going to war. +</p> +<p> +She knew little about the war, except from the pictures in +illustrated magazines. Once or twice she had tried to talk about it +with Mabel, but Mabel had only said, "It's fierce!" and changed the +subject. +</p> +<p> +The uniforms scattered over the ship and the precautions taken at +night, however, were bringing this thing called war very close to +her. It was just beyond that horizon toward which they were heading. +And even then it was brought nearer to her. +</p> +<p> +Under cover of the dusk the girl she had tried to approach came up +and stood beside her. Edith was very distant with her. +</p> +<p> +"The nights make me nervous," the girl said. "In the daylight it is +not so bad. But these darkened windows bring it all home to me—the +war, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I guess it's pretty bad." +</p> +<p> +"It's bad enough. My brother has been wounded. I am going to him." +</p> +<p> +Even above the sound of the water Edith caught the thrill in her +voice. It was a new tone to her, the exaltation of sacrifice. +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry," she said. And some subconscious memory of Mabel made +her say: "It's fierce!" +</p> +<p> +The girl looked at her. +</p> +<p> +"That young officer you're with, he's going, of course. He seems +very young. My brother was older. Thirty." +</p> +<p> +"He's twenty-two." +</p> +<p> +"He has such nice eyes," said the girl. "I wish——" +</p> +<p> +But he was coming back, and she slipped away. +</p> +<p> +During tea Cecil caught her eyes on him more than once. He had taken +off his stiff-crowned cap, and the wind blew his dark hair round. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you were not going to the war," she said unexpectedly. It +had come home to her, all at once, the potentialities of that trim +uniform. It made her a little sick. +</p> +<p> +"It's nice of you to say that." +</p> +<p> +There was a new mood on her, of confession, almost of consecration. +He asked her if he might smoke. No one in her brief life had ever +before asked her permission to smoke. +</p> +<p> +"I'll have to smoke all I can," he said. "The fellows say cigarettes +are scarce in the trenches. I'm taking a lot over." +</p> +<p> +He knew a girl who smoked cigarettes, he said. She was a nice girl +too. He couldn't understand it. The way he felt about it, maybe +a cigarette for a girl wasn't a crime. But it led to other +things—drinking, you know, and all that. +</p> +<p> +"The fellows don't respect a girl that smokes," he said. "That's the +plain truth. I've talked to her a lot about it." +</p> +<p> +"It wasn't your friend in Toronto, was it?" +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens, no!" He repudiated the idea with horror. +</p> +<p> +It was the girl who had to readjust her ideas of life that day. She +had been born and raised in that neutral ground between the lines of +right and wrong, and now suddenly her position was attacked and she +must choose sides. She chose. +</p> +<p> +"I've smoked a cigarette now and then. If you think it is wrong I'll +not do it any more." +</p> +<p> +He was almost overcome, both at the confession and at her +renunciation. To tell the truth, among the older Canadian officers +he had felt rather a boy. Her promise reinstated him in his own +esteem. He was a man, and a girl was offering to give something up +if he wished it. It helped a lot. +</p> +<p> +That evening he laid out his entire equipment in his small cabin, +and invited her to see it. He put his mother's picture behind his +brushes, where the other one had been, and when all was ready he +rang for a stewardess. +</p> +<p> +"I am going to show a young lady some of my stuff," he explained. +"And as she is alone I wish you'd stay round, will you? I want her +to feel perfectly comfortable." +</p> +<p> +The stewardess agreed, and as she was an elderly woman, with a son +at the front, a boy like Cecil, she went back to her close little +room over the engines and cried a little, very quietly. +</p> +<p> +It was unfortunate that he did not explain the presence of the +stewardess to the girl. For when it was all over, and she had stood +rather awed before his mother's picture, and rather to his surprise +had smoothed her hair with one of his brushes, she turned to him +outside the door. +</p> +<p> +"That stewardess has a lot of nerve," she said. "The idea of +standing in the doorway, rubbering!" +</p> +<p> +"I asked her," he explained. "I thought you'd prefer having some one +there." +</p> +<p> +She stared at him. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +Lethway had won the ship's pool that day. In the evening he played +bridge, and won again. He had been drinking a little. Not much, but +enough to make him reckless. +</p> +<p> +For the last rubber or two the thought of Edith had obsessed him, +her hand on the rail as he had kissed it, her cool eyes that were at +once so wise and so ignorant, her lithe body in the short skirt and +middy blouse. He found her more alluring, so attired, than she had +been in the scant costume of what to him was always "the show." +</p> +<p> +He pondered on that during all of a dummy hand, sitting low in his +chair with his feet thrust far under the table. The show business +was going to the bad. Why? Because nobody connected with it knew +anything about human nature. He formulated a plan, compounded of +liquor and real business acumen, of dressing a chorus, of suggesting +the feminine form instead of showing it, of veiling it in chiffons +of soft colours and sending a draft of air from electric fans in the +wings to set the chiffons in motion. +</p> +<p> +"Like the Aurora," he said to himself. "Only not so beefy. Ought to +be a hit. Pretty? It will be the real thing!" +</p> +<p> +The thought of Edith in such a costume, playing like a dryad over +the stage, stayed with him when the dummy hand had been played and +he had been recalled to the game by a thump on the shoulder. Edith +in soft, pastel-coloured chiffons, dancing in bare feet to light +string music. A forest setting, of course. Pan. A goat or two. All +that sort of thing. +</p> +<p> +On his way down to his cabin he passed her door. He went on, +hesitated, came back and knocked. +</p> +<p> +Now Edith had not been able to sleep. Her thrifty soul, trained +against waste, had urged her not to fling her cigarettes overboard, +but to smoke them. +</p> +<p> +"And then never again," she said solemnly. +</p> +<p> +The result was that she could not get to sleep. Blanketed to the +chin she lay in her bunk, reading. The book had been Mabel's +farewell offering, a thing of perverted ideals, or none, of cheap +sentiment, of erotic thought overlaid with words. The immediate +result of it, when she yawned at last and turned out the light over +her bed, was a new light on the boy. +</p> +<p> +"Little prig!" she said to herself, and stretched her round arms +luxuriously above her head. +</p> +<p> +Then Lethway rapped. She sat up and listened. Then, grumbling, she +got out and opened the door an inch or two. The lights were low +outside and her own cabin dark. But she knew him. +</p> +<p> +"Are we chased?" she demanded. In the back of her mind, fear of +pursuit by a German submarine was dogging her across the Atlantic. +</p> +<p> +"Sure we are!" he said. "What are you so stingy about the door for?" +</p> +<p> +She recognised his condition out of a not inconsiderable experience +and did her best to force the door shut, but he put his foot over +the sill and smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Please go away, Mr. Lethway." +</p> +<p> +"I'll go if you'll kiss me good night." +</p> +<p> +She calculated the situation, and surrendered. There was nothing +else to do. But when she upturned her face he slipped past her and +into the room. Just inside the door, swinging open and shut with +every roll of the ship, he took her in his arms and kissed her, not +once but many times. +</p> +<p> +She did not lose her head. She had an arm free and she rang the +bell. Then she jerked herself loose. +</p> +<p> +"I have rung for the stewardess," she said furiously. "If you are +here when she comes I'll ask for help." +</p> +<p> +"You young devil!" was all he said, and went, slamming the door +behind him. His rage grew as he reached his own cabin. Damn the +girl, anyhow! He had not meant anything. Here he was, spending money +he might never get back to give her a chance, and she called the +stewardess because he kissed her! +</p> +<p> +As for the girl, she went back to bed. For a few moments sheer rage +kept her awake. Then youth and fatigue triumphed and she fell +asleep. Her last thought was of the boy, after all. "He wouldn't do +a thing like that," she reflected. "He's a gentleman. He's the real +thing. He's——" +</p> +<p> +Her eyes closed. +</p> +<p> +Lethway apologised the next day, apologised with an excess of manner +that somehow made the apology as much of an insult as the act. But +she matched him at that game—took her cue from him, even went him +one better as to manner. When he left her he had begun to feel that +she was no unworthy antagonist. The game would be interesting. And +she had the advantage, if she only knew it. Back of his desire to +get back at her, back of his mocking smile and half-closed eyes, he +was just a trifle mad about her since the night before. +</p> +<p> +That is the way things stood when they reached the Mersey. Cecil was +in love with the girl. Very earnestly in love. He did not sleep at +night for thinking about her. He remembered certain semi-harmless +escapades of his college days, and called himself unworthy and +various other things. He scourged himself by leaving her alone in +her steamer chair and walking by at stated intervals. Once, in a +white sweater over a running shirt, he went to the gymnasium and +found her there. She had on a "gym" suit of baggy bloomers and the +usual blouse. He backed away from the door hastily. +</p> +<p> +At first he was jealous of Lethway. Then that passed. She confided +to him that she did not like the manager. After that he was sorry +for him. He was sorry for any one she did not like. He bothered +Lethway by walking the deck with him and looking at him with what +Lethway refused to think was compassion. +</p> +<p> +But because, contrary to the boy's belief, none of us is quite good +or quite evil, he was kind to the boy. The khaki stood for something +which no Englishman could ignore. +</p> +<p> +"Poor little devil!" he said on the last day in the smoking room, +"he's going to a bad time, all right. I was in Africa for eight +years. Boer war and the rest of it. Got run through the thigh in a +native uprising, and they won't have me now. But Africa was cheery +to this war." +</p> +<p> +He asked the boy into the smoking room, which he had hitherto +avoided. He had some queer idea that he did not care to take his +uniform in there. Absurd, of course. It made him rather lonely in +the hours Edith spent in her cabin, preparing variations of costume +for the evening out of her small trunk. But he was all man, and he +liked the society of men; so he went at last, with Lethway, and +ordered vichy! +</p> +<p> +He had not allowed himself to think much beyond the end of the +voyage. As the ship advanced, war seemed to slip beyond the edge of +his horizon. Even at night, as he lay and tossed, his thoughts were +either of the next day, when he would see Edith again, or of that +indefinite future when he would return, covered with honors, and go +to her, wherever she was. +</p> +<p> +He never doubted the honors now. He had something to fight for. The +medals in their cases looked paltry to him, compared with what was +coming. In his sleep he dreamed of the V.C., dreams he was too +modest to put into thoughts in waking hours. +</p> +<p> +Then they reached the Mersey. On the last evening of the voyage he +and Edith stood on the upper deck. It was a zone of danger. From +each side of the narrowing river flashlights skimmed the surface of +the water, playing round but never on the darkened ship. Red and +green lights blinked signals. Their progress was a devious one +through the mine-strewn channel. There was a heavy sea even there, +and the small lights on the mast on the pilot boat, as it came to a +stop, described great arcs that seemed, first to starboard, then to +port, to touch the very tips of the waves. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not crazy about this," the girl said, as the wind tugged at her +skirts. "It frightens me. Brings the war pretty close, doesn't it?" +</p> +<p> +Emotion swelled his heart and made him husky—love and patriotism, +pride and hope, and a hot burst of courage. +</p> +<p> +"What if we strike a mine?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't care so much. It would give me a chance to save you." +</p> +<p> +Overhead they were signalling the shore with a white light. Along +with the new emotions that were choking him came an unaccustomed +impulse of boastfulness. +</p> +<p> +"I can read that," he said when she ignored his offer to save her. +"Of course it's code, but I can spell it out." +</p> +<p> +He made a move to step forward and watch the signaler, but she put +her hand on his arm. +</p> +<p> +"Don't go. I'm nervous, Cecil," she said. +</p> +<p> +She had called him by his first name. It shook him profoundly, that +and the touch of her hand on his arm. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I love you, love you!" he said hoarsely. But he did not try to +take her in his arms, or attempt to caress the hand that still clung +to him. He stood very erect, looking at the shadowy outline of her. +Then, her long scarf blowing toward him, he took the end of it and +kissed that very gravely. +</p> +<p> +"I would die for you," he said. +</p> +<p> +Then Lethway joined them. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +London was not kind to him. He had felt, like many Canadians, that +in going to England he was going home. But England was cold. +</p> +<p> +Not the people on the streets. They liked the Canadians and they +cheered them when their own regiments went by unhailed. It appealed +to their rampant patriotism that these men had come from across the +sea to join hands with them against common foe. But in the clubs, +where his letters admitted the boy, there was a different +atmosphere. Young British officers were either cool or, much worse, +patronising. They were inclined to suspect that his quiet confidence +was swanking. One day at luncheon he drank a glass of wine, not +because he wanted it but because he did not like to refuse. The +result was unfortunate. It loosened his tongue a bit, and he +mentioned the medals. +</p> +<p> +Not noisily, of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. +It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, +greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, but +his heart was heavy in him. +</p> +<p> +And it rained. +</p> +<p> +It was always raining. He had very little money beyond his pay, and +the constant hiring of taxicabs worried him. Now and then he saw +some one he knew, down from Salisbury for a holiday, but they had +been over long enough to know their way about. They had engagements, +things to buy. He fairly ate his heart out in sheer loneliness. +</p> +<p> +There were two hours in the day that redeemed the others. One was +the hour late in the afternoon when, rehearsal over, he took Edith +O'Hara to tea. The other was just before he went to bed, when he +wrote her the small note that reached her every morning with her +breakfast. +</p> +<p> +In the seven days before he joined his regiment at Salisbury he +wrote her seven notes. They were candid, boyish scrawls, not love +letters at all. This was one of them: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + <i>Dear Edith</i>: I have put in a rotten evening and am just + going to bed. I am rather worried because you looked so + tired to-day. Please don't work too hard. +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + I am only writing to say how I look forward each night to + seeing you the next day. I am sending with this a small + bunch of lilies of the valley. They remind me of you. +</p> +<p class="ar"> + <span class="sc">Cecil.</span> +</p> +<p> +The girl saved those letters. She was not in love with him, but he +gave her something no one else had ever offered: a chivalrous +respect that pleased as well as puzzled her. +</p> +<p> +Once in a tea shop he voiced his creed, as it pertained to her, over +a plate of muffins. +</p> +<p> +"When we are both back home, Edith," he said, "I am going to ask you +something." +</p> +<p> +"Why not now?" +</p> +<p> +"Because it wouldn't be quite fair to you. I—I may be killed, or +something. That's one thing. Then, it's because of your people." +</p> +<p> +That rather stunned her. She had no people. She was going to tell +him that, but she decided not to. She felt quite sure that he +considered "people" essential, and though she felt that, for any +long period of time, these queer ideas and scruples of his would be +difficult to live up to, she intended to do it for that one week. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, all right," she said, meekly enough. +</p> +<p> +She felt very tender toward him after that, and her new gentleness +made it all hard for him. She caught him looking at her wistfully at +times, and it seemed to her that he was not looking well. His eyes +were hollow, his face thin. She put her hand over his as it lay on +the table. +</p> +<p> +"Look here," she said, "you look half sick, or worried, or +something. Stop telling me to take care of myself, and look after +yourself a little better." +</p> +<p> +"I'm all right," he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. +That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that +don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." +</p> +<p> +On the last night he took her to dinner—a small French restaurant +in a back street in Soho. He had heard about it somewhere. Edith +classed it as soon as she entered. It was too retiring, too demure. +Its very location was clandestine. +</p> +<p> +But he never knew. He was divided that night between joy at getting +to his regiment and grief at leaving her. Rather self-engrossed, she +thought. +</p> +<p> +They had a table by an open grate fire, with a screen "to shut off +the draft," the waiter said. It gave the modest meal a delightfully +homey air, their isolation and the bright coal fire. For the first +time they learned the joys of mussels boiled in milk, of French +<i>soufflé</i> and other things. +</p> +<p> +At the end of the evening he took her back to her cheap hotel in a +taxicab. She expected him to kiss her. Her experience of taxicabs +had been like that. But he did not. He said very little on the way +home, but sat well back and eyed her wistful eyes. She chattered to +cover his silence—of rehearsals, of—with reservations—of Lethway, +of the anticipated London opening. She felt very sad herself. He had +been a tie to America, and he had been much more than that. Though +she did not realise it, he had had a profound effect on her. In +trying to seem what he thought her she was becoming what he thought +her. Her old reckless attitude toward life was gone, or was going. +</p> +<p> +The day before she had refused an invitation to a night club, and +called herself a fool for doing it. But she had refused. +</p> +<p> +Not that he had performed miracles with her. She was still frankly a +dweller on the neutral ground. But to that instinct that had kept +her up to that time what she would have called "straight" had been +added a new refinement. She was no longer the reckless and romping +girl whose abandon had caught Lethway's eye. +</p> +<p> +She had gained a soul, perhaps, and lost a livelihood. +</p> +<p> +When they reached the hotel he got out and went in with her. The +hall porter was watching and she held out her hand. But he shook his +head. +</p> +<p> +"If I touched your hand," he said, "I would have to take you in my +arms. Good-bye, dear." +</p> +<p> +"Good-bye," she said. There were tears in her eyes. It was through a +mist that she saw him, as the elevator went up, standing at salute, +his eyes following her until she disappeared from sight. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +IV +</p> +<p> +Things were going wrong with Lethway. The management was ragging +him, for one thing. +</p> +<p> +"Give the girl time," he said almost viciously, at the end of a +particularly bad rehearsal. "She's had a long voyage and she's +tired. Besides," he added, "these acts never do go at rehearsal. +Give me a good house at the opening and she'll show you what she can +do." +</p> +<p> +But in his soul he was worried. There was a change in Edith O'Hara. +Even her voice had altered. It was not only her manner to him. That +was marked enough, but he only shrugged his shoulders over it. Time +enough for that when the production was on. +</p> +<p> +He had engaged a hoyden, and she was by way of becoming a lady. +During the first week or so he had hoped that it was only the +strangeness of her surroundings. He had been shrewd enough to lay +some of it, however, to Cecil's influence. +</p> +<p> +"When your soldier boy gets out of the way," he sneered one day in +the wings, "perhaps you'll get down to earth and put some life in +your work." +</p> +<p> +But to his dismay she grew steadily worse. Her dancing was delicate, +accurate, even graceful, but the thing the British public likes to +think typically American, a sort of breezy swagger, was gone. To +bill her in her present state as the Madcap American would be sheer +folly. +</p> +<p> +Ten days before the opening he cabled for another girl to take her +place. +</p> +<p> +He did not tell her. Better to let her work on, he decided. A German +submarine might sink the ship on which the other girl was coming, +and then where would they be? +</p> +<p> +Up to the last, however, he had hopes of Edith. Not that he cared to +save her. But he hated to acknowledge a failure. He disliked to +disavow his own judgment. +</p> +<p> +He made a final effort with her, took her one day to luncheon at +Simpson's, and in one of the pewlike compartments, over mutton and +caper sauce, he tried to "talk a little life into her." +</p> +<p> +"What the devil has come over you?" he demanded savagely. "You were +larky enough over in New York. There are any number of girls in +London who can do what you are doing now, and do it better." +</p> +<p> +"I'm doing just what I did in New York." +</p> +<p> +"The hell you are! I could do what you're doing with a jointed doll +and some wires. Now see here, Edith," he said, "either you put some +go into the thing, or you go. That's flat." +</p> +<p> +Her eyes filled. +</p> +<p> +"I—maybe I'm worried," she said. "Ever since I found out that I've +signed up, with no arrangement about sending me back, it's been on +my mind." +</p> +<p> +"Don't you worry about that." +</p> +<p> +"But if they put some one on in my place?" +</p> +<p> +"You needn't worry about that either. I'll look after you. You know +that. If I hadn't been crazy about you I'd have let you go a week +ago. You know that too." +</p> +<p> +She knew the tone, knew instantly where she stood. Knew, too, that +she would not play the first night in London. She went rather white, +but she faced him coolly. +</p> +<p> +"Don't look like that," he said. "I'm only telling you that if you +need a friend I'll be there." +</p> +<p> +It was two days before the opening, however, when the blow fell. She +had not been sleeping, partly from anxiety about herself, partly +about the boy. Every paper she picked up was full of the horrors of +war. There were columns filled with the names of those who had +fallen. Somehow even his uniform had never closely connected the boy +with death in her mind. He seemed so young. +</p> +<p> +She had had a feeling that his very youth would keep him from +danger. War to her was a faintly conceived struggle between men, and +he was a boy. +</p> +<p> +But here were boys who had died, boys at nineteen. And the lists of +missing startled her. One morning she read in the personal column a +query, asking if any one could give the details of the death of a +young subaltern. She cried over that. In all her care-free life +never before had she wept over the griefs of others. +</p> +<p> +Cecil had sent her his photograph taken in his uniform. Because he +had had it taken to give her he had gazed directly into the eye of +the camera. When she looked at it it returned her glance. She took +to looking at it a great deal. +</p> +<p> +Two days before the opening she turned from a dispirited rehearsal +to see Mabel standing in the wings. Then she knew. The end had come. +</p> +<p> +Mabel was jaunty, but rather uneasy. +</p> +<p> +"You poor dear!" she said, when Edith went to her. "What on earth's +happened? The cable only said—honest, dearie, I feel like a dog!" +</p> +<p> +"They don't like me. That's all," she replied wearily, and picked +up her hat and jacket from a chair. But Mabel was curious. +Uncomfortable, too, as she had said. She slipped an arm round +Edith's waist. +</p> +<p> +"Say the word and I'll throw them down," she cried. "It looks like +dirty work to me. And you're thin. Honest, dearie, I mean it." +</p> +<p> +Her loyalty soothed the girl's sore spirit. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what's come over me," she said. "I've tried hard +enough. But I'm always tired. I—I think it's being so close to the +war." +</p> +<p> +Mabel stared at her. There was a war. She knew that. The theatrical +news was being crowded to a back page to make space for disagreeable +diagrams and strange, throaty names. +</p> +<p> +"I know. It's fierce, isn't it?" she said. +</p> +<p> +Edith took her home, and they talked far into the night. She had +slipped Cecil's picture into the wardrobe before she turned on the +light. Then she explained the situation. +</p> +<p> +"It's pep they want, is it?" said Mabel at last. "Well, believe me, +honey, I'll give it to them. And as long as I've got a cent it's +yours." +</p> +<p> +They slept together in Edith's narrow bed, two slim young figures +delicately flushed with sleep. As pathetic, had they known it, as +those other sleepers in their untidy billets across the channel. +Almost as hopeless too. Dwellers in the neutral ground. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +V +</p> +<p> +Now war, after all, is to each fighting man an affair of small +numbers, an affair of the men to his right and his left, of the +A.M.S.C. in the rear and of a handful of men across. On his days of +rest the horizon is somewhat expanded. It becomes then a thing of +crowded and muddy village streets, of food and drink and tobacco and +a place to sleep. +</p> +<p> +Always, of course, it is a thing of noises. +</p> +<p> +This is not a narrative of war. It matters very little, for +instance, how Cecil's regiment left Salisbury and went to Soissons, +in France. What really matters is that at last the Canadian-made +motor lorries moved up their equipment, and that, after digging +practice trenches in the yellow clay of old battlefields, they were +moved up to the front. +</p> +<p> +Once there, there seemed to be a great deal of time. It was the lull +before Neuve Chapelle. Cecil's spirit grew heavy with waiting. Once, +back on rest at his billet, he took a long walk over the half-frozen +side roads and came without warning on a main artery. Three traction +engines were taking to the front the first of the great British +guns, so long awaited. He took the news back to his mess. The +general verdict was that there would be something doing now. +</p> +<p> +Cecil wrote a letter to Edith that day. He had written before, of +course, but this was different. He wrote first to his mother, just +in case anything happened, a long, boyish letter with a misspelled +word here and there. He said he was very happy and very comfortable, +and that if he did get his he wanted her to know that it was all +perfectly cheerful and not anything like the war correspondents said +it was. He'd had a bully time all his life, thanks to her. He hadn't +let her know often enough how he felt about her, and she knew he was +a dub at writing. There were a great many things worse than "going +out" in a good fight. "It isn't at all as if you could see the +blooming thing coming," he wrote. "You never know it's after you +until you've got it, and then you don't." +</p> +<p> +The letter was not to be sent unless he was killed. So he put in a +few anecdotes to let her know exactly how happy and contented he +was. Then he dropped the whole thing in the ten inches of mud and +water he was standing in, and had to copy it all over. +</p> +<p> +To Edith he wrote a different sort of letter. He told her that he +loved her. "It's almost more adoration than love," he wrote, while +two men next to him were roaring over a filthy story. "I mean by +that, that I feel every hour of every day how far above me you are. +It's like one of these <i>fusées</i> the Germans are always throwing up +over us at night. It's perfectly dark, and then something bright and +clear and like a star, only nearer, is overhead. Everything looks +different while it floats there. And so, my dear, my dear, +everything has been different to me since I knew you." +</p> +<p> +Rather boyish, all of it, but terribly earnest. He said he had +wanted to ask her to marry him, but that the way he felt about it, a +fellow had no right to ask a girl such a thing when he was going to +a war. If he came back he would ask her. And he would love her all +his life. +</p> +<p> +The next day, at dawn, he went out with eighty men to an outpost +that had been an abandoned farm. It was rather a forlorn hope. They +had one machine gun. At nine o'clock the enemy opened fire on them +and followed it by an attack. The major in charge went down early. +At two Cecil was standing in the loft of the farmhouse, firing with +a revolver on men who beneath him, outside, were placing dynamite +under a corner of the building. +</p> +<p> +To add to the general hopelessness, their own artillery, believing +them all dead, opened fire on the building. They moved their wounded +to the cellar and kept on fighting. +</p> +<p> +At eight o'clock that night Cecil's right arm was hanging helpless, +and the building was burning merrily. There were five of them left. +They fixed bayonets and charged the open door. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +When the boy opened his eyes he was lying in six inches of manure in +a box car. One of his men was standing over him, keeping him from +being trampled on. There was no air and no water. The ammonia fumes +from the manure were stifling. +</p> +<p> +The car lurched and jolted along. Cecil opened his eyes now and +then, and at first he begged for water. When he found there was none +he lay still. The men hammered on the door and called for air. They +made frantic, useless rushes at the closed and barred door. Except +Cecil, all were standing. They were herded like cattle, and there +was no room to lie or sit. +</p> +<p> +He lay there, drugged by weakness. He felt quite sure that he was +dying, and death was not so bad. He voiced this feebly to the man +who stood over him. +</p> +<p> +"It's not so bad," he said. +</p> +<p> +"The hell it's not!" said the man. +</p> +<p> +For the time Edith was effaced from his mind. He remembered the +wounded men left in the cellar with the building burning over them. +That, and days at home, long before the war. +</p> +<p> +Once he said "Mother." The soldier who was now standing astride of +him, the better to keep off the crowding men, thought he was asking +for water again. +</p> +<p> +Thirty hours of that, and then air and a little water. Not enough +water. Not all the water in all the cool streams of the earth would +have slaked the thirst of his wound. +</p> +<p> +The boy was impassive. He was living in the past. One day he recited +at great length the story of his medals. No one listened. +</p> +<p> +And all the time his right arm lay or hung, as he was prone or +erect, a strange right arm that did not belong to him. It did not +even swell. When he touched it the fingers were cold and bluish. It +felt like a dead hand. +</p> +<p> +Then, at the end of it all, was a bed, and a woman's voice, and +quiet. +</p> +<p> +The woman was large and elderly, and her eyes were very kind. She +stirred something in the boy that had been dead of pain. +</p> +<p> +"Edith!" he said. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +VI +</p> +<p> +Mabel had made a hit. Unconscious imitator that she was, she stole +Edith's former recklessness, and added to it something of her own +dash and verve. Lethway, standing in the wings, knew she was not and +never would be Edith. She was not fine enough. Edith at her best +had frolicked. Mabel romped, was almost wanton. He cut out the +string music at the final rehearsal. It did not fit. +</p> +<p> +On the opening night the brass notes of the orchestra blared and +shrieked. Mabel's bare feet flew, her loose hair, cut to her ears +and held only by a band over her forehead, kept time in ecstatic +little jerks. When at last she pulled off the fillet and bowed to +the applause, her thick short hair fell over her face as she jerked +her head forward. They liked that. It savoured of the abandoned. She +shook it back, and danced the encore without the fillet. With her +scant chiffons whirling about her knees, her loose hair, her girlish +body, she was the embodiment of young love, of its passion, its +fire. +</p> +<p> +Edith had been spring, palpitant with gladness. +</p> +<p> +Lethway, looking with tired eyes from the wings, knew that he had +made a commercial success. But back of his sordid methods there was +something of the soul of an artist. And this rebelled. +</p> +<p> +But he made a note to try flame-coloured chiffon for Mabel. Edith +was to have danced in the pale greens of a water nymph. +</p> +<p> +On the night of her triumph Mabel returned late to Edith's room, +where she was still quartered. She was moving the next day to a +small apartment. With the generosity of her class she had urged +Edith to join her, and Edith had perforce consented. +</p> +<p> +"How did it go?" Edith asked from the bed. +</p> +<p> +"Pretty well," said Mabel. "Nothing unusual." +</p> +<p> +She turned up the light, and from her radiant reflection in the +mirror Edith got the truth. She lay back with a dull, sickening +weight round her heart. Not that Mabel had won, but that she herself +had failed. +</p> +<p> +"You're awfully late." +</p> +<p> +"I went to supper. Wish you'd been along, dearie. Terribly swell +club of some sort." Then her good resolution forgotten: "I made them +sit up and take notice, all right. Two invitations for supper +to-morrow night and more on the way. And when I saw I'd got the +house going to-night, and remembered what I was being paid for it, +it made me sick." +</p> +<p> +"It's better than nothing." +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you ask Lethway to take you on in the chorus? It would do +until you get something else." +</p> +<p> +"I have asked him. He won't do it." +</p> +<p> +Mabel was still standing in front of the mirror. She threw her head +forward so her short hair covered her face, and watched the effect +carefully. Then she came over and sat on the bed. +</p> +<p> +"He's a dirty dog," she said. +</p> +<p> +The two girls looked at each other. They knew every move in the game +of life, and Lethway's methods were familiar ones. +</p> +<p> +"What are you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last. +"Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here," she +said with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enough +ahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, while the drawing's +good." +</p> +<p> +"And queer yourself at the start?" said Edith scornfully. "Talk +sense, Mabel, I'm up against it, but don't you worry. I'll get +something." +</p> +<p> +But she did not get anything. She was reduced in the next week to +entire dependence on the other girl. And, even with such miracles of +management as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficult +to get along. +</p> +<p> +There was a new element too. Edith was incredulous at first, but at +last she faced it. There was a change in Mabel. She was not less +hospitable nor less generous. It was a matter of a point of view. +Success was going to her head. Her indignation at certain phases of +life was changing to tolerance. She found Edith's rampant virtue a +trifle wearing. She took to staying out very late, and coming in +ready to meet Edith's protest with defiant gaiety. She bought +clothes too. +</p> +<p> +"You'll have to pay for them sometime," Edith reminded her. +</p> +<p> +"I should worry. I've got to look like something if I'm going to go +out at all." +</p> +<p> +Edith, who had never thought things out before, had long hours to +think now. And the one thing that seemed clear and undeniable was +that she must not drive Mabel into debt. Debt was the curse of most +of the girls she knew. As long as they were on their own they could +manage. It was the burden of unpaid bills, lightly contracted, that +drove so many of them wrong. +</p> +<p> +That night, while Mabel was asleep, she got up and cautiously +lighted the gas. Then she took the boy's photograph out of its +hiding place and propped it on top of her trunk. For a long time she +sat there, her chin in her hands, and looked at it. +</p> +<p> +It was the next day that she saw his name among the missing. +</p> +<p> +She did not cry, not at first. The time came when it seemed to her +she did nothing else. But at first she only stared. She was too +young and too strong to faint, but things went gray for her. +</p> +<p> +And gray they remained—through long spring days and eternal +nights—days when Mabel slept all morning, rehearsed or played in +the afternoons, was away all evening and far into the night. She did +not eat or sleep. She spent money that was meant for food on papers +and journals and searched for news. She made a frantic but +ineffectual effort to get into the War Office. +</p> +<p> +She had received his letter two days after she had seen his name +among the missing. She had hardly dared to open it, but having read +it, for days she went round with a strange air of consecration that +left Mabel uneasy. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you wouldn't look like that!" she said one morning. "You get +on my nerves." +</p> +<p> +But as time went on the feeling that he was dead overcame everything +else. She despaired, rather than grieved. And following despair came +recklessness. He was dead. Nothing else mattered. Lethway, meeting +her one day in Oxford Circus, almost passed her before he knew her. +He stopped her then. +</p> +<p> +"Haven't been sick, have you?" +</p> +<p> +"Me? No." +</p> +<p> +"There's something wrong." +</p> +<p> +She did not deny it and he fell into step beside her. +</p> +<p> +"Doing anything?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +She shook her head. With all the power that was in her she was +hating his tall figure, his heavy-lashed eyes, even the familiar +ulster he wore. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you were a sensible young person," he said. But something in +the glance she gave him forbade his going on. It was not an ugly +glance. Rather it was cold, appraising—even, if he had known it, +despairing. +</p> +<p> +Lethway had been busy. She had been in the back of his mind rather +often, but other things had crowded her out. This new glimpse of her +fired him again, however. And she had a new quality that thrilled +even through the callus of his soul. The very thing that had +foredoomed her to failure in the theatre appealed to him strongly—a +refinement, a something he did not analyse. +</p> +<p> +When she was about to leave him he detained her with a hand on her +arm. +</p> +<p> +"You know you can always count on me, don't you?" he said. +</p> +<p> +"I know I can't," she flashed back at him with a return of her old +spirit. +</p> +<p> +"I'm crazy about you." +</p> +<p> +"Old stuff!" she said coolly, and walked off. But there was a tug of +fear at her heart. She told Mabel, but it was typical of the change +that Mabel only shrugged her shoulders. +</p> +<p> +It was Lethway's shrewdness that led to his next move. He had tried +bullying, and failed. He had tried fear, with the same lack of +effect. Now he tried kindness. +</p> +<p> +She distrusted him at first, but her starved heart was crying out +for the very thing he offered her. As the weeks went on, with no +news of Cecil, she accepted his death stoically at last. Something +of her had died. But in a curious way the boy had put his mark on +her. And as she grew more like the thing he had thought her to be +the gulf between Mabel and herself widened. They had, at last, only +in common their room, their struggle, the contacts of their daily +life. +</p> +<p> +And Lethway was now always in the background. He took her for quiet +meals and brought her home early. He promised her that sometime he +would see that she got back home. +</p> +<p> +"But not just yet," he added as her colour rose. "I'm selfish, +Edith. Give me a little time to be happy." +</p> +<p> +That was a new angle. It had been a part of the boy's quiet creed to +make others happy. +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you give me something to do, since you're so crazy to +have me hanging about?" +</p> +<p> +"Can't do it. I'm not the management. And they're sore at you. They +think you threw them down." He liked to air his American slang. +</p> +<p> +Edith cupped her chin in her hand and looked at him. There was no +mystery about the situation, no shyness in the eyes with which she +appraised him. She was beginning to like him too. +</p> +<p> +That night when she got back to Mabel's apartment her mood was +reckless. She went to the window and stood looking at the crooked +and chimney-potted skyline that was London. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, what's the use?" she said savagely, and gave up the fight. +</p> +<p> +When Mabel came home she told her. +</p> +<p> +"I'm going to get out," she said without preamble. +</p> +<p> +She caught the relief in Mabel's face, followed by a purely +conventional protest. +</p> +<p> +"Although," she hedged cautiously, "I don't know, dearie. People +look at things sensibly these days. You've got to live, haven't you? +They're mighty quick to jail a girl who tries to jump in the river +when she's desperate." +</p> +<p> +"I'll probably end there. And I don't much care." +</p> +<p> +Mabel gave her a good talking to about that. Her early training had +been in a church which regarded self-destruction as a cardinal sin. +Then business acumen asserted itself: +</p> +<p> +"He'll probably put you on somewhere. He's crazy about you, Ede." +</p> +<p> +But Edith was not listening. She was standing in front of her opened +trunk tearing into small pieces something that had been lying in the +tray. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +VII +</p> +<p> +Now the boy had tried very hard to die, and failed. The thing that +had happened to him was an unbelievable thing. When he began to use +his tired faculties again, when the ward became not a shadow land +but a room, and the nurse not a presence but a woman, he tried +feebly to move his right arm. +</p> +<p> +But it was gone. +</p> +<p> +At first he refused to believe it. He could feel it lying there +beside him. It ached and throbbed. The fingers were cramped. But +when he looked it was not there. +</p> +<p> +There was not one shock of discovery, but many. For each time he +roused from sleep he had forgotten, and must learn the thing again. +</p> +<p> +The elderly German woman stayed close. She was wise, and war had +taught her many things. So when he opened his eyes she was always +there. She talked to him very often of his mother, and he listened +with his eyes on her face—eyes like those of a sick child. +</p> +<p> +In that manner they got by the first few days. +</p> +<p> +"It won't make any difference to her," he said once. "She'd take me +back if I was only a fragment." Then bitterly: "That's all I am—a +fragment! A part of a man!" +</p> +<p> +After a time she knew that there was a some one else, some one he +was definitely relinquishing. She dared not speak to him about it. +His young dignity was militant. But one night, as she dozed beside +him in the chair, he reached the limit of his repression and told +her. +</p> +<p> +"An actress!" she cried, sitting bolt upright. "<i>Du lieber</i>—an +actress!" +</p> +<p> +"Not an actress," he corrected her gravely. "A—a dancer. But good. +She's a very good girl. Even when I was—was whole"—raging +bitterness there—"I was not good enough for her." +</p> +<p> +"No actress is good. And dancers!" +</p> +<p> +"You don't know what you are talking about," he said roughly, and +turned his back to her. It was almost insulting to have her assist +him to his attitude of contempt, and to prop him in it with pillows +behind his back. Lying there he tried hard to remember that this +woman belonged to his hereditary foes. He was succeeding in hating +her when he felt her heavy hand on his head. +</p> +<p> +"Poor boy! Poor little one!" she said. And her voice was husky. +</p> +<p> +When at last he was moved from the hospital to the prison camp she +pinned the sleeve of his ragged uniform across his chest and kissed +him, to his great discomfiture. Then she went to the curtained +corner that was her quarters and wept long and silently. +</p> +<p> +The prison camp was overcrowded. Early morning and late evening +prisoners were lined up to be counted. There was a medley of +languages—French, English, Arabic, Russian. The barracks were built +round a muddy inclosure in which the men took what exercise they +could. +</p> +<p> +One night a boy with a beautiful tenor voice sang Auld Lang Syne +under the boy's window. He stood with his hand on the cuff of his +empty sleeves and listened. And suddenly a great shame filled him, +that with so many gone forever, with men dying every minute of +every hour, back at the lines, he had been so obsessed with himself. +He was still bitter, but the bitterness was that he could not go +back again and fight. +</p> +<p> +When he had been in the camp a month he helped two British officers +to escape. One of them had snubbed him in London months before. He +apologised before he left. +</p> +<p> +"You're a man, Hamilton," he said. "All you Canadians are men. I've +some things to tell when I get home." +</p> +<p> +The boy could not go with them. There would be canals to swim +across, and there was his empty sleeve and weakness. He would never +swim again, he thought. That night, as he looked at the empty beds +of the men who had gone, he remembered his medals and smiled grimly. +</p> +<p> +He was learning to use his left hand. He wrote letters home with it +for soldiers who could not write. He went into the prison hospital +and wrote letters for those who would never go home. But he did not +write to the girl. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +He went back at last, when the hopelessly wounded were exchanged. To +be branded "hopelessly wounded" was to him a stain, a stigma. It put +him among the clutterers of the earth. It stranded him on the shore +of life. Hopelessly wounded! +</p> +<p> +For, except what would never be whole, he was well again. True, +confinement and poor food had kept him weak and white. His legs had +a way of going shaky at nightfall. But once he knocked down an +insolent Russian with his left hand, and began to feel his own man +again. That the Russian was weak from starvation did not matter. The +point to the boy was that he had made the attempt. +</p> +<p> +Providence has a curious way of letting two lives run along, each +apparently independent of the other. Parallel lines they seem, +hopeless of meeting. Converging lines really, destined, through long +ages, by every deed that has been done to meet at a certain point +and there fuse. +</p> +<p> +Edith had left Mabel, but not to go to Lethway. When nothing else +remained that way was open. She no longer felt any horror—only a +great distaste. But two weeks found her at her limit. She, who had +rarely had more than just enough, now had nothing. +</p> +<p> +And no glory of sacrifice upheld her. She no longer believed that by +removing the burden of her support she could save Mabel. It was +clear that Mabel would not be saved. To go back and live on her, +under the circumstances, was but a degree removed from the other +thing that confronted her. +</p> +<p> +There is just a chance that, had she not known the boy, she would +have killed herself. But again the curious change he had worked in +her manifested itself. He thought suicide a wicked thing. +</p> +<p> +"I take it like this," he had said in his eager way: "life's a thing +that's given us for some purpose. Maybe the purpose gets +clouded—I'm afraid I'm an awful duffer at saying what I mean. But +we've got to work it out, do you see? Or—or the whole scheme is +upset." +</p> +<p> +It had seemed very clear then. +</p> +<p> +Then, on a day when the rare sun made even the rusty silk hats of +clerks on tops of omnibuses to gleam, when the traffic glittered on +the streets and the windows of silversmiths' shops shone painful to +the eye, she met Lethway again. +</p> +<p> +The sun had made her reckless. Since the boy was gone life was +wretchedness, but she clung to it. She had given up all hope of +Cecil's return, and what she became mattered to no one else. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps, more than anything else, she craved companionship. In +all her crowded young life she had never before been alone. +Companionship and kindness. She would have followed to heel, like +a dog, for a kind word. +</p> +<p> +Then she met Lethway. They walked through the park. When he left her +her once clear, careless glance had a suggestion of furtiveness in +it. +</p> +<p> +That afternoon she packed her trunk and sent it to an address he +had given her. In her packing she came across the stick of cold +cream, still in the pocket of the middy blouse. She flung it, as +hard as she could, across the room. +</p> +<p> +She paid her bill with money Lethway had given her. She had exactly +a sixpence of her own. She found herself in Trafalgar Square late in +the afternoon. The great enlisting posters there caught her eye, +filled her with bitterness. +</p> +<p> +"Your king and your country need you," she read. She had needed the +boy, too, but this vast and impersonal thing, his mother country, +had taken him from her—taken him and lost him. She wanted to stand +by the poster and cry to the passing women to hold their men back. +As she now knew she hated Lethway, she hated England. +</p> +<p> +She wandered on. Near Charing Cross she spent the sixpence for a +bunch of lilies of the valley, because he had said once that she was +like them. Then she was for throwing them in the street, remembering +the thing she would soon be. +</p> +<p> +"For the wounded soldiers," said the flower girl. When she +comprehended that, she made her way into the station. There was a +great crowd, but something in her face made the crowd draw back and +let her through. They nudged each other as she passed. +</p> +<p> +"Looking for some one, poor child!" said a girl and, following her, +thrust the flowers she too carried into Edith's hand. She put them +with the others, rather dazed. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +To Cecil the journey had been a series of tragedies. Not his own. +There were two hundred of them, officers and men, on the boat across +the Channel. Blind, maimed, paralysed, in motley garments, they were +hilariously happy. Every throb of the turbine engines was a thrust +toward home. They sang, they cheered. +</p> +<p> +Now and then some one would shout: "Are we downhearted?" And +crutches and canes would come down on the deck to the unanimous +shout: "No!" +</p> +<p> +Folkestone had been trying, with its parade of cheerfulness, with +kindly women on the platform serving tea and buns. In the railway +coach to London, where the officers sat, a talking machine played +steadily, and there were masses of flowers, violets and lilies of +the valley. At Charing Cross was a great mass of people, and as they +slowly disembarked he saw that many were crying. He was rather +surprised. He had known London as a cold and unemotional place. It +had treated him as an alien, had snubbed and ignored him. +</p> +<p> +He had been prepared to ask nothing of London, and it lay at his +feet in tears. +</p> +<p> +Then he saw Edith. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps, when in the fullness of years the boy goes over to the +life he so firmly believes awaits him, the one thing he will carry +with him through the open door will be the look in her eyes when she +saw him. Too precious a thing to lose, surely, even then. Such +things make heaven. +</p> +<p> +"What did I tell you?" cried the girl who had given Edith her +flowers. "She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Look +out—catch him!" +</p> +<p> +But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith he +touched his empty sleeve. +</p> +<p> +"As if that would make any difference to her!" said the girl, who +was in black. "Look at her face! She's got him." +</p> +<p> +Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanly +tears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of his +empty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together and +the crowd opened to let them by. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +At nine o'clock that night Lethway stormed through the stage +entrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel's +dressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and went +in. +</p> +<p> +The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was having +her pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance. +</p> +<p> +"You've got a nerve!" she said coolly. +</p> +<p> +"Where's Edith?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know and I don't care. She ran away, when I was stinting +myself to keep her. I'm done. Now you go out and close that door, +and when you want to enter a lady's dressing room, knock." +</p> +<p> +He looked at her with blazing hatred. +</p> +<p> +"Right-o!" was all he said. And he turned and left her to her +flowers. +</p> +<p> +At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, +very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her +in. +</p> +<p> +He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hall +porter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers of +his left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as they +followed her, was all that there is of love—love and a new +understanding. +</p> +<p> +She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same. +Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of that +shadowy No Man's Land between the lines, where many there were who +fought their battles and were wounded, and even died. +</p> +<p> +As he turned and went out two men on crutches were passing along the +quiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, and +stopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison: +</p> +<p> +"Are we downhearted? No!" +</p> +<p> +Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump. +</p> +<a name="2H_4_0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + THE GAME +</h2> +<p class="sec"> +I +</p> +<p> +The Red Un was very red; even his freckles were red rather than +copper-coloured. And he was more prodigal than most kings, for he +had two crowns on his head. Also his hair grew in varying +directions, like a wheatfields after a storm. He wore a coat without +a tail, but with brass buttons to compensate, and a celluloid collar +with a front attached. It was the Red Un's habit to dress first and +wash after, as saving labour; instead of his neck he washed his +collar. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un was the Chief Engineer's boy and rather more impressive +than the Chief, who was apt to decry his own greatness. It was the +Red Un's duty to look after the Chief, carry in his meals, make his +bed, run errands, and remind him to get his hair cut now and then. +It was the Red Un's pleasure to assist unassumingly in the +surveillance of that part of the ship where the great god, Steam, +ruled an underworld of trimmers and oilers and stokers and assistant +engineers—and even, with reservations, the Chief. The Red Un kept a +sharp eye on the runs and read the Chief's log daily—so much coal +in the bunkers; so much water in the wells; so many engine-room +miles in twenty-four hours—which, of course, are not sea miles +exactly, there being currents and winds, and God knows what, to +waste steam on. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un, like the assistants, was becoming a bear on the speed +market. He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enough +to work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and get +a letter from the management, some current or other will show up—or +a fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends the +bridge yapping for caution. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief's bed by pulling the +counterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath—and got +away with it, the Chief being weary at night. Also, in odd moments +he made life miserable for the crew. Up to shortly before, he had +had to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starved +little body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief's +hair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no manner +of business, hardly used up his activities. However, he did not lie +and he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man. +</p> +<p> +The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had taken +for a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and two +set and desperate eyes. After that the big Scot had forgotten all +about him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which had +shrunk in the drying. The liner finished coaling about that time, +took on passengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, +having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third and +dropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race. +</p> +<p> +The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the long +voyage—three thousand miles or so without a stop. The gong, and +then Half Ahead!—great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the +grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of +limitless strength. Full Ahead!—and so off again for the great +struggle—man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God against +the upreaching of the sea. +</p> +<p> +The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored it +waking, snapped his watch shut. +</p> +<p> +"Eleven-eleven!" he said to the Senior Second. "Well, here's luck!" +That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of a +prayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man's +wits count in the great equation. He generally said something to the +effect that "After all, it's up to Thee, O Lord!" +</p> +<p> +He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; and +he smiled too, but rather grimly. They were playing a bit of a +game, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks—just an +amusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; the +Second was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of his +head years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate. +Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness for +himself alone? So the Chief, having glanced about and run his hand +caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had +climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and +was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things +that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was +being stared at from behind. +</p> +<p> +Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up +to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive +eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the +eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, +turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot +trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw—a small +red-haired boy in a Turkish towel. +</p> +<p> +The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing +to lose—not even a pair of breeches—and everything to gain. +</p> +<p> +"Please," said the apparition, "the pilot's gone, and you can't put +me off!" +</p> +<p> +The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and the +modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a +four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain +softening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his +way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a +little—a surface smile, with fear just behind. +</p> +<p> +"The Captain's boy's my size; I could wear his clothes," he +suggested. +</p> +<p> +Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman's picture in +his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been +small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, +the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that in +the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his +best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense +of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was +hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as +was his way when excited. +</p> +<p> +"And where ha' ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early——" +he hesitated. +</p> +<p> +"Don't lie! Where were ye?" +</p> +<p> +"In a passenger's room, under a bed. When the passengers came aboard +I had to get out." +</p> +<p> +"How did ye get here?" +</p> +<p> +This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the +connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess. +</p> +<p> +"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this time, rather like the +Senior Second's when the Chief and he had shaken hands. +</p> +<p> +"A nigger!" he said. "A coloured fella in a white suit." +</p> +<p> +There was not a darky on the boat. The Red Un, whose code was the +truth when possible, but any lie to save a friend—and that's the +code of a gentleman—sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel to +cover as much as possible of his small person. +</p> +<p> +"You're lying! Do you know what we do with liars on this ship? We +throw them overboard!" +</p> +<p> +"Then I'm thinking," responded the Turkish towel, "that you'll be +needing another Chief Engineer before long!" +</p> +<p> +Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip. The previous +one had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple who +had liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled on +his cheek. The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clear +that no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and he +apparently lacked lashes entirely. He rose and took a bathrobe from +a hook on the door. +</p> +<p> +"Here," he said; "cover your legs wi' that, and say a prayer if ye' +know wan. The Captain's a verra hard man wi' stowaways." +</p> +<p> +The Captain, however, who was a gentleman and a navigator and had a +sense of humour also, was not hard with the Red Un. It being +impracticable to take the boy to him, the great man made a special +visit to the boy. The Red Un, in the Chief's bathrobe, sat on a +chair, with his feet about four inches from the floor, and returned +the Captain's glare with wide blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Is there any reason, young man, why I shouldn't order you to the +lockup for the balance of this voyage?" the Captain demanded, extra +grim, and trying not to smile. +</p> +<p> +"Well," said the Red Un, wiggling his legs nervously, "you'd have to +feed me, wouldn't you? And I might as well work for my keep." +</p> +<p> +This being a fundamental truth on which most economics and all +governments are founded, and the Captain having a boy of his own at +home, he gave a grudging consent, for the sake of discipline, to the +Red Un's working for his keep as the Chief's boy, and left. Outside +the door he paused. +</p> +<p> +"The little devil's starved," he said. "Put some meat on those +ribs, Chief, and—be a bit easy with him!" +</p> +<p> +This last was facetious, the Chief being known to have the heart of +a child. +</p> +<p> +So the Red Un went on the payroll of the line, and requisition was +made on the storekeeper for the short-tailed coat and the long +trousers, and on the barber for a hair-cut. And in some curious way +the Red Un and the Chief hit it off. It might have been a matter of +red blood or of indomitable spirit. +</p> +<p> +Spirit enough and to spare had the Red Un. On the trip out he had +licked the Captain's boy and the Purser's boy; on the incoming trip +he had lashed the Doctor's boy to his triumphant mast, and only +three days before he had settled a row in the stokehole by putting +hot ashes down the back of a drunken trimmer, and changing his +attitude from menace with a steel shovel to supplication and prayer. +</p> +<p> +He had no business in the stokehole, but by that time he knew every +corner of the ship—called the engines by name and the men by +epithets; had named one of the pumps Marguerite, after the Junior +Second's best girl; and had taken violent partisanship in the +eternal rivalry of the liner between the engine room and the bridge. +</p> +<p> +"Aw, gwan!" he said to the Captain's boy. "Where'd you and your Old +Man be but for us? In a blasted steel tank, floating about on the +bloomin' sea! What's a ship without insides?" +</p> +<p> +The Captain's boy, who was fourteen, and kept his bath sponge in a +rubber bag, and shaved now and then with the Captain's razor, +retorted in kind. +</p> +<p> +"You fellows below think you're the whole bally ship!" he said +loftily. "Insides is all right—we need 'em in our business. But +what'd your steel tank do, with the engines goin', if she +wasn't bein' navigated? Steamin' in circles, like a tinklin' +merry-go-round!" +</p> +<p> +It was some seconds after this that the Purser, a well-intentioned +but interfering gentleman with a beard, received the kick that put +him in dry dock for two days. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +II +</p> +<p> +They were three days out of New York on the Red Un's second round +trip when the Second, still playing the game and almost despairing, +made a strategic move. The Red Un was laying out the Chief's +luncheon on his desk—a clean napkin for a cloth; a glass; silver; a +plate; and the menu from the first-cabin dining saloon. The menu was +propped against a framed verse: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>But I ha' lived and I ha' worked!</i> <br /> + <i>All thanks to Thee, Most High.</i> +</p> +<p> +And as he placed the menu, the Red Un repeated the words from +McAndrew's hymn. It had rather got him at first; it was a new +philosophy of life. To give thanks for life was understandable, even +if unnecessary. But thanks for work! There was another framed card +above the desk, more within the Red Un's ken: "Cable crossing! Do +not anchor here!" +</p> +<p> +The card worked well with the first class, resting in the Chief's +cabin after the arduous labours of seeing the engines. +</p> +<p> +The Chief was below, flat on his back in a manhole looking for a +staccato note that did not belong in his trained and orderly chorus. +There was grease in his sandy hair, and the cranks were only a few +inches from his nose. By opening the door the Red Un was able to +command the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is the +roof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walk +on—depending on whether one is used to it or not. The Chief was +naturally not in sight. +</p> +<p> +This gave the Red Un two minutes' leeway—two minutes for +exploration. A drawer in the desk, always heretofore locked, was +unfastened—that is, the bolt had been shot before the drawer was +entirely closed. The Red Un was jealous of that drawer. In two +voyages he had learned most of the Chief's history and, lacking one +of his own, had appropriated it to himself. Thus it was not unusual +for him to remark casually, as he stood behind the Chief's chair at +dinner: "We'd better send this here postcard to Cousin Willie, at +Edinburgh." +</p> +<p> +"Ou-ay!" the Chief would agree, and tear off the postcard of the +ship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to this +one drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to their +perfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the Red Un's content. +</p> +<p> +Now, at last—— Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set him +wiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged his +great babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, yclept +the Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first +he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the +door. Then he found a disappointing something—the lid of a +cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red +Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open +life. But the picture was disappointing—a snapshot of a young +woman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket, +obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poor +spoil this—a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However, +marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For on +its reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>Ye know how hard an idol dies,</i> <br /> + <i>An' what that meant to me—</i> <br /> + <i>E'en tak' it for a sacrifice</i> <br /> + <i>Acceptable to Thee.</i> +</p> +<p> +The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she was +dead what did it matter? He was a literal youth—so far, his own +words had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirty +that a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressing +them, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was over +thirty. +</p> +<p> +It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. The +alley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Un +eyed him unpleasantly. +</p> +<p> +"Sneaking!" said the Second. +</p> +<p> +"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un. +</p> +<p> +The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of +humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know, William," he observed—William was the Red Un's +name—"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised +account of what's in that drawer?" +</p> +<p> +"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell +you." +</p> +<p> +"Three?" said the Second cheerfully. +</p> +<p> +"No." +</p> +<p> +"Four?" +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you look yourself?" +</p> +<p> +"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you +volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of, +say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco——" +</p> +<p> +"What do you want to know for?" +</p> +<p> +"I guess you know." +</p> +<p> +The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still +playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the +Red Un did not know how the Chief won—and as for the two Seconds +and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped. +</p> +<p> +This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and +first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of +the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps +cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of +airtrunks. +</p> +<p> +So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedingly +galling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford on +the run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam to +auxiliaries—"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in their +bunks!" as the Third put it. +</p> +<p> +The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed and +presumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, which +gives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off the +airpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in the +trunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether the +Chief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had always +wakened. +</p> +<p> +It was uncanny. It was worse than that—it was damnable! Did not the +Old Man sleep at all?—not that he was old, but every Chief is the +Old Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and the +engine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds would +shut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down, +wheeze, pant and die—and within two seconds the Chief's bell would +ring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the several +kinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in the +game to the Chief! +</p> +<p> +It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the +impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious +search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked +drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in +Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. +They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could do +without sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +"If at any time," observed the Second pleasantly, "you would like +that cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it." +</p> +<p> +"Thanks, old man," said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on the +wall. +</p> +<p> +The Second took a step forward and thought better of it. +</p> +<p> +"Better think about it!" +</p> +<p> +"I was thinking of something else," said the Red Un, still staring +at the wall. The Second followed his eye. The Red Un was gazing +intently at the sign which said: "Cable crossing! Do not anchor +here!" +</p> +<p> +As the Second slammed out, the Chief crawled from his manhole and +struggled out of his greasy overalls. Except for his face, he was +quite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaft +revolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where at +the after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, bearded +with scud, out of the water. +</p> +<p> +"It looks like weather to-night," he observed, with a twinkle, to +the Fourth. "There'll aye be air wanted." But the Fourth was gazing +at a steam gauge. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +III +</p> +<p> +The Red Un's story, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts—his +temptation, his fall and his redemption. All lives are so divided: a +step back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a little +climb up God's ladder. +</p> +<p> +Seven days the liner lay in New York—seven days of early autumn +heat, of blistering decks, of drunken and deserting trimmers, of +creaking gear and grime of coal-dust. The cabin which held the Red +Un and the Purser's boy was breathless. On Sunday the four ship's +boys went to Coney Island and lay in the surf half the afternoon. +The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodies +was Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the waves +move them about, and out of the depths of a deep content making +caustic comments about the human form as revealed by the relentless +sea. +</p> +<p> +"That's a pippin!" they would say; or, "My aunt! looks at his legs!" +They voiced their opinions audibly and were ready to back them up +with flight or fight. +</p> +<p> +It was there that the Red Un saw the little girl. She had come from +a machine, and her mother stood near. She was not a Coney Islander. +She was first-cabin certainly—silk stockings on her thin ankles, +sheer white frock; no jewelry. She took a snapshot of the four +boys—to their discomfiture—and walked away while they were still +writhing. +</p> +<p> +"That for mine!" said the Red Un in one of his rare enthusiasms. +</p> +<p> +They had supper—a sandwich and a glass of beer; they would have +preferred pop, but what deep-water man on shore drinks pop?—and +made their way back to the ship by moonlight. The Red Un was terse +in his speech on the car: mostly he ate peanuts abstractedly. If he +evolved any clear idea out of the chaos of his mind it was to wish +she had snapped him in his uniform with the brass buttons. +</p> +<p> +The heat continued; the men in the stokehole, keeping up only enough +steam for the dynamos and donkey engines, took turns under the +ventilators or crawled up to the boatdeck at dusk, too exhausted to +dress and go ashore. The swimmers were overboard in the cool river +with the first shadows of night; the Quartermaster, so old that he +dyed his hair for fear he'd be superannuated, lowered his lean body +hand over hand down a rope and sat by the hour on a stringpiece of +the dock, with the water laving his hairy and tattooed old breast. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un was forbidden the river. To be honest, he was rather +relieved—not twice does a man dare the river god, having once been +crowned with his slime and water-weed. When the boy grew very hot +he slipped into a second-cabin shower, and stood for luxurious +minutes with streams running off his nose and the ends of his +fingers and splashing about his bony ankles. +</p> +<p> +Then, one night, some of the men took as many passengers' lifebelts +and went in. The immediate result was fun combined with safety; the +secondary result was placards over the ship and the dock, forbidding +the use of the ship's lifebelts by the crew. +</p> +<p> +From that moment the Red Un was possessed for the river and a +lifebelt. So were the other three. The signs were responsible. +Permitted, a ship's lifebelt was a subterfuge of the cowardly, +white-livered skunks who were afraid of a little water; forbidden, a +ship's lifebelt took on the qualities of enemy's property—to be +reconnoitred, assaulted, captured and turned to personal advantage. +</p> +<p> +That very night, then, four small bodies, each naked save for a +lifebelt, barrelshaped and extending from breast almost to knee, +slipped over the side of the ship with awkward splashes and +proceeded to disport themselves in the river. Scolding tugs sent +waves for them to ride; ferries crawled like gigantic bugs with a +hundred staring eyes. They found the Quartermaster on a stringpiece +immersed to the neck and smoking his pipe, and surrounded him—four +small, shouting imps, floating barrels with splashing hands and +kicking feet. +</p> +<p> +"Gwan, ye little devils!" said the Quartermaster, clutching the +stringpiece and looking about in the gloom for a weapon. The Red Un, +quite safe and audacious in his cork jacket, turned over on his back +and kicked. +</p> +<p> +"Gwan yerself, Methuselah!" he sang. +</p> +<p> +They stole the old man's pipe and passed it from mouth to mouth; +they engaged him in innocent converse while one of them pinched his +bare old toe under water, crab-fashion. And at last they prepared to +shin up the rope again and sleep the sleep of the young, the +innocent and the refreshed. +</p> +<p> +The Chief was leaning over the rail, just above, smoking! +</p> +<p> +He leaned against the rail and smoked for three hours! Eight eyes, +watching him from below, failed to find anything in his face but +contemplation; eight hands puckered like a washerwoman's; eight feet +turned from medium to clean, from clean to bleached—and still the +Chief smoked on. He watched the scolding tugs and the ferryboats +that crawled over the top of the water; he stood in rapt +contemplation of the electric signs in Jersey, while the ship's +bells marked the passage of time to eternity, while the +Quartermaster slept in his bed, while the odours of the river stank +in their nostrils and the pressure of the ship's lifebelts weighed +like lead on their clammy bodies. +</p> +<p> +At eight bells—which is midnight—the Chief emptied his +twenty-fourth pipe over the rail and smiled into the gloom beneath. +</p> +<p> +"Ye'll better be coming up," he remarked pleasantly. "I'm for +turning in mysel'." +</p> +<p> +He wandered away; none of the watch was near. The ship was dark, +save for her riding lights. Hand over puckered hand they struggled +up and wriggled out of the belts; stark naked they ducked through +passageways and alleys, and stowed their damp and cringing forms +between sheets. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un served the Chief's breakfast the next morning very +carefully. The Chief's cantaloupe was iced; his kipper covered with +a hot plate; the morning paper propped against McAndrew's hymn. The +Red Un looked very clean and rather bleached. +</p> +<p> +The Chief was busy; he read the night reports, which did not amount +to much, the well soundings, and a letter from a man offering to +show him how to increase the efficiency of his engines fifty per +cent, and another offering him a rake-off on a new lubricant. +</p> +<p> +Outwardly the Chief was calm—even cold. Inwardly he was rather +uncomfortable: he could feel two blue eyes fixed on his back and +remembered the day he had pulled them out of the river, and how +fixed and desperate they were then. But what was it McAndrew said? +"Law, order, duty an' restraint, obedience, discipline!" +</p> +<p> +Besides, if the boys were going to run off with the belts some +damned first-class passenger was likely to get a cabin minus a belt +and might write to the management. The line had had bad luck; it did +not want another black eye. He cleared his throat; the Red Un +dropped a fork. +</p> +<p> +"That sort of thing last night won't do, William." +</p> +<p> +"N-No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"Ye had seen the signs, of course?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir." The Red Un never lied to the Chief; it was useless. +</p> +<p> +The Chief toyed with his kipper. +</p> +<p> +"Ye'll understand I'd ha' preferred dealin' with the matter mysel'; +but it's—gone up higher." +</p> +<p> +The Quartermaster, of course! The Chief rose and pretended to glance +over the well soundings. +</p> +<p> +"The four of ye will meet me in the Captain's room in fifteen +minutes," he observed casually. +</p> +<p> +The Captain was feeding his cat when the Red Un got there. The four +boys lined up uncomfortably; all of them looked clean, subdued, +apprehensive. If they were to be locked up in this sort of weather, +and only three days to sailing time—even a fine would be better. +The Captain stroked the cat and eyed them. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he said curtly, "what have you four young imps been up to +now?" +</p> +<p> +The four young imps stood panicky. They looked as innocent as choir +boys. The cat, eating her kipper, wheezed. +</p> +<p> +"Please, sir," said the Captain's boy solicitously, "Peter has +something in his throat." +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps it's a ship's lifebelt," said the Captain grimly, and +caught the Chief's eye. +</p> +<p> +The line palpitated; under cover of its confusion the Chief, +standing in the doorway with folded arms, winked swiftly at the +Captain; the next moment he was more dour than ever. +</p> +<p> +"You are four upsetters of discipline," said the Captain, suddenly +pounding the table. "You four young monkeys have got the crew by the +ears, and I'm sick of it! Which one of you put the fish in Mrs. +Schmidt's bed?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Schmidt was a stewardess. The Red Un stepped forward. +</p> +<p> +"Who turned the deckhose into the Purser's cabin night before last?" +</p> +<p> +"Please," said the Doctor's boy pallidly, "I made a mistake in the +room. I thought——" +</p> +<p> +"Who," shouted the Captain, banging again, "cut the Quartermaster's +rope two nights ago and left him sitting under the dock for four +hours?" +</p> +<p> +The Purser's boy this time, white to the lips! Fresh panic seized +them; it could hardly be mere arrest if he knew all this; he might +order them hanged from a yardarm or shot at sunrise. He looked like +the latter. The Red Un glanced at the Chief, who looked apprehensive +also, as if the thing was going too far. The Captain may have read +their thoughts, for he said: +</p> +<p> +"You're limbs of Satan, all of you, and hanging's too good for you. +What do you say, Chief? How can we make these young scamps lessons +in discipline to the crew?" +</p> +<p> +Everybody breathed again and looked at the Chief—who stood tall and +sandy and rather young to be a Chief—in the doorway. +</p> +<p> +"Eh, mon," he said, and smiled, "I'm aye a bit severe. Don't ask me +to punish the bairns." +</p> +<p> +The Captain sniffed. +</p> +<p> +"Severe!" he observed. "You Scots are hard in the head, but soft in +the disposition. Come, Chief—shall they walk the plank?" +</p> +<p> +"Good deescipline," assented the Chief, "but it would leave us a bit +shorthanded." +</p> +<p> +"True," said the Captain gloomily. +</p> +<p> +"I was thinkin'," remarked the Chief diffidently—one hates to think +before the Captain; that's always supposed to be his job. +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" +</p> +<p> +"That we could make a verra fine example of them and still retain +their services. Ha' ye, by chance, seen a crow hangin' head down in +the field, a warnin' to other mischief-makers?" +</p> +<p> +"Ou-ay!" said the Captain, who had a Scotch mother. The line wavered +again; the Captain's boy, who pulled his fingers when he was +excited, cracked three knuckles. +</p> +<p> +"It would be good deescipline," continued the Chief, "to stand the +four o' them in ship's belt at the gangway, say for an hour, morning +and evening—clad, ye ken, as they were during the said +infreengements." +</p> +<p> +"You're a great man, Chief!" said the Captain. "You hear that, +lads'?" +</p> +<p> +"With—with no trousers'?" gasped the Doctor's boy. +</p> +<p> +"If you wore trousers last night. If not——" +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The thing was done that morning. Four small boys, clad only in +ship's belts, above which rose four sheepish heads and freckled +faces, below which shifted and wriggled eight bare legs, stood in +line at the gangway and suffered agonies of humiliation at the hands +of crew and dockmen, grinning customs inspectors, coalpassers, and a +newspaper photographer hunting a human-interest bit for a Sunday +paper. The cooks came up from below and peeped out at them; the +ship's cat took up a position in line and came out in the Sunday +edition as "a fellow conspirator." +</p> +<p> +The Red Un, owing to an early training that had considered clothing +desirable rather than essential, was not vitally concerned. The +Quartermaster had charge of the line; he had drawn a mark with chalk +along the deck, and he kept their toes to it by marching up and down +in front of them with a broomhandle over his shoulder. +</p> +<p> +"Toe up, you little varmints!" he would snap. "God knows I'd be glad +to get a rap at you—keeping an old man down in the water half the +night! Toe up!" +</p> +<p> +Whereupon, aiming an unlucky blow at the Purser's boy, he hit the +Captain's cat. The line snickered. +</p> +<p> +It was just after that the Red Un, surmising a snap by the +photographer on the dock and thwarting it by putting his thumb to +his nose, received the shock of his small life. The little girl from +Coney Island, followed by her mother, was on the pier—was showing +every evidence of coming up the gangway to where he stood. Was +coming! Panic seized the Red Un—panic winged with flight. He +turned—to face the Chief. Appeal sprang to the Red Un's lips. +</p> +<p> +"Please!" he gasped. "I'm sick, sick as h—, sick as a dog, Chief. +I've got a pain in my chest—I——" +</p> +<p> +Curiously enough, the Chief did not answer or even hear. He, too, +was looking at the girl on the gangway and at her mother. The next +moment the Chief was in full flight, ignominious flight, his face, +bleached with the heat of the engine room and the stokehole, set as +no emergency of broken shaft or flying gear had ever seen it. Broken +shaft indeed! A man's life may be a broken shaft. +</p> +<p> +The woman and the girl came up the gangway, exidently to inspect +staterooms. The Quartermaster had rallied the Red Un back to the +line and stood before him, brandishing his broomhandle. Black fury +was in the boy's eye; hate had written herself on his soul. His +Chief had ignored his appeal—had left him to his degradation—had +deserted him. +</p> +<p> +The girl saw the line, started, blushed, recognised the Red Un—and +laughed! +</p> +<p class="sec"> +IV +</p> +<p> +The great voyage began—began with the band playing and much waving +of flags and display of handkerchiefs; began with the girl and her +mother on board; began with the Chief eating his heart out over coal +and oil vouchers and well soundings and other things; began with the +Red Un in a new celluloid collar, lying awake at night to hate his +master, adding up his injury each day to greater magnitude. +</p> +<p> +The voyage began. The gong rang from the bridge. Stand By! said the +twin dials. Half Ahead! Full Ahead! Full Ahead! Man's wits once more +against the upreaching of the sea! The Chief, who knew that +somewhere above was his woman and her child, which was not his, +stood under a ventilator and said the few devout words with which he +commenced each voyage: +</p> +<p> +"With Thy help!" And then, snapping his watch: "Three minutes past +ten!" +</p> +<p> +The chief engineer of a liner is always a gentleman and frequently a +Christian. He knows, you see, how much his engines can do and how +little. It is not his engines alone that conquer the sea, nor his +engines plus his own mother wit. It is engines plus wit plus <i>x</i>, +and the <i>x</i> is God's mercy. Being responsible for two quantities out +of the three of the equation, he prays—if he does—with an eye on a +gauge and an ear open for a cylinder knock. +</p> +<p> +There was gossip in the engineers' mess those next days: the Old Man +was going to pieces. A man could stand so many years of the strain +and then where was he? In a land berth, growing fat and paunchy, and +eating his heart out for the sea, or—— The sea got him one way or +another! +</p> +<p> +The Senior Second stood out for the Chief. +</p> +<p> +"Wrong with him? There's nothing wrong with him," he declared. "If +he was any more on the job than he is I'd resign. He's on the job +twenty-four hours a day, nights included." +</p> +<p> +There was a laugh at this; the mess was on to the game. Most of them +were playing it. +</p> +<p> +So now we have the Red Un looking for revenge and in idle moments +lurking about the decks where the girl played. He washed his neck +under his collar those days. +</p> +<p> +And we have the Chief fretting over his engines, subduing drunken +stokers, quelling the frequent disturbances of Hell Alley, which led +to the firemen's quarters, eating little and smoking much, devising +out of his mental disquietude a hundred possible emergencies +and—keeping away from the passengers. The Junior Second took down +the two parties who came to see the engine room and gave them +lemonade when they came up. The little girl's mother came with the +second party and neither squealed nor asked questions—only at the +door into the stokeholes she stood a moment with dilated eyes. She +was a little woman, still slim, rather tragic. She laid a hand on +the Junior's arm. +</p> +<p> +"The—the engineers do not go in there, do they?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, madam. We stand four-hour watches. That is the Senior Second +Engineer on that pile of cinders." +</p> +<p> +The Senior Second was entirely black, except for his teeth and the +whites of his eyes. There was a little trouble in a coalbunker; +they had just discovered it. There would be no visitors after this +until the trouble was over. +</p> +<p> +The girl's mother said nothing more. The Junior Second led them +around, helping a pretty young woman about and explaining to her. +</p> +<p> +"This," he said, smiling at the girl, "is a pump the men have +nicknamed Marguerite, because she takes most of one man's time and +is always giving trouble." +</p> +<p> +The young woman tossed her head. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps she would do better if she were left alone," she suggested. +</p> +<p> +The girl's mother said nothing, but, before she left, she took one +long look about the engine room. In some such bedlam of noise and +heat <i>he</i> spent his life. She was wrong, of course, to pity him; one +need not measure labour by its conditions or by its cost, but by the +joy of achievement. The woman saw the engines—sinister, menacing, +frightful; the man saw power that answered to his hand—conquest, +victory. The beat that was uproar to her ears was as the throbbing +of his own heart. +</p> +<p> +It was after they had gone that the Chief emerged from the forward +stokehole where the trouble was. He had not seen her; she would not +have known him, probably, had they met face to face. He was quite +black and the light of battle gleamed in his eyes. +</p> +<p> +They fixed the trouble somehow. It was fire in a coalbunker, one of +the minor exigencies. Fire requiring air they smothered it one way +and another. It did not spread, but it did not quite die. And each +day's run was better than the day before. +</p> +<p> +The weather was good. The steerage, hanging over the bow, saw far +below the undercurling spray, white under dark blue—the blue +growing paler, paler still, until the white drops burst to the top +and danced free in the sun. A Greek, going home to Crete to marry a +wife, made all day long tiny boats of coloured paper, weighted with +corks, and sailed them down into the sea. +</p> +<p> +"They shall carry back to America my farewells!" he said, smiling. +"This to Pappas, the bootblack, who is my friend. This to a girl +back in America, with eyes—behold that darkest blue, my children; +so are her eyes! And this black one to my sister, who has lost a +child." +</p> +<p> +The first class watched the spray also—as it rose to the lip of a +glass. +</p> +<p> +Now at last it seemed they would break a record. Then rain set in, +without enough wind to make a sea, but requiring the starboard ports +to be closed. The Senior Second, going on duty at midnight that +night, found his Junior railing at fate and the airpumps going. +</p> +<p> +"Shut 'em off!" said the Senior Second furiously. +</p> +<p> +"Shut 'em off yourself. I've tried it twice." +</p> +<p> +The Senior Second gave a lever a vicious tug and the pump stopped. +Before it had quite lapsed into inertia the Chief's bell rang. +</p> +<p> +"Can you beat it?" demanded the Junior sulkily. "The old fox!" +</p> +<p> +The Senior cursed. Then he turned abruptly and climbed the steel +ladder he had just descended. The Junior, who was anticipating a +shower and bed, stared after him. +</p> +<p> +The Senior thought quickly—that was why he was a Senior. He found +the Red Un's cabin and hammered at the door. Then, finding it was +not locked, he walked in. The Red Un lay perched aloft; the shirt of +his small pajamas had worked up about his neck and his thin torso +lay bare. In one hand he clutched the dead end of a cigarette. The +Senior wakened him by running a forefinger down his ribs, much as a +boy runs a stick along a paling fence. +</p> +<p> +"Wha' ish it?" demanded the Red Un in sleepy soprano. And then "Wha' +d'ye want?" in bass. His voice was changing; he sounded like two +people in animated discussion most of the time. +</p> +<p> +"You boys want to earn a sovereign?" +</p> +<p> +The Purser's boy, who had refused to rouse to this point, sat up in +bed. +</p> +<p> +"Whaffor?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Get the Chief here some way. You"—to the Purser's boy—"go and +tell him the Red Un's ill and asking for him. You"—to the Red +Un—"double up; cry; do something. Start him off for the +doctor—anything, so you keep him ten minutes or so!" +</p> +<p> +The Red Un was still drowsy, and between sleeping and waking we are +what we are. +</p> +<p> +"I won't do it!" +</p> +<p> +The Senior Second held out a gold sovereign on his palm. +</p> +<p> +"Don't be a bally little ass!" he said. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un, waking full, now remembered that he hated the Chief; for +fear he did not hate him enough, he recalled the lifebelt, and his +legs, and the girl laughing. +</p> +<p> +"All right!" he said. "Gwan, Pimples! What'll I have? +Appendiceetis?" +</p> +<p> +"Have a toothache," snapped the Senior Second. "Tear off a few +yells—anything to keep him!" +</p> +<p> +It worked rather well; plots have a way of being successful in +direct proportion to their iniquity. Beneficent plots, like loving +relatives dressed as Santa Claus, frequently go wrong; while it has +been shown that the leakiest sort of scheme to wreck a bank will go +through with the band playing. +</p> +<p> +The Chief came and found the Red Un in agony, holding his jaw. Owing +to the fact that he lay far back in an upper bunk, it took time to +drag him into the light. It took more time to get his mouth open; +once open, the Red Un pointed to a snag that should have given him +trouble if it didn't, and set up a fresh outcry. +</p> +<p> +Not until long after could the Red Un recall without shame his share +in that night's work—recall the Chief, stubby hair erect, kind blue +eyes searching anxiously for the offending tooth. Recall it? Would +he ever forget the arm the Chief put about him, and him: "Ou-ay! +laddie; it's a weeked snag!" +</p> +<p> +The Chief, to whom God had denied a son of his flesh, had taken Red +Un to his heart, you see—fatherless wharf-rat and childless +engineer; the man acting on the dour Scot principle of chastening +whomsoever he loveth, and the boy cherishing a hate that was really +only hurt love. +</p> +<p> +And as the Chief, who had dragged the Red Un out of eternity and was +not minded to see him die of a toothache, took him back to his cabin +the pain grew better, ceased, turned to fright. The ten minutes or +so were over and what would they find? The Chief opened the door; he +had in mind a drop of whisky out of the flask he never touched on a +trip—whisky might help the tooth. +</p> +<p> +On the threshold he seemed to scent something amiss. He glanced at +the ceiling over his bunk, where the airtrunk lay, and then—he +looked at the boy. He stooped down and put a hand on the boy's head, +turning it to the light. +</p> +<p> +"Tell me now, lad," he said quietly, "did ye or did ye no ha' the +toothache?" +</p> +<p> +"It's better now," sullenly. +</p> +<p> +"Did ye or did ye no?" +</p> +<p> +"No." +</p> +<p> +The Chief turned the boy about and pushed him through the doorway +into outer darkness. He said nothing. Down to his very depths he was +hurt. To have lost the game was something; but it was more than +that. Had he been a man of words he might have said that once again +a creature he loved had turned on him to his injury. Being a Scot +and a man of few words he merely said he was damned, and crawled +back into bed. +</p> +<p> +The game? Well, that was simple enough. Directly over his pillow, in +the white-painted airtrunk, was a brass plate, fastened with four +screws. In case of anything wrong with the ventilator the plate +could be taken off for purposes of investigation. +</p> +<p> +The Chief's scheme had been simplicity itself—so easy that the +Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had +never thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, and +officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shut +off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked +the bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's picture +and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the +back—written out of a sore heart, be sure. And then he took out +the cigar-box lid. +</p> +<p> +When he had unscrewed the brass plate over his head he replaced it +with the lid of the cigar-box. So long as the pumps in the engine +room kept the air moving, the lid stayed up by suction. +</p> +<p> +When the air stopped the lid fell down on his head; he roused enough +to press a signal button and, as the air started viciously, to +replace the lid. Then, off to the sleep of the just and the crafty +again. And so on <i>ad infinitum</i>. +</p> +<p> +Of course the game was not over because it was discovered and the +lid gone. There would be other lids. But the snap, the joy, was gone +out of it. It would never again be the same, and the worst of all +was the manner of the betrayal. +</p> +<p> +He slept but little the remainder of the night; and, because unrest +travels best from soul to soul at night, when the crowding emotions +of the day give it place, the woman slept little also. She was +thinking of the entrance to the stokehole, where one crouched under +the bellies of furnaces, and where the engineer on duty stood on a +pile of hot cinders. Toward morning her room grew very close: the +air from the ventilator seemed to have ceased. +</p> +<p> +Far down in the ship, in a breathless little cabin far aft, the Red +Un kicked the Purser's boy and cried himself to sleep. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +V +</p> +<p> +The old ship made a record the next night that lifted the day's run +to four hundred and twenty. She was not a greyhound, you see. +Generally speaking, she was a nine-day boat. She averaged well under +four hundred miles. The fast boats went by her and slid over the +edge of the sea, throwing her bits of news by wireless over a +shoulder, so to speak. +</p> +<p> +The little girl's mother was not a good sailor. She sat almost all +day in a steamer chair, reading or looking out over the rail. Each +day she tore off the postal from the top of her menu and sent it to +the girl's father. She missed him more than she had expected. He had +become a habit; he was solid, dependable, loyal. He had never heard +of the Chief. +</p> +<p> +"Dear Daddy," she would write: "Having a splendid voyage so far, but +wish you were here. The baby is having such a good time—so popular; +and won two prizes to-day at the sports! With love, Lily." +</p> +<p> +They were all rather like that. She would drop them in the mailbox, +with a tug of tenderness for the man who worked at home. Then she +would go back to her chair and watch the sea, and recall the heat of +the engine room below, and wonder, wonder—— +</p> +<p> +It had turned warm again; the edges of the horizon were grey and at +night a low mist lay over the water. Rooms were stifling, humid. The +Red Un discarded pajamas and slept in his skin. The engine-room +watch came up white round the lips and sprawled over the boat deck +without speech. Things were going wrong in the Red Un's small world. +The Chief hardly spoke to him—was grave and quiet, and ate almost +nothing. The Red Un hated himself unspeakably and gave his share of +the sovereign to the Purser's boy. +</p> +<p> +The Chief was suffering from lack of exercise in the air as well as +other things. The girl's mother was not sleeping—what with heat and +the memories the sea had revived. On the fifth night out, while the +ship slept, these two met on the deck in the darkness—two shadows +out of the past. The deck was dark, but a ray from a window touched +his face and she knew him. He had not needed light to know her; +every line of her was written on his heart, and for him there was no +one at home to hold in tenderness. +</p> +<p> +"I think I knew you were here all the time," she said, and held out +both hands. +</p> +<p> +The Chief took one and dropped it. She belonged to the person at +home. He had no thought of forgetting that! +</p> +<p> +"I saw your name on the passenger list, but I have been very busy." +He never lapsed into Scotch with her; she had not liked it. "Is +your husband with you?" +</p> +<p> +"He could not come just now. I have my daughter." +</p> +<p> +Her voice fell rather flat. The Chief could not think of anything to +say. Her child, and not his! He was a one-woman man, you see—and +this was the woman. +</p> +<p> +"I have seen her," he said presently. "She's like you, Lily." +</p> +<p> +That was a wrong move—the Lily; for it gave her courage to put her +hand on his arm. +</p> +<p> +"It is so long since we have met," she said wistfully. "Yesterday, +after I saw the—the place where you lived and—and work——" She +choked; she was emotional, rather weak. Having made the situation +she should have let it alone; but, after all, it is not what the +woman is, but what the man thinks she is. +</p> +<p> +The Chief stroked her fingers on his sleeve. +</p> +<p> +"It's not bad, Lily," he said. "It's a man's job. I like it." +</p> +<p> +"I believe you had forgotten me entirely!" +</p> +<p> +The Chief winced. "Isn't that the best thing you could wish me?" he +said. +</p> +<p> +"Are you happy?" +</p> +<p> +"'I ha' lived and I ha' worked!'" he quoted sturdily. +</p> +<p> +Very shortly after that he left her; he made an excuse of being +needed below and swung off, his head high. +</p> +<p class="sec"> +VI +</p> +<p> +They struck the derelict when the mist was thickest, about two that +morning. The Red Un was thrown out of his berth and landed, stark +naked, on the floor. The Purser's boy was on the floor, too, in a +tangle of bedding. There was a sickening silence for a moment, +followed by the sound of opening doors and feet in the passage. +There was very little speech. People ran for the decks. The Purser's +boy ran with them. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un never thought of the deck. One of the axioms of the +engine room is that of every man to his post in danger. The Red Un's +post was with his Chief. His bare feet scorched on the steel ladders +and the hot floor plates; he had on only his trousers, held up with +a belt. +</p> +<p> +The trouble was in the forward stokehole. Water was pouring in from +the starboard side—was welling up through the floor plates. The +wound was ghastly, fatal! The smouldering in the bunker had weakened +resistance there and her necrosed ribs had given away. The Red Un, +scurrying through the tunnel, was met by a maddened rush of trimmers +and stokers. He went down under them and came up bruised, bleeding, +battling for place. +</p> +<p> +"You skunks!" he blubbered. "You crazy cowards! Come back and help!" +</p> +<p> +A big stoker stopped and caught the boy's arm. +</p> +<p> +"You come on!" he gasped. "The whole thing'll go in a minute. She'll +go down by the head!" +</p> +<p> +He tried to catch the boy up in his arms, but the Red Un struck him +on the nose. +</p> +<p> +"Let me go, you big stiff!" he cried, and kicked himself free. +</p> +<p> +Not all the men had gone. They were working like fiends. It was up +to the bulkhead now. If it held—if it only held long enough to get +the passengers off! +</p> +<p> +Not an engineer thought of leaving his place, though they knew, +better even than the deck officers, how mortally the ship was hurt. +They called to their aid every resource of a business that is +nothing but emergencies. Engines plus wit, plus the grace of +God—and the engines were useless. Wits, then, plus Providence. The +pumps made no impression on the roaring flood; they lifted floor +plates to strengthen the bulkheads and worked until it was death to +work longer. Then, fighting for every foot, the little band +retreated to the after stokehole. Lights were out forward. The Chief +was the last to escape. He carried an oil lantern, and squeezed +through the bulkhead door with a wall of water behind him. +</p> +<p> +The Red Un cried out, but too late. The Chief, blinded by his +lantern, had stumbled into the pit where a floor plate had been +lifted. When he found his leg was broken he cried to them to go on +and leave him, but they got him out somehow and carried him with +them as they fought and retreated—fought and retreated. He was +still the Chief; he lay on the floor propped up against something +and directed the fight. The something he leaned against was the +strained body of the Red Un, who held him up and sniffled shamefaced +tears. She was down by the head already and rolling like a dying +thing. When the water came into the after stokehole they carried the +Chief into the engine room—the lights were going there. +</p> +<p> +There had been no panic on deck. There were boats enough and the +lights gave every one confidence. It was impossible to see the +lights going and believe the ship doomed. Those who knew felt the +list of the decks and hurried with the lowering of the boats; the +ones who saw only the lights wished to go back to their cabins for +clothing and money. +</p> +<p> +The woman sat in the Quartermaster's boat, with her daughter in her +arms, and stared at the ship. The Quartermaster said the engineers +were still below and took off his cap. In her feeble way the woman +tried to pray, and found only childish, futile things to say; but in +her mind there was a great wonder—that they, who had once been life +each to the other, should part thus, and that now, as ever, the good +part was hers! The girl looked up into her mother's face. +</p> +<p> +"The redhaired little boy, mother—do you think he is safe?" +</p> +<p> +"First off, likely," mumbled the Quartermaster grimly. +</p> +<p> +All the passengers were off. Under the mist the sea rose and fell +quietly; the boats and rafts had drawn off to a safe distance. The +Greek, who had humour as well as imagination, kept up the spirits of +those about him while he held a child in his arms. +</p> +<p> +"Shall we," he inquired gravely, "think you—shall we pay extra to +the company for this excursion?" +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The battle below had been fought and lost. It was of minutes now. +The Chief had given the order: "Every one for himself!" Some of the +men had gone, climbing to outer safety. The two Seconds had refused +to leave the Chief. All lights were off by that time. The after +stokehole was flooded and water rolled sickeningly in the +engine-pits. Each second it seemed the ship must take its fearful +dive into the quiet sea that so insistently reached up for her. +With infinite labour the Seconds got the Chief up to the fiddley, +twenty feet or less out of a hundred, and straight ladders instead +of a steel staircase. Ten men could not have lifted him without +gear, and there was not time! +</p> +<p> +Then, because the rest was hopeless, they left him there, propped +against the wall, with the lantern beside him. He shook hands with +them; the Junior was crying; the Senior went last, and after he had +gone up a little way he turned and came back. +</p> +<p> +"I can't do it, Chief!" he said. "I'll stick it out with you." But +the Chief drove him up, with the name of his wife and child. Far up +the shaft he turned and looked down. The lantern glowed faintly +below. +</p> +<p> +The Chief sat alone on his grating. He was faint with pain. The +blistering cylinders were growing cold; the steel floor beneath was +awash. More ominous still, as the ship's head sank, came crackings +and groanings from the engines below. They would fall through at the +last, ripping out the bulkheads and carrying her down bow first. +</p> +<p> +Pain had made the Chief rather dull. "'I ha' lived and I ha' +worked!'" he said several times—and waited for the end. Into his +stupor came the thought of the woman—and another thought of the +Red Un. Both of them had sold him out, so to speak; but the woman +had grown up with his heart and the boy was his by right of +salvage—only he thought of the woman as he dreamed of her, not as +he had seen her on the deck. He grew rather confused, after a time, +and said: "I ha' loved and I ha' worked!" +</p> +<p> +Just between life and death there comes a time when the fight seems +a draw, or as if each side, exhausted, had called a truce. There is +no more struggle, but it is not yet death. The ship lay so. The +upreaching sea had not conquered. The result was inevitable, but not +yet. And in the pause the Red Un came back, came crawling down the +ladder, his indomitable spirit driving his craven little body. +</p> +<p> +He had got as far as the boat and safety. The gripping devils of +fear that had followed him up from the engine room still hung to his +throat; but once on deck, with the silent men who were working +against time and eternity, he found he could not do it. He was the +Chief's boy—and the Chief was below and hurt! +</p> +<p> +The truce still held. As the ship rolled, water washed about the +foot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders. The Chief tried +desperately to drive him up to the deck and failed. +</p> +<p> +"It's no place for you alone," said the Red Un. His voice had +lost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man. +"I'm staying!" And after a hesitating moment he put his small, +frightened paw on the Chief's arm. +</p> +<p> +It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief—not love of life, but +love of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole—that was not so +bad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better than +where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather +than live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee. +</p> +<p> +"I'm thinking, laddie," he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow." +</p> +<p> +The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painful +rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. For +each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot—no more. What he would +not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy. +Halfway up, he clung, exhausted. +</p> +<p> +The boy leaned down and held out his hand. +</p> +<p> +"I'll pull," he said. "Just hang on to me." +</p> +<p> +Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the +silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He was +pulling indeed. +</p> +<p> +"About—that airtrunk," he managed to say—"I'm—sorry, sir!" +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection. In the +Quartermaster's boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on her +cheeks. The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired with +living. +</p> +<p> +It was the girl, after all, who spied them—two figures—one inert +and almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing a +blue face and two desperate eyes above a ship's lifebelt. +</p> +<p> +The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, pale +and tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart. His +eyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache. +He had died and lived again, and what was past was past. +</p> +<p> +"I thought," said the woman tremulously—"all night I thought that +you——" +</p> +<p> +The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry. His +eyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languid +youngster curled up at his feet, asleep. The woman drew back—as +from an intrusion. +</p> +<p> +As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up. His eyes +met the Chief's, and between them passed such a look of +understanding as made for the two one world, one victory! +</p> + +<hr class="long" /> + + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Stories, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 15473-h.htm or 15473-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/7/15473/ + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + +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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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: Love Stories + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: March 26, 2005 [EBook #15473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + + LOVE STORIES + + + +THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY +Publishers NEW YORK + + +PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT +WITH GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +Copyright, 1919, By George H. Doran Company + +Copyright, 1912, 1913, 1916, by the Curtis Publishing Company +Copyright, 1912, by The McClure Publications, Inc. +Copyright, 1917, by The Metropolitan Magazine Co. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + I + TWENTY-TWO + + II + JANE + + III + IN THE PAVILION + + IV + GOD'S FOOL + + V + THE MIRACLE + + VI + "ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!" + + VII + THE GAME + + + + +LOVE STORIES + + + + +TWENTY-TWO + + +I + +The Probationer's name was really Nella Jane Brown, but she was +entered in the training school as N. Jane Brown. However, she meant +when she was accepted to be plain Jane Brown. Not, of course, that +she could ever be really plain. + +People on the outside of hospitals have a curious theory about +nurses, especially if they are under twenty. They believe that they +have been disappointed in love. They never think that they may +intend to study medicine later on, or that they may think nursing is +a good and honourable career, or that they may really like to care +for the sick. + +The man in this story had the theory very hard. + +When he opened his eyes after the wall of the warehouse dropped, N. +Jane Brown was sitting beside him. She had been practising counting +pulses on him, and her eyes were slightly upturned and very earnest. + +There was a strong odour of burnt rags in the air, and the man +sniffed. Then he put a hand to his upper lip--the right hand. She +was holding his left. + +"Did I lose anything besides this?" he inquired. His little +moustache was almost entirely gone. A gust of fire had accompanied +the wall. + +"Your eyebrows," said Jane Brown. + +The man--he was as young for a man as Jane Brown was for a +nurse--the man lay quite still for a moment. Then: + +"I'm sorry to undeceive you," he said. "But my right leg is off." + +He said it lightly, because that is the way he took things. But he +had a strange singing in his ears. + +"I'm afraid it's broken. But you still have it." She smiled. She had +a very friendly smile. "Have you any pain anywhere?" + +He was terribly afraid she would go away and leave him, so, although +he was quite comfortable, owing to a hypodermic he had had, he +groaned slightly. He was, at that time, not particularly interested +in Jane Brown, but he did not want to be alone. He closed his eyes +and said feebly: + +"Water!" + +She gave him a teaspoonful, bending over him and being careful not +to spill it down his neck. Her uniform crackled when she moved. It +had rather too much starch in it. + +The man, whose name was Middleton, closed his eyes. Owing to the +morphia, he had at least a hundred things he wished to discuss. The +trouble was to fix on one out of the lot. + +"I feel like a bit of conversation," he observed. "How about you?" + +Then he saw that she was busy again. She held an old-fashioned +hunting-case watch in her hand, and her eyes were fixed on his +chest. At each rise and fall of the coverlet her lips moved. Mr. +Middleton, who was feeling wonderful, experimented. He drew four +very rapid breaths, and four very slow ones. He was rewarded by +seeing her rush to a table and write something on a sheet of yellow +paper. + +"Resparation, very iregular," was what she wrote. She was not a +particularly good speller. + +After that Mr. Middleton slept for what he felt was a day and a +night. It was really ten minutes by the hunting-case watch. Just +long enough for the Senior Surgical Interne, known in the school as +the S.S.I., to wander in, feel his pulse, approve of Jane Brown, and +go out. + +Jane Brown had risen nervously when he came in, and had proffered +him the order book and a clean towel, as she had been instructed. He +had, however, required neither. He glanced over the record, changed +the spelling of "resparation," arranged his tie at the mirror, took +another look at Jane Brown, and went out. He had not spoken. + +It was when his white-linen clad figure went out that Middleton +wakened and found it was the same day. He felt at once like +conversation, and he began immediately. But the morphia did a +curious thing to him. He was never afterward able to explain it. It +made him create. He lay there and invented for Jane Brown a +fictitious person, who was himself. This person, he said, was a +newspaper reporter, who had been sent to report the warehouse fire. +He had got too close, and a wall had come down on him. He invented +the newspaper, too, but, as Jane Brown had come from somewhere else, +she did not notice this. + +In fact, after a time he felt that she was not as really interested +as she might have been, so he introduced a love element. He was, as +has been said, of those who believe that nurses go into hospitals +because of being blighted. So he introduced a Mabel, suppressing her +other name, and boasted, in a way he afterward remembered with +horror, that Mabel was in love with him. She was, he related, +something or other on his paper. + +At the end of two hours of babbling, a businesslike person in a +cap--the Probationer wears no cap--relieved Jane Brown, and spilled +some beef tea down his neck. + +Now, Mr. Middleton knew no one in that city. He had been motoring +through, and he had, on seeing the warehouse burning, abandoned his +machine for a closer view. He had left it with the engine running, +and, as a matter of fact, it ran for four hours, when it died of +starvation, and was subsequently interred in a city garage. However, +he owned a number of cars, so he wasted no thought on that one. He +was a great deal more worried about his eyebrows, and, naturally, +about his leg. + +When he had been in the hospital ten hours it occurred to him to +notify his family. But he put it off for two reasons: first, it +would be a lot of trouble; second, he had no reason to think they +particularly wanted to know. They all had such a lot of things to +do, such as bridge and opening country houses and going to the +Springs. They were really overwhelmed, without anything new, and +they had never been awfully interested in him anyhow. + +He was not at all bitter about it. + +That night Mr. Middleton--but he was now officially "Twenty-two," by +that system of metonymy which designates a hospital private patient +by the number of his room--that night "Twenty-two" had rather a bad +time, between his leg and his conscience. Both carried on +disgracefully. His leg stabbed, and his conscience reminded him of +Mabel, and that if one is going to lie, there should at least be a +reason. To lie out of the whole cloth----! + +However, toward morning, with what he felt was the entire +pharmacopoeia inside him, and his tongue feeling like a tar roof, he +made up his mind to stick to his story, at least as far as the young +lady with the old-fashioned watch was concerned. He had a sort of +creed, which shows how young he was, that one should never explain +to a girl. + +There was another reason still. There had been a faint sparkle in +the eyes of the young lady with the watch while he was lying to her. +He felt that she was seeing him in heroic guise, and the thought +pleased him. It was novel. + +To tell the truth, he had been getting awfully bored with himself +since he left college. Everything he tried to do, somebody else +could do so much better. And he comforted himself with this, that he +would have been a journalist if he could, or at least have published +a newspaper. He knew what was wrong with about a hundred newspapers. + +He decided to confess about Mabel, but to hold fast to journalism. +Then he lay in bed and watched for the Probationer to come back. + +However, here things began to go wrong. He did not see Jane Brown +again. There were day nurses and night nurses and reliefs, and +_internes_ and Staff and the Head Nurse and the First Assistant +and--everything but Jane Brown. And at last he inquired for her. + +"The first day I was in here," he said to Miss Willoughby, "there +was a little girl here without a cap. I don't know her name. But I +haven't seen her since." + +Miss Willoughby, who, if she had been disappointed in love, had +certainly had time to forget it, Miss Willoughby reflected. + +"Without a cap? Then it was only one of the probationers." + +"You don't remember which one?" + +But she only observed that probationers were always coming and +going, and it wasn't worth while learning their names until they +were accepted. And that, anyhow, probationers should never be sent +to private patients, who are paying a lot and want the best. + +"Really," she added, "I don't know what the school is coming to. +Since this war in Europe every girl wants to wear a uniform and be +ready to go to the front if we have trouble. All sorts of silly +children are applying. We have one now, on this very floor, not a +day over nineteen." + +"Who is she?" asked Middleton. He felt that this was the one. She +was so exactly the sort Miss Willoughby would object to. + +"Jane Brown," snapped Miss Willoughby. "A little, namby-pamby, +mush-and-milk creature, afraid of her own shadow." + +Now, Jane Brown, at that particular moment, was sitting in her +little room in the dormitory, with the old watch ticking on the +stand so she would not over-stay her off duty. She was aching with +fatigue from her head, with its smooth and shiny hair, to her feet, +which were in a bowl of witch hazel and hot water. And she was +crying over a letter she was writing. + +Jane Brown had just come from her first death. It had taken place in +H ward, where she daily washed window-sills, and disinfected stands, +and carried dishes in and out. And it had not been what she had +expected. In the first place, the man had died for hours. She had +never heard of this. She had thought of death as coming quickly--a +glance of farewell, closing eyes, and--rest. But for hours and hours +the struggle had gone on, a fight for breath that all the ward could +hear. And he had not closed his eyes at all. They were turned up, +and staring. + +The Probationer had suffered horribly, and at last she had gone +behind the screen and folded her hands and closed her eyes, and said +very low: + +"Dear God--please take him quickly." + +He had stopped breathing almost immediately. But that may have been +a coincidence. + +However, she was not writing that home. Between gasps she was +telling the humours of visiting day in the ward, and of how kind +every one was to her, which, if not entirely true, was not entirely +untrue. They were kind enough when they had time to be, or when they +remembered her. Only they did not always remember her. + +She ended by saying that she was quite sure they meant to accept her +when her three months was up. It was frightfully necessary that she +be accepted. + +She sent messages to all the little town, which had seen her off +almost _en masse_. And she added that the probationers received the +regular first-year allowance of eight dollars a month, and she could +make it do nicely--which was quite true, unless she kept on breaking +thermometers when she shook them down. + +At the end she sent her love to everybody, including even worthless +Johnny Fraser, who cut the grass and scrubbed the porches; and, of +course, to Doctor Willie. He was called Doctor Willie because his +father, who had taken him into partnership long ago, was Doctor +Will. It never had seemed odd, although Doctor Willie was now +sixty-five, and a saintly soul. + +Curiously enough, her letter was dated April first. Under that very +date, and about that time of the day, a health officer in a near-by +borough was making an entry regarding certain coloured gentlemen +shipped north from Louisiana to work on a railroad. Opposite the +name of one Augustus Baird he put a cross. This indicated that +Augustus Baird had not been vaccinated. + +By the sixth of April "Twenty-two" had progressed from splints to a +plaster cast, and was being most awfully bored. Jane Brown had not +returned, and there was a sort of relentless maturity about the +nurses who looked after him that annoyed him. + +Lying there, he had a good deal of time to study them, and somehow +his recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did not +seem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He could +not, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior Surgical +Interne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedly +bullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes too +small for her, as to their days off duty. + +Twenty-two began to learn things about the hospital. For instance, +the day nurse, while changing his pillow slips, would observe that +Nineteen was going to be operated on that day, and close her lips +over further information. But when the afternoon relief, while +giving him his toothbrush after lunch, said there was a most +interesting gall-stone case in nineteen, and the night nurse, in +reply to a direct question, told Nineteen's name, but nothing else, +Twenty-two had a fair working knowledge of the day's events. + +He seemed to learn about everything but Jane Brown. He knew when a +new baby came, and was even given a glimpse of one, showing, he +considered, about the colour and general contour of a maraschino +cherry. And he learned soon that the god of the hospital is the +Staff, although worship did not blind the nurses to their +weaknesses. Thus the older men, who had been trained before the day +of asepsis and modern methods, were revered but carefully watched. +They would get out of scrubbing their hands whenever they could, and +they hated their beards tied up with gauze. The nurses, keen, +competent and kindly, but shrewd, too, looked after these elderly +recalcitrants; loved a few, hated some, and presented to the world +unbroken ranks for their defence. + +Twenty-two learned also the story of the First Assistant, who was in +love with one of the Staff, who was married, and did not care for +her anyhow. So she wore tight shoes, and was always beautifully +waved, and read Browning. + +She had a way of coming in and saying brightly, as if to reassure +herself: + +"Good morning, Twenty-two. Well, God is still in His heaven, and +all's well with the world." + +Twenty-two got to feeling awfully uncomfortable about her. She used +to bring him flowers and sit down a moment to rest her feet, which +generally stung. And she would stop in the middle of a sentence and +look into space, but always with a determined smile. + +He felt awfully uncomfortable. She was so neat and so efficient--and +so tragic. He tried to imagine being hopelessly in love, and trying +to live on husks of Browning. Not even Mrs. Browning. + +The mind is a curious thing. Suddenly, from thinking of Mrs. +Browning, he thought of N. Jane Brown. Of course not by that +ridiculous name. He had learned that she was stationed on that +floor. And in the same flash he saw the Senior Surgical Interne +swanking about in white ducks and just the object for a probationer +to fall in love with. He lay there, and pulled the beginning of the +new moustache, and reflected. The First Assistant was pinning a +spray of hyacinth in her cap. + +"Look here," he said. "Why can't I be put in a wheeled chair and get +about? One that I can manipulate myself," he added craftily. + +She demurred. Indeed, everybody demurred when he put it up to them. +But he had gone through the world to the age of twenty-four, getting +his own way about ninety-seven per cent. of the time. He got it this +time, consisting of a new cast, which he named Elizabeth, and a +roller-chair, and he spent a full day learning how to steer himself +around. + +Then, on the afternoon of the third day, rolling back toward the +elevator and the _terra incognita_ which lay beyond, he saw a sign. +He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with a +plan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and it said: + +"No private patients allowed beyond here." + +Twenty-two sat in his chair and stared at it. The plaster cast +stretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket. +With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he was +well dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort of +college-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchased +for him. His other things were in that extremely expensive English +car which the city was storing. + +The plain truth is that Twenty-two was looking for Jane Brown. Since +she had not come to him, he must go to her. He particularly wanted +to set her right as to Mabel. And he felt, too, that that trick +about respirations had not been entirely fair. + +He was, of course, not in the slightest degree in love with her. He +had only seen her once, and then he had had a broken leg and a +quarter grain of morphia and a burned moustache and no eyebrows left +to speak of. + +But there was the sign. It was hung to a nail beside the elevator +shaft. And far beyond, down the corridor, was somebody in a blue +dress and no cap. It might be anybody, but again---- + +Twenty-two looked around. The elevator had just gone down at its +usual rate of a mile every two hours. In the convalescent parlour, +where private patients _en negligee_ complained about the hospital +food, the nurse in charge was making a new cap. Over all the +hospital brooded an after-luncheon peace. + +Twenty-two wheeled up under the sign and considered his average of +ninety-seven per cent. Followed in sequence these events: (a) +Twenty-two wheeled back to the parlour, where old Mr. Simond's cane +leaned against a table, and, while engaging that gentleman in +conversation, possessed himself of the cane. (b) Wheeled back to the +elevator. (c) Drew cane from beneath blanket. (d) Unhooked sign with +cane and concealed both under blanket. (e) Worked his way back along +the forbidden territory, past I and J until he came to H ward. + +Jane Brown was in H ward. + +She was alone, and looking very professional. There is nothing quite +so professional as a new nurse. She had, indeed, reached a point +where, if she took a pulse three times, she got somewhat similar +results. There had been a time when they had run something like +this: 56--80--120---- + +Jane Brown was taking pulses. It was a visiting day, and all the +beds had fresh white spreads, tucked in neatly at the foot. In the +exact middle of the centre table with its red cloth, was a vase of +yellow tulips. The sun came in and turned them to golden flame. + +Jane Brown was on duty alone and taking pulses with one eye while +she watched the visitors with the other. She did the watching better +than she did the pulses. For instance, she was distinctly aware that +Stanislas Krzykolski's wife, in the bed next the end, had just slid +a half-dozen greasy cakes, sprinkled with sugar, under his pillow. +She knew, however, that not only grease but love was in those cakes, +and she did not intend to confiscate them until after Mrs. +Krzykolski had gone. + +More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers, +walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with a +rouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hung +over the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, not +only the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass basins, +the fireplace fender, and the Probationer's hair. + +Twenty-two sat unnoticed in the doorway. A young girl, very lame, +with a mandolin, had just entered the ward. In the little stir of +her arrival, Twenty-two had time to see that Jane Brown was worth +even all the trouble he had taken, and more. Really, to see Jane +Brown properly, she should have always been seen in the sun. She was +that sort. + +The lame girl sat down in the centre of the ward, and the buzz died +away. She was not pretty, and she was very nervous. Twenty-two +frowned a trifle. + +"Poor devils," he said to himself. But Jane Brown put away her +hunting-case watch, and the lame girl swept the ward with soft eyes +that had in them a pity that was almost a benediction. + +Then she sang. Her voice was like her eyes, very sweet and rather +frightened, but tender. And suddenly something a little hard and +selfish in Twenty-two began to be horribly ashamed of itself. And, +for no earthly reason in the world, he began to feel like a cumberer +of the earth. Before she had finished the first song, he was +thinking that perhaps when he was getting about again, he might run +over to France for a few months in the ambulance service. A fellow +really ought to do his bit. + +At just about that point Jane Brown turned and saw him. And although +he had run all these risks to get to her, and even then had an +extremely cold tin sign lying on his knee under the blanket, at +first she did not know him. The shock of this was almost too much +for him. In all sorts of places people were glad to see him, +especially women. He was astonished, but it was good for him. + +She recognised him almost immediately, however, and flushed a +little, because she knew he had no business there. She was awfully +bound up with rules. + +"I came back on purpose to see you," said Twenty-two, when at last +the lame girl had limped away. "Because, that day I came in and you +looked after me, you know, I--must have talked a lot of nonsense." + +"Morphia makes some people talk," she said. It was said in an exact +copy of the ward nurse's voice, a frightfully professional and +impersonal tone. + +"But," said Twenty-two, stirring uneasily, "I said a lot that wasn't +true. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. Now that about a girl +named Mabel, for instance----" + +He stirred again, because, after all, what did it matter what he had +said? She was gazing over the ward. She was not interested in him. +She had almost forgotten him. And as he stirred Mr. Simond's cane +fell out. It was immediately followed by the tin sign, which only +gradually subsided, face up, on the bare floor, in a slowly +diminishing series of crashes. + +Jane Brown stooped and picked them both up and placed them on his +lap. Then, very stern, she marched out of the ward into the +corridor, and there subsided into quiet hysterics of mirth. +Twenty-two, who hated to be laughed at, followed her in the chair, +looking extremely annoyed. + +"What else was I to do?" he demanded, after a time. "Of course, if +you report it, I'm gone." + +"What do you intend to do with it now?" she asked. All her +professional manner had gone, and she looked alarmingly young. + +"If I put it back, I'll only have to steal it again. Because I am +absolutely bored to death in that room of mine. I have played a +thousand games of solitaire." + +The Probationer looked around. There was no one in sight. + +"I should think," she suggested, "that if you slipped it behind that +radiator, no one would ever know about it." + +Fortunately, the ambulance gong set up a clamour below the window +just then, and no one heard one of the hospital's most cherished +rules going, as one may say, into the discard. + +The Probationer leaned her nose against the window and looked down. +A coloured man was being carried in on a stretcher. Although she did +not know it--indeed, never did know it--the coloured gentleman in +question was one Augustus Baird. + +Soon afterward Twenty-two squeaked--his chair needed +oiling--squeaked back to his lonely room and took stock. He found +that he was rid of Mabel, but was still a reporter, hurt in doing +his duty. He had let this go because he saw that duty was a sort of +fetish with the Probationer. And since just now she liked him for +what she thought he was, why not wait to tell her until she liked +him for himself? + +He hoped she was going to like him, because she was going to see him +a lot. Also, he liked her even better than he had remembered that he +did. She had a sort of thoroughbred look that he liked. And he liked +the way her hair was soft and straight and shiny. And he liked the +way she was all business and no nonsense. And the way she counted +pulses, with her lips moving and a little frown between her +eyebrows. And he liked her for being herself--which is, after all, +the reason why most men like the women they like, and extremely +reasonable. + +The First Assistant loaned him Browning that afternoon, and he read +"Pippa Passes." He thought Pippa must have looked like the +Probationer. + +The Head was a bit querulous that evening. The Heads of Training +Schools get that way now and then, although they generally reveal it +only to the First Assistant. They have to do so many irreconcilable +things, such as keeping down expenses while keeping up requisitions, +and remembering the different sorts of sutures the Staff likes, and +receiving the Ladies' Committee, and conducting prayers and +lectures, and knowing by a swift survey of a ward that the stands +have been carbolised and all the toe-nails cut. Because it is +amazing the way toe-nails grow in bed. + +The Head would probably never have come out flatly, but she had a +wretched cold, and the First Assistant was giving her a mustard +footbath, which was very hot. The Head sat up with a blanket over +her shoulders, and read lists while her feet took on the blush of +ripe apples. And at last she said: + +"How is that Probationer with the ridiculous name getting along?" + +The First Assistant poured in more hot water. + +"N. Jane?" she asked. "Well, she's a nice little thing, and she +seems willing. But, of course----" + +The Head groaned. + +"Nineteen!" she said. "And no character at all. I detest fluttery +people. She flutters the moment I go into the ward." + +The First Assistant sat back and felt of her cap, which was of +starched tulle and was softening a bit from the steam. She felt a +thrill of pity for the Probationer. She, too, had once felt fluttery +when the Head came in. + +"She is very anxious to stay," she observed. "She works hard, too. +I----" + +"She has no personality, no decision," said the Head, and sneezed +twice. She was really very wretched, and so she was unfair. "She is +pretty and sweet. But I cannot run my training school on prettiness +and sweetness. Has Doctor Harvard come in yet?" + +"I--I think not," said the First Assistant. She looked up quickly, +but the Head was squeezing a lemon in a cup of hot water beside her. + +Now, while the Head was having a footbath, and Twenty-two was having +a stock-taking, and Augustus Baird was having his symptoms recorded, +Jane Brown was having a shock. + +She heard an unmistakable shuffling of feet in the corridor. + +Sounds take on much significance in a hospital, and probationers +study them, especially footsteps. It gives them a moment sometimes +to think what to do next. + +_Internes_, for instance, frequently wear rubber soles on their +white shoes and have a way of slipping up on one. And the engineer +goes on a half run, generally accompanied by the clanking of a tool +or two. And the elevator man runs, too, because generally the bell +is ringing. And ward patients shuffle about in carpet slippers, and +the pharmacy clerk has a brisk young step, inclined to be jaunty. + +But it is the Staff which is always unmistakable. It comes along the +corridor deliberately, inexorably. It plants its feet firmly and +with authority. It moves with the inevitability of fate, with the +pride of royalty, with the ease of the best made-to-order boots. The +ring of a Staff member's heel on a hospital corridor is the most +authoritative sound on earth. He may be the gentlest soul in the +world, but he will tread like royalty. + +But this was not Staff. Jane Brown knew this sound, and it filled +her with terror. It was the scuffling of four pairs of feet, +carefully instructed not to keep step. It meant, in other words, a +stretcher. But perhaps it was not coming to her. Ah, but it was! + +Panic seized Jane Brown. She knew there were certain things to do, +but they went out of her mind like a cat out of a cellar window. +However, the ward was watching. It had itself, generally speaking, +come in feet first. It knew the procedure. So, instructed by low +voices from the beds around, Jane Brown feverishly tore the spread +off the emergency bed and drew it somewhat apart from its fellows. +Then she stood back and waited. + +Came in four officers from the police patrol. Came in the Senior +Surgical Interne. Came two convalescents from the next ward to stare +in at the door. Came the stretcher, containing a quiet figure under +a grey blanket. + +Twenty-two, at that exact moment, was putting a queen on a ten spot +and pretending there is nothing wrong about cheating oneself. + +In a very short time the quiet figure was on the bed, and the Senior +Surgical Interne was writing in the order book: "Prepare for +operation." + +Jane Brown read it over his shoulder, which is not etiquette. + +"But--I can't," she quavered. "I don't know how. I won't touch him. +He's--he's bloody!" + +Then she took another look at the bed and she saw--Johnny Fraser. + +Now Johnny had, in his small way, played a part in the Probationer's +life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half +dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. +But _that_ Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given +to sitting in the sun. + +Here lay another Johnny Fraser, a quiet one, who might never again +feel the warm earth through his worthless clothes on his worthless +young body. A Johnny of closed eyes and slow, noisy breathing. + +"Why, Johnny!" said the Probationer, in a strangled voice. + +The Senior Surgical Interne was interested. + +"Know him?" he said. + +"He is a boy from home." She was still staring at this quiet, +un-impudent figure. + +The Senior Surgical Interne eyed her with an eye that was only +partially professional. Then he went to the medicine closet and +poured a bit of aromatic ammonia into a glass. + +"Sit down and drink this," he said, in a very masculine voice. He +liked to feel that he could do something for her. Indeed, there was +something almost proprietary in the way he took her pulse. + +Some time after the early hospital supper that evening Twenty-two, +having oiled his chair with some olive oil from his tray, made a +clandestine trip through the twilight of the corridor back of the +elevator shaft. To avoid scandal he pretended interest in other +wards, but he gravitated, as a needle to the pole, to H. And there +he found the Probationer, looking rather strained, and mothering a +quiet figure on a bed. + +He was a trifle puzzled at her distress, for she made no secret of +Johnny's status in the community. What he did not grasp was that +Johnny Fraser was a link between this new and rather terrible world +of the hospital and home. It was not Johnny alone, it was Johnny +scrubbing a home porch and doing it badly, it was Johnny in her +father's old clothes, it was Johnny fishing for catfish in the +creek, or lending his pole to one of the little brothers whose +pictures were on her table in the dormitory. + +Twenty-two felt a certain depression. He reflected rather grimly +that he had been ten days missing and that no one had apparently +given a hang whether he turned up or not. + +"Is he going to live?" he inquired. He could see that the ward nurse +had an eye on him, and was preparing for retreat. + +"O yes," said Jane Brown. "I think so now. The _interne_ says they +have had a message from Doctor Willie. He is coming." There was a +beautiful confidence in her tone. + +Things moved very fast with the Probationer for the next twenty-four +hours. Doctor Willie came, looking weary but smiling benevolently. +Jane Brown met him in a corridor and kissed him, as, indeed, she had +been in the habit of doing since her babyhood. + +"Where is the young rascal?" said Doctor Willie. "Up to his old +tricks, Nellie, and struck by a train." He put a hand under her +chin, which is never done to the members of the training school in a +hospital, and searched her face with his kind old eyes. "Well, how +does it go, Nellie?" + +Jane Brown swallowed hard. + +"All right," she managed. "They want to operate, Doctor Willie." + +"Tut!" he said. "Always in a hurry, these hospitals. We'll wait a +while, I think." + +"Is everybody well at home?" + +It had come to her, you see, what comes to every nurse once in her +training--the thinness of the veil, the terror of calamity, the fear +of death. + +"All well. And----" he glanced around. Only the Senior Surgical +Interne was in sight, and he was out of hearing. "Look here, +Nellie," he said, "I've got a dozen fresh eggs for you in my +satchel. Your mother sent them." + +She nearly lost her professional manner again then. But she only +asked him to warn the boys about automobiles and riding on the backs +of wagons. + +Had any one said Twenty-two to her, she would not have known what +was meant. Not just then, anyhow. + +In the doctors' room that night the Senior Surgical Interne lighted +a cigarette and telephoned to the operating room. + +"That trephining's off," he said, briefly. + +Then he fell to conversation with the Senior Medical, who was rather +worried about a case listed on the books as Augustus Baird, +coloured. + +Twenty-two did not sleep very well that night. He needed exercise, +he felt. But there was something else. Miss Brown had been just a +shade too ready to accept his explanation about Mabel, he felt, so +ready that he feared she had been more polite than sincere. Probably +she still believed there was a Mabel. Not that it mattered, except +that he hated to make a fool of himself. He roused once in the night +and was quite sure he heard her voice down the corridor. He knew +this must be wrong, because they would not make her work all day and +all night, too. + +But, as it happened, it _was_ Jane Brown. The hospital provided +plenty of sleeping time, but now and then there was a slip-up and +somebody paid. There had been a night operation, following on a busy +day, and the operating-room nurses needed help. Out of a sound sleep +the night Assistant had summoned Jane Brown to clean instruments. + +At five o'clock that morning she was still sitting on a stool beside +a glass table, polishing instruments which made her shiver. All +around were things that were spattered with blood. But she looked +anything but fluttery. She was a very grim and determined young +person just then, and professional beyond belief. The other things, +like washing window-sills and cutting toe-nails, had had no +significance. But here she was at last on the edge of mercy. Some +one who might have died had lived that night because of this room, +and these instruments, and willing hands. + +She hoped she would always have willing hands. + +She looked very pale at breakfast the next morning, and rather +older. Also she had a new note of authority in her voice when she +telephoned the kitchen and demanded H ward's soft-boiled eggs. She +washed window-sills that morning again, but no longer was there +rebellion in her soul. She was seeing suddenly how the hospital +required all these menial services, which were not menial at all but +only preparation; that there were little tasks and big ones, and one +graduated from the one to the other. + +She took some flowers from the ward bouquet and put them beside +Johnny's bed--Johnny, who was still lying quiet, with closed eyes. + +The Senior Surgical Interne did a dressing in the ward that morning. +He had been in to see Augustus Baird, and he felt uneasy. He vented +it on Tony, the Italian, with a stiletto thrust in his neck, by +jerking at the adhesive. Tony wailed, and Jane Brown, who was the +"dirty" nurse--which does not mean what it appears to mean, but is +the person who receives the soiled dressings--Jane Brown gritted her +teeth. + +"Keep quiet," said the S.S.I., who was a good fellow, but had never +been stabbed in the neck for running away with somebody else's wife. + +"Eet hurt," said Tony. "Ow." + +Jane Brown turned very pink. + +"Why don't you let me cut it off properly?" she said, in a strangled +tone. + +The total result of this was that Jane Brown was reprimanded by the +First Assistant, and learned some things about ethics. + +"But," she protested, "it was both stupid and cruel. And if I know I +am right----" + +"How are you to know you are right?" demanded the First Assistant, +crossly. Her feet were stinging. "'A little knowledge is a dangerous +thing.'" This was a favorite quotation of hers, although not +Browning. "Nurses in hospitals are there to carry out the doctor's +orders. Not to think or to say what they think unless they are +asked. To be intelligent, but----" + +"But not too intelligent!" said the Probationer. "I see." + +This was duly reported to the Head, who observed that it was merely +what she had expected and extremely pert. Her cold was hardly any +better. + +It was taking the Probationer quite a time to realise her own total +lack of significance in all this. She had been accustomed to men who +rose when a woman entered a room and remained standing as long as +she stood. And now she was in a new world, where she had to rise and +remain standing while a cocky youth in ducks, just out of medical +college, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and took a +_boutonniere_ from the ward bouquet. + +It was probably extremely good for her. + +She was frightfully tired that day, and toward evening the little +glow of service began to fade. There seemed to be nothing to do for +Johnny but to wait. Doctor Willie had seemed to think that nature +would clear matters up there, and had requested no operation. She +smoothed beds and carried cups of water and broke another +thermometer. And she put the eggs from home in the ward pantry and +made egg-nogs of them for Stanislas Krzykolski, who was +unaccountably upset as to stomach. + +She had entirely forgotten Twenty-two. He had stayed away all that +day, in a sort of faint hope that she would miss him. But she had +not. She was feeling rather worried, to tell the truth. For a Staff +surgeon going through the ward, had stopped by Johnny's bed and +examined the pupils of his eyes, and had then exchanged a glance +with the Senior Surgical Interne that had perplexed her. + +In the chapel at prayers that evening all around her the nurses sat +and rested, their tired hands folded in their laps. They talked a +little among themselves, but it was only a buzzing that reached the +Probationer faintly. Some one near was talking about something that +was missing. + +"Gone?" she said. "Of course it is gone. The bath-room man reported +it to me and I went and looked." + +"But who in the world would take it?" + +"My dear," said the first speaker, "who _does_ take things in a +hospital, anyhow? Only--a tin sign!" + +It was then that the Head came in. She swept in; her grey gown, her +grey hair gave her a majesty that filled the Probationer with awe. +Behind her came the First Assistant with the prayer-book and hymnal. +The Head believed in form. + +Jane Brown offered up a little prayer that night for Johnny Fraser, +and another little one without words, that Doctor Willie was right. +She sat and rested her weary young body, and remembered how Doctor +Willie was loved and respected, and the years he had cared for the +whole countryside. And the peace of the quiet room, with the Easter +lilies on the tiny altar, brought rest to her. + +It was when prayers were over that the Head made her announcement. +She rose and looked over the shadowy room, where among the rows of +white caps only the Probationer's head was uncovered, and she said: + +"I have an announcement to make to the training school. One which I +regret, and which will mean a certain amount of hardship and +deprivation. + +"A case of contagion has been discovered in one of the wards, and it +has been considered necessary to quarantine the hospital. The doors +were closed at seven-thirty this evening." + + +II + +Considering that he could not get out anyhow, Twenty-two took the +news of the quarantine calmly. He reflected that, if he was shut in, +Jane Brown was shut in also. He had a wicked hope, at the beginning, +that the Senior Surgical Interne had been shut out, but at nine +o'clock that evening that young gentleman showed up at the door of +his room, said "Cheer-o," came in, helped himself to a cigarette, +gave a professional glance at Twenty-two's toes, which were all that +was un-plastered of the leg, and departing threw back over his +shoulder his sole conversational effort: + +"Hell of a mess, isn't it?" + +Twenty-two took up again gloomily the book he was reading, which was +on Diseases of the Horse, from the hospital library. He was in the +midst of Glanders. + +He had, during most of that day, been making up his mind to let his +family know where he was. He did not think they cared, particularly. +He had no illusions about that. But there was something about Jane +Brown which made him feel like doing the decent thing. It annoyed +him frightfully, but there it was. She was so eminently the sort of +person who believed in doing the decent thing. + +So, about seven o'clock, he had sent the orderly out for stamps and +paper. He imagined that Jane Brown would not think writing home on +hospital stationery a good way to break bad news. But the orderly +had stopped for a chat at the engine house, and had ended by playing +a game of dominoes. When, at ten o'clock, he had returned to the +hospital entrance, the richer by a quarter and a glass of beer, he +had found a strange policeman on the hospital steps, and the doors +locked. + +The quarantine was on. + +Now there are different sorts of quarantines. There is the sort +where a trained nurse and the patient are shut up in a room and +bath, and the family only opens the door and peers in. And there is +the sort where the front door has a placard on it, and the family +goes in and out the back way, and takes a street-car to the office, +the same as usual. And there is the hospital quarantine, which is +the real thing, because hospitals are expected to do things +thoroughly. + +So our hospital was closed up as tight as a jar of preserves. There +were policemen at all the doors, quite suddenly. They locked the +doors and put the keys in their pockets, and from that time on they +opened them only to pass things in, such as newspapers or milk or +groceries or the braver members of the Staff. But not to let +anything out--except the Staff. Supposedly Staffs do not carry +germs. + +And, indeed, even the Staff was not keen about entering. It thought +of a lot of things it ought to do about visiting time, and +prescribed considerably over the telephone. + +At first there was a great deal of confusion, because quite a number +of people had been out on various errands when it happened. And they +came back, and protested to the office that they had only their +uniforms on under their coats, and three dollars; or their slippers +and no hats. Or that they would sue the city. One or two of them got +quite desperate and tried to crawl up the fire-escape, but failed. + +This is of interest chiefly because it profoundly affected Jane +Brown. Miss McAdoo, her ward nurse, had debated whether to wash her +hair that evening, or to take a walk. She had decided on the walk, +and was therefore shut out, along with the Junior Medical, the +kitchen cat, the Superintendent's mother-in-law and six other +nurses. + +The next morning the First Assistant gave Jane Brown charge of H +ward. + +"It's very irregular," she said. "I don't exactly know--you have +only one bad case, haven't you?" + +"Only Johnny." + +The First Assistant absent-mindedly ran a finger over the top of a +table, and examined it for dust. + +"Of course," she said, "it's a great chance for you. Show that you +can handle this ward, and you are practically safe." + +Jane Brown drew a long breath and stood up very straight. Then she +ran her eye over the ward. There was something vaguely reminiscent +of Miss McAdoo in her glance. + +Twenty-two made three brief excursions back along the corridor +that first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremely +professional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over the +ward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch of +blanket, and she pounced on the bed and reduced it to the most +horrible neatness. All the beds looked as if they had been made up +with a carpenter's square. + +On the third trip, however, Jane Brown was writing at the table. +Twenty-two wheeled himself into the doorway and eyed her with +disapproval. + +"What do you mean by sitting down?" he demanded sarcastically. +"Don't you know that now you are in charge you ought to keep +moving?" + +To which she replied, absently: + +"Three buttered toasts, two dry toasts, six soft boiled eggs, and +twelve soups." She was working on the diet slips. + +Then she smiled at him. They were quite old friends already. It is +curious about love and friendship and all those kindred emotions. +They do not grow nearly so fast when people are together as when +they are apart. It is an actual fact that the growth of many an +intimacy is checked by meetings. Because when people are apart it is +what they _are_ that counts, and when they are together it is what +they do and say and look like. Many a beautiful affair has been +ruined because, just as it was going along well, the principals met +again. + +However, all this merely means that Twenty-two and Jane Brown were +infinitely closer friends than four or five meetings really +indicates. + +The ward was very quiet on this late afternoon call of his save for +Johnny's heavy breathing. There is a quiet hour in a hospital, +between afternoon temperatures and the ringing of the bell which +means that the suppers for the wards are on their way--a quiet hour +when over the long rows of beds broods the peace of the ending day. + +It is a melancholy hour, too, because from the streets comes faintly +the echo of feet hurrying home, the eager trot of a horse bound +stableward. To those in the eddy that is the ward comes at this time +a certain heaviness of spirit. Poor thing though home may have been, +they long for it. + +In H ward that late afternoon there was a wave of homesickness in +the air, and on the part of those men who were up and about, who +shuffled up and down the ward in flapping carpet slippers, an +inclination to mutiny. + +"How did they take it?" Twenty-two inquired. She puckered her +eyebrows. + +"They don't like it," she confessed. "Some of them were about ready +to go home and it--_Tony!_" she called sharply. + +For Tony, who had been cunningly standing by the window leading to a +fire-escape, had flung the window up and was giving unmistakable +signs of climbing out and returning to the other man's wife. + +"Tony!" she called, and ran. Tony scrambled up on the sill. A sort +of titter ran over the ward and Tony, now on the platform outside, +waved a derisive hand through the window. + +"Good-bye, mees!" he said, and--disappeared. + +It was not a very dramatic thing, after all. It is chiefly +significant for its effect on Twenty-two, who was obliged to sit +frozen with horror and cursing his broken leg, while Jane Brown +raced a brown little Italian down the fire-escape and caught him at +the foot of it. Tony took a look around. The courtyard gates were +closed and a policeman sat outside on a camp-stool reading the +newspaper. Tony smiled sheepishly and surrendered. + +Some seconds later Tony and Jane Brown appeared on the platform +outside. Jane Brown had Tony by the ear, and she stopped long enough +outside to exchange the ear for his shoulder, by which she shook +him, vigorously. + +Twenty-two turned his chair around and wheeled himself back to his +room. He was filled with a cold rage--because she might have fallen +on the fire-escape and been killed; because he had not been able to +help her; because she was there, looking after the derelicts of +life, when the world was beautiful outside, and she was young; +because to her he was just Twenty-two and nothing more. + +He had seen her exactly six times. + +Jane Brown gave the ward a little talk that night before the night +nurse reported. She stood in the centre of the long room, beside the +tulips, and said that she was going to be alone there, and that she +would have to put the situation up to their sense of honour. If they +tried to escape, they would hurt her. Also they would surely be +caught and brought back. And, because she believed in a combination +of faith and deeds, she took three nails and the linen-room +flatiron, and nailed shut the window onto the fire-escape. + +After that, she brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and +rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and +hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving +motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because +there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she knew +at home. + +After that she sat down and made up her records for the night nurse. +The ward understood, and was perfectly good, trying hard not to muss +its pillows or wrinkle the covers. And struggling, too, with a new +idea. They were prisoners. No more release cards would brighten the +days. For an indefinite period the old Frenchman would moan at +night, and Bader the German would snore, and the Chinaman would +cough. Indefinitely they would eat soft-boiled eggs and rice and +beef-tea and cornstarch. + +The ward felt extremely low in its mind. + + * * * * * + +That night the Senior Surgical Interne went in to play cribbage with +Twenty-two, and received a lecture on leaving a young girl alone in +H with a lot of desperate men. They both grew rather heated over the +discussion and forgot to play cribbage at all. Twenty-two lay awake +half the night, because he had seen clearly that the Senior Surgical +Interne was interested in Jane Brown also, and would probably loaf +around H most of the time since there would be no new cases now. It +was a crowning humiliation to have the night nurse apply to the +Senior Surgical Interne for a sleeping powder for him! + +Toward morning he remembered that he had promised to write out from +memory one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese for the First +Assistant, and he turned on the light and jotted down two lines of +it. He wrote: + + "_For we two look two ways, and cannot shine + With the same sunlight on our brow and hair._"-- + +And then sat up in bed for half an hour looking at it because he was +so awfully afraid it was true of Jane Brown and himself. Not, of +course, that he wanted to shine at all. It was the looking two ways +that hurt. + +The next evening the nurses took their airing on the roof, which was +a sooty place with a parapet, and in the courtyard, which was an +equally sooty place with a wispy fountain. And because the whole +situation was new, they formed in little groups on the wooden +benches and sang, hands folded on white aprons, heads lifted, eyes +upturned to where, above the dimly lighted windows, the stars peered +palely through the smoke. + +The S.S.I. sauntered out. He had thought he saw the Probationer from +his window, and in the new relaxation of discipline he saw a chance +to join her. But the figure he had thought he recognised proved to +be some one else, and he fell to wandering alone up and down the +courtyard. + +He was trying to work out this problem: would the advantage of +marrying early and thus being considered eligible for certain +cases, offset the disadvantage of the extra expense? + +He decided to marry early and hang the expense. + +The days went by, three, then four, and a little line of tension +deepened around Jane Brown's mouth. Perhaps it has not been +mentioned that she had a fighting nose, short and straight, and a +wistful mouth. For Johnny Fraser was still lying in a stupor. + +Jane Brown felt that something was wrong. Doctor Willie came in once +or twice, making the long trip without complaint and without hope of +payment. All his busy life he had worked for the sake of work, and +not for reward. He called her "Nellie," to the delight of the ward, +which began to love him, and he spent a long hour each time by +Johnny's bed. But the Probationer was quick to realise that the +Senior Surgical Interne disapproved of him. + +That young man had developed a tendency to wander into H at odd +hours, and sit on the edge of a table, leaving Jane Brown divided +between proper respect for an _interne_ and fury over the wrinkling +of her table covers. It was during one of these visits that she +spoke of Doctor Willie. + +"Because he is a country practitioner," she said, "you--you +patronise him." + +"Not at all," said the Senior Surgical Interne. "Personally I like +him immensely." + +"Personally!" + +The Senior Surgical Interne waved a hand toward Johnny's bed. + +"Look there," he said. "You don't think that chap's getting any +better, do you?" + +"If," said Jane Brown, with suspicious quiet, "if you think you know +more than a man who has practised for forty years, and saved more +people than you ever saw, why don't you tell him so?" + +There is really no defence for this conversation. Discourse between +a probationer and an _interne_ is supposed to be limited to yea, +yea, and nay, nay. But the circumstances were unusual. + +"Tell him!" exclaimed the Senior Surgical Interne, "and be called +before the Executive Committee and fired! Dear girl, I am +inexpressibly flattered, but the voice of an _interne_ in a hospital +is the voice of one crying in the wilderness." + +Twenty-two, who was out on crutches that day for the first time, and +was looking very big and extremely awkward, Twenty-two looked back +from the elevator shaft and scowled. He seemed always to see a flash +of white duck near the door of H ward. + +To add to his chagrin, the Senior Surgical Interne clapped him on +the back in congratulation a moment later, and nearly upset him. He +had intended to go back to the ward and discuss a plan he had, but +he was very morose those days and really not a companionable person. +He stumped back to his room and resolutely went to bed. + +There he lay for a long time looking at the ceiling, and saying, out +of his misery, things not necessary to repeat. + +So Twenty-two went to bed and sulked, refusing supper, and having +the word "Vicious" marked on his record by the nurse, who hoped he +would see it some time. And Jane Brown went and sat beside a +strangely silent Johnny, and worried. And the Senior Surgical +Interne went down to the pharmacy and thereby altered a number of +things. + +The pharmacy clerk had been shaving--his own bedroom was dark--and +he saw the Senior Surgical Interne in the little mirror hung on the +window frame. + +"Hello," he said, over the soap. "Shut the door." + +The Senior Surgical Interne shut the door, and then sniffed. "Smells +like a bar-room," he commented. + +The pharmacy clerk shaved the left angle of his jaw, and then turned +around. + +"Little experiment of mine," he explained. "Simple syrup, grain +alcohol, a dash of cochineal for colouring, and some flavouring +extract. It's an imitation cordial. Try it." + +The Senior Surgical Interne was not a drinker, but he was willing +to try anything once. So he secured a two-ounce medicine glass, and +filled it. + +"Looks nice," he commented, and tasted it. "It's not bad." + +"Not bad!" said the pharmacy clerk. "You'd pay four dollars a bottle +for that stuff in a hotel. Actual cost here, about forty cents." + +The Senior Surgical Interne sat down and stretched out his legs. He +had the glass in his hand. + +"It's rather sweet," he said. "But it looks pretty." He took another +sip. + +After he had finished it, he got to thinking things over. He felt +about seven feet tall and very important, and not at all like a +voice crying in the wilderness. He had a strong inclination to go +into the Superintendent's office and tell him where he went wrong in +running the institution--which he restrained. And another to go up +to H and tell Jane Brown the truth about Johnny Fraser--which he +yielded to. + +On the way up he gave the elevator man a cigar. + +He was very explicit with Jane Brown. + +"Your man's wrong, that's all there is about it," he said. "I can't +say anything and you can't. But he's wrong. That's an operative +case. The Staff knows it." + +"Then, why doesn't the Staff do it?" + +The Senior Surgical Interne was still feeling very tall. He looked +down at her from a great distance. + +"Because, dear child," he said, "it's your man's case. You ought to +know enough about professional ethics for that." + +He went away, then, and had a violent headache, which he blamed on +confinement and lack of exercise. But he had sowed something in the +Probationer's mind. + +For she knew, suddenly, that he had been right. The Staff had meant +that, then, when they looked at Johnny and shook their heads. The +Staff knew, the hospital knew. Every one knew but Doctor Willie. But +Doctor Willie had the case. Back in her little town Johnny's mother +was looking to Doctor Willie, believing in him, hoping through him. + +That night Twenty-two slept, and Jane Brown lay awake. And down in H +ward Johnny Fraser had a bad spell at that hour toward dawn when the +vitality is low, and men die. He did not die, however. But the night +nurse recorded, "Pulse very thin and iregular," at four o'clock. + +She, too, was not a famous speller. + +During the next morning, while the ward rolled bandages, having +carefully scrubbed its hands first, Jane Brown wrote records--she +did it rather well now--and then arranged the pins in the ward +pincushion. She made concentric circles of safety-pins outside and +common pins inside, with a large H in the centre. But her mind was +not on this artistic bit of creation. It was on Johnny Fraser. + +She made up her mind to speak to Doctor Willie. + +Twenty-two had got over his sulking or his jealousy, or whatever it +was, and during the early hours, those hours when Johnny was hardly +breathing, he had planned something. He thought that he did it to +interest the patients and make them contented, but somewhere in the +back of his mind he knew it was to see more of Jane Brown. He +planned a concert in the chapel. + +So that morning he took Elizabeth, the plaster cast, back to H ward, +where Jane Brown was fixing the pincushion, and had a good minute of +feasting his eyes on her while she was sucking a jabbed finger. She +knew she should have dipped the finger in a solution, but habit is +strong in most of us. + +Twenty-two had a wild desire to offer to kiss the finger and make it +well. This, however, was not habit. It was insanity. He recognised +this himself, and felt more than a trifle worried about it, because +he had been in love quite a number of times before, but he had never +had this sort of feeling. + +He put the concert up to her with a certain amount of anxiety. If +she could sing, or play, or recite--although he hoped she would not +recite--all would be well. But if she refused to take any part, he +did not intend to have a concert. That was flat. + +"I can play," she said, making a neat period after the H on the +pincushion. + +He was awfully relieved. + +"Good," he said. "You know, I like the way you say that. It's +so--well, it's so competent." He got out a notebook and wrote "Miss +Brown, piano selections." + +It was while he was writing that Jane Brown had a sort of mental +picture--the shabby piano at home, kicked below by many childish +feet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sitting +practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, +as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside +the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, +staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To +Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made +for the little ward linen room. + +He found her there a moment later, her arms outstretched on the +table and her face buried in them. Some one had been boiling a +rubber tube and had let the pan go dry. Ever afterward Twenty-two +was to associate the smell of burning rubber with Jane Brown, and +with his first real knowledge that he was in love with her. + +He stumped in after her and closed the door, and might have ruined +everything then and there by taking her in his arms, crutch and +all. But the smell of burning rubber is a singularly permeating one, +and he was kept from one indiscretion by being discovered in +another. + +It was somewhat later that Jane Brown was reprimanded for being +found in the linen room with a private patient. She made no excuse, +but something a little defiant began to grow in her eyes. It was not +that she loved her work less. She was learning, day by day, the +endless sacrifices of this profession she had chosen, its +unselfishness, its grinding hard work, the payment that may lie in a +smile of gratitude, the agony of pain that cannot be relieved. She +went through her days with hands held out for service, and at night, +in the chapel, she whispered soundless little prayers to be +accepted, and to be always gentle and kind. She did not want to +become a machine. She knew, although she had no words for it, the +difference between duty and service. + +But--a little spirit of rebellion was growing in her breast. She did +not understand about Johnny Fraser, for one thing. And the matter of +the linen room hurt. There seemed to be too many rules. + +Then, too, she began to learn that hospitals had limitations. Jane +Brown's hospital had no social worker. Much as she loved the work, +the part that the hospital could not do began to hurt her. Before +the quarantine women with new babies had gone out, without an idea +of where to spend the night. Ailing children had gone home to such +places as she could see from the dormitory windows, where the work +the hospital had begun could not be finished. + +From the roof of the building at night she looked out over a city +that terrified her. The call of a playing child in the street began +to sound to her like the shriek of accident. The very grinding of +the trolley cars, the smoke of the mills, began to mean the +operating room. She thought a great deal, those days, about the +little town she had come from, with its peace and quiet streets. The +city seemed cruel. But now and then she learned that if cities are +cruel, men are kind. + +Thus, on the very day of the concert, the quarantine was broken for +a few minutes. It was broken forcibly, and by an officer of the law. +A little newsie, standing by a fire at the next corner, for the +spring day was cold, had caught fire. The big corner man had seen it +all. He stripped off his overcoat, rolled the boy in it, and ran to +the hospital. Here he was confronted by a brother officer, who was +forbidden to admit him. The corner man did the thing that seemed +quickest. He laid the newsie on the ground, knocked out the +quarantine officer in two blows, broke the glass of the door with a +third, slipped a bolt, and then, his burden in his arms, stalked in. + +It did not lessen the majesty of that entrance that he was crying +all the time. + +The Probationer pondered that story when she heard it. After all, +laws were right and good, but there were higher things than laws. +She went and stood by Johnny's bed for a long time, thinking. + +In the meantime, unexpected talent for the concert had developed. +The piano in the chapel proving out of order, the elevator man +proved to have been a piano tuner. He tuned it with a bone forceps. +Strange places, hospitals, into which drift men from every walk of +life, to find a haven and peace within their quiet walls. Old Tony +had sung, in his youth, in the opera at Milan. A pretty young nurse +went around the corridors muttering bits of "Orphant Annie" to +herself. The Senior Surgical Interne was to sing the "Rosary," and +went about practising to himself. He came into H ward and sang it +through for Jane Brown, with his heart in his clear young eyes. He +sang about the hours he had spent with her being strings of pearls, +and all that, but he was really asking her if she would be willing +to begin life with him in a little house, where she would have to +answer the door-bell and watch telephone calls while he was out. + +Jane Brown felt something of this, too. For she said: "You sing it +beautifully," although he had flatted at least three times. + +He wrote his name on a medicine label and glued it to her hand. It +looked alarmingly possessive. + +Twenty-two presided at the concert that night. He was extravagantly +funny, and the sort of creaking solemnity with which things began +turned to uproarious laughter very soon. + +Everything went off wonderfully. Tony started his selection too +high, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the two +Silversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highland +fling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had to +be scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance driver +gave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment, +dodging chords as he did wagons on the street, and fetching up with +a sort of garrison finish much as he brought in the ambulance. + +But the real musical event of the evening was Jane Brown's playing. +She played Schubert without any notes, because she had been taught +to play Schubert that way. + +And when they called her back, she played little folk songs of the +far places of Europe. Standing around the walls, in wheeled chairs, +on crutches, pale with the hospital pallor, these aliens in their +eddy listened and thrilled. Some of them wept, but they smiled also. + +At the end she played the Minuet, with a sort of flaming look in +her eyes that puzzled Twenty-two. He could not know that she was +playing it to Johnny Fraser, lying with closed eyes in the ward +upstairs. He did not realise that there was a passion of sacrifice +throbbing behind the dignity of the music. + +Doctor Willie had stayed over for the concert. He sat, beaming +benevolently, in the front row, and toward the end he got up and +told some stories. After all, it was Doctor Willie who was the real +hit of the evening. The convalescents rocked with joy in their +roller chairs. Crutches came down in loud applause. When he sat down +he slipped a big hand over Jane Brown's and gave hers a hearty +squeeze. + +"How d'you like me as a parlour entertainer, Nellie?" he whispered. + +She put her other hand over his. Somehow she could not speak. + +The First Assistant called to the Probationer that night as she went +past her door. Lights were out, so the First Assistant had a candle, +and she was rubbing her feet with witch hazel. + +"Come in," she called. "I have been looking for you. I have some +news for you." + +The exaltation of the concert had died away. Jane Brown, in the +candle light, looked small and tired and very, very young. + +"We have watched you carefully," said the First Assistant, who had +her night garments on but had forgotten to take off her cap. +"Although you are young, you have shown ability, and--you are to be +accepted." + +"Thank you, very much," replied Jane Brown, in a strangled tone. + +"At first," said the First Assistant, "we were not sure. You were +very young, and you had such odd ideas. You know that yourself now." + +She leaned down and pressed a sore little toe with her forefinger. +Then she sighed. The mention of Jane Brown's youth had hurt her, +because she was no longer very young. And there were times when she +was tired, when it seemed to her that only youth counted. She felt +that way to-night. + +When Jane Brown had gone on, she blew out her candle and went to +bed, still in her cap. + +Hospitals do not really sleep at night. The elevator man dozes in +his cage, and the night watchman may nap in the engineer's room in +the basement. But the night nurses are always making their sleepless +rounds, and in the wards, dark and quiet, restless figures turn and +sigh. + +Before she went to bed that night, Jane Brown, by devious ways, +slipped back to her ward. It looked strange to her, this cavernous +place, filled with the unlovely noises of sleeping men. By the one +low light near the doorway she went back to Johnny's bed, and sat +down beside him. She felt that this was the place to think things +out. In her room other things pressed in on her; the necessity of +making good for the sake of those at home, her love of the work, and +cowardice. But here she saw things right. + +The night nurse found her there some time later, asleep, her +hunting-case watch open on Johnny's bed and her fingers still on his +quiet wrist. She made no report of it. + +Twenty-two had another sleepless night written in on his record that +night. He sat up and worried. He worried about the way the Senior +Surgical Interne had sung to Jane Brown that night. And he worried +about things he had done and shouldn't have, and things he should +have done and hadn't. Mostly the first. At five in the morning he +wrote a letter to his family telling them where he was, and that he +had been vaccinated and that the letter would be fumigated. He also +wrote a check for an artificial leg for the boy in the children's +ward, and then went to bed and put himself to sleep by reciting the +"Rosary" over and over. His last conscious thought was that the +hours he had spent with a certain person would not make much of a +string of pearls. + +The Probationer went to Doctor Willie the next day. Some of the +exuberance of the concert still bubbled in him, although he shook +his head over Johnny's record. + +"A little slow, Nellie," he said. "A little slow." + +Jane Brown took a long breath. + +"Doctor Willie," she said, "won't you have him operated on?" + +He looked up at her over his spectacles. + +"Operated on? What for?" + +"Well, he's not getting any better," she managed desperately. +"I'm--sometimes I think he'll die while we're waiting for him to get +better." + +He was surprised, but he was not angry. + +"There's no fracture, child," he said gently. "If there is a clot +there, nature is probably better at removing it than we are. The +trouble with you," he said indulgently, "is that you have come here, +where they operate first and regret afterward. Nature is the best +surgeon, child." + +She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. +But even when she spoke she knew she was foredoomed to failure. + +"But--suppose the Staff thinks that he should be?" + +Doctor Willie's kindly mouth set itself into grim lines. + +"The Staff!" he said, and looked at her searchingly. Then his jaws +set at an obstinate angle. + +"Well, Nellie," he said, "I guess one opinion's as good as another +in these cases. And I don't suppose they'll do any cutting and +hacking without my consent." He looked at Johnny's unconscious +figure. "He never amounted to much," he added, "but it's surprising +the way money's been coming in to pay his board here. Your mother +sent five dollars. A good lot of people are interested in him. I +can't see myself going home and telling them he died on the +operating table." + +He patted her on the arm as he went out. + +"Don't get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie," he +said as he was going. "Leave the worrying to me. I'm used to it." + +She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probably +would always be just a little girl to him. He did not take her +seriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quite +despairing. + +The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched him +out with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fine +old head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to a +whole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at the +thought of it. And she had done no good. + +That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-two +on her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawing +a sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eye +larger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could not +possibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover his +excitement. + +"Well, well!" he said. "I knew I was going to have some luck to-day. +My right hand has been itching--or is that a sign of money?" Then he +saw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart. + +"Come and sit down," he said. "And tell me about it." + +But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked out +for a moment. It was from there she said: + +"I have been accepted." + +"Good." But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drew +a long breath. "Well, I suppose your friends should be glad for +you." + +"I didn't come to talk about being accepted," she announced. + +"I don't suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am getting +along?" he inquired humbly. + +"I can see that." + +"You can't see how lonely I am." When she offered nothing to this +speech, he enlarged on it. "When it gets unbearable," he said, "I +sit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn't +make your heart ache, nothing will." + +"I'm afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that." For a +terrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to a +disappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievable +cruelty to tell him about it? + +"I have to talk to somebody," she said simply. "And I came to you, +because you've worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot of +experience. It's--a matter of ethics. But really it's a matter of +life and death." + +He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the lie, +except that it had brought her to him. There was something so direct +and childlike about her. The very way she drew a chair in front of +him, and proceeded, talking rather fast, to lay the matter before +him, touched him profoundly. He felt, somehow, incredibly old and +experienced. + +And then, after all that, to fail her! + +"You see how it is," she finished. "I can't go to the Staff, and +they wouldn't do anything if I did--except possibly put me out. +Because a nurse really only follows orders. And--I've got to stay, +if I can. And Doctor Willie doesn't believe in an operation and +won't see that he's dying. And everybody at home thinks he is right, +because--well," she added hastily, "he's been right a good many +times." + +He listened attentively. His record, you remember, was his own way +some ninety-seven per cent of the time, and at first he would not +believe that this was going to be the three per cent, or a part of +it. + +"Well," he said at last, "we'll just make the Staff turn in and do +it. That's easy." + +"But they won't. They can't." + +"We can't let Johnny die, either, can we?" + +But when at last she was gone, and the room was incredibly empty +without her,--when, to confess a fact that he was exceedingly +shame-faced about, he had wheeled over to the chair she had sat in +and put his cheek against the arm where her hand had rested, when he +was somewhat his own man again and had got over the feeling that his +arms were empty of something they had never held--then it was that +Twenty-two found himself up against the three per cent. + +The hospital's attitude was firm. It could not interfere. It was an +outside patient and an outside doctor. Its responsibility ended with +providing for the care of the patient, under his physician's orders. +It was regretful--but, of course, unless the case was turned over to +the Staff---- + +He went back to the ward to tell her, after it had all been +explained to him. But she was not surprised. He saw that, after all, +she had really known he was going to fail her. + +"It's hopeless," was all she said. "Everybody is right, and +everybody is wrong." + +It was the next day that, going to the courtyard for a breath of +air, she saw a woman outside the iron gate waving to her. It was +Johnny's mother, a forlorn old soul in what Jane Brown recognised as +an old suit of her mother's. + +"Doctor Willie bought my ticket, Miss Nellie," she said nervously. +"It seems like I had to come, even if I couldn't get in. I've been +waiting around most all afternoon. How is he?" + +"He is resting quietly," said Jane Brown, holding herself very +tense, because she wanted to scream. "He isn't suffering at all." + +"Could you tell me which window he's near, Miss Nellie?" + +She pointed out the window, and Johnny Fraser's mother stood, +holding to the bars, peering up at it. Her lips moved, and Jane +Brown knew that she was praying. At last she turned her eyes away. + +"Folks have said a lot about him," she said, "but he was always a +good son to me. If only he'd had a chance--I'd be right worried, +Miss Nellie, if he didn't have Doctor Willie looking after him." + +Jane Brown went into the building. There was just one thing clear in +her mind. Johnny Fraser must have his chance, somehow. + +In the meantime things were not doing any too well in the hospital. +A second case, although mild, had extended the quarantine. +Discontent grew, and threatened to develop into mutiny. Six men +from one of the wards marched _en masse_ to the lower hall, and were +preparing to rush the guards when they were discovered. The Senior +Surgical Interne took two prisoners himself, and became an emergency +case for two stitches and arnica compresses. + +Jane Brown helped to fix him up, and he took advantage of her +holding a dressing basin near his cut lip to kiss her hand, very +respectfully. She would have resented it under other circumstances, +but the Senior Surgical Interne was, even if temporarily, a patient, +and must be humoured. She forgot about the kiss immediately, anyhow, +although he did not. + +Her three months of probation were drawing to a close now, and her +cap was already made and put away in a box, ready for the day she +should don it. But she did not look at it very often. + +And all the time, fighting his battle with youth and vigour, but +with closed eyes, and losing it day by day, was Johnny Fraser. + +Then, one night on the roof, Jane Brown had to refuse the Senior +Surgical Interne. He took it very hard. + +"We'd have been such pals," he said, rather wistfully, after he saw +it was no use. + +"We can be, anyhow." + +"I suppose," he said with some bitterness, "that I'd have stood a +better chance if I'd done as you wanted me to about that fellow in +your ward, gone to the staff and raised hell." + +"I wouldn't have married you," said Jane Brown, "but I'd have +thought you were pretty much of a man." + +The more he thought about that the less he liked it. It almost kept +him awake that night. + +It was the next day that Twenty-two had his idea. He ran true to +form, and carried it back to Jane Brown for her approval. But she +was not enthusiastic. + +"It would help to amuse them, of course, but how can you publish a +newspaper without any news?" she asked, rather listlessly, for her. + +"News! This building is full of news. I have some bits already. +Listen!" He took a notebook out of his pocket. "The stork breaks +quarantine. New baby in O ward. The chief engineer has developed a +boil on his neck. Elevator Man arrested for breaking speed limit. +Wanted, four square inches of cuticle for skin grafting in W. How's +that? And I'm only beginning." + +Jane Brown listened. Somehow, behind Twenty-two's lightness of tone, +she felt something more earnest. She did not put it into words, even +to herself, but she divined something new, a desire to do his bit, +there in the hospital. It was, if she had only known it, a +milestone in a hitherto unmarked career. Twenty-two, who had always +been a man, was by way of becoming a person. + +He explained about publishing it. He used to run a typewriter in +college, and the convalescents could mimeograph it and sell it. +There was a mimeographing machine in the office. + +The Senior Surgical Interne came in just then. Refusing to marry him +had had much the effect of smacking a puppy. He came back, a trifle +timid, but friendly. So he came in just then, and elected himself to +the advertising and circulation department, and gave the Probationer +the society end, although it was not his paper or his idea, and sat +down at once at the table and started a limerick, commencing: + + "_We're here in the city, marooned_" + +However, he never got any further with it, because there are, +apparently, no rhymes for "marooned." He refused "tuned" which +several people offered him, with extreme scorn. + +Up to this point Jane Brown had been rather too worried to think +about Twenty-two. She had grown accustomed to seeing him coming +slowly back toward her ward, his eyes travelling much faster than he +did. Not, of course, that she knew that. And to his being, in a way, +underfoot a part of every day, after the Head had made rounds and +was safely out of the road for a good two hours. + +But two things happened that day to turn her mind in onto her heart. +One was when she heard about the artificial leg. The other was when +she passed the door of his room, where a large card now announced +"Office of the _Quarantine Sentinel_." She passed the door, and she +distinctly heard most un-hospital-like chatter within. Judging from +the shadows on the glass door, too, the room was full. It sounded +joyous and carefree. + +Something in Jane Brown--her mind, probably--turned right around and +looked into her heart, and made an odd discovery. This was that Jane +Brown's heart had sunk about two inches, and was feeling very queer. + +She went straight on, however, and put on a fresh collar in her +little bedroom, and listed her washing and changed her shoes, +because her feet still ached a lot of the time. But she was a brave +person and liked to look things in the face. So before she went back +to the ward, she stood in front of her mirror and said: + +"You're a nice nurse, Nell Brown. To--to talk about duty and brag +about service, and then to act like a fool." + +She went back to the ward and sat beside Johnny. But that night she +went up on the roof again, and sat on the parapet. She could see, +across the courtyard, the dim rectangles of her ward, and around a +corner in plain view, "room Twenty-two." Its occupant was sitting at +the typewriter, and working hard. Or he seemed to be. It was too far +away to be sure. Jane Brown slid down onto the roof, which was not +very clean, and putting her elbows on the parapet, watched him for a +long time. When he got up, at last, and came to the open window, she +hardly breathed. However, he only stood there, looking toward her +but not seeing her. + +Jane Brown put her head on the parapet that night and cried. She +thought she was crying about Johnny Fraser. She might have felt +somewhat comforted had she known that Twenty-two, being tired with +his day's work, had at last given way to most horrible jealousy of +the Senior Surgical Interne, and that his misery was to hers as five +is to one. + +The first number of the _Quarantine Sentinel_ was a great success. +It served in the wards much the same purpose as the magazines +published in the trenches. It relieved the monotony, brought the +different wards together, furnished laughter and gossip. Twenty-two +wrote the editorials, published the paper, with the aid of a couple +of convalescents, and in his leisure drew cartoons. He drew very +well, but all his girls looked like Jane Brown. It caused a ripple +of talk. + +The children from the children's ward distributed them, and went +back from the private rooms bearing tribute of flowers and fruit. +Twenty-two himself developed a most reprehensible habit of +concealing candy in the _Sentinel_ office and smuggling it to his +carriers. Altogether a new and neighbourly feeling seemed to +follow in the wake of the little paper. People who had sulked +in side-by-side rooms began, in the relaxed discipline of +convalescence, to pay little calls about. Crotchety dowagers knitted +socks for new babies. A wave of friendliness swept over every one, +and engulfed particularly Twenty-two. + +In the glow of it he changed perceptibly. This was the first +popularity he had ever earned, and the first he had ever cared a +fi-penny bit about. And, because he valued it, he felt more and more +unworthy of it. + +But it kept him from seeing Jane Brown. He was too busy for many +excursions to the ward, and when he went he was immediately the +centre of an animated group. He hardly ever saw her alone, and when +he did he began to suspect that she pretended duties that might have +waited. + +One day he happened to go back while Doctor Willie was there, and +after that he understood her problem better. + +Through it all Johnny lived. His thin, young body was now hardly an +outline under the smooth, white covering of his bed. He swallowed, +faintly, such bits of liquid as were placed between his lips, but +there were times when Jane Brown's fingers, more expert now, could +find no pulse at all. And still she had found no way to give him his +chance. + +She made a last appeal to Doctor Willie that day, but he only shook +his head gravely. + +"Even if there was an operation now, Nellie," said Doctor Willie +that day, "he could not stand it." + +It was the first time that Twenty-two had known her name was Nellie. + +That was the last day of Jane Brown's probation. On the next day she +was to don her cap. The _Sentinel_ came out with a congratulatory +editorial, and at nine o'clock that night the First Assistant +brought an announcement, in the Head's own writing, for the paper. + +"The Head of the Training School announces with much pleasure the +acceptance of Miss N. Jane Brown as a pupil nurse." + +Twenty-two sat and stared at it for quite a long time. + +That night Jane Brown fought her battle and won. She went to her +room immediately after chapel, and took the family pictures off her +little stand and got out ink and paper. She put the photographs out +of sight, because she knew that they were counting on her, and she +could not bear her mother's eyes. And then she counted her money, +because she had broken another thermometer, and the ticket home was +rather expensive. She had enough, but very little more. + +After that she went to work. + +It took her rather a long time, because she had a great deal to +explain. She had to put her case, in fact. And she was not strong on +either ethics or logic. She said so, indeed, at the beginning. She +said also that she had talked to a lot of people, but that no one +understood how she felt--that there ought to be no professional +ethics, or etiquette, or anything else, where it was life or death. +That she felt hospitals were to save lives and not to save feelings. +It seemed necessary, after that, to defend Doctor Willie--without +naming him, of course. How much good he had done, and how he came to +rely on himself and his own opinion because in the country there was +no one to consult with. + +However, she was not so gentle with the Staff. She said that it was +standing by and letting a patient die, because it was too polite to +interfere, although they had all agreed among themselves that an +operation was necessary. And that if they felt that way, would they +refuse to pull a child from in front of a locomotive because it was +its mother's business, and she didn't know how to do it? + +_Then she signed it._ + +She turned it in at the _Sentinel_ office the next morning while +the editor was shaving. She had to pass it through a crack in the +door. Even that, however, was enough for the editor in question to +see that she wore no cap. + +"But--see here," he said, in a rather lathery voice, "you're +accepted, you know. Where's the--the visible sign?" + +Jane Brown was not quite sure she could speak. However, she managed. + +"After you read that," she said, "you'll understand." + +He read it immediately, of course, growing more and more grave, and +the soap drying on his chin. Its sheer courage made him gasp. + +"Good girl," he said to himself. "Brave little girl. But it finishes +her here, and she knows it." + +He was pretty well cut up about it, too, because while he was +getting it ready he felt as if he was sharpening a knife to stab her +with. Her own knife, too. But he had to be as brave as she was. + +The paper came out at two o'clock. At three the First Assistant, +looking extremely white, relieved Jane Brown of the care of H ward +and sent her to her room. + +Jane Brown eyed her wistfully. + +"I'm not to come back, I suppose?" + +The First Assistant avoided her eyes. + +"I'm afraid not," she said. + +Jane Brown went up the ward and looked down at Johnny Fraser. Then +she gathered up her bandage scissors and her little dressing forceps +and went out. + +The First Assistant took a step after her, but stopped. There were +tears in her eyes. + +Things moved very rapidly in the hospital that day, while the guards +sat outside on their camp-stools and ate apples or read the +newspapers, and while Jane Brown sat alone in her room. + +First of all the Staff met and summoned Twenty-two. He went down in +the elevator--he had lost Elizabeth a few days before, and was using +a cane--ready for trouble. He had always met a fight more than +halfway. It was the same instinct that had taken him to the fire. + +But no one wanted to fight. The Staff was waiting, grave and +perplexed, but rather anxious to put its case than otherwise. It +felt misunderstood, aggrieved, and horribly afraid it was going to +get in the newspapers. But it was not angry. On the contrary, it was +trying its extremely intelligent best to see things from a new +angle. + +The Senior Surgical Interne was waiting outside. He had smoked +eighteen cigarettes since he received his copy of the _Sentinel_, +and was as unhappy as an _interne_ can be. + +"What the devil made you publish it?" he demanded. + +Twenty-two smiled. + +"Because," he said, "I have always had a sneaking desire to publish +an honest paper, one where public questions can be discussed. If +this isn't a public question, I don't know one when I see it." + +But he was not smiling when he went in. + +An hour later Doctor Willie came in. He had brought some flowers for +the children's ward, and his arms were bulging. To his surprise, +accustomed as he was to the somewhat cavalier treatment of the +country practitioner in a big city hospital, he was invited to the +Staff room. + +To the eternal credit of the Staff Jane Brown's part in that painful +half hour was never known. The Staff was careful, too, of Doctor +Willie. They knew they were being irregular, and were most +wretchedly uncomfortable. Also, there being six of them against one, +it looked rather like force, particularly since, after the first two +minutes, every one of them liked Doctor Willie. + +He took it so awfully well. He sat there, with his elbows on a table +beside a withering mass of spring flowers, and faced the +white-coated Staff, and said that he hoped he was man enough to +acknowledge a mistake, and six opinions against one left him nothing +else to do. The Senior Surgical Interne, who had been hating him +for weeks, offered him a cigar. + +He had only one request to make. There was a little girl in the +training school who believed in him, and he would like to go to the +ward and write the order for the operation himself. + +Which he did. But Jane Brown was not there. + +Late that evening the First Assistant, passing along the corridor in +the dormitory, was accosted by a quiet figure in a blue uniform, +without a cap. + +"How is he?" + +The First Assistant was feeling more cheerful than usual. The +operating surgeon had congratulated her on the way things had moved +that day, and she was feeling, as she often did, that, after all, +work was a solace for many troubles. + +"Of course, it is very soon, but he stood it well." She looked up at +Jane Brown, who was taller than she was, but who always, somehow, +looked rather little. There are girls like that. "Look here," she +said, "you must not sit in that room and worry. Run up to the +operating-room and help to clear away." + +She was very wise, the First Assistant. For Jane Brown went, and +washed away some of the ache with the stains of Johnny's operation. +Here, all about her, were the tangible evidences of her triumph, +which was also a defeat. A little glow of service revived in her. +If Johnny lived, it was a small price to pay for a life. If he died, +she had given him his chance. The operating-room nurses were very +kind. They liked her courage, but they were frightened, too. She, +like the others, had been right, but also she was wrong. + +They paid her tribute of little kindnesses, but they knew she must +go. + +It was the night nurse who told Twenty-two that Jane Brown was in +the operating-room. He was still up and dressed at midnight, but the +sheets of to-morrow's editorial lay blank on his table. + +The night nurse glanced at her watch to see if it was time for the +twelve o'clock medicines. + +"There's a rumour going about," she said, "that the quarantine's to +be lifted to-morrow. I'll be rather sorry. It has been a change." + +"To-morrow," said Twenty-two, in a startled voice. + +"I suppose you'll be going out at once?" + +There was a wistful note in her voice. She liked him. He had been an +oasis of cheer in the dreary rounds of the night. A very little +more, and she might have forgotten her rule, which was never to be +sentimentally interested in a patient. + +"I wonder," said Twenty-two, in a curious tone, "if you will give me +my cane?" + +He was clad, at that time, in a hideous bathrobe, purchased by the +orderly, over his night clothing, and he had the expression of a +person who intends to take no chances. + +"Thanks," said Twenty-two. "And--will you send the night watchman +here?" + +The night nurse went out. She had a distinct feeling that something +was about to happen. At least she claimed it later. But she found +the night watchman making coffee in a back pantry, and gave him her +message. + +Some time later Jane Brown stood in the doorway of the +operating-room and gave it a farewell look. Its white floor and +walls were spotless. Shining rows of instruments on clean towels +were ready to put away in the cabinets. The sterilisers glowed in +warm rectangles of gleaming copper. Over all brooded the peace of +order, the quiet of the night. + +Outside the operating-room door she drew a long breath, and faced +the night watchman. She had left something in Twenty-two. Would she +go and get it? + +"It's very late," said Jane Brown. "And it isn't allowed, I'm sure." + +However, what was one more rule to her who had defied them all? A +spirit of recklessness seized her. After all, why not? She would +never see him again. Like the operating-room, she would stand in the +doorway and say a mute little farewell. + +Twenty-two's door was wide open, and he was standing in the centre +of the room, looking out. He had heard her long before she came in +sight, for he, too, had learned the hospital habit of classifying +footsteps. + +He was horribly excited. He had never been so nervous before. He had +made up a small speech, a sort of beginning, but he forgot it the +moment he heard her, and she surprised him in the midst of trying, +agonisingly, to remember it. + +There was a sort of dreadful calm, however, about Jane Brown. + +"The watchman says I have left something here." + +It was clear to him at once that he meant nothing to her. It was in +her voice. + +"You did," he said. And tried to smile. + +"Then--if I may have it----" + +"I wish to heaven you could have it," he said, very rapidly. "I +don't want it. It's darned miserable." + +"It's--what?" + +"It's an ache," he went on, still rather incoherent. "A pain. A +misery." Then, seeing her beginning to put on a professional look: +"No, not that. It's a feeling. Look here," he said, rather more +slowly, "do you mind coming in and closing the door? There's a man +across who's always listening." + +She went in, but she did not close the door. She went slowly, +looking rather pale. + +"What I sent for you for is this," said Twenty-two, "are you going +away? Because I've got to know." + +"I'm being sent away as soon as the quarantine is over. It's--it's +perfectly right. I expected it. Things would soon go to pieces if +the nurses took to--took to doing what I did." + +Suddenly Twenty-two limped across the room and slammed the door +shut, a proceeding immediately followed by an irritated ringing of +bells at the night nurse's desk. Then he turned, his back against +the door. + +"Because I'm going when you do," he said, in a terrible voice. "I'm +going when you go, and wherever you go. I've stood all the waiting +around for a glimpse of you that I'm going to stand." He glared at +her. "For weeks," he said, "I've sat here in this room and listened +for you, and hated to go to sleep for fear you would pass and I +wouldn't be looking through that damned door. And now I've reached +the limit." + +A sort of band which had seemed to be fastened around Jane Brown's +head for days suddenly removed itself to her heart, which became +extremely irregular. + +"And I want to say this," went on Twenty-two, still in a savage +tone. He was horribly frightened, so he blustered. "I don't care +whether you want me or not, you've got to have me. I'm so much in +love with you that it hurts." + +Suddenly Jane Brown's heart settled down into a soft rhythmic +beating that was like a song. After all, life was made up of love +and work, and love came first. + +She faced Twenty-two with brave eyes. + +"I love you, too--so much that it hurts." + +The gentleman across the hall, sitting up in bed, with an angry +thumb on the bell, was electrified to see, on the glass door across, +the silhouette of a young lady without a cap go into the arms of a +very large, masculine silhouette in a dressing-gown. He heard, too, +the thump of a falling cane. + +Late that night Jane Brown, by devious ways, made her way back to H +ward. Johnny was there, a strange Johnny with a bandaged head, but +with open eyes. + +At dawn, the dawn of the day when Jane Brown was to leave the little +world of the hospital for a little world of two, consisting of a man +and a woman, the night nurse found her there, asleep, her fingers +still on Johnny's thin wrist. + +She did not report it. + + + + +JANE + + +I + +Having retired to a hospital to sulk, Jane remained there. The +family came and sat by her bed uncomfortably and smoked, and finally +retreated with defeat written large all over it, leaving Jane to the +continued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers to +match, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-coloured bow on +the corner, and a young nurse with a gift of giving Jane daily the +appearance of a strawberry and vanilla ice rising from a meringue of +bed linen. + +Jane's complaint was temper. The family knew this, and so did +Jane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentle +heart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under the +pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly +under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not +deceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready to +believe that while it was swearing in the hall, Jane was biting +holes in the hand-embroidered face pillow in Room 33. + +It had finally come to be a test of endurance. Jane vowed to stay +at the hospital until the family on bended knee begged her to emerge +and to brighten the world again with her presence. The family, being +her father, said it would be damned if it would, and that if Jane +cared to live on anaemic chicken broth, oatmeal wafers and massage +twice a day for the rest of her life, why, let her. + +The dispute, having begun about whether Jane should or should not +marry a certain person, Jane representing the affirmative and her +father the negative, had taken on new aspects, had grown and +altered, and had, to be brief, become a contest between the +masculine Johnson and the feminine Johnson as to which would take +the count. Not that this appeared on the surface. The masculine +Johnson, having closed the summer home on Jane's defection and gone +back to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, +all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately. Once, indeed, +Father Johnson had motored the forty miles from town, to be told +that Jane was too ill and unhappy to see him, and to have a glimpse, +as he drove furiously away, of Jane sitting pensive at her window in +the pink kimono, gazing over his head at the distant hills and +clearly entirely indifferent to him and his wrath. + +So we find Jane, on a frosty morning in late October, in triumphant +possession of the field--aunts and cousins routed, her father +sulking in town, and the victor herself--or is victor feminine?--and +if it isn't, shouldn't it be?--sitting up in bed staring blankly at +her watch. + +Jane had just wakened--an hour later than usual; she had rung the +bell three times and no one had responded. Jane's famous temper +began to stretch and yawn. At this hour Jane was accustomed +to be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, +alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and finally fresh-linened, coifed +and manicured, to be supported with a heap of fresh pillows and fed +creamed sweet-bread and golden-brown coffee and toast. + +Jane rang again, with a line between her eyebrows. The bell was not +broken. She could hear it distinctly. This was an outrage! She would +report it to the superintendent. She had been ringing for ten +minutes. That little minx of a nurse was flirting somewhere with one +of the internes. + +Jane angrily flung the covers back and got out on her small bare +feet. Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, her +spoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned. In her +sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, +minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helped +her to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, +almost--although Jane herself never suspected this--almost an +amiable young person. + +Jane saw herself in the glass and assumed immediately the two lines +between her eyebrows which were the outward and visible token of +what she had suffered. Then she found her slippers, a pair of +stockings to match and two round bits of pink silk elastic of +private and feminine use, and sat down on the floor to put them on. + +The floor was cold. To Jane's wrath was added indignation. She +hitched herself along the boards to the radiator and put her hand on +it. It was even colder than Jane. + +The family temper was fully awake by this time and ready for +business. Jane, sitting on the icy floor, jerked on her stockings, +snapped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippers +and rose, shivering. She went to the bed, and by dint of careful +manoeuvring so placed the bell between the head of the bed and the +wall that during the remainder of her toilet it rang steadily. + +The remainder of Jane's toilet was rather casual. She flung on the +silk kimono, twisted her hair on top of her head and stuck a pin or +two in it, thus achieving a sort of effect a thousand times more +bewildering than she had ever managed with a curling iron and +twenty seven hair pins, and flinging her door wide stalked into the +hall. At least she meant to stalk, but one does not really stamp +about much in number-two, heelless, pink-satin mules. + +At the first stalk--or stamp--she stopped. Standing uncertainly just +outside her door was a strange man, strangely attired. Jane clutched +her kimono about her and stared. + +"Did--did you--are you ringing?" asked the apparition. It wore a +pair of white-duck trousers, much soiled, a coat that bore the words +"furnace room" down the front in red letters on a white tape, and a +clean and spotless white apron. There was coal dust on its face and +streaks of it in its hair, which appeared normally to be red. + +"There's something the matter with your bell," said the young man. +"It keeps on ringing." + +"I intend it to," said Jane coldly. + +"You can't make a racket like that round here, you know," he +asserted, looking past her into the room. + +"I intend to make all the racket I can until I get some attention." + +"What have you done--put a book on it?" + +"Look here"--Jane added another line to the two between her +eyebrows. In the family this was generally a signal for a retreat, +but of course the young man could not know this, and, besides, he +was red-headed. "Look here," said Jane, "I don't know who you are +and I don't care either, but that bell is going to ring until I get +my bath and some breakfast. And it's going to ring then unless I +stop it." + +The young man in the coal dust and the white apron looked at Jane +and smiled. Then he walked past her into the room, jerked the bed +from the wall and released the bell. + +"Now!" he said as the din outside ceased. "I'm too busy to talk just +at present, but if you do that again I'll take the bell out of the +room altogether. There are other people in the hospital besides +yourself." + +At that he started out and along the hall, leaving Jane speechless. +After he'd gone about a dozen feet he stopped and turned, looking at +Jane reflectively. + +"Do you know anything about cooking?" he asked. + +"I know more about cooking than you do about politeness," she +retorted, white with fury, and went into her room and slammed the +door. She went directly to the bell and put it behind the bed and +set it to ringing again. Then she sat down in a chair and picked up +a book. Had the red-haired person opened the door she was perfectly +prepared to fling the book at him. She would have thrown a hatchet +had she had one. + +As a matter of fact, however, he did not come back. The bell rang +with a soul-satisfying jangle for about two minutes and then died +away, and no amount of poking with a hairpin did any good. It was +clear that the bell had been cut off outside! + +For fifty-five minutes Jane sat in that chair breakfastless, very +casually washed and with the aforesaid Billie Burkeness of hair. +Then, hunger gaining over temper, she opened the door and peered +out. From somewhere near at hand there came a pungent odor of +burning toast. Jane sniffed; then, driven by hunger, she made a +short sally down the hall to the parlour where the nurses on duty +made their headquarters. It was empty. The dismantled bell register +was on the wall, with the bell unscrewed and lying on the mantel +beside it, and the odour of burning toast was stronger than ever. + +Jane padded softly to the odour, following her small nose. It led +her to the pantry, where under ordinary circumstances the patients' +trays were prepared by a pantrymaid, the food being shipped there +from the kitchen on a lift. Clearly the circumstances were not +ordinary. The pantrymaid was not in sight. + +Instead, the red-haired person was standing by the window scraping +busily at a blackened piece of toast. There was a rank odour of +boiling tea in the air. + +"Damnation!" said the red-haired person, and flung the toast into a +corner where there already lay a small heap of charred breakfast +hopes. Then he saw Jane. + +"I fixed the bell, didn't I?" he remarked. "I say, since you claim +to know so much about cooking, I wish you'd make some toast." + +"I didn't say I knew much," snapped Jane, holding her kimono round +her. "I said I knew more than you knew about politeness." + +The red-haired person smiled again, and then, making a deep bow, +with a knife in one hand and a toaster in the other, he said: +"Madam, I prithee forgive me for my untoward conduct of an hour +since. Say but the word and I replace the bell." + +"I won't make any toast," said Jane, looking at the bread with +famished eyes. + +"Oh, very well," said the red-haired person with a sigh. "On your +head be it!" + +"But I'll tell you how to do it," conceded Jane, "if you'll explain +who you are and what you are doing in that costume and where the +nurses are." + +The red-haired person sat down on the edge of the table and looked +at her. + +"I'll make a bargain with you," he said. "There's a convalescent +typhoid in a room near yours who swears he'll go down to the village +for something to eat in his--er--hospital attire unless he's fed +soon. He's dangerous, empty. He's reached the cannibalistic stage. +If he should see you in that ravishing pink thing, I--I wouldn't +answer for the consequences. I'll tell you everything if you'll make +him six large slices of toast and boil him four or five eggs, enough +to hold him for a while. The tea's probably ready; it's been boiling +for an hour." + +Hunger was making Jane human. She gathered up the tail of her +kimono, and stepping daintily into the pantry proceeded to spread +herself a slice of bread and butter. + +"Where is everybody?" she asked, licking some butter off her thumb +with a small pink tongue. + + _Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold, + And the mate of the Nancy brig, + And the bosun tight and the midshipmite, + And the crew of the captain's gig._ + +recited the red-haired person. + +"You!" said Jane with the bread halfway to her mouth. + +"Even I," said the red-haired person. "I'm the superintendent, the +staff, the training school, the cooks, the furnace man and the +ambulance driver." + +Jane was pouring herself a cup of tea, and she put in milk and sugar +and took a sip or two before she would give him the satisfaction of +asking him what he meant. Anyhow, probably she had already guessed. +Jane was no fool. + +"I hope you're getting the salary list," she said, sitting on the +pantry girl's chair and, what with the tea inside and somebody to +quarrel with, feeling more like herself. "My father's one of the +directors, and somebody gets it." + +The red-haired person sat on the radiator and eyed Jane. He looked +slightly stunned, as if the presence of beauty in a Billie Burke +chignon and little else except a kimono was almost too much for him. +From somewhere near by came a terrific thumping, as of some one +pounding a hairbrush on a table. The red-haired person shifted along +the radiator a little nearer Jane, and continued to gloat. + +"Don't let that noise bother you," he said; "that's only the +convalescent typhoid banging for his breakfast. He's been shouting +for food ever since I came at six last night." + +"Is it safe to feed him so much?" + +"I don't know. He hasn't had anything yet. Perhaps if you're ready +you'd better fix him something." + +Jane had finished her bread and tea by this time and remembered her +kimono. + +"I'll go back and dress," she said primly. But he wouldn't hear of +it. + +"He's starving," he objected as a fresh volley of thumps came along +the hall. "I've been trying at intervals since daylight to make him +a piece of toast. The minute I put it on the fire I think of +something I've forgotten, and when I come back it's in flames." + +So Jane cut some bread and put on eggs to boil, and the red-haired +person told his story. + +"You see," he explained, "although I appear to be a furnace man from +the waist up and an interne from the waist down, I am really the new +superintendent." + +"I hope you'll do better than the last one," she said severely. "He +was always flirting with the nurses." + +"I shall never flirt with the nurses," he promised, looking at her. +"Anyhow I shan't have any immediate chance. The other fellow left +last night and took with him everything portable except the +ambulance--nurses, staff, cooks. I wish to Heaven he'd taken the +patients! And he did more than that. He cut the telephone wires!" + +"Well!" said Jane. "Are you going to stand for it?" + +The red-haired man threw up his hands. "The village is with him," he +declared. "It's a factional fight--the village against the +fashionable summer colony on the hill. I cannot telephone from the +village--the telegraph operator is deaf when I speak to him; the +village milkman and grocer sent boys up this morning--look here." +He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and read: + + I will not supply the Valley Hospital with any fresh + meats, canned oysters and sausages, or do any plumbing + for the hospital until the reinstatement of Dr. Sheets. + T. CASHDOLLAR, Butcher. + +Jane took the paper and read it again. "Humph!" she commented. +"Old Sheets wrote it himself. Mr. Cashdollar couldn't think +'reinstatement,' let alone spell it." + +"The question is not who wrote it, but what we are to do," said the +red-haired person. "Shall I let old Sheets come back?" + +"If you do," said Jane fiercely, "I shall hate you the rest of my +life." + +And as it was clear by this time that the red-haired person could +imagine nothing more horrible, it was settled then and there that he +should stay. + +"There are only two wards," he said. "In the men's a man named +Higgins is able to be up and is keeping things straight. And in the +woman's ward Mary O'Shaughnessy is looking after them. The furnaces +are the worst. I'd have forgiven almost anything else. I've sat up +all night nursing the fires, but they breathed their last at six +this morning and I guess there's nothing left but to call the +coroner." + +Jane had achieved a tolerable plate of toast by that time and four +eggs. Also she had a fine flush, a combination of heat from the gas +stove and temper. + +"They ought to be ashamed," she cried angrily, "leaving a lot of +sick people!" + +"Oh, as to that," said the red-headed person, "there aren't any +very sick ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and a +convalescent typhoid and a D.T. in a private room. If it wasn't +that Mary O'Shaughnessy----" + +But at the word "neurasthenics" Jane had put down the toaster, and +by the time the unconscious young man had reached the O'Shaughnessy +she was going out the door with her chin up. He called after her, +and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies at +her back until she went into her room. And as hospital doors don't +lock from the inside she pushed the washstand against the knob and +went to bed to keep warm. + +He stood outside and apologised again, and later he brought a tray +of bread and butter and a pot of the tea, which had been boiling for +two hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor. +But Jane refused to get it, and finished her breakfast from a jar of +candied ginger that some one had sent her, and read "Lorna Doone." + +Now and then a sound of terrific hammering would follow the +steampipes and Jane would smile wickedly. By noon she had finished +the ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and the +family had disagreed would think when he heard the way she was being +treated. And by one o'clock she had cried her eyes entirely shut and +had pushed the washstand back from the door. + + +II + +Now a hospital full of nurses and doctors with a bell to summon food +and attention is one thing. A hospital without nurses and doctors, +and with only one person to do everything, and that person mostly in +the cellar, is quite another. Jane was very sad and lonely, and to +add to her troubles the delirium-tremens case down the hall began to +sing "Oh Promise Me" in a falsetto voice and kept it up for hours. + +At three Jane got up and bathed her eyes. She also did her hair, +and thus fortified she started out to find the red-haired person. +She intended to say that she was paying sixty-five dollars a week +and belonged to a leading family, and that she didn't mean to +endure for a moment the treatment she was getting, and being +called a neurasthenic and made to cook for the other patients. + +She went slowly along the hall. The convalescent typhoid heard her +and called. + +"Hey, doc!" he cried. "Hey, doc! Great Scott, man, when do I get +some dinner?" + +Jane quickened her steps and made for the pantry. From somewhere +beyond, the delirium-tremens case was singing happily: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +Jane shivered a little. The person in whom she had been interested +and who had caused her precipitate retirement, if not to a nunnery, +to what answered the same purpose, had been very fond of that song. +He used to sing it, leaning over the piano and looking into her +eyes. + +Jane's nose led her again to the pantry. There was a sort of soupy +odour in the air, and sure enough the red-haired person was there, +very immaculate in fresh ducks, pouring boiling water into three +tea-cups out of a kettle and then dropping a beef capsule into each +cup. + +Now Jane had intended, as I have said, to say that she was being +outrageously treated, and belonged to one of the best families, and +so on. What she really said was piteously: + +"How good it smells!" + +"Doesn't it!" said the red-haired person, sniffing. "Beef capsules. +I've made thirty cups of it so far since one o'clock--the more they +have the more they want. I say, be a good girl and run up to the +kitchen for some more crackers while I carry food to the +convalescent typhoid. He's murderous!" + +"Where are the crackers?" asked Jane stiffly, but not exactly caring +to raise an issue until she was sure of getting something to eat. + +"Store closet in the kitchen, third drawer on the left," said the +red-haired man, shaking some cayenne pepper into one of the cups. +"You might stop that howling lunatic on your way if you will." + +"How?" asked Jane, pausing. + +"Ram a towel down his throat, or--but don't bother. I'll dose him +with this beef tea and red pepper, and he'll be too busy putting out +the fire to want to sing." + +"You wouldn't be so cruel!" said Jane, rather drawing back. The +red-haired person smiled and to Jane it showed that he was actually +ferocious. She ran all the way up for the crackers and down again, +carrying the tin box. There is no doubt that Jane's family would +have promptly swooned had it seen her. + +When she came down there was a sort of after-dinner peace reigning. +The convalescent typhoid, having filled up on milk and beef soup, +had floated off to sleep. "The Chocolate Soldier" had given way to +deep-muttered imprecations from the singer's room. Jane made herself +a cup of bouillon and drank it scalding. She was making the second +when the red-haired person came back with an empty cup. + +"I forgot to explain," he said, "that beef tea and red pepper's the +treatment for our young friend in there. After a man has been +burning his stomach daily with a quart or so of raw booze----" + +"I beg your pardon," said Jane coolly. Booze was not considered good +form on the hill--the word, of course. There was plenty of the +substance. + +"Raw booze," repeated the red-haired person. "Nothing short of red +pepper or dynamite is going to act as a substitute. Why, I'll bet +the inside of that chap's stomach is of the general sensitiveness +and consistency of my shoe." + +"Indeed!" said Jane, coldly polite. In Jane's circle people did not +discuss the interiors of other people's stomachs. The red-haired +person sat on the table with a cup of bouillon in one hand and a +cracker in the other. + +"You know," he said genially, "it's awfully bully of you to come out +and keep me company like this. I never put in such a day. I've given +up fussing with the furnace and got out extra blankets instead. And +I think by night our troubles will be over." He held up the cup and +glanced at Jane, who was looking entrancingly pretty. "To our +troubles being over!" he said, draining the cup, and then found +that he had used the red pepper again by mistake. It took five +minutes and four cups of cold water to enable him to explain what he +meant. + +"By our troubles being over," he said finally when he could speak, +"I mean this: There's a train from town at eight to-night, and if +all goes well it will deposit in the village half a dozen nurses, a +cook or two, a furnace man--good Heavens, I wonder if I forgot a +furnace man!" + +It seemed, as Jane discovered, that the telephone wires being cut, +he had sent Higgins from the men's ward to the village to send some +telegrams for him. + +"I couldn't leave, you see," he explained, "and having some small +reason to believe that I am _persona non grata_ in this vicinity I +sent Higgins." + +Jane had always hated the name Higgins. She said afterward that she +felt uneasy from that moment. The red-haired person, who was not +bad-looking, being tall and straight and having a very decent nose, +looked at Jane, and Jane, having been shut away for weeks--Jane +preened a little and was glad she had done her hair. + +"You looked better the other way," said the red-haired person, +reading her mind in a most uncanny manner. "Why should a girl with +as pretty hair as yours cover it up with a net, anyhow?" + +"You are very disagreeable and--and impertinent," said Jane, +sliding off the table. + +"It isn't disagreeable to tell a girl she has pretty hair," the +red-haired person protested--"or impertinent either." + +Jane was gathering up the remnants of her temper, scattered by the +events of the day. + +"You said I was a neurasthenic," she accused him. "It--it isn't +being a neurasthenic to be nervous and upset and hating the very +sight of people, is it?" + +"Bless my soul!" said the red-haired man. "Then what is it?" Jane +flushed, but he went on tactlessly: "I give you my word, I think you +are the most perfectly"--he gave every appearance of being about to +say "beautiful," but he evidently changed his mind--"the most +perfectly healthy person I have ever looked at," he finished. + +It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under other +circumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in hand +and preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard in +the hall and Higgins stood in the doorway. + +He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and the +corresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also he +was coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with the +other. + +He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge by +the ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly, +having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He'd been told to +report at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted a +boycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or the +entire place could starve to death. + +It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper was +not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort +of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a +chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of the +front door. + +Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was running +toward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flying +legs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in the +knees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight, +and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was of +course because, if anything happened to him, she would be left +entirely alone. And anyhow the D.T. case was singing again and had +rather got on her nerves. + +In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. He had a +wretched-looking creature by the back of the neck and he alternately +pushed and kicked him up the drive. He--the red-haired person--was +whistling and clearly immensely pleased with himself. + +Jane put a little powder on her nose and waited for him to come and +tell her all about it. But he did not come near. This was quite the +cleverest thing he could have done, had he known it. Jane was not +accustomed to waiting in vain. He must have gone directly to the +cellar, half pushing and half kicking the luckless furnace man, for +about four o'clock the radiator began to get warm. + +At five he came and knocked at Jane's door, and on being invited in +he sat down on the bed and looked at her. + +"Well, we've got the furnace going," he said. + +"Then that was the----" + +"Furnace man? Yes." + +"Aren't you afraid to leave him?" queried Jane. "Won't he run off?" + +"Got him locked in a padded cell," he said. "I can take him out to +coal up. The rest of the time he can sit and think of his sins. The +question is--what are we to do next?" + +"I should think," ventured Jane, "that we'd better be thinking about +supper." + +"The beef capsules are gone." + +"But surely there must be something else about--potatoes or things +like that?" + +He brightened perceptibly. "Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, and +there's canned stuff. Higgins can pare potatoes, and there's Mary +O'Shaughnessy. We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs." + +"Fine!" said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day before +she would have said they were her three abominations. + +And with that he called Higgins and Mary O'Shaughnessy and the four +of them went to the kitchen. + +Jane positively shone. She had never realised before how much she +knew about cooking. They built a fire and got kettles boiling and +everybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggs +were ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorched +slightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in +ability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift and +started them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shook +hands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, +sitting side by side on a table. + +They were ravenous. They boiled one egg each and ate it, and then +boiled another and another, and when they finished they found that +Jane had eaten four potatoes, four eggs and unlimited bread and +butter, while the red-haired person had eaten six saucers of stewed +tomatoes and was starting on the seventh. + +"You know," he said over the seventh, "we've got to figure this +thing out. The entire town is solid against us--no use trying to get +to a telephone. And anyhow they've got us surrounded. We're in a +state of siege." + +Jane was beating up an egg in milk for the D.T. patient, the +capsules being exhausted, and the red-haired person was watching her +closely. She had the two vertical lines between her eyes, but they +looked really like lines of endeavour and not temper. + +She stopped beating and looked up. + +"Couldn't I go to the village?" she asked. + +"They would stop you." + +"Then--I think I know what we can do," she said, giving the eggnog a +final whisk. "My people have a summer place on the hill. If you +could get there you could telephone to the city." + +"Could I get in?" + +"I have a key." + +Jane did not explain that the said key had been left by her father, +with the terse hope that if she came to her senses she could get +into the house and get her clothes. + +"Good girl," said the red-headed person and patted her on the +shoulder. "We'll euchre the old skate yet." Curiously, Jane did not +resent either the speech or the pat. + +He took the glass and tied on a white apron. "If our friend doesn't +drink this, I will," he continued. "If he'd seen it in the making, +as I have, he'd be crazy about it." + +He opened the door and stood listening. From below floated up the +refrain: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +"Listen to that!" he said. "Stomach's gone, but still has a heart!" + +Higgins came up the stairs heavily and stopped close by the +red-haired person, whispering something to him. There was a second's +pause. Then the red-haired person gave the eggnog to Higgins and +both disappeared. + +Jane was puzzled. She rather thought the furnace man had got out and +listened for a scuffle, but none came. She did, however, hear the +singing cease below, and then commence with renewed vigour, and she +heard Higgins slowly remounting the stairs. He came in, with the +empty glass and a sheepish expression. Part of the eggnog was +distributed over his person. + +"He wants his nurse, ma'am," said Higgins. "Wouldn't let me near +him. Flung a pillow at me." + +"Where is the doctor?" demanded Jane. + +"Busy," replied Higgins. "One of the women is sick." + +Jane was provoked. She had put some labour into the eggnog. But it +shows the curious evolution going on in her that she got out the +eggs and milk and made another one without protest. Then with her +head up she carried it to the door. + +"You might clear things away, Higgins," she said, and went down the +stairs. Her heart was going rather fast. Most of the men Jane knew +drank more or less, but this was different. She would have turned +back halfway there had it not been for Higgins and for owning +herself conquered. That was Jane's real weakness--she never owned +herself beaten. + +The singing had subsided to a low muttering. Jane stopped outside +the door and took a fresh grip on her courage. Then she pushed the +door open and went in. + +The light was shaded, and at first the tossing figure on the bed was +only a misty outline of greys and whites. She walked over, expecting +a pillow at any moment and shielding the glass from attack with her +hand. + +"I have brought you another eggnog," she began severely, "and if you +spill it----" + +Then she looked down and saw the face on the pillow. + +To her everlasting credit, Jane did not faint. But in that moment, +while she stood staring down at the flushed young face with its +tumbled dark hair and deep-cut lines of dissipation, the man who had +sung to her over the piano, looking love into her eyes, died to her, +and Jane, cold and steady, sat down on the side of the bed and fed +the eggnog, spoonful by spoonful, to his corpse! + +When the blank-eyed young man on the bed had swallowed it all +passively, looking at her with dull, incurious eyes, she went back +to her room and closing the door put the washstand against it. She +did nothing theatrical. She went over to the window and stood +looking out where the trees along the drive were fading in the dusk +from green to grey, from grey to black. And over the transom came +again and again monotonously the refrain: + + _I--love you o--own--ly, + I love--but--you._ + +Jane fell on her knees beside the bed and buried her wilful head in +the hand-embroidered pillow, and said a little prayer because she +had found out in time. + + +III + +The full realisation of their predicament came with the dusk. The +electric lights were shut off! Jane, crawling into bed tearfully at +half after eight, turned the reading light switch over her head, but +no flood of rosy radiance poured down on the hand-embroidered pillow +with the pink bow. + +Jane sat up and stared round her. Already the outline of her dresser +was faint and shadowy. In half an hour black night would settle down +and she had not even a candle or a box of matches. She crawled out, +panicky, and began in the darkness to don her kimono and slippers. +As she opened the door and stepped into the hall the convalescent +typhoid heard her and set up his usual cry. + +"Hey," he called, "whoever that is come in and fix the lights. +They're broken. And I want some bread and milk. I can't sleep on an +empty stomach!" + +Jane padded on past the room where love lay cold and dead, down the +corridor with its alarming echoes. The house seemed very quiet. At a +corner unexpectedly she collided with some one going hastily. The +result was a crash and a deluge of hot water. Jane got a drop on her +bare ankle, and as soon as she could breathe she screamed. + +"Why don't you look where you're going?" demanded the red-haired +person angrily. "I've been an hour boiling that water, and now it +has to be done over again!" + +"It would do a lot of good to look!" retorted Jane. "But if you +wish I'll carry a bell!" + +"The thing for you to do," said the red-haired person severely, "is +to go back to bed like a good girl and stay there until morning. The +light is cut off." + +"Really!" said Jane. "I thought it had just gone out for a walk. I +daresay I may have a box of matches at least?" + +He fumbled in his pockets without success. + +"Not a match, of course!" he said disgustedly. "Was any one ever in +such an infernal mess? Can't you get back to your room without +matches?" + +"I shan't go back at all unless I have some sort of light," +maintained Jane. "I'm--horribly frightened!" + +The break in her voice caught his attention and he put his hand out +gently and took her arm. + +"Now listen," he said. "You've been brave and fine all day, and +don't stop it now. I--I've got all I can manage. Mary O'Shaughnessy +is----" He stopped. "I'm going to be very busy," he said with half a +groan. "I surely do wish you were forty for the next few hours. But +you'll go back and stay in your room, won't you?" + +He patted her arm, which Jane particularly hated generally. But Jane +had altered considerably since morning. + +"Then you cannot go to the telephone?" + +"Not to-night." + +"And Higgins?" + +"Higgins has gone," he said. "He slipped off an hour ago. We'll have +to manage to-night somehow. Now will you be a good child?" + +"I'll go back," she promised meekly. "I'm sorry I'm not forty." + +He turned her round and started her in the right direction with a +little push. But she had gone only a step or two when she heard him +coming after her quickly. + +"Where are you?" + +"Here," quavered Jane, not quite sure of him or of herself perhaps. + +But when he stopped beside her he didn't try to touch her arm again. +He only said: + +"I wouldn't have you forty for anything in the world. I want you to +be just as you are, very beautiful and young." + +Then, as if he was afraid he would say too much, he turned on his +heel, and a moment after he kicked against the fallen pitcher in the +darkness and awoke a thousand echoes. As for Jane, she put her +fingers to her ears and ran to her room, where she slammed the door +and crawled into bed with burning cheeks. + +Jane was never sure whether it was five minutes later or five +seconds when somebody in the room spoke--from a chair by the window. + +"Do you think," said a mild voice--"do you think you could find me +some bread and butter? Or a glass of milk?" + +Jane sat up in bed suddenly. She knew at once that she had made a +mistake, but she was quite dignified about it. She looked over at +the chair, and the convalescent typhoid was sitting in it, wrapped +in a blanket and looking wan and ghostly in the dusk. + +"I'm afraid I'm in the wrong room," Jane said very stiffly, trying +to get out of the bed with dignity, which is difficult. "The hall is +dark and all the doors look so alike----" + +She made for the door at that and got out into the hall with her +heart going a thousand a minute again. + +"You've forgotten your slippers," called the convalescent typhoid +after her. But nothing would have taken Jane back. + +The convalescent typhoid took the slippers home later and locked +them away in an inner drawer, where he kept one or two things like +faded roses, and old gloves, and a silk necktie that a girl had made +him at college--things that are all the secrets a man keeps from his +wife and that belong in that small corner of his heart which also +he keeps from his wife. But that has nothing to do with Jane. + +Jane went back to her own bed thoroughly demoralised. And sleep +being pretty well banished by that time, she sat up in bed and +thought things over. Before this she had not thought much, only +raged and sulked alternately. But now she thought. She thought about +the man in the room down the hall with the lines of dissipation on +his face. And she thought a great deal about what a silly she had +been, and that it was not too late yet, she being not forty and +"beautiful." It must be confessed that she thought a great deal +about that. Also she reflected that what she deserved was to marry +some person with even a worse temper than hers, who would bully her +at times and generally keep her straight. And from that, of course, +it was only a step to the fact that red-haired people are +proverbially bad-tempered! + +She thought, too, about Mary O'Shaughnessy without another woman +near, and not even a light, except perhaps a candle. Things were +always so much worse in the darkness. And perhaps she might be going +to be very ill and ought to have another doctor! + +Jane seemed to have been reflecting for a long time, when the church +clock far down in the village struck nine. And with the chiming of +the clock was born, full grown, an idea which before it was sixty +seconds of age was a determination. + +In pursuance of the idea Jane once more crawled out of bed and began +to dress; she put on heavy shoes and a short skirt, a coat, and a +motor veil over her hair. The indignation at the defection of the +hospital staff, held in subjection during the day by the necessity +for doing something, now rose and lent speed and fury to her +movements. In an incredibly short time Jane was feeling her way +along the hall and down the staircase, now a well of unfathomable +blackness and incredible rustlings and creakings. + +The front doors were unlocked. Outside there was faint starlight, +the chirp of a sleepy bird, and far off across the valley the +gasping and wheezing of a freight climbing the heavy grade to the +village. + +Jane paused at the drive and took a breath. Then at her best +gymnasium pace, arms close to sides, head up, feet well planted, she +started to run. At the sundial she left the drive and took to the +lawn gleaming with the frost of late October. She stopped running +then and began to pick her way more cautiously. Even at that she +collided heavily with a wire fence marking the boundary, and sat on +the ground for some time after, whimpering over the outrage and +feeling her nose. It was distinctly scratched and swollen. No one +would think her beautiful with a nose like that! + +She had not expected the wire fence. It was impossible to climb and +more difficult to get under. However, she found one place where the +ground dipped, and wormed her way under the fence in most +undignified fashion. It is perfectly certain that had Jane's family +seen her then and been told that she was doing this remarkable thing +for a woman she had never seen before that day, named Mary +O'Shaughnessy, and also for a certain red-haired person of whom it +had never heard, it would have considered Jane quite irrational. But +it is entirely probable that Jane became really rational that night +for the first time in her spoiled young life. + +Jane never told the details of that excursion. Those that came out +in the paper were only guess-work, of course, but it is quite true +that a reporter found scraps of her motor veil on three wire fences, +and there seems to be no reason to doubt, also, that two false curls +were discovered a week later in a cow pasture on her own estate. But +as Jane never wore curls afterward anyhow---- + +Well, Jane got to her own house about eleven and crept in like a +thief to the telephone. There were more rustlings and creakings and +rumblings in the empty house than she had ever imagined, and she +went backward through the hall for fear of something coming after +her. But, which is to the point, she got to the telephone and called +up her father in the city. + +The first message that astonished gentleman got was that a +red-haired person at the hospital was very ill, having run into a +wire fence and bruised a nose, and that he was to bring out at once +from town two doctors, six nurses, a cook and a furnace man! + +After a time, however, as Jane grew calmer, he got it straightened +out, and said a number of things over the telephone anent the +deserting staff that are quite forbidden by the rules both of the +club and of the telephone company. He gave Jane full instructions +about sending to the village and having somebody come up and stay +with her, and about taking a hot footbath and going to bed between +blankets, and when Jane replied meekly to everything "Yes, father," +and "All right, father," he was so stunned by her mildness that he +was certain she must be really ill. + +Not that Jane had any idea of doing all these things. She hung up +the telephone and gathered all the candles from all the candlesticks +on the lower floor, and started back for the hospital. The moon had +come up and she had no more trouble with fencing, but she was +desperately tired. She climbed the drive slowly, coming to frequent +pauses. The hospital, long and low and sleeping, lay before her, +and in one upper window there was a small yellow light. + +Jane climbed the steps and sat down on the top one. She felt very +tired and sad and dejected, and she sat down on the upper step to +think of how useless she was, and how much a man must know to be a +doctor, and that perhaps she would take up nursing in earnest and +amount to something, and---- + +It was about three o'clock in the morning when the red-haired +person, coming down belatedly to close the front doors, saw a +shapeless heap on the porch surrounded by a radius of white-wax +candles, and going up shoved at it with his foot. Whereat the heap +moved slightly and muttered "Lemme shleep." + +The red-haired person said "Good Heavens!" and bending down held a +lighted match to the sleeper's face and stared, petrified. Jane +opened her eyes, sat up and put her hand over her mutilated nose +with one gesture. + +"You!" said the red-haired person. And then mercifully the match +went out. + +"Don't light another," said Jane. "I'm an alarming sight. +Would--would you mind feeling if my nose is broken?" + +He didn't move to examine it. He just kept on kneeling and staring. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded. + +"Over to telephone," said Jane, and yawned. "They're bringing +everybody in automobiles--doctors, nurses, furnace man--oh, dear me, +I hope I mentioned a cook!" + +"Do you mean to say," said the red-haired person wonderingly, "that +you went by yourself across the fields and telephoned to get me out +of this mess?" + +"Not at all," Jane corrected him coolly. "I'm in the mess myself." + +"You'll be ill again." + +"I never was ill," said Jane. "I was here for a mean disposition." + +Jane sat in the moonlight with her hands in her lap and looked at +him calmly. The red-haired person reached over and took both her +hands. + +"You're a heroine," he said, and bending down he kissed first one +and then the other. "Isn't it bad enough that you are beautiful +without your also being brave?" + +Jane eyed him, but he was in deadly earnest. In the moonlight his +hair was really not red at all, and he looked pale and very, very +tired. Something inside of Jane gave a curious thrill that was half +pain. Perhaps it was the dying of her temper, perhaps---- + +"Am I still beautiful with this nose?" she asked. + +"You are everything that a woman should be," he said, and dropping +her hands he got up. He stood there in the moonlight, straight and +young and crowned with despair, and Jane looked up from under her +long lashes. + +"Then why don't you stay where you were?" she asked. + +At that he reached down and took her hands again and pulled her to +her feet. He was very strong. + +"Because if I do I'll never leave you again," he said. "And I must +go." + +He dropped her hands, or tried to, but Jane wasn't ready to be +dropped. + +"You know," she said, "I've told you I'm a sulky, bad-tempered----" + +But at that he laughed suddenly, triumphantly, and put both his arms +round her and held her close. + +"I love you," he said, "and if you are bad-tempered, so am I, only I +think I'm worse. It's a shame to spoil two houses with us, isn't +it?" + +To her eternal shame be it told, Jane never struggled. She simply +held up her mouth to be kissed. + +That is really all the story. Jane's father came with three +automobiles that morning at dawn, bringing with him all that goes to +make up a hospital, from a pharmacy clerk to absorbent cotton, and +having left the new supplies in the office he stamped upstairs to +Jane's room and flung open the door. + +He expected to find Jane in hysterics and the pink silk kimono. + +What he really saw was this: A coal fire was lighted in Jane's +grate, and in a low chair before it, with her nose swollen level +with her forehead, sat Jane, holding on her lap Mary O'Shaughnessy's +baby, very new and magenta-coloured and yelling like a trooper. +Kneeling beside the chair was a tall, red-headed person holding a +bottle of olive oil. + +"Now, sweetest," the red-haired person was saying, "turn him on his +tummy and we'll rub his back. Gee, isn't that a fat back!" + +And as Jane's father stared and Jane anxiously turned the baby, the +red-haired person leaned over and kissed the back of Jane's neck. + +"Jane!" he whispered. + +"Jane!!" said her father. + + + + +IN THE PAVILION + + +I + +Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The story +is to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne to +which no traveller may take with him anything but his sins--and this +with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage--he cast about for some +way to prevent the Lindley Grants from getting possession of his +worldly goods. + +Probably it would never have happened at all had not young Grant, +having hit on a scheme, clung to it with a tenacity that might +better have been devoted to saving his soul, and had he not said to +the Nurse, who was at that moment shaking a thermometer: "Come +on--be a sport! It's only a matter of hours." Not that he said it +aloud--he whispered it, and fought for the breath to do even that. +The Nurse, having shaken down the thermometer, walked to the table +and recorded a temperature of one hundred and six degrees through a +most unprofessional mist of tears. Then in the symptom column she +wrote: "Delirious." + +But Billy Grant was not delirious. A fever of a hundred and four or +thereabout may fuse one's mind in a sort of fiery crucible, but when +it gets to a hundred and six all the foreign thoughts, like seeing +green monkeys on the footboard and wondering why the doctor is +walking on his hands--all these things melt away, and one sees one's +past, as when drowning, and remembers to hate one's relations, and +is curious about what is coming when one goes over. + +So Billy Grant lay on his bed in the contagious pavilion of the +hospital, and remembered to hate the Lindley Grants and to try to +devise a way to keep them out of his property. And, having studied +law, he knew no will that he might make now would hold against the +Lindley Grants for a minute, unless he survived its making some +thirty days. The Staff Doctor had given him about thirty hours or +less. + +Perhaps he would have given up in despair and been forced to rest +content with a threat to haunt the Lindley Grants and otherwise mar +the enjoyment of their good fortune, had not the Nurse at that +moment put the thermometer under his arm. + +Now, as every one knows, an axillary temperature takes five minutes, +during which it is customary for a nurse to kneel beside the bed, or +even to sit very lightly on the edge, holding the patient's arm +close to his side and counting his respirations while pretending to +be thinking of something else. It was during these five minutes that +the idea came into Billy Grant's mind and, having come, remained. +The Nurse got up, rustling starchily, and Billy caught her eye. + +"Every engine," he said with difficulty, "labours--in a low--gear. +No wonder I'm--heated up!" + +The Nurse, who was young, put her hand on his forehead. + +"Try to sleep," she said. + +"Time for--that--later," said Billy Grant. "I'll--I'll be a--long +time--dead. I--I wonder whether you'd--do me a--favour." + +"I'll do anything in the world you want." + +She tried to smile down at him, but only succeeded in making her +chin quiver, which would never do--being unprofessional and likely +to get to the head nurse; so, being obliged to do something, she +took his pulse by the throbbing in his neck. + +"One, two, three, four, five, six----" + +"Then--marry me," gasped Billy Grant. "Only for an--hour or--two, +you know. You--promised. Come on--be a sport!" + +It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded +"Delirious" in the symptom column. And, though she was a Smith +College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she +spelled it just then with two r's. + +Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse. She was a part of his +illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, +and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines. There were +even times--when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a +cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned--when she +seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires. So sentiment +did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge. + +"You--promised," he said again; but the Nurse only smiled +indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows. + +Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion at +six o'clock--cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea. Also, he +brought her an evening paper. But the Nurse was not hungry. She went +into the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a clean +collar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then +stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very +lonely and responsible. It was not a great hospital, but it loomed +large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the +courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying +a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big +railroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches." +He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many +internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the +dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into +a doze, opened his eyes. + +"What--about it?" he asked. "You're not--married already--are you?" + +"Please try to rest. Perhaps if I get your beef juice----" + +"Oh, damn--the beef juice!" whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyes +again--but not to sleep. He was planning how to get his way, and +finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, he +evolved something. The doctor, of course! These women had to do what +the doctor ordered. He would see the doctor!--upon which, with a +precision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard of +the bed put their thumbs to their noses at him. + +The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from +any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such, +entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could +procure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not +even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the +Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the +doorstep and told him. + +"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said +dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave +everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!" + +The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper +of steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out +a digestive tablet from his surgical bag. + +"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had known +the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according to +report at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet, +and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man who +has first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make one +breathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyond +the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!" + +The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep. +Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of the +monkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with +the symptom record. + +"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his +spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad." + +"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!" + +She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek. + +"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse, +respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--away +from home, too, poor lad!" + +"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?" + +"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well." + +Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, have +walked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what he +said, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one hand +an order blank on which said august personage would presently +inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by +the pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in +the other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into +the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage +to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be +unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's +chest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner; +but every one knows that story. + +Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in +the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a +hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff +Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. + +"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his +arm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposed +to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "We +can't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. When +did you sleep?" + +"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled. +"No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can't +bear to see him--to see him----" + +The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on the +Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed. + +"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, and +I've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?" + +"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm not +hungry--that's all. How long do you think----" + +The Staff Doctor, who was putting an antiseptic gauze cap over his +white hair, ran a safety pin into his scalp at that moment and did +not reply at once. Then, "Perhaps--until morning," he said. + +He held out his arms for the long, white, sterilised coat, and a +moment later, with his face clean-washed of emotion, and looking +like a benevolent Turk, he entered the sick room. The Nurse was just +behind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel over +her arm. + +Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting. + +"Allah--is--great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor--I guess +it's all--over but--the shouting." + + +II + +Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was +quite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But his +feet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one +wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise +he was beautifully comfortable. + +Faint as was the stir he made the Nurse heard him. She was sitting +in the dark by the window. + +"Water?" she asked softly, coming to him. + +"Please." His voice was stronger than it had been. + +Some of the water went down his neck, but it did not matter. Nothing +mattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperature +and went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might not +watch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, she +came back into the room. + +"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grant +querulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stiffly +starched, so relentless of collar and cap. + +"I am comfortable." + +"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurse +rather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and take +a nap? I don't need anything." + +"Not--not to-night." + +He understood, of course, but he refused to be depressed. He was too +comfortable. He was breathing easily, and his voice, though weak, +was clear. + +"Would you mind sitting beside me? Or are you tired? But of course +you are. Perhaps in a night or so you'll be over there again, +sleeping in a nice white gown in a nice fresh bed, with no querulous +devil----" + +"Please!" + +"You'll have to be sterilised or formaldehyded?" + +"Yes." This very low. + +"Will you put your hand over mine? Thanks. It's--company, you know." +He was apologetic; under her hand his own burned fire. "I--I spoke +to the Staff about that while you were out of the room." + +"About what?" + +"About your marrying me." + +"What did he say?" She humoured him. + +"He said he was willing if you were. You're not going to move--are +you?" + +"No. But you must not talk." + +"It's like this. I've got a little property--not much; a little." He +was nervously eager about this. If she knew it amounted to anything +she would refuse, and the Lindley Grants---- "And when I--you +know---- I want to leave it where it will do some good. That little +brother of yours--it would send him through college, or help to." + +Once, weeks ago, before he became so ill, she had told him of the +brother. This in itself was wrong and against the ethics of the +profession. One does not speak of oneself or one's family. + +"If you won't try to sleep, shall I read to you?" + +"Read what?" + +"I thought--the Bible, if you wouldn't mind." + +"Certainly," he agreed. "I suppose that's the conventional thing; +and if it makes you feel any better---- Will you think over what +I've been saying?" + +"I'll think about it," she said, soothing him like a fretful child, +and brought her Bible. + +The clock on the near-by town hall struck two as she drew up her +chair beside him and commenced to read by the shaded light. Across +the courtyard the windows were dim yellowish rectangles, with here +and there one brighter than the others that told its own story of +sleepless hours. A taxicab rolled along the street outside, carrying +a boisterous night party. + +The Nurse had taken off her cap and put it on a stand. The autumn +night was warm, and the light touch of the tulle had pressed her +hair in damp, fine curves over her forehead. There were purple +hollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes. + +"The perfect nurse," the head of the training school was fond of +saying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is a +handicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, +silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!" + +Poor Junior Nurse! + +Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, +should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking young +life; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants--which story +does not belong here; should have been asking for the consolation of +the church, and trying to summon from the depths of his +consciousness faint memories of early teachings as to the life +beyond, and what he might or might not expect there. + +What he actually did while the Nurse read was to try to move his +legs, and, failing this, to plan a way to achieve the final revenge +of a not particularly forgiving life. + +At a little before three o'clock the Nurse telephoned across for an +interne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot a +hypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. +He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung on +her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of his +head. + +"About all in!" he said. "Heart's gone--too much booze probably. I'd +stay, but there's nothing to do." + +"Would oxygen----" + +"Oh, you can try it if you like. It's like blowing up a leaking +tire; but if you'll feel better, do it." He yawned and tied the cord +of his bathrobe round him more securely. "I guess you'll be glad to +get back," he observed, looking round the dingy hall. "This place +always gives me a chill. Well, let me know if you want me. Good +night." + +The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on the +asphalt had died away. Then she turned to Billy Grant. + +"Well?" demanded Billy Grant. "How long have I? Until morning?" + +"If you would only not talk and excite yourself----" + +"Hell!" said Billy Grant, we regret to record. "I've got to do all +the talking I'm going to do right now. I beg your pardon--I didn't +intend to swear." + +"Oh, that's all right!" said the Nurse vaguely. This was like no +deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting. + +"Shall I read again?" + +"No, thank you." + +The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation present +from her mother and which said, inside the case: "To my little +girl!" There is no question but that, when the Nurse's mother gave +that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when +the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had +slapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe. "To my little +girl!" said the watch; and across from that--"Three o'clock." + +At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarked +that if it would ease the Nurse any he'd see a preacher. His voice +was weaker again and broken. + +"Not"--he said, struggling--"not that I think--he'll pass me. +But--if you say so--I'll--take a chance." + +All of which was diabolical cunning; for when, as the result of a +telephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man who +counted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silver +communion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in a +slum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare a +broth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man of +God. This he did by urging the need of the Nurse's small brother for +an education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grants +or the extent of his property. + +From four o'clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with what +voice he had. The idea had become an obsession; and minute by +minute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away. +He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set. +And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little to +her and, for some strange reason, so much to him. Perhaps, if she +did it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying. + +At five o'clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding his +pulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes the +Nurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient's arm +with one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married in +a dozen words and a soiled white apron. + +Dawn was creeping in at the windows--a grey city dawn, filled with +soot and the rumbling of early wagons. A smell of damp asphalt from +the courtyard floated in and a dirty sparrow chirped on the sill +where the Nurse had been in the habit of leaving crumbs. Billy +Grant, very sleepy and contented now that he had got his way, +dictated a line or two on a blank symptom record, and signed his +will in a sprawling hand. + +"If only," he muttered, "I could see Lin's face when that's--sprung +on him!" + +The minister picked up the Bible from the tumbled bed and opened it. + +"Perhaps," he suggested very softly, "if I read from the Word of +God----" + +Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of their +very shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep--asleep with the +thermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and falling +peacefully. + +The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding the +thermometer in place. She had buried her face in the white +counterpane. + +"You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is happier, +and you are none the worse. Shall I keep the paper for you?" + +But the Nurse, worn out with the long night, slept where she knelt. +The minister, who had come across the street in a ragged +smoking-coat and no collar, creaked round the bed and threw the edge +of the blanket over her shoulders. + +Then, turning his coat collar up over his unshaved neck, he departed +for the mission across the street, where one of his derelicts, in +his shirtsleeves, was sweeping the pavement. There, mindful of the +fact that he had come from the contagious pavilion, the minister +brushed his shabby smoking-coat with a whiskbroom to remove the +germs! + + +III + +Billy Grant, of course, did not die. This was perhaps because only +the good die young. And Billy Grant's creed had been the honour of a +gentleman rather than the Mosaic Law. There was, therefore, no +particular violence done to his code when his last thoughts--or what +appeared to be his last thoughts--were revenge instead of salvation. + +The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the Lindley +Grants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and a +hereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did not +understand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "Poor +Billy!" and not having wine when he came to dinner. That, however, +was not his reason for hating them. + +Billy Grant fell in love. To give the devil his due, he promptly set +about reforming himself. He took about half as many whisky-and-sodas +as he had been in the habit of doing, and cut out champagne +altogether. He took up golf to fill in the time, too, but gave it up +when he found it made him thirstier than ever. And then, with +things so shaping up that he could rise in the morning without +having a drink to get up on, the Lindley Grants thought it best to +warn the girl's family before it was too late. + +"He is a nice boy in some ways," Mrs. Lindley Grant had said on the +occasion of the warning; "but, like all drinking men, he is a broken +reed, eccentric and irresponsible. No daughter of mine could marry +him. I'd rather bury her. And if you want facts Lindley will give +them to you." + +So the girl had sent back her ring and a cold little letter, and +Billy Grant had got roaring full at a club that night and presented +the ring to a cabman--all of which is exceedingly sordid, but rather +human after all. + +The Nurse, having had no sleep for forty-eight hours, slept for +quite thirty minutes. She wakened at the end of that time and +started up with a horrible fear that the thing she was waiting for +had come. But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, and +the thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered a +hundred and three. + +At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with a +laudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to drop +in, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and the +Nurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous. + +"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought to +have been called. I told you----" + +"He isn't dead," said the Nurse breathlessly. "He--I think he is +better." + +Whereon she stumbled out of the room into her own little room across +the hall, locking the door behind her, and leaving the interne to +hunt the symptom record for himself--a thing not to be lightly +overlooked; though of course internes are not the Staff. + +The interne looked over the record and whistled. + +"Wouldn't that paralyse you!" he said under his breath. "'Pulse very +weak.' 'Pulse almost obliterated.' 'Very talkative.' 'Breathing hard +at four A.M. Cannot swallow.' And then: 'Sleeping calmly from five +o'clock.' 'Pulse stronger.' Temperature one hundred and three.' By +gad, that last prescription of mine was a hit!" + +So now began a curious drama of convalescence in the little +isolation pavilion across the courtyard. Not for a minute did the +two people most concerned forget their strange relationship; not for +worlds would either have allowed the other to know that he or she +remembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixed +on her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistful +expression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would find +her in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lap +and a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him. + +He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly's +assistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment in +which he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he had +realised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a cruel +advantage he had used for his own purpose. + +When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone she +brought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the first +personality of their new relationship. + +"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there in +the bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable." + +"I am not small," she said, straightening herself. She had always +hoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall. +You--you are a giant!" + +"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovely +girls for dinner under pretence of marriage----" He stopped his +nonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured. +Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretched +silence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of his +convalescence was always pertinent--food. "Speaking of dinner," he +said hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?" + +She was quite calm when she came back--cool, even smiling; but +Billy Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placed +the glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took her +hand. + +"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; the +usual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and too +late for anything but forgiveness. + +"Forgive you? For not dying?" + +She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside from +dangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house. + +"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. It +took a little time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover on +the stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on the +table. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while each +side got its forces in line. + +"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to change +the figure, a blow below the belt. + +"Why should I hate you?" countered the other side. + +"I should think you would. I forced the thing on you." + +"I need not have done it." + +"But being you, and always thinking about making some one else happy +and comfortable----" + +"Oh, if only they don't find it out over there!" she burst out. "If +they do and I have to leave, with Jim----" + +Here, realising that she was going to cry and not caring to screw up +her face before any one, she put her arms on the stand and buried +her face in them. Her stiff tulle cap almost touched Billy Grant's +arm. + +Billy Grant had a shocked second. + +"Jim?" + +"My little brother," from the table. + +Billy Grant drew a long breath of relief. For a moment he had +thought---- + +"I wonder--whether I dare to say something to you." Silence from the +table and presumably consent. "Isn't he--don't you think that--I +might be allowed to--to help Jim? It would help me to like myself +again. Just now I'm not standing very high with myself." + +"Won't you tell me why you did it?" she said, suddenly sitting up, +her arms still out before her on the table. "Why did you coax so? +You said it was because of a little property you had, but--that +wasn't it--was it?" + +"No." + +"Or because you cared a snap for me." This was affirmation, not +question. + +"No, not that, though I----" + +She gave a hopeless little gesture of despair. + +"Then--why? Why?" + +"For one of the meanest reasons I know--to be even with some people +who had treated me badly." + +The thing was easier now. His flat denial of any sentimental reason +had helped to make it so. + +"A girl that you cared about?" + +"Partly that. The girl was a poor thing. She didn't care enough to +be hurt by anything I did. But the people who made the trouble----" + +Now a curious thing happened. Billy Grant found at this moment that +he no longer hated the Lindley Grants. The discovery left him +speechless--that he who had taken his hate into the very valley of +death with him should now find himself thinking of both Lindley and +his wife with nothing more bitter than contempt shocked him. A state +of affairs existed for which his hatred of the Lindley Grants was +alone responsible; now the hate was gone and the state of affairs +persisted. + +"I should like," said Billy Grant presently, "to tell you a +little--if it will not bore you--about myself and the things I have +done that I shouldn't, and about the girl. And of course, you know, +I'm--I'm not going to hold you to--to the thing I forced you into. +There are ways to fix that." + +Before she would listen, however, she must take his temperature and +give him his medicine, and see that he drank his buttermilk--the +buttermilk last, so as not to chill his mouth for the thermometer. +The tired lines had gone from under her eyes and she was very lovely +that day. She had always been lovely, even when the Staff Doctor +had slapped her between the shoulders long ago--you know about +that--only Billy Grant had never noticed it; but to-day, sitting +there with the thermometer in his mouth while she counted his +respirations, pretending to be looking out the window while she did +it, Billy Grant saw how sweet and lovely and in every way adorable +she was, in spite of the sad droop of her lips--and found it hard to +say the thing he felt he must. + +"After all," he remarked round the thermometer, "the thing is not +irrevocable. I can fix it up so that----" + +"Keep your lips closed about the thermometer!" she said sternly, and +snapped her watch shut. + +The pulse and so on having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down +under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing +him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in her lap. + +"Now!" she said. + +"I am to go on?" + +"Yes, please." + +"If you are going to change the pillows or the screen, or give me +any other diabolical truck to swallow," he said somewhat peevishly, +"will you get it over now, so we can have five unprofessional +minutes?" + +"Certainly," she said; and bringing an extra blanket she spread it, +to his disgust, over his knees. + +This time, when she sat down, one of her hands lay on the table near +him and he reached over and covered it with his. + +"Please!" he begged. "For company! And it will help me to tell you +some of the things I have to tell." + +She left it there, after an uneasy stirring. So, sitting there, +looking out into the dusty courtyard with its bandaged figures in +wheeled chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench--their crutches +beside them--its waterless fountain and its dingy birds, he told her +about the girl and the Lindley Grants, and even about the cabman and +the ring. And feeling, perhaps in some current from the small hand +under his, that she was knowing and understanding and not turning +away, he told her a great deal he had not meant to tell--ugly +things, many of them--for that was his creed. + +And, because in a hospital one lives many lives vicariously with +many people, what the girl back home would never have understood +this girl did and faced unabashed. Life, as she knew it, was not all +good and not all bad; passion and tenderness, violence and peace, +joy and wretchedness, birth and death--these she had looked on, all +of them, with clear eyes and hands ready to help. + +So Billy Grant laid the good and the bad of his life before her, +knowing that he was burying it with her. When he finished, her hand +on the table had turned and was clasping his. He bent over and +kissed her fingers softly. + +After that she read to him, and their talk, if any, was impersonal. +When the orderly had put him back to bed he lay watching her moving +about, rejoicing in her quiet strength, her repose. How well she was +taking it all! If only--but there was no hope of that. She could go +to Reno, and in a few months she would be free again and the thing +would be as if it had never been. + +At nine o'clock that night the isolation pavilion was ready for the +night. The lights in the sickroom were out. In the hall a nightlight +burned low, Billy Grant was not asleep. He tried counting the +lighted windows of the hospital and grew only more wakeful. + +The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doors +open between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in, +with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleeves +falling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching with +inaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicated +that she was sleeping. + +Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still +very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by +pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping +first one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, even +the weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of a +chairback may become, however shaky, a standing one. + +He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough to +relinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He would +tell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. He +took a step--if only his knees---- + +He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking through +the open door of the room across. + +The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. +Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in their +short white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutching +the counterpane. + +Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort of +groan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapper +held about her, peering into the darkness. + +"I thought I heard--are you worse?" she asked anxiously. + +"I'm all right," he said, hating himself; "just not sleepy. How +about you?" + +"Not asleep yet, but--resting," she replied. + +She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid over +her shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. In +the darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then dropped +them, ashamed. + +"Would you like another blanket?" + +"If there is one near." + +She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over the +bed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place. +He was mustering up his courage to ask for something--a curious +state of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wanted +without asking. + +"I wish you would kiss me--just once!" he said wistfully. And then, +seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: "I think that's +the reason I'm not sleeping." + +"Don't be absurd!" + +"Is it so absurd--under the circumstances?" + +"You can sleep quite well if you only try." + +She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then she +hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room. + +"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? And +will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?" + +"But my arms----" + +"Over your head!" + +He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in the +darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed--the tip of +his nose! + + +IV + +She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neither +of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant +thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring +him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured +by the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He +was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have---- He +borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself. + +Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of +his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of +better treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair over +his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done +with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again. + +That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was +troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day +before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his +chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. + +The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, +enlightened her. + +"He has pulled through--God and you alone know how," he said. "But +as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for +liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years---- +Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of +pepsin?" + +The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff +Doctor swallowed and grimaced. + +"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly--for, the stress being +over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled +to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage. + +"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has +been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but +steady. "He is not to have it?" + +"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair +again, but while he's here--by-the-way, you'll have to watch the +orderly. He'll bribe him." + +"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman." + +"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk +too; but he's a drinker--a habitual drinker." + +The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a +chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face +buried in his hands. + +"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. +He's right, you know." + +"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help." + +She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held it +between his. + +"Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me, +you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow--didn't we?" + +She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dying +man, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her hand +in his. Billy Grant thought of it too. + +"Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitterness +was at himself of course. "If--if you'll sit tight I have a fighting +chance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix this +thing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I---- Don't +take your hand away. Please!" + +"I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained. + +"Have I made you cry again?" + +"Again?' + +"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I was +trying to stand, and----" + +She was very dignified at this, with her eyes still wet, and tried +unsuccessfully to take her hand away. + +"If you are going to get up when it is forbidden I shall ask to be +relieved." + +"You wouldn't do that!" + +"Let go of my hand." + +"You wouldn't do that!!" + +"Please! The head nurse is coming." + +He freed her hand then and she wiped her eyes, remembering the +"perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine." + +The head of the training school came to the door of the pavilion, +but did not enter. The reason for this was twofold: first, she had +confidence in the Nurse; second, she was afraid of contagion--this +latter, of course, quite _sub rosa_, in view of the above quotation. + +The Head Nurse was a tall woman in white, and was so starchy that +she rattled like a newspaper when she walked. + +"Good morning," she said briskly. "Have you sent over the soiled +clothes?" Head nurses are always bothering about soiled clothes; +and what becomes of all the nailbrushes, and how can they use so +many bandages. + +"Yes, Miss Smith." + +"Meals come over promptly?" + +"Yes, Miss Smith." + +"Getting any sleep?" + +"Oh, yes, plenty--now." + +Miss Smith peered into the hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at the +Nurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient's +room, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight of him her eyebrows rose. + +"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was older than that!" + +"Twenty-nine," said the Nurse; "twenty-nine last Fourth of July." + +"H'm!" commented the Head Nurse. "You evidently know! I had no idea +you were taking care of a boy. It won't do. I'll send over Miss +Hart." + +The Nurse tried to visualise Billy Grant in his times of stress +clutching at Miss Hart's hand, and failed. + +"Jenks is here, of course," she said, Jenks being the orderly. + +The idea of Jenks as a chaperon, however, did not appeal to the head +nurse. She took another glance through the window at Billy Grant, +looking uncommonly handsome and quite ten years younger since the +shave, and she set her lips. + +"I am astonished beyond measure," she said. "Miss Hart will relieve +you at two o'clock. Take your antiseptic bath and you may have the +afternoon to yourself. Report in L Ward in the morning." + +Miss Smith rattled back across the courtyard and the Nurse stood +watching her; then turned slowly and went into the house to tell +Billy Grant. + +Now the stories about what followed differ. They agree on one point: +that Billy Grant had a heart-to-heart talk with the substitute at +two o'clock that afternoon and told her politely but firmly that he +would none of her. Here the divergence begins. Some say he got the +superintendent over the house telephone and said he had intended to +make a large gift to the hospital, but if his comfort was so little +considered as to change nurses just when he had got used to one, he +would have to alter his plans. Another and more likely story, +because it sounds more like Billy Grant, is that at five o'clock a +florist's boy delivered to Miss Smith a box of orchids such as never +had been seen before in the house, and a card inside which said: +"Please, dear Miss Smith, take back the Hart that thou gavest." + +Whatever really happened--and only Billy Grant and the lady in +question ever really knew--that night at eight o'clock, with Billy +Grant sitting glumly in his room and Miss Hart studying typhoid +fever in the hall, the Nurse came back again to the pavilion with +her soft hair flying from its afternoon washing and her eyes +shining. And things went on as before--not quite as before; for with +the nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, and +the next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taught +her double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, when +he walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Then +at dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fight +alone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would +waken to the craving again and fight all day. + +"I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff Doctor one +day; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself--now or never." + +The Staff Doctor was no fool and he had heard about the orchids. + +"Fight it out, boy!" he said. "Pretty soon you'll quit peeling and +cease being a menace to the public health, and you'd better get it +over before you are free again." + +So, after a time, it grew a little easier. Grant was pretty much +himself again--had put on a little flesh and could feel his biceps +rise under his fingers. He took to cold plunges when he felt the +craving coming on, and there were days when the little pavilion was +full of the sound of running water. He shaved himself daily, too, +and sent out for some collars. + +Between the two of them, since her return, there had been much of +good fellowship, nothing of sentiment. He wanted her near, but he +did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the +strange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Only +once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the +dishes for him--against his protest, for he disliked being waited +on--he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. She +coloured. + +"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring." + +Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment: +"Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them +over here?" + +It was that morning, also, that he suggested a thing which had been +in his mind for some time. + +"Wouldn't it be possible," he asked, "to bring your tray in here and +to eat together? It would be more sociable." + +She smiled. + +"It isn't permitted." + +"Do you think--would another box of orchids----" + +She shook her head as she poured out his coffee. "I should probably +be expelled." + +He was greatly aggrieved. + +"That's all foolishness," he said. "How is that any worse--any more +unconventional--than your bringing me your extra blanket on a cold +night? Oh, I heard you last night!" + +"Then why didn't you leave it on?" + +"And let you freeze?" + +"I was quite warm. As it was, it lay in the hallway all night and +did no one any good." + +Having got thus far from wedding rings, he did not try to get back. +He ate alone, and after breakfast, while she took her half-hour of +exercise outside the window, he sat inside reading--only apparently +reading, however. + +Once she went quite as far as the gate and stood looking out. + +"Jenks!" called Billy Grant. + +Jenks has not entered into the story much. He was a little man, +rather fat, who occupied a tiny room in the pavilion, carried meals +and soiled clothes, had sat on Billy Grant's chest once or twice +during a delirium, and kept a bottle locked in the dish closet. + +"Yes, sir," said Jenks, coming behind a strong odour of _spiritus +frumenti_. + +"Jenks," said Billy Grant with an eye on the figure at the gate, "is +that bottle of yours empty?" + +"What bottle?" + +"The one in the closet." + +Jenks eyed Billy Grant, and Billy eyed Jenks--a look of man to man, +brother to brother. + +"Not quite, sir--a nip or two." + +"At," suggested Billy Grant, "say--five dollars a nip?" + +Jenks smiled. + +"About that," he said. "Filled?" + +Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate. + +"No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here." + +Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motioned +away. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it with +a curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upper +bureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, +bewildered. + +"Just a little experiment, Jenks," said Billy Grant. + +Jenks understood then and stopped smiling. + +"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant," he said; "it will only make you lose +confidence in yourself when it doesn't work out." + +"But it's going to work out," said Billy Grant. "Would you mind +turning on the cold water?" + +Now the next twenty-four hours puzzled the Nurse. When Billy Grant's +eyes were not on her with an unfathomable expression in them, they +were fixed on something in the neighbourhood of the dresser, and at +these times they had a curious, fixed look not unmixed with triumph. +She tried a new arrangement of combs and brushes and tilted the +mirror at a different angle, without effect. + +That day Billy Grant took only one cold plunge. As the hours wore on +he grew more cheerful; the look of triumph was unmistakable. He +stared less at the dresser and more at the Nurse. At last it grew +unendurable. She stopped in front of him and looked down at him +severely. She could only be severe when he was sitting--when he was +standing she had to look so far up at him, even when she stood on +her tiptoes. + +"What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "You look so queer! Is my cap +crooked?" + +"It is a wonderful cap." + +"Is my face dirty?" + +"It is a won---- No, certainly not." + +"Then would you mind not staring so? You--upset me." + +"I shall have to shut my eyes," he replied meekly, and worried her +into a state of frenzy by sitting for fifty minutes with his head +back and his eyes shut. + +So--the evening and the morning were another day, and the bottle lay +undisturbed under the handkerchiefs, and the cold shower ceased +running, and Billy Grant assumed the air of triumph permanently. +That morning when the breakfast trays came he walked over into the +Nurse's room and picked hers up, table and all, carrying it across +the hall. In his own room he arranged the two trays side by side, +and two chairs opposite each other. When the Nurse, who had been +putting breadcrumbs on the window-sill, turned round Billy Grant was +waiting to draw out one of the chairs, and there was something in +his face she had not seen there before. + +"Shall we breakfast?" he said. + +"I told you yesterday----" + +"Think a minute," he said softly. "Is there any reason why we should +not breakfast together?" She pressed her hands close together, but +she did not speak. "Unless--you do not wish to." + +"You remember you promised, as soon as you got away, to--fix +that----" + +"So I will if you say the word." + +"And--to forget all about it." + +"That," said Billy Grant solemnly, "I shall never do so long as I +live. Do you say the word?" + +"What else can I do?" + +"Then there is somebody else?" + +"Oh, no!" + +He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her. + +"If there is no one else," he said, "and if I tell you that you have +made me a man again----" + +"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward the +egg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand. + +"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?" + +Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in the +little Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would have +looked like a seismic disturbance. + +"I--I have to look up so far!" she said, but really she was looking +down when she said it. + +"Oh, my dear--my dear!" exulted Billy Grant. "It is I who must look +up at you!" And with that he dropped on his knees and kissed the +starched hem of her apron. + +The Nurse felt very absurd and a little frightened. + +"If only," she said, backing off--"if only you wouldn't be such a +silly! Jenks is coming!" + +But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height and +looked down at her--a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk at +a club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morning +some weeks before. + +"I love you--love you--love you!" he said, and took her in his arms. + + * * * * * + +Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H.N. +took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed in +losing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked. + +"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a trifle +breathless, the h.n. being a brisk walker. "I am so sympathetic." + +The H.N. stopped and raised a reproving forefinger. + +"Too much sympathy is a handicap," she orated. "The perfect nurse is +a silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine--this little +building here is the isolation pavilion." + +"An emotionless machine," repeated the applicant. "I see--an e----" + +The words died on her lips. She was looking past a crowd of birds on +the windowsill to where, just inside, Billy Grant and the Nurse in a +very mussed cap were breakfasting together. And as she looked Billy +Grant bent over across the tray. + +"I adore you!" he said distinctly and, lifting the Nurse's hands, +kissed first one and then the other. + +"It is hard work," said Miss Smith--having made a note that the boys +in the children's ward must be restrained from lowering a pasteboard +box on a string from a window--"hard work without sentiment. It is +not a romantic occupation." + +She waved an admonitory hand toward the window, and the box went up +swiftly. The applicant looked again toward the pavilion, where +Billy Grant, having kissed the Nurse's hands, had buried his face in +her two palms. + +The mild October sun shone down on the courtyard, with its bandaged +figures in wheel-chairs, its cripples sunning on a bench, their +crutches beside them, its waterless fountain and dingy birds. + +The applicant thrilled to it all--joy and suffering, birth and +death, misery and hope, life and love. Love! + +The H.N. turned to her grimly, but her eyes were soft. + +"All this," she said, waving her hand vaguely, "for eight dollars a +month!" + +"I think," said the applicant shyly, "I should like to come." + + + + +GOD'S FOOL + + +I + +The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives +intellect--and they move the earth. To some He allots heart--and the +beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a +soul, without intelligence--and these, who never grow up, but remain +always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as +if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one colour instead +of many. + +The Dummy was God's fool. Having only a soul and no intelligence, he +lived the life of the soul. Through his faded, childish old blue +eyes he looked out on a world that hurried past him with, at +best, a friendly touch on his shoulder. No man shook his hand in +comradeship. No woman save the little old mother had ever caressed +him. He lived alone in a world of his own fashioning, peopled by +moving, noiseless figures and filled with dreams--noiseless because +the Dummy had ears that heard not and lips that smiled at a +kindness, but that did not speak. + +In this world of his there was no uncharitableness--no sin. There +was a God--why should he not know his Father?--there were brasses to +clean and three meals a day; and there was chapel on Sunday, where +one held a book--the Dummy held his upside down--and felt the +vibration of the organ, and proudly watched the afternoon sunlight +smiling on the polished metal of the chandelier and choir rail. + + * * * * * + +The Probationer sat turning the bandage machine and watching the +Dummy, who was polishing the brass plates on the beds. The plates +said: "Endowed in perpetuity"--by various leading citizens, to whom +God had given His best gifts, both heart and brain. + +"How old do you suppose he is?" she asked, dropping her voice. + +The Senior Nurse was writing fresh labels for the medicine closet, +and for "tincture of myrrh" she wrote absently "tincture of mirth," +and had to tear it up. + +"He can't hear you," she said rather shortly. "How old? Oh, I don't +know. About a hundred, I should think." + +This was, of course, because of his soul, which was all he had, and +which, having existed from the beginning, was incredibly old. The +little dead mother could have told them that he was less than +thirty. + +The Probationer sat winding bandages. Now and then they went +crooked and had to be done again. She was very tired. The creaking +of the bandage machine made her nervous--that and a sort of +disillusionment; for was this her great mission, this sitting in a +silent, sunny ward, where the double row of beds held only querulous +convalescent women? How close was she to life who had come to soothe +the suffering and close the eyes of the dying; who had imagined that +her instruments of healing were a thermometer and a prayer-book; and +who found herself fighting the good fight with a bandage machine +and, even worse, a scrubbing brush and a finetooth comb? + +The Senior Nurse, having finished the M's, glanced up and surprised +a tear on the Probationer's round young cheek. She was wise, having +trained many probationers. + +"Go to first supper, please," she said. First supper is the Senior's +prerogative; but it is given occasionally to juniors and +probationers as a mark of approval, or when the Senior is not +hungry, or when a probationer reaches the breaking point, which is +just before she gets her uniform. + +The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doing +fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. +Glimpses she had of the battle--stretchers going up and down in the +slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; +the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry +of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life +going out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed. + +"I'll put away the bandages first," she said. "That's what you said, +I think--never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?" + +"Right-oh!" said the Senior. + +"Though nothing ever happens back here--does it?' + +"It's about our turn; I'm looking for a burned case." The +Probationer, putting the bandages into a basket, turned and stared. + +"We have had two in to-day in the house," the Senior went on, +starting on the N's and making the capital carefully. "There will be +a third, of course; and we may get it. Cases always seem to run in +threes. While you're straightening the bed I suppose I might as well +go to supper after all." + +So it was the Probationer and the Dummy who received the new case, +while the Senior ate cold salmon and fried potatoes with other +seniors, and inveighed against lectures on Saturday evening and +other things that seniors object to, such as things lost in the +wash, and milk in the coffee instead of cream, and women from the +Avenue who drank carbolic acid and kept the ambulance busy. + +The Probationer was from the country and she had never heard of +the Avenue. And the Dummy, who walked there daily with the +superintendent's dog, knew nothing of its wickedness. In his soul, +where there was nothing but kindness, there was even a feeling of +tenderness for the Avenue. Once the dog had been bitten by a terrier +from one of the houses, and a girl had carried him in and washed the +wounds and bound them up. Thereafter the Dummy had watched for her +and bowed when he saw her. When he did not see her he bowed to the +house. + +The Dummy finished the brass plates and, gathering up his rags and +polish, shuffled to the door. His walk was a patient shamble, but he +covered incredible distances. When he reached the emergency bed he +stopped and pointed to it. The Probationer looked startled. + +"He's tellin' you to get it ready," shrilled Irish Delia, sitting up +in the next bed. "He did that before you was brought in," she called +to Old Maggie across the ward. "Goodness knows how he finds out--but +he knows. Get the spread off the bed, miss. There's something +coming." + + * * * * * + +The Probationer had come from the country and naturally knew nothing +of the Avenue. Sometimes on her off duty she took short walks there, +wondering if the passers-by who stared at her knew that she was a +part of the great building that loomed over the district, happily +ignorant of the real significance of their glances. Once a girl, +sitting behind bowed shutters, had leaned out and smiled at her. + +"Hot to-day, isn't it?" she said. + +The Probationer stopped politely. + +"It's fearful! Is there any place near where I can get some soda +water?" + +The girl in the window stared. + +"There's a drug store two squares down," she said. "And say, if I +were you----" + +"Yes?" + +"Oh, nothing!" said the girl in the window, and quite unexpectedly +slammed the shutters. + +The Probationer had puzzled over it quite a lot. More than once she +walked by the house, but she did not see the smiling girl--only, +curiously enough, one day she saw the Dummy passing the house and +watched him bow and take off his old cap, though there was no one in +sight. + +Sooner or later the Avenue girls get to the hospital. Sometimes it +is because they cannot sleep, and lie and think things over--and +there is no way out; and God hates them--though, of course, there is +that story about Jesus and the Avenue woman. And what is the use of +going home and being asked questions that cannot be answered? So +they try to put an end to things generally--and end up in the +emergency bed, terribly frightened, because it has occurred to them +that if they do not dare to meet the home folks how are they going +to meet the Almighty? + +Or sometimes it is jealousy. Even an Avenue woman must love some +one; and, because she's an elemental creature, if the object of her +affections turns elsewhere she's rather apt to use a knife or a +razor. In that case it is the rival who ends up on the emergency +bed. + +Or the life gets her, as it does sooner or later, and she comes in +with typhoid or a cough, or other things, and lies alone, day after +day, without visitors or inquiries, making no effort to get better, +because--well, why should she? + +And so the Dummy's Avenue Girl met her turn and rode down the street +in a clanging ambulance, and was taken up in the elevator and along +a grey hall to where the emergency bed was waiting; and the +Probationer, very cold as to hands and feet, was sending mental +appeals to the Senior to come--and come quickly. The ward got up on +elbows and watched. Also it told the Probationer what to do. + +"Hot-water bottles and screens," it said variously. "Take her +temperature. Don't be frightened! There'll be a doctor in a minute." + +The girl lay on the bed with her eyes shut. It was Irish Delia who +saw the Dummy and raised a cry. + +"Look at the Dummy!" she said. "He's crying." + +The Dummy's world had always been a small one. There was the +superintendent, who gave him his old clothes; and there was the +engineer, who brought him tobacco; and there were the ambulance +horses, who talked to him now and then without speech. And, of +course, there was his Father. + +Fringing this small inner circle of his heart was a kaleidoscope of +changing faces, nurses, _internes_, patients, visitors--a wall of +life that kept inviolate his inner shrine. And in the holiest place, +where had dwelt only his Father, and not even the superintendent, +the Dummy had recently placed the Avenue Girl. She was his saint, +though he knew nothing of saints. Who can know why he chose her? A +queer trick of the soul perhaps--or was it super-wisdom?--to choose +her from among many saintly women and so enshrine her. + +Or perhaps---- Down in the chapel, in a great glass window, the +young John knelt among lilies and prayed. When, at service on +Sundays, the sunlight came through on to the Dummy's polished choir +rail and candles, the young John had the face of a girl, with short +curling hair, very yellow for the colour scheme. The Avenue Girl had +hair like that and was rather like him in other ways. + +And here she was where all the others had come, and where countless +others would come sooner or later. She was not unconscious and at +Delia's cry she opened her eyes. The Probationer was off filling +water bottles, and only the Dummy, stricken, round-shouldered, +unlovely, stood beside her. + +"Rotten luck, old top!" she said faintly. + +To the Dummy it was a benediction. She could open her eyes. The +miracle of speech was still hers. + +"Cigarette!" explained the Avenue Girl, seeing his eyes still on +her. "Must have gone to sleep with it and dropped it. I'm--all in!" + +"Don't you talk like that," said Irish Delia, bending over from the +next bed. "You'll get well a' right--unless you inhaled. Y'ought to +'a' kept your mouth shut." + +Across the ward Old Maggie had donned her ragged slippers and a blue +calico wrapper and shuffled to the foot of the emergency bed. Old +Maggie was of that vague neighbourhood back of the Avenue, where +squalor and poverty rubbed elbows with vice, and scorned it. + +"Humph!" she said, without troubling to lower her voice. "I've seen +her often. I done her washing once. She's as bad as they make 'em." + +"You shut your mouth!" Irish Delia rose to the defence. "She's in +trouble now and what she was don't matter. You go back to bed or +I'll tell the Head Nurse on you. Look out! The Dummy----" + +The Dummy was advancing on Old Maggie with threatening eyes. As the +woman recoiled he caught her arm in one of his ugly, misshapen hands +and jerked her away from the bed. Old Maggie reeled--almost fell. + +"You all seen that!" she appealed to the ward. "I haven't even spoke +to him and he attacked me! I'll go to the superintendent about it. +I'll----" + +The Probationer hurried in. Her young cheeks were flushed with +excitement and anxiety; her arms were full of jugs, towels, +bandages--anything she could imagine as essential. She found the +Dummy on his knees polishing a bed plate, and the ward in +order--only Old Maggie was grumbling and making her way back to bed; +and Irish Delia was sitting up, with her eyes shining--for had not +the Dummy, who could not hear, known what Old Maggie had said about +the new girl? Had she not said that he knew many things that were +hidden, though God knows how he knew them? + +The next hour saw the Avenue Girl through a great deal. Her burns +were dressed by an _interne_ and she was moved back to a bed at the +end of the ward. The Probationer sat beside her, having refused +supper. The Dummy was gone--the Senior Nurse had shooed him off as +one shoos a chicken. + +"Get out of here! You're always under my feet," she had said--not +unkindly--and pointed to the door. + +The Dummy had stood, with his faded old-young eyes on her, and had +not moved. The Senior, who had the ward supper to serve and beds to +brush out and backs to rub, not to mention having to make up the +emergency bed and clear away the dressings--the Senior tried +diplomacy and offered him an orange from her own corner of the +medicine closet. He shook his head. + +"I guess he wants to know whether that girl from the Avenue's going +to get well," said Irish Delia. "He seems to know her." + +There was a titter through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossiping +tongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward had veered +to contempt. + +"Humph!" said the Senior, and put the orange back. "Why, yes; I +guess she'll get well. But how in Heaven's name am I to let him +know?" + +She was a resourceful person, however, and by pointing to the Avenue +Girl and then nodding reassuringly she got her message of cheer over +the gulf of his understanding. In return the Dummy told her by +gestures how he knew the girl and how she had bound up the leg of +the superintendent's dog. The Senior was a literal person and not +occult; and she was very busy. When the Dummy stooped to indicate +the dog, a foot or so from the ground, she seized that as the key of +the situation. + +"He's trying to let me know that he knew her when she was a baby," +she observed generally. "All right, if that's the case. Come in and +see her when you want to. And now get out, for goodness' sake!" + +The Dummy, with his patient shamble, made his way out of the ward +and stored his polishes for the night in the corner of a +scrub-closet. Then, ignoring supper, he went down the stairs, flight +after flight, to the chapel. The late autumn sun had set behind the +buildings across the courtyard and the lower part of the silent room +was in shadow; but the afterglow came palely through the +stained-glass window, with the young John and tall stalks of white +lilies, and "To the Memory of My Daughter Elizabeth" beneath. + +It was only a coincidence--and not even that to the Dummy--but +Elizabeth had been the Avenue Girl's name not so long ago. + +The Dummy sat down near the door very humbly and gazed at the +memorial window. + + +II + +Time may be measured in different ways--by joys; by throbs of pain; +by instants; by centuries. In a hospital it is marked by night +nurses and day nurses; by rounds of the Staff; by visiting days; by +medicines and temperatures and milk diets and fever baths; by the +distant singing in the chapel on Sundays; by the shift of the +morning sun on the east beds to the evening sun on the beds along +the west windows. + +The Avenue Girl lay alone most of the time. The friendly offices of +the ward were not for her. Private curiosity and possible kindliness +were over-shadowed by a general arrogance of goodness. The ward +flung its virtue at her like a weapon and she raised no defence. In +the first days things were not so bad. She lay in shock for a time, +and there were not wanting hands during the bad hours to lift a cup +of water to her lips; but after that came the tedious time when +death no longer hovered overhead and life was there for the asking. + +The curious thing was that the Avenue Girl did not ask. She lay for +hours without moving, with eyes that seemed tired with looking into +the dregs of life. The Probationer was in despair. + +"She could get better if she would," she said to the _interne_ one +day. The Senior was off duty and they had done the dressing +together. "She just won't try." + +"Perhaps she thinks it isn't worth while," replied the _interne_, +who was drying his hands carefully while the Probationer waited for +the towel. + +She was a very pretty Probationer. + +"She hasn't much to look forward to, you know." + +The Probationer was not accustomed to discussing certain things with +young men, but she had the Avenue Girl on her mind. + +"She has a home--she admits it." She coloured bravely. "Why--why +cannot she go back to it, even now?" + +The _interne_ poured a little rosewater and glycerine into the palm +of one hand and gave the Probationer the bottle. If his fingers +touched hers, she never knew it. + +"Perhaps they'd not want her after--well, they'd never feel the +same, likely. They'd probably prefer to think of her as dead and let +it go at that. There--there doesn't seem to be any way back, you +know." + +He was exceedingly self-conscious. + +"Then life is very cruel," said the Probationer with rather shaky +lips. + +And going back to the Avenue Girl's bed she filled her cup with ice +and straightened her pillows. It was her only way of showing +defiance to a world that mutilated its children and turned them out +to die. The _interne_ watched her as she worked. It rather galled +him to see her touching this patient. He had no particular sympathy +for the Avenue Girl. He was a man, and ruthless, as men are apt to +be in such things. + +The Avenue Girl had no visitors. She had had one or two at +first--pretty girls with tired eyes and apologetic glances; a +negress who got by the hall porter with a box of cigarettes, which +the Senior promptly confiscated; and--the Dummy. Morning and evening +came the Dummy and stood by her bed and worshipped. Morning and +evening he brought tribute--a flower from the masses that came in +daily; an orange, got by no one knows what trickery from the +kitchen; a leadpencil; a box of cheap candies. At first the girl had +been embarrassed by his visits. Later, as the unfriendliness of the +ward grew more pronounced, she greeted him with a faint smile. The +first time she smiled he grew quite pale and shuffled out. Late that +night they found him sitting in the chapel looking at the window, +which was only a blur. + +For certain small services in the ward the Senior depended on the +convalescents--filling drinking cups; passing milk at eleven and +three; keeping the white bedspreads in geometrical order. But the +Avenue Girl was taboo. The boycott had been instituted by Old +Maggie. The rampant respectability of the ward even went so far as +to refuse to wash her in those early morning hours when the night +nurse, flying about with her cap on one ear, was carrying tin basins +about like a blue-and-white cyclone. The Dummy knew nothing of the +washing; the early morning was the time when he polished the brass +doorplate which said: Hospital and Free Dispensary. But he knew +about the drinking cup and after a time that became his +self-appointed task. + +On Sundays he put on his one white shirt and a frayed collar two +sizes too large and went to chapel. At those times he sat with his +prayer book upside down and watched the Probationer who cared for +his lady and who had no cap to hide her shining hair, and the +_interne_, who was glad there was no cap because of the hair. God's +fool he was, indeed, for he liked to look in the _interne's_ eyes, +and did not know an _interne_ cannot marry for years and years, and +that a probationer must not upset discipline by being engaged. God's +fool, indeed, who could see into the hearts of men, but not into +their thoughts or their lives; and who, seeing only thus, on two +dimensions of life and not the third, found the Avenue Girl holy and +worthy of all worship! + + * * * * * + +The Probationer worried a great deal. + +"It must hurt her so!" she said to the Senior. "Did you see them +call that baby away on visiting day for fear she would touch it?" + +"None are so good as the untempted," explained the Senior, who had +been beautiful and was now placid and full of good works. "You +cannot remake the world, child. Bodies are our business here--not +souls." But the next moment she called Old Maggie to her. + +"I've been pretty patient, Maggie," she said. "You know what I mean. +You're the ringleader. Now things are going to change, or--you'll go +back on codliver oil to-night." + +"Yes'm," said Old Maggie meekly, with hate in her heart. She loathed +the codliver oil. + +"Go back and straighten her bed!" commanded the Senior sternly. + +"Now?" + +"Now!" + +"It hurts my back to stoop over," whined Old Maggie, with the ward +watching. "The doctor said that I----" + +The Senior made a move for the medicine closet and the bottles +labelled C. + +"I'm going," whimpered Old Maggie. "Can't you give a body time?" + +And she went down to defeat, with the laughter of the ward in her +ears--down to defeat, for the Avenue Girl would have none of her. + +"You get out of here!" she said fiercely as Old Maggie set to work +at the draw sheet. "Get out quick--or I'll throw this cup in your +face!" + +The Senior was watching. Old Maggie put on an air of benevolence and +called the Avenue Girl an unlovely name under her breath while she +smoothed her pillow. She did not get the cup, but the water out of +it, in her hard old face, and matters were as they had been. + +The Girl did not improve as she should. The _interne_ did the +dressing day after day, while the Probationer helped him--the Senior +disliked burned cases--and talked of skin grafting if a new powder +he had discovered did no good. _Internes_ are always trying out new +things, looking for the great discovery. + +The powder did no good. The day came when, the dressing over and the +white coverings drawn up smoothly again over her slender body, the +Avenue Girl voiced the question that her eyes had asked each time. + +"Am I going to lie in this hole all my life?" she demanded. + +The _interne_ considered. + +"It isn't healing--not very fast anyhow," he said. "If we could get +a little skin to graft on you'd be all right in a jiffy. Can't you +get some friends to come in? It isn't painful and it's over in a +minute." + +"Friends? Where would I get friends of that sort?" + +"Well, relatives then--some of your own people?" + +The Avenue Girl shut her eyes as she did when the dressing hurt her. + +"None that I'd care to see," she said. And the Probationer knew she +lied. The _interne_ shrugged his shoulders. + +"If you think of any let me know. We'll get them here," he said +briskly, and turned to see the Probationer rolling up her sleeve. + +"Please!" she said, and held out a bare white arm. The _interne_ +stared at it stupefied. It was very lovely. + +"I am not at all afraid," urged the Probationer, "and my blood is +good. It would grow--I know it would." + +The _interne_ had hard work not to stoop and kiss the blue veins +that rose to the surface in the inner curve of her elbow. The +dressing screens were up and the three were quite alone. To keep his +voice steady he became stern. + +"Put your sleeve down and don't be a foolish girl!" he, commanded. +"Put your sleeve down!" His eyes said: "You wonder! You beauty! You +brave little girl!" + +Because the Probationer seemed to take her responsibilities rather +to heart, however, and because, when he should have been thinking of +other things, such as calling up the staff and making reports, he +kept seeing that white arm and the resolute face above it, the +_interne_ worked out a plan. + +"I've fixed it, I think," he said, meeting her in a hallway where +he had no business to be, and trying to look as if he had not known +she was coming. "Father Feeny was in this morning and I tackled him. +He's got a lot of students--fellows studying for the priesthood--and +he says any daughter of the church shall have skin if he has to flay +'em alive." + +"But--is she a daughter of the church?" asked the Probationer. "And +even if she were, under the circumstances----" + +"What circumstances?" demanded the _interne_. "Here's a poor girl +burned and suffering. The father is not going to ask whether she's +of the anointed." + +The Probationer was not sure. She liked doing things in the open and +with nothing to happen later to make one uncomfortable; but she +spoke to the Senior and the Senior was willing. Her chief trouble, +after all, was with the Avenue Girl herself. + +"I don't want to get well," she said wearily when the thing was put +up to her. "What's the use? I'd just go back to the same old thing; +and when it got too strong for me I'd end up here again or in the +morgue." + +"Tell me where your people live, then, and let me send for them." + +"Why? To have them read in my face what I've been, and go back home +to die of shame?" + +The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl's face. + +"There--there is nothing in your face to hurt them," she said, +flushing--because there were some things the Probationer had never +discussed, even with herself. "You--look sad. Honestly, that's all." + +The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand. The forefinger was +still yellow from cigarettes. + +"What about that?" she sneered. + +"If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?" + +"I'll--perhaps," was the most the Probationer could get. + +Many people would have been discouraged. Even the Senior was a bit +cynical. It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read in +the Avenue Girl's eyes the terrible longing for the things she had +given up--for home and home folks; for a clean slate again. The +Probationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a little +of her hopeful spirit touched the other girl. + +"What day is it?" the Avenue Girl asked once. + +"Friday." + +"That's baking day at home. We bake in an out-oven. Did you ever +smell bread as it comes from an out-oven?" Or: "That's a pretty +shade of blue you nurses wear. It would be nice for working in the +dairy, wouldn't it?" + +"Fine!" said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumph +in her eyes. + + +III + +That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged to +the Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should have +known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed +never to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of Father +Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl's +loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one of +the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the +plate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her more +than once when the Senior was out of the ward. + +And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman with +a hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded a +parrot. + +"Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly. + +"Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day +and stole a parrot--and I want it." + +"The Dummy! But what on earth----" + +"It was my parrot," said the woman. "It belonged to one of my +boarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards--and she owed +me money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him look +me in the eye while I say parrot to him." + +"He cannot speak or hear." + +"You call him. He'll understand me!" + +They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the +stable and haled him into the office. He was very calm--quite +impassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she +raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head. + +"As a matter of fact," said the superintendent, "I don't believe he +ever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'll +get it again." + +They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a dove +above the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen and +filled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all of +parrots or how to care for them. + +Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stain +was coming off--she had been fond of the parrot and now it was close +at hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into a +hospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on the +football field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to account +for--and there was the matter of an alibi. + +"I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe it +because they'd want to believe it," said the Avenue Girl. "But +there's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And--there's a +fellow who wanted to marry me--he knew how sick I was of the old +place and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have to +show Jerry." + +The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. +It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especially +for Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on her +off-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenue +mostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over her +blue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl had +lived with. + +"She got her into all this," thought the Probationer. "She's just +got to see her out." + +It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing the +doorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she had +rung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of the +girl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, and +she stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her. + +"She's dead, is she?" she asked. + +"No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress." + +The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in the +vestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase. + +"One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wants +to come in and speak to you." + +"Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs. + +The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer remembered +putting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot and +finding it difficult to make her understand. + +"Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to go +home--to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going to +say about these last two years?" + +The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was most +uncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned them +again and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round. + +"She's in bad shape, is she?" + +"She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred--not her face, but her +chest and shoulders." + +That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred---- + +"Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was down +to brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was more +comfortable. + +"If you could just come over to the hospital while her people are +there and--and say she'd lived with you all the time----" + +"That's the truth all right!" + +"And--that she worked for you, sewing--she sews very well, she +says. And--oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been--all right, +you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy." + +Now the stout woman was softening--not that she was really hard, but +she had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and good +impulses had a hard time crawling through. + +"I guess I could do that much," she conceded. "She nursed me when I +was down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunk +in the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot that +belongs to me. What about that?" + +The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it +into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the +patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it sat +on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had +smiled benignly. John and the dove--the girl and the parrot! + +"I am sorry about the parrot. I--perhaps I could buy him from you." + +She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried her +munificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money she +had brought from home. + +"Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me." + +The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spread +it out in her lap and counted it twice. + +"I'm afraid that's all," she said. She had hoped the second count +would show up better. "I could bring the rest next month." + +The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stout +woman took it eagerly. + +"He's yours," she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. +When do you want me?" + +"I'll send you word," said the Probationer, and got up. She was +almost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money at +all in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into the +air somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediately +and put on everything fresh, and felt much better--but very +poor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer about +thermometers--that she should not break hers until she had money for +a new one. + + * * * * * + +Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the door +of the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked no +questions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell him +something, but he put up a white hand. + +"What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday is +gone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"--his Irish +eyes twinkled--"and a fine day it will be by the sunset." + +Then he turned to his small army. + +"Boys," he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chances +with his men. I'm going first"--he said fir-rst. "It's a small +thing, as I've told you--a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smiling +and come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the _interne_. + +That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feeny +and the _interne_ go behind the screens, both smiling, and they +watched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but a +little bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outside +the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather +forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no +deserter--only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to +contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation +to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he +remained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over. + +Though the _interne_ had said there was no way back, the first step +had really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself and +with everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer tried +to find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent a +grateful little note to his room: + + Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple? + [Signed] WARD A. + + P.S.--It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful + since it is over. How can I ever thank you? + +The reply came back very quickly: + + Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. WARD A. + [Signed] D.L.S. + + P.S.--Can you come up on the roof for a little air? + +She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodness +nurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; but +a probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedingly +careful--though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. +She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over her +forehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tiny +hairpins, and went up after all--not because she intended to, but +because as she came out of her room the elevator was going up--not +down. She was on the roof almost before she knew it. + +The _interne_ was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they +talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was +expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on +them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told +of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and +the plot. + +The _interne_ stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some +day he would mellow and accept life as it is--not as he would have +it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a +shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was +pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to +have an alibi!" said the Probationer. + +"Oh, of course," very stiffly. + +"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done." + +"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of +course. Only----" + +"Please go on." + +"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled." + +"I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer +stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was +sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He +thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and +her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and +making her plea--and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then +that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney. + +"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!" + +The _interne_ walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of +the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She +had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably +the Probationer would never speak to him again. + +The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee +looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed +the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had +a piece of apple pie in its claw now. + +"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the _interne_ crookedly. + +The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the +parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's +ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it +hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some +instinct of despair had seized him for its own--some conception, +perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the +_interne's_ wrath gave way to impotency. + +"Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly. + + +IV + +The Avenue Girl improved slowly. Morning and evening came the Dummy +and smiled down at her, with reverence in his eyes. She could smile +back now and sometimes she spoke to him. There was a change in the +Avenue Girl. She was less sullen. In the back of her eyes each +morning found a glow of hope--that died, it is true, by noontime; +but it came again with the new day. + +"How's Polly this morning, Montmorency?" she would say, and give him +a bit of toast from her breakfast for the bird. Or: "I wish you +could talk, Reginald. I'd like to hear what Rose said when you took +the parrot. It must have been a scream!" + +He brought her the first chrysanthemums of the fall and laid them on +her pillow. It was after he had gone, while the Probationer was +combing out the soft short curls of her hair, that she mentioned the +Dummy. She strove to make her voice steady, but there were tears in +her eyes. + +"The old goat's been pretty good to me, hasn't he?" she said. + +"I believe it is very unusual. I wonder"--the Probationer poised the +comb--"perhaps you remind him of some one he used to know." + +They knew nothing, of course, of the boy John and the window. + +"He's about the first decent man I ever knew," said the Avenue +Girl--"and he's a fool!" + +"Either a fool or very, very wise," replied the Probationer. + +The _interne_ and the Probationer were good friends again, but they +had never quite got back to the place they had lost on the roof. +Over the Avenue Girl's dressing their eyes met sometimes, and there +was an appeal in the man's and tenderness; but there was pride too. +He would not say he had not meant it. Any man will tell you that he +was entirely right, and that she had been most unwise and needed a +good scolding--only, of course, it is never the wise people who make +life worth the living. + +And an important thing had happened--the Probationer had been +accepted and had got her cap. She looked very stately in it, though +it generally had a dent somewhere from her forgetting she had it on +and putting her hat on over it. The first day she wore it she knelt +at prayers with the others, and said a little Thank You! for getting +through when she was so unworthy. She asked to be made clean and +pure, and delivered from vanity, and of some use in the world. And, +trying to think of the things she had been remiss in, she went out +that night in a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot. + +Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more +grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body +and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was +refused politely. + +"You are a part of the institution now," said the _interne_, with +his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot +cripple the institution." + +It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew +the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did +and would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staff +about it. + +"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a +great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do." + +"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the +world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it." + +So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times. +Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the +girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his +bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the +courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over +the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement +pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty +feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly. + +The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained +wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never +one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the +children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real +reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her +arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards. + +"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal +it!" + +The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid, +smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child. +Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to +the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms. + +"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business +to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the +three-o'clock medicines. + +When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and +that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and +grew. + +At last came the day when the alibi was to be brought forward. The +girl had written home and the home folks were coming. In his strange +way the Dummy knew that a change was near. The kaleidoscope would +shift again and the Avenue Girl would join the changing and +disappearing figures that fringed the inner circle of his heart. + +One night he did not go to bed in the ward bed that was his only +home, beside the little stand that held his only possessions. The +watchman missed him and found him asleep in the chapel in one of the +seats, with the parrot drowsing on the altar. + +Rose--who was the stout woman--came early. She wore a purple dress, +with a hat to match, and purple gloves. The ward eyed her with scorn +and a certain deference. She greeted the Avenue Girl effusively +behind the screens that surrounded the bed. + +"Well, you do look pinched!" she said. "Ain't it a mercy it didn't +get to your face! Pretty well chewed up, aren't you?" + +"Do you want to see it?" + +"Good land! No! Now look here, you've got to put me wise or I'll +blow the whole thing. What's my little stunt? The purple's all right +for it, isn't it?" + +"All you need to do," said the Avenue Girl wearily, "is to say that +I've been sewing for you since I came to the city. And--if you can +say anything good----" + +"I'll do that all right," Rose affirmed. She put a heavy silver bag +on the bedside table and lowered herself into a chair. "You leave it +to me, dearie. There ain't anything I won't say." + +The ward was watching with intense interest. Old Maggie, working the +creaking bandage machine, was palpitating with excitement. From her +chair by the door she could see the elevator and it was she who +announced the coming of destiny. + +"Here comes the father," she confided to the end of the ward. "Guess +the mother couldn't come." + +It was not the father though. It was a young man who hesitated in +the doorway, hat in hand--a tall young man, with a strong and not +unhandsome face. The Probationer, rather twitchy from excitement and +anxiety, felt her heart stop and race on again. Jerry, without a +doubt! + +The meeting was rather constrained. The girl went whiter than her +pillows and half closed her eyes; but Rose, who would have been +terrified at the sight of an elderly farmer, was buoyantly relieved +and at her ease. + +"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I--we didn't realise it had been so bad. +The folks are well; but--I thought I'd better come. They're +expecting you back home." + +"It was nice of you to come," said the girl, avoiding his eyes. +"I--I'm getting along fine." + +"I guess introductions ain't necessary," put in Rose briskly. "I'm +Mrs. Sweeney. She's been living with me--working for me, sewing. +She's sure a fine sewer! She made this suit I'm wearing." + +Poor Rose, with "custom made" on every seam of the purple! But Jerry +was hardly listening. His eyes were on the girl among the pillows. + +"I see," said Jerry slowly. "You haven't said yet, Elizabeth. Are +you going home?" + +"If--they want me." + +"Of course they want you!" Again Rose: "Why shouldn't they? You've +been a good girl and a credit to any family. If they say anything +mean to you you let me know." + +"They'll not be mean to her. I'm sure they'll want to write and +thank you. If you'll just give me your address, Mrs. Sweeney----" + +He had a pencil poised over a notebook. Rose hesitated. Then she +gave her address on the Avenue, with something of bravado in her +voice. After all, what could this country-store clerk know of the +Avenue? Jerry wrote it down carefully. + +"Sweeney--with an e?" he asked politely. + +"With three e's," corrected Rose, and got up with dignity. + +"Well, good-bye, dearie," she said. "You've got your friends now and +you don't need me. I guess you've had your lesson about going to +sleep with a cig--about being careless with fire. Drop me a postal +when you get the time." + +She shook hands with Jerry and rustled and jingled down the ward, +her chin well up. At the door she encountered Old Maggie, her arms +full of bandages. + +"How's the Avenue?" asked Old Maggie. + +Rose, however, like all good actresses, was still in the part +as she made her exit. She passed Old Maggie unheeding, severe +respectability in every line of her figure, every nod of her purple +plumes. She was still in the part when she encountered the +Probationer. + +"It's going like a house afire!" she said. "He swallowed it +all--hook and bait! And--oh, yes, I've got something for you." She +went down into her silver bag and pulled out a roll of bills. "I've +felt meaner'n a dog every time I've thought of you buying that +parrot. I've got a different view of life--maybe--from yours; but +I'm not taking candy from a baby." + +When the Probationer could speak Rose was taking herself and the +purple into the elevator and waving her a farewell. + +"Good-bye!" she said. "If ever you get stuck again just call on me." + +With Rose's departure silence fell behind the screen. The girl broke +it first. + +"They're all well, are they?" + +"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'd +write to her." The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing. +She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. The +post office burned down last summer. They're building a new one. +And--I've been building. I tore down the old place." + +"Are you going to be married, Jerry?" + +"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something to +do; it kept me from--thinking." + +The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew! +Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothing +was any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror of +the thing she was. She would have to go back--to Rose and the +others. He would never take her home. + +Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolising +thermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. The +Avenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationer +was going to the roof--to meet some one who was sincerely repentant +and very meek. + +In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly--one of +those spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts of +people and a melody all their own: + + _'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber, + Far, far away, + Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber-- + Dere's wha de old folks stay._ + +It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in white +wretchedness--and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid in +his chair. + +"Jerry?" + +"Yes." + +"I--I guess I've been pretty far away." + +"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this. + +"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but if +you'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry----" + +"I believe you, Elizabeth." + +"One of the nurses here says----Jerry, won't you look at me?" With +some difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one starts +wrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made +me do it." + +She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life +he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and +he stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've been +hurt that I--am sorry," she went on. "I loathed it! I'd have +finished it all long ago, only--I was afraid." + +"I would rather have found you dead!" + +There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of +suffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtain +of the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced at +his watch. He was quite white. The girl's hand still lay on the +coverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think only +little thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealing +hand the last wall of his house would fall. + +It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with +his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the +screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, +that this, his saint, would go--and not alone--to join the vanishing +circle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at the +time it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at the +screen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand and +stood smiling down at the girl. + +"The only person in the world who believes in me!" said the girl +bitterly. "And he's a fool!" + +The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes there +was the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and the +blur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly he +bent over and placed the man's hand over the girl's. + +The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the white +coverlet. + + * * * * * + +The _interne_ was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had faded +to lavender--to dark purple--to night. + +The Probationer came up at last--not a probationer now, of course; +but she had left off her cap and was much less stately. + +"I'm sorry," she explained; "but I've been terribly busy. It went +off so well!" + +"Of course--if you handled it." + +"You know--don't you?--it was the lover who came. He looks so strong +and good--oh, she is safe now!" + +"That's fine!" said the _interne_ absently. They were sitting on the +parapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. +"Isn't it a glorious evening?" He had the fingers pretty close by +that time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to his +lips. + +"Such a kind little hand!" he said over it. "Such a dear, tender +little hand! My hand!" he said, rather huskily. + +Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. At +his feet the superintendent's dog lay on his side and dreamed of +battle. The Dummy's eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl had +bandaged--how long ago! + +His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among the +lilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked to +him without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all it +was that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. +The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnine +affection. + + + + +THE MIRACLE + + +I + +Big Mary was sweeping the ward with a broom muffled in a white bag. +In the breeze from the open windows, her blue calico wrapper +ballooned about her and made ludicrous her frantic thrusts after the +bits of fluff that formed eddies under the beds and danced in the +spring air. + +She finished her sweeping, and, with the joyous scraps captured in +her dust-pan, stood in the doorway, critically surveying the ward. +It was brilliantly clean and festive; on either side a row of beds, +fresh white for the day; on the centre table a vase of Easter +lilies, and on the record-table near the door a potted hyacinth. The +Nurse herself wore a bunch of violets tucked in her apron-band. One +of the patients had seen the Junior Medical give them to her. The +Eastern sun, shining across the beds, made below them, on the +polished floor, black islands of shadow in a gleaming sea of light. + +And scattered here and there, rocking in chairs or standing at +windows, enjoying the Sunday respite from sewing or the +bandage-machine, women, grotesque and distorted of figure, in +attitudes of weariness and expectancy, with patient eyes awaited +their crucifixion. Behind them, in the beds, a dozen perhaps who had +come up from death and held the miracle in their arms. + +The miracles were small and red, and inclined to feeble and +ineffectual wrigglings. Fists were thrust in the air and brought +down on smiling, pale mother faces. With tight-closed eyes and open +mouths, each miracle squirmed and nuzzled until the mother would +look with pleading eyes at the Nurse. And the Nurse would look +severe and say: + +"Good gracious, Annie Petowski, surely you don't want to feed that +infant again! Do you want the child to have a dilated stomach?" + +Fear of that horrible and mysterious condition, a dilated stomach, +would restrain Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara +for a time. With the wisdom of the serpent, she would give the child +her finger to suck--a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the last +week that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would take +hold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort. +Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiet +hospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then Annie +Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch the +Nurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit from +the ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, close +to Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstatic +gurglings--and peace. + +In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at the +record-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, of +clean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hours +for the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodic +searches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast, +decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne, +too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to the +kitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes. + +But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Her +crown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and her +blue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apron +and sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in for +a moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman, +to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she had +appeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds and +put hot-water bottles in it. + +The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was +"on." Excursions down the corridor by one or another of the +blue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news: + +"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones, +the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "The +doctor with the red mustache has come"--by which it was known that +things were going badly, the staff man having been summoned. + +Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward, +denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usually +regarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the other +women. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young woman +who played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterward +went from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanying +herself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young woman +seated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, and +afterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray of +lilies-of-the-valley on each bedside stand. + +She was escorted around the ward by Elizabeth Miller, known as "Liz" +in Our Alley, and rechristened Elizabeth by the Nurse. Elizabeth +always read the tracts. She had been there four times, and knew all +the nurses and nearly all the doctors. "Liz" had been known, in a +shortage of nurses, to be called into the mysterious room down the +hall to assist; and on those occasions, in an all-enveloping white +gown over her wrapper, with her hair under a cap, she outranked the +queen herself in regalness and authority. + +The lame mandolin-player stopped at the foot of the empty bed. +"Shall I put one here?" she asked, fingering a tract. + +Liz meditated majestically. + +"Well, I guess I would," she said. "Not that it'll do any good." + +"Why?" + +Liz jerked her head toward the corridor. + +"She's not getting on very well," she said; "and, even if she gets +through, she won't read the tract. She held her fingers in her ears +last Sunday while the Bible-reader was here. She's young. Says she +hopes she and the kid'll both die." + +The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward. + +"Then she--isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, she +flushed painfully. + +Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in her +eyes. + +"Well, no," she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She's +a fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do. +Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn't +he be always throwing it up to her?" + +The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophy +of life. + +"Have--have you a baby here?" she asked timidly. + +"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. She +turned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny red +atom, so like the others that only mother love could have +distinguished it. + +"This is mine," she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?" + +The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child. + +"He--he's very little," she said. + +"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last six +months--eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. The +little devil!" + +She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleeping +form. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thing +to say. + +"Does--does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. But +apparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. The +mandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and, +vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door. + +Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, with +tired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table. + +The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From the +blankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan--of +hurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, so +relentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Then +she gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down the +hall. + +The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill, +high wail, a rising and falling note of distress--the voice of a new +soul in protest. She went past with averted face. + +Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl up +bodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood back +and smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips. + +"Well," she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's no +picnic, is it?" + +The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of her +features in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodless +refinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had been +through the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyes +were hard. + +"Go away," she said petulantly. + +Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. + +"You sleep now," she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can have +a cup of tea." + +The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz's +face. + +"I don't want to sleep," she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to live +and so am I!" + + +II + +Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she had +oiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him a +teaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, and +went to her room to put on a fresh uniform. The first thing she did, +when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of her +mother tucked in its frame, and survey herself. When she saw her cap +and the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, she +frowned. + +Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully in +a glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over and +kissed them. After that she felt better. + +She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought her +colour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustled +with each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally she +tucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap, +which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions. + +If she had not gone back to the mirror to see that the general +effect was as crisp as it should be, things would have been +different for Liz, and for the new mother back in the ward. But she +did go back; and there, lying on the floor in front of the bureau, +all folded together, was a piece of white paper exactly as if it has +been tucked in her belt with the violets. + +She opened it rather shakily, and it was a leaf from the ward +order-book, for at the top it said: + + Annie Petowski--may sit up for one hour. + +And below that: + + Goldstein baby--bran baths. + +And below that: + + I love you. E.J. + +"E.J." was the Junior Medical. + +So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, in +the throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, and +found where the page had been torn out of the order-book. + +And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by their +courts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easter +afternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies had +colic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of the +House Committee looked in at the door and said: + +"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always a +sort of benediction." + +The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the new +mother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refined +from the furnace of pain. + +"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving an +odor of peau d'Espagne. + +The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there was +nothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wild +mutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the first +one" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched. + +The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing the +Easter lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed. + +"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under the +blankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which the +girl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed her +savagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought out +her hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it. + +"Now listen to me," said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain't +the only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And what +happened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and they +put the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened get +used to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don't +be a fool!" + +She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There were +other ways. + +The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. She +sat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervals +of taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about Annie +Petowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having bran +baths, and the other thing written below! + +At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and grey +trousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter service +downstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according to +precedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapel +must always wear a frock-coat. + +Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at his +gorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Then +he came back and stood by the table, looking at a record. + +"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect. + +"Ninety-eight." + +"Her pulse is strong?" + +"Yes; she's resting quietly." + +"Good.--And--did you get my note?" + +This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" or +anything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near. + +"Yes." The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up at +him. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him Godspeed with his +wooing, but it made him uncomfortable. + +"Watch her closely," he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent." +And he looked at Liz. + +"Elizabeth," said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fan +her?" + +Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for a +mother, but she had been named when she was very small. + +Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer to +the effect that they were both so damned good to everybody, she +hoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wicked +availeth nothing. + +"You know I meant that," he said, from behind a record. "I--I love +you with all my heart--and if only you----" + +The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I love +you, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, she +put the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth. + +The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in his +frock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never part +properly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling with +happiness. + +And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavish +her new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceiling +and reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all her +despair. + +So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had never +batted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with both +fists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trained +nurse is ever supposed to do. + +She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother. + +But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her. + +"Take the brat away," she said, and went on reading tragedies on the +ceiling. + +Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew. +She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculous +hands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But when +Liz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away. +So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there, +still sleeping. + +The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristic +of great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and here +before her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her. + +"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night," she said, approaching the +table with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospital +carpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the way +she watches the ceiling." + +"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse. + +"Time I had the twins--that's before your time," said Liz--"we had +one like that. She went out the window head first the night after +the baby came, and took the kid with her." + +The Nurse rose with quick decision. + +"We must watch her," she said. "Perhaps if I could find--I think +I'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, and +if Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, take +it from her. The child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm out +for five minutes." + +Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching back +until the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change the +bedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patient +over more than once, which is a high and desirable form of +knowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; their +clean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of the +world and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs to +the telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding. + +The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed with +the Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in her +manicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking the +telephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom. + +"Yes," she said indolently. + +The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmer +tinge. + +"Oh, yes," she said. "How are you?... Claribel? Yes; what about +her?... What!" + +"Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl--seven pounds." + +"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; my +cigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right--go ahead." + +"She's taking it pretty hard, and I--I thought you might help her. +She--she----" + +"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned in +the bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow. +"Twenty enough?" + +"I don't think it's money," said the Nurse, "although she needs that +too; she hasn't any clothes for the baby. But--she's awfully +despondent--almost desperate. Have you any idea who the child's +father is?" + +Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand and +balancing the telephone with the other. + +"She left me a year ago," she said. "Oh, yes; I know now. What time +is it?" + +"Two o'clock." + +"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Rosie. "I'll get the fellow on +the wire and see what he's willing to do. Maybe he'll give her a +dollar or two a week." + +"Do you think you could bring him to see her?" + +"Say, what do you think I am--a missionary?" The Nurse was wise, so +she kept silent. "Well, I'll tell you what I will do. If I can bring +him, I will. How's that yellow-haired she-devil you've got over +there? I've got that fixed all right. She pulled a razor on me +first--I've got witnesses. Well, if I can get Al, I'll do it. So +long." + +It did not occur to the Nurse to deprecate having used an evil +medium toward a righteous end. She took life much as she found it. +And so she tiptoed past the chapel again, where a faint odour of +peau d'Espagne came stealing out into the hall, and where the +children from the children's ward, in roller-chairs and on crutches, +were singing with all their shrill young voices, earnest eyes +uplifted. + +The white Easter lilies on the altar sent their fragrance out over +the gathering, over the nurses, young and placid, over the hopeless +and the hopeful, over the faces where death had passed and left its +inevitable stamp, over bodies freshly risen on this Easter Sunday +to new hope and new life--over the Junior Medical, waiting with the +manuscript of "The Palms" rolled in his hand and his heart singing a +hymn of happiness. + +The Nurse went up to her ward, and put a screen around Claribel, +and, with all her woman's art, tidied the immaculate white bed and +loosened the uncompromising yellow braids, so that the soft hair +fell across Claribel's bloodless forehead and softened the defiance +in her blue eyes. She brought the pink hyacinth in its pot, too, and +placed it on the bedside table. Then she stood off and looked at her +work. It was good. + +Claribel submitted weakly. She had stopped staring at the wall, and +had taken to watching the open window opposite with strange +intentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat to the bedspread +she spoke. + +"Was it a boy--or a girl?" she asked. + +"Girl," said the nurse briskly. "A little beauty, perfect in every +way." + +"A girl--to grow up and go through this hell!" she muttered, and her +eyes wandered back to the window. + +But the Nurse was wise with the accumulated wisdom of a sex that has +had to match strength with wile for ages, and she was not yet ready. +She went into the little room where eleven miracles lay in eleven +cribs, and, although they all looked exactly alike, she selected +Claribel's without hesitation, and carried it to the mysterious room +down the hall--which was no longer a torture-chamber, but a +resplendently white place, all glass and tile and sunlight, and +where she did certain things that are not prescribed in the hospital +rules. + +First of all, she opened a cupboard and took out a baby dress of +lace and insertion,--and everybody knows that such a dress is used +only when a hospital infant is baptised,--and she clothed Claribel's +baby in linen and fine raiment, and because they are very, very red +when they are so new, she dusted it with a bit of talcum--to break +the shock, as you may say. It was very probable that Al had never +seen so new a baby, and it was useless to spoil the joy of +parenthood unnecessarily. For it really was a fine child, and +eventually it would be white and beautiful. + +The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in a +sachet. + +Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put it +back in its crib. And then she rustled starchily back to the +throne-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the place +where it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldstein +baby--bran baths, and the other thing written just below. + + +III + +The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance, +the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medical +staff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty. + +Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms; +and, as the song went on, Liz's eyes fell to her child and stayed +there. + +At three o'clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along the +hall--Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under a +gaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupported +and wrapper-clad. She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however, +and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending it +with a regal gesture to the elevator-man. + +"Here, old sport," she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It's +Easter." + +Such munificence appalled the ward. + +Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al. +The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him +curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the +doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm. + +"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there," he said. But Rosie pulled him +in and presented him to the Nurse. + +Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the open +window, had taken to staring at the ceiling again. + +When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she had +moaned and put her fingers in her ears. + +"Well, I found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a time +locating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky +figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and +just now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him. + +"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you," she said, +and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do the +talking." + +Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and the +mystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen her +last, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure and +accusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision went +through the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look of +black hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and he +was looking at Claribel--a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying now +with closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek. + +The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hat +awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on the +edge of the stiff chair. + +"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease. + +She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutch +at her throat, as if she were smothering. + +"How did you--how did you know I was here?" + +"Saw it in the paper, in the society column." She winced at that, +and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "How +are you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood of +reproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief. + +"I've been pretty bad; I'm better." + +"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The Maginnis +Social Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall." + +The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is as +old as the ages, although she did not know it--why this tragedy of +hers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly on +her breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand. +He picked it up and ran it through his fingers. + +"Hasn't hurt your looks any," he said awkwardly. "You're looking +pretty good." + +With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers. + +"Don't," she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she had +written her problem. + +"How's the--how's the kid?"--after a moment. + +"I don't know--or care." + +There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither did +he know or care. + +"What are you goin' to do with it?" + +"Kill it!" + +Al considered this a moment. Things were bad enough now, without +Claribel murdering the child and making things worse. + +"I wouldn't do that," he said soothingly. "You can put it somewhere, +can't you? Maybe Rosie'll know." + +"I don't want it to live." + +For the first time he realised her despair. She turned on him her +tormented eyes, and he quailed. + +"I'll find a place for it, kid," he said. "It's mine, too. I guess +I'm it, all right." + +"Yours!" She half rose on her elbow, weak as she was. "Yours! Didn't +you throw me over when you found I was going to have it? Yours! Did +you go through hell for twenty-four hours to bring it into the +world? I tell you, it's mine--mine! And I'll do what I want with it. +I'll kill it, and myself too!" + +"You don't know what you're saying!" + +She had dropped back, white and exhausted. + +"Don't I?" she said, and fell silent. + +Al felt defrauded, ill-treated. He had done the right thing; he had +come to see the girl, which wasn't customary in those circles where +Al lived and worked and had his being; he had acknowledged his +responsibility, and even--why, hang it all---- + +"Say the word and I'll marry you," he said magnanimously. + +"I don't want to marry you." + +He drew a breath of relief. Nothing could have been fairer than his +offer, and she had refused it. He wished Rosie had been there to +hear. + +And just then Rosie came. She carried the baby, still faintly +odorous of violets, held tight in unaccustomed arms. She looked +awkward and conscious, but her amused smile at herself was half +tender. + +"Hello, Claribel," she said. "How are you? Just look here, Al! What +do you think of this?" + +Al got up sheepishly and looked at the child. + +"Boy or girl?" he asked politely. + +"Girl; but it's the living image of you," said Rose--for Rose and +the Nurse were alike in the wiles of the serpent. + +"Looks like me!" Al observed caustically. "Looks like an over-ripe +tomato!" + +But he drew himself up a trifle. Somewhere in his young and +hardened soul the germs of parental pride, astutely sowed, had taken +quick root. + +"Feel how heavy she is," Rose commanded. And Al held out two arms +unaccustomed to such tender offices. + +"Heavy! She's about as big as a peanut." + +"Mind her back," said Rose, remembering instructions. + +After her first glance Claribel had not looked at the child. But +now, in its father's arms, it began to whimper. The mother stirred +uneasily, and frowned. + +"Take it away!" she ordered. "I told them not to bring it here." + +The child cried louder. Its tiny red face, under the powder, turned +purple. It beat the air with its fists. Al, still holding it in his +outstretched arms, began vague motions to comfort it, swinging it up +and down and across. But it cried on, drawing up its tiny knees in +spasms of distress. Claribel put her fingers in her ears. + +"You'll have to feed it!" Rose shouted over the din. + +The girl comprehended without hearing, and shook her head in sullen +obstinacy. + +"What do you think of that for noise?" said Al, not without pride. +"She's like me, all right. When I'm hungry, there's hell to pay if +I'm not fed quick. Here,"--he bent down over Claribel,--"you might +as well have dinner now, and stop the row." + +Not ungently, he placed the squirming mass in the baptismal dress +beside the girl on the bed. With the instinct of ages, the baby +stopped wailing and opened her mouth. + +"The little cuss!" cried Al, delighted. "Ain't that me all over? +Little angel-face the minute I get to the table!" + +Unresisting now, Claribel let Rose uncover her firm white breast. +The mother's arm, passively extended by Rose to receive the small +body, contracted around it unconsciously. + +She turned and looked long at the nuzzling, eager mouth, at the red +hand lying trustfully open on her breast, at the wrinkled face, the +indeterminate nose, the throbbing fontanelle where the little life +was already beating so hard. + +"A girl, Rose!" she said. "My God, what am I going to do with her?" + +Rose was not listening. The Junior Medical's turn had come at last. +Downstairs in the chapel, he was standing by the organ, his head +thrown back, his heavy brown hair (which would never stay parted +without the persuasion of brilliantine) bristling with earnestness. + + "_O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay_," + +he sang, and his clear tenor came welling up the staircase to Liz, +and past her to the ward, and to the group behind the screen. + + "_Are strewn this day in festal preparation, + Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away-- + E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare._" + +On the throne-chair by the record-table, the Nurse sat and listened. +And because it was Easter and she was very happy and because of the +thrill in the tenor voice that came up the stairs to her, and +because of the page in the order-book about bran baths and the rest +of it, she cried a little, surreptitiously, and let the tears drop +down on a yellow hospital record. + +The song was almost done. Liz, on the stairs, had fed her baby +twenty minutes too soon, and now it lay, sleeping and sated, in her +lap. Liz sat there, brooding over it, and the last line of the song +came up the staircase. + + "_Blessed is He who comes bringing sal-va-a-a-ation!_" + +the Junior Medical sang. + +The services were over. Downstairs the small crowd dispersed slowly. +The minister shook hands with the nurses at the door, and the Junior +Medical rolled up his song and wondered how soon he could make +rounds upstairs again. + +Liz got up, with her baby in her arms, and padded in to the +throne-chair by the record-table. + +"He can sing some, can't he!" she said. + +"He has a beautiful voice." The Nurse's eyes were shining. + +Liz moved off. Then she turned and came back. + +"I--I know you'll tell me I'm a fool," she said; "but I've decided +to keep the kid, this time. I guess I'll make out, somehow." + +Behind the screen, Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking, +sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltale +clouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, and +Claribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they were +on the child. + +Al leaned forward and put his lips to the arm that circled the baby. + +"I'm sorry, kid," he said. "I guess it was the limit, all right. Do +you hate me?" + +She looked at him, and the hardness and defiance died out of her +eyes. She shook her head. + +"No." + +"Do you--still--like me a little?" + +"Yes," in a whisper. + +"Then what's the matter with you and me and the little mutt getting +married and starting all over--eh?" + +He leaned over and buried his face with a caressing movement in the +hollow of her neck. + +Rose extinguished her cigarette on the foot of the bed, and, careful +of appearances, put the butt in her chatelaine. + +"I guess you two don't need me any more," she said yawning. "I'm +going back home to bed." + + + + +"ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!" + + +I + +There are certain people who will never understand this story, +people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, +too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. +Right is right and wrong is wrong. + +That shadowy No Man's Land between the trenches of virtue and sin, +where most of us fight our battles and are wounded, and even die, +does not exist for them. + +The boy in this story belonged to that class. Even if he reads it he +may not recognise it. But he will not read it or have it read to +him. He will even be somewhat fretful if it comes his way. + +"If that's one of those problem things," he will say, "I don't want +to hear it. I don't see why nobody writes adventure any more." + +Right is right and wrong is wrong. Seven words for a creed, and all +of life to live! + +This is not a war story. But it deals, as must anything that +represents life in this year of our Lord of Peace, with war. With +war in its human relations. Not with guns and trenches, but with +men and women, with a boy and a girl. + +For only in the mass is war vast. To the man in the trench it +reduces itself to the man on his right, the man on his left, the man +across, beyond the barbed wire, and a woman. + +The boy was a Canadian. He was twenty-two and not very tall. His +name in this story is Cecil Hamilton. He had won two medals for +life-saving, each in a leather case. He had saved people from +drowning. When he went abroad to fight he took the medals along. Not +to show. But he felt that the time might come when he would not be +sure of himself. A good many men on the way to war have felt that +way. The body has a way of turning craven, in spite of high +resolves. It would be rather comforting, he felt, to have those +medals somewhere about him at that time. He never looked at them +without a proud little intake of breath and a certain swelling of +the heart. + +On the steamer he found that a medal for running had slipped into +one of the cases. He rather chuckled over that. He had a sense of +humour, in spite of his seven-word creed. And a bit of superstition, +for that night, at dusk, he went out on to the darkened deck and +flung it overboard. + +The steamer had picked him up at Halifax--a cold dawn, with a few +pinched faces looking over the rail. Forgive him if he swaggered up +the gangway. He was twenty-two, he was a lieutenant, and he was a +fighting man. + +The girl in the story saw him then. She was up and about, in a short +sport suit, with a white tam-o'-shanter on her head and a white +woolen scarf tucked round her neck. Under her belted coat she wore a +middy blouse, and when she saw Lieutenant Cecil Hamilton, with +his eager eyes--not unlike her own, his eyes were young and +inquiring--she reached into a pocket of the blouse and dabbed her +lips with a small stick of cold cream. + +Cold air has a way of drying lips. + +He caught her at it, and she smiled. It was all over for him then, +poor lad! + +Afterward, when he was in the trenches, he wondered about that. He +called it "Kismet" to himself. It was really a compound, that first +day or two, of homesickness and a little furtive stirring of anxiety +and the thrill of new adventure that was in his blood. + +On the second afternoon out they had tea together, she in her +steamer chair and he calmly settled next to her, in a chair +belonging to an irritated English lawyer. Afterward he went down to +his cabin, hung round with his new equipment, and put away the +photograph of a very nice Toronto girl, which had been propped up +back of his hairbrushes. + +They got rather well acquainted that first day. + +"You know," he said, with his cup in one hand and a rather stale +cake in the other, "it's awfully bully of you to be so nice to me." + +She let that go. She was looking, as a matter of fact, after a tall +man with heavily fringed eyes and English clothes, who had just gone +by. + +"You know," he confided--he frequently prefaced his speeches with +that--"I was horribly lonely when I came up the gangway. Then I saw +you, and you were smiling. It did me a lot of good." + +"I suppose I really should not have smiled." She came back to him +with rather an effort. "But you caught me, you know. It wasn't +rouge. It was cold cream. I'll show you." + +She unbuttoned her jacket, against his protest, and held out the +little stick. He took it and looked at it. + +"You don't need even this," he said rather severely. He disapproved +of cosmetics. "You have a lovely mouth." + +"It's rather large. Don't you think so?" + +"It's exactly right." + +He was young, and as yet more interested in himself than in anything +in the world. So he sat there and told her who he was, and what he +hoped to do and, rather to his own astonishment, about the medals. + +"How very brave you are!" she said. + +That made him anxious. He hoped she did not think he was swanking. +It was only that he did not make friends easily, and when he did +meet somebody he liked he was apt to forget and talk too much about +himself. He was so afraid that he gulped down his tepid tea in a +hurry and muttered something about letters to write, and got himself +away. The girl stared after him with a pucker between her eyebrows. +And the tall man came and took the place he vacated. + +Things were worrying the girl--whose name, by the way, was Edith. On +programs it was spelled "Edythe," but that was not her fault. Yes, +on programs--Edythe O'Hara. The business manager had suggested +deHara, but she had refused. Not that it mattered much. She had been +in the chorus. She had a little bit of a voice, rather sweet, and +she was divinely young and graceful. + +In the chorus she would have remained, too, but for one of those +queer shifts that alter lives. A girl who did a song and an +eccentric dance had wrenched her knee, and Edith had gone on in her +place. Something of her tomboy youth remained in her, and for a few +minutes, as she frolicked over the stage, she was a youngster, +dancing to her shadow. + +She had not brought down the house, but a man with heavily fringed +eyes, who watched her from the wings, made a note of her name. He +was in America for music-hall material for England, and he was +shrewd after the manner of his kind. Here was a girl who frolicked +on the stage. The English, accustomed to either sensuous or sedate +dancing, would fall hard for her, he decided. Either that, or she +would go "bla." She was a hit or nothing. + +And that, in so many words, he told her that afternoon. + +"Feeling all right?" he asked her. + +"Better than this morning. The wind's gone down, hasn't it?" + +He did not answer her. He sat on the side of the chair and looked +her over. + +"You want to keep well," he warned her. "The whole key to your doing +anything is vitality. That's the word--Life." + +She smiled. It seemed so easy. Life? She was full-fed with the joy +of it. Even as she sat, her active feet in their high-heeled shoes +were aching to be astir. + +"Working in the gymnasium?" he demanded. + +"Two hours a day, morning and evening. Feel." + +She held out her arm to him, and he felt its small, rounded muscle, +with a smile. But his heavily fringed eyes were on her face, and he +kept his hold until she shook it off. + +"Who's the soldier boy?" he asked suddenly. + +"Lieutenant Hamilton. He's rather nice. Don't you think so?" + +"He'll do to play with on the trip. You'll soon lose him in London." + +The winter darkness closed down round them. Stewards were busy +closing ports and windows with fitted cardboards. Through the night +the ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with only +her small port and starboard lights. A sense of exhilaration +possessed Edith. This hurling forward over black water, this sense +of danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something new +and strange, set every nerve to jumping. She threw back her rug, and +getting up went to the rail. Lethway, the manager, followed her. + +"Nervous, aren't you?" + +"Not frightened, anyhow." + +It was then that he told her how he had sized the situation up. She +was a hit or nothing. + +"If you go all right," he said, "you can have the town. London's for +you or against you, especially if you're an American. If you go +flat----" + +"Then what?" + +She had not thought of that. What would she do then? Her salary was +not to begin until the performances started. Her fare and expenses +across were paid, but how about getting back? Even at the best her +salary was small. That had been one of her attractions to Lethway. + +"I'll have to go home, of course," she said. "If they don't like me, +and decide in a hurry, I--I may have to borrow money from you to get +back." + +"Don't worry about that." He put a hand over hers as it lay on the +rail, and when she made no effort to release it he bent down and +kissed her warm fingers. "Don't you worry about that," he repeated. + +She did worry, however. Down in her cabin, not so tidy as the +boy's--littered with her curiously anomalous belongings, a great +bunch of violets in the wash bowl, a cheap toilet set, elaborate +high-heeled shoes, and a plain muslin nightgown hanging to the +door--down there she opened her trunk and got out her contract. +There was nothing in it about getting back home. + +For a few minutes she was panicky. Her hands shook as she put the +document away. She knew life with all the lack of illusion of two +years in the chorus. Even Lethway--not that she minded his casual +caress on the deck. She had seen a lot of that. It meant nothing. +Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you. That was part +of the business. + +But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway's +face that worried her. And there were other things. + +The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances. She +had spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and the +girl's mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken her +away. It had puzzled her at the time. Now she knew. The crowd that +had seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company--that had queered +her, she decided. That and Lethway. + +None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the ocean +with Lethway. They had been envious, as a matter of fact. They had +brought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes of +candy that littered the room. In that half hour before sailing they +had chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart, +cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes. Her +roommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave. And +Mabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair. + +She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was a +winter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down, +sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to had +worn a sweater. So Edith dressed for dinner. + +She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked up +her brown hair daringly smooth and flat. Then she put on her one +evening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets. She rouged +her lips a bit too. + +The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped. + +That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after +that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying +little, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambled +to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or +whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, +and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the +fifty cents into a smoking-room pool. + +The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and, +knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had only +touched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged away +to an evening's bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went +on deck. + +"I'm afraid it's rather lonely for you," he said. "It's always like +this the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly." + +"I don't want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did you +ever see such clothes?" + +"You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night," he +observed. "You look lovely. I hope you don't mind my saying it?" + +She was a downright young person, after all. And there was something +about the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gathered +after a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was even +rather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be an +uplifting influence, she told him about herself that night. + +It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see him +straggling to gain this new point of view. + +"Anyhow," he said at last, "you're not like the others." Then +hastily: "I don't mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Only +one can tell, to look at you, that you are different." He thought +that sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to the +war, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. "I've known a lot of +girls," he added rather loftily. "All sorts of girls." + +It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alone +most of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and the +boy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched a +boxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls from +the stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man in +the company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have a +career. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person very +much. + +He eyed her wistfully when she said that. + +At dusk he told her about the girl in Toronto. + +"It wasn't an engagement, you understand. But we've been awfully +good friends. She came to see me off. It was rather awful. She +cried. She had some sort of silly idea that I'll get hurt." + +It was her turn to look wistful. Oh, they were getting on! When he +went to ask the steward to bring tea to the corner they had found, +she looked after him. She had been so busy with her own worries that +she had not thought much of the significance of his neatly belted +khaki. Suddenly it hurt her. He was going to war. + +She knew little about the war, except from the pictures in +illustrated magazines. Once or twice she had tried to talk about it +with Mabel, but Mabel had only said, "It's fierce!" and changed the +subject. + +The uniforms scattered over the ship and the precautions taken at +night, however, were bringing this thing called war very close to +her. It was just beyond that horizon toward which they were heading. +And even then it was brought nearer to her. + +Under cover of the dusk the girl she had tried to approach came up +and stood beside her. Edith was very distant with her. + +"The nights make me nervous," the girl said. "In the daylight it is +not so bad. But these darkened windows bring it all home to me--the +war, you know." + +"I guess it's pretty bad." + +"It's bad enough. My brother has been wounded. I am going to him." + +Even above the sound of the water Edith caught the thrill in her +voice. It was a new tone to her, the exaltation of sacrifice. + +"I'm sorry," she said. And some subconscious memory of Mabel made +her say: "It's fierce!" + +The girl looked at her. + +"That young officer you're with, he's going, of course. He seems +very young. My brother was older. Thirty." + +"He's twenty-two." + +"He has such nice eyes," said the girl. "I wish----" + +But he was coming back, and she slipped away. + +During tea Cecil caught her eyes on him more than once. He had taken +off his stiff-crowned cap, and the wind blew his dark hair round. + +"I wish you were not going to the war," she said unexpectedly. It +had come home to her, all at once, the potentialities of that trim +uniform. It made her a little sick. + +"It's nice of you to say that." + +There was a new mood on her, of confession, almost of consecration. +He asked her if he might smoke. No one in her brief life had ever +before asked her permission to smoke. + +"I'll have to smoke all I can," he said. "The fellows say cigarettes +are scarce in the trenches. I'm taking a lot over." + +He knew a girl who smoked cigarettes, he said. She was a nice girl +too. He couldn't understand it. The way he felt about it, maybe +a cigarette for a girl wasn't a crime. But it led to other +things--drinking, you know, and all that. + +"The fellows don't respect a girl that smokes," he said. "That's the +plain truth. I've talked to her a lot about it." + +"It wasn't your friend in Toronto, was it?" + +"Good heavens, no!" He repudiated the idea with horror. + +It was the girl who had to readjust her ideas of life that day. She +had been born and raised in that neutral ground between the lines of +right and wrong, and now suddenly her position was attacked and she +must choose sides. She chose. + +"I've smoked a cigarette now and then. If you think it is wrong I'll +not do it any more." + +He was almost overcome, both at the confession and at her +renunciation. To tell the truth, among the older Canadian officers +he had felt rather a boy. Her promise reinstated him in his own +esteem. He was a man, and a girl was offering to give something up +if he wished it. It helped a lot. + +That evening he laid out his entire equipment in his small cabin, +and invited her to see it. He put his mother's picture behind his +brushes, where the other one had been, and when all was ready he +rang for a stewardess. + +"I am going to show a young lady some of my stuff," he explained. +"And as she is alone I wish you'd stay round, will you? I want her +to feel perfectly comfortable." + +The stewardess agreed, and as she was an elderly woman, with a son +at the front, a boy like Cecil, she went back to her close little +room over the engines and cried a little, very quietly. + +It was unfortunate that he did not explain the presence of the +stewardess to the girl. For when it was all over, and she had stood +rather awed before his mother's picture, and rather to his surprise +had smoothed her hair with one of his brushes, she turned to him +outside the door. + +"That stewardess has a lot of nerve," she said. "The idea of +standing in the doorway, rubbering!" + +"I asked her," he explained. "I thought you'd prefer having some one +there." + +She stared at him. + + +II + +Lethway had won the ship's pool that day. In the evening he played +bridge, and won again. He had been drinking a little. Not much, but +enough to make him reckless. + +For the last rubber or two the thought of Edith had obsessed him, +her hand on the rail as he had kissed it, her cool eyes that were at +once so wise and so ignorant, her lithe body in the short skirt and +middy blouse. He found her more alluring, so attired, than she had +been in the scant costume of what to him was always "the show." + +He pondered on that during all of a dummy hand, sitting low in his +chair with his feet thrust far under the table. The show business +was going to the bad. Why? Because nobody connected with it knew +anything about human nature. He formulated a plan, compounded of +liquor and real business acumen, of dressing a chorus, of suggesting +the feminine form instead of showing it, of veiling it in chiffons +of soft colours and sending a draft of air from electric fans in the +wings to set the chiffons in motion. + +"Like the Aurora," he said to himself. "Only not so beefy. Ought to +be a hit. Pretty? It will be the real thing!" + +The thought of Edith in such a costume, playing like a dryad over +the stage, stayed with him when the dummy hand had been played and +he had been recalled to the game by a thump on the shoulder. Edith +in soft, pastel-coloured chiffons, dancing in bare feet to light +string music. A forest setting, of course. Pan. A goat or two. All +that sort of thing. + +On his way down to his cabin he passed her door. He went on, +hesitated, came back and knocked. + +Now Edith had not been able to sleep. Her thrifty soul, trained +against waste, had urged her not to fling her cigarettes overboard, +but to smoke them. + +"And then never again," she said solemnly. + +The result was that she could not get to sleep. Blanketed to the +chin she lay in her bunk, reading. The book had been Mabel's +farewell offering, a thing of perverted ideals, or none, of cheap +sentiment, of erotic thought overlaid with words. The immediate +result of it, when she yawned at last and turned out the light over +her bed, was a new light on the boy. + +"Little prig!" she said to herself, and stretched her round arms +luxuriously above her head. + +Then Lethway rapped. She sat up and listened. Then, grumbling, she +got out and opened the door an inch or two. The lights were low +outside and her own cabin dark. But she knew him. + +"Are we chased?" she demanded. In the back of her mind, fear of +pursuit by a German submarine was dogging her across the Atlantic. + +"Sure we are!" he said. "What are you so stingy about the door for?" + +She recognised his condition out of a not inconsiderable experience +and did her best to force the door shut, but he put his foot over +the sill and smiled. + +"Please go away, Mr. Lethway." + +"I'll go if you'll kiss me good night." + +She calculated the situation, and surrendered. There was nothing +else to do. But when she upturned her face he slipped past her and +into the room. Just inside the door, swinging open and shut with +every roll of the ship, he took her in his arms and kissed her, not +once but many times. + +She did not lose her head. She had an arm free and she rang the +bell. Then she jerked herself loose. + +"I have rung for the stewardess," she said furiously. "If you are +here when she comes I'll ask for help." + +"You young devil!" was all he said, and went, slamming the door +behind him. His rage grew as he reached his own cabin. Damn the +girl, anyhow! He had not meant anything. Here he was, spending money +he might never get back to give her a chance, and she called the +stewardess because he kissed her! + +As for the girl, she went back to bed. For a few moments sheer rage +kept her awake. Then youth and fatigue triumphed and she fell +asleep. Her last thought was of the boy, after all. "He wouldn't do +a thing like that," she reflected. "He's a gentleman. He's the real +thing. He's----" + +Her eyes closed. + +Lethway apologised the next day, apologised with an excess of manner +that somehow made the apology as much of an insult as the act. But +she matched him at that game--took her cue from him, even went him +one better as to manner. When he left her he had begun to feel that +she was no unworthy antagonist. The game would be interesting. And +she had the advantage, if she only knew it. Back of his desire to +get back at her, back of his mocking smile and half-closed eyes, he +was just a trifle mad about her since the night before. + +That is the way things stood when they reached the Mersey. Cecil was +in love with the girl. Very earnestly in love. He did not sleep at +night for thinking about her. He remembered certain semi-harmless +escapades of his college days, and called himself unworthy and +various other things. He scourged himself by leaving her alone in +her steamer chair and walking by at stated intervals. Once, in a +white sweater over a running shirt, he went to the gymnasium and +found her there. She had on a "gym" suit of baggy bloomers and the +usual blouse. He backed away from the door hastily. + +At first he was jealous of Lethway. Then that passed. She confided +to him that she did not like the manager. After that he was sorry +for him. He was sorry for any one she did not like. He bothered +Lethway by walking the deck with him and looking at him with what +Lethway refused to think was compassion. + +But because, contrary to the boy's belief, none of us is quite good +or quite evil, he was kind to the boy. The khaki stood for something +which no Englishman could ignore. + +"Poor little devil!" he said on the last day in the smoking room, +"he's going to a bad time, all right. I was in Africa for eight +years. Boer war and the rest of it. Got run through the thigh in a +native uprising, and they won't have me now. But Africa was cheery +to this war." + +He asked the boy into the smoking room, which he had hitherto +avoided. He had some queer idea that he did not care to take his +uniform in there. Absurd, of course. It made him rather lonely in +the hours Edith spent in her cabin, preparing variations of costume +for the evening out of her small trunk. But he was all man, and he +liked the society of men; so he went at last, with Lethway, and +ordered vichy! + +He had not allowed himself to think much beyond the end of the +voyage. As the ship advanced, war seemed to slip beyond the edge of +his horizon. Even at night, as he lay and tossed, his thoughts were +either of the next day, when he would see Edith again, or of that +indefinite future when he would return, covered with honors, and go +to her, wherever she was. + +He never doubted the honors now. He had something to fight for. The +medals in their cases looked paltry to him, compared with what was +coming. In his sleep he dreamed of the V.C., dreams he was too +modest to put into thoughts in waking hours. + +Then they reached the Mersey. On the last evening of the voyage he +and Edith stood on the upper deck. It was a zone of danger. From +each side of the narrowing river flashlights skimmed the surface of +the water, playing round but never on the darkened ship. Red and +green lights blinked signals. Their progress was a devious one +through the mine-strewn channel. There was a heavy sea even there, +and the small lights on the mast on the pilot boat, as it came to a +stop, described great arcs that seemed, first to starboard, then to +port, to touch the very tips of the waves. + +"I'm not crazy about this," the girl said, as the wind tugged at her +skirts. "It frightens me. Brings the war pretty close, doesn't it?" + +Emotion swelled his heart and made him husky--love and patriotism, +pride and hope, and a hot burst of courage. + +"What if we strike a mine?" she asked. + +"I wouldn't care so much. It would give me a chance to save you." + +Overhead they were signalling the shore with a white light. Along +with the new emotions that were choking him came an unaccustomed +impulse of boastfulness. + +"I can read that," he said when she ignored his offer to save her. +"Of course it's code, but I can spell it out." + +He made a move to step forward and watch the signaler, but she put +her hand on his arm. + +"Don't go. I'm nervous, Cecil," she said. + +She had called him by his first name. It shook him profoundly, that +and the touch of her hand on his arm. + +"Oh, I love you, love you!" he said hoarsely. But he did not try to +take her in his arms, or attempt to caress the hand that still clung +to him. He stood very erect, looking at the shadowy outline of her. +Then, her long scarf blowing toward him, he took the end of it and +kissed that very gravely. + +"I would die for you," he said. + +Then Lethway joined them. + + +III + +London was not kind to him. He had felt, like many Canadians, that +in going to England he was going home. But England was cold. + +Not the people on the streets. They liked the Canadians and they +cheered them when their own regiments went by unhailed. It appealed +to their rampant patriotism that these men had come from across the +sea to join hands with them against common foe. But in the clubs, +where his letters admitted the boy, there was a different +atmosphere. Young British officers were either cool or, much worse, +patronising. They were inclined to suspect that his quiet confidence +was swanking. One day at luncheon he drank a glass of wine, not +because he wanted it but because he did not like to refuse. The +result was unfortunate. It loosened his tongue a bit, and he +mentioned the medals. + +Not noisily, of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. +It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, +greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, but +his heart was heavy in him. + +And it rained. + +It was always raining. He had very little money beyond his pay, and +the constant hiring of taxicabs worried him. Now and then he saw +some one he knew, down from Salisbury for a holiday, but they had +been over long enough to know their way about. They had engagements, +things to buy. He fairly ate his heart out in sheer loneliness. + +There were two hours in the day that redeemed the others. One was +the hour late in the afternoon when, rehearsal over, he took Edith +O'Hara to tea. The other was just before he went to bed, when he +wrote her the small note that reached her every morning with her +breakfast. + +In the seven days before he joined his regiment at Salisbury he +wrote her seven notes. They were candid, boyish scrawls, not love +letters at all. This was one of them: + + _Dear Edith_: I have put in a rotten evening and am just + going to bed. I am rather worried because you looked so + tired to-day. Please don't work too hard. + + I am only writing to say how I look forward each night to + seeing you the next day. I am sending with this a small + bunch of lilies of the valley. They remind me of you. + CECIL. + +The girl saved those letters. She was not in love with him, but he +gave her something no one else had ever offered: a chivalrous +respect that pleased as well as puzzled her. + +Once in a tea shop he voiced his creed, as it pertained to her, over +a plate of muffins. + +"When we are both back home, Edith," he said, "I am going to ask you +something." + +"Why not now?" + +"Because it wouldn't be quite fair to you. I--I may be killed, or +something. That's one thing. Then, it's because of your people." + +That rather stunned her. She had no people. She was going to tell +him that, but she decided not to. She felt quite sure that he +considered "people" essential, and though she felt that, for any +long period of time, these queer ideas and scruples of his would be +difficult to live up to, she intended to do it for that one week. + +"Oh, all right," she said, meekly enough. + +She felt very tender toward him after that, and her new gentleness +made it all hard for him. She caught him looking at her wistfully at +times, and it seemed to her that he was not looking well. His eyes +were hollow, his face thin. She put her hand over his as it lay on +the table. + +"Look here," she said, "you look half sick, or worried, or +something. Stop telling me to take care of myself, and look after +yourself a little better." + +"I'm all right," he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. +That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that +don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." + +On the last night he took her to dinner--a small French restaurant +in a back street in Soho. He had heard about it somewhere. Edith +classed it as soon as she entered. It was too retiring, too demure. +Its very location was clandestine. + +But he never knew. He was divided that night between joy at getting +to his regiment and grief at leaving her. Rather self-engrossed, she +thought. + +They had a table by an open grate fire, with a screen "to shut off +the draft," the waiter said. It gave the modest meal a delightfully +homey air, their isolation and the bright coal fire. For the first +time they learned the joys of mussels boiled in milk, of French +_souffle_ and other things. + +At the end of the evening he took her back to her cheap hotel in a +taxicab. She expected him to kiss her. Her experience of taxicabs +had been like that. But he did not. He said very little on the way +home, but sat well back and eyed her wistful eyes. She chattered to +cover his silence--of rehearsals, of--with reservations--of Lethway, +of the anticipated London opening. She felt very sad herself. He had +been a tie to America, and he had been much more than that. Though +she did not realise it, he had had a profound effect on her. In +trying to seem what he thought her she was becoming what he thought +her. Her old reckless attitude toward life was gone, or was going. + +The day before she had refused an invitation to a night club, and +called herself a fool for doing it. But she had refused. + +Not that he had performed miracles with her. She was still frankly a +dweller on the neutral ground. But to that instinct that had kept +her up to that time what she would have called "straight" had been +added a new refinement. She was no longer the reckless and romping +girl whose abandon had caught Lethway's eye. + +She had gained a soul, perhaps, and lost a livelihood. + +When they reached the hotel he got out and went in with her. The +hall porter was watching and she held out her hand. But he shook his +head. + +"If I touched your hand," he said, "I would have to take you in my +arms. Good-bye, dear." + +"Good-bye," she said. There were tears in her eyes. It was through a +mist that she saw him, as the elevator went up, standing at salute, +his eyes following her until she disappeared from sight. + + +IV + +Things were going wrong with Lethway. The management was ragging +him, for one thing. + +"Give the girl time," he said almost viciously, at the end of a +particularly bad rehearsal. "She's had a long voyage and she's +tired. Besides," he added, "these acts never do go at rehearsal. +Give me a good house at the opening and she'll show you what she can +do." + +But in his soul he was worried. There was a change in Edith O'Hara. +Even her voice had altered. It was not only her manner to him. That +was marked enough, but he only shrugged his shoulders over it. Time +enough for that when the production was on. + +He had engaged a hoyden, and she was by way of becoming a lady. +During the first week or so he had hoped that it was only the +strangeness of her surroundings. He had been shrewd enough to lay +some of it, however, to Cecil's influence. + +"When your soldier boy gets out of the way," he sneered one day in +the wings, "perhaps you'll get down to earth and put some life in +your work." + +But to his dismay she grew steadily worse. Her dancing was delicate, +accurate, even graceful, but the thing the British public likes to +think typically American, a sort of breezy swagger, was gone. To +bill her in her present state as the Madcap American would be sheer +folly. + +Ten days before the opening he cabled for another girl to take her +place. + +He did not tell her. Better to let her work on, he decided. A German +submarine might sink the ship on which the other girl was coming, +and then where would they be? + +Up to the last, however, he had hopes of Edith. Not that he cared to +save her. But he hated to acknowledge a failure. He disliked to +disavow his own judgment. + +He made a final effort with her, took her one day to luncheon at +Simpson's, and in one of the pewlike compartments, over mutton and +caper sauce, he tried to "talk a little life into her." + +"What the devil has come over you?" he demanded savagely. "You were +larky enough over in New York. There are any number of girls in +London who can do what you are doing now, and do it better." + +"I'm doing just what I did in New York." + +"The hell you are! I could do what you're doing with a jointed doll +and some wires. Now see here, Edith," he said, "either you put some +go into the thing, or you go. That's flat." + +Her eyes filled. + +"I--maybe I'm worried," she said. "Ever since I found out that I've +signed up, with no arrangement about sending me back, it's been on +my mind." + +"Don't you worry about that." + +"But if they put some one on in my place?" + +"You needn't worry about that either. I'll look after you. You know +that. If I hadn't been crazy about you I'd have let you go a week +ago. You know that too." + +She knew the tone, knew instantly where she stood. Knew, too, that +she would not play the first night in London. She went rather white, +but she faced him coolly. + +"Don't look like that," he said. "I'm only telling you that if you +need a friend I'll be there." + +It was two days before the opening, however, when the blow fell. She +had not been sleeping, partly from anxiety about herself, partly +about the boy. Every paper she picked up was full of the horrors of +war. There were columns filled with the names of those who had +fallen. Somehow even his uniform had never closely connected the boy +with death in her mind. He seemed so young. + +She had had a feeling that his very youth would keep him from +danger. War to her was a faintly conceived struggle between men, and +he was a boy. + +But here were boys who had died, boys at nineteen. And the lists of +missing startled her. One morning she read in the personal column a +query, asking if any one could give the details of the death of a +young subaltern. She cried over that. In all her care-free life +never before had she wept over the griefs of others. + +Cecil had sent her his photograph taken in his uniform. Because he +had had it taken to give her he had gazed directly into the eye of +the camera. When she looked at it it returned her glance. She took +to looking at it a great deal. + +Two days before the opening she turned from a dispirited rehearsal +to see Mabel standing in the wings. Then she knew. The end had come. + +Mabel was jaunty, but rather uneasy. + +"You poor dear!" she said, when Edith went to her. "What on earth's +happened? The cable only said--honest, dearie, I feel like a dog!" + +"They don't like me. That's all," she replied wearily, and picked +up her hat and jacket from a chair. But Mabel was curious. +Uncomfortable, too, as she had said. She slipped an arm round +Edith's waist. + +"Say the word and I'll throw them down," she cried. "It looks like +dirty work to me. And you're thin. Honest, dearie, I mean it." + +Her loyalty soothed the girl's sore spirit. + +"I don't know what's come over me," she said. "I've tried hard +enough. But I'm always tired. I--I think it's being so close to the +war." + +Mabel stared at her. There was a war. She knew that. The theatrical +news was being crowded to a back page to make space for disagreeable +diagrams and strange, throaty names. + +"I know. It's fierce, isn't it?" she said. + +Edith took her home, and they talked far into the night. She had +slipped Cecil's picture into the wardrobe before she turned on the +light. Then she explained the situation. + +"It's pep they want, is it?" said Mabel at last. "Well, believe me, +honey, I'll give it to them. And as long as I've got a cent it's +yours." + +They slept together in Edith's narrow bed, two slim young figures +delicately flushed with sleep. As pathetic, had they known it, as +those other sleepers in their untidy billets across the channel. +Almost as hopeless too. Dwellers in the neutral ground. + + +V + +Now war, after all, is to each fighting man an affair of small +numbers, an affair of the men to his right and his left, of the +A.M.S.C. in the rear and of a handful of men across. On his days of +rest the horizon is somewhat expanded. It becomes then a thing of +crowded and muddy village streets, of food and drink and tobacco and +a place to sleep. + +Always, of course, it is a thing of noises. + +This is not a narrative of war. It matters very little, for +instance, how Cecil's regiment left Salisbury and went to Soissons, +in France. What really matters is that at last the Canadian-made +motor lorries moved up their equipment, and that, after digging +practice trenches in the yellow clay of old battlefields, they were +moved up to the front. + +Once there, there seemed to be a great deal of time. It was the lull +before Neuve Chapelle. Cecil's spirit grew heavy with waiting. Once, +back on rest at his billet, he took a long walk over the half-frozen +side roads and came without warning on a main artery. Three traction +engines were taking to the front the first of the great British +guns, so long awaited. He took the news back to his mess. The +general verdict was that there would be something doing now. + +Cecil wrote a letter to Edith that day. He had written before, of +course, but this was different. He wrote first to his mother, just +in case anything happened, a long, boyish letter with a misspelled +word here and there. He said he was very happy and very comfortable, +and that if he did get his he wanted her to know that it was all +perfectly cheerful and not anything like the war correspondents said +it was. He'd had a bully time all his life, thanks to her. He hadn't +let her know often enough how he felt about her, and she knew he was +a dub at writing. There were a great many things worse than "going +out" in a good fight. "It isn't at all as if you could see the +blooming thing coming," he wrote. "You never know it's after you +until you've got it, and then you don't." + +The letter was not to be sent unless he was killed. So he put in a +few anecdotes to let her know exactly how happy and contented he +was. Then he dropped the whole thing in the ten inches of mud and +water he was standing in, and had to copy it all over. + +To Edith he wrote a different sort of letter. He told her that he +loved her. "It's almost more adoration than love," he wrote, while +two men next to him were roaring over a filthy story. "I mean by +that, that I feel every hour of every day how far above me you are. +It's like one of these _fusees_ the Germans are always throwing up +over us at night. It's perfectly dark, and then something bright and +clear and like a star, only nearer, is overhead. Everything looks +different while it floats there. And so, my dear, my dear, +everything has been different to me since I knew you." + +Rather boyish, all of it, but terribly earnest. He said he had +wanted to ask her to marry him, but that the way he felt about it, a +fellow had no right to ask a girl such a thing when he was going to +a war. If he came back he would ask her. And he would love her all +his life. + +The next day, at dawn, he went out with eighty men to an outpost +that had been an abandoned farm. It was rather a forlorn hope. They +had one machine gun. At nine o'clock the enemy opened fire on them +and followed it by an attack. The major in charge went down early. +At two Cecil was standing in the loft of the farmhouse, firing with +a revolver on men who beneath him, outside, were placing dynamite +under a corner of the building. + +To add to the general hopelessness, their own artillery, believing +them all dead, opened fire on the building. They moved their wounded +to the cellar and kept on fighting. + +At eight o'clock that night Cecil's right arm was hanging helpless, +and the building was burning merrily. There were five of them left. +They fixed bayonets and charged the open door. + + * * * * * + +When the boy opened his eyes he was lying in six inches of manure in +a box car. One of his men was standing over him, keeping him from +being trampled on. There was no air and no water. The ammonia fumes +from the manure were stifling. + +The car lurched and jolted along. Cecil opened his eyes now and +then, and at first he begged for water. When he found there was none +he lay still. The men hammered on the door and called for air. They +made frantic, useless rushes at the closed and barred door. Except +Cecil, all were standing. They were herded like cattle, and there +was no room to lie or sit. + +He lay there, drugged by weakness. He felt quite sure that he was +dying, and death was not so bad. He voiced this feebly to the man +who stood over him. + +"It's not so bad," he said. + +"The hell it's not!" said the man. + +For the time Edith was effaced from his mind. He remembered the +wounded men left in the cellar with the building burning over them. +That, and days at home, long before the war. + +Once he said "Mother." The soldier who was now standing astride of +him, the better to keep off the crowding men, thought he was asking +for water again. + +Thirty hours of that, and then air and a little water. Not enough +water. Not all the water in all the cool streams of the earth would +have slaked the thirst of his wound. + +The boy was impassive. He was living in the past. One day he recited +at great length the story of his medals. No one listened. + +And all the time his right arm lay or hung, as he was prone or +erect, a strange right arm that did not belong to him. It did not +even swell. When he touched it the fingers were cold and bluish. It +felt like a dead hand. + +Then, at the end of it all, was a bed, and a woman's voice, and +quiet. + +The woman was large and elderly, and her eyes were very kind. She +stirred something in the boy that had been dead of pain. + +"Edith!" he said. + + +VI + +Mabel had made a hit. Unconscious imitator that she was, she stole +Edith's former recklessness, and added to it something of her own +dash and verve. Lethway, standing in the wings, knew she was not and +never would be Edith. She was not fine enough. Edith at her best +had frolicked. Mabel romped, was almost wanton. He cut out the +string music at the final rehearsal. It did not fit. + +On the opening night the brass notes of the orchestra blared and +shrieked. Mabel's bare feet flew, her loose hair, cut to her ears +and held only by a band over her forehead, kept time in ecstatic +little jerks. When at last she pulled off the fillet and bowed to +the applause, her thick short hair fell over her face as she jerked +her head forward. They liked that. It savoured of the abandoned. She +shook it back, and danced the encore without the fillet. With her +scant chiffons whirling about her knees, her loose hair, her girlish +body, she was the embodiment of young love, of its passion, its +fire. + +Edith had been spring, palpitant with gladness. + +Lethway, looking with tired eyes from the wings, knew that he had +made a commercial success. But back of his sordid methods there was +something of the soul of an artist. And this rebelled. + +But he made a note to try flame-coloured chiffon for Mabel. Edith +was to have danced in the pale greens of a water nymph. + +On the night of her triumph Mabel returned late to Edith's room, +where she was still quartered. She was moving the next day to a +small apartment. With the generosity of her class she had urged +Edith to join her, and Edith had perforce consented. + +"How did it go?" Edith asked from the bed. + +"Pretty well," said Mabel. "Nothing unusual." + +She turned up the light, and from her radiant reflection in the +mirror Edith got the truth. She lay back with a dull, sickening +weight round her heart. Not that Mabel had won, but that she herself +had failed. + +"You're awfully late." + +"I went to supper. Wish you'd been along, dearie. Terribly swell +club of some sort." Then her good resolution forgotten: "I made them +sit up and take notice, all right. Two invitations for supper +to-morrow night and more on the way. And when I saw I'd got the +house going to-night, and remembered what I was being paid for it, +it made me sick." + +"It's better than nothing." + +"Why don't you ask Lethway to take you on in the chorus? It would do +until you get something else." + +"I have asked him. He won't do it." + +Mabel was still standing in front of the mirror. She threw her head +forward so her short hair covered her face, and watched the effect +carefully. Then she came over and sat on the bed. + +"He's a dirty dog," she said. + +The two girls looked at each other. They knew every move in the game +of life, and Lethway's methods were familiar ones. + +"What are you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last. +"Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here," she +said with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enough +ahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, while the drawing's +good." + +"And queer yourself at the start?" said Edith scornfully. "Talk +sense, Mabel, I'm up against it, but don't you worry. I'll get +something." + +But she did not get anything. She was reduced in the next week to +entire dependence on the other girl. And, even with such miracles of +management as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficult +to get along. + +There was a new element too. Edith was incredulous at first, but at +last she faced it. There was a change in Mabel. She was not less +hospitable nor less generous. It was a matter of a point of view. +Success was going to her head. Her indignation at certain phases of +life was changing to tolerance. She found Edith's rampant virtue a +trifle wearing. She took to staying out very late, and coming in +ready to meet Edith's protest with defiant gaiety. She bought +clothes too. + +"You'll have to pay for them sometime," Edith reminded her. + +"I should worry. I've got to look like something if I'm going to go +out at all." + +Edith, who had never thought things out before, had long hours to +think now. And the one thing that seemed clear and undeniable was +that she must not drive Mabel into debt. Debt was the curse of most +of the girls she knew. As long as they were on their own they could +manage. It was the burden of unpaid bills, lightly contracted, that +drove so many of them wrong. + +That night, while Mabel was asleep, she got up and cautiously +lighted the gas. Then she took the boy's photograph out of its +hiding place and propped it on top of her trunk. For a long time she +sat there, her chin in her hands, and looked at it. + +It was the next day that she saw his name among the missing. + +She did not cry, not at first. The time came when it seemed to her +she did nothing else. But at first she only stared. She was too +young and too strong to faint, but things went gray for her. + +And gray they remained--through long spring days and eternal +nights--days when Mabel slept all morning, rehearsed or played in +the afternoons, was away all evening and far into the night. She did +not eat or sleep. She spent money that was meant for food on papers +and journals and searched for news. She made a frantic but +ineffectual effort to get into the War Office. + +She had received his letter two days after she had seen his name +among the missing. She had hardly dared to open it, but having read +it, for days she went round with a strange air of consecration that +left Mabel uneasy. + +"I wish you wouldn't look like that!" she said one morning. "You get +on my nerves." + +But as time went on the feeling that he was dead overcame everything +else. She despaired, rather than grieved. And following despair came +recklessness. He was dead. Nothing else mattered. Lethway, meeting +her one day in Oxford Circus, almost passed her before he knew her. +He stopped her then. + +"Haven't been sick, have you?" + +"Me? No." + +"There's something wrong." + +She did not deny it and he fell into step beside her. + +"Doing anything?" he asked. + +She shook her head. With all the power that was in her she was +hating his tall figure, his heavy-lashed eyes, even the familiar +ulster he wore. + +"I wish you were a sensible young person," he said. But something in +the glance she gave him forbade his going on. It was not an ugly +glance. Rather it was cold, appraising--even, if he had known it, +despairing. + +Lethway had been busy. She had been in the back of his mind rather +often, but other things had crowded her out. This new glimpse of her +fired him again, however. And she had a new quality that thrilled +even through the callus of his soul. The very thing that had +foredoomed her to failure in the theatre appealed to him strongly--a +refinement, a something he did not analyse. + +When she was about to leave him he detained her with a hand on her +arm. + +"You know you can always count on me, don't you?" he said. + +"I know I can't," she flashed back at him with a return of her old +spirit. + +"I'm crazy about you." + +"Old stuff!" she said coolly, and walked off. But there was a tug of +fear at her heart. She told Mabel, but it was typical of the change +that Mabel only shrugged her shoulders. + +It was Lethway's shrewdness that led to his next move. He had tried +bullying, and failed. He had tried fear, with the same lack of +effect. Now he tried kindness. + +She distrusted him at first, but her starved heart was crying out +for the very thing he offered her. As the weeks went on, with no +news of Cecil, she accepted his death stoically at last. Something +of her had died. But in a curious way the boy had put his mark on +her. And as she grew more like the thing he had thought her to be +the gulf between Mabel and herself widened. They had, at last, only +in common their room, their struggle, the contacts of their daily +life. + +And Lethway was now always in the background. He took her for quiet +meals and brought her home early. He promised her that sometime he +would see that she got back home. + +"But not just yet," he added as her colour rose. "I'm selfish, +Edith. Give me a little time to be happy." + +That was a new angle. It had been a part of the boy's quiet creed to +make others happy. + +"Why don't you give me something to do, since you're so crazy to +have me hanging about?" + +"Can't do it. I'm not the management. And they're sore at you. They +think you threw them down." He liked to air his American slang. + +Edith cupped her chin in her hand and looked at him. There was no +mystery about the situation, no shyness in the eyes with which she +appraised him. She was beginning to like him too. + +That night when she got back to Mabel's apartment her mood was +reckless. She went to the window and stood looking at the crooked +and chimney-potted skyline that was London. + +"Oh, what's the use?" she said savagely, and gave up the fight. + +When Mabel came home she told her. + +"I'm going to get out," she said without preamble. + +She caught the relief in Mabel's face, followed by a purely +conventional protest. + +"Although," she hedged cautiously, "I don't know, dearie. People +look at things sensibly these days. You've got to live, haven't you? +They're mighty quick to jail a girl who tries to jump in the river +when she's desperate." + +"I'll probably end there. And I don't much care." + +Mabel gave her a good talking to about that. Her early training had +been in a church which regarded self-destruction as a cardinal sin. +Then business acumen asserted itself: + +"He'll probably put you on somewhere. He's crazy about you, Ede." + +But Edith was not listening. She was standing in front of her opened +trunk tearing into small pieces something that had been lying in the +tray. + + +VII + +Now the boy had tried very hard to die, and failed. The thing that +had happened to him was an unbelievable thing. When he began to use +his tired faculties again, when the ward became not a shadow land +but a room, and the nurse not a presence but a woman, he tried +feebly to move his right arm. + +But it was gone. + +At first he refused to believe it. He could feel it lying there +beside him. It ached and throbbed. The fingers were cramped. But +when he looked it was not there. + +There was not one shock of discovery, but many. For each time he +roused from sleep he had forgotten, and must learn the thing again. + +The elderly German woman stayed close. She was wise, and war had +taught her many things. So when he opened his eyes she was always +there. She talked to him very often of his mother, and he listened +with his eyes on her face--eyes like those of a sick child. + +In that manner they got by the first few days. + +"It won't make any difference to her," he said once. "She'd take me +back if I was only a fragment." Then bitterly: "That's all I am--a +fragment! A part of a man!" + +After a time she knew that there was a some one else, some one he +was definitely relinquishing. She dared not speak to him about it. +His young dignity was militant. But one night, as she dozed beside +him in the chair, he reached the limit of his repression and told +her. + +"An actress!" she cried, sitting bolt upright. "_Du lieber_--an +actress!" + +"Not an actress," he corrected her gravely. "A--a dancer. But good. +She's a very good girl. Even when I was--was whole"--raging +bitterness there--"I was not good enough for her." + +"No actress is good. And dancers!" + +"You don't know what you are talking about," he said roughly, and +turned his back to her. It was almost insulting to have her assist +him to his attitude of contempt, and to prop him in it with pillows +behind his back. Lying there he tried hard to remember that this +woman belonged to his hereditary foes. He was succeeding in hating +her when he felt her heavy hand on his head. + +"Poor boy! Poor little one!" she said. And her voice was husky. + +When at last he was moved from the hospital to the prison camp she +pinned the sleeve of his ragged uniform across his chest and kissed +him, to his great discomfiture. Then she went to the curtained +corner that was her quarters and wept long and silently. + +The prison camp was overcrowded. Early morning and late evening +prisoners were lined up to be counted. There was a medley of +languages--French, English, Arabic, Russian. The barracks were built +round a muddy inclosure in which the men took what exercise they +could. + +One night a boy with a beautiful tenor voice sang Auld Lang Syne +under the boy's window. He stood with his hand on the cuff of his +empty sleeves and listened. And suddenly a great shame filled him, +that with so many gone forever, with men dying every minute of +every hour, back at the lines, he had been so obsessed with himself. +He was still bitter, but the bitterness was that he could not go +back again and fight. + +When he had been in the camp a month he helped two British officers +to escape. One of them had snubbed him in London months before. He +apologised before he left. + +"You're a man, Hamilton," he said. "All you Canadians are men. I've +some things to tell when I get home." + +The boy could not go with them. There would be canals to swim +across, and there was his empty sleeve and weakness. He would never +swim again, he thought. That night, as he looked at the empty beds +of the men who had gone, he remembered his medals and smiled grimly. + +He was learning to use his left hand. He wrote letters home with it +for soldiers who could not write. He went into the prison hospital +and wrote letters for those who would never go home. But he did not +write to the girl. + + * * * * * + +He went back at last, when the hopelessly wounded were exchanged. To +be branded "hopelessly wounded" was to him a stain, a stigma. It put +him among the clutterers of the earth. It stranded him on the shore +of life. Hopelessly wounded! + +For, except what would never be whole, he was well again. True, +confinement and poor food had kept him weak and white. His legs had +a way of going shaky at nightfall. But once he knocked down an +insolent Russian with his left hand, and began to feel his own man +again. That the Russian was weak from starvation did not matter. The +point to the boy was that he had made the attempt. + +Providence has a curious way of letting two lives run along, each +apparently independent of the other. Parallel lines they seem, +hopeless of meeting. Converging lines really, destined, through long +ages, by every deed that has been done to meet at a certain point +and there fuse. + +Edith had left Mabel, but not to go to Lethway. When nothing else +remained that way was open. She no longer felt any horror--only a +great distaste. But two weeks found her at her limit. She, who had +rarely had more than just enough, now had nothing. + +And no glory of sacrifice upheld her. She no longer believed that by +removing the burden of her support she could save Mabel. It was +clear that Mabel would not be saved. To go back and live on her, +under the circumstances, was but a degree removed from the other +thing that confronted her. + +There is just a chance that, had she not known the boy, she would +have killed herself. But again the curious change he had worked in +her manifested itself. He thought suicide a wicked thing. + +"I take it like this," he had said in his eager way: "life's a thing +that's given us for some purpose. Maybe the purpose gets +clouded--I'm afraid I'm an awful duffer at saying what I mean. But +we've got to work it out, do you see? Or--or the whole scheme is +upset." + +It had seemed very clear then. + +Then, on a day when the rare sun made even the rusty silk hats of +clerks on tops of omnibuses to gleam, when the traffic glittered on +the streets and the windows of silversmiths' shops shone painful to +the eye, she met Lethway again. + +The sun had made her reckless. Since the boy was gone life was +wretchedness, but she clung to it. She had given up all hope of +Cecil's return, and what she became mattered to no one else. + +Perhaps, more than anything else, she craved companionship. In +all her crowded young life she had never before been alone. +Companionship and kindness. She would have followed to heel, like +a dog, for a kind word. + +Then she met Lethway. They walked through the park. When he left her +her once clear, careless glance had a suggestion of furtiveness in +it. + +That afternoon she packed her trunk and sent it to an address he +had given her. In her packing she came across the stick of cold +cream, still in the pocket of the middy blouse. She flung it, as +hard as she could, across the room. + +She paid her bill with money Lethway had given her. She had exactly +a sixpence of her own. She found herself in Trafalgar Square late in +the afternoon. The great enlisting posters there caught her eye, +filled her with bitterness. + +"Your king and your country need you," she read. She had needed the +boy, too, but this vast and impersonal thing, his mother country, +had taken him from her--taken him and lost him. She wanted to stand +by the poster and cry to the passing women to hold their men back. +As she now knew she hated Lethway, she hated England. + +She wandered on. Near Charing Cross she spent the sixpence for a +bunch of lilies of the valley, because he had said once that she was +like them. Then she was for throwing them in the street, remembering +the thing she would soon be. + +"For the wounded soldiers," said the flower girl. When she +comprehended that, she made her way into the station. There was a +great crowd, but something in her face made the crowd draw back and +let her through. They nudged each other as she passed. + +"Looking for some one, poor child!" said a girl and, following her, +thrust the flowers she too carried into Edith's hand. She put them +with the others, rather dazed. + + * * * * * + +To Cecil the journey had been a series of tragedies. Not his own. +There were two hundred of them, officers and men, on the boat across +the Channel. Blind, maimed, paralysed, in motley garments, they were +hilariously happy. Every throb of the turbine engines was a thrust +toward home. They sang, they cheered. + +Now and then some one would shout: "Are we downhearted?" And +crutches and canes would come down on the deck to the unanimous +shout: "No!" + +Folkestone had been trying, with its parade of cheerfulness, with +kindly women on the platform serving tea and buns. In the railway +coach to London, where the officers sat, a talking machine played +steadily, and there were masses of flowers, violets and lilies of +the valley. At Charing Cross was a great mass of people, and as they +slowly disembarked he saw that many were crying. He was rather +surprised. He had known London as a cold and unemotional place. It +had treated him as an alien, had snubbed and ignored him. + +He had been prepared to ask nothing of London, and it lay at his +feet in tears. + +Then he saw Edith. + +Perhaps, when in the fullness of years the boy goes over to the +life he so firmly believes awaits him, the one thing he will carry +with him through the open door will be the look in her eyes when she +saw him. Too precious a thing to lose, surely, even then. Such +things make heaven. + +"What did I tell you?" cried the girl who had given Edith her +flowers. "She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Look +out--catch him!" + +But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith he +touched his empty sleeve. + +"As if that would make any difference to her!" said the girl, who +was in black. "Look at her face! She's got him." + +Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanly +tears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of his +empty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together and +the crowd opened to let them by. + + * * * * * + +At nine o'clock that night Lethway stormed through the stage +entrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel's +dressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and went +in. + +The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was having +her pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance. + +"You've got a nerve!" she said coolly. + +"Where's Edith?" + +"I don't know and I don't care. She ran away, when I was stinting +myself to keep her. I'm done. Now you go out and close that door, +and when you want to enter a lady's dressing room, knock." + +He looked at her with blazing hatred. + +"Right-o!" was all he said. And he turned and left her to her +flowers. + +At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, +very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her +in. + +He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hall +porter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers of +his left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as they +followed her, was all that there is of love--love and a new +understanding. + +She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same. +Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of that +shadowy No Man's Land between the lines, where many there were who +fought their battles and were wounded, and even died. + +As he turned and went out two men on crutches were passing along the +quiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, and +stopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison: + +"Are we downhearted? No!" + +Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump. + + + + +THE GAME + + +I + +The Red Un was very red; even his freckles were red rather than +copper-coloured. And he was more prodigal than most kings, for he +had two crowns on his head. Also his hair grew in varying +directions, like a wheatfields after a storm. He wore a coat without +a tail, but with brass buttons to compensate, and a celluloid collar +with a front attached. It was the Red Un's habit to dress first and +wash after, as saving labour; instead of his neck he washed his +collar. + +The Red Un was the Chief Engineer's boy and rather more impressive +than the Chief, who was apt to decry his own greatness. It was the +Red Un's duty to look after the Chief, carry in his meals, make his +bed, run errands, and remind him to get his hair cut now and then. +It was the Red Un's pleasure to assist unassumingly in the +surveillance of that part of the ship where the great god, Steam, +ruled an underworld of trimmers and oilers and stokers and assistant +engineers--and even, with reservations, the Chief. The Red Un kept a +sharp eye on the runs and read the Chief's log daily--so much coal +in the bunkers; so much water in the wells; so many engine-room +miles in twenty-four hours--which, of course, are not sea miles +exactly, there being currents and winds, and God knows what, to +waste steam on. + +The Red Un, like the assistants, was becoming a bear on the speed +market. He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enough +to work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and get +a letter from the management, some current or other will show up--or +a fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends the +bridge yapping for caution. + +The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief's bed by pulling the +counterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath--and got +away with it, the Chief being weary at night. Also, in odd moments +he made life miserable for the crew. Up to shortly before, he had +had to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starved +little body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief's +hair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no manner +of business, hardly used up his activities. However, he did not lie +and he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man. + +The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had taken +for a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and two +set and desperate eyes. After that the big Scot had forgotten all +about him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which had +shrunk in the drying. The liner finished coaling about that time, +took on passengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, +having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third and +dropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race. + +The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the long +voyage--three thousand miles or so without a stop. The gong, and +then Half Ahead!--great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the +grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of +limitless strength. Full Ahead!--and so off again for the great +struggle--man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God against +the upreaching of the sea. + +The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored it +waking, snapped his watch shut. + +"Eleven-eleven!" he said to the Senior Second. "Well, here's luck!" +That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of a +prayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man's +wits count in the great equation. He generally said something to the +effect that "After all, it's up to Thee, O Lord!" + +He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; and +he smiled too, but rather grimly. They were playing a bit of a +game, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks--just an +amusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; the +Second was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of his +head years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate. +Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness for +himself alone? So the Chief, having glanced about and run his hand +caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had +climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and +was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things +that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was +being stared at from behind. + +Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up +to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive +eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the +eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, +turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot +trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw--a small +red-haired boy in a Turkish towel. + +The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing +to lose--not even a pair of breeches--and everything to gain. + +"Please," said the apparition, "the pilot's gone, and you can't put +me off!" + +The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and the +modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a +four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain +softening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his +way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a +little--a surface smile, with fear just behind. + +"The Captain's boy's my size; I could wear his clothes," he +suggested. + +Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman's picture in +his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been +small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, +the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that in +the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his +best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense +of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was +hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as +was his way when excited. + +"And where ha' ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded. + +"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early----" +he hesitated. + +"Don't lie! Where were ye?" + +"In a passenger's room, under a bed. When the passengers came aboard +I had to get out." + +"How did ye get here?" + +This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the +connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess. + +"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this time, rather like the +Senior Second's when the Chief and he had shaken hands. + +"A nigger!" he said. "A coloured fella in a white suit." + +There was not a darky on the boat. The Red Un, whose code was the +truth when possible, but any lie to save a friend--and that's the +code of a gentleman--sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel to +cover as much as possible of his small person. + +"You're lying! Do you know what we do with liars on this ship? We +throw them overboard!" + +"Then I'm thinking," responded the Turkish towel, "that you'll be +needing another Chief Engineer before long!" + +Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip. The previous +one had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple who +had liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled on +his cheek. The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clear +that no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and he +apparently lacked lashes entirely. He rose and took a bathrobe from +a hook on the door. + +"Here," he said; "cover your legs wi' that, and say a prayer if ye' +know wan. The Captain's a verra hard man wi' stowaways." + +The Captain, however, who was a gentleman and a navigator and had a +sense of humour also, was not hard with the Red Un. It being +impracticable to take the boy to him, the great man made a special +visit to the boy. The Red Un, in the Chief's bathrobe, sat on a +chair, with his feet about four inches from the floor, and returned +the Captain's glare with wide blue eyes. + +"Is there any reason, young man, why I shouldn't order you to the +lockup for the balance of this voyage?" the Captain demanded, extra +grim, and trying not to smile. + +"Well," said the Red Un, wiggling his legs nervously, "you'd have to +feed me, wouldn't you? And I might as well work for my keep." + +This being a fundamental truth on which most economics and all +governments are founded, and the Captain having a boy of his own at +home, he gave a grudging consent, for the sake of discipline, to the +Red Un's working for his keep as the Chief's boy, and left. Outside +the door he paused. + +"The little devil's starved," he said. "Put some meat on those +ribs, Chief, and--be a bit easy with him!" + +This last was facetious, the Chief being known to have the heart of +a child. + +So the Red Un went on the payroll of the line, and requisition was +made on the storekeeper for the short-tailed coat and the long +trousers, and on the barber for a hair-cut. And in some curious way +the Red Un and the Chief hit it off. It might have been a matter of +red blood or of indomitable spirit. + +Spirit enough and to spare had the Red Un. On the trip out he had +licked the Captain's boy and the Purser's boy; on the incoming trip +he had lashed the Doctor's boy to his triumphant mast, and only +three days before he had settled a row in the stokehole by putting +hot ashes down the back of a drunken trimmer, and changing his +attitude from menace with a steel shovel to supplication and prayer. + +He had no business in the stokehole, but by that time he knew every +corner of the ship--called the engines by name and the men by +epithets; had named one of the pumps Marguerite, after the Junior +Second's best girl; and had taken violent partisanship in the +eternal rivalry of the liner between the engine room and the bridge. + +"Aw, gwan!" he said to the Captain's boy. "Where'd you and your Old +Man be but for us? In a blasted steel tank, floating about on the +bloomin' sea! What's a ship without insides?" + +The Captain's boy, who was fourteen, and kept his bath sponge in a +rubber bag, and shaved now and then with the Captain's razor, +retorted in kind. + +"You fellows below think you're the whole bally ship!" he said +loftily. "Insides is all right--we need 'em in our business. But +what'd your steel tank do, with the engines goin', if she +wasn't bein' navigated? Steamin' in circles, like a tinklin' +merry-go-round!" + +It was some seconds after this that the Purser, a well-intentioned +but interfering gentleman with a beard, received the kick that put +him in dry dock for two days. + + +II + +They were three days out of New York on the Red Un's second round +trip when the Second, still playing the game and almost despairing, +made a strategic move. The Red Un was laying out the Chief's +luncheon on his desk--a clean napkin for a cloth; a glass; silver; a +plate; and the menu from the first-cabin dining saloon. The menu was +propped against a framed verse: + + _But I ha' lived and I ha' worked! + All thanks to Thee, Most High._ + +And as he placed the menu, the Red Un repeated the words from +McAndrew's hymn. It had rather got him at first; it was a new +philosophy of life. To give thanks for life was understandable, even +if unnecessary. But thanks for work! There was another framed card +above the desk, more within the Red Un's ken: "Cable crossing! Do +not anchor here!" + +The card worked well with the first class, resting in the Chief's +cabin after the arduous labours of seeing the engines. + +The Chief was below, flat on his back in a manhole looking for a +staccato note that did not belong in his trained and orderly chorus. +There was grease in his sandy hair, and the cranks were only a few +inches from his nose. By opening the door the Red Un was able to +command the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is the +roof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walk +on--depending on whether one is used to it or not. The Chief was +naturally not in sight. + +This gave the Red Un two minutes' leeway--two minutes for +exploration. A drawer in the desk, always heretofore locked, was +unfastened--that is, the bolt had been shot before the drawer was +entirely closed. The Red Un was jealous of that drawer. In two +voyages he had learned most of the Chief's history and, lacking one +of his own, had appropriated it to himself. Thus it was not unusual +for him to remark casually, as he stood behind the Chief's chair at +dinner: "We'd better send this here postcard to Cousin Willie, at +Edinburgh." + +"Ou-ay!" the Chief would agree, and tear off the postcard of the +ship that topped each day's menu; but, so far, all hints as to this +one drawer had been futile; it remained the one barrier to their +perfect confidence, the fly in the ointment of the Red Un's content. + +Now, at last---- Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set him +wiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged his +great babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, yclept +the Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam. + +The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first +he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the +door. Then he found a disappointing something--the lid of a +cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red +Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open +life. But the picture was disappointing--a snapshot of a young +woman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket, +obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poor +spoil this--a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However, +marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For on +its reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn: + + _Ye know how hard an idol dies, + An' what that meant to me-- + E'en tak' it for a sacrifice + Acceptable to Thee._ + +The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she was +dead what did it matter? He was a literal youth--so far, his own +words had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirty +that a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressing +them, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was over +thirty. + +It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. The +alley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Un +eyed him unpleasantly. + +"Sneaking!" said the Second. + +"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un. + +The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of +humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un. + +"Do you know, William," he observed--William was the Red Un's +name--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised +account of what's in that drawer?" + +"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell +you." + +"Three?" said the Second cheerfully. + +"No." + +"Four?" + +"Why don't you look yourself?" + +"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you +volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of, +say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----" + +"What do you want to know for?" + +"I guess you know." + +The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still +playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the +Red Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Seconds +and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped. + +This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and +first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of +the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps +cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of +airtrunks. + +So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedingly +galling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford on +the run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam to +auxiliaries--"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in their +bunks!" as the Third put it. + +The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed and +presumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, which +gives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off the +airpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in the +trunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether the +Chief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had always +wakened. + +It was uncanny. It was worse than that--it was damnable! Did not the +Old Man sleep at all?--not that he was old, but every Chief is the +Old Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and the +engine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds would +shut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down, +wheeze, pant and die--and within two seconds the Chief's bell would +ring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the several +kinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in the +game to the Chief! + +It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the +impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious +search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked +drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in +Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. +They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could do +without sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon. + + * * * * * + +"If at any time," observed the Second pleasantly, "you would like +that cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it." + +"Thanks, old man," said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on the +wall. + +The Second took a step forward and thought better of it. + +"Better think about it!" + +"I was thinking of something else," said the Red Un, still staring +at the wall. The Second followed his eye. The Red Un was gazing +intently at the sign which said: "Cable crossing! Do not anchor +here!" + +As the Second slammed out, the Chief crawled from his manhole and +struggled out of his greasy overalls. Except for his face, he was +quite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaft +revolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where at +the after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, bearded +with scud, out of the water. + +"It looks like weather to-night," he observed, with a twinkle, to +the Fourth. "There'll aye be air wanted." But the Fourth was gazing +at a steam gauge. + + +III + +The Red Un's story, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts--his +temptation, his fall and his redemption. All lives are so divided: a +step back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a little +climb up God's ladder. + +Seven days the liner lay in New York--seven days of early autumn +heat, of blistering decks, of drunken and deserting trimmers, of +creaking gear and grime of coal-dust. The cabin which held the Red +Un and the Purser's boy was breathless. On Sunday the four ship's +boys went to Coney Island and lay in the surf half the afternoon. +The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodies +was Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the waves +move them about, and out of the depths of a deep content making +caustic comments about the human form as revealed by the relentless +sea. + +"That's a pippin!" they would say; or, "My aunt! looks at his legs!" +They voiced their opinions audibly and were ready to back them up +with flight or fight. + +It was there that the Red Un saw the little girl. She had come from +a machine, and her mother stood near. She was not a Coney Islander. +She was first-cabin certainly--silk stockings on her thin ankles, +sheer white frock; no jewelry. She took a snapshot of the four +boys--to their discomfiture--and walked away while they were still +writhing. + +"That for mine!" said the Red Un in one of his rare enthusiasms. + +They had supper--a sandwich and a glass of beer; they would have +preferred pop, but what deep-water man on shore drinks pop?--and +made their way back to the ship by moonlight. The Red Un was terse +in his speech on the car: mostly he ate peanuts abstractedly. If he +evolved any clear idea out of the chaos of his mind it was to wish +she had snapped him in his uniform with the brass buttons. + +The heat continued; the men in the stokehole, keeping up only enough +steam for the dynamos and donkey engines, took turns under the +ventilators or crawled up to the boatdeck at dusk, too exhausted to +dress and go ashore. The swimmers were overboard in the cool river +with the first shadows of night; the Quartermaster, so old that he +dyed his hair for fear he'd be superannuated, lowered his lean body +hand over hand down a rope and sat by the hour on a stringpiece of +the dock, with the water laving his hairy and tattooed old breast. + +The Red Un was forbidden the river. To be honest, he was rather +relieved--not twice does a man dare the river god, having once been +crowned with his slime and water-weed. When the boy grew very hot +he slipped into a second-cabin shower, and stood for luxurious +minutes with streams running off his nose and the ends of his +fingers and splashing about his bony ankles. + +Then, one night, some of the men took as many passengers' lifebelts +and went in. The immediate result was fun combined with safety; the +secondary result was placards over the ship and the dock, forbidding +the use of the ship's lifebelts by the crew. + +From that moment the Red Un was possessed for the river and a +lifebelt. So were the other three. The signs were responsible. +Permitted, a ship's lifebelt was a subterfuge of the cowardly, +white-livered skunks who were afraid of a little water; forbidden, a +ship's lifebelt took on the qualities of enemy's property--to be +reconnoitred, assaulted, captured and turned to personal advantage. + +That very night, then, four small bodies, each naked save for a +lifebelt, barrelshaped and extending from breast almost to knee, +slipped over the side of the ship with awkward splashes and +proceeded to disport themselves in the river. Scolding tugs sent +waves for them to ride; ferries crawled like gigantic bugs with a +hundred staring eyes. They found the Quartermaster on a stringpiece +immersed to the neck and smoking his pipe, and surrounded him--four +small, shouting imps, floating barrels with splashing hands and +kicking feet. + +"Gwan, ye little devils!" said the Quartermaster, clutching the +stringpiece and looking about in the gloom for a weapon. The Red Un, +quite safe and audacious in his cork jacket, turned over on his back +and kicked. + +"Gwan yerself, Methuselah!" he sang. + +They stole the old man's pipe and passed it from mouth to mouth; +they engaged him in innocent converse while one of them pinched his +bare old toe under water, crab-fashion. And at last they prepared to +shin up the rope again and sleep the sleep of the young, the +innocent and the refreshed. + +The Chief was leaning over the rail, just above, smoking! + +He leaned against the rail and smoked for three hours! Eight eyes, +watching him from below, failed to find anything in his face but +contemplation; eight hands puckered like a washerwoman's; eight feet +turned from medium to clean, from clean to bleached--and still the +Chief smoked on. He watched the scolding tugs and the ferryboats +that crawled over the top of the water; he stood in rapt +contemplation of the electric signs in Jersey, while the ship's +bells marked the passage of time to eternity, while the +Quartermaster slept in his bed, while the odours of the river stank +in their nostrils and the pressure of the ship's lifebelts weighed +like lead on their clammy bodies. + +At eight bells--which is midnight--the Chief emptied his +twenty-fourth pipe over the rail and smiled into the gloom beneath. + +"Ye'll better be coming up," he remarked pleasantly. "I'm for +turning in mysel'." + +He wandered away; none of the watch was near. The ship was dark, +save for her riding lights. Hand over puckered hand they struggled +up and wriggled out of the belts; stark naked they ducked through +passageways and alleys, and stowed their damp and cringing forms +between sheets. + +The Red Un served the Chief's breakfast the next morning very +carefully. The Chief's cantaloupe was iced; his kipper covered with +a hot plate; the morning paper propped against McAndrew's hymn. The +Red Un looked very clean and rather bleached. + +The Chief was busy; he read the night reports, which did not amount +to much, the well soundings, and a letter from a man offering to +show him how to increase the efficiency of his engines fifty per +cent, and another offering him a rake-off on a new lubricant. + +Outwardly the Chief was calm--even cold. Inwardly he was rather +uncomfortable: he could feel two blue eyes fixed on his back and +remembered the day he had pulled them out of the river, and how +fixed and desperate they were then. But what was it McAndrew said? +"Law, order, duty an' restraint, obedience, discipline!" + +Besides, if the boys were going to run off with the belts some +damned first-class passenger was likely to get a cabin minus a belt +and might write to the management. The line had had bad luck; it did +not want another black eye. He cleared his throat; the Red Un +dropped a fork. + +"That sort of thing last night won't do, William." + +"N-No, sir." + +"Ye had seen the signs, of course?" + +"Yes, sir." The Red Un never lied to the Chief; it was useless. + +The Chief toyed with his kipper. + +"Ye'll understand I'd ha' preferred dealin' with the matter mysel'; +but it's--gone up higher." + +The Quartermaster, of course! The Chief rose and pretended to glance +over the well soundings. + +"The four of ye will meet me in the Captain's room in fifteen +minutes," he observed casually. + +The Captain was feeding his cat when the Red Un got there. The four +boys lined up uncomfortably; all of them looked clean, subdued, +apprehensive. If they were to be locked up in this sort of weather, +and only three days to sailing time--even a fine would be better. +The Captain stroked the cat and eyed them. + +"Well," he said curtly, "what have you four young imps been up to +now?" + +The four young imps stood panicky. They looked as innocent as choir +boys. The cat, eating her kipper, wheezed. + +"Please, sir," said the Captain's boy solicitously, "Peter has +something in his throat." + +"Perhaps it's a ship's lifebelt," said the Captain grimly, and +caught the Chief's eye. + +The line palpitated; under cover of its confusion the Chief, +standing in the doorway with folded arms, winked swiftly at the +Captain; the next moment he was more dour than ever. + +"You are four upsetters of discipline," said the Captain, suddenly +pounding the table. "You four young monkeys have got the crew by the +ears, and I'm sick of it! Which one of you put the fish in Mrs. +Schmidt's bed?" + +Mrs. Schmidt was a stewardess. The Red Un stepped forward. + +"Who turned the deckhose into the Purser's cabin night before last?" + +"Please," said the Doctor's boy pallidly, "I made a mistake in the +room. I thought----" + +"Who," shouted the Captain, banging again, "cut the Quartermaster's +rope two nights ago and left him sitting under the dock for four +hours?" + +The Purser's boy this time, white to the lips! Fresh panic seized +them; it could hardly be mere arrest if he knew all this; he might +order them hanged from a yardarm or shot at sunrise. He looked like +the latter. The Red Un glanced at the Chief, who looked apprehensive +also, as if the thing was going too far. The Captain may have read +their thoughts, for he said: + +"You're limbs of Satan, all of you, and hanging's too good for you. +What do you say, Chief? How can we make these young scamps lessons +in discipline to the crew?" + +Everybody breathed again and looked at the Chief--who stood tall and +sandy and rather young to be a Chief--in the doorway. + +"Eh, mon," he said, and smiled, "I'm aye a bit severe. Don't ask me +to punish the bairns." + +The Captain sniffed. + +"Severe!" he observed. "You Scots are hard in the head, but soft in +the disposition. Come, Chief--shall they walk the plank?" + +"Good deescipline," assented the Chief, "but it would leave us a bit +shorthanded." + +"True," said the Captain gloomily. + +"I was thinkin'," remarked the Chief diffidently--one hates to think +before the Captain; that's always supposed to be his job. + +"Yes?" + +"That we could make a verra fine example of them and still retain +their services. Ha' ye, by chance, seen a crow hangin' head down in +the field, a warnin' to other mischief-makers?" + +"Ou-ay!" said the Captain, who had a Scotch mother. The line wavered +again; the Captain's boy, who pulled his fingers when he was +excited, cracked three knuckles. + +"It would be good deescipline," continued the Chief, "to stand the +four o' them in ship's belt at the gangway, say for an hour, morning +and evening--clad, ye ken, as they were during the said +infreengements." + +"You're a great man, Chief!" said the Captain. "You hear that, +lads'?" + +"With--with no trousers'?" gasped the Doctor's boy. + +"If you wore trousers last night. If not----" + + * * * * * + +The thing was done that morning. Four small boys, clad only in +ship's belts, above which rose four sheepish heads and freckled +faces, below which shifted and wriggled eight bare legs, stood in +line at the gangway and suffered agonies of humiliation at the hands +of crew and dockmen, grinning customs inspectors, coalpassers, and a +newspaper photographer hunting a human-interest bit for a Sunday +paper. The cooks came up from below and peeped out at them; the +ship's cat took up a position in line and came out in the Sunday +edition as "a fellow conspirator." + +The Red Un, owing to an early training that had considered clothing +desirable rather than essential, was not vitally concerned. The +Quartermaster had charge of the line; he had drawn a mark with chalk +along the deck, and he kept their toes to it by marching up and down +in front of them with a broomhandle over his shoulder. + +"Toe up, you little varmints!" he would snap. "God knows I'd be glad +to get a rap at you--keeping an old man down in the water half the +night! Toe up!" + +Whereupon, aiming an unlucky blow at the Purser's boy, he hit the +Captain's cat. The line snickered. + +It was just after that the Red Un, surmising a snap by the +photographer on the dock and thwarting it by putting his thumb to +his nose, received the shock of his small life. The little girl from +Coney Island, followed by her mother, was on the pier--was showing +every evidence of coming up the gangway to where he stood. Was +coming! Panic seized the Red Un--panic winged with flight. He +turned--to face the Chief. Appeal sprang to the Red Un's lips. + +"Please!" he gasped. "I'm sick, sick as h--, sick as a dog, Chief. +I've got a pain in my chest--I----" + +Curiously enough, the Chief did not answer or even hear. He, too, +was looking at the girl on the gangway and at her mother. The next +moment the Chief was in full flight, ignominious flight, his face, +bleached with the heat of the engine room and the stokehole, set as +no emergency of broken shaft or flying gear had ever seen it. Broken +shaft indeed! A man's life may be a broken shaft. + +The woman and the girl came up the gangway, exidently to inspect +staterooms. The Quartermaster had rallied the Red Un back to the +line and stood before him, brandishing his broomhandle. Black fury +was in the boy's eye; hate had written herself on his soul. His +Chief had ignored his appeal--had left him to his degradation--had +deserted him. + +The girl saw the line, started, blushed, recognised the Red Un--and +laughed! + + +IV + +The great voyage began--began with the band playing and much waving +of flags and display of handkerchiefs; began with the girl and her +mother on board; began with the Chief eating his heart out over coal +and oil vouchers and well soundings and other things; began with the +Red Un in a new celluloid collar, lying awake at night to hate his +master, adding up his injury each day to greater magnitude. + +The voyage began. The gong rang from the bridge. Stand By! said the +twin dials. Half Ahead! Full Ahead! Full Ahead! Man's wits once more +against the upreaching of the sea! The Chief, who knew that +somewhere above was his woman and her child, which was not his, +stood under a ventilator and said the few devout words with which he +commenced each voyage: + +"With Thy help!" And then, snapping his watch: "Three minutes past +ten!" + +The chief engineer of a liner is always a gentleman and frequently a +Christian. He knows, you see, how much his engines can do and how +little. It is not his engines alone that conquer the sea, nor his +engines plus his own mother wit. It is engines plus wit plus _x_, +and the _x_ is God's mercy. Being responsible for two quantities out +of the three of the equation, he prays--if he does--with an eye on a +gauge and an ear open for a cylinder knock. + +There was gossip in the engineers' mess those next days: the Old Man +was going to pieces. A man could stand so many years of the strain +and then where was he? In a land berth, growing fat and paunchy, and +eating his heart out for the sea, or---- The sea got him one way or +another! + +The Senior Second stood out for the Chief. + +"Wrong with him? There's nothing wrong with him," he declared. "If +he was any more on the job than he is I'd resign. He's on the job +twenty-four hours a day, nights included." + +There was a laugh at this; the mess was on to the game. Most of them +were playing it. + +So now we have the Red Un looking for revenge and in idle moments +lurking about the decks where the girl played. He washed his neck +under his collar those days. + +And we have the Chief fretting over his engines, subduing drunken +stokers, quelling the frequent disturbances of Hell Alley, which led +to the firemen's quarters, eating little and smoking much, devising +out of his mental disquietude a hundred possible emergencies +and--keeping away from the passengers. The Junior Second took down +the two parties who came to see the engine room and gave them +lemonade when they came up. The little girl's mother came with the +second party and neither squealed nor asked questions--only at the +door into the stokeholes she stood a moment with dilated eyes. She +was a little woman, still slim, rather tragic. She laid a hand on +the Junior's arm. + +"The--the engineers do not go in there, do they?" + +"Yes, madam. We stand four-hour watches. That is the Senior Second +Engineer on that pile of cinders." + +The Senior Second was entirely black, except for his teeth and the +whites of his eyes. There was a little trouble in a coalbunker; +they had just discovered it. There would be no visitors after this +until the trouble was over. + +The girl's mother said nothing more. The Junior Second led them +around, helping a pretty young woman about and explaining to her. + +"This," he said, smiling at the girl, "is a pump the men have +nicknamed Marguerite, because she takes most of one man's time and +is always giving trouble." + +The young woman tossed her head. + +"Perhaps she would do better if she were left alone," she suggested. + +The girl's mother said nothing, but, before she left, she took one +long look about the engine room. In some such bedlam of noise and +heat _he_ spent his life. She was wrong, of course, to pity him; one +need not measure labour by its conditions or by its cost, but by the +joy of achievement. The woman saw the engines--sinister, menacing, +frightful; the man saw power that answered to his hand--conquest, +victory. The beat that was uproar to her ears was as the throbbing +of his own heart. + +It was after they had gone that the Chief emerged from the forward +stokehole where the trouble was. He had not seen her; she would not +have known him, probably, had they met face to face. He was quite +black and the light of battle gleamed in his eyes. + +They fixed the trouble somehow. It was fire in a coalbunker, one of +the minor exigencies. Fire requiring air they smothered it one way +and another. It did not spread, but it did not quite die. And each +day's run was better than the day before. + +The weather was good. The steerage, hanging over the bow, saw far +below the undercurling spray, white under dark blue--the blue +growing paler, paler still, until the white drops burst to the top +and danced free in the sun. A Greek, going home to Crete to marry a +wife, made all day long tiny boats of coloured paper, weighted with +corks, and sailed them down into the sea. + +"They shall carry back to America my farewells!" he said, smiling. +"This to Pappas, the bootblack, who is my friend. This to a girl +back in America, with eyes--behold that darkest blue, my children; +so are her eyes! And this black one to my sister, who has lost a +child." + +The first class watched the spray also--as it rose to the lip of a +glass. + +Now at last it seemed they would break a record. Then rain set in, +without enough wind to make a sea, but requiring the starboard ports +to be closed. The Senior Second, going on duty at midnight that +night, found his Junior railing at fate and the airpumps going. + +"Shut 'em off!" said the Senior Second furiously. + +"Shut 'em off yourself. I've tried it twice." + +The Senior Second gave a lever a vicious tug and the pump stopped. +Before it had quite lapsed into inertia the Chief's bell rang. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded the Junior sulkily. "The old fox!" + +The Senior cursed. Then he turned abruptly and climbed the steel +ladder he had just descended. The Junior, who was anticipating a +shower and bed, stared after him. + +The Senior thought quickly--that was why he was a Senior. He found +the Red Un's cabin and hammered at the door. Then, finding it was +not locked, he walked in. The Red Un lay perched aloft; the shirt of +his small pajamas had worked up about his neck and his thin torso +lay bare. In one hand he clutched the dead end of a cigarette. The +Senior wakened him by running a forefinger down his ribs, much as a +boy runs a stick along a paling fence. + +"Wha' ish it?" demanded the Red Un in sleepy soprano. And then "Wha' +d'ye want?" in bass. His voice was changing; he sounded like two +people in animated discussion most of the time. + +"You boys want to earn a sovereign?" + +The Purser's boy, who had refused to rouse to this point, sat up in +bed. + +"Whaffor?" he asked. + +"Get the Chief here some way. You"--to the Purser's boy--"go and +tell him the Red Un's ill and asking for him. You"--to the Red +Un--"double up; cry; do something. Start him off for the +doctor--anything, so you keep him ten minutes or so!" + +The Red Un was still drowsy, and between sleeping and waking we are +what we are. + +"I won't do it!" + +The Senior Second held out a gold sovereign on his palm. + +"Don't be a bally little ass!" he said. + +The Red Un, waking full, now remembered that he hated the Chief; for +fear he did not hate him enough, he recalled the lifebelt, and his +legs, and the girl laughing. + +"All right!" he said. "Gwan, Pimples! What'll I have? +Appendiceetis?" + +"Have a toothache," snapped the Senior Second. "Tear off a few +yells--anything to keep him!" + +It worked rather well; plots have a way of being successful in +direct proportion to their iniquity. Beneficent plots, like loving +relatives dressed as Santa Claus, frequently go wrong; while it has +been shown that the leakiest sort of scheme to wreck a bank will go +through with the band playing. + +The Chief came and found the Red Un in agony, holding his jaw. Owing +to the fact that he lay far back in an upper bunk, it took time to +drag him into the light. It took more time to get his mouth open; +once open, the Red Un pointed to a snag that should have given him +trouble if it didn't, and set up a fresh outcry. + +Not until long after could the Red Un recall without shame his share +in that night's work--recall the Chief, stubby hair erect, kind blue +eyes searching anxiously for the offending tooth. Recall it? Would +he ever forget the arm the Chief put about him, and him: "Ou-ay! +laddie; it's a weeked snag!" + +The Chief, to whom God had denied a son of his flesh, had taken Red +Un to his heart, you see--fatherless wharf-rat and childless +engineer; the man acting on the dour Scot principle of chastening +whomsoever he loveth, and the boy cherishing a hate that was really +only hurt love. + +And as the Chief, who had dragged the Red Un out of eternity and was +not minded to see him die of a toothache, took him back to his cabin +the pain grew better, ceased, turned to fright. The ten minutes or +so were over and what would they find? The Chief opened the door; he +had in mind a drop of whisky out of the flask he never touched on a +trip--whisky might help the tooth. + +On the threshold he seemed to scent something amiss. He glanced at +the ceiling over his bunk, where the airtrunk lay, and then--he +looked at the boy. He stooped down and put a hand on the boy's head, +turning it to the light. + +"Tell me now, lad," he said quietly, "did ye or did ye no ha' the +toothache?" + +"It's better now," sullenly. + +"Did ye or did ye no?" + +"No." + +The Chief turned the boy about and pushed him through the doorway +into outer darkness. He said nothing. Down to his very depths he was +hurt. To have lost the game was something; but it was more than +that. Had he been a man of words he might have said that once again +a creature he loved had turned on him to his injury. Being a Scot +and a man of few words he merely said he was damned, and crawled +back into bed. + +The game? Well, that was simple enough. Directly over his pillow, in +the white-painted airtrunk, was a brass plate, fastened with four +screws. In case of anything wrong with the ventilator the plate +could be taken off for purposes of investigation. + +The Chief's scheme had been simplicity itself--so easy that the +Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had +never thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, and +officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shut +off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked +the bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's picture +and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the +back--written out of a sore heart, be sure. And then he took out +the cigar-box lid. + +When he had unscrewed the brass plate over his head he replaced it +with the lid of the cigar-box. So long as the pumps in the engine +room kept the air moving, the lid stayed up by suction. + +When the air stopped the lid fell down on his head; he roused enough +to press a signal button and, as the air started viciously, to +replace the lid. Then, off to the sleep of the just and the crafty +again. And so on _ad infinitum_. + +Of course the game was not over because it was discovered and the +lid gone. There would be other lids. But the snap, the joy, was gone +out of it. It would never again be the same, and the worst of all +was the manner of the betrayal. + +He slept but little the remainder of the night; and, because unrest +travels best from soul to soul at night, when the crowding emotions +of the day give it place, the woman slept little also. She was +thinking of the entrance to the stokehole, where one crouched under +the bellies of furnaces, and where the engineer on duty stood on a +pile of hot cinders. Toward morning her room grew very close: the +air from the ventilator seemed to have ceased. + +Far down in the ship, in a breathless little cabin far aft, the Red +Un kicked the Purser's boy and cried himself to sleep. + + +V + +The old ship made a record the next night that lifted the day's run +to four hundred and twenty. She was not a greyhound, you see. +Generally speaking, she was a nine-day boat. She averaged well under +four hundred miles. The fast boats went by her and slid over the +edge of the sea, throwing her bits of news by wireless over a +shoulder, so to speak. + +The little girl's mother was not a good sailor. She sat almost all +day in a steamer chair, reading or looking out over the rail. Each +day she tore off the postal from the top of her menu and sent it to +the girl's father. She missed him more than she had expected. He had +become a habit; he was solid, dependable, loyal. He had never heard +of the Chief. + +"Dear Daddy," she would write: "Having a splendid voyage so far, but +wish you were here. The baby is having such a good time--so popular; +and won two prizes to-day at the sports! With love, Lily." + +They were all rather like that. She would drop them in the mailbox, +with a tug of tenderness for the man who worked at home. Then she +would go back to her chair and watch the sea, and recall the heat of +the engine room below, and wonder, wonder---- + +It had turned warm again; the edges of the horizon were grey and at +night a low mist lay over the water. Rooms were stifling, humid. The +Red Un discarded pajamas and slept in his skin. The engine-room +watch came up white round the lips and sprawled over the boat deck +without speech. Things were going wrong in the Red Un's small world. +The Chief hardly spoke to him--was grave and quiet, and ate almost +nothing. The Red Un hated himself unspeakably and gave his share of +the sovereign to the Purser's boy. + +The Chief was suffering from lack of exercise in the air as well as +other things. The girl's mother was not sleeping--what with heat and +the memories the sea had revived. On the fifth night out, while the +ship slept, these two met on the deck in the darkness--two shadows +out of the past. The deck was dark, but a ray from a window touched +his face and she knew him. He had not needed light to know her; +every line of her was written on his heart, and for him there was no +one at home to hold in tenderness. + +"I think I knew you were here all the time," she said, and held out +both hands. + +The Chief took one and dropped it. She belonged to the person at +home. He had no thought of forgetting that! + +"I saw your name on the passenger list, but I have been very busy." +He never lapsed into Scotch with her; she had not liked it. "Is +your husband with you?" + +"He could not come just now. I have my daughter." + +Her voice fell rather flat. The Chief could not think of anything to +say. Her child, and not his! He was a one-woman man, you see--and +this was the woman. + +"I have seen her," he said presently. "She's like you, Lily." + +That was a wrong move--the Lily; for it gave her courage to put her +hand on his arm. + +"It is so long since we have met," she said wistfully. "Yesterday, +after I saw the--the place where you lived and--and work----" She +choked; she was emotional, rather weak. Having made the situation +she should have let it alone; but, after all, it is not what the +woman is, but what the man thinks she is. + +The Chief stroked her fingers on his sleeve. + +"It's not bad, Lily," he said. "It's a man's job. I like it." + +"I believe you had forgotten me entirely!" + +The Chief winced. "Isn't that the best thing you could wish me?" he +said. + +"Are you happy?" + +"'I ha' lived and I ha' worked!'" he quoted sturdily. + +Very shortly after that he left her; he made an excuse of being +needed below and swung off, his head high. + + +VI + +They struck the derelict when the mist was thickest, about two that +morning. The Red Un was thrown out of his berth and landed, stark +naked, on the floor. The Purser's boy was on the floor, too, in a +tangle of bedding. There was a sickening silence for a moment, +followed by the sound of opening doors and feet in the passage. +There was very little speech. People ran for the decks. The Purser's +boy ran with them. + +The Red Un never thought of the deck. One of the axioms of the +engine room is that of every man to his post in danger. The Red Un's +post was with his Chief. His bare feet scorched on the steel ladders +and the hot floor plates; he had on only his trousers, held up with +a belt. + +The trouble was in the forward stokehole. Water was pouring in from +the starboard side--was welling up through the floor plates. The +wound was ghastly, fatal! The smouldering in the bunker had weakened +resistance there and her necrosed ribs had given away. The Red Un, +scurrying through the tunnel, was met by a maddened rush of trimmers +and stokers. He went down under them and came up bruised, bleeding, +battling for place. + +"You skunks!" he blubbered. "You crazy cowards! Come back and help!" + +A big stoker stopped and caught the boy's arm. + +"You come on!" he gasped. "The whole thing'll go in a minute. She'll +go down by the head!" + +He tried to catch the boy up in his arms, but the Red Un struck him +on the nose. + +"Let me go, you big stiff!" he cried, and kicked himself free. + +Not all the men had gone. They were working like fiends. It was up +to the bulkhead now. If it held--if it only held long enough to get +the passengers off! + +Not an engineer thought of leaving his place, though they knew, +better even than the deck officers, how mortally the ship was hurt. +They called to their aid every resource of a business that is +nothing but emergencies. Engines plus wit, plus the grace of +God--and the engines were useless. Wits, then, plus Providence. The +pumps made no impression on the roaring flood; they lifted floor +plates to strengthen the bulkheads and worked until it was death to +work longer. Then, fighting for every foot, the little band +retreated to the after stokehole. Lights were out forward. The Chief +was the last to escape. He carried an oil lantern, and squeezed +through the bulkhead door with a wall of water behind him. + +The Red Un cried out, but too late. The Chief, blinded by his +lantern, had stumbled into the pit where a floor plate had been +lifted. When he found his leg was broken he cried to them to go on +and leave him, but they got him out somehow and carried him with +them as they fought and retreated--fought and retreated. He was +still the Chief; he lay on the floor propped up against something +and directed the fight. The something he leaned against was the +strained body of the Red Un, who held him up and sniffled shamefaced +tears. She was down by the head already and rolling like a dying +thing. When the water came into the after stokehole they carried the +Chief into the engine room--the lights were going there. + +There had been no panic on deck. There were boats enough and the +lights gave every one confidence. It was impossible to see the +lights going and believe the ship doomed. Those who knew felt the +list of the decks and hurried with the lowering of the boats; the +ones who saw only the lights wished to go back to their cabins for +clothing and money. + +The woman sat in the Quartermaster's boat, with her daughter in her +arms, and stared at the ship. The Quartermaster said the engineers +were still below and took off his cap. In her feeble way the woman +tried to pray, and found only childish, futile things to say; but in +her mind there was a great wonder--that they, who had once been life +each to the other, should part thus, and that now, as ever, the good +part was hers! The girl looked up into her mother's face. + +"The redhaired little boy, mother--do you think he is safe?" + +"First off, likely," mumbled the Quartermaster grimly. + +All the passengers were off. Under the mist the sea rose and fell +quietly; the boats and rafts had drawn off to a safe distance. The +Greek, who had humour as well as imagination, kept up the spirits of +those about him while he held a child in his arms. + +"Shall we," he inquired gravely, "think you--shall we pay extra to +the company for this excursion?" + + * * * * * + +The battle below had been fought and lost. It was of minutes now. +The Chief had given the order: "Every one for himself!" Some of the +men had gone, climbing to outer safety. The two Seconds had refused +to leave the Chief. All lights were off by that time. The after +stokehole was flooded and water rolled sickeningly in the +engine-pits. Each second it seemed the ship must take its fearful +dive into the quiet sea that so insistently reached up for her. +With infinite labour the Seconds got the Chief up to the fiddley, +twenty feet or less out of a hundred, and straight ladders instead +of a steel staircase. Ten men could not have lifted him without +gear, and there was not time! + +Then, because the rest was hopeless, they left him there, propped +against the wall, with the lantern beside him. He shook hands with +them; the Junior was crying; the Senior went last, and after he had +gone up a little way he turned and came back. + +"I can't do it, Chief!" he said. "I'll stick it out with you." But +the Chief drove him up, with the name of his wife and child. Far up +the shaft he turned and looked down. The lantern glowed faintly +below. + +The Chief sat alone on his grating. He was faint with pain. The +blistering cylinders were growing cold; the steel floor beneath was +awash. More ominous still, as the ship's head sank, came crackings +and groanings from the engines below. They would fall through at the +last, ripping out the bulkheads and carrying her down bow first. + +Pain had made the Chief rather dull. "'I ha' lived and I ha' +worked!'" he said several times--and waited for the end. Into his +stupor came the thought of the woman--and another thought of the +Red Un. Both of them had sold him out, so to speak; but the woman +had grown up with his heart and the boy was his by right of +salvage--only he thought of the woman as he dreamed of her, not as +he had seen her on the deck. He grew rather confused, after a time, +and said: "I ha' loved and I ha' worked!" + +Just between life and death there comes a time when the fight seems +a draw, or as if each side, exhausted, had called a truce. There is +no more struggle, but it is not yet death. The ship lay so. The +upreaching sea had not conquered. The result was inevitable, but not +yet. And in the pause the Red Un came back, came crawling down the +ladder, his indomitable spirit driving his craven little body. + +He had got as far as the boat and safety. The gripping devils of +fear that had followed him up from the engine room still hung to his +throat; but once on deck, with the silent men who were working +against time and eternity, he found he could not do it. He was the +Chief's boy--and the Chief was below and hurt! + +The truce still held. As the ship rolled, water washed about the +foot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders. The Chief tried +desperately to drive him up to the deck and failed. + +"It's no place for you alone," said the Red Un. His voice had +lost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man. +"I'm staying!" And after a hesitating moment he put his small, +frightened paw on the Chief's arm. + +It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief--not love of life, but +love of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole--that was not so +bad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better than +where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather +than live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee. + +"I'm thinking, laddie," he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow." + +The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painful +rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. For +each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot--no more. What he would +not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy. +Halfway up, he clung, exhausted. + +The boy leaned down and held out his hand. + +"I'll pull," he said. "Just hang on to me." + +Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the +silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He was +pulling indeed. + +"About--that airtrunk," he managed to say--"I'm--sorry, sir!" + + * * * * * + +The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection. In the +Quartermaster's boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on her +cheeks. The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired with +living. + +It was the girl, after all, who spied them--two figures--one inert +and almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing a +blue face and two desperate eyes above a ship's lifebelt. + +The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, pale +and tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart. His +eyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache. +He had died and lived again, and what was past was past. + +"I thought," said the woman tremulously--"all night I thought that +you----" + +The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry. His +eyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languid +youngster curled up at his feet, asleep. The woman drew back--as +from an intrusion. + +As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up. His eyes +met the Chief's, and between them passed such a look of +understanding as made for the two one world, one victory! + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Stories, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 15473.txt or 15473.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/7/15473/ + +Produced by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + +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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