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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of K, 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: K
+
+Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9931]
+Posting Date: June 16, 2009
+Last Updated: April 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK K ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Brannan
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+K
+
+By Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient
+houses that seemed to meet in the distance. The man found it infinitely
+inviting. It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but
+comfortable. The thought of coming there to live pleased him. Surely
+here would be peace--long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in
+which to sleep and forget. It was an impression of home, really, that
+it gave. The man did not know that, or care particularly. He had been
+wandering about a long time--not in years, for he was less than thirty.
+But it seemed a very long time.
+
+At the little house no one had seemed to think about references. He
+could have given one or two, of a sort. He had gone to considerable
+trouble to get them; and now, not to have them asked for--
+
+There was a house across and a little way down the Street, with a card
+in the window that said: “Meals, twenty-five cents.” Evidently the
+midday meal was over; men who looked like clerks and small shopkeepers
+were hurrying away. The Nottingham curtains were pinned back, and just
+inside the window a throaty barytone was singing:
+
+     “Home is the hunter, home from the hill:
+      And the sailor, home from sea.”
+
+Across the Street, the man smiled grimly--Home!
+
+For perhaps an hour Joe Drummond had been wandering up and down the
+Street. His straw hat was set on the back of his head, for the evening
+was warm; his slender shoulders, squared and resolute at eight, by nine
+had taken on a disconsolate droop. Under a street lamp he consulted his
+watch, but even without that he knew what the hour was. Prayer meeting
+at the corner church was over; boys of his own age were ranging
+themselves along the curb, waiting for the girl of the moment. When she
+came, a youth would appear miraculously beside her, and the world-old
+pairing off would have taken place.
+
+The Street emptied. The boy wiped the warm band of his hat and slapped
+it on his head again. She was always treating him like this--keeping him
+hanging about, and then coming out, perfectly calm and certain that
+he would still be waiting. By George, he'd fool her, for once: he'd go
+away, and let her worry. She WOULD worry. She hated to hurt anyone. Ah!
+
+Across the Street, under an old ailanthus tree, was the house he
+watched, a small brick, with shallow wooden steps and--curious
+architecture of Middle West sixties--a wooden cellar door beside the
+steps.
+
+In some curious way it preserved an air of distinction among its more
+pretentious neighbors, much as a very old lady may now and then lend
+tone to a smart gathering. On either side of it, the taller houses had
+an appearance of protection rather than of patronage. It was a matter
+of self-respect, perhaps. No windows on the Street were so spotlessly
+curtained, no doormat so accurately placed, no “yard” in the rear so
+tidy with morning-glory vines over the whitewashed fence.
+
+The June moon had risen, sending broken shafts of white light through
+the ailanthus to the house door. When the girl came at last, she stepped
+out into a world of soft lights and wavering shadows, fragrant with tree
+blossoms not yet overpowering, hushed of its daylight sounds of playing
+children and moving traffic.
+
+The house had been warm. Her brown hair lay moist on her forehead, her
+thin white dress was turned in at the throat. She stood on the steps,
+the door closed behind her, and threw out her arms in a swift gesture to
+the cool air. The moonlight clothed her as with a garment. From across
+the Street the boy watched her with adoring, humble eyes. All his
+courage was for those hours when he was not with her.
+
+“Hello, Joe.”
+
+“Hello, Sidney.”
+
+He crossed over, emerging out of the shadows into her enveloping
+radiance. His ardent young eyes worshiped her as he stood on the
+pavement.
+
+“I'm late. I was taking out bastings for mother.”
+
+“Oh, that's all right.”
+
+Sidney sat down on the doorstep, and the boy dropped at her feet.
+
+“I thought of going to prayer meeting, but mother was tired. Was
+Christine there?”
+
+“Yes; Palmer Howe took her home.”
+
+He was at his ease now. He had discarded his hat, and lay back on his
+elbows, ostensibly to look at the moon. Actually his brown eyes rested
+on the face of the girl above him. He was very happy. “He's crazy about
+Chris. She's good-looking, but she's not my sort.”
+
+“Pray, what IS your sort?”
+
+“You.”
+
+She laughed softly. “You're a goose, Joe!”
+
+She settled herself more comfortably on the doorstep and drew along
+breath.
+
+“How tired I am! Oh--I haven't told you. We've taken a roomer!”
+
+“A what?”
+
+“A roomer.” She was half apologetic. The Street did not approve of
+roomers. “It will help with the rent. It's my doing, really. Mother is
+scandalized.”
+
+“A woman?”
+
+“A man.”
+
+“What sort of man?”
+
+“How do I know? He is coming tonight. I'll tell you in a week.”
+
+Joe was sitting bolt upright now, a little white.
+
+“Is he young?”
+
+“He's a good bit older than you, but that's not saying he's old.”
+
+Joe was twenty-one, and sensitive of his youth.
+
+“He'll be crazy about you in two days.”
+
+She broke into delighted laughter.
+
+“I'll not fall in love with him--you can be certain of that. He is tall
+and very solemn. His hair is quite gray over his ears.”
+
+Joe cheered.
+
+“What's his name?”
+
+“K. Le Moyne.”
+
+“K.?”
+
+“That's what he said.”
+
+Interest in the roomer died away. The boy fell into the ecstasy of
+content that always came with Sidney's presence. His inarticulate young
+soul was swelling with thoughts that he did not know how to put into
+words. It was easy enough to plan conversations with Sidney when he was
+away from her. But, at her feet, with her soft skirts touching him as
+she moved, her eager face turned to him, he was miserably speechless.
+
+Unexpectedly, Sidney yawned. He was outraged.
+
+“If you're sleepy--”
+
+“Don't be silly. I love having you. I sat up late last night, reading.
+I wonder what you think of this: one of the characters in the book I was
+reading says that every man who--who cares for a woman leaves his mark
+on her! I suppose she tries to become what he thinks she is, for the
+time anyhow, and is never just her old self again.”
+
+She said “cares for” instead of “loves.” It is one of the traditions of
+youth to avoid the direct issue in life's greatest game. Perhaps
+“love” is left to the fervent vocabulary of the lover. Certainly, as if
+treading on dangerous ground, Sidney avoided it.
+
+“Every man! How many men are supposed to care for a woman, anyhow?”
+
+“Well, there's the boy who--likes her when they're both young.”
+
+A bit of innocent mischief this, but Joe straightened.
+
+“Then they both outgrow that foolishness. After that there are usually
+two rivals, and she marries one of them--that's three. And--”
+
+“Why do they always outgrow that foolishness?” His voice was unsteady.
+
+“Oh, I don't know. One's ideas change. Anyhow, I'm only telling you what
+the book said.”
+
+“It's a silly book.”
+
+“I don't believe it's true,” she confessed. “When I got started I just
+read on. I was curious.”
+
+More eager than curious, had she only known. She was fairly vibrant with
+the zest of living. Sitting on the steps of the little brick house,
+her busy mind was carrying her on to where, beyond the Street, with its
+dingy lamps and blossoming ailanthus, lay the world that was some day to
+lie to her hand. Not ambition called her, but life.
+
+The boy was different. Where her future lay visualized before her,
+heroic deeds, great ambitions, wide charity, he planned years with her,
+selfish, contented years. As different as smug, satisfied summer from
+visionary, palpitating spring, he was for her--but she was for all the
+world.
+
+By shifting his position his lips came close to her bare young arm. It
+tempted him.
+
+“Don't read that nonsense,” he said, his eyes on the arm. “And--I'll
+never outgrow my foolishness about you, Sidney.”
+
+Then, because he could not help it, he bent over and kissed her arm.
+
+She was just eighteen, and Joe's devotion was very pleasant. She
+thrilled to the touch of his lips on her flesh; but she drew her arm
+away.
+
+“Please--I don't like that sort of thing.”
+
+“Why not?” His voice was husky.
+
+“It isn't right. Besides, the neighbors are always looking out the
+windows.”
+
+The drop from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors'
+curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her
+head and laughed. He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment. But he
+was very much in earnest. He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw
+hat in his hands.
+
+“I guess you know how I feel. Some of the fellows have crushes on girls
+and get over them. I'm not like that. Since the first day I saw you I've
+never looked at another girl. Books can say what they like: there are
+people like that, and I'm one of them.”
+
+There was a touch of dogged pathos in his voice. He was that sort, and
+Sidney knew it. Fidelity and tenderness--those would be hers if she
+married him. He would always be there when she wanted him, looking at
+her with loving eyes, a trifle wistful sometimes because of his lack of
+those very qualities he so admired in her--her wit, her resourcefulness,
+her humor. But he would be there, not strong, perhaps, but always loyal.
+
+“I thought, perhaps,” said Joe, growing red and white, and talking to
+the hat, “that some day, when we're older, you--you might be willing to
+marry me, Sid. I'd be awfully good to you.”
+
+It hurt her to say no. Indeed, she could not bring herself to say it.
+In all her short life she had never willfully inflicted a wound.
+And because she was young, and did not realize that there is a short
+cruelty, like the surgeon's, that is mercy in the end, she temporized.
+
+“There is such a lot of time before we need think of such things! Can't
+we just go on the way we are?”
+
+“I'm not very happy the way we are.”
+
+“Why, Joe!”
+
+“Well, I'm not”--doggedly. “You're pretty and attractive. When I see a
+fellow staring at you, and I'd like to smash his face for him, I haven't
+the right.”
+
+“And a precious good thing for you that you haven't!” cried Sidney,
+rather shocked.
+
+There was silence for a moment between them. Sidney, to tell the truth,
+was obsessed by a vision of Joe, young and hot-eyed, being haled to the
+police station by virtue of his betrothal responsibilities. The boy was
+vacillating between relief at having spoken and a heaviness of spirit
+that came from Sidney's lack of enthusiastic response.
+
+“Well, what do you think about it?”
+
+“If you are asking me to give you permission to waylay and assault every
+man who dares to look at me--”
+
+“I guess this is all a joke to you.”
+
+She leaned over and put a tender hand on his arm.
+
+“I don't want to hurt you; but, Joe, I don't want to be engaged yet.
+I don't want to think about marrying. There's such a lot to do in the
+world first. There's such a lot to see and be.”
+
+“Where?” he demanded bitterly. “Here on this Street? Do you want
+more time to pull bastings for your mother? Or to slave for your Aunt
+Harriet? Or to run up and down stairs, carrying towels to roomers? Marry
+me and let me take care of you.”
+
+Once again her dangerous sense of humor threatened her. He looked
+so boyish, sitting there with the moonlight on his bright hair, so
+inadequate to carry out his magnificent offer. Two or three of the
+star blossoms from the tree had fallen all his head. She lifted them
+carefully away.
+
+“Let me take care of myself for a while. I've never lived my own life.
+You know what I mean. I'm not unhappy; but I want to do something.
+And some day I shall,--not anything big; I know. I can't do that,--but
+something useful. Then, after years and years, if you still want me,
+I'll come back to you.”
+
+“How soon?”
+
+“How can I know that now? But it will be a long time.”
+
+He drew a long breath and got up. All the joy had gone out of the summer
+night for him, poor lad. He glanced down the Street, where Palmer Howe
+had gone home happily with Sidney's friend Christine. Palmer would
+always know how he stood with Christine. She would never talk about
+doing things, or being things. Either she would marry Palmer or she
+would not. But Sidney was not like that. A fellow did not even caress
+her easily. When he had only kissed her arm--He trembled a little at the
+memory.
+
+“I shall always want you,” he said. “Only--you will never come back.”
+
+It had not occurred to either of them that this coming back, so
+tragically considered, was dependent on an entirely problematical going
+away. Nothing, that early summer night, seemed more unlikely than that
+Sidney would ever be free to live her own life. The Street, stretching
+away to the north and to the south in two lines of houses that seemed
+to meet in the distance, hemmed her in. She had been born in the little
+brick house, and, as she was of it, so it was of her. Her hands had
+smoothed and painted the pine floors; her hands had put up the twine on
+which the morning-glories in the yard covered the fences; had, indeed,
+with what agonies of slacking lime and adding blueing, whitewashed the
+fence itself!
+
+“She's capable,” Aunt Harriet had grumblingly admitted, watching from
+her sewing-machine Sidney's strong young arms at this humble spring
+task.
+
+“She's wonderful!” her mother had said, as she bent over her hand work.
+She was not strong enough to run the sewing-machine.
+
+So Joe Drummond stood on the pavement and saw his dream of taking Sidney
+in his arms fade into an indefinite futurity.
+
+“I'm not going to give you up,” he said doggedly. “When you come back,
+I'll be waiting.”
+
+The shock being over, and things only postponed, he dramatized his grief
+a trifle, thrust his hands savagely into his pockets, and scowled down
+the Street. In the line of his vision, his quick eye caught a tiny
+moving shadow, lost it, found it again.
+
+“Great Scott! There goes Reginald!” he cried, and ran after the shadow.
+“Watch for the McKees' cat!”
+
+Sidney was running by that time; they were gaining. Their quarry, a
+four-inch chipmunk, hesitated, gave a protesting squeak, and was caught
+in Sidney's hand.
+
+“You wretch!” she cried. “You miserable little beast--with cats
+everywhere, and not a nut for miles!”
+
+“That reminds me,”--Joe put a hand into his pocket,--“I brought some
+chestnuts for him, and forgot them. Here.”
+
+Reginald's escape had rather knocked the tragedy out of the evening.
+True, Sidney would not marry him for years, but she had practically
+promised to sometime. And when one is twenty-one, and it is a summer
+night, and life stretches eternities ahead, what are a few years more or
+less?
+
+Sidney was holding the tiny squirrel in warm, protecting hands. She
+smiled up at the boy.
+
+“Good-night, Joe.”
+
+“Good-night. I say, Sidney, it's more than half an engagement. Won't you
+kiss me good-night?”
+
+She hesitated, flushed and palpitating. Kisses were rare in the staid
+little household to which she belonged.
+
+“I--I think not.”
+
+“Please! I'm not very happy, and it will be something to remember.”
+
+Perhaps, after all, Sidney's first kiss would have gone without her
+heart,--which was a thing she had determined would never happen,--gone
+out of sheer pity. But a tall figure loomed out of the shadows and
+approached with quick strides.
+
+“The roomer!” cried Sidney, and backed away.
+
+“Damn the roomer!”
+
+Poor Joe, with the summer evening quite spoiled, with no caress to
+remember, and with a potential rival who possessed both the years and
+the inches he lacked, coming up the Street!
+
+The roomer advanced steadily. When he reached the doorstep, Sidney
+was demurely seated and quite alone. The roomer, who had walked
+fast, stopped and took off his hat. He looked very warm. He carried
+a suitcase, which was as it should be. The men of the Street always
+carried their own luggage, except the younger Wilson across the way. His
+tastes were known to be luxurious.
+
+“Hot, isn't it?” Sidney inquired, after a formal greeting. She indicated
+the place on the step just vacated by Joe. “You'd better cool off out
+here. The house is like an oven. I think I should have warned you of
+that before you took the room. These little houses with low roofs are
+fearfully hot.”
+
+The new roomer hesitated. The steps were very low, and he was tall.
+Besides, he did not care to establish any relations with the people
+in the house. Long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to
+sleep and forget--these were the things he had come for.
+
+But Sidney had moved over and was smiling up at him. He folded up
+awkwardly on the low step. He seemed much too big for the house. Sidney
+had a panicky thought of the little room upstairs.
+
+“I don't mind heat. I--I suppose I don't think about it,” said the
+roomer, rather surprised at himself.
+
+Reginald, having finished his chestnut, squeaked for another. The roomer
+started.
+
+“Just Reginald--my ground-squirrel.” Sidney was skinning a nut with her
+strong white teeth. “That's another thing I should have told you. I'm
+afraid you'll be sorry you took the room.”
+
+The roomer smiled in the shadow.
+
+“I'm beginning to think that YOU are sorry.”
+
+She was all anxiety to reassure him:--
+
+“It's because of Reginald. He lives under my--under your bureau. He's
+really not troublesome; but he's building a nest under the bureau,
+and if you don't know about him, it's rather unsettling to see a paper
+pattern from the sewing-room, or a piece of cloth, moving across the
+floor.”
+
+Mr. Le Moyne thought it might be very interesting. “Although, if there's
+nest-building going on, isn't it--er--possible that Reginald is a lady
+ground-squirrel?”
+
+Sidney was rather distressed, and, seeing this, he hastened to add that,
+for all he knew, all ground-squirrels built nests, regardless of sex.
+As a matter of fact, it developed that he knew nothing whatever of
+ground-squirrels. Sidney was relieved. She chatted gayly of the tiny
+creature--of his rescue in the woods from a crowd of little boys, of his
+restoration to health and spirits, and of her expectation, when he was
+quite strong, of taking him to the woods and freeing him.
+
+Le Moyne, listening attentively, began to be interested. His quick mind
+had grasped the fact that it was the girl's bedroom he had taken. Other
+things he had gathered that afternoon from the humming sewing-machine,
+from Sidney's businesslike way of renting the little room, from the
+glimpse of a woman in a sunny window, bent over a needle. Genteel
+poverty was what it meant, and more--the constant drain of disheartened,
+middle-aged women on the youth and courage of the girl beside him.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who was living his own tragedy those days, what with
+poverty and other things, sat on the doorstep while Sidney talked, and
+swore a quiet oath to be no further weight on the girl's buoyant spirit.
+And, since determining on a virtue is halfway to gaining it, his voice
+lost its perfunctory note. He had no intention of letting the Street
+encroach on him. He had built up a wall between himself and the rest of
+the world, and he would not scale it. But he held no grudge against it.
+Let others get what they could out of living.
+
+Sidney, suddenly practical, broke in on his thoughts:--
+
+“Where are you going to get your meals?”
+
+“I hadn't thought about it. I can stop in somewhere on my way downtown.
+I work in the gas office--I don't believe I told you. It's rather
+haphazard--not the gas office, but the eating. However, it's
+convenient.”
+
+“It's very bad for you,” said Sidney, with decision. “It leads to
+slovenly habits, such as going without when you're in a hurry, and that
+sort of thing. The only thing is to have some one expecting you at a
+certain time.”
+
+“It sounds like marriage.” He was lazily amused.
+
+“It sounds like Mrs. McKee's boarding-house at the corner. Twenty-one
+meals for five dollars, and a ticket to punch. Tillie, the dining-room
+girl, punches for every meal you get. If you miss any meals, your ticket
+is good until it is punched. But Mrs. McKee doesn't like it if you
+miss.”
+
+“Mrs. McKee for me,” said Le Moyne. “I daresay, if I know
+that--er--Tillie is waiting with the punch, I'll be fairly regular to my
+meals.”
+
+It was growing late. The Street, which mistrusted night air, even on a
+hot summer evening, was closing its windows. Reginald, having eaten
+his fill, had cuddled in the warm hollow of Sidney's lap, and slept.
+By shifting his position, the man was able to see the girl's face. Very
+lovely it was, he thought. Very pure, almost radiant--and young. From
+the middle age of his almost thirty years, she was a child. There had
+been a boy in the shadows when he came up the Street. Of course there
+would be a boy--a nice, clear-eyed chap--
+
+Sidney was looking at the moon. With that dreamer's part of her that she
+had inherited from her dead and gone father, she was quietly worshiping
+the night. But her busy brain was working, too,--the practical brain
+that she had got from her mother's side.
+
+“What about your washing?” she inquired unexpectedly.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who had built a wall between himself and the world, had
+already married her to the youth of the shadows, and was feeling an odd
+sense of loss.
+
+“Washing?”
+
+“I suppose you've been sending things to the laundry, and--what do you
+do about your stockings?”
+
+“Buy cheap ones and throw 'em away when they're worn out.” There seemed
+to be no reserve with this surprising young person.
+
+“And buttons?”
+
+“Use safety-pins. When they're closed one can button over them as well
+as--”
+
+“I think,” said Sidney, “that it is quite time some one took a little
+care of you. If you will give Katie, our maid, twenty-five cents a week,
+she'll do your washing and not tear your things to ribbons. And I'll
+mend them.”
+
+Sheer stupefaction was K. Le Moyne's. After a moment:--
+
+“You're really rather wonderful, Miss Page. Here am I, lodged, fed,
+washed, ironed, and mended for seven dollars and seventy-five cents a
+week!”
+
+“I hope,” said Sidney severely, “that you'll put what you save in the
+bank.”
+
+He was still somewhat dazed when he went up the narrow staircase to
+his swept and garnished room. Never, in all of a life that had been
+active,--until recently,--had he been so conscious of friendliness and
+kindly interest. He expanded under it. Some of the tired lines left his
+face. Under the gas chandelier, he straightened and threw out his arms.
+Then he reached down into his coat pocket and drew out a wide-awake and
+suspicious Reginald.
+
+“Good-night, Reggie!” he said. “Good-night, old top!” He hardly
+recognized his own voice. It was quite cheerful, although the little
+room was hot, and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling
+that the ceiling was close above. He deposited Reginald carefully on
+the floor in front of the bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him,
+retreated to its nest.
+
+It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed. Wrapped in a paper and
+securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
+underclothing, ragged and buttonless. Not for worlds would he have had
+Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. “New underwear for yours
+tomorrow, K. Le Moyne,” he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
+“New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name.”
+
+He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and
+thinking hard. “Kenneth, King, Kerr--” None of them appealed to him.
+And, after all, what did it matter? The old heaviness came over him.
+
+He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
+and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.
+
+Sidney did not sleep much that night. She lay awake, gazing into the
+scented darkness, her arms under her head. Love had come into her life
+at last. A man--only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but
+what he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.
+
+In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms
+stealing through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life
+and love, and flung out warm young arms. Joe would be thinking of her
+now, as she thought of him. Or would he have gone to sleep, secure in
+her half promise? Did he really love her?
+
+The desire to be loved! There was coming to Sidney a time when love
+would mean, not receiving, but giving--the divine fire instead of the
+pale flame of youth. At last she slept.
+
+A night breeze came through the windows and spread coolness through
+the little house. The ailanthus tree waved in the moonlight and sent
+sprawling shadows over the wall of K. Le Moyne's bedroom. In the yard
+the leaves of the morning-glory vines quivered as if under the touch of
+a friendly hand.
+
+K. Le Moyne slept diagonally in his bed, being very long. In sleep the
+lines were smoothed out of his face. He looked like a tired, overgrown
+boy. And while he slept the ground-squirrel ravaged the pockets of his
+shabby coat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at the
+table. It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that Aunt
+Harriet lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney's
+father had borrowed her small patrimony and she was “boarding it out.”
+ Eighteen years she had “boarded it out.” Sidney had been born and grown
+to girlhood; the dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuable
+patents lost for lack of money to renew them--gone with his faith in
+himself destroyed, but with his faith in the world undiminished: for he
+left his wife and daughter without a dollar of life insurance.
+
+Harriet Kennedy had voiced her own view of the matter, the after the
+funeral, to one of the neighbors:--
+
+“He left no insurance. Why should he bother? He left me.”
+
+To the little widow, her sister, she had been no less bitter, and more
+explicit.
+
+“It looks to me, Anna,” she said, “as if by borrowing everything I had
+George had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life.
+I'll stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to live
+my own life. It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a long
+time.”
+
+The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidney
+was still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first year
+at the High School, prone to saunter home with three or four
+knickerbockered boys in her train, reading “The Duchess” stealthily, and
+begging for longer dresses. She had given up her dolls, but she still
+made clothes for them out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room. In the
+parlance of the Street, Harriet “sewed”--and sewed well.
+
+She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of the
+partnership had always been on Harriet. To give her credit, she had not
+complained. She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slipped
+by in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paper
+patterns.
+
+On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down to
+breakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tied
+a small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving
+breakfast. From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful
+singing. Sidney was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage
+of Harriet's tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper,
+dropped it.
+
+But Harriet did not sit down. It was her custom to jerk her chair out
+and drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food. Sidney,
+not hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.
+
+“Sidney.”
+
+“Yes, Aunt Harriet.”
+
+“Will you come in, please?”
+
+Katie took the iron from her.
+
+“You go. She's all dressed up, and she doesn't want any coffee.”
+
+So Sidney went in. It was to her that Harriet made her speech:--
+
+“Sidney, when your father died, I promised to look after both you and
+your mother until you were able to take care of yourself. That was five
+years ago. Of course, even before that I had helped to support you.”
+
+“If you would only have your coffee, Harriet!”
+
+Mrs. Page sat with her hand on the handle of the old silver-plated
+coffee-pot. Harriet ignored her.
+
+“You are a young woman now. You have health and energy, and you have
+youth, which I haven't. I'm past forty. In the next twenty years, at the
+outside, I've got not only to support myself, but to save something to
+keep me after that, if I live. I'll probably live to be ninety. I don't
+want to live forever, but I've always played in hard luck.”
+
+Sidney returned her gaze steadily.
+
+“I see. Well, Aunt Harriet, you're quite right. You've been a saint to
+us, but if you want to go away--”
+
+“Harriet!” wailed Mrs. Page, “you're not thinking--”
+
+“Please, mother.”
+
+Harriet's eyes softened as she looked at the girl
+
+“We can manage,” said Sidney quietly. “We'll miss you, but it's time we
+learned to depend on ourselves.”
+
+After that, in a torrent, came Harriet's declaration of independence.
+And, mixed in with its pathetic jumble of recriminations, hostility to
+her sister's dead husband, and resentment for her lost years, came
+poor Harriet's hopes and ambitions, the tragic plea of a woman who must
+substitute for the optimism and energy of youth the grim determination
+of middle age.
+
+“I can do good work,” she finished. “I'm full of ideas, if I could get a
+chance to work them out. But there's no chance here. There isn't a woman
+on the Street who knows real clothes when she sees them. They don't even
+know how to wear their corsets. They send me bundles of hideous stuff,
+with needles and shields and imitation silk for lining, and when I
+turn out something worth while out of the mess they think the dress is
+queer!”
+
+Mrs. Page could not get back of Harriet's revolt to its cause. To her,
+Harriet was not an artist pleading for her art; she was a sister and a
+bread-winner deserting her trust.
+
+“I'm sure,” she said stiffly, “we paid you back every cent we borrowed.
+If you stayed here after George died, it was because you offered to.”
+
+Her chin worked. She fumbled for the handkerchief at her belt. But
+Sidney went around the table and flung a young arm over her aunt's
+shoulders.
+
+“Why didn't you say all that a year ago? We've been selfish, but we're
+not as bad as you think. And if any one in this world is entitled to
+success you are. Of course we'll manage.”
+
+Harriet's iron repression almost gave way. She covered her emotion with
+details:--
+
+“Mrs. Lorenz is going to let me make Christine some things, and if
+they're all right I may make her trousseau.”
+
+“Trousseau--for Christine!”
+
+“She's not engaged, but her mother says it's only a matter of a short
+time. I'm going to take two rooms in the business part of town, and put
+a couch in the backroom to sleep on.”
+
+Sidney's mind flew to Christine and her bright future, to a trousseau
+bought with the Lorenz money, to Christine settled down, a married
+woman, with Palmer Howe. She came back with an effort. Harriet had two
+triangular red spots in her sallow cheeks.
+
+“I can get a few good models--that's the only way to start. And if you
+care to do hand work for me, Anna, I'll send it to you, and pay you the
+regular rates. There isn't the call for it there used to be, but just a
+touch gives dash.”
+
+ All of Mrs. Page's grievances had worked their way to the surface.  Sidney
+and Harriet had made her world, such as it was, and her world was in
+revolt. She flung out her hands.
+
+“I suppose I must do something. With you leaving, and Sidney renting her
+room and sleeping on a folding-bed in the sewing-room, everything seems
+upside down. I never thought I should live to see strange men running in
+and out of this house and carrying latch-keys.”
+
+This in reference to Le Moyne, whose tall figure had made a hurried exit
+some time before.
+
+Nothing could have symbolized Harriet's revolt more thoroughly than her
+going upstairs after a hurried breakfast, and putting on her hat and
+coat. She had heard of rooms, she said, and there was nothing urgent in
+the work-room. Her eyes were brighter already as she went out. Sidney,
+kissing her in the hall and wishing her luck, realized suddenly what
+a burden she and her mother must have been for the last few years. She
+threw her head up proudly. They would never be a burden again--never, as
+long as she had strength and health!
+
+By evening Mrs. Page had worked herself into a state bordering on
+hysteria. Harriet was out most of the day. She came in at three o'clock,
+and Katie gave her a cup of tea. At the news of her sister's condition,
+she merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“She'll not die, Katie,” she said calmly. “But see that Miss Sidney eats
+something, and if she is worried tell her I said to get Dr. Ed.”
+
+Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoning
+of the Street's family doctor. She was already dealing in larger
+figures. A sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning.
+Already she was learning that peace of mind is essential to successful
+endeavor. Somewhere Harriet had read a quotation from a Persian poet;
+she could not remember it, but its sense had stayed with her: “What
+though we spill a few grains of corn, or drops of oil from the cruse?
+These be the price of peace.”
+
+So Harriet, having spilled oil from her cruse in the shape of Dr. Ed,
+departed blithely. The recklessness of pure adventure was in her blood.
+She had taken rooms at a rental that she determinedly put out of her
+mind, and she was on her way to buy furniture. No pirate, fitting out
+a ship for the highways of the sea, ever experienced more guilty and
+delightful excitement.
+
+The afternoon dragged away. Dr. Ed was out “on a case” and might not be
+in until evening. Sidney sat in the darkened room and waved a fan over
+her mother's rigid form.
+
+At half after five, Johnny Rosenfeld from the alley, who worked for a
+florist after school, brought a box of roses to Sidney, and departed
+grinning impishly. He knew Joe, had seen him in the store. Soon the
+alley knew that Sidney had received a dozen Killarney roses at three
+dollars and a half, and was probably engaged to Joe Drummond.
+
+“Dr. Ed,” said Sidney, as he followed her down the stairs, “can you
+spare the time to talk to me a little while?”
+
+Perhaps the elder Wilson had a quick vision of the crowded office
+waiting across the Street; but his reply was prompt:
+
+“Any amount of time.”
+
+Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused by
+the petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.
+
+“First of all,” said Sidney, “did you mean what you said upstairs?”
+
+Dr. Ed thought quickly.
+
+“Of course; but what?”
+
+“You said I was a born nurse.”
+
+The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him.
+It said--which was perfectly true--that he had sacrificed himself to his
+brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon,
+Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroad
+he had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the old
+buggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, not at
+all of the stuff martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and,
+remembering all this, was ashamed of her rebellion.
+
+“I'm going into a hospital,” said Sidney.
+
+Dr. Ed waited. He liked to have all the symptoms before he made a
+diagnosis or ventured an opinion. So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, and
+quite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.
+
+“It's fearfully hard work, of course,” he commented, when she had
+finished.
+
+“So is anything worth while. Look at the way you work!”
+
+Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.
+
+“You're too young.”
+
+“I'll get older.”
+
+“I don't think I like the idea,” he said at last. “It's splendid work
+for an older woman. But it's life, child--life in the raw. As we get
+along in years we lose our illusions--some of them, not all, thank God.
+But for you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things as
+they are, and not as we want them to be--it seems such an unnecessary
+sacrifice.”
+
+“Don't you think,” said Sidney bravely, “that you are a poor person to
+talk of sacrifice? Haven't you always, all your life--”
+
+Dr. Ed colored to the roots of his straw-colored hair.
+
+“Certainly not,” he said almost irritably. “Max had genius; I
+had--ability. That's different. One real success is better than two
+halves. Not”--he smiled down at her--“not that I minimize my usefulness.
+Somebody has to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm a
+pretty good hack.”
+
+“Very well,” said Sidney. “Then I shall be a hack, too. Of course, I had
+thought of other things,--my father wanted me to go to college,--but I'm
+strong and willing. And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; I
+shall have to support my mother.”
+
+Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man in
+the parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders,
+her thin face, her undisguised middle age.
+
+“Yes,” he said, when she was out of hearing. “It's hard, but I dare say
+it's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only--I wish
+it didn't have to be.”
+
+Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She
+touched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had called
+her with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent
+hands. Life--in the raw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters.
+When he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing
+with vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly.
+
+“You and I, Reginald,” he apostrophized the bureau, “will have to come
+to an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what
+blows down is not to be touched.”
+
+Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness
+of spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the
+sun was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office.
+He told himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having
+sought for peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it. The
+trouble was, of course, that he came of fighting stock: soldiers and
+explorers, even a gentleman adventurer or two, had been his forefather.
+He loathed peace with a deadly loathing.
+
+Having given up everything else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the
+love of woman. That, of course, is figurative. He had been too busy for
+women; and now he was too idle. A small part of his brain added figures
+in the office of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and
+fifty cents per eight-hour working day. But the real K. Le Moyne
+that had dreamed dreams, had nothing to do with the figures, but sat
+somewhere in his head and mocked him as he worked at his task.
+
+“Time's going by, and here you are!” mocked the real person--who was, of
+course, not K. Le Moyne at all. “You're the hell of a lot of use, aren't
+you? Two and two are four and three are seven--take off the discount.
+That's right. It's a man's work, isn't it?”
+
+“Somebody's got to do this sort of thing,” protested the small part of
+his brain that earned the two-fifty per working day. “And it's a great
+anaesthetic. He can't think when he's doing it. There's something
+practical about figures, and--rational.”
+
+He dressed quickly, ascertaining that he had enough money to buy a
+five-dollar ticket at Mrs. McKee's; and, having given up the love of
+woman with other things, he was careful not to look about for Sidney on
+his way.
+
+He breakfasted at Mrs. McKee's, and was initiated into the mystery of
+the ticket punch. The food was rather good, certainly plentiful;
+and even his squeamish morning appetite could find no fault with the
+self-respecting tidiness of the place. Tillie proved to be neat and
+austere. He fancied it would not be pleasant to be very late for one's
+meals--in fact, Sidney had hinted as much. Some of the “mealers”--the
+Street's name for them--ventured on various small familiarities of
+speech with Tillie. K. Le Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but
+reserved. He was determined not to let the Street encroach on his
+wretchedness. Because he had come to live there was no reason why it
+should adopt him. But he was very polite. When the deaf-and-dumb book
+agent wrote something on a pencil pad and pushed it toward him, he
+replied in kind.
+
+“We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family,” was what was
+written on the pad.
+
+“Very happy, indeed, to be with you,” wrote back Le Moyne--and realized
+with a sort of shock that he meant it.
+
+The kindly greeting had touched him. The greeting and the breakfast
+cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
+
+“Don't you want a toothpick?” she asked, as he went out.
+
+In K.'s previous walk of life there had been no toothpicks; or, if there
+were any, they were kept, along with the family scandals, in a closet.
+But nearly a year of buffeting about had taught him many things. He took
+one, and placed it nonchalantly in his waistcoat pocket, as he had seen
+the others do.
+
+Tillie, her rush hour over, wandered back into the kitchen and poured
+herself a cup of coffee. Mrs. McKee was reweighing the meat order.
+
+“Kind of a nice fellow,” Tillie said, cup to lips--“the new man.”
+
+“Week or meal?”
+
+“Week. He'd be handsome if he wasn't so grouchy-looking. Lit up some
+when Mr. Wagner sent him one of his love letters. Rooms over at the
+Pages'.”
+
+Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lamb stew in a book.
+
+“When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me
+over, Tillie. And where they'll put him, in that little house--he
+looked thin, what I saw of him. Seven pounds and a quarter.” This last
+referred, not to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.
+
+“Thin as a fiddle-string.”
+
+“Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough.” Then, rather ashamed of
+her unbusinesslike methods: “A thin mealer's a poor advertisement. Do
+you suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?”
+
+Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld. In such manner was most of the
+Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip
+start at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.
+
+“Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond,” announced Tillie. “He sent her
+a lot of pink roses yesterday.”
+
+There was no malice in her flat statement, no envy. Sidney and she,
+living in the world of the Street, occupied different spheres. But the
+very lifelessness in her voice told how remotely such things touched
+her, and thus was tragic. “Mealers” came and went--small clerks, petty
+tradesmen, husbands living alone in darkened houses during the summer
+hegira of wives. Various and catholic was Tillie's male acquaintance,
+but compounded of good fellowship only. Once, years before, romance had
+paraded itself before her in the garb of a traveling nurseryman--had
+walked by and not come back.
+
+“And Miss Harriet's going into business for herself. She's taken rooms
+downtown; she's going to be Madame Something or other.”
+
+Now, at last, was Mrs. McKee's attention caught riveted.
+
+“For the love of mercy! At her age! It's downright selfish. If she
+raises her prices she can't make my new foulard.”
+
+Tillie sat at the table, her faded blue eyes fixed on the back yard,
+where her aunt, Mrs. Rosenfeld, was hanging out the week's wash of table
+linen.
+
+“I don't know as it's so selfish,” she reflected. “We've only got one
+life. I guess a body's got the right to live it.”
+
+Mrs. McKee eyed her suspiciously, but Tillie's face showed no emotion.
+
+“You don't ever hear of Schwitter, do you?”
+
+“No; I guess she's still living.”
+
+Schwitter, the nurseryman, had proved to have a wife in an insane
+asylum. That was why Tillie's romance had only paraded itself before her
+and had gone by.
+
+“You got out of that lucky.”
+
+Tillie rose and tied a gingham apron over her white one.
+
+“I guess so. Only sometimes--”
+
+“I don't know as it would have been so wrong. He ain't young, and I
+ain't. And we're not getting any younger. He had nice manners; he'd have
+been good to me.”
+
+Mrs. McKee's voice failed her. For a moment she gasped like a fish.
+Then:
+
+“And him a married man!”
+
+“Well, I'm not going to do it,” Tillie soothed her. “I get to thinking
+about it sometimes; that's all. This new fellow made me think of him.
+He's got the same nice way about him.”
+
+Aye, the new man had made her think of him, and June, and the lovers
+who lounged along the Street in the moonlit avenues toward the park and
+love; even Sidney's pink roses. Change was in the very air of the Street
+that June morning. It was in Tillie, making a last clutch at youth, and
+finding, in this pale flare of dying passion, courage to remember what
+she had schooled herself to forget; in Harriet asserting her right to
+live her life; in Sidney, planning with eager eyes a life of service
+which did not include Joe; in K. Le Moyne, who had built up a wall
+between himself and the world, and was seeing it demolished by a
+deaf-and-dumb book agent whose weapon was a pencil pad!
+
+And yet, for a week nothing happened: Joe came in the evenings and sat
+on the steps with Sidney, his honest heart, in his eyes. She could not
+bring herself at first to tell him about the hospital. She put it off
+from day to day. Anna, no longer sulky, accepted with the childlike faith
+Sidney's statement that “they'd get along; she had a splendid scheme,”
+ and took to helping Harriet in her preparations for leaving. Tillie,
+afraid of her rebellious spirit, went to prayer meeting. And K. Le
+Moyne, finding his little room hot in the evenings and not wishing to
+intrude on the two on the doorstep, took to reading his paper in the
+park, and after twilight to long, rapid walks out into the country. The
+walks satisfied the craving of his active body for exercise, and tired
+him so he could sleep. On one such occasion he met Mr. Wagner, and they
+carried on an animated conversation until it was too dark to see the
+pad. Even then, it developed that Wagner could write in the dark; and
+he secured the last word in a long argument by doing this and striking a
+match for K. to read by.
+
+When K. was sure that the boy had gone, he would turn back toward the
+Street. Some of the heaviness of his spirit always left him at sight of
+the little house. Its kindly atmosphere seemed to reach out and envelop
+him. Within was order and quiet, the fresh-down bed, the tidiness of
+his ordered garments. There was even affection--Reginald, waiting on
+the fender for his supper, and regarding him with wary and bright-eyed
+friendliness.
+
+Life, that had seemed so simple, had grown very complicated for Sidney.
+There was her mother to break the news to, and Joe. Harriet would
+approve, she felt; but these others! To assure Anna that she must
+manage alone for three years, in order to be happy and comfortable
+afterward--that was hard enough to tell Joe she was planning a future
+without him, to destroy the light in his blue eyes--that hurt.
+
+After all, Sidney told K. first. One Friday evening, coming home late,
+as usual, he found her on the doorstep, and Joe gone. She moved over
+hospitably. The moon had waxed and waned, and the Street was dark. Even
+the ailanthus blossoms had ceased their snow-like dropping. The colored
+man who drove Dr. Ed in the old buggy on his daily rounds had brought
+out the hose and sprinkled the street. Within this zone of freshness, of
+wet asphalt and dripping gutters, Sidney sat, cool and silent.
+
+“Please sit down. It is cool now. My idea of luxury is to have the
+Street sprinkled on a hot night.”
+
+K. disposed of his long legs on the steps. He was trying to fit his own
+ideas of luxury to a garden hose and a city street.
+
+“I'm afraid you're working too hard.”
+
+“I? I do a minimum of labor for a minimum of wage.
+
+“But you work at night, don't you?”
+
+K. was natively honest. He hesitated. Then:
+
+“No, Miss Page.”
+
+“But You go out every evening!” Suddenly the truth burst on her.
+
+“Oh, dear!” she said. “I do believe--why, how silly of you!”
+
+K. was most uncomfortable.
+
+“Really, I like it,” he protested. “I hang over a desk all day, and in
+the evening I want to walk. I ramble around the park and see lovers on
+benches--it's rather thrilling. They sit on the same benches evening
+after evening. I know a lot of them by sight, and if they're not there
+I wonder if they have quarreled, or if they have finally got married and
+ended the romance. You can see how exciting it is.”
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney laughed.
+
+“How very nice you are!” she said--“and how absurd! Why should their
+getting married end the romance? And don't you know that, if you insist
+on walking the streets and parks at night because Joe Drummond is here,
+I shall have to tell him not to come?”
+
+This did not follow, to K.'s mind. They had rather a heated argument
+over it, and became much better acquainted.
+
+“If I were engaged to him,” Sidney ended, her cheeks very pink, “I--I
+might understand. But, as I am not--”
+
+“Ah!” said K., a trifle unsteadily. “So you are not?”
+
+Only a week--and love was one of the things she had had to give up, with
+others. Not, of course, that he was in love with Sidney then. But he had
+been desperately lonely, and, for all her practical clearheadedness,
+she was softly and appealingly feminine. By way of keeping his head, he
+talked suddenly and earnestly of Mrs. McKee, and food, and Tillie, and
+of Mr. Wagner and the pencil pad.
+
+“It's like a game,” he said. “We disagree on everything, especially
+Mexico. If you ever tried to spell those Mexican names--”
+
+“Why did you think I was engaged?” she insisted.
+
+Now, in K.'s walk of life--that walk of life where there are no
+toothpicks, and no one would have believed that twenty-one meals could
+have been secured for five dollars with a ticket punch thrown in--young
+girls did not receive the attention of one young man to the exclusion of
+others unless they were engaged. But he could hardly say that.
+
+“Oh, I don't know. Those things get in the air. I am quite certain, for
+instance, that Reginald suspects it.”
+
+“It's Johnny Rosenfeld,” said Sidney, with decision. “It's horrible, the
+way things get about. Because Joe sent me a box of roses--As a matter
+of fact, I'm not engaged, or going to be, Mr. Le Moyne. I'm going into a
+hospital to be a nurse.”
+
+Le Moyne said nothing. For just a moment he closed his eyes. A man is in
+a rather a bad way when, every time he closes his eyes, he sees the
+same thing, especially if it is rather terrible. When it gets to a point
+where he lies awake at night and reads, for fear of closing them--
+
+“You're too young, aren't you?”
+
+“Dr. Ed--one of the Wilsons across the Street--is going to help me about
+that. His brother Max is a big surgeon there. I expect you've heard of
+him. We're very proud of him in the Street.”
+
+Lucky for K. Le Moyne that the moon no longer shone on the low gray
+doorstep, that Sidney's mind had traveled far away to shining floors
+and rows of white beds. “Life--in the raw,” Dr. Ed had said that other
+afternoon. Closer to her than the hospital was life in the raw that
+night.
+
+So, even here, on this quiet street in this distant city, there was
+to be no peace. Max Wilson just across the way! It--it was ironic. Was
+there no place where a man could lose himself? He would have to move on
+again, of course.
+
+But that, it seemed, was just what he could not do. For:
+
+“I want to ask you to do something, and I hope you'll be quite frank,”
+ said Sidney.
+
+“Anything that I can do--”
+
+“It's this. If you are comfortable, and--and like the room and all that,
+I wish you'd stay.” She hurried on: “If I could feel that mother had a
+dependable person like you in the house, it would all be easier.”
+
+Dependable! That stung.
+
+“But--forgive my asking; I'm really interested--can your mother manage?
+You'll get practically no money during your training.”
+
+“I've thought of that. A friend of mine, Christine Lorenz, is going to
+be married. Her people are wealthy, but she'll have nothing but what
+Palmer makes. She'd like to have the parlor and the sitting room
+behind. They wouldn't interfere with you at all,” she added hastily.
+“Christine's father would build a little balcony at the side for them, a
+sort of porch, and they'd sit there in the evenings.”
+
+Behind Sidney's carefully practical tone the man read appeal. Never
+before had he realized how narrow the girl's world had been. The Street,
+with but one dimension, bounded it! In her perplexity, she was appealing
+to him who was practically a stranger.
+
+And he knew then that he must do the thing she asked. He, who had fled
+so long, could roam no more. Here on the Street, with its menace just
+across, he must live, that she might work. In his world, men had worked
+that women might live in certain places, certain ways. This girl was
+going out to earn her living, and he would stay to make it possible. But
+no hint of all this was in his voice.
+
+“I shall stay, of course,” he said gravely. “I--this is the nearest
+thing to home that I've known for a long time. I want you to know that.”
+
+So they moved their puppets about, Anna and Harriet, Christine and
+her husband-to-be, Dr. Ed, even Tillie and the Rosenfelds; shifted and
+placed them, and, planning, obeyed inevitable law.
+
+“Christine shall come, then,” said Sidney forsooth, “and we will throw
+out a balcony.”
+
+So they planned, calmly ignorant that poor Christine's story and
+Tillie's and Johnny Rosenfeld's and all the others' were already written
+among the things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.
+
+“You are very good to me,” said Sidney.
+
+When she rose, K. Le Moyne sprang to his feet.
+
+Anna had noticed that he always rose when she entered his room,--with
+fresh towels on Katie's day out, for instance,--and she liked him for
+it. Years ago, the men she had known had shown this courtesy to their
+women; but the Street regarded such things as affectation.
+
+“I wonder if you would do me another favor? I'm afraid you'll take to
+avoiding me, if I keep on.”
+
+“I don't think you need fear that.”
+
+“This stupid story about Joe Drummond--I'm not saying I'll never marry
+him, but I'm certainly not engaged. Now and then, when you are taking
+your evening walks, if you would ask me to walk with you--”
+
+K. looked rather dazed.
+
+“I can't imagine anything pleasanter; but I wish you'd explain just
+how--”
+
+Sidney smiled at him. As he stood on the lowest step, their eyes were
+almost level.
+
+“If I walk with you, they'll know I'm not engaged to Joe,” she said,
+with engaging directness.
+
+The house was quiet. He waited in the lower hall until she had reached
+the top of the staircase. For some curious reason, in the time to come,
+that was the way Sidney always remembered K. Le Moyne--standing in the
+little hall, one hand upstretched to shut off the gas overhead, and his
+eyes on hers above.
+
+“Good-night,” said K. Le Moyne. And all the things he had put out of his
+life were in his voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+On the morning after Sidney had invited K. Le Moyne to take her to walk,
+Max Wilson came down to breakfast rather late. Dr. Ed had breakfasted an
+hour before, and had already attended, with much profanity on the part
+of the patient, to a boil on the back of Mr. Rosenfeld's neck.
+
+“Better change your laundry,” cheerfully advised Dr. Ed, cutting a strip
+of adhesive plaster. “Your neck's irritated from your white collars.”
+
+Rosenfeld eyed him suspiciously, but, possessing a sense of humor also,
+he grinned.
+
+“It ain't my everyday things that bother me,” he replied. “It's my
+blankety-blank dress suit. But if a man wants to be tony--”
+
+“Tony” was not of the Street, but of its environs. Harriet was “tony”
+ because she walked with her elbows in and her head up. Dr. Max was
+“tony” because he breakfasted late, and had a man come once a week and
+take away his clothes to be pressed. He was “tony,” too, because he had
+brought back from Europe narrow-shouldered English-cut clothes, when the
+Street was still padding its shoulders. Even K. would have been classed
+with these others, for the stick that he carried on his walks, for the
+fact that his shabby gray coat was as unmistakably foreign in cut as Dr.
+Max's, had the neighborhood so much as known him by sight. But K., so
+far, had remained in humble obscurity, and, outside of Mrs. McKee's, was
+known only as the Pages' roomer.
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld buttoned up the blue flannel shirt which, with a pair of
+Dr. Ed's cast-off trousers, was his only wear; and fished in his pocket.
+
+“How much, Doc?”
+
+“Two dollars,” said Dr. Ed briskly.
+
+“Holy cats! For one jab of a knife! My old woman works a day and a half
+for two dollars.”
+
+“I guess it's worth two dollars to you to be able to sleep on your
+back.” He was imperturbably straightening his small glass table. He knew
+Rosenfeld. “If you don't like my price, I'll lend you the knife the next
+time, and you can let your wife attend to you.”
+
+Rosenfeld drew out a silver dollar, and followed it reluctantly with a
+limp and dejected dollar bill.
+
+“There are times,” he said, “when, if you'd put me and the missus and a
+knife in the same room, you wouldn't have much left but the knife.”
+
+Dr. Ed waited until he had made his stiff-necked exit. Then he took the
+two dollars, and, putting the money into an envelope, indorsed it in his
+illegible hand. He heard his brother's step on the stairs, and Dr. Ed
+made haste to put away the last vestiges of his little operation.
+
+Ed's lapses from surgical cleanliness were a sore trial to the younger
+man, fresh from the clinics of Europe. In his downtown office, to which
+he would presently make his leisurely progress, he wore a white coat,
+and sterilized things of which Dr. Ed did not even know the names.
+
+So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny
+knife with a bit of cotton,--he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the
+edge,--thrust it hastily into his pocket. He had cut boils without
+boiling anything for a good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise
+with the wisdom of the serpent and the general practitioner, and there
+was no use raising a discussion.
+
+Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one. Now and then the way of
+the transgressor is disgustingly pleasant. Max, who sat up until all
+hours of the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing
+bridge, wakened to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette
+between shoes, so to speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps
+been to bring into the world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened
+customarily to the dark hour of his day, when he dubbed himself failure
+and loathed the Street with a deadly loathing.
+
+So now Max brought his handsome self down the staircase and paused at
+the office door.
+
+“At it, already,” he said. “Or have you been to bed?”
+
+“It's after nine,” protested Ed mildly. “If I don't start early, I never
+get through.”
+
+Max yawned.
+
+“Better come with me,” he said. “If things go on as they've been doing,
+I'll have to have an assistant. I'd rather have you than anybody, of
+course.” He put his lithe surgeon's hand on his brother's shoulder.
+“Where would I be if it hadn't been for you? All the fellows know what
+you've done.”
+
+In spite of himself, Ed winced. It was one thing to work hard that there
+might be one success instead of two half successes. It was a different
+thing to advertise one's mediocrity to the world. His sphere of the
+Street and the neighborhood was his own. To give it all up and become
+his younger brother's assistant--even if it meant, as it would, better
+hours and more money--would be to submerge his identity. He could not
+bring himself to it.
+
+“I guess I'll stay where I am,” he said. “They know me around here, and
+I know them. By the way, will you leave this envelope at Mrs. McKee's?
+Maggie Rosenfeld is ironing there to-day. It's for her.”
+
+Max took the envelope absently.
+
+“You'll go on here to the end of your days, working for a pittance,”
+ he objected. “Inside of ten years there'll be no general practitioners;
+then where will you be?”
+
+“I'll manage somehow,” said his brother placidly. “I guess there will
+always be a few that can pay my prices better than what you specialists
+ask.”
+
+Max laughed with genuine amusement.
+
+“I dare say, if this is the way you let them pay your prices.”
+
+He held out the envelope, and the older man colored.
+
+Very proud of Dr. Max was his brother, unselfishly proud, of his skill,
+of his handsome person, of his easy good manners; very humble, too, of
+his own knowledge and experience. If he ever suspected any lack of
+finer fiber in Max, he put the thought away. Probably he was too rigid
+himself. Max was young, a hard worker. He had a right to play hard.
+
+He prepared his black bag for the day's calls--stethoscope, thermometer,
+eye-cup, bandages, case of small vials, a lump of absorbent cotton in
+a not over-fresh towel; in the bottom, a heterogeneous collection of
+instruments, a roll of adhesive plaster, a bottle or two of sugar-milk
+tablets for the children, a dog collar that had belonged to a dead
+collie, and had put in the bag in some curious fashion and there
+remained.
+
+He prepared the bag a little nervously, while Max ate. He felt that
+modern methods and the best usage might not have approved of the bag. On
+his way out he paused at the dining-room door.
+
+“Are you going to the hospital?”
+
+“Operating at four--wish you could come in.”
+
+“I'm afraid not, Max. I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to
+you. She wants to enter the training-school.”
+
+“Too young,” said Max briefly. “Why, she can't be over sixteen.”
+
+“She's eighteen.”
+
+“Well, even eighteen. Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
+enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I
+haven't noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing. There
+is no use filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the
+internes all stewed up.”
+
+“Since when,” asked Dr. Ed mildly, “have you found good looks in a girl
+a handicap?”
+
+In the end they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It
+would be better than having her run across the Street--would put things
+on the right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have
+to learn at once that he was no longer “Dr. Max”; that, as a matter of
+fact, he was now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without
+contradiction or argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at
+his elbow.
+
+Having given his promise, Max promptly forgot about it. The Street did
+not interest him. Christine and Sidney had been children when he went to
+Vienna, and since his return he had hardly noticed them. Society, always
+kind to single men of good appearance and easy good manners, had taken
+him up. He wore dinner or evening clothes five nights out of seven, and
+was supposed by his conservative old neighbors to be going the pace. The
+rumor had been fed by Mrs. Rosenfeld, who, starting out for her day's
+washing at six o'clock one morning, had found Dr. Max's car, lamps
+lighted, and engine going, drawn up before the house door, with its
+owner asleep at the wheel. The story traveled the length of the Street
+that day.
+
+“Him,” said Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was occasionally flowery, “sittin' up
+as straight as this washboard, and his silk hat shinin' in the sun; but
+exceptin' the car, which was workin' hard and gettin' nowhere, the whole
+outfit in the arms of Morpheus.”
+
+Mrs. Lorenz, whose day it was to have Mrs. Rosenfeld, and who was
+unfamiliar with mythology, gasped at the last word.
+
+“Mercy!” she said. “Do you mean to say he's got that awful drug habit!”
+
+Down the clean steps went Dr. Max that morning, a big man, almost as
+tall as K. Le Moyne, eager of life, strong and a bit reckless, not fine,
+perhaps, but not evil. He had the same zest of living as Sidney, but
+with this difference--the girl stood ready to give herself to life: he
+knew that life would come to him. All-dominating male was Dr. Max, that
+morning, as he drew on his gloves before stepping into his car. It was
+after nine o'clock. K. Le Moyne had been an hour at his desk. The McKee
+napkins lay ironed in orderly piles.
+
+Nevertheless, Dr. Max was suffering under a sense of defeat as he rode
+downtown. The night before, he had proposed to a girl and had been
+rejected. He was not in love with the girl,--she would have been a
+suitable wife, and a surgeon ought to be married; it gives people
+confidence,--but his pride was hurt. He recalled the exact words of the
+rejection.
+
+“You're too good-looking, Max,” she had said, “and that's the truth. Now
+that operations are as popular as fancy dancing, and much less bother,
+half the women I know are crazy about their surgeons. I'm too fond of my
+peace of mind.”
+
+“But, good Heavens! haven't you any confidence in me?” he had demanded.
+
+“None whatever, Max dear.” She had looked at him with level,
+understanding eyes.
+
+He put the disagreeable recollection out of his mind as he parked his
+car and made his way to his office. Here would be people who believed
+in him, from the middle-aged nurse in her prim uniform to the row of
+patients sitting stiffly around the walls of the waiting-room. Dr. Max,
+pausing in the hall outside the door of his private office, drew a long
+breath. This was the real thing--work and plenty of it, a chance to show
+the other men what he could do, a battle to win! No humanitarian was he,
+but a fighter: each day he came to his office with the same battle lust.
+
+The office nurse had her back to him. When she turned, he faced an
+agreeable surprise. Instead of Miss Simpson, he faced a young and
+attractive girl, faintly familiar.
+
+“We tried to get you by telephone,” she explained. “I am from the
+hospital. Miss Simpson's father died this morning, and she knew you
+would have to have some one. I was just starting for my vacation, so
+they sent me.”
+
+“Rather a poor substitute for a vacation,” he commented.
+
+She was a very pretty girl. He had seen her before in the hospital, but
+he had never really noticed how attractive she was. Rather stunning
+she was, he thought. The combination of yellow hair and dark eyes
+was unusual. He remembered, just in time, to express regret at Miss
+Simpson's bereavement.
+
+“I am Miss Harrison,” explained the substitute, and held out his long
+white coat. The ceremony, purely perfunctory with Miss Simpson on duty,
+proved interesting, Miss Harrison, in spite of her high heels, being
+small and the young surgeon tall. When he was finally in the coat, she
+was rather flushed and palpitating.
+
+“But I KNEW your name, of course,” lied Dr. Max. “And--I'm sorry about
+the vacation.”
+
+After that came work. Miss Harrison was nimble and alert, but the
+surgeon worked quickly and with few words, was impatient when she could
+not find the things he called for, even broke into restrained profanity
+now and then. She went a little pale over her mistakes, but preserved
+her dignity and her wits. Now and then he found her dark eyes fixed
+on him, with something inscrutable but pleasing in their depths. The
+situation was rather piquant. Consciously he was thinking only of what
+he was doing. Subconsciously his busy ego was finding solace after last
+night's rebuff.
+
+Once, during the cleaning up between cases, he dropped to a personality.
+He was drying his hands, while she placed freshly sterilized instruments
+on a glass table.
+
+“You are almost a foreign type, Miss Harrison. Last year, in a London
+ballet, I saw a blonde Spanish girl who looked like you.”
+
+“My mother was a Spaniard.” She did not look up.
+
+Where Miss Simpson was in the habit of clumping through the morning in
+flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on
+the tiled floor. With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was
+essentially feminine, almost insistent. When he had time to notice it,
+it amused him that he did not find it annoying.
+
+Once, as she passed him a bistoury, he deliberately placed his fine
+hand over her fingers and smiled into her eyes. It was play for him; it
+lightened the day's work.
+
+Sidney was in the waiting-room. There had been no tedium in the
+morning's waiting. Like all imaginative people, she had the gift of
+dramatizing herself. She was seeing herself in white from head to
+foot, like this efficient young woman who came now and then to the
+waiting-room door; she was healing the sick and closing tired eyes; she
+was even imagining herself proposed to by an aged widower with grown
+children and quantities of money, one of her patients.
+
+She sat very demurely in the waiting-room with a magazine in her lap,
+and told her aged patient that she admired and respected him, but that
+she had given herself to the suffering poor.
+
+“Everything in the world that you want,” begged the elderly gentleman.
+“You should see the world, child, and I will see it again through your
+eyes. To Paris first for clothes and the opera, and then--”
+
+“But I do not love you,” Sidney replied, mentally but steadily. “In all
+the world I love only one man. He is--”
+
+She hesitated here. It certainly was not Joe, or K. Le Moyne of the
+gas office. It seem to her suddenly very sad that there was no one
+she loved. So many people went into hospitals because they had been
+disappointed in love.
+
+“Dr. Wilson will see you now.”
+
+She followed Miss Harrison into the consulting room. Dr. Max--not the
+gloved and hatted Dr. Max of the Street, but a new person, one she had
+never known--stood in his white office, tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired,
+competent, holding out his long, immaculate surgeon's hand, and smiling
+down at her.
+
+Men, like jewels, require a setting. A clerk on a high stool, poring
+over a ledger, is not unimpressive, or a cook over her stove. But place
+the cook on the stool, poring over the ledger! Dr. Max, who had lived
+all his life on the edge of Sidney's horizon, now, by the simple
+changing of her point of view, loomed large and magnificent. Perhaps
+he knew it. Certainly he stood very erect. Certainly, too, there was
+considerable manner in the way in which he asked Miss Harrison to go out
+and close the door behind her.
+
+Sidney's heart, considering what was happening to it, behaved very well.
+
+“For goodness' sake, Sidney,” said Dr. Max, “here you are a young lady
+and I've never noticed it!”
+
+This, of course, was not what he had intended to say, being staff and
+all that. But Sidney, visibly palpitant, was very pretty, much prettier
+than the Harrison girl, beating a tattoo with her heels in the next
+room.
+
+Dr. Max, belonging to the class of man who settles his tie every time he
+sees an attractive woman, thrust his hands into the pockets of his long
+white coat and surveyed her quizzically.
+
+“Did Dr. Ed tell you?”
+
+“Sit down. He said something about the hospital. How's your mother and
+Aunt Harriet?”
+
+“Very well--that is, mother's never quite well.” She was sitting forward
+on her chair, her wide young eyes on him. “Is that--is your nurse from
+the hospital here?”
+
+“Yes. But she's not my nurse. She's a substitute.”
+
+“The uniform is so pretty.” Poor Sidney! with all the things she had
+meant to say about a life of service, and that, although she was young,
+she was terribly in earnest.
+
+“It takes a lot of plugging before one gets the uniform. Look here,
+Sidney; if you are going to the hospital because of the uniform, and
+with any idea of soothing fevered brows and all that nonsense--”
+
+She interrupted him, deeply flushed. Indeed, no. She wanted to work.
+She was young and strong, and surely a pair of willing hands--that was
+absurd about the uniform. She had no silly ideas. There was so much to
+do in the world, and she wanted to help. Some people could give money,
+but she couldn't. She could only offer service. And, partly through
+earnestness and partly through excitement, she ended in a sort of
+nervous sob, and, going to the window, stood with her back to him.
+
+He followed her, and, because they were old neighbors, she did not
+resent it when he put his hand on her shoulder.
+
+“I don't know--of course, if you feel like that about it,” he said,
+“we'll see what can be done. It's hard work, and a good many times it
+seems futile. They die, you know, in spite of all we can do. And there
+are many things that are worse than death--”
+
+His voice trailed off. When he had started out in his profession, he
+had had some such ideal of service as this girl beside him. For just
+a moment, as he stood there close to her, he saw things again with the
+eyes of his young faith: to relieve pain, to straighten the crooked,
+to hurt that he might heal,--not to show the other men what he could
+do,--that had been his early creed. He sighed a little as he turned
+away.
+
+“I'll speak to the superintendent about you,” he said. “Perhaps you'd
+like me to show you around a little.”
+
+“When? To-day?”
+
+He had meant in a month, or a year. It was quite a minute before he
+replied:--
+
+“Yes, to-day, if you say. I'm operating at four. How about three
+o'clock?”
+
+She held out both hands, and he took them, smiling.
+
+“You are the kindest person I ever met.”
+
+“And--perhaps you'd better not say you are applying until we find out if
+there is a vacancy.”
+
+“May I tell one person?”
+
+“Mother?”
+
+“No. We--we have a roomer now. He is very much interested. I should like
+to tell him.”
+
+He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
+
+“Much interested! Is he in love with you?”
+
+“Mercy, no!”
+
+“I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than
+half in love with you myself!”
+
+Play for him--the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss
+Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how
+it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
+
+“Then we'll say at three,” she said calmly, and took an orderly and
+unflurried departure.
+
+But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the
+last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,--outgrowing Joe, had she
+only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,--had come that day into
+her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne.
+But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that
+she was leaving behind her.
+
+She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put
+it under his plate:--
+
+DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,--I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the
+surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish
+me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.
+
+K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft
+and the other “mealers” irritable with the heat, he ate little or no
+luncheon. Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again.
+To his jealous eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital.
+Sidney, all vibrant eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and
+Wilson, sardonically smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself.
+He drew a long breath, and thrust the note in his pocket.
+
+The little house across the way sat square in the sun. The shades of his
+windows had been lowered against the heat. K. Le Moyne made an impulsive
+movement toward it and checked himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le
+Moyne moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go
+by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap
+lay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of
+releasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to
+the point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of
+the apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red
+and white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
+
+“And so,” said K. Le Moyne, “you liked it all? It didn't startle you?”
+
+“Well, in one way, of course--you see, I didn't know it was quite like
+that: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, on
+top,--you know what I mean,--and the misery there just the same. Have
+you ever gone through a hospital?”
+
+K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head. For
+this excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pair
+of white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat. Sidney had been
+divided between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street would
+deem him overdressed.
+
+At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch and
+the bit of blue heaven overhead. He did not reply at once.
+
+“Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!” said Sidney to the pasteboard
+box.
+
+But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
+
+“I've been around hospitals a little. I suppose now there is no question
+about your going?”
+
+“The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr.
+Wilson's would certainly be given a chance.”
+
+“It is hard work, night and day.”
+
+“Do you think I am afraid of work?”
+
+“And--Joe?”
+
+Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
+
+“He is very silly. He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head.”
+
+“Such as--”
+
+“Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marry
+him, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready.”
+
+“Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?”
+
+“I haven't promised to marry him.”
+
+“But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to,
+better tell him, don't you think? What--what are these idiotic notions?”
+
+Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the
+box.
+
+“You can see how stupid he is, and--and young. For one thing, he's
+jealous of you!”
+
+“I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his
+suspicion is hardly flattering to me.”
+
+He smiled up at her.
+
+“I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He was
+furious. And that wasn't all.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the day
+we went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's for
+soda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic.”
+
+K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle
+of the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in two
+people, a man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy
+lover on the next stool. Now he could view things through Joe's tragic
+eyes. And there as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably
+the conversation turned to the young surgeon. Did they start with
+Reginald, with the condition of the morning-glory vines, with the
+proposition of taking up the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the
+Street, they ended with the younger Wilson.
+
+Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her
+life, was still on herself.
+
+“Mother is plaintively resigned--and Aunt Harriet has been a trump.
+She's going to keep her room. It's really up to you.”
+
+“To me?”
+
+“To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticed
+that you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up
+to you the other night. And she didn't object to this trip to-day. Of
+course, as she said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at all
+wild.”
+
+In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, God
+knew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old
+did this child think he was?
+
+“I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog,
+burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of
+custard. Lightning-conductor, too--your mother says she isn't afraid of
+storms if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course.”
+
+The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threw
+back his fine shoulders.
+
+“Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be,
+whatever his name is--we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I
+ever hear of Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon--”
+
+She smiled up at him. “You are looking very grand to-day. But you have
+grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out.”
+
+Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity
+of dress. It put him on his mettle.
+
+“How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?”
+
+She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the
+doubt.
+
+“Not over forty, I'm sure.”
+
+“I'm almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is not
+senility.”
+
+She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
+
+“Perhaps we'd better not tell mother,” she said. “You don't mind being
+thought older?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she
+harked back to the grass stains.
+
+“I'm afraid you're not saving, as you promised. Those are new clothes,
+aren't they?”
+
+“No, indeed. Bought years ago in England--the coat in London, the
+trousers in Bath, on a motor tour. Cost something like twelve shillings.
+Awfully cheap. They wear them for cricket.”
+
+That was a wrong move, of course. Sidney must hear about England; and
+she marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there.
+Poor Le Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here and
+there, clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
+
+“To think,” said Sidney, “that you have really been across the ocean! I
+never knew but one person who had been abroad. It is Dr. Max Wilson.”
+
+Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, was
+aroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
+
+“You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don't you?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“You talk about him rather a lot.”
+
+This was sheer recklessness, of course. He expected fury, annihilation.
+He did not look up, but busied himself with the luncheon. When the
+silence grew oppressive, he ventured to glance toward her. She was
+leaning forward, her chin cupped in her palms, staring out over the
+valley that stretched at their feet.
+
+“Don't speak to me for a minute or two,” she said. “I'm thinking over
+what you have just said.”
+
+Manlike, having raised the issue, K. would have given much to evade it.
+Not that he had owned himself in love with Sidney. Love was not for
+him. But into his loneliness and despair the girl had came like a ray of
+light. She typified that youth and hope that he had felt slipping away
+from him. Through her clear eyes he was beginning to see a new world.
+Lose her he must, and that he knew; but not this way.
+
+Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions to
+both depth and fury. He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, with
+this same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,
+while he snapped the shutter of a camera. He had that picture somewhere
+now; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only one
+who had met life and vanquished it.
+
+“I've known him all my life,” Sidney said at last. “You're perfectly
+right about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him. I'm being
+candid, because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank?
+I admire him--you'd have to see him in the hospital, with every one
+deferring to him and all that, to understand. And when you think of
+a man like that, who holds life and death in his hands, of course you
+rather thrill. I--I honestly believe that's all there is to it.”
+
+“If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion.” He tried to
+smile; succeeded faintly.
+
+“Well, of course, there's this, too. I know he'll never look at me.
+I'll be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a
+probationer. He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital at
+all.”
+
+“I see. Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would be
+different?”
+
+“If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me,” said Sidney solemnly,
+“I'd go out of my head with joy.”
+
+One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of living
+each day for itself. Having no past and no future, each day was worth
+exactly what it brought. He was to look back to this day with mingled
+feelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; the
+memory of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to
+herself, already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and,
+long, long after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and
+saved her by his steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward
+happening that closed the day.
+
+Sidney fell into the river.
+
+They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of a
+shamefaced tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K. The
+little squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had darted
+into the grass.
+
+“Ungrateful little beast!” said Sidney, and dried her eyes. “Do you
+suppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?”
+
+“He'll be all right,” K. replied. “The little beggar can take care of
+himself, if only--”
+
+“If only what?”
+
+“If only he isn't too friendly. He's apt to crawl into the pockets of
+any one who happens around.”
+
+She was alarmed at that. To make up for his indiscretion, K. suggested a
+descent to the river. She accepted eagerly, and he helped her down. That
+was another memory that outlasted the day--her small warm hand in his;
+the time she slipped and he caught her; the pain in her eyes at one of
+his thoughtless remarks.
+
+“I'm going to be pretty lonely,” he said, when she had paused in the
+descent and was taking a stone out of her low shoe. “Reginald gone, and
+you going! I shall hate to come home at night.” And then, seeing her
+wince: “I've been whining all day. For Heaven's sake, don't look like
+that. If there's one sort of man I detest more than another, it's a man
+who is sorry for himself. Do you suppose your mother would object if
+we stayed, out here at the hotel for supper? I've ordered a moon,
+orange-yellow and extra size.”
+
+“I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted.”
+
+“Then we'll stay.”
+
+“It's fearfully extravagant.”
+
+“I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital.”
+
+So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow. For,
+having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,
+slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water. K. happened
+to be looking in another direction. So it occurred that at one moment,
+Sidney sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly
+pretty, and knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep in
+water, much too startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under the
+rather trying circumstances. K. had not looked around. The splash had
+been a gentle one.
+
+“If you will be good enough,” said Sidney, with her chin well up, “to
+give me your hand or a pole or something--because if the river rises an
+inch I shall drown.”
+
+To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and saw
+her. He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up its
+slippery sides. He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
+
+“Well!” said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefully
+balanced.
+
+“Are you cold?”
+
+“Not a bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight.” Then,
+remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:--
+
+“Thank you for saving me.”
+
+“There wasn't any danger, really, unless--unless the river had risen.”
+
+And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first,
+perhaps, for months. He shook with it, struggled at the sight of her
+injured face to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety by
+fixing his eyes on the river-bank.
+
+“When you have quite finished,” said Sidney severely, “perhaps you will
+take me to the hotel. I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed.”
+
+He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet skirts clung to her; her
+shoes were sodden and heavy. She clung to him frantically, her eyes on
+the river below. With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died.
+He held her very carefully, very tenderly, as one holds something
+infinitely precious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital. It was a Wilson day, the
+young surgeon having six cases. One of the innovations Dr. Max had
+made was to change the hour for major operations from early morning to
+mid-afternoon. He could do as well later in the day,--his nerves were
+steady, and uncounted numbers of cigarettes did not make his hand
+shake,--and he hated to get up early.
+
+The staff had fallen into the way of attending Wilson's operations. His
+technique was good; but technique alone never gets a surgeon anywhere.
+Wilson was getting results. Even the most jealous of that most jealous
+of professions, surgery, had to admit that he got results.
+
+Operations were over for the afternoon. The last case had been
+wheeled out of the elevator. The pit of the operating-room was
+in disorder--towels everywhere, tables of instruments, steaming
+sterilizers. Orderlies were going about, carrying out linens, emptying
+pans. At a table two nurses were cleaning instruments and putting
+them away in their glass cases. Irrigators were being emptied, sponges
+recounted and checked off on written lists.
+
+In the midst of the confusion, Wilson stood giving last orders to the
+interne at his elbow. As he talked he scoured his hands and arms with a
+small brush; bits of lather flew off on to the tiled floor. His speech
+was incisive, vigorous. At the hospital they said his nerves were iron;
+there was no let-down after the day's work. The internes worshiped and
+feared him. He was just, but without mercy. To be able to work like
+that, so certainly, with so sure a touch, and to look like a Greek god!
+Wilson's only rival, a gynecologist named O'Hara, got results, too; but
+he sweated and swore through his operations, was not too careful as to
+asepsis, and looked like a gorilla.
+
+The day had been a hard one. The operating room nurses were fagged. Two
+or three probationers had been sent to help cleanup, and a senior nurse.
+Wilson's eyes caught the nurse's eyes as she passed him.
+
+“Here, too, Miss Harrison!” he said gayly. “Have they set you on my
+trail?”
+
+With the eyes of the room on her, the girl answered primly:--
+
+“I'm to be in your office in the mornings, Dr. Wilson, and anywhere I am
+needed in the afternoons.”
+
+“And your vacation?”
+
+“I shall take it when Miss Simpson comes back.”
+
+Although he went on at once with his conversation with the interne, he
+still heard the click of her heels about the room. He had not lost the
+fact that she had flushed when he spoke to her. The mischief that was
+latent in him came to the surface. When he had rinsed his hands, he
+followed her, carrying the towel to where she stood talking to the
+superintendent of the training school.
+
+“Thanks very much, Miss Gregg,” he said. “Everything went off nicely.”
+
+“I was sorry about that catgut. We have no trouble with what we prepare
+ourselves. But with so many operations--”
+
+He was in a magnanimous mood. He smiled at Miss Gregg, who was elderly
+and gray, but visibly his creature.
+
+“That's all right. It's the first time, and of course it will be the
+last.”
+
+“The sponge list, doctor.”
+
+He glanced over it, noting accurately sponges prepared, used, turned in.
+But he missed no gesture of the girl who stood beside Miss Gregg.
+
+“All right.” He returned the list. “That was a mighty pretty probationer
+I brought you yesterday.”
+
+Two small frowning lines appeared between Miss Harrison's dark brows.
+He caught them, caught her somber eyes too, and was amused and rather
+stimulated.
+
+“She is very young.”
+
+“Prefer 'em young,” said Dr. Max. “Willing to learn at that age. You'll
+have to watch her, though. You'll have all the internes buzzing around,
+neglecting business.”
+
+Miss Gregg rather fluttered. She was divided between her disapproval
+of internes at all times and of young probationers generally, and her
+allegiance to the brilliant surgeon whose word was rapidly becoming law
+in the hospital. When an emergency of the cleaning up called her away,
+doubt still in her eyes, Wilson was left alone with Miss Harrison.
+
+“Tired?” He adopted the gentle, almost tender tone that made most women
+his slaves.
+
+“A little. It is warm.”
+
+“What are you going to do this evening? Any lectures?”
+
+“Lectures are over for the summer. I shall go to prayers, and after that
+to the roof for air.”
+
+There was a note of bitterness in her voice. Under the eyes of the other
+nurses, she was carefully contained. They might have been outlining the
+morning's work at his office.
+
+“The hand lotion, please.”
+
+She brought it obediently and poured it into his cupped hands. The
+solutions of the operating-room played havoc with the skin: the
+surgeons, and especially Wilson, soaked their hands plentifully with a
+healing lotion.
+
+Over the bottle their eyes met again, and this time the girl smiled
+faintly.
+
+“Can't you take a little ride to-night and cool off? I'll have the car
+wherever you say. A ride and some supper--how does it sound? You could
+get away at seven--”
+
+“Miss Gregg is coming!”
+
+With an impassive face, the girl took the bottle away. The workers
+of the operating-room surged between them. An interne presented an
+order-book; moppers had come in and waited to clean the tiled floor.
+There seemed no chance for Wilson to speak to Miss Harrison again.
+
+But he was clever with the guile of the pursuing male. Eyes of all on
+him, he turned at the door of the wardrobe-room, where he would exchange
+his white garments for street clothing, and spoke to her over the heads
+of a dozen nurses.
+
+“That patient's address that I had forgotten, Miss Harrison, is the
+corner of the Park and Ellington Avenue.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+She played the game well, was quite calm. He admired her coolness.
+Certainly she was pretty, and certainly, too, she was interested in
+him. The hurt to his pride of a few nights before was healed. He went
+whistling into the wardrobe-room. As he turned he caught the interne's
+eye, and there passed between them a glance of complete comprehension.
+The interne grinned.
+
+The room was not empty. His brother was there, listening to the comments
+of O'Hara, his friendly rival.
+
+“Good work, boy!” said O'Hara, and clapped a hairy hand on his shoulder.
+“That last case was a wonder. I'm proud of you, and your brother here is
+indecently exalted. It was the Edwardes method, wasn't it? I saw it done
+at his clinic in New York.”
+
+“Glad you liked it. Yes. Edwardes was a pal at mine in Berlin. A great
+surgeon, too, poor old chap!”
+
+“There aren't three men in the country with the nerve and the hand for
+it.”
+
+O'Hara went out, glowing with his own magnanimity. Deep in his heart
+was a gnawing of envy--not for himself, but for his work. These young
+fellows with no family ties, who could run over to Europe and bring back
+anything new that was worth while, they had it all over the older men.
+Not that he would have changed things. God forbid!
+
+Dr. Ed stood by and waited while his brother got into his street
+clothes. He was rather silent. There were many times when he wished that
+their mother could have lived to see how he had carried out his promise
+to “make a man of Max.” This was one of them. Not that he took any
+credit for Max's brilliant career--but he would have liked her to know
+that things were going well. He had a picture of her over his office
+desk. Sometimes he wondered what she would think of his own untidy
+methods compared with Max's extravagant order--of the bag, for instance,
+with the dog's collar in it, and other things. On these occasions he
+always determined to clear out the bag.
+
+“I guess I'll be getting along,” he said. “Will you be home to dinner?”
+
+“I think not. I'll--I'm going to run out of town, and eat where it's
+cool.”
+
+The Street was notoriously hot in summer. When Dr. Max was newly home
+from Europe, and Dr. Ed was selling a painfully acquired bond or two
+to furnish the new offices downtown, the brothers had occasionally gone
+together, by way of the trolley, to the White Springs Hotel for supper.
+Those had been gala days for the older man. To hear names that he had
+read with awe, and mispronounced, most of his life, roll off Max's
+tongue--“Old Steinmetz” and “that ass of a Heydenreich”; to hear the
+medical and surgical gossip of the Continent, new drugs, new technique,
+the small heart-burnings of the clinics, student scandal--had brought
+into his drab days a touch of color. But that was over now. Max had new
+friends, new social obligations; his time was taken up. And pride would
+not allow the older brother to show how he missed the early days.
+
+Forty-two he was, and, what with sleepless nights and twenty years of
+hurried food, he looked fifty. Fifty, then, to Max's thirty.
+
+“There's a roast of beef. It's a pity to cook a roast for one.”
+
+Wasteful, too, this cooking of food for two and only one to eat it. A
+roast of beef meant a visit, in Dr. Ed's modest-paying clientele. He
+still paid the expenses of the house on the Street.
+
+“Sorry, old man; I've made another arrangement.”
+
+They left the hospital together. Everywhere the younger man received the
+homage of success. The elevator-man bowed and flung the doors open,
+with a smile; the pharmacy clerk, the doorkeeper, even the convalescent
+patient who was polishing the great brass doorplate, tendered their
+tribute. Dr. Ed looked neither to right nor left.
+
+At the machine they separated. But Dr. Ed stood for a moment with his
+hand on the car.
+
+“I was thinking, up there this afternoon,” he said slowly, “that I'm not
+sure I want Sidney Page to become a nurse.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“There's a good deal in life that a girl need not know--not, at least,
+until her husband tells her. Sidney's been guarded, and it's bound to be
+a shock.”
+
+“It's her own choice.”
+
+“Exactly. A child reaches out for the fire.”
+
+The motor had started. For the moment, at least, the younger Wilson had
+no interest in Sidney Page.
+
+“She'll manage all right. Plenty of other girls have taken the training
+and come through without spoiling their zest for life.”
+
+Already, as the car moved off, his mind was on his appointment for the
+evening.
+
+Sidney, after her involuntary bath in the river, had gone into temporary
+eclipse at the White Springs Hotel. In the oven of the kitchen stove sat
+her two small white shoes, stuffed with paper so that they might dry
+in shape. Back in a detached laundry, a sympathetic maid was ironing
+various soft white garments, and singing as she worked.
+
+Sidney sat in a rocking-chair in a hot bedroom. She was carefully
+swathed in a sheet from neck to toes, except for her arms, and she was
+being as philosophic as possible. After all, it was a good chance to
+think things over. She had very little time to think, generally.
+
+She meant to give up Joe Drummond. She didn't want to hurt him. Well,
+there was that to think over and a matter of probation dresses to be
+talked over later with her Aunt Harriet. Also, there was a great deal of
+advice to K. Le Moyne, who was ridiculously extravagant, before trusting
+the house to him. She folded her white arms and prepared to think over
+all these things. As a matter of fact, she went mentally, like an arrow
+to its mark, to the younger Wilson--to his straight figure in its white
+coat, to his dark eyes and heavy hair, to the cleft in his chin when he
+smiled.
+
+“You know, I have always been more than half in love with you myself...”
+
+Some one tapped lightly at the door. She was back again in the stuffy
+hotel room, clutching the sheet about her.
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“It's Le Moyne. Are you all right?”
+
+“Perfectly. How stupid it must be for you!”
+
+“I'm doing very well. The maid will soon be ready. What shall I order
+for supper?”
+
+“Anything. I'm starving.”
+
+Whatever visions K. Le Moyne may have had of a chill or of a feverish
+cold were dispelled by that.
+
+“The moon has arrived, as per specifications. Shall we eat on the
+terrace?”
+
+“I have never eaten on a terrace in my life. I'd love it.”
+
+“I think your shoes have shrunk.”
+
+“Flatterer!” She laughed. “Go away and order supper. And I can see fresh
+lettuce. Shall we have a salad?”
+
+K. Le Moyne assured her through the door that he would order a salad,
+and prepared to descend.
+
+But he stood for a moment in front of the closed door, for the mere
+sound of her moving, beyond it. Things had gone very far with the Pages'
+roomer that day in the country; not so far as they were to go, but far
+enough to let him see on the brink of what misery he stood.
+
+He could not go away. He had promised her to stay: he was needed. He
+thought he could have endured seeing her marry Joe, had she cared for
+the boy. That way, at least, lay safety for her. The boy had fidelity
+and devotion written large over him. But this new complication--her
+romantic interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her,
+with what he knew of the man--made him quail.
+
+From the top of the narrow staircase to the foot, and he had lived
+a year's torment! At the foot, however, he was startled out of his
+reverie. Joe Drummond stood there waiting for him, his blue eyes
+recklessly alight.
+
+“You--you dog!” said Joe.
+
+There were people in the hotel parlor. Le Moyne took the frenzied boy by
+the elbow and led him past the door to the empty porch.
+
+“Now,” he said, “if you will keep your voice down, I'll listen to what
+you have to say.”
+
+“You know what I've got to say.”
+
+This failing to draw from K. Le Moyne anything but his steady glance,
+Joe jerked his arm free, and clenched his fist.
+
+“What did you bring her out here for?”
+
+“I do not know that I owe you any explanation, but I am willing to
+give you one. I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic
+luncheon. Incidentally we brought the ground squirrel out and set him
+free.”
+
+He was sorry for the boy. Life not having been all beer and skittles to
+him, he knew that Joe was suffering, and was marvelously patient with
+him.
+
+“Where is she now?”
+
+“She had the misfortune to fall in the river. She is upstairs.” And,
+seeing the light of unbelief in Joe's eyes: “If you care to make a tour
+of investigation, you will find that I am entirely truthful. In the
+laundry a maid--”
+
+“She is engaged to me”--doggedly. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows
+it; and yet you bring her out here for a picnic! It's--it's damned
+rotten treatment.”
+
+His fist had unclenched. Before K. Le Moyne's eyes his own fell. He felt
+suddenly young and futile; his just rage turned to blustering in his
+ears.
+
+“Now, be honest with yourself. Is there really an engagement?”
+
+“Yes,” doggedly.
+
+“Even in that case, isn't it rather arrogant to say that--that the young
+lady in question can accept no ordinary friendly attentions from another
+man?”
+
+Utter astonishment left Joe almost speechless. The Street, of course,
+regarded an engagement as a setting aside of the affianced couple, an
+isolation of two, than which marriage itself was not more a solitude a
+deux. After a moment:--
+
+“I don't know where you came from,” he said, “but around here decent men
+cut out when a girl's engaged.”
+
+“I see!”
+
+“What's more, what do we know about you? Who are you, anyhow? I've
+looked you up. Even at your office they don't know anything. You may be
+all right, but how do I know it? And, even if you are, renting a room in
+the Page house doesn't entitle you to interfere with the family. You get
+her into trouble and I'll kill you!”
+
+It took courage, that speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches
+above him and growing a little white about the lips.
+
+“Are you going to say all these things to Sidney?”
+
+“Does she allow you to call her Sidney?”
+
+“Are you?”
+
+“I am. And I am going to find out why you were upstairs just now.”
+
+Perhaps never in his twenty-two years had young Drummond been so near a
+thrashing. Fury that he was ashamed of shook Le Moyne. For very fear of
+himself, he thrust his hands in the pockets of his Norfolk coat.
+
+“Very well,” he said. “You go to her with just one of these ugly
+insinuations, and I'll take mighty good care that you are sorry for it.
+I don't care to threaten. You're younger than I am, and lighter. But
+if you are going to behave like a bad child, you deserve a licking, and
+I'll give it to you.”
+
+An overflow from the parlor poured out on the porch. Le Moyne had got
+himself in hand somewhat. He was still angry, but the look in Joe's eyes
+startled him. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
+
+“You're wrong, old man,” he said. “You're insulting the girl you care
+for by the things you are thinking. And, if it's any comfort to you, I
+have no intention of interfering in any way. You can count me out. It's
+between you and her.” Joe picked his straw hat from a chair and stood
+turning it in his hands.
+
+“Even if you don't care for her, how do I know she isn't crazy about
+you?”
+
+“My word of honor, she isn't.”
+
+“She sends you notes to McKees'.”
+
+“Just to clear the air, I'll show it to you. It's no breach of
+confidence. It's about the hospital.”
+
+Into the breast pocket of his coat he dived and brought up a wallet.
+The wallet had had a name on it in gilt letters that had been carefully
+scraped off. But Joe did not wait to see the note.
+
+“Oh, damn the hospital!” he said--and went swiftly down the steps and
+into the gathering twilight of the June night.
+
+It was only when he reached the street-car, and sat huddled in a corner,
+that he remembered something.
+
+Only about the hospital--but Le Moyne had kept the note, treasured it!
+Joe was not subtle, not even clever; but he was a lover, and he knew the
+ways of love. The Pages' roomer was in love with Sidney whether he knew
+it or not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Carlotta Harrison pleaded a headache, and was excused from the
+operating-room and from prayers.
+
+“I'm sorry about the vacation,” Miss Gregg said kindly, “but in a day or
+two I can let you off. Go out now and get a little air.”
+
+The girl managed to dissemble the triumph in her eyes.
+
+“Thank you,” she said languidly, and turned away. Then: “About the
+vacation, I am not in a hurry. If Miss Simpson needs a few days to
+straighten things out, I can stay on with Dr. Wilson.”
+
+Young women on the eve of a vacation were not usually so reasonable.
+Miss Gregg was grateful.
+
+“She will probably need a week. Thank you. I wish more of the girls
+were as thoughtful, with the house full and operations all day and every
+day.”
+
+Outside the door of the anaesthetizing-room Miss Harrison's languor
+vanished. She sped along corridors and up the stairs, not waiting for
+the deliberate elevator. Inside of her room, she closed and bolted the
+door, and, standing before her mirror, gazed long at her dark eyes and
+bright hair. Then she proceeded briskly with her dressing.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was not a child. Though she was only three years older
+than Sidney, her experience of life was as of three to Sidney's one.
+The product of a curious marriage,--when Tommy Harrison of Harrison's
+Minstrels, touring Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of
+a Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,--she had certain qualities of
+both, a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse,
+complicated by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious
+bursts of temper, slow and smouldering vindictiveness. A passionate
+creature, in reality, smothered under hereditary Massachusetts caution.
+
+She was well aware of the risks of the evening's adventure. The only
+dread she had was of the discovery of her escapade by the hospital
+authorities. Lines were sharply drawn. Nurses were forbidden more than
+the exchange of professional conversation with the staff. In that
+world of her choosing, of hard work and little play, of service and
+self-denial and vigorous rules of conduct, discovery meant dismissal.
+
+She put on a soft black dress, open at the throat, and with a wide white
+collar and cuffs of some sheer material. Her yellow hair was drawn high
+under her low black hat. From her Spanish mother she had learned to
+please the man, not herself. She guessed that Dr. Max would wish her to
+be inconspicuous, and she dressed accordingly. Then, being a cautious
+person, she disarranged her bed slightly and thumped a hollow into
+her pillow. The nurses' rooms were subject to inspection, and she had
+pleaded a headache.
+
+She was exactly on time. Dr. Max, driving up to the corner five minutes
+late, found her there, quite matter-of-fact but exceedingly handsome,
+and acknowledged the evening's adventure much to his taste.
+
+“A little air first, and then supper--how's that?”
+
+“Air first, please. I'm very tired.”
+
+He turned the car toward the suburbs, and then, bending toward her,
+smiled into her eyes.
+
+“Well, this is life!”
+
+“I'm cool for the first time to-day.”
+
+After that they spoke very little. Even Wilson's superb nerves had
+felt the strain of the afternoon, and under the girl's dark eyes were
+purplish shadows. She leaned back, weary but luxuriously content.
+
+“Not uneasy, are you?”
+
+“Not particularly. I'm too comfortable. But I hope we're not seen.”
+
+“Even if we are, why not? You are going with me to a case. I've driven
+Miss Simpson about a lot.”
+
+It was almost eight when he turned the car into the drive of the White
+Springs Hotel. The six-to-eight supper was almost over. One or two motor
+parties were preparing for the moonlight drive back to the city. All
+around was virgin country, sweet with early summer odors of new-cut
+grass, of blossoming trees and warm earth. On the grass terrace over the
+valley, where ran Sidney's unlucky river, was a magnolia full of creamy
+blossoms among waxed leaves. Its silhouette against the sky was quaintly
+heart-shaped.
+
+Under her mask of languor, Carlotta's heart was beating wildly. What an
+adventure! What a night! Let him lose his head a little; she could keep
+hers. If she were skillful and played things right, who could tell? To
+marry him, to leave behind the drudgery of the hospital, to feel safe as
+she had not felt for years, that was a stroke to play for!
+
+The magnolia was just beside her. She reached up and, breaking off one
+of the heavy-scented flowers, placed it in the bosom of her black dress.
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne were dining together. The novelty of the
+experience had made her eyes shine like stars. She saw only the magnolia
+tree shaped like a heart, the terrace edged with low shrubbery, and
+beyond the faint gleam that was the river. For her the dish-washing
+clatter of the kitchen was stilled, the noises from the bar were lost in
+the ripple of the river; the scent of the grass killed the odor of stale
+beer that wafted out through the open windows. The unshaded glare of the
+lights behind her in the house was eclipsed by the crescent edge of the
+rising moon. Dinner was over. Sidney was experiencing the rare treat of
+after-dinner coffee.
+
+Le Moyne, grave and contained, sat across from her. To give so much
+pleasure, and so easily! How young she was, and radiant! No wonder the
+boy was mad about her. She fairly held out her arms to life.
+
+Ah, that was too bad! Another table was being brought; they were not to
+be alone. But, what roused him in violent resentment only appealed to
+Sidney's curiosity. “Two places!” she commented. “Lovers, of course. Or
+perhaps honeymooners.”
+
+K. tried to fall into her mood.
+
+“A box of candy against a good cigar, they are a stolid married couple.”
+
+“How shall we know?”
+
+“That's easy. If they loll back and watch the kitchen door, I win. If
+they lean forward, elbows on the table, and talk, you get the candy.”
+
+Sidney, who had been leaning forward, talking eagerly over the table,
+suddenly straightened and flushed.
+
+Carlotta Harrison came out alone. Although the tapping of her heels was
+dulled by the grass, although she had exchanged her cap for the black
+hat, Sidney knew her at once. A sort of thrill ran over her. It was the
+pretty nurse from Dr. Wilson's office. Was it possible--but of
+course not! The book of rules stated explicitly that such things were
+forbidden.
+
+“Don't turn around,” she said swiftly. “It is the Miss Harrison I told
+you about. She is looking at us.”
+
+Carlotta's eyes were blinded for a moment by the glare of the house
+lights. She dropped into her chair, with a flash of resentment at the
+proximity of the other table. She languidly surveyed its two occupants.
+Then she sat up, her eyes on Le Moyne's grave profile turned toward the
+valley.
+
+Lucky for her that Wilson had stopped in the bar, that Sidney's
+instinctive good manners forbade her staring, that only the edge of the
+summer moon shone through the trees. She went white and clutched the
+edge of the table, with her eyes closed. That gave her quick brain a
+chance. It was madness, June madness. She was always seeing him even in
+her dreams. This man was older, much older. She looked again.
+
+She had not been mistaken. Here, and after all these months! K. Le
+Moyne, quite unconscious of her presence, looked down into the valley.
+
+Wilson appeared on the wooden porch above the terrace, and stood, his
+eyes searching the half light for her. If he came down to her, the man
+at the next table might turn, would see her--
+
+She rose and went swiftly back toward the hotel. All the gayety was
+gone out of the evening for her, but she forced a lightness she did not
+feel:--
+
+“It is so dark and depressing out there--it makes me sad.”
+
+“Surely you do not want to dine in the house?”
+
+“Do you mind?”
+
+“Just as you wish. This is your evening.”
+
+But he was not pleased. The prospect of the glaring lights and soiled
+linen of the dining-room jarred on his aesthetic sense. He wanted a
+setting for himself, for the girl. Environment was vital to him. But
+when, in the full light of the moon, he saw the purplish shadows under
+her eyes, he forgot his resentment. She had had a hard day. She was
+tired. His easy sympathies were roused. He leaned over and ran his and
+caressingly along her bare forearm.
+
+“Your wish is my law--to-night,” he said softly.
+
+After all, the evening was a disappointment to him. The spontaneity had
+gone out of it, for some reason. The girl who had thrilled to his glance
+those two mornings in his office, whose somber eyes had met his fire for
+fire, across the operating-room, was not playing up. She sat back in her
+chair, eating little, starting at every step. Her eyes, which by every
+rule of the game should have been gazing into his, were fixed on the
+oilcloth-covered passage outside the door.
+
+“I think, after all, you are frightened!”
+
+“Terribly.”
+
+“A little danger adds to the zest of things. You know what Nietzsche
+says about that.”
+
+“I am not fond of Nietzsche.” Then, with an effort: “What does he say?”
+
+“Two things are wanted by the true man--danger and play. Therefore he
+seeketh woman as the most dangerous of toys.”
+
+“Women are dangerous only when you think of them as toys. When a man
+finds that a woman can reason,--do anything but feel,--he regards her
+as a menace. But the reasoning woman is really less dangerous than the
+other sort.”
+
+This was more like the real thing. To talk careful abstractions like
+this, with beneath each abstraction its concealed personal application,
+to talk of woman and look in her eyes, to discuss new philosophies with
+their freedoms, to discard old creeds and old moralities--that was
+his game. Wilson became content, interested again. The girl was
+nimble-minded. She challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to
+defend it. With the conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and
+his companion must surely have gone, she gained ease.
+
+It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten
+o'clock.
+
+Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself. He had had the
+rest he needed in congenial company. The girl stimulated his interest.
+She was mental, but not too mental. And he approved of his own attitude.
+He had been discreet. Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But
+he felt confident that she would not talk.
+
+As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney
+was there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and
+looked up at her. Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness. Sidney was a
+mighty pretty girl. The June night was in his blood. He was sorry he had
+not kissed Carlotta good-night. He rather thought, now he looked back,
+she had expected it.
+
+As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing
+in the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.
+
+Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.
+
+“That you, Joe?” he called.
+
+But the boy went on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine
+was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K.
+in the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.
+
+The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night
+before she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her
+mother until the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her
+“Daily Thoughts” reading.
+
+Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant
+angle. She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its
+morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the
+Wilson house across the Street. She looked mostly at the Wilson house.
+
+K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room. She could hear him tramping up and
+down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier
+pipe.
+
+All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up--except Joe. She
+would have liked to get that clear, too. She wanted him to know how she
+felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did not
+want to hurt him. But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew
+now that she would never marry him. She thought she would never marry;
+but, if she did, it would be a man doing a man's work in the world. Her
+eyes turned wistfully to the house across the Street.
+
+K.'s lamp still burned overhead, but his restless tramping about had
+ceased. He must be reading--he read a great deal. She really ought to go
+to bed. A neighborhood cat came stealthily across the Street, and stared
+up at the little balcony with green-glowing eyes.
+
+“Come on, Bill Taft,” she said. “Reginald is gone, so you are welcome.
+Come on.”
+
+Joe Drummond, passing the house for the fourth time that evening, heard
+her voice, and hesitated uncertainly on the pavement.
+
+“That you, Sid?” he called softly.
+
+“Joe! Come in.”
+
+“It's late; I'd better get home.”
+
+The misery in his voice hurt her.
+
+“I'll not keep you long. I want to talk to you.”
+
+He came slowly toward her.
+
+“Well?” he said hoarsely.
+
+“You're not very kind to me, Joe.”
+
+“My God!” said poor Joe. “Kind to you! Isn't the kindest thing I can do
+to keep out of your way?”
+
+“Not if you are hating me all the time.”
+
+“I don't hate you.”
+
+“Then why haven't you been to see me? If I have done anything--” Her
+voice was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
+
+“You haven't done anything but--show me where I get off.”
+
+He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
+
+“If that's the way you feel about it--”
+
+“I'm not blaming you. I was a fool to think you'd ever care about me. I
+don't know that I feel so bad--about the thing. I've been around seeing
+some other girls, and I notice they're glad to see me, and treat me
+right, too.” There was boyish bravado in his voice. “But what makes me
+sick is to have everyone saying you've jilted me.”
+
+“Good gracious! Why, Joe, I never promised.”
+
+“Well, we look at it in different ways; that's all. I took it for a
+promise.”
+
+Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled. He bent
+forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
+
+“I'm crazy about you, Sidney. That's the truth. I wish I could die!”
+
+The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and
+rubbed against the boy's quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked
+the morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney,
+facing for the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather
+frightened, in her chair.
+
+“You don't mean that!”
+
+“I mean it, all right. If it wasn't for the folks, I'd jump in the
+river. I lied when I said I'd been to see other girls. What do I want
+with other girls? I want you!”
+
+“I'm not worth all that.”
+
+“No girl's worth what I've been going through,” he retorted bitterly.
+“But that doesn't help any. I don't eat; I don't sleep--I'm afraid
+sometimes of the way I feel. When I saw you at the White Springs with
+that roomer chap--”
+
+“Ah! You were there!”
+
+“If I'd had a gun I'd have killed him. I thought--” So far, out of sheer
+pity, she had left her hand in his. Now she drew it away.
+
+“This is wild, silly talk. You'll be sorry to-morrow.”
+
+“It's the truth,” doggedly.
+
+But he made a clutch at his self-respect. He was acting like a crazy
+boy, and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
+
+“When are you going to the hospital?”
+
+“To-morrow.”
+
+“Is that Wilson's hospital?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Alas for his resolve! The red haze of jealousy came again. “You'll be
+seeing him every day, I suppose.”
+
+“I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and
+a hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you're not
+rational.”
+
+“No,” he said heavily, “I'm not. If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd
+rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk
+about Wilson.”
+
+“It isn't necessary to malign my friends.” He rose.
+
+“I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep
+Reginald. He'd be something to remember you by.”
+
+“One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the
+country. I'm sorry, Joe. You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?”
+
+“If I do, do you think you may change your mind?”
+
+“I'm afraid not.”
+
+“I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the
+better.” But his next words belied his intention. “And Wilson had better
+lookout. I'll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around
+you--well, he'd better look out!”
+
+That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell. He had reached the
+breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out
+to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact
+that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
+
+Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want
+it--this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride and
+threats. Lovers in fiction were of two classes--the accepted ones, who
+loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in
+despair, but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future
+with Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt
+aggrieved, insulted. She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously;
+and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its
+sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and
+set an imaginary dog after it. Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she
+went in and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.
+
+Le Moyne's light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She
+paused outside the door.
+
+“Are you sleepy?”--very softly.
+
+There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: “No,
+indeed.”
+
+“I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow.”
+
+“Just a minute.”
+
+From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray
+coat. The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the
+corridor.
+
+“I believe you had forgotten!”
+
+“I? Certainly not. I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a
+visitor.”
+
+“Only Joe Drummond.”
+
+He gazed down at her quizzically.
+
+“And--is Joe more reasonable?”
+
+“He will be. He knows now that I--that I shall not marry him.”
+
+“Poor chap! He'll buck up, of course. But it's a little hard just now.”
+
+“I believe you think I should have married him.”
+
+“I am only putting myself in his place and realizing--When do you
+leave?”
+
+“Just after breakfast.”
+
+“I am going very early. Perhaps--”
+
+He hesitated. Then, hurriedly:--
+
+“I got a little present for you--nothing much, but your mother was quite
+willing. In fact, we bought it together.”
+
+He went back into his room, and returned with a small box.
+
+“With all sorts of good luck,” he said, and placed it in her hands.
+
+“How dear of you! And may I look now?”
+
+“I wish you would. Because, if you would rather have something else--”
+
+She opened the box with excited fingers. Ticking away on its satin bed
+was a small gold watch.
+
+“You'll need it, you see,” he explained nervously, “It wasn't
+extravagant under the circumstances. Your mother's watch, which you had
+intended to take, had no second-hand. You'll need a second-hand to take
+pulses, you know.”
+
+“A watch,” said Sidney, eyes on it. “A dear little watch, to pin on and
+not put in a pocket. Why, you're the best person!”
+
+“I was afraid you might think it presumptuous,” he said. “I haven't any
+right, of course. I thought of flowers--but they fade and what have you?
+You said that, you know, about Joe's roses. And then, your mother said
+you wouldn't be offended--”
+
+“Don't apologize for making me so happy!” she cried. “It's wonderful,
+really. And the little hand is for pulses! How many queer things you
+know!”
+
+After that she must pin it on, and slip in to stand before his mirror
+and inspect the result. It gave Le Moyne a queer thrill to see her there
+in the room among his books and his pipes. It make him a little sick,
+too, in view of to-morrow and the thousand-odd to-morrows when she would
+not be there.
+
+“I've kept you up shamefully,'” she said at last, “and you get up so
+early. I shall write you a note from the hospital, delivering a little
+lecture on extravagance--because how can I now, with this joy shining on
+me? And about how to keep Katie in order about your socks, and all sorts
+of things. And--and now, good-night.”
+
+She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping a little to
+pass under the low chandelier.
+
+“Good-night,” said Sidney.
+
+“Good-bye--and God bless you.”
+
+She went out, and he closed the door softly behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they
+were chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young women
+coming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were
+medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with
+great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and
+lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass
+buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were
+bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played
+little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over
+all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent of the
+training-school, dubbed the Head, for short.
+
+Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission,
+Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept and
+dusted the wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled
+bandages--did everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had come
+to do.
+
+At night she did not go home. She sat on the edge of her narrow white
+bed and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, and
+practiced taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s little
+watch.
+
+Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to be
+waited for and cherished. One was when, early in the afternoon, with
+the ward in spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, the
+tables covered with their red covers, and the only sound the drone of
+the bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the
+door on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery
+greeting. At these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the
+ticking of the little watch.
+
+The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night
+nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys,
+having reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in
+their small parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over the
+exaltation of that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her
+healing and peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work
+meant: charity and its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace.
+Into the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired
+hands.
+
+“The Lord is my shepherd,” read the Head out of her worn Bible; “I shall
+not want.”
+
+And the nurses: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth
+me beside the still waters.”
+
+And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, “And I will
+dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Now and then there was a death
+behind one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routine
+of the ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by
+the others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on
+the record, and the body was taken away.
+
+At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to
+death. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Then
+she found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned.
+These things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy made
+them no less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the
+angels who keep the Great Record.
+
+On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and went
+to church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service.
+So it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it was
+only for a short time. Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, and
+to inspect the balcony, now finished.
+
+But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.
+
+There was a change in Sidney. Le Moyne was quick to see it. She was
+a trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Her mouth was
+tender, as always, but he thought it drooped. There was a new atmosphere
+of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.
+
+They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk
+shade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been a
+gift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister,
+so that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above
+the reverend gentleman.
+
+K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the
+pipe in his teeth.
+
+“And how have things been going?” asked Sidney practically.
+
+“Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,
+has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have
+picked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask
+you about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new
+fashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--”
+
+Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.
+
+“There,” she said--“I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making an
+old woman of you already.” Her tone was tragic.
+
+“Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the
+old way, with the bride's face covered.”
+
+He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.
+
+“Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread. It has more bread and
+fewer air-holes. One cake of yeast--”
+
+Sidney sprang to her feet.
+
+“It's perfectly terrible!” she cried. “Because you rent a room in
+this house is no reason why you should give up your personality and
+your--intelligence. Not but that it's good for you. But Katie has
+made bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and if
+Christine can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married.
+Mother says you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the house
+before you go to bed. I--I never meant you to adopt the family!”
+
+K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.
+
+“Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch,” he said. “And the
+groceryman has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, and
+weigh everything.”
+
+“You are evading the question.”
+
+“Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--for
+some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I
+lock up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a
+suggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward.”
+
+Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older than
+she had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white. And yet,
+he was just thirty. That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like a
+boy. But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of his
+occupancy of the second-floor front.
+
+“And now,” he said cheerfully, “what about yourself? You've lost a lot
+of illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's a
+step.”
+
+“Life,” observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world,
+“life is a terrible thing, K. We think we've got it, and--it's got us.”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“When I think of how simple I used to think it all was! One grew up and
+got married, and--and perhaps had children. And when one got very
+old, one died. Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists of
+exceptions--children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die before
+they are old. And”--this took an effort, but she looked at him
+squarely--“and people who have children, but are not married. It all
+rather hurts.”
+
+“All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting.”
+
+Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiar
+objects with tender hands. K. watched her. There was this curious
+element in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on the
+guise of friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonely
+hours that it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch of
+her hand or a glance from her clear eyes.
+
+Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently,
+so that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.
+
+“There is something else,” she said absently. “I cannot talk it over
+with mother. There is a girl in the ward--”
+
+“A patient?”
+
+“Yes. She is quite pretty. She has had typhoid, but she is a little
+better. She's--not a good person.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“At first I couldn't bear to go near her. I shivered when I had to
+straighten her bed. I--I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk this
+out with someone. I worried a lot about it, because, although at first I
+hated her, now I don't. I rather like her.”
+
+She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, this is the question. She's getting better. She'll be able to
+go out soon. Don't you think something ought to be done to keep her
+from--going back?”
+
+There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now. She was so young to face all this;
+and yet, since face it she must, how much better to have her do it
+squarely.
+
+“Does she want to change her mode of life?”
+
+“I don't know, of course. There are some things one doesn't discuss. She
+cares a great deal for some man. The other day I propped her up in bed
+and gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on the
+floor, and she was crying. The other patients avoid her, and it was
+some time before I noticed it. The next day she told me that the man
+was going to marry some one else. 'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' she
+said; 'but he might have told me.'”
+
+Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provide
+Sidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training. He told her
+that certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reform
+the world. Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.
+
+“Help them all you can,” he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly
+didactic. “Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest to
+the Almighty.”
+
+Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of the
+world, she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christine
+and her fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time for
+a question between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress
+from the kitchen to the front door.
+
+“How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?” His tone was
+carefully casual.
+
+“Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. It
+makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the
+staff never even see the probationers.”
+
+“And--the glamour persists?” He smiled down at her.
+
+“I think he is very wonderful,” said Sidney valiantly.
+
+Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Her
+voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide
+and showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her
+all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who had
+met her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked a
+cigarette in the hall.
+
+“You poor thing!” said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's.
+“Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of it
+all; but I said--”
+
+“I take that back,” Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. “There
+is the look of willing martyrdom in her face. Where is Reginald? I've
+brought some nuts for him.”
+
+“Reginald is back in the woods again.”
+
+“Now, look here,” he said solemnly. “When we arranged about these rooms,
+there were certain properties that went with them--the lady next door
+who plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and
+Reginald. If you must take something to the woods, why not the minuet
+person?”
+
+Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively well
+dressed. This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, with
+an English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture. The
+Street said that he was “wild,” and that to get into the Country Club
+set Christine was losing more than she was gaining.
+
+Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. just
+inside.
+
+“It's rather a queer way to live, of course,” she said. “But Palmer is a
+pauper, practically. We are going to take our meals at home for a while.
+You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house--a
+car, for instance. We'll need one for running out to the Country Club to
+dinner. Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, it
+will be a cheap one. And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it.
+He's crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing.”
+
+K. had never known a married couple to take two rooms and go to the
+bride's mother's for meals in order to keep a car. He looked faintly
+dazed. Also, certain sophistries of his former world about a cheap
+chauffeur being costly in the end rose in his mind and were carefully
+suppressed.
+
+“You'll find a car a great comfort, I'm sure,” he said politely.
+
+Christine considered K. rather distinguished. She liked his graying hair
+and steady eyes, and insisted on considering his shabbiness a pose. She
+was conscious that she made a pretty picture in the French window, and
+preened herself like a bright bird.
+
+“You'll come out with us now and then, I hope.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Isn't it odd to think that we are going to be practically one family!”
+
+“Odd, but very pleasant.”
+
+He caught the flash of Christine's smile, and smiled back. Christine was
+glad she had decided to take the rooms, glad that K. lived there. This
+thing of marriage being the end of all things was absurd. A married
+woman should have men friends; they kept her up. She would take him to
+the Country Club. The women would be mad to know him. How clean-cut his
+profile was!
+
+Across the Street, the Rosenfeld boy had stopped by Dr. Wilson's car,
+and was eyeing it with the cool, appraising glance of the street
+boy whose sole knowledge of machinery has been acquired from the
+clothes-washer at home. Joe Drummond, eyes carefully ahead, went up the
+Street. Tillie, at Mrs. McKee's, stood in the doorway and fanned herself
+with her apron. Max Wilson came out of the house and got into his car.
+For a minute, perhaps, all the actors, save Carlotta and Dr. Ed, were on
+the stage. It was that bete noir of the playwright, an ensemble; K. Le
+Moyne and Sidney, Palmer Howe, Christine, Tillie, the younger Wilson,
+Joe, even young Rosenfeld, all within speaking distance, almost touching
+distance, gathered within and about the little house on a side street
+which K. at first grimly and now tenderly called “home.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over,
+a small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee,
+made his way along the Street. He moved with the air of one having a
+definite destination but a by no means definite reception.
+
+As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus and
+maple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street. At the
+door of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped. Owing to a slight change
+in the grade of the street, the McKee house had no stoop, but one flat
+doorstep. Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement,
+and this the stranger did. It gave him a curious appearance of being
+ready to cut and run if things were unfavorable.
+
+For a moment things were indeed unfavorable. Mrs. McKee herself opened
+the door. She recognized him at once, but no smile met the nervous one
+that formed itself on the stranger's face.
+
+“Oh, it's you, is it?”
+
+“It's me, Mrs. McKee.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+He made a conciliatory effort.
+
+“I was thinking, as I came along,” he said, “that you and the neighbors
+had better get after these here caterpillars. Look at them maples, now.”
+
+“If you want to see Tillie, she's busy.”
+
+“I only want to say how-d 'ye-do. I'm just on my way through town.”
+
+“I'll say it for you.”
+
+A certain doggedness took the place of his tentative smile.
+
+“I'll say it to myself, I guess. I don't want any unpleasantness, but
+I've come a good ways to see her and I'll hang around until I do.”
+
+Mrs. McKee knew herself routed, and retreated to the kitchen.
+
+“You're wanted out front,” she said.
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“Never mind. Only, my advice to you is, don't be a fool.”
+
+Tillie went suddenly pale. The hands with which she tied a white apron
+over her gingham one were shaking.
+
+Her visitor had accepted the open door as permission to enter and was
+standing in the hall.
+
+He went rather white himself when he saw Tillie coming toward him down
+the hall. He knew that for Tillie this visit would mean that he was
+free--and he was not free. Sheer terror of his errand filled him.
+
+“Well, here I am, Tillie.”
+
+“All dressed up and highly perfumed!” said poor Tillie, with the
+question in her eyes. “You're quite a stranger, Mr. Schwitter.”
+
+“I was passing through, and I just thought I'd call around and tell
+you--My God, Tillie, I'm glad to see you!”
+
+She made no reply, but opened the door into the cool and shaded little
+parlor. He followed her in and closed the door behind him.
+
+“I couldn't help it. I know I promised.”
+
+“Then she--?”
+
+“She's still living. Playing with paper dolls--that's the latest.”
+
+Tillie sat down suddenly on one of the stiff chairs. Her lips were as
+white as her face.
+
+“I thought, when I saw you--”
+
+“I was afraid you'd think that.”
+
+Neither spoke for a moment. Tillie's hands twisted nervously in her lap.
+Mr. Schwitter's eyes were fixed on the window, which looked back on the
+McKee yard.
+
+“That spiraea back there's not looking very good. If you'll save the
+cigar butts around here and put them in water, and spray it, you'll kill
+the lice.”
+
+Tillie found speech at last.
+
+“I don't know why you come around bothering me,” she said dully. “I've
+been getting along all right; now you come and upset everything.”
+
+Mr. Schwitter rose and took a step toward her.
+
+“Well, I'll tell you why I came. Look at me. I ain't getting any
+younger, am I? Time's going on, and I'm wanting you all the time.
+And what am I getting? What've I got out of life, anyhow? I'm lonely,
+Tillie!”
+
+“What's that got to do with me?”
+
+“You're lonely, too, ain't you?”
+
+“Me? I haven't got time to be. And, anyhow, there's always a crowd
+here.”
+
+“You can be lonely in a crowd, and I guess--is there any one around here
+you like better than me?”
+
+“Oh, what's the use!” cried poor Tillie. “We can talk our heads off and
+not get anywhere. You've got a wife living, and, unless you intend to do
+away with her, I guess that's all there is to it.”
+
+“Is that all, Tillie? Haven't you got a right to be happy?”
+
+She was quick of wit, and she read his tone as well as his words.
+
+“You get out of here--and get out quick!”
+
+She had jumped to her feet; but he only looked at her with understanding
+eyes.
+
+“I know,” he said. “That's the way I thought of it at first. Maybe I've
+just got used to the idea, but it doesn't seem so bad to me now. Here
+are you, drudging for other people when you ought to have a place all
+your own--and not gettin' younger any more than I am. Here's both of us
+lonely. I'd be a good husband to you, Till--because, whatever it'd be in
+law, I'd be your husband before God.”
+
+Tillie cowered against the door, her eyes on his. Here before her,
+embodied in this man, stood all that she had wanted and never had. He
+meant a home, tenderness, children, perhaps. He turned away from the
+look in her eyes and stared out of the front window.
+
+“Them poplars out there ought to be taken away,” he said heavily.
+“They're hell on sewers.”
+
+Tillie found her voice at last:--
+
+“I couldn't do it, Mr. Schwitter. I guess I'm a coward. Maybe I'll be
+sorry.”
+
+“Perhaps, if you got used to the idea--”
+
+“What's that to do with the right and wrong of it?”
+
+“Maybe I'm queer. It don't seem like wrongdoing to me. It seems to
+me that the Lord would make an exception of us if He knew the
+circumstances. Perhaps, after you get used to the idea--What I thought
+was like this. I've got a little farm about seven miles from the city
+limits, and the tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebody
+motors out from town and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper. There ain't
+much in the nursery business anymore. These landscape fellows buy their
+stuff direct, and the middleman's out. I've got a good orchard, and
+there's a spring, so I could put running water in the house. I'd be good
+to you, Tillie,--I swear it. It'd be just the same as marriage. Nobody
+need know it.”
+
+“You'd know it. You wouldn't respect me.”
+
+“Don't a man respect a woman that's got courage enough to give up
+everything for him?”
+
+Tillie was crying softly into her apron. He put a work-hardened hand on
+her head.
+
+“It isn't as if I'd run around after women,” he said. “You're the only
+one, since Maggie--” He drew a long breath. “I'll give you time to think
+it over. Suppose I stop in to-morrow morning. It doesn't commit you to
+anything to talk it over.”
+
+There had been no passion in the interview, and there was none in
+the touch of his hand. He was not young, and the tragic loneliness of
+approaching old age confronted him. He was trying to solve his problem
+and Tillie's, and what he had found was no solution, but a compromise.
+
+“To-morrow morning, then,” he said quietly, and went out the door.
+
+All that hot August morning Tillie worked in a daze. Mrs. McKee watched
+her and said nothing. She interpreted the girl's white face and set lips
+as the result of having had to dismiss Schwitter again, and looked for
+time to bring peace, as it had done before.
+
+Le Moyne came late to his midday meal. For once, the mental anaesthesia
+of endless figures had failed him. On his way home he had drawn his
+small savings from the bank, and mailed them, in cash and registered, to
+a back street in the slums of a distant city. He had done this before,
+and always with a feeling of exaltation, as if, for a time at least,
+the burden he carried was lightened. But to-day he experienced no
+compensatory relief. Life was dull and stale to him, effort ineffectual.
+At thirty a man should look back with tenderness, forward with hope. K.
+Le Moyne dared not look back, and had no desire to look ahead into empty
+years.
+
+Although he ate little, the dining-room was empty when he finished.
+Usually he had some cheerful banter for Tillie, to which she responded
+in kind. But, what with the heat and with heaviness of spirit, he did
+not notice her depression until he rose.
+
+“Why, you're not sick, are you, Tillie?”
+
+“Me? Oh, no. Low in my mind, I guess.”
+
+“It's the heat. It's fearful. Look here. If I send you two tickets to a
+roof garden where there's a variety show, can't you take a friend and go
+to-night?”
+
+“Thanks; I guess I'll not go out.”
+
+Then, unexpectedly, she bent her head against a chair-back and fell to
+silent crying. K. let her cry for a moment. Then:--
+
+“Now--tell me about it.”
+
+“I'm just worried; that's all.”
+
+“Let's see if we can't fix up the worries. Come, now, out with them!”
+
+“I'm a wicked woman, Mr. Le Moyne.”
+
+“Then I'm the person to tell it to. I--I'm pretty much a lost soul
+myself.”
+
+He put an arm over her shoulders and drew her up, facing him.
+
+“Suppose we go into the parlor and talk it out. I'll bet things are not
+as bad as you imagine.”
+
+But when, in the parlor that had seen Mr. Schwitter's strange proposal
+of the morning, Tillie poured out her story, K.'s face grew grave.
+
+“The wicked part is that I want to go with him,” she finished. “I keep
+thinking about being out in the country, and him coming into supper, and
+everything nice for him and me cleaned up and waiting--O my God! I've
+always been a good woman until now.”
+
+“I--I understand a great deal better than you think I do. You're not
+wicked. The only thing is--”
+
+“Go on. Hit me with it.”
+
+“You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, it
+won't do her any harm. It's only--if there are children.”
+
+“I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!”
+
+“Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot give
+them a name--don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that
+I--But no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been tried
+before, Tillie, and it doesn't pan out.”
+
+He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. She
+had acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised
+to talk to him again before making a decision one way or the other. But
+against his abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in
+Tillie the hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were
+fighting against the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losing
+battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The hot August days dragged on. Merciless sunlight beat in through the
+slatted shutters of ward windows. At night, from the roof to which the
+nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding
+roofs were seen to be covered with sleepers. Children dozed precariously
+on the edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque
+postures of sleep.
+
+There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air. Even the nurses,
+stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not at all.
+Miss Dana, in Sidney's ward, went down with a low fever, and for a day
+or so Sidney and Miss Grange got along as best they could. Sidney worked
+like two or more, performed marvels of bed-making, learned to give
+alcohol baths for fever with the maximum of result and the minimum
+of time, even made rounds with a member of the staff and came through
+creditably.
+
+Dr. Ed Wilson had sent a woman patient into the ward, and his visits
+were the breath of life to the girl.
+
+“How're they treating you?” he asked her, one day, abruptly.
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“Look at me squarely. You're pretty and you're young. Some of them will
+try to take it out of you. That's human nature. Has anyone tried it
+yet?”
+
+Sidney looked distressed.
+
+“Positively, no. It's been hot, and of course it's troublesome to tell
+me everything. I--I think they're all very kind.”
+
+He reached out a square, competent hand, and put it over hers.
+
+“We miss you in the Street,” he said. “It's all sort of dead there since
+you left. Joe Drummond doesn't moon up and down any more, for one thing.
+What was wrong between you and Joe, Sidney?”
+
+“I didn't want to marry him; that's all.”
+
+“That's considerable. The boy's taking it hard.”
+
+Then, seeing her face:--
+
+“But you're right, of course. Don't marry anyone unless you can't live
+without him. That's been my motto, and here I am, still single.”
+
+He went out and down the corridor. He had known Sidney all his life.
+During the lonely times when Max was at college and in Europe, he had
+watched her grow from a child to a young girl. He did not suspect for
+a moment that in that secret heart of hers he sat newly enthroned, in
+a glow of white light, as Max's brother; that the mere thought that
+he lived in Max's house (it was, of course Max's house to her), sat at
+Max's breakfast table, could see him whenever he wished, made the touch
+of his hand on hers a benediction and a caress.
+
+Sidney finished folding linen and went back to the ward. It was Friday
+and a visiting day. Almost every bed had its visitor beside it; but
+Sidney, running an eye over the ward, found the girl of whom she had
+spoken to Le Moyne quite alone. She was propped up in bed, reading; but
+at each new step in the corridor hope would spring into her eyes and die
+again.
+
+“Want anything, Grace?”
+
+“Me? I'm all right. If these people would only get out and let me read
+in peace--Say, sit down and talk to me, won't you? It beats the mischief
+the way your friends forget you when you're laid up in a place like
+this.”
+
+“People can't always come at visiting hours. Besides, it's hot.”
+
+“A girl I knew was sick here last year, and it wasn't too hot for me to
+trot in twice a week with a bunch of flowers for her. Do you think she's
+been here once? She hasn't.”
+
+Then, suddenly:--
+
+“You know that man I told you about the other day?”
+
+Sidney nodded. The girl's anxious eyes were on her.
+
+“It was a shock to me, that's all. I didn't want you to think I'd break
+my heart over any fellow. All I meant was, I wished he'd let me know.”
+
+Her eyes searched Sidney's. They looked unnaturally large and somber in
+her face. Her hair had been cut short, and her nightgown, open at the
+neck, showed her thin throat and prominent clavicles.
+
+“You're from the city, aren't you, Miss Page?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You told me the street, but I've forgotten it.”
+
+Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under
+the girl's head.
+
+“The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your
+street.”
+
+“Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married.
+Was the name Lorenz?”
+
+“The girl's name was Lorenz. I--I don't remember the man's name.”
+
+“She is going to marry a Mr. Howe,” said Sidney briskly. “Now, how do
+you feel? More comfy?”
+
+“Fine! I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?”
+
+“If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go.”
+
+Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her
+reports. On one record, which said at the top, “Grace Irving, age 19,”
+ and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night
+nurse wrote:--
+
+“Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but
+complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three.”
+
+Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next
+morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney
+a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the
+thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who
+had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself
+by change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
+
+Once she ventured a protest:--
+
+“I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is
+wrong, show me what you want, and I'll do my best.”
+
+“I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not
+speak back when you are spoken to.”
+
+Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position
+in the ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small
+humiliations were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and
+often unnecessary tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place,
+remonstrated with her senior.
+
+“I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer,” she
+said, “but you are brutal, Miss Harrison.”
+
+“She's stupid.”
+
+“She's not at all stupid. She's going to be one of the best nurses in
+the house.”
+
+“Report me, then. Tell the Head I'm abusing Dr. Wilson's pet
+probationer, that I don't always say 'please' when I ask her to change a
+bed or take a temperature.”
+
+Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness. She did not go to the Head,
+which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread
+through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous
+of the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson's protegee. Things were still highly
+unpleasant in the ward, but they grew much better when Sidney was off
+duty. She was asked to join a small class that was studying French at
+night. As ignorant of the cause of her popularity as of the reason of
+her persecution, she went steadily on her way.
+
+And she was gaining every day. Her mind was forming. She was learning
+to think for herself. For the first time, she was facing problems and
+demanding an answer. Why must there be Grace Irvings in the world? Why
+must the healthy babies of the obstetric ward go out to the slums and
+come back, in months or years, crippled for the great fight by the
+handicap of their environment, rickety, tuberculous, twisted? Why need
+the huge mills feed the hospitals daily with injured men?
+
+And there were other things that she thought of. Every night, on her
+knees in the nurses' parlor at prayers, she promised, if she were
+accepted as a nurse, to try never to become calloused, never to regard
+her patients as “cases,” never to allow the cleanliness and routine of
+her ward to delay a cup of water to the thirsty, or her arms to a sick
+child.
+
+On the whole, the world was good, she found. And, of all the good things
+in it, the best was service. True, there were hot days and restless
+nights, weary feet, and now and then a heartache. There was Miss
+Harrison, too. But to offset these there was the sound of Dr. Max's step
+in the corridor, and his smiling nod from the door; there was a “God
+bless you” now and then for the comfort she gave; there were wonderful
+nights on the roof under the stars, until K.'s little watch warned her
+to bed.
+
+While Sidney watched the stars from her hospital roof, while all around
+her the slum children, on other roofs, fought for the very breath of
+life, others who knew and loved her watched the stars, too. K. was
+having his own troubles in those days. Late at night, when Anna and
+Harriet had retired, he sat on the balcony and thought of many things.
+Anna Page was not well. He had noticed that her lips were rather blue,
+and had called in Dr. Ed. It was valvular heart disease. Anna was not to
+be told, or Sidney. It was Harriet's ruling.
+
+“Sidney can't help any,” said Harriet, “and for Heaven's sake let her
+have her chance. Anna may live for years. You know her as well as I do.
+If you tell her anything at all, she'll have Sidney here, waiting on her
+hand and foot.”
+
+And Le Moyne, fearful of urging too much because his own heart was
+crying out to have the girl back, assented.
+
+Then, K. was anxious about Joe. The boy did not seem to get over the
+thing the way he should. Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit
+of wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country. On one
+such night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with his head down.
+
+Joe had not wanted his company, had plainly sulked. But Le Moyne had
+persisted.
+
+“I'll not talk,” he said; “but, since we're going the same way, we might
+as well walk together.”
+
+But after a time Joe had talked, after all. It was not much at first--a
+feverish complaint about the heat, and that if there was trouble in
+Mexico he thought he'd go.
+
+“Wait until fall, if you're thinking of it,” K. advised. “This is tepid
+compared with what you'll get down there.”
+
+“I've got to get away from here.”
+
+K. nodded understandingly. Since the scene at the White Springs Hotel,
+both knew that no explanation was necessary.
+
+“It isn't so much that I mind her turning me down,” Joe said, after a
+silence. “A girl can't marry all the men who want her. But I don't
+like this hospital idea. I don't understand it. She didn't have to go.
+Sometimes”--he turned bloodshot eyes on Le Moyne--“I think she went
+because she was crazy about somebody there.”
+
+“She went because she wanted to be useful.”
+
+“She could be useful at home.”
+
+For almost twenty minutes they tramped on without speech. They had made
+a circle, and the lights of the city were close again. K. stopped and
+put a kindly hand on Joe's shoulder.
+
+“A man's got to stand up under a thing like this, you know. I mean, it
+mustn't be a knockout. Keeping busy is a darned good method.”
+
+Joe shook himself free, but without resentment. “I'll tell you what's
+eating me up,” he exploded. “It's Max Wilson. Don't talk to me about her
+going to the hospital to be useful. She's crazy about him, and he's as
+crooked as a dog's hind leg.”
+
+“Perhaps. But it's always up to the girl. You know that.”
+
+He felt immeasurably old beside Joe's boyish blustering--old and rather
+helpless.
+
+“I'm watching him. Some of these days I'll get something on him. Then
+she'll know what to think of her hero!”
+
+“That's not quite square, is it?”
+
+“He's not square.”
+
+Joe had left him then, wheeling abruptly off into the shadows. K. had
+gone home alone, rather uneasy. There seemed to be mischief in the very
+air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Tillie was gone.
+
+Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet
+Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored
+maid had announced a visitor.
+
+Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms
+in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor
+store. Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on
+commission.
+
+Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of
+a new heaven and a new earth. Here, at last, she found people speaking
+her own language. She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found
+it greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with
+approval and some surprise.
+
+“About once in ten years,” said Mr. Arthurs, “we have a woman from out
+of town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical. When we
+find people like that, we watch them. They climb, madame,--climb.”
+
+Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business
+was coming. The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars
+for an evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of
+water. Her throat was parched.
+
+She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who
+can pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered
+good form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high
+they may be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales--no woman
+over thirty but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft
+lights. And Harriet herself conformed to the picture. She took a lesson
+from the New York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns. She strapped
+her thin figure into the best corset she could get, and had her black
+hair marcelled and dressed high. And, because she was a lady by birth
+and instinct, the result was not incongruous, but refined and rather
+impressive.
+
+She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and
+wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky. She
+wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her
+hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the
+penalties she paid. Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in
+the work-room she kicked them off.
+
+To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress. Tillie was
+rather overwhelmed at first. The Street had always considered Harriet
+“proud.” But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.
+
+“Why, Tillie!” said Harriet.
+
+“Yes'm.”
+
+“Will you sit down?”
+
+Tillie sat. She was not daunted now. While she worked at the fingers of
+her silk gloves, what Harriet took for nervousness was pure abstraction.
+
+“It's very nice of you to come to see me. Do you like my rooms?”
+
+Tillie surveyed the rooms, and Harriet caught her first full view of her
+face.
+
+“Is there anything wrong? Have you left Mrs. McKee?”
+
+“I think so. I came to talk to you about it.”
+
+It was Harriet's turn to be overwhelmed.
+
+“She's very fond of you. If you have had any words--”
+
+“It's not that. I'm just leaving. I'd like to talk to you, if you don't
+mind.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+Tillie hitched her chair closer.
+
+“I'm up against something, and I can't seem to make up my mind. Last
+night I said to myself, 'I've got to talk to some woman who's not
+married, like me, and not as young as she used to be. There's no use
+going to Mrs. McKee: she's a widow, and wouldn't understand.'”
+
+Harriet's voice was a trifle sharp as she replied. She never lied about
+her age, but she preferred to forget it.
+
+“I wish you'd tell me what you're getting at.”
+
+“It ain't the sort of thing to come to too sudden. But it's like this.
+You and I can pretend all we like, Miss Harriet; but we're not getting
+all out of life that the Lord meant us to have. You've got them wax
+figures instead of children, and I have mealers.”
+
+A little spot of color came into Harriet's cheek. But she was
+interested. Regardless of the corset, she bent forward.
+
+“Maybe that's true. Go on.”
+
+“I'm almost forty. Ten years more at the most, and I'm through. I'm
+slowing up. Can't get around the tables as I used to. Why, yesterday I
+put sugar into Mr. Le Moyne's coffee--well, never mind about that. Now
+I've got a chance to get a home, with a good man to look after me--I
+like him pretty well, and he thinks a lot of me.”
+
+“Mercy sake, Tillie! You are going to get married?”
+
+“No'm,” said Tillie; “that's it.” And sat silent for a moment.
+
+The gray curtains with their pink cording swung gently in the open
+windows. From the work-room came the distant hum of a sewing-machine and
+the sound of voices. Harriet sat with her hands in her lap and listened
+while Tillie poured out her story. The gates were down now. She told it
+all, consistently and with unconscious pathos: her little room under the
+roof at Mrs. McKee's, and the house in the country; her loneliness,
+and the loneliness of the man; even the faint stirrings of potential
+motherhood, her empty arms, her advancing age--all this she knit into
+the fabric of her story and laid at Harriet's feet, as the ancients put
+their questions to their gods.
+
+Harriet was deeply moved. Too much that Tillie poured out to her found
+an echo in her own breast. What was this thing she was striving for but
+a substitute for the real things of life--love and tenderness, children,
+a home of her own? Quite suddenly she loathed the gray carpet on the
+floor, the pink chairs, the shaded lamps. Tillie was no longer the
+waitress at a cheap boarding-house. She loomed large, potential,
+courageous, a woman who held life in her hands.
+
+“Why don't you go to Mrs. Rosenfeld? She's your aunt, isn't she?”
+
+“She thinks any woman's a fool to take up with a man.”
+
+“You're giving me a terrible responsibility, Tillie, if you're asking my
+advice.”
+
+“No'm. I'm asking what you'd do if it happened to you. Suppose you had
+no people that cared anything about you, nobody to disgrace, and all
+your life nobody had really cared anything about you. And then a chance
+like this came along. What would you do?”
+
+“I don't know,” said poor Harriet. “It seems to me--I'm afraid I'd be
+tempted. It does seem as if a woman had the right to be happy, even
+if--”
+
+Her own words frightened her. It was as if some hidden self, and not
+she, had spoken. She hastened to point out the other side of the matter,
+the insecurity of it, the disgrace. Like K., she insisted that no right
+can be built out of a wrong. Tillie sat and smoothed her gloves. At
+last, when Harriet paused in sheer panic, the girl rose.
+
+“I know how you feel, and I don't want you to take the responsibility of
+advising me,” she said quietly. “I guess my mind was made up anyhow. But
+before I did it I just wanted to be sure that a decent woman would think
+the way I do about it.”
+
+And so, for a time, Tillie went out of the life of the Street as she
+went out of Harriet's handsome rooms, quietly, unobtrusively, with calm
+purpose in her eyes.
+
+There were other changes in the Street. The Lorenz house was being
+painted for Christine's wedding. Johnny Rosenfeld, not perhaps of the
+Street itself, but certainly pertaining to it, was learning to drive
+Palmer Howe's new car, in mingled agony and bliss. He walked along the
+Street, not “right foot, left foot,” but “brake foot, clutch foot,” and
+took to calling off the vintage of passing cars. “So-and-So 1910,”
+ he would say, with contempt in his voice. He spent more than he could
+afford on a large streamer, meant to be fastened across the rear of the
+automobile, which said, “Excuse our dust,” and was inconsolable when
+Palmer refused to let him use it.
+
+K. had yielded to Anna's insistence, and was boarding as well as
+rooming at the Page house. The Street, rather snobbish to its occasional
+floating population, was accepting and liking him. It found him tender,
+infinitely human. And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy
+into which he had drifted was teeming with life. He busied himself with
+small things, and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair.
+When he found himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball
+club, and sent down to everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of
+cash-boys from Linden and Hofburg's department store.
+
+The Rosenfelds adored him, with the single exception of the head of
+the family. The elder Rosenfeld having been “sent up,” it was K. who
+discovered that by having him consigned to the workhouse his family
+would receive from the county some sixty-five cents a day for his labor.
+As this was exactly sixty-five cents a day more than he was worth to
+them free, Mrs. Rosenfeld voiced the pious hope that he be kept there
+forever.
+
+K. made no further attempt to avoid Max Wilson. Some day they would meet
+face to face. He hoped, when it happened, they two might be alone; that
+was all. Even had he not been bound by his promise to Sidney, flight
+would have been foolish. The world was a small place, and, one way and
+another, he had known many people. Wherever he went, there would be the
+same chance.
+
+And he did not deceive himself. Other things being equal,--the eddy
+and all that it meant--, he would not willingly take himself out of his
+small share of Sidney's life.
+
+She was never to know what she meant to him, of course. He had scourged
+his heart until it no longer shone in his eyes when he looked at her.
+But he was very human--not at all meek. There were plenty of days when
+his philosophy lay in the dust and savage dogs of jealousy tore at it;
+more than one evening when he threw himself face downward on the bed
+and lay without moving for hours. And of these periods of despair he was
+always heartily ashamed the next day.
+
+The meeting with Max Wilson took place early in September, and under
+better circumstances than he could have hoped for.
+
+Sidney had come home for her weekly visit, and her mother's condition
+had alarmed her for the first time. When Le Moyne came home at six
+o'clock, he found her waiting for him in the hall.
+
+“I am just a little frightened, K.,” she said. “Do you think mother is
+looking quite well?”
+
+“She has felt the heat, of course. The summer--I often think--”
+
+“Her lips are blue!”
+
+“It's probably nothing serious.”
+
+“She says you've had Dr. Ed over to see her.”
+
+She put her hands on his arm and looked up at him with appeal and
+something of terror in her face.
+
+Thus cornered, he had to acknowledge that Anna had been out of sorts.
+
+“I shall come home, of course. It's tragic and absurd that I should be
+caring for other people, when my own mother--”
+
+She dropped her head on his arm, and he saw that she was crying. If he
+made a gesture to draw her to him, she never knew it. After a moment she
+looked up.
+
+“I'm much braver than this in the hospital. But when it's one's own!”
+
+K. was sorely tempted to tell her the truth and bring her back to the
+little house: to their old evenings together, to seeing the younger
+Wilson, not as the white god of the operating-room and the hospital, but
+as the dandy of the Street and the neighbor of her childhood--back even
+to Joe.
+
+But, with Anna's precarious health and Harriet's increasing engrossment
+in her business, he felt it more and more necessary that Sidney go on
+with her training. A profession was a safeguard. And there was another
+point: it had been decided that Anna was not to know her condition. If
+she was not worried she might live for years. There was no surer way to
+make her suspect it than by bringing Sidney home.
+
+Sidney sent Katie to ask Dr. Ed to come over after dinner. With the
+sunset Anna seemed better. She insisted on coming downstairs, and
+even sat with them on the balcony until the stars came out, talking
+of Christine's trousseau, and, rather fretfully, of what she would do
+without the parlors.
+
+“You shall have your own boudoir upstairs,” said Sidney valiantly.
+“Katie can carry your tray up there. We are going to make the
+sewing-room into your private sitting-room, and I shall nail the
+machine-top down.”
+
+This pleased her. When K. insisted on carrying her upstairs, she went in
+a flutter.
+
+“He is so strong, Sidney!” she said, when he had placed her on her bed.
+“How can a clerk, bending over a ledger, be so muscular? When I have
+callers, will it be all right for Katie to show them upstairs?”
+
+She dropped asleep before the doctor came; and when, at something after
+eight, the door of the Wilson house slammed and a figure crossed the
+street, it was not Ed at all, but the surgeon.
+
+Sidney had been talking rather more frankly than usual. Lately there
+had been a reserve about her. K., listening intently that night, read
+between words a story of small persecutions and jealousies. But the girl
+minimized them, after her way.
+
+“It's always hard for probationers,” she said. “I often think Miss
+Harrison is trying my mettle.”
+
+“Harrison!”
+
+“Carlotta Harrison. And now that Miss Gregg has said she will accept
+me, it's really all over. The other nurses are wonderful--so kind and so
+helpful. I hope I shall look well in my cap.”
+
+Carlotta Harrison was in Sidney's hospital! A thousand contingencies
+flashed through his mind. Sidney might grow to like her and bring her to
+the house. Sidney might insist on the thing she always spoke of--that he
+visit the hospital; and he would meet her, face to face. He could have
+depended on a man to keep his secret. This girl with her somber eyes and
+her threat to pay him out for what had happened to her--she meant danger
+of a sort that no man could fight.
+
+“Soon,” said Sidney, through the warm darkness, “I shall have a cap,
+and be always forgetting it and putting my hat on over it--the new ones
+always do. One of the girls slept in hers the other night! They are
+tulle, you know, and quite stiff, and it was the most erratic-looking
+thing the next day!”
+
+It was then that the door across the street closed. Sidney did not
+hear it, but K. bent forward. There was a part of his brain always
+automatically on watch.
+
+“I shall get my operating-room training, too,” she went on. “That is
+the real romance of the hospital. A--a surgeon is a sort of hero in
+a hospital. You wouldn't think that, would you? There was a lot of
+excitement to-day. Even the probationers' table was talking about it.
+Dr. Max Wilson did the Edwardes operation.”
+
+The figure across the Street was lighting a cigarette. Perhaps, after
+all--
+
+“Something tremendously difficult--I don't know what. It's going into
+the medical journals. A Dr. Edwardes invented it, or whatever they
+call it. They took a picture of the operating-room for the article.
+The photographer had to put on operating clothes and wrap the camera in
+sterilized towels. It was the most thrilling thing, they say--”
+
+Her voice died away as her eyes followed K.'s. Max, cigarette in
+hand, was coming across, under the ailanthus tree. He hesitated on the
+pavement, his eyes searching the shadowy balcony.
+
+“Sidney?”
+
+“Here! Right back here!”
+
+There was vibrant gladness in her tone. He came slowly toward them.
+
+“My brother is not at home, so I came over. How select you are, with
+your balcony!”
+
+“Can you see the step?”
+
+“Coming, with bells on.”
+
+K. had risen and pushed back his chair. His mind was working quickly.
+Here in the darkness he could hold the situation for a moment. If he
+could get Sidney into the house, the rest would not matter. Luckily, the
+balcony was very dark.
+
+“Is any one ill?”
+
+“Mother is not well. This is Mr. Le Moyne, and he knows who you are very
+well, indeed.”
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+“I've heard a lot of Mr. Le Moyne. Didn't the Street beat the Linburgs
+the other day? And I believe the Rosenfelds are in receipt of sixty-five
+cents a day and considerable peace and quiet through you, Mr. Le Moyne.
+You're the most popular man on the Street.”
+
+“I've always heard that about YOU. Sidney, if Dr. Wilson is here to see
+your mother--”
+
+“Going,” said Sidney. “And Dr. Wilson is a very great person, K., so be
+polite to him.”
+
+Max had roused at the sound of Le Moyne's voice, not to suspicion,
+of course, but to memory. Without any apparent reason, he was back in
+Berlin, tramping the country roads, and beside him--
+
+“Wonderful night!”
+
+“Great,” he replied. “The mind's a curious thing, isn't it. In the
+instant since Miss Page went through that window I've been to Berlin and
+back! Will you have a cigarette?”
+
+“Thanks; I have my pipe here.”
+
+K. struck a match with his steady hands. Now that the thing had come, he
+was glad to face it. In the flare, his quiet profile glowed against the
+night. Then he flung the match over the rail.
+
+“Perhaps my voice took you back to Berlin.”
+
+Max stared; then he rose. Blackness had descended on them again, except
+for the dull glow of K.'s old pipe.
+
+“For God's sake!”
+
+“Sh! The neighbors next door have a bad habit of sitting just inside the
+curtains.”
+
+“But--you!”
+
+“Sit down. Sidney will be back in a moment. I'll talk to you, if you'll
+sit still. Can you hear me plainly?”
+
+After a moment--“Yes.”
+
+“I've been here--in the city, I mean--for a year. Name's Le Moyne. Don't
+forget it--Le Moyne. I've got a position in the gas office, clerical. I
+get fifteen dollars a week. I have reason to think I'm going to be moved
+up. That will be twenty, maybe twenty-two.”
+
+Wilson stirred, but he found no adequate words. Only a part of what K.
+said got to him. For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this
+man across from him--it was not believable!
+
+“It's not hard work, and it's safe. If I make a mistake there's no life
+hanging on it. Once I made a blunder, a month or two ago. It was a big
+one. It cost me three dollars out of my own pocket. But--that's all it
+cost.”
+
+Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was
+profoundly moved.
+
+“We thought you were dead. There were all sorts of stories. When a year
+went by--the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were on
+it--we gave up. I--in June we put up a tablet for you at the college. I
+went down for the--for the services.”
+
+“Let it stay,” said K. quietly. “I'm dead as far as the college goes,
+anyhow. I'll never go back. I'm Le Moyne now. And, for Heaven's sake,
+don't be sorry for me. I'm more contented than I've been for a long
+time.”
+
+The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation.
+
+“But--when you had everything! Why, good Heavens, man, I did your
+operation to-day, and I've been blowing about it ever since.”
+
+“I had everything for a while. Then I lost the essential. When that
+happened I gave up. All a man in our profession has is a certain method,
+knowledge--call it what you like,--and faith in himself. I lost my
+self-confidence; that's all. Certain things happened; kept on happening.
+So I gave it up. That's all. It's not dramatic. For about a year I was
+damned sorry for myself. I've stopped whining now.”
+
+“If every surgeon gave up because he lost cases--I've just told you I
+did your operation to-day. There was just a chance for the man, and I
+took my courage in my hands and tried it. The poor devil's dead.”
+
+K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe over the balcony rail.
+
+“That's not the same. That's the chance he and you took. What happened
+to me was--different.”
+
+Pipe in hand, he stood staring out at the ailanthus tree with its crown
+of stars. Instead of the Street with its quiet houses, he saw the men
+he had known and worked with and taught, his friends who spoke his
+language, who had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bronze
+tablet set in a wall of the old college; he saw their earnest faces and
+grave eyes. He heard--
+
+He heard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little
+room behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A few days after Wilson's recognition of K., two most exciting things
+happened to Sidney. One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor
+at her wedding. The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and
+given her cap.
+
+Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house
+had no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le
+Moyne:
+
+DEAR K.,--I am accepted, and IT is on my head at this minute. I am as
+conscious of it as if it were a halo, and as if I had done something to
+deserve it, instead of just hoping that someday I shall. I am writing
+this on the bureau, so that when I lift my eyes I may see It. I am
+afraid just now I am thinking more of the cap than of what it means. It
+IS becoming!
+
+Very soon I shall slip down and show it to the ward. I have promised.
+I shall go to the door when the night nurse is busy somewhere, and
+turn all around and let them see it, without saying a word. They love a
+little excitement like that.
+
+You have been very good to me, dear K. It is you who have made possible
+this happiness of mine to-night. I am promising myself to be very good,
+and not so vain, and to love my enemies--, although I have none now.
+Miss Harrison has just congratulated me most kindly, and I am sure poor
+Joe has both forgiven and forgotten.
+
+Off to my first lecture!
+
+SIDNEY.
+
+K. found the note on the hall table when he got home that night, and
+carried it upstairs to read. Whatever faint hope he might have had that
+her youth would prevent her acceptance he knew now was over. With the
+letter in his hand, he sat by his table and looked ahead into the empty
+years. Not quite empty, of course. She would be coming home.
+
+But more and more the life of the hospital would engross her. He
+surmised, too, very shrewdly, that, had he ever had a hope that she
+might come to care for him, his very presence in the little house
+militated against him. There was none of the illusion of separation;
+he was always there, like Katie. When she opened the door, she called
+“Mother” from the hall. If Anna did not answer, she called him, in much
+the same voice.
+
+He had built a wall of philosophy that had withstood even Wilson's
+recognition and protest. But enduring philosophy comes only with time;
+and he was young. Now and then all his defenses crumbled before a
+passion that, when he dared to face it, shook him by its very strength.
+And that day all his stoicism went down before Sidney's letter. Its very
+frankness and affection hurt--not that he did not want her affection;
+but he craved so much more. He threw himself face down on the bed, with
+the paper crushed in his hand.
+
+Sidney's letter was not the only one he received that day. When, in
+response to Katie's summons, he rose heavily and prepared for dinner, he
+found an unopened envelope on the table. It was from Max Wilson:--
+
+DEAR LE MOYNE,--I have been going around in a sort of haze all day. The
+fact that I only heard your voice and scarcely saw you last night has
+made the whole thing even more unreal.
+
+I have a feeling of delicacy about trying to see you again so soon. I'm
+bound to respect your seclusion. But there are some things that have got
+to be discussed.
+
+You said last night that things were “different” with you. I know about
+that. You'd had one or two unlucky accidents. Do you know any man in our
+profession who has not? And, for fear you think I do not know what I am
+talking about, the thing was threshed out at the State Society when the
+question of the tablet came up. Old Barnes got up and said: “Gentlemen,
+all of us live more or less in glass houses. Let him who is without
+guilt among us throw the first stone!” By George! You should have heard
+them!
+
+I didn't sleep last night. I took my little car and drove around the
+country roads, and the farther I went the more outrageous your position
+became. I'm not going to write any rot about the world needing men like
+you, although it's true enough. But our profession does. You working in
+a gas office, while old O'Hara bungles and hacks, and I struggle along
+on what I learned from you!
+
+It takes courage to step down from the pinnacle you stood on. So it's
+not cowardice that has set you down here. It's wrong conception. And
+I've thought of two things. The first, and best, is for you to go back.
+No one has taken your place, because no one could do the work. But if
+that's out of the question,--and only you know that, for only you know
+the facts,--the next best thing is this, and in all humility I make the
+suggestion.
+
+Take the State exams under your present name, and when you've got your
+certificate, come in with me. This isn't magnanimity. I'll be getting a
+damn sight more than I give.
+
+Think it over, old man.
+
+M.W.
+
+It is a curious fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about
+women is often the soul of honor to other men. The younger Wilson,
+taking his pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an
+offer that meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, with his
+eyes open.
+
+K. was moved. It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to make it
+as if he were asking a favor and not conferring one. But the offer left
+him untempted. He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself
+wanting. No tablet on the college wall could change that. And when,
+late that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to
+argument, the situation remained unchanged. He realized its hopelessness
+when K. lapsed into whimsical humor.
+
+“I'm not absolutely useless where I am, you know, Max,” he said. “I've
+raised three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped
+to plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just
+inside,--did you notice it?--and developed a boy pitcher with a ball
+that twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around a splint!”
+
+“If you're going to be humorous--”
+
+“My dear fellow,” said K. quietly, “if I had no sense of humor, I should
+go upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance
+into eternity. By the way, that's something I forgot!”
+
+“Eternity?” “No. Among my other activities, I wired the parlor for
+electric light. The bride-to-be expects some electroliers as wedding
+gifts, and--”
+
+Wilson rose and flung his cigarette into the grass.
+
+“I wish to God I understood you!” he said irritably.
+
+K. rose with him, and all the suppressed feeling of the interview was
+crowded into his last few words.
+
+“I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max,” he said. “I--you've helped
+a lot. Don't worry about me. I'm as well off as I deserve to be, and
+better. Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night.”
+
+Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position--left him,
+as it were, with a divided allegiance. Sidney's frank infatuation for
+the young surgeon was growing. He was quick to see it. And where before
+he might have felt justified in going to the length of warning her, now
+his hands were tied.
+
+Max was interested in her. K. could see that, too. More than once he had
+taken Sidney back to the hospital in his car. Le Moyne, handicapped at
+every turn, found himself facing two alternatives, one but little better
+than the other. The affair might run a legitimate course, ending in
+marriage--a year of happiness for her, and then what marriage with
+Max, as he knew him, would inevitably mean: wanderings away, remorseful
+returns to her, infidelities, misery. Or, it might be less serious but
+almost equally unhappy for her. Max might throw caution to the winds,
+pursue her for a time,--K. had seen him do this,--and then, growing
+tired, change to some new attraction. In either case, he could only wait
+and watch, eating his heart out during the long evenings when Anna read
+her “Daily Thoughts” upstairs and he sat alone with his pipe on the
+balcony.
+
+Sidney went on night duty shortly after her acceptance. All of her
+orderly young life had been divided into two parts: day, when one
+played or worked, and night, when one slept. Now she was compelled to
+a readjustment: one worked in the night and slept in the day. Things
+seemed unnatural, chaotic. At the end of her first night report Sidney
+added what she could remember of a little verse of Stevenson's. She
+added it to the end of her general report, which was to the effect that
+everything had been quiet during the night except the neighborhood.
+
+     “And does it not seem hard to you,
+      When all the sky is clear and blue,
+      And I should like so much to play,
+      To have to go to bed by day?”
+
+The day assistant happened on the report, and was quite scandalized.
+
+“If the night nurses are to spend their time making up poetry,” she
+said crossly, “we'd better change this hospital into a young ladies'
+seminary. If she wants to complain about the noise in the street, she
+should do so in proper form.”
+
+“I don't think she made it up,” said the Head, trying not to smile.
+“I've heard something like it somewhere, and, what with the heat and the
+noise of traffic, I don't see how any of them get any sleep.”
+
+But, because discipline must be observed, she wrote on the slip the
+assistant carried around: “Please submit night reports in prose.”
+
+Sidney did not sleep much. She tumbled into her low bed at nine o'clock
+in the morning, those days, with her splendid hair neatly braided down
+her back and her prayers said, and immediately her active young mind
+filled with images--Christine's wedding, Dr. Max passing the door of her
+old ward and she not there, Joe--even Tillie, whose story was now the
+sensation of the Street. A few months before she would not have cared
+to think of Tillie. She would have retired her into the land of
+things-one-must-forget. But the Street's conventions were not holding
+Sidney's thoughts now. She puzzled over Tillie a great deal, and over
+Grace and her kind.
+
+On her first night on duty, a girl had been brought in from the Avenue.
+She had taken a poison--nobody knew just what. When the internes had
+tried to find out, she had only said: “What's the use?”
+
+And she had died.
+
+Sidney kept asking herself, “Why?” those mornings when she could not get
+to sleep. People were kind--men were kind, really,--and yet, for some
+reason or other, those things had to be. Why?
+
+After a time Sidney would doze fitfully. But by three o'clock she was
+always up and dressing. After a time the strain told on her. Lack of
+sleep wrote hollows around her eyes and killed some of her bright color.
+Between three and four o'clock in the morning she was overwhelmed on
+duty by a perfect madness of sleep. There was a penalty for sleeping on
+duty. The old night watchman had a way of slipping up on one nodding.
+The night nurses wished they might fasten a bell on him!
+
+Luckily, at four came early-morning temperatures; that roused her. And
+after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of
+dawn over the roofs. Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward
+dawn, she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves
+were stretched taut as a string.
+
+Her station was in a small room close to her three wards. But she sat
+very little, as a matter of fact. Her responsibility was heavy on her;
+she made frequent rounds. The late summer nights were fitful, feverish;
+the darkened wards stretched away like caverns from the dim light near
+the door. And from out of these caverns came petulant voices, uneasy
+movements, the banging of a cup on a bedside, which was the signal of
+thirst.
+
+The older nurses saved themselves when they could. To them, perhaps just
+a little weary with time and much service, the banging cup meant not so
+much thirst as annoyance. They visited Sidney sometimes and cautioned
+her.
+
+“Don't jump like that, child; they're not parched, you know.”
+
+“But if you have a fever and are thirsty--”
+
+“Thirsty nothing! They get lonely. All they want is to see somebody.”
+
+“Then,” Sidney would say, rising resolutely, “they are going to see me.”
+
+Gradually the older girls saw that she would not save herself. They
+liked her very much, and they, too, had started in with willing feet
+and tender hands; but the thousand and one demands of their service
+had drained them dry. They were efficient, cool-headed, quick-thinking
+machines, doing their best, of course, but differing from Sidney in that
+their service was of the mind, while hers was of the heart. To them,
+pain was a thing to be recorded on a report; to Sidney, it was written
+on the tablets of her soul.
+
+Carlotta Harrison went on night duty at the same time--her last night
+service, as it was Sidney's first. She accepted it stoically. She had
+charge of the three wards on the floor just below Sidney, and of the
+ward into which all emergency cases were taken. It was a difficult
+service, perhaps the most difficult in the house. Scarcely a night went
+by without its patrol or ambulance case. Ordinarily, the emergency ward
+had its own night nurse. But the house was full to overflowing. Belated
+vacations and illness had depleted the training-school. Carlotta, given
+double duty, merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“I've always had things pretty hard here,” she commented briefly.
+“When I go out, I'll either be competent enough to run a whole hospital
+singlehanded, or I'll be carried out feet first.”
+
+Sidney was glad to have her so near. She knew her better than she knew
+the other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding
+her at a loss. Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a
+soft hiss from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and,
+going out, would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap
+bending over the stair-rail.
+
+“I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you,” she would say, “but So-and-So
+won't have a fever bath”; or, “I've a woman here who refuses her
+medicine.” Then would follow rapid questions and equally rapid answers.
+Much as Carlotta disliked and feared the girl overhead, it never
+occurred to her to refuse her assistance. Perhaps the angels who keep
+the great record will put that to her credit.
+
+Sidney saw her first death shortly after she went on night duty. It was
+the most terrible experience of all her life; and yet, as death goes, it
+was quiet enough. So gradual was it that Sidney, with K.'s little watch
+in hand, was not sure exactly when it happened. The light was very dim
+behind the little screen. One moment the sheet was quivering slightly
+under the struggle for breath, the next it was still. That was all. But
+to the girl it was catastrophe. That life, so potential, so tremendous a
+thing, could end so ignominiously, that the long battle should terminate
+always in this capitulation--it seemed to her that she could not stand
+it. Added to all her other new problems of living was this one of dying.
+
+She made mistakes, of course, which the kindly nurses forgot to
+report--basins left about, errors on her records. She rinsed her
+thermometer in hot water one night, and startled an interne by sending
+him word that Mary McGuire's temperature was a hundred and ten degrees.
+She let a delirious patient escape from the ward another night and go
+airily down the fire-escape before she discovered what had happened!
+Then she distinguished herself by flying down the iron staircase and
+bringing the runaway back single-handed.
+
+For Christine's wedding the Street threw off its drab attire and assumed
+a wedding garment. In the beginning it was incredulous about some of the
+details.
+
+“An awning from the house door to the curbstone, and a policeman!”
+ reported Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was finding steady employment at the Lorenz
+house. “And another awning at the church, with a red carpet!”
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld had arrived home and was making up arrears of rest and
+recreation.
+
+“Huh!” he said. “Suppose it don't rain. What then?” His Jewish father
+spoke in him.
+
+“And another policeman at the church!” said Mrs. Rosenfeld triumphantly.
+
+“Why do they ask 'em if they don't trust 'em?”
+
+But the mention of the policemen had been unfortunate. It recalled to
+him many things that were better forgotten. He rose and scowled at his
+wife.
+
+“You tell Johnny something for me,” he snarled. “You tell him when he
+sees his father walking down street, and he sittin' up there alone on
+that automobile, I want him to stop and pick me up when I hail him. Me
+walking, while my son swells around in a car! And another thing.” He
+turned savagely at the door. “You let me hear of him road-housin', and
+I'll kill him!”
+
+The wedding was to be at five o'clock. This, in itself, defied all
+traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early
+morning at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at
+the Presbyterian. There was something reckless about five o'clock. The
+Street felt the dash of it. It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a
+marriage was not quite legal.
+
+The question of what to wear became, for the men, an earnest one. Dr. Ed
+resurrected an old black frock-coat and had a “V” of black cambric set
+in the vest. Mr. Jenkins, the grocer, rented a cutaway, and bought a
+new Panama to wear with it. The deaf-and-dumb book agent who boarded at
+McKees', and who, by reason of his affliction, was calmly ignorant of
+the excitement around him, wore a borrowed dress-suit, and considered
+himself to the end of his days the only properly attired man in the
+church.
+
+The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers. When the newspapers came
+out with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that
+Sidney was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the
+hospital training-school. A probationer was authorized to find out
+particulars. It was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had
+not been to bed at all, was sitting in a sunny window in the Dormitory
+Annex, drying her hair.
+
+The probationer was distinctly uneasy.
+
+“I--I just wonder,” she said, “if you would let some of the girls come
+in to see you when you're dressed?”
+
+“Why, of course I will.”
+
+“It's awfully thrilling, isn't it? And--isn't Dr. Wilson going to be an
+usher?”
+
+Sidney colored. “I believe so.”
+
+“Are you going to walk down the aisle with him?”
+
+“I don't know. They had a rehearsal last night, but of course I was not
+there. I--I think I walk alone.”
+
+The probationer had been instructed to find out other things; so she set
+to work with a fan at Sidney's hair.
+
+“You've known Dr. Wilson a long time, haven't you?”
+
+“Ages.”
+
+“He's awfully good-looking, isn't he?”
+
+Sidney considered. She was not ignorant of the methods of the school. If
+this girl was pumping her--
+
+“I'll have to think that over,” she said, with a glint of mischief in
+her eyes. “When you know a person terribly well, you hardly know whether
+he's good-looking or not.”
+
+“I suppose,” said the probationer, running the long strands of Sidney's
+hair through her fingers, “that when you are at home you see him often.”
+
+Sidney got off the window-sill, and, taking the probationer smilingly by
+the shoulders, faced her toward the door.
+
+“You go back to the girls,” she said, “and tell them to come in and see
+me when I am dressed, and tell them this: I don't know whether I am to
+walk down the aisle with Dr. Wilson, but I hope I am. I see him very
+often. I like him very much. I hope he likes me. And I think he's
+handsome.”
+
+She shoved the probationer out into the hall and locked the door behind
+her.
+
+That message in its entirety reached Carlotta Harrison. Her smouldering
+eyes flamed. The audacity of it startled her. Sidney must be very sure
+of herself.
+
+She, too, had not slept during the day. When the probationer who
+had brought her the report had gone out, she lay in her long white
+night-gown, hands clasped under her head, and stared at the vault-like
+ceiling of her little room.
+
+She saw there Sidney in her white dress going down the aisle of the
+church; she saw the group around the altar; and, as surely as she lay
+there, she knew that Max Wilson's eyes would be, not on the bride, but
+on the girl who stood beside her.
+
+The curious thing was that Carlotta felt that she could stop the wedding
+if she wanted to. She'd happened on a bit of information--many a wedding
+had been stopped for less. It rather obsessed her to think of stopping
+the wedding, so that Sidney and Max would not walk down the aisle
+together.
+
+There came, at last, an hour before the wedding, a lull in the feverish
+activities of the previous month. Everything was ready. In the Lorenz
+kitchen, piles of plates, negro waiters, ice-cream freezers, and Mrs.
+Rosenfeld stood in orderly array. In the attic, in the center of a
+sheet, before a toilet-table which had been carried upstairs for her
+benefit, sat, on this her day of days, the bride. All the second story
+had been prepared for guests and presents.
+
+Florists were still busy in the room below. Bridesmaids were clustered
+on the little staircase, bending over at each new ring of the bell and
+calling reports to Christine through the closed door:--
+
+“Another wooden box, Christine. It looks like more plates. What will you
+ever do with them all?”
+
+“Good Heavens! Here's another of the neighbors who wants to see how you
+look. Do say you can't have any visitors now.”
+
+Christine sat alone in the center of her sheet. The bridesmaids had been
+sternly forbidden to come into her room.
+
+“I haven't had a chance to think for a month,” she said. “And I've got
+some things I've got to think out.”
+
+But, when Sidney came, she sent for her. Sidney found her sitting on a
+stiff chair, in her wedding gown, with her veil spread out on a small
+stand.
+
+“Close the door,” said Christine. And, after Sidney had kissed her:--
+
+“I've a good mind not to do it.”
+
+“You're tired and nervous, that's all.”
+
+“I am, of course. But that isn't what's wrong with me. Throw that veil
+some place and sit down.”
+
+Christine was undoubtedly rouged, a very delicate touch. Sidney thought
+brides should be rather pale. But under her eyes were lines that Sidney
+had never seen there before.
+
+“I'm not going to be foolish, Sidney. I'll go through with it, of
+course. It would put mamma in her grave if I made a scene now.”
+
+She suddenly turned on Sidney.
+
+“Palmer gave his bachelor dinner at the Country Club last night. They
+all drank more than they should. Somebody called father up to-day and
+said that Palmer had emptied a bottle of wine into the piano. He hasn't
+been here to-day.”
+
+“He'll be along. And as for the other--perhaps it wasn't Palmer who did
+it.”
+
+“That's not it, Sidney. I'm frightened.”
+
+Three months before, perhaps, Sidney could not have comforted her; but
+three months had made a change in Sidney. The complacent sophistries
+of her girlhood no longer answered for truth. She put her arms around
+Christine's shoulders.
+
+“A man who drinks is a broken reed,” said Christine. “That's what I'm
+going to marry and lean on the rest of my life--a broken reed. And that
+isn't all!”
+
+She got up quickly, and, trailing her long satin train across the floor,
+bolted the door. Then from inside her corsage she brought out and held
+to Sidney a letter. “Special delivery. Read it.”
+
+It was very short; Sidney read it at a glance:--
+
+Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 ---- Avenue.
+
+Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney. Now
+she knew. Christine, more sophisticated, had always known.
+
+“You see,” she said. “That's what I'm up against.”
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 ---- Avenue was. The
+paper she held in her hand was hospital paper with the heading torn off.
+The whole sordid story lay before her: Grace Irving, with her thin face
+and cropped hair, and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside her!
+
+One of the bridesmaids thumped violently on the door outside.
+
+“Another electric lamp,” she called excitedly through the door. “And
+Palmer is downstairs.”
+
+“You see,” Christine said drearily. “I have received another electric
+lamp, and Palmer is downstairs! I've got to go through with it, I
+suppose. The only difference between me and other brides is that I know
+what I'm getting. Most of them do not.”
+
+“You're going on with it?”
+
+“It's too late to do anything else. I am not going to give this
+neighborhood anything to talk about.”
+
+She picked up her veil and set the coronet on her head. Sidney stood
+with the letter in her hands. One of K.'s answers to her hot question
+had been this:--
+
+“There is no sense in looking back unless it helps us to look ahead.
+What your little girl of the ward has been is not so important as what
+she is going to be.”
+
+“Even granting this to be true,” she said to Christine slowly,--“and it
+may only be malicious after all, Christine,--it's surely over and done
+with. It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now; it's his future with
+you, isn't it?”
+
+Christine had finally adjusted her veil. A band of duchesse lace rose
+like a coronet from her soft hair, and from it, sweeping to the end of
+her train, fell fold after fold of soft tulle. She arranged the coronet
+carefully with small pearl-topped pins. Then she rose and put her hands
+on Sidney's shoulders.
+
+“The simple truth is,” she said quietly, “that I might hold Palmer if
+I cared--terribly. I don't. And I'm afraid he knows it. It's my pride
+that's hurt, nothing else.”
+
+And thus did Christine Lorenz go down to her wedding.
+
+Sidney stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in
+her new philosophy, she had learned many strange things. One of them was
+this: that women like Grace Irving did not betray their lovers; that the
+code of the underworld was “death to the squealer”; that one played the
+game, and won or lost, and if he lost, took his medicine. If not Grace,
+then who? Somebody else in the hospital who knew her story, of course.
+But who? And again--why?
+
+Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set
+fire to it with a match. Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.
+
+The Street voted the wedding a great success. The alley, however, was
+rather confused by certain things. For instance, it regarded the awning
+as essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck
+in under the side when no one was looking. Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely
+refused to take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she
+guessed she was able to walk up alone.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete
+chauffeur's outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the shield that was
+his State license pinned over his heart.
+
+The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to
+supper. Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case
+only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well
+to trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit
+down to a cold snack when they got home?
+
+To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the
+wedding was Sidney--Sidney only. He watched her first steps down the
+aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched
+the swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she passed him
+and went forward past the long rows of craning necks. Afterward he could
+not remember the wedding party at all. The service for him was Sidney,
+rather awed and very serious, beside the altar. It was Sidney who came
+down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney
+with Max beside her!
+
+On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her
+new career. The wedding gowns were successful. They were more than
+that--they were triumphant. Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes
+over the church, filled with potential brides.
+
+To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future of endless lace
+and chiffon, the joy of creation, triumph eclipsing triumph. But to
+Anna, watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish
+lips, was coming her hour. Sitting back in the pew, with her hands
+folded over her prayer-book, she said a little prayer for her straight
+young daughter, facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.
+
+As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been
+standing at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He
+stumbled, rather, as if he could not see.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper
+Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had
+selected for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of
+the city, and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson
+had gone out to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him.
+For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice.
+
+She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes.
+She knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing--that he
+would pay as little as possible. But she knew, too, that, let him want a
+thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage.
+
+She was very skillful. The very ardor in her face was in her favor.
+Behind her hot eyes lurked cold calculation. She would put the thing
+through, and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening
+prayers, a thing or two.
+
+During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything more elaborate
+than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves
+rolled up to show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders at the
+little farmhouse. She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square
+yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully
+posed over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road. She read
+Browning, Emerson, Swinburne. Once he found her with a book that she
+hastily concealed. He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It was a
+book on brain surgery. Confronted with it, she blushed and dropped her
+eyes.
+
+His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as
+she had intended.
+
+“I feel such an idiot when I am with you,” she said. “I wanted to know a
+little more about the things you do.”
+
+That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter
+he occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her
+responsive, intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before,
+lay open to her.
+
+Now and then their professional discussions ended in something
+different. The two lines of their interest converged.
+
+“Gad!” he said one day. “I look forward to these evenings. I can talk
+shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the
+most intelligent woman I know--and one of the prettiest.”
+
+He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible
+purpose of admiring the view.
+
+“As long as you talk shop,” she said, “I feel that there is nothing
+wrong in our being together; but when you say the other thing--”
+
+“Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?”
+
+“Under our circumstances, yes.”
+
+He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.
+
+“The loveliest mouth in the world!” he said, and kissed her suddenly.
+
+She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.
+Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.
+
+No, she was not angry, she said. It was only that he had set her
+thinking. When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and
+good-bye. He only laughed.
+
+“Don't you trust me?” he said, leaning out to her.
+
+She raised her dark eyes.
+
+“It is not that. I do not trust myself.”
+
+After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.
+
+“Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the
+most dangerous of toys.” A spice of danger had entered into their
+relationship. It had become infinitely piquant.
+
+He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison
+had gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back. That
+pleased him. Evidently she was frightened. Every man likes to think that
+he is a bit of a devil. Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his
+car outside the whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the
+direction Carlotta had taken.
+
+She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree,
+looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental
+struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a
+foot or two, with her hands out before her.
+
+“How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you follow me! I--I have got to
+have a little time alone. I have got to think things out.”
+
+He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was
+quite as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree
+and lighted a cigarette before he answered.
+
+“I was afraid of this,” he said, playing up. “You take it entirely too
+hard. I am not really a villain, Carlotta.”
+
+It was the first time he had used her name.
+
+“Sit down and let us talk things over.”
+
+She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing
+to him with the somber eyes that were her great asset.
+
+“You can afford to be very calm,” she said, “because this is only play
+to you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and
+not--unattractive. But what is play for you is not necessarily play for
+me. I am going away from here.”
+
+For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why,
+the girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried--he was at
+the mercy of any woman who cried.
+
+“Give up your training?”
+
+“What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max.”
+
+She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her
+in his arms.
+
+“Don't do that,” he said. “Please don't do that. You make me feel like
+a scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's
+all. I swear it.”
+
+She lifted her head from his shoulder.
+
+“You mean you are happy with me?”
+
+“Very, very happy,” said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.
+
+
+The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself.
+She had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But
+she had left out this important factor in the equation,--that factor
+which in every relationship between man and woman determines the
+equation,--the woman.
+
+Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She
+who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and
+the things thereof, found that it would not be put aside. By the end of
+her short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love with the younger
+Wilson.
+
+They continued to meet, not as often as before, but once a week,
+perhaps. The meetings were full of danger now; and if for the girl they
+lost by this quality, they gained attraction for the man. She was shrewd
+enough to realize her own situation. The thing had gone wrong. She
+cared, and he did not. It was all a game now, not hers.
+
+All women are intuitive; women in love are dangerously so. As well as
+she knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she
+realized that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the
+real thing for Sidney Page. Suspicion became certainty after a talk
+they had over the supper table at a country road-house the day after
+Christine's wedding.
+
+“How was the wedding--tiresome?” she asked.
+
+“Thrilling! There's always something thrilling to me in a man tying
+himself up for life to one woman. It's--it's so reckless.”
+
+Her eyes narrowed. “That's not exactly the Law and the Prophets, is it?”
+
+“It's the truth. To think of selecting out of all the world one woman,
+and electing to spend the rest of one's days with her! Although--”
+
+His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance.
+
+“Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids,” he said irrelevantly. “She was
+lovelier than the bride.”
+
+“Pretty, but stupid,” said Carlotta. “I like her. I've really tried to
+teach her things, but--you know--” She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+Dr. Max was learning wisdom. If there was a twinkle in his eye, he
+veiled it discreetly. But, once again in the machine, he bent over and
+put his cheek against hers.
+
+“You little cat! You're jealous,” he said exultantly.
+
+Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very
+close to his heart those autumn days. And Carlotta knew it.
+
+Sidney came off night duty the middle of November. The night duty had
+been a time of comparative peace to Carlotta. There were no evenings
+when Dr. Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car.
+
+Sidney's half-days at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on
+Carlotta's part. On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she
+could not contain herself. She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and
+took the trolley to a point near the end of the Street. After twilight
+fell, she slowly walked the length of the Street. Christine and Palmer
+had not returned from their wedding journey. The November evening was
+not cold, and on the little balcony sat Sidney and Dr. Max. K. was
+there, too, had she only known it, sitting back in the shadow and saying
+little, his steady eyes on Sidney's profile.
+
+But this Carlotta did not know. She went on down the Street in a frenzy
+of jealous anger.
+
+After that two ideas ran concurrent in Carlotta's mind: one was to get
+Sidney out of the way, the other was to make Wilson propose to her. In
+her heart she knew that on the first depended the second.
+
+A week later she made the same frantic excursion, but with a different
+result. Sidney was not in sight, or Wilson. But standing on the wooden
+doorstep of the little house was Le Moyne. The ailanthus trees were
+bare at that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky. The
+street-lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep in the shadow, now
+shone through the branches and threw into strong relief Le Moyne's tall
+figure and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat. But he
+did not see her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew.
+Another element had entered into her plotting. It was the first time
+she had known that K. lived in the Page house. It gave her a sense of
+uncertainty and deadly fear.
+
+She made her first friendly overture of many days to Sidney the
+following day. They met in the locker-room in the basement where the
+street clothing for the ward patients was kept. Here, rolled in bundles
+and ticketed, side by side lay the heterogeneous garments in which
+the patients had met accident or illness. Rags and tidiness, filth and
+cleanliness, lay almost touching.
+
+Far away on the other side of the white-washed basement, men were
+unloading gleaming cans of milk. Floods of sunlight came down the
+cellar-way, touching their white coats and turning the cans to silver.
+Everywhere was the religion of the hospital, which is order.
+
+Sidney, harking back from recent slights to the staircase conversation
+of her night duty, smiled at Carlotta cheerfully.
+
+“A miracle is happening,” she said. “Grace Irving is going out to-day.
+When one remembers how ill she was and how we thought she could not
+live, it's rather a triumph, isn't it?”
+
+“Are those her clothes?”
+
+Sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her
+hand.
+
+“She can't go out in those; I shall have to lend her something.” A
+little of the light died out of her face. “She's had a hard fight, and
+she has won,” she said. “But when I think of what she's probably going
+back to--”
+
+Carlotta shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“It's all in the day's work,” she observed indifferently. “You can take
+them up into the kitchen and give them steady work paring potatoes, or
+put them in the laundry ironing. In the end it's the same thing. They
+all go back.”
+
+She drew a package from the locker and looked at it ruefully.
+
+“Well, what do you know about this? Here's a woman who came in in a
+nightgown and pair of slippers. And now she wants to go out in half an
+hour!”
+
+She turned, on her way out of the locker-room, and shot a quick glance
+at Sidney.
+
+“I happened to be on your street the other night,” she said. “You live
+across the street from Wilsons', don't you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I thought so; I had heard you speak of the house. Your--your brother
+was standing on the steps.”
+
+Sidney laughed.
+
+“I have no brother. That's a roomer, a Mr. Le Moyne. It isn't really
+right to call him a roomer; he's one of the family now.”
+
+“Le Moyne!”
+
+He had even taken another name. It had hit him hard, for sure.
+
+K.'s name had struck an always responsive chord in Sidney. The two girls
+went toward the elevator together. With a very little encouragement,
+Sidney talked of K. She was pleased at Miss Harrison's friendly tone,
+glad that things were all right between them again. At her floor, she
+put a timid hand on the girl's arm.
+
+“I was afraid I had offended you or displeased you,” she said. “I'm so
+glad it isn't so.”
+
+Carlotta shivered under her hand.
+
+Things were not going any too well with K. True, he had received his
+promotion at the office, and with this present affluence of twenty-two
+dollars a week he was able to do several things. Mrs. Rosenfeld now
+washed and ironed one day a week at the little house, so that Katie
+might have more time to look after Anna. He had increased also the
+amount of money that he periodically sent East.
+
+So far, well enough. The thing that rankled and filled him with a sense
+of failure was Max Wilson's attitude. It was not unfriendly; it was,
+indeed, consistently respectful, almost reverential. But he clearly
+considered Le Moyne's position absurd.
+
+There was no true comradeship between the two men; but there was
+beginning to be constant association, and lately a certain amount of
+friction. They thought differently about almost everything.
+
+Wilson began to bring all his problems to Le Moyne. There were long
+consultations in that small upper room. Perhaps more than one man or
+woman who did not know of K.'s existence owed his life to him that fall.
+
+Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels. Cases began to come in to him
+from the surrounding towns. To his own daring was added a new and
+remarkable technique. But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not
+content, was once again in touch with the work he loved. There were
+times when, having thrashed a case out together and outlined the next
+day's work for Max, he would walk for hours into the night out over the
+hills, fighting his battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick
+of things again. The thought of the gas office and its deadly round
+sickened him.
+
+It was on one of his long walks that K. found Tillie.
+
+It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to
+rain as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside
+paths thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that
+Saturday afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the
+street-car line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he
+wore no overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat. Somewhere along
+the road he had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for
+human society, it trotted companionably at his heels.
+
+Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and
+stopped in for a glass of Scotch. He was chilled through. The dog
+went in with him, and stood looking up into his face. It was as if he
+submitted, but wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road
+ahead and the trails of rabbits over the fields.
+
+The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills. Through the mist
+of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him. The door
+was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet.
+To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth,
+and in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers. To the
+left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor
+of the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over
+everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house
+was aggressive with new paint--the sagging old floors shone with it, the
+doors gleamed.
+
+“Hello!” called K.
+
+There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer,
+the rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing
+uncertainly on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish,
+stripped off his sweater.
+
+“Not very busy here this afternoon!” he said to the unseen female on the
+staircase. Then he saw her. It was Tillie. She put a hand against the
+doorframe to steady herself. Tillie surely, but a new Tillie! With her
+hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the
+throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller,
+infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her. But she did not
+smile at him. There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's
+expression, submissive, but questioning.
+
+“Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne.” And, when he held out his hand,
+smiling: “I just had to do it, Mr. K.”
+
+“And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and--happy, Tillie.”
+
+“I'm all right. Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice. He'll be back at
+five. Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?”
+
+The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie. The Street did
+not approve of “something else.”
+
+“Scotch-and-soda,” said Le Moyne. “And shall I buy a ticket for you to
+punch?”
+
+But she only smiled faintly. He was sorry he had made the blunder.
+Evidently the Street and all that pertained was a sore subject.
+
+So this was Tillie's new home! It was for this that she had exchanged
+the virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's--for this wind-swept
+little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon
+enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The
+other was the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of
+self-abnegation had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed.
+Back of its position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own
+situation. On a wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was
+another vase of dried flowers.
+
+Tillie brought the Scotch, already mixed, in a tall glass. K. would
+have preferred to mix it himself, but the Scotch was good. He felt a new
+respect for Mr. Schwitter.
+
+“You gave me a turn at first,” said Tillie. “But I am right glad to see
+you, Mr. Le Moyne. Now that the roads are bad, nobody comes very much.
+It's lonely.”
+
+Until now, K. and Tillie, when they met, had met conversationally on the
+common ground of food. They no longer had that, and between them both
+lay like a barrier their last conversation.
+
+“Are you happy, Tillie?” said K. suddenly.
+
+“I expected you'd ask me that. I've been thinking what to say.”
+
+Her reply set him watching her face. More attractive it certainly was,
+but happy? There was a wistfulness about Tillie's mouth that set him
+wondering.
+
+“Is he good to you?”
+
+“He's about the best man on earth. He's never said a cross word to
+me--even at first, when I was panicky and scared at every sound.”
+
+Le Moyne nodded understandingly.
+
+“I burned a lot of victuals when I first came, running off and hiding
+when I heard people around the place. It used to seem to me that what
+I'd done was written on my face. But he never said a word.”
+
+“That's over now?”
+
+“I don't run. I am still frightened.”
+
+“Then it has been worth while?”
+
+Tillie glanced up at the two pictures over the mantel.
+
+“Sometimes it is--when he comes in tired, and I've a chicken ready or
+some fried ham and eggs for his supper, and I see him begin to look
+rested. He lights his pipe, and many an evening he helps me with the
+dishes. He's happy; he's getting fat.”
+
+“But you?” Le Moyne persisted.
+
+“I wouldn't go back to where I was, but I am not happy, Mr. Le Moyne.
+There's no use pretending. I want a baby. All along I've wanted a baby.
+He wants one. This place is his, and he'd like a boy to come into it
+when he's gone. But, my God! if I did have one; what would it be?”
+
+K.'s eyes followed hers to the picture and the everlastings underneath.
+
+“And she--there isn't any prospect of her--?”
+
+“No.”
+
+There was no solution to Tillie's problem. Le Moyne, standing on the
+hearth and looking down at her, realized that, after all, Tillie must
+work out her own salvation. He could offer her no comfort.
+
+They talked far into the growing twilight of the afternoon. Tillie was
+hungry for news of the Street: must know of Christine's wedding, of
+Harriet, of Sidney in her hospital. And when he had told her all, she
+sat silent, rolling her handkerchief in her fingers. Then:--
+
+“Take the four of us,” she said suddenly,--“Christine Lorenz and Sidney
+Page and Miss Harriet and me,--and which one would you have picked to
+go wrong like this? I guess, from the looks of things, most folks would
+have thought it would be the Lorenz girl. They'd have picked Harriet
+Kennedy for the hospital, and me for the dressmaking, and it would have
+been Sidney Page that got married and had an automobile. Well, that's
+life.”
+
+She looked up at K. shrewdly.
+
+“There were some people out here lately. They didn't know me, and I
+heard them talking. They said Sidney Page was going to marry Dr. Max
+Wilson.”
+
+“Possibly. I believe there is no engagement yet.”
+
+He had finished with his glass. Tillie rose to take it away. As she
+stood before him she looked up into his face.
+
+“If you like her as well as I think you do, Mr. Le Moyne, you won't let
+him get her.”
+
+“I am afraid that's not up to me, is it? What would I do with a wife,
+Tillie?”
+
+“You'd be faithful to her. That's more than he would be. I guess, in the
+long run, that would count more than money.”
+
+That was what K. took home with him after his encounter with Tillie. He
+pondered it on his way back to the street-car, as he struggled against
+the wind. The weather had changed. Wagon-tracks along the road were
+filled with water and had begun to freeze. The rain had turned to a
+driving sleet that cut his face. Halfway to the trolley line, the dog
+turned off into a by-road. K. did not miss him. The dog stared after
+him, one foot raised. Once again his eyes were like Tillie's, as she had
+waved good-bye from the porch.
+
+His head sunk on his breast, K. covered miles of road with his long,
+swinging pace, and fought his battle. Was Tillie right, after all, and
+had he been wrong? Why should he efface himself, if it meant Sidney's
+unhappiness? Why not accept Wilson's offer and start over again? Then
+if things went well--the temptation was strong that stormy afternoon. He
+put it from him at last, because of the conviction that whatever he did
+would make no change in Sidney's ultimate decision. If she cared enough
+for Wilson, she would marry him. He felt that she cared enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Palmer and Christine returned from their wedding trip the day K.
+discovered Tillie. Anna Page made much of the arrival, insisted on
+dinner for them that night at the little house, must help Christine
+unpack her trunks and arrange her wedding gifts about the apartment. She
+was brighter than she had been for days, more interested. The wonders of
+the trousseau filled her with admiration and a sort of jealous envy for
+Sidney, who could have none of these things. In a pathetic sort of way,
+she mothered Christine in lieu of her own daughter.
+
+And it was her quick eye that discerned something wrong. Christine was
+not quite happy. Under her excitement was an undercurrent of reserve.
+Anna, rich in maternity if in nothing else, felt it, and in reply to
+some speech of Christine's that struck her as hard, not quite fitting,
+she gave her a gentle admonishing.
+
+“Married life takes a little adjusting, my dear,” she said. “After we
+have lived to ourselves for a number of years, it is not easy to live
+for some one else.”
+
+Christine straightened from the tea-table she was arranging.
+
+“That's true, of course. But why should the woman do all the adjusting?”
+
+“Men are more set,” said poor Anna, who had never been set in anything
+in her life. “It is harder for them to give in. And, of course, Palmer
+is older, and his habits--”
+
+“The less said about Palmer's habits the better,” flashed Christine. “I
+appear to have married a bunch of habits.”
+
+She gave over her unpacking, and sat down listlessly by the fire, while
+Anna moved about, busy with the small activities that delighted her.
+
+Six weeks of Palmer's society in unlimited amounts had bored Christine
+to distraction. She sat with folded hands and looked into a future that
+seemed to include nothing but Palmer: Palmer asleep with his mouth open;
+Palmer shaving before breakfast, and irritable until he had had his
+coffee; Palmer yawning over the newspaper.
+
+And there was a darker side to the picture than that. There was a vision
+of Palmer slipping quietly into his room and falling into the heavy
+sleep, not of drunkenness perhaps, but of drink. That had happened
+twice. She knew now that it would happen again and again, as long as he
+lived. Drinking leads to other things. The letter she had received on
+her wedding day was burned into her brain. There would be that in the
+future too, probably.
+
+Christine was not without courage. She was making a brave clutch
+at happiness. But that afternoon of the first day at home she was
+terrified. She was glad when Anna went and left her alone by her fire.
+
+But when she heard a step in the hall, she opened the door herself. She
+had determined to meet Palmer with a smile. Tears brought nothing;
+she had learned that already. Men liked smiling women and good cheer.
+“Daughters of joy,” they called girls like the one on the Avenue. So she
+opened the door smiling.
+
+But it was K. in the hall. She waited while, with his back to her, he
+shook himself like a great dog. When he turned, she was watching him.
+
+“You!” said Le Moyne. “Why, welcome home.”
+
+He smiled down at her, his kindly eyes lighting.
+
+“It's good to be home and to see you again. Won't you come in to my
+fire?”
+
+“I'm wet.”
+
+“All the more reason why you should come,” she cried gayly, and held the
+door wide.
+
+The little parlor was cheerful with fire and soft lamps, bright with
+silver vases full of flowers. K. stepped inside and took a critical
+survey of the room.
+
+“Well!” he said. “Between us we have made a pretty good job of this, I
+with the paper and the wiring, and you with your pretty furnishings and
+your pretty self.”
+
+He glanced at her appreciatively. Christine saw his approval, and was
+happier than she had been for weeks. She put on the thousand little airs
+and graces that were a part of her--held her chin high, looked up at
+him with the little appealing glances that she had found were wasted on
+Palmer. She lighted the spirit-lamp to make tea, drew out the best chair
+for him, and patted a cushion with her well-cared-for hands.
+
+“A big chair for a big man!” she said. “And see, here's a footstool.”
+
+“I am ridiculously fond of being babied,” said K., and quite basked in
+his new atmosphere of well-being. This was better than his empty room
+upstairs, than tramping along country roads, than his own thoughts.
+
+“And now, how is everything?” asked Christine from across the fire. “Do
+tell me all the scandal of the Street.”
+
+“There has been no scandal since you went away,” said K. And, because
+each was glad not to be left to his own thoughts, they laughed at this
+bit of unconscious humor.
+
+“Seriously,” said Le Moyne, “we have been very quiet. I have had my
+salary raised and am now rejoicing in twenty-two dollars a week. I
+am still not accustomed to it. Just when I had all my ideas fixed for
+fifteen, I get twenty-two and have to reassemble them. I am disgustingly
+rich.”
+
+“It is very disagreeable when one's income becomes a burden,” said
+Christine gravely.
+
+She was finding in Le Moyne something that she needed just then--a
+solidity, a sort of dependability, that had nothing to do with
+heaviness. She felt that here was a man she could trust, almost confide
+in. She liked his long hands, his shabby but well-cut clothes, his fine
+profile with its strong chin. She left off her little affectations,--a
+tribute to his own lack of them,--and sat back in her chair, watching
+the fire.
+
+When K. chose, he could talk well. The Howes had been to Bermuda on
+their wedding trip. He knew Bermuda; that gave them a common ground.
+Christine relaxed under his steady voice. As for K., he frankly enjoyed
+the little visit--drew himself at last with regret out of his chair.
+
+“You've been very nice to ask me in, Mrs. Howe,” he said. “I hope you
+will allow me to come again. But, of course, you are going to be very
+gay.”
+
+It seemed to Christine she would never be gay again. She did not
+want him to go away. The sound of his deep voice gave her a sense of
+security. She liked the clasp of the hand he held out to her, when at
+last he made a move toward the door.
+
+“Tell Mr. Howe I am sorry he missed our little party,” said Le Moyne.
+“And--thank you.”
+
+“Will you come again?” asked Christine rather wistfully.
+
+“Just as often as you ask me.”
+
+As he closed the door behind him, there was a new light in Christine's
+eyes. Things were not right, but, after all, they were not hopeless. One
+might still have friends, big and strong, steady of eye and voice. When
+Palmer came home, the smile she gave him was not forced.
+
+The day's exertion had been bad for Anna. Le Moyne found her on the
+couch in the transformed sewing-room, and gave her a quick glance of
+apprehension. She was propped up high with pillows, with a bottle of
+aromatic ammonia beside her.
+
+“Just--short of breath,” she panted. “I--I must get down. Sidney--is
+coming home--to supper; and--the others--Palmer and--”
+
+That was as far as she got. K., watch in hand, found her pulse thin,
+stringy, irregular. He had been prepared for some such emergency, and he
+hurried into his room for amyl-nitrate. When he came back she was almost
+unconscious. There was no time even to call Katie. He broke the capsule
+in a towel, and held it over her face. After a time the spasm relaxed,
+but her condition remained alarming.
+
+Harriet, who had come home by that time, sat by the couch and held her
+sister's hand. Only once in the next hour or so did she speak. They had
+sent for Dr. Ed, but he had not come yet. Harriet was too wretched to
+notice the professional manner in which K. set to work over Anna.
+
+“I've been a very hard sister to her,” she said. “If you can pull her
+through, I'll try to make up for it.”
+
+Christine sat on the stairs outside, frightened and helpless. They had
+sent for Sidney; but the little house had no telephone, and the message
+was slow in getting off.
+
+At six o'clock Dr. Ed came panting up the stairs and into the room. K.
+stood back.
+
+“Well, this is sad, Harriet,” said Dr. Ed. “Why in the name of Heaven,
+when I wasn't around, didn't you get another doctor. If she had had some
+amyl-nitrate--”
+
+“I gave her some nitrate of amyl,” said K. quietly. “There was really no
+time to send for anybody. She almost went under at half-past five.”
+
+Max had kept his word, and even Dr. Ed did not suspect K.'s secret. He
+gave a quick glance at this tall young man who spoke so quietly of what
+he had done for the sick woman, and went on with his work.
+
+Sidney arrived a little after six, and from that moment the confusion in
+the sick-room was at an end. She moved Christine from the stairs,
+where Katie on her numerous errands must crawl over her; set Harriet to
+warming her mother's bed and getting it ready; opened windows, brought
+order and quiet. And then, with death in her eyes, she took up her
+position beside her mother. This was no time for weeping; that would
+come later. Once she turned to K., standing watchfully beside her.
+
+“I think you have known this for a long time,” she said. And, when he
+did not answer: “Why did you let me stay away from her? It would have
+been such a little time!”
+
+“We were trying to do our best for both of you,” he replied.
+
+Anna was unconscious and sinking fast. One thought obsessed Sidney.
+She repeated it over and over. It came as a cry from the depths of the
+girl's new experience.
+
+“She has had so little of life,” she said, over and over. “So little!
+Just this Street. She never knew anything else.”
+
+And finally K. took it up.
+
+“After all, Sidney,” he said, “the Street IS life: the world is only
+many streets. She had a great deal. She had love and content, and she
+had you.”
+
+Anna died a little after midnight, a quiet passing, so that only Sidney
+and the two men knew when she went away. It was Harriet who collapsed.
+During all that long evening she had sat looking back over years of
+small unkindnesses. The thorn of Anna's inefficiency had always rankled
+in her flesh. She had been hard, uncompromising, thwarted. And now it
+was forever too late.
+
+K. had watched Sidney carefully. Once he thought she was fainting, and
+went to her. But she shook her head.
+
+“I am all right. Do you think you could get them all out of the room and
+let me have her alone for just a few minutes?”
+
+He cleared the room, and took up his vigil outside the door. And, as he
+stood there, he thought of what he had said to Sidney about the Street.
+It was a world of its own. Here in this very house were death and
+separation; Harriet's starved life; Christine and Palmer beginning a
+long and doubtful future together; himself, a failure, and an impostor.
+
+When he opened the door again, Sidney was standing by her mother's bed.
+He went to her, and she turned and put her head against his shoulder
+like a tired child.
+
+“Take me away, K.,” she said pitifully.
+
+And, with his arm around her, he led her out of the room.
+
+Outside of her small immediate circle Anna's death was hardly felt.
+The little house went on much as before. Harriet carried back to her
+business a heaviness of spirit that made it difficult to bear with
+the small irritations of her day. Perhaps Anna's incapacity, which had
+always annoyed her, had been physical. She must have had her trouble a
+longtime. She remembered other women of the Street who had crept through
+inefficient days, and had at last laid down their burdens and closed
+their mild eyes, to the lasting astonishment of their families. What did
+they think about, these women, as they pottered about? Did they resent
+the impatience that met their lagging movements, the indifference
+that would not see how they were failing? Hot tears fell on Harriet's
+fashion-book as it lay on her knee. Not only for Anna--for Anna's
+prototypes everywhere.
+
+On Sidney--and in less measure, of course, on K.--fell the real brunt of
+the disaster. Sidney kept up well until after the funeral, but went down
+the next day with a low fever.
+
+“Overwork and grief,” Dr. Ed said, and sternly forbade the hospital
+again until Christmas. Morning and evening K. stopped at her door and
+inquired for her, and morning and evening came Sidney's reply:--
+
+“Much better. I'll surely be up to-morrow!”
+
+But the days dragged on and she did not get about.
+
+Downstairs, Christine and Palmer had entered on the round of midwinter
+gayeties. Palmer's “crowd” was a lively one. There were dinners
+and dances, week-end excursions to country-houses. The Street grew
+accustomed to seeing automobiles stop before the little house at all
+hours of the night. Johnny Rosenfeld, driving Palmer's car, took to
+falling asleep at the wheel in broad daylight, and voiced his discontent
+to his mother.
+
+“You never know where you are with them guys,” he said briefly. “We
+start out for half an hour's run in the evening, and get home with the
+milk-wagons. And the more some of them have had to drink, the more they
+want to drive the machine. If I get a chance, I'm going to beat it while
+the wind's my way.”
+
+But, talk as he might, in Johnny Rosenfeld's loyal heart there was no
+thought of desertion. Palmer had given him a man's job, and he would
+stick by it, no matter what came.
+
+There were some things that Johnny Rosenfeld did not tell his mother.
+There were evenings when the Howe car was filled, not with Christine
+and her friends, but with women of a different world; evenings when the
+destination was not a country estate, but a road-house; evenings when
+Johnny Rosenfeld, ousted from the driver's seat by some drunken youth,
+would hold tight to the swinging car and say such fragments of prayers
+as he could remember. Johnny Rosenfeld, who had started life with few
+illusions, was in danger of losing such as he had.
+
+One such night Christine put in, lying wakefully in her bed, while the
+clock on the mantel tolled hour after hour into the night. Palmer did
+not come home at all. He sent a note from the office in the morning:
+
+“I hope you are not worried, darling. The car broke down near the
+Country Club last night, and there was nothing to do but to spend the
+night there. I would have sent you word, but I did not want to rouse
+you. What do you say to the theater to-night and supper afterward?”
+
+Christine was learning. She telephoned the Country Club that morning,
+and found that Palmer had not been there. But, although she knew now
+that he was deceiving her, as he always had deceived her, as probably
+he always would, she hesitated to confront him with what she knew. She
+shrank, as many a woman has shrunk before, from confronting him with his
+lie.
+
+But the second time it happened, she was roused. It was almost Christmas
+then, and Sidney was well on the way to recovery, thinner and very
+white, but going slowly up and down the staircase on K.'s arm, and
+sitting with Harriet and K. at the dinner table. She was begging to be
+back on duty for Christmas, and K. felt that he would have to give her
+up soon.
+
+At three o'clock one morning Sidney roused from a light sleep to hear a
+rapping on her door.
+
+“Is that you, Aunt Harriet?” she called.
+
+“It's Christine. May I come in?”
+
+Sidney unlocked her door. Christine slipped into the room. She carried a
+candle, and before she spoke she looked at Sidney's watch on the bedside
+table.
+
+“I hoped my clock was wrong,” she said. “I am sorry to waken you,
+Sidney, but I don't know what to do.”
+
+“Are you ill?”
+
+“No. Palmer has not come home.”
+
+“What time is it?”
+
+“After three o'clock.”
+
+Sidney had lighted the gas and was throwing on her dressing-gown.
+
+“When he went out did he say--”
+
+“He said nothing. We had been quarreling. Sidney, I am going home in the
+morning.”
+
+“You don't mean that, do you?”
+
+“Don't I look as if I mean it? How much of this sort of thing is a woman
+supposed to endure?”
+
+“Perhaps he has been delayed. These things always seem terrible in the
+middle of the night, but by morning--”
+
+Christine whirled on her.
+
+“This isn't the first time. You remember the letter I got on my wedding
+day?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“He's gone back to her.”
+
+“Christine! Oh, I am sure you're wrong. He's devoted to you. I don't
+believe it!”
+
+“Believe it or not,” said Christine doggedly, “that's exactly what has
+happened. I got something out of that little rat of a Rosenfeld boy, and
+the rest I know because I know Palmer. He's out with her to-night.”
+
+The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to
+make a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious. But
+vice had remained for her a clear abstraction. There were such people,
+and because one was in the world for service one cared for them. Even
+the Saviour had been kind to the woman of the streets.
+
+But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world--that
+because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked. Her young
+spirit rose in hot rebellion.
+
+“It isn't fair!” she cried. “It makes me hate all the men in the world.
+Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!”
+
+Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room. Mere companionship
+had soothed her. She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than
+Sidney.
+
+“They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven,” she said. “There are
+decent men. My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is
+another.”
+
+At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home. Christine met
+him in the lower hall. He was rather pale, but entirely sober. She
+confronted him in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.
+
+“I am sorry to be so late, Chris,” he said. “The fact is, I am all in. I
+was driving the car out Seven Mile Run. We blew out a tire and the thing
+turned over.”
+
+Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits
+with his wedding day. In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much
+in love with his wife.
+
+But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of
+marriage had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face
+value. Grace had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed
+to be. With Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now--all his small
+indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on, like other
+women since the world began, she would learn to dissemble, to affect to
+believe him what he was not.
+
+Grace had learned this lesson long ago. It was the ABC of her knowledge.
+And so, back to Grace six weeks after his wedding day came Palmer
+Howe, not with a suggestion to renew the old relationship, but for
+comradeship.
+
+Christine sulked--he wanted good cheer; Christine was intolerant--he
+wanted tolerance; she disapproved of him and showed her disapproval--he
+wanted approval. He wanted life to be comfortable and cheerful, without
+recriminations, a little work and much play, a drink when one was
+thirsty. Distorted though it was, and founded on a wrong basis, perhaps,
+deep in his heart Palmer's only longing was for happiness; but this
+happiness must be of an active sort--not content, which is passive, but
+enjoyment.
+
+“Come on out,” he said. “I've got a car now. No taxi working its head
+off for us. Just a little run over the country roads, eh?”
+
+It was the afternoon of the day before Christine's night visit to
+Sidney. The office had been closed, owing to a death, and Palmer was in
+possession of a holiday.
+
+“Come on,” he coaxed. “We'll go out to the Climbing Rose and have
+supper.”
+
+“I don't want to go.”
+
+“That's not true, Grace, and you know it.”
+
+“You and I are through.”
+
+“It's your doing, not mine. The roads are frozen hard; an hour's run
+into the country will bring your color back.”
+
+“Much you care about that. Go and ride with your wife,” said the girl,
+and flung away from him.
+
+The last few weeks had filled out her thin figure, but she still bore
+traces of her illness. Her short hair was curled over her head. She
+looked curiously boyish, almost sexless.
+
+Because she saw him wince when she mentioned Christine, her ill temper
+increased. She showed her teeth.
+
+“You get out of here,” she said suddenly. “I didn't ask you to come
+back. I don't want you.”
+
+“Good Heavens, Grace! You always knew I would have to marry some day.”
+
+“I was sick; I nearly died. I didn't hear any reports of you hanging
+around the hospital to learn how I was getting along.”
+
+He laughed rather sheepishly.
+
+“I had to be careful. You know that as well as I do. I know half the
+staff there. Besides, one of--” He hesitated over his wife's name. “A
+girl I know very well was in the training-school. There would have been
+the devil to pay if I'd as much as called up.”
+
+“You never told me you were going to get married.”
+
+Cornered, he slipped an arm around her. But she shook him off.
+
+“I meant to tell you, honey; but you got sick. Anyhow, I--I hated to
+tell you, honey.”
+
+He had furnished the flat for her. There was a comfortable feeling of
+coming home about going there again. And, now that the worst minute of
+their meeting was over, he was visibly happier. But Grace continued to
+stand eyeing him somberly.
+
+“I've got something to tell you,” she said. “Don't have a fit, and don't
+laugh. If you do, I'll--I'll jump out of the window. I've got a place in
+a store. I'm going to be straight, Palmer.”
+
+“Good for you!”
+
+He meant it. She was a nice girl and he was fond of her. The other was
+a dog's life. And he was not unselfish about it. She could not belong to
+him. He did not want her to belong to any one else.
+
+“One of the nurses in the hospital, a Miss Page, has got me something to
+do at Lipton and Homburg's. I am going on for the January white sale. If
+I make good they will keep me.”
+
+He had put her aside without a qualm; and now he met her announcement
+with approval. He meant to let her alone. They would have a holiday
+together, and then they would say good-bye. And she had not fooled him.
+She still cared. He was getting off well, all things considered. She
+might have raised a row.
+
+“Good work!” he said. “You'll be a lot happier. But that isn't any
+reason why we shouldn't be friends, is it? Just friends; I mean that.
+I would like to feel that I can stop in now and then and say how do you
+do.”
+
+“I promised Miss Page.”
+
+“Never mind Miss Page.”
+
+The mention of Sidney's name brought up in his mind Christine as he had
+left her that morning. He scowled. Things were not going well at home.
+There was something wrong with Christine. She used to be a good sport,
+but she had never been the same since the day of the wedding. He thought
+her attitude toward him was one of suspicion. It made him uncomfortable.
+But any attempt on his part to fathom it only met with cold silence.
+That had been her attitude that morning.
+
+“I'll tell you what we'll do,” he said. “We won't go to any of the old
+places. I've found a new roadhouse in the country that's respectable
+enough to suit anybody. We'll go out to Schwitter's and get some dinner.
+I'll promise to get you back early. How's that?”
+
+In the end she gave in. And on the way out he lived up to the letter of
+their agreement. The situation exhilarated him: Grace with her new air
+of virtue, her new aloofness; his comfortable car; Johnny Rosenfeld's
+discreet back and alert ears.
+
+The adventure had all the thrill of a new conquest in it. He treated the
+girl with deference, did not insist when she refused a cigarette, felt
+glowingly virtuous and exultant at the same time.
+
+When the car drew up before the Schwitter place, he slipped a
+five-dollar bill into Johnny Rosenfeld's not over-clean hand.
+
+“I don't mind the ears,” he said. “Just watch your tongue, lad.” And
+Johnny stalled his engine in sheer surprise.
+
+“There's just enough of the Jew in me,” said Johnny, “to know how to
+talk a lot and say nothing, Mr. Howe.”
+
+He crawled stiffly out of the car and prepared to crank it.
+
+“I'll just give her the 'once over' now and then,” he said. “She'll
+freeze solid if I let her stand.”
+
+Grace had gone up the narrow path to the house. She had the gift of
+looking well in her clothes, and her small hat with its long quill
+and her motor-coat were chic and becoming. She never overdressed, as
+Christine was inclined to do.
+
+Fortunately for Palmer, Tillie did not see him. A heavy German maid
+waited at the table in the dining-room, while Tillie baked waffles in
+the kitchen.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld, going around the side path to the kitchen door with
+visions of hot coffee and a country supper for his frozen stomach, saw
+her through the window bending flushed over the stove, and hesitated.
+Then, without a word, he tiptoed back to the car again, and, crawling
+into the tonneau, covered himself with rugs. In his untutored mind were
+certain great qualities, and loyalty to his employer was one. The five
+dollars in his pocket had nothing whatever to do with it.
+
+At eighteen he had developed a philosophy of four words. It took the
+place of the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism. It
+was: “Mind your own business.”
+
+The discovery of Tillie's hiding-place interested but did not thrill
+him. Tillie was his cousin. If she wanted to do the sort of thing she
+was doing, that was her affair. Tillie and her middle-aged lover, Palmer
+Howe and Grace--the alley was not unfamiliar with such relationships. It
+viewed them with tolerance until they were found out, when it raised its
+hands.
+
+True to his promise, Palmer wakened the sleeping boy before nine
+o'clock. Grace had eaten little and drunk nothing; but Howe was slightly
+stimulated.
+
+“Give her the 'once over,'” he told Johnny, “and then go back and crawl
+into the rugs again. I'll drive in.”
+
+Grace sat beside him. Their progress was slow and rough over the
+country roads, but when they reached the State road Howe threw open the
+throttle. He drove well. The liquor was in his blood. He took chances
+and got away with them, laughing at the girl's gasps of dismay.
+
+“Wait until I get beyond Simkinsville,” he said, “and I'll let her out.
+You're going to travel tonight, honey.”
+
+The girl sat beside him with her eyes fixed ahead. He had been drinking,
+and the warmth of the liquor was in his voice. She was determined on one
+thing. She was going to make him live up to the letter of his promise to
+go away at the house door; and more and more she realized that it would
+be difficult. His mood was reckless, masterful. Instead of laughing when
+she drew back from a proffered caress, he turned surly. Obstinate lines
+that she remembered appeared from his nostrils to the corners of his
+mouth. She was uneasy.
+
+Finally she hit on a plan to make him stop somewhere in her neighborhood
+and let her get out of the car. She would not come back after that.
+
+There was another car going toward the city. Now it passed them, and as
+often they passed it. It became a contest of wits. Palmer's car lost on
+the hills, but gained on the long level stretches, which gleamed with a
+coating of thin ice.
+
+“I wish you'd let them get ahead, Palmer. It's silly and it's reckless.”
+
+“I told you we'd travel to-night.”
+
+He turned a little glance at her. What the deuce was the matter with
+women, anyhow? Were none of them cheerful any more? Here was Grace as
+sober as Christine. He felt outraged, defrauded.
+
+His light car skidded and struck the big car heavily. On a smooth road
+perhaps nothing more serious than broken mudguards would have been the
+result. But on the ice the small car slewed around and slid over the
+edge of the bank. At the bottom of the declivity it turned over.
+
+Grace was flung clear of the wreckage. Howe freed himself and stood
+erect, with one arm hanging at his side. There was no sound at all from
+the boy under the tonneau.
+
+The big car had stopped. Down the bank plunged a heavy, gorilla-like
+figure, long arms pushing aside the frozen branches of trees. When he
+reached the car, O'Hara found Grace sitting unhurt on the ground. In the
+wreck of the car the lamps had not been extinguished, and by their light
+he made out Howe, swaying dizzily.
+
+“Anybody underneath?”
+
+“The chauffeur. He's dead, I think. He doesn't answer.”
+
+The other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that
+time. With the aid of a jack, they got the car up. Johnny Rosenfeld lay
+doubled on his face underneath. When he came to and opened his eyes,
+Grace almost shrieked with relief.
+
+“I'm all right,” said Johnny Rosenfeld. And, when they offered him
+whiskey: “Away with the fire-water. I am no drinker. I--I--” A spasm of
+pain twisted his face. “I guess I'll get up.” With his arms he lifted
+himself to a sitting position, and fell back again.
+
+“God!” he said. “I can't move my legs.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but
+valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a
+talk with K. the night before she left.
+
+Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by
+the table and watched her as she moved about the room.
+
+The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and
+down the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch
+in the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home
+for her tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to
+bear them in triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy in
+years.
+
+And now it was over. He drew a long breath.
+
+“I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on,” she said anxiously. “Not
+that we don't want you--you know better than that.”
+
+“There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to,” he
+said simply.
+
+“I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to--to keep things
+together. First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it is
+you.”
+
+“Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it is
+I who am undeniably grateful to you? This is home now. I have lived
+around--in different places and in different ways. I would rather be
+here than anywhere else in the world.”
+
+But he did not look at her. There was so much that was hopeless in his
+eyes that he did not want her to see. She would be quite capable, he
+told himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she ever
+guessed. And he was afraid--afraid, since he wanted her so much--that he
+would be fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms. So he
+looked away.
+
+Everything was ready for her return to the hospital. She had been out
+that day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with folded
+hands; she had made her round of little visits on the Street; and now
+her suit-case, packed, was in the hall.
+
+“In one way, it will be a little better for you than if Christine and
+Palmer were not in the house. You like Christine, don't you?”
+
+“Very much.”
+
+“She likes you, K. She depends on you, too, especially since that night
+when you took care of Palmer's arm before we got Dr. Max. I often think,
+K., what a good doctor you would have been. You knew so well what to do
+for mother.”
+
+She broke off. She still could not trust her voice about her mother.
+
+“Palmer's arm is going to be quite straight. Dr. Ed is so proud of Max
+over it. It was a bad fracture.”
+
+He had been waiting for that. Once at least, whenever they were
+together, she brought Max into the conversation. She was quite
+unconscious of it.
+
+“You and Max are great friends. I knew you would like him. He is
+interesting, don't you think?”
+
+“Very,” said K.
+
+To save his life, he could not put any warmth into his voice. He would
+be fair. It was not in human nature to expect more of him.
+
+“Those long talks you have, shut in your room--what in the world do you
+talk about? Politics?”
+
+“Occasionally.”
+
+She was a little jealous of those evenings, when she sat alone, or
+when Harriet, sitting with her, made sketches under the lamp to the
+accompaniment of a steady hum of masculine voices from across the hall.
+Not that she was ignored, of course. Max came in always, before he went,
+and, leaning over the back of a chair, would inform her of the absolute
+blankness of life in the hospital without her.
+
+“I go every day because I must,” he would assure her gayly; “but, I tell
+you, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every cap
+was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling.” He
+had a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of
+the shoulders. “Cui bono?” he said--which, being translated, means:
+“What the devil's the use!”
+
+And K. would stand in the doorway, quietly smoking, or go back to his
+room and lock away in his trunk the great German books on surgery with
+which he and Max had been working out a case.
+
+So K. sat by the dining-room table and listened to her talk of Max that
+last evening together.
+
+“I told Mrs. Rosenfeld to-day not to be too much discouraged about
+Johnny. I had seen Dr. Max do such wonderful things. Now that you are
+such friends,”--she eyed him wistfully,--“perhaps some day you will come
+to one of his operations. Even if you didn't understand exactly, I know
+it would thrill you. And--I'd like you to see me in my uniform, K. You
+never have.”
+
+She grew a little sad as the evening went on. She was going to miss K.
+very much. While she was ill she had watched the clock for the time to
+listen for him. She knew the way he slammed the front door. Palmer never
+slammed the door. She knew too that, just after a bang that threatened
+the very glass in the transom, K. would come to the foot of the stairs
+and call:--
+
+“Ahoy, there!”
+
+“Aye, aye,” she would answer--which was, he assured her, the proper
+response.
+
+Whether he came up the stairs at once or took his way back to Katie had
+depended on whether his tribute for the day was fruit or sweetbreads.
+
+Now that was all over. They were such good friends. He would miss her,
+too; but he would have Harriet and Christine and--Max. Back in a circle
+to Max, of course.
+
+She insisted, that last evening, on sitting up with him until midnight
+ushered in Christmas Day. Christine and Palmer were out; Harriet, having
+presented Sidney with a blouse that had been left over in the shop from
+the autumn's business, had yawned herself to bed.
+
+When the bells announced midnight, Sidney roused with a start. She
+realized that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes were
+fixed on her. The little clock on the shelf took up the burden of the
+churches, and struck the hour in quick staccato notes.
+
+Sidney rose and went over to K., her black dress in soft folds about
+her.
+
+“He is born, K.”
+
+“He is born, dear.”
+
+She stooped and kissed his cheek lightly.
+
+Christmas Day dawned thick and white. Sidney left the little house at
+six, with the street light still burning through a mist of falling snow.
+
+The hospital wards and corridors were still lighted when she went on
+duty at seven o'clock. She had been assigned to the men's surgical ward,
+and went there at once. She had not seen Carlotta Harrison since her
+mother's death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward. For the
+second time in four months, the two girls were working side by side.
+
+Sidney's recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made her
+nervous. But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.
+
+“We were all sorry to hear of your trouble,” she said. “I hope we shall
+get on nicely.”
+
+Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing. At the far end two cots
+had been placed.
+
+“The ward is heavy, isn't it?”
+
+“Very. I've been almost mad at dressing hour. There are three of
+us--you, myself, and a probationer.”
+
+The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows.
+Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a business-like way to her
+records.
+
+“The probationer's name is Wardwell,” she said. “Perhaps you'd better
+help her with the breakfasts. If there's any way to make a mistake, she
+makes it.”
+
+It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.
+
+“You here in the ward, Johnny!” she said.
+
+Suffering had refined the boy's features. His dark, heavily fringed eyes
+looked at her from a pale face. But he smiled up at her cheerfully.
+
+“I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved.
+Why pay rent?”
+
+Sidney had not seen him since his accident. She had wished to go, but K.
+had urged against it. She was not strong, and she had already suffered
+much. And now the work of the ward pressed hard. She had only a moment.
+She stood beside him and stroked his hand.
+
+“I'm sorry, Johnny.”
+
+He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estate
+of a private patient to the free ward.
+
+“Oh, I'm all right, Miss Sidney,” he said. “Mr. Howe is paying six
+dollars a week for me. The difference between me and the other fellows
+around here is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don't.”
+
+Before his determined cheerfulness Sidney choked.
+
+“Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some. I wish you'd tell Mr.
+Howe to give ma the six dollars. She'll be needing it. I'm no bloated
+aristocrat; I don't have to have a napkin.”
+
+“Have they told you what the trouble is?”
+
+“Back's broke. But don't let that worry you. Dr. Max Wilson is going to
+operate on me. I'll be doing the tango yet.”
+
+Sidney's eyes shone. Of course, Max could do it. What a thing it was
+to be able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld's and make it
+life again!
+
+All sorts of men made up Sidney's world: the derelicts who wandered
+through the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; the
+unshaven men in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, if
+not of pain; Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, but
+filling no especial place in the world. Towering over them all was the
+younger Wilson. He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that the
+other men were not--to their weakness strength, courage, daring, power.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.
+
+“When I was a kid,” he said, “and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Max
+a dude, I never thought I'd lie here watching that door to see him come
+in. You have had trouble, too. Ain't it the hell of a world, anyhow? It
+ain't much of a Christmas to you, either.”
+
+Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up
+with tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as
+she might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled
+up at her whimsically.
+
+“Run for your life. The dam's burst!” he said.
+
+As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. The
+internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in
+their buttonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where the
+kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting
+turkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, services
+were held in the chapel downstairs.
+
+Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down
+elevators. Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet
+slippers.
+
+Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor
+the wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for
+the occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who
+drove the ambulance.
+
+On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in
+crisp caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved a
+place for the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready to
+run out between rejoicings, as it were--for a cigarette or an ambulance
+call, as the case might be.
+
+Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.
+
+The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising
+above the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glass
+windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her
+cap, always just a little awry.
+
+Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes
+straying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! What
+a zest for living and for happiness she had!
+
+The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:
+
+“Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even
+thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”
+
+That was Sidney. She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil of
+gladness. And he--
+
+His brother was singing. His deep bass voice, not always true, boomed
+out above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to
+him; he had been a good son.
+
+Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his
+mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the
+girl who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to
+Carlotta last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line
+of nurses.
+
+Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted
+her head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.
+
+The nurses sang:--
+
+     “O holy Child of Bethlehem!
+      Descend to us, we pray;
+      Cast out our sin, and enter in,
+      Be born in us to-day.”
+
+The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
+heavy throat shook with earnestness.
+
+The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and
+weary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.
+
+The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her
+a silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.
+But the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a
+great box of roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, “From a
+neighbor.”
+
+Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
+afternoon.
+
+Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the
+corridor.
+
+“Merry Christmas!” he said, and held out his hand.
+
+“Merry Christmas!” she said. “You see!”--she glanced down to the rose
+she wore. “The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward.”
+
+“But they were for you!”
+
+“They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
+chance to enjoy them.”
+
+Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty
+speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died
+before her frank glance.
+
+There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her
+that he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without
+her; that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy
+man to his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire
+politely whether she had had her Christmas dinner.
+
+Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.
+
+“What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
+friends?”
+
+“Damn discipline!” said the pride of the staff.
+
+Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes roused
+the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.
+
+“My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,
+and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for a
+ride.”
+
+He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he
+maliciously raised his voice a trifle.
+
+“Just a little run,” he urged. “Put on your warmest things.”
+
+Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock;
+but she had promised to go home.
+
+“K. is alone.”
+
+“K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now.”
+
+The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. The
+heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreen
+in the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And,
+besides, if K. were with Christine--
+
+“It's forbidden, isn't it?”
+
+“I believe it is.” He smiled at her.
+
+“And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!”
+
+“One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and
+then.”
+
+After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend and
+neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellion
+of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.
+
+“Very well; I'll go.”
+
+Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and black
+despair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive
+with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on
+her face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleigh
+would throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He would
+touch Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method:
+to play at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the
+cloak dropped and the danger was there.
+
+The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went
+back to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair
+of woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays of
+holly scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey
+and ice-cream.
+
+The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the
+ward. She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the
+instant composing of the restless ward to peace.
+
+She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas
+was a festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she
+played cheerful things.
+
+The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across
+from bed to bed.
+
+The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
+long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
+the music.
+
+“Last Christmas,” she said plaintively, “we went out into the country
+in a hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for,
+anyhow. I am a fool.”
+
+“Undoubtedly,” said Carlotta.
+
+“Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's
+the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of
+what I sat down to to-day--!”
+
+She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital
+differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while
+Sidney's had been to care for her patients.
+
+Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idly
+glued the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was
+scratching a skull and cross-bones on it.
+
+“I wonder if you have noticed something,” she said, eyes on the label.
+
+“I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given,” said
+Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the
+rounds of the ward.
+
+When she came back she was sulky.
+
+“I'm no gossip,” she said, putting the tray on the table. “If you won't
+see, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying.”
+
+As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta
+paid no attention to this.
+
+“What won't I see?”
+
+It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importance
+and let her superior ask her twice. Then:--
+
+“Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page.”
+
+A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.
+
+“They're old friends.”
+
+“Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you
+wanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll
+never finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish,” concluded the
+probationer plaintively, “that some good-looking fellow like that would
+take a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, but
+I've got style.”
+
+She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her
+lanky, ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy
+would have dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long
+jade earrings, and made her a fashion.
+
+Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny
+Rosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.
+The ward echoed with it. “I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen,” hummed the
+ward under its breath. Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.
+
+“Lord, how I'd like to dance! If I ever get out of this charnel-house!”
+
+The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.
+This crude girl was right--right. Carlotta knew it down to the depths of
+her tortured brain. As inevitably as the night followed the day, she was
+losing her game. She had lost already, unless--
+
+If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things.
+She surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wide
+apart. It was here that they met on common ground.
+
+The lame violin-player limped out of the ward; the shadows of the
+early winter twilight settled down. At five o'clock Carlotta sent Miss
+Wardwell to first supper, to the surprise of that seldom surprised
+person. The ward lay still or shuffled abut quietly. Christmas was over,
+and there were no evening papers to look forward to.
+
+Carlotta gave the five-o'clock medicines. Then she sat down at the table
+near the door, with the tray in front of her. There are certain thoughts
+that are at first functions of the brain; after a long time the spinal
+cord takes them up and converts them into acts almost automatically.
+Perhaps because for the last month she had done the thing so often in
+her mind, its actual performance was almost without conscious thought.
+
+Carlotta took a bottle from her medicine cupboard, and, writing a new
+label for it, pasted it over the old one. Then she exchanged it for one
+of the same size on the medicine tray.
+
+In the dining-room, at the probationers' table, Miss Wardwell was
+talking.
+
+“Believe me,” she said, “me for the country and the simple life after
+this. They think I'm only a probationer and don't see anything, but I've
+got eyes in my head. Harrison is stark crazy over Dr. Wilson, and she
+thinks I don't see it. But never mind; I paid, her up to-day for a few
+of the jolts she has given me.”
+
+Throughout the dining-room busy and competent young women came and ate,
+hastily or leisurely as their opportunity was, and went on their way
+again. In their hands they held the keys, not always of life and death
+perhaps, but of ease from pain, of tenderness, of smooth pillows, and
+cups of water to thirsty lips. In their eyes, as in Sidney's, burned the
+light of service.
+
+But here and there one found women, like Carlotta and Miss Wardwell,
+who had mistaken their vocation, who railed against the monotony of the
+life, its limitations, its endless sacrifices. They showed it in their
+eyes.
+
+Fifty or so against two--fifty who looked out on the world with the
+fearless glance of those who have seen life to its depths, and, with the
+broad understanding of actual contact, still found it good. Fifty who
+were learning or had learned not to draw aside their clean starched
+skirts from the drab of the streets. And the fifty, who found the very
+scum of the gutters not too filthy for tenderness and care, let Carlotta
+and, in lesser measure, the new probationer alone. They could not have
+voiced their reasons.
+
+The supper-room was filled with their soft voices, the rustle of their
+skirts, the gleam of their stiff white caps.
+
+When Carlotta came in, she greeted none of them. They did not like her,
+and she knew it.
+
+Before her, instead of the tidy supper-table, she was seeing the
+medicine-tray as she had left it.
+
+“I guess I've fixed her,” she said to herself.
+
+Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day. This was when the gay
+little sleigh had stopped in front of the house.
+
+Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment. Christine's parlor was
+gay with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her
+tea-cups.
+
+K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had turned to see Sidney
+in the doorway, and leaped to his feet.
+
+“I can't come in,” she cried. “I am only here for a moment. I am out
+sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson. It's perfectly delightful.”
+
+“Ask him in for a cup of tea,” Christine called out. “Here's Aunt
+Harriet and mother and even Palmer!”
+
+Christine had aged during the last weeks, but she was putting up a brave
+front.
+
+“I'll ask him.”
+
+Sidney ran to the front door and called: “Will you come in for a cup of
+tea?”
+
+“Tea! Good Heavens, no. Hurry.”
+
+As Sidney turned back into the house, she met Palmer. He had come out
+in the hall, and had closed the door into the parlor behind him. His arm
+was still in splints, and swung suspended in a gay silk sling.
+
+The sound of laughter came through the door faintly.
+
+“How is he to-day?” He meant Johnny, of course. The boy's face was
+always with him.
+
+“Better in some ways, but of course--”
+
+“When are they going to operate?”
+
+“When he is a little stronger. Why don't you come into see him?”
+
+“I can't. That's the truth. I can't face the poor youngster.”
+
+“He doesn't seem to blame you; he says it's all in the game.”
+
+“Sidney, does Christine know that I was not alone that night?”
+
+“If she guesses, it is not because of anything the boy has said. He has
+told nothing.”
+
+Out of the firelight, away from the chatter and the laughter, Palmer's
+face showed worn and haggard. He put his free hand on Sidney's shoulder.
+
+“I was thinking that perhaps if I went away--”
+
+“That would be cowardly, wouldn't it?”
+
+“If Christine would only say something and get it over with! She doesn't
+sulk; I think she's really trying to be kind. But she hates me, Sidney.
+She turns pale every time I touch her hand.”
+
+All the light had died out of Sidney's face. Life was terrible, after
+all--overwhelming. One did wrong things, and other people suffered; or
+one was good, as her mother had been, and was left lonely, a widow, or
+like Aunt Harriet. Life was a sham, too. Things were so different from
+what they seemed to be: Christine beyond the door, pouring tea and
+laughing with her heart in ashes; Palmer beside her, faultlessly dressed
+and wretched. The only one she thought really contented was K. He seemed
+to move so calmly in his little orbit. He was always so steady, so
+balanced. If life held no heights for him, at least it held no depths.
+
+So Sidney thought, in her ignorance!
+
+“There's only one thing, Palmer,” she said gravely. “Johnny Rosenfeld
+is going to have his chance. If anybody in the world can save him, Max
+Wilson can.”
+
+The light of that speech was in her eyes when she went out to the sleigh
+again. K. followed her out and tucked the robes in carefully about her.
+
+“Warm enough?”
+
+“All right, thank you.”
+
+“Don't go too far. Is there any chance of having you home for supper?”
+
+“I think not. I am to go on duty at six again.”
+
+If there was a shadow in K.'s eyes, she did not see it. He waved them
+off smilingly from the pavement, and went rather heavily back into the
+house.
+
+“Just how many men are in love with you, Sidney?” asked Max, as Peggy
+started up the Street.
+
+“No one that I know of, unless--”
+
+“Exactly. Unless--”
+
+“What I meant,” she said with dignity, “is that unless one counts very
+young men, and that isn't really love.”
+
+“We'll leave out Joe Drummond and myself--for, of course, I am very
+young. Who is in love with you besides Le Moyne? Any of the internes at
+the hospital?”
+
+“Me! Le Moyne is not in love with me.”
+
+There was such sincerity in her voice that Wilson was relieved.
+
+K., older than himself and more grave, had always had an odd attraction
+for women. He had been frankly bored by them, but the fact had remained.
+And Max more than suspected that now, at last, he had been caught.
+
+“Don't you really mean that you are in love with Le Moyne?”
+
+“Please don't be absurd. I am not in love with anybody; I haven't time
+to be in love. I have my profession now.”
+
+“Bah! A woman's real profession is love.”
+
+Sidney differed from this hotly. So warm did the argument become that
+they passed without seeing a middle-aged gentleman, short and rather
+heavy set, struggling through a snowdrift on foot, and carrying in his
+hand a dilapidated leather bag.
+
+Dr. Ed hailed them. But the cutter slipped by and left him knee-deep,
+looking ruefully after them.
+
+“The young scamp!” he said. “So that's where Peggy is!”
+
+Nevertheless, there was no anger in Dr. Ed's mind, only a vague and
+inarticulate regret. These things that came so easily to Max, the
+affection of women, gay little irresponsibilities like the stealing
+of Peggy and the sleigh, had never been his. If there was any faint
+resentment, it was at himself. He had raised the boy wrong--he had
+taught him to be selfish. Holding the bag high out of the drifts, he
+made his slow progress up the Street.
+
+At something after two o'clock that night, K. put down his pipe
+and listened. He had not been able to sleep since midnight. In his
+dressing-gown he had sat by the small fire, thinking. The content of his
+first few months on the Street was rapidly giving way to unrest. He
+who had meant to cut himself off from life found himself again in close
+touch with it; his eddy was deep with it.
+
+For the first time, he had begun to question the wisdom of what he had
+done. Had it been cowardice, after all? It had taken courage, God knew,
+to give up everything and come away. In a way, it would have taken more
+courage to have stayed. Had he been right or wrong?
+
+And there was a new element. He had thought, at first, that he could
+fight down this love for Sidney. But it was increasingly hard. The
+innocent touch of her hand on his arm, the moment when he had held her
+in his arms after her mother's death, the thousand small contacts of her
+returns to the little house--all these set his blood on fire. And it was
+fighting blood.
+
+Under his quiet exterior K. fought many conflicts those winter
+days--over his desk and ledger at the office, in his room alone,
+with Harriet planning fresh triumphs beyond the partition, even by
+Christine's fire, with Christine just across, sitting in silence and
+watching his grave profile and steady eyes.
+
+He had a little picture of Sidney--a snap-shot that he had taken
+himself. It showed Sidney minus a hand, which had been out of range when
+the camera had been snapped, and standing on a steep declivity
+which would have been quite a level had he held the camera straight.
+Nevertheless it was Sidney, her hair blowing about her, eyes looking
+out, tender lips smiling. When she was not at home, it sat on K.'s
+dresser, propped against his collar-box. When she was in the house, it
+lay under the pin-cushion.
+
+Two o'clock in the morning, then, and K. in his dressing-gown, with the
+picture propped, not against the collar-box, but against his lamp, where
+he could see it.
+
+He sat forward in his chair, his hands folded around his knee, and
+looked at it. He was trying to picture the Sidney of the photograph
+in his old life--trying to find a place for her. But it was difficult.
+There had been few women in his old life. His mother had died many years
+before. There had been women who had cared for him, but he put them
+impatiently out of his mind.
+
+Then the bell rang.
+
+Christine was moving about below. He could hear her quick steps. Almost
+before he had heaved his long legs out of the chair, she was tapping at
+his door outside.
+
+“It's Mrs. Rosenfeld. She says she wants to see you.”
+
+He went down the stairs. Mrs. Rosenfeld was standing in the lower hall,
+a shawl about her shoulders. Her face was white and drawn above it.
+
+“I've had word to go to the hospital,” she said. “I thought maybe you'd
+go with me. It seems as if I can't stand it alone. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!”
+
+“Where's Palmer?” K. demanded of Christine.
+
+“He's not in yet.”
+
+“Are you afraid to stay in the house alone?”
+
+“No; please go.”
+
+He ran up the staircase to his room and flung on some clothing. In the
+lower hall, Mrs. Rosenfeld's sobs had become low moans; Christine stood
+helplessly over her.
+
+“I am terribly sorry,” she said--“terribly sorry! When I think whose
+fault all this is!”
+
+Mrs. Rosenfeld put out a work-hardened hand and caught Christine's
+fingers.
+
+“Never mind that,” she said. “You didn't do it. I guess you and I
+understand each other. Only pray God you never have a child.”
+
+K. never forgot the scene in the small emergency ward to which Johnny
+had been taken. Under the white lights his boyish figure looked
+strangely long. There was a group around the bed--Max Wilson, two or
+three internes, the night nurse on duty, and the Head.
+
+Sitting just inside the door on a straight chair was Sidney--such a
+Sidney as he never had seen before, her face colorless, her eyes wide
+and unseeing, her hands clenched in her lap. When he stood beside her,
+she did not move or look up. The group around the bed had parted to
+admit Mrs. Rosenfeld, and closed again. Only Sidney and K. remained by
+the door, isolated, alone.
+
+“You must not take it like that, dear. It's sad, of course. But, after
+all, in that condition--”
+
+It was her first knowledge that he was there. But she did not turn.
+
+“They say I poisoned him.” Her voice was dreary, inflectionless.
+
+“You--what?”
+
+“They say I gave him the wrong medicine; that he's dying; that I
+murdered him.” She shivered.
+
+K. touched her hands. They were ice-cold.
+
+“Tell me about it.”
+
+“There is nothing to tell. I came on duty at six o'clock and gave the
+medicines. When the night nurse came on at seven, everything was all
+right. The medicine-tray was just as it should be. Johnny was asleep. I
+went to say good-night to him and he--he was asleep. I didn't give him
+anything but what was on the tray,” she finished piteously. “I looked at
+the label; I always look.”
+
+By a shifting of the group around the bed, K.'s eyes looked for a moment
+directly into Carlotta's. Just for a moment; then the crowd closed up
+again. It was well for Carlotta that it did. She looked as if she had
+seen a ghost--closed her eyes, even reeled.
+
+“Miss Harrison is worn out,” Dr. Wilson said brusquely. “Get some one to
+take her place.”
+
+But Carlotta rallied. After all, the presence of this man in this room
+at such a time meant nothing. He was Sidney's friend, that was all.
+
+But her nerve was shaken. The thing had gone beyond her. She had not
+meant to kill. It was the boy's weakened condition that was turning her
+revenge into tragedy.
+
+“I am all right,” she pleaded across the bed to the Head. “Let me stay,
+please. He's from my ward. I--I am responsible.”
+
+Wilson was at his wits' end. He had done everything he knew without
+result. The boy, rousing for an instant, would lapse again into stupor.
+With a healthy man they could have tried more vigorous measures--could
+have forced him to his feet and walked him about, could have beaten him
+with knotted towels dipped in ice-water. But the wrecked body on the bed
+could stand no such heroic treatment.
+
+It was Le Moyne, after all, who saved Johnny Rosenfeld's life. For, when
+staff and nurses had exhausted all their resources, he stepped forward
+with a quiet word that brought the internes to their feet astonished.
+
+There was a new treatment for such cases--it had been tried abroad. He
+looked at Max.
+
+Max had never heard of it. He threw out his hands.
+
+“Try it, for Heaven's sake,” he said. “I'm all in.”
+
+The apparatus was not in the house--must be extemporized, indeed, at
+last, of odds and ends from the operating-room. K. did the work, his
+long fingers deft and skillful--while Mrs. Rosenfeld knelt by the bed
+with her face buried; while Sidney sat, dazed and bewildered, on her
+little chair inside the door; while night nurses tiptoed along the
+corridor, and the night watchman stared incredulous from outside the
+door.
+
+When the two great rectangles that were the emergency ward windows
+had turned from mirrors reflecting the room to gray rectangles in the
+morning light; Johnny Rosenfeld opened his eyes and spoke the first
+words that marked his return from the dark valley.
+
+“Gee, this is the life!” he said, and smiled into K.'s watchful face.
+
+When it was clear that the boy would live, K. rose stiffly from the
+bedside and went over to Sidney's chair.
+
+“He's all right now,” he said--“as all right as he can be, poor lad!”
+
+“You did it--you! How strange that you should know such a thing. How am
+I to thank you?”
+
+The internes, talking among themselves, had wandered down to their
+dining-room for early coffee. Wilson was giving a few last instructions
+as to the boy's care. Quite unexpectedly, Sidney caught K.'s hand and
+held it to her lips. The iron repression of the night, of months indeed,
+fell away before her simple caress.
+
+“My dear, my dear,” he said huskily. “Anything that I can do--for
+you--at any time--”
+
+It was after Sidney had crept like a broken thing to her room that
+Carlotta Harrison and K. came face to face. Johnny was quite conscious
+by that time, a little blue around the lips, but valiantly cheerful.
+
+“More things can happen to a fellow than I ever knew there was!” he
+said to his mother, and submitted rather sheepishly to her tears and
+caresses.
+
+“You were always a good boy, Johnny,” she said. “Just you get well
+enough to come home. I'll take care of you the rest of my life. We will
+get you a wheel-chair when you can be about, and I can take you out in
+the park when I come from work.”
+
+“I'll be passenger and you'll be chauffeur, ma.”
+
+“Mr. Le Moyne is going to get your father sent up again. With sixty-five
+cents a day and what I make, we'll get along.”
+
+“You bet we will!”
+
+“Oh, Johnny, if I could see you coming in the door again and yelling
+'mother' and 'supper' in one breath!”
+
+The meeting between Carlotta and Le Moyne was very quiet. She had been
+making a sort of subconscious impression on the retina of his mind
+during all the night. It would be difficult to tell when he actually
+knew her.
+
+When the preparations for moving Johnny back to the big ward had been
+made, the other nurses left the room, and Carlotta and the boy were
+together. K. stopped her on her way to the door.
+
+“Miss Harrison!”
+
+“Yes, Dr. Edwardes.”
+
+“I am not Dr. Edwardes here; my name is Le Moyne.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“I have not seen you since you left St. John's.”
+
+“No; I--I rested for a few months.”
+
+“I suppose they do not know that you were--that you have had any
+previous hospital experience.”
+
+“No. Are you going to tell them?”
+
+“I shall not tell them, of course.”
+
+And thus, by simple mutual consent, it was arranged that each should
+respect the other's confidence.
+
+Carlotta staggered to her room. There had been a time, just before dawn,
+when she had had one of those swift revelations that sometimes come at
+the end of a long night. She had seen herself as she was. The boy was
+very low, hardly breathing. Her past stretched behind her, a series of
+small revenges and passionate outbursts, swift yieldings, slow remorse.
+She dared not look ahead. She would have given every hope she had in the
+world, just then, for Sidney's stainless past.
+
+She hated herself with that deadliest loathing that comes of complete
+self-revelation.
+
+And she carried to her room the knowledge that the night's struggle had
+been in vain--that, although Johnny Rosenfeld would live, she had gained
+nothing by what he had suffered. The whole night had shown her the
+hopelessness of any stratagem to win Wilson from his new allegiance. She
+had surprised him in the hallway, watching Sidney's slender figure
+as she made her way up the stairs to her room. Never, in all his past
+overtures to her, had she seen that look in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+To Harriet Kennedy, Sidney's sentence of thirty days' suspension came
+as a blow. K. broke the news to her that evening before the time for
+Sidney's arrival.
+
+The little household was sharing in Harriet's prosperity. Katie had
+a helper now, a little Austrian girl named Mimi. And Harriet had
+established on the Street the innovation of after-dinner coffee. It was
+over the after-dinner coffee that K. made his announcement.
+
+“What do you mean by saying she is coming home for thirty days? Is the
+child ill?”
+
+“Not ill, although she is not quite well. The fact is, Harriet,”--for
+it was “Harriet” and “K.” by this time,--“there has been a sort of
+semi-accident up at the hospital. It hasn't resulted seriously, but--”
+
+Harriet put down the apostle-spoon in her hand and stared across at him.
+
+“Then she has been suspended? What did she do? I don't believe she did
+anything!”
+
+“There was a mistake about the medicine, and she was blamed; that's
+all.”
+
+“She'd better come home and stay home,” said Harriet shortly. “I hope it
+doesn't get in the papers. This dressmaking business is a funny sort of
+thing. One word against you or any of your family, and the crowd's off
+somewhere else.”
+
+“There's nothing against Sidney,” K. reminded her. “Nothing in the
+world. I saw the superintendent myself this afternoon. It seems it's a
+mere matter of discipline. Somebody made a mistake, and they cannot let
+such a thing go by. But he believes, as I do, that it was not Sidney.”
+
+However Harriet had hardened herself against the girl's arrival, all she
+had meant to say fled when she saw Sidney's circled eyes and pathetic
+mouth.
+
+“You child!” she said. “You poor little girl!” And took her corseted
+bosom.
+
+For the time at least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her. All
+her brave vaunt of service faded before her disgrace.
+
+When Christine would have seen her, she kept her door locked and asked
+for just that one evening alone. But after Harriet had retired, and
+Mimi, the Austrian, had crept out to the corner to mail a letter back to
+Gratz, Sidney unbolted her door and listened in the little upper hall.
+Harriet, her head in a towel, her face carefully cold-creamed, had gone
+to bed; but K.'s light, as usual, was shining over the transom. Sidney
+tiptoed to the door.
+
+“K.!”
+
+Almost immediately he opened the door.
+
+“May I come in and talk to you?”
+
+He turned and took a quick survey of the room. The picture was against
+the collar-box. But he took the risk and held the door wide.
+
+Sidney came in and sat down by the fire. By being adroit he managed to
+slip the little picture over and under the box before she saw it. It is
+doubtful if she would have realized its significance, had she seen it.
+
+“I've been thinking things over,” she said. “It seems to me I'd better
+not go back.”
+
+He had left the door carefully open. Men are always more conventional
+than women.
+
+“That would be foolish, wouldn't it, when you have done so well? And,
+besides, since you are not guilty, Sidney--”
+
+“I didn't do it!” she cried passionately. “I know I didn't. But I've
+lost faith in myself. I can't keep on; that's all there is to it. All
+last night, in the emergency ward, I felt it going. I clutched at it. I
+kept saying to myself: 'You didn't do it, you didn't do it'; and all the
+time something inside of me was saying, 'Not now, perhaps; but sometime
+you may.'”
+
+Poor K., who had reasoned all this out for himself and had come to the
+same impasse!
+
+“To go on like this, feeling that one has life and death in one's hand,
+and then perhaps some day to make a mistake like that!” She looked up at
+him forlornly. “I am just not brave enough, K.”
+
+“Wouldn't it be braver to keep on? Aren't you giving up very easily?”
+
+Her world was in pieces about her, and she felt alone in a wide and
+empty place. And, because her nerves were drawn taut until they were
+ready to snap, Sidney turned on him shrewishly.
+
+“I think you are all afraid I will come back to stay. Nobody really
+wants me anywhere--in all the world! Not at the hospital, not here, not
+anyplace. I am no use.”
+
+“When you say that nobody wants you,” said K., not very steadily, “I--I
+think you are making a mistake.”
+
+“Who?” she demanded. “Christine? Aunt Harriet? Katie? The only person
+who ever really wanted me was my mother, and I went away and left her!”
+
+She scanned his face closely, and, reading there something she did not
+understand, she colored suddenly.
+
+“I believe you mean Joe Drummond.”
+
+“No; I do not mean Joe Drummond.”
+
+If he had found any encouragement in her face, he would have gone on
+recklessly; but her blank eyes warned him.
+
+“If you mean Max Wilson,” said Sidney, “you are entirely wrong. He's not
+in love with me--not, that is, any more than he is in love with a
+dozen girls. He likes to be with me--oh, I know that; but that doesn't
+mean--anything else. Anyhow, after this disgrace--”
+
+“There is no disgrace, child.”
+
+“He'll think me careless, at the least. And his ideals are so high, K.”
+
+“You say he likes to be with you. What about you?”
+
+Sidney had been sitting in a low chair by the fire. She rose with a
+sudden passionate movement. In the informality of the household, she
+had visited K. in her dressing-gown and slippers; and now she stood
+before him, a tragic young figure, clutching the folds of her gown
+across her breast.
+
+“I worship him, K.,” she said tragically. “When I see him coming, I want
+to get down and let him walk on me. I know his step in the hall. I
+know the very way he rings for the elevator. When I see him in the
+operating-room, cool and calm while every one else is flustered and
+excited, he--he looks like a god.”
+
+Then, half ashamed of her outburst, she turned her back to him and stood
+gazing at the small coal fire. It was as well for K. that she did not
+see his face. For that one moment the despair that was in him shone in
+his eyes. He glanced around the shabby little room, at the sagging bed,
+the collar-box, the pincushion, the old marble-topped bureau under which
+Reginald had formerly made his nest, at his untidy table, littered with
+pipes and books, at the image in the mirror of his own tall figure,
+stooped and weary.
+
+“It's real, all this?” he asked after a pause. “You're sure it's not
+just--glamour, Sidney?”
+
+“It's real--terribly real.” Her voice was muffled, and he knew then that
+she was crying.
+
+She was mightily ashamed of it. Tears, of course, except in the privacy
+of one's closet, were not ethical on the Street.
+
+“Perhaps he cares very much, too.”
+
+“Give me a handkerchief,” said Sidney in a muffled tone, and the little
+scene was broken into while K. searched through a bureau drawer. Then:
+
+“It's all over, anyhow, since this. If he'd really cared he'd have come
+over to-night. When one is in trouble one needs friends.”
+
+Back in a circle she came inevitably to her suspension. She would never
+go back, she said passionately. She was innocent, had been falsely
+accused. If they could think such a thing about her, she didn't want to
+be in their old hospital.
+
+K. questioned her, alternately soothing and probing.
+
+“You are positive about it?”
+
+“Absolutely. I have given him his medicines dozens of times.”
+
+“You looked at the label?”
+
+“I swear I did, K.”
+
+“Who else had access to the medicine closet?”
+
+“Carlotta Harrison carried the keys, of course. I was off duty from four
+to six. When Carlotta left the ward, the probationer would have them.”
+
+“Have you reason to think that either one of these girls would wish you
+harm?”
+
+“None whatever,” began Sidney vehemently; and then, checking
+herself,--“unless--but that's rather ridiculous.”
+
+“What is ridiculous?”
+
+“I've sometimes thought that Carlotta--but I am sure she is perfectly
+fair with me. Even if she--if she--”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Even if she likes Dr. Wilson, I don't believe--Why, K., she wouldn't!
+It would be murder.”
+
+“Murder, of course,” said K., “in intention, anyhow. Of course she
+didn't do it. I'm only trying to find out whose mistake it was.”
+
+Soon after that she said good-night and went out. She turned in the
+doorway and smiled tremulously back at him.
+
+“You have done me a lot of good. You almost make me believe in myself.”
+
+“That's because I believe in you.”
+
+With a quick movement that was one of her charms, Sidney suddenly closed
+the door and slipped back into the room. K., hearing the door close,
+thought she had gone, and dropped heavily into a chair.
+
+“My best friend in all the world!” said Sidney suddenly from behind him,
+and, bending over, she kissed him on the cheek.
+
+The next instant the door had closed behind her, and K. was left alone
+to such wretchedness and bliss as the evening had brought him.
+
+On toward morning, Harriet, who slept but restlessly in her towel,
+wakened to the glare of his light over the transom.
+
+“K.!” she called pettishly from her door. “I wish you wouldn't go to
+sleep and let your light burn!”
+
+K., surmising the towel and cold cream, had the tact not to open his
+door.
+
+“I am not asleep, Harriet, and I am sorry about the light. It's going
+out now.”
+
+Before he extinguished the light, he walked over to the old dresser and
+surveyed himself in the glass. Two nights without sleep and much anxiety
+had told on him. He looked old, haggard; infinitely tired. Mentally he
+compared himself with Wilson, flushed with success, erect, triumphant,
+almost insolent. Nothing had more certainly told him the hopelessness
+of his love for Sidney than her good-night kiss. He was her brother, her
+friend. He would never be her lover. He drew a long breath and proceeded
+to undress in the dark.
+
+Joe Drummond came to see Sidney the next day. She would have avoided
+him if she could, but Mimi had ushered him up to the sewing-room boudoir
+before she had time to escape. She had not seen the boy for two months,
+and the change in him startled her. He was thinner, rather hectic,
+scrupulously well dressed.
+
+“Why, Joe!” she said, and then: “Won't you sit down?”
+
+He was still rather theatrical. He dramatized himself, as he had that
+night the June before when he had asked Sidney to marry him. He stood
+just inside the doorway. He offered no conventional greeting whatever;
+but, after surveying her briefly, her black gown, the lines around her
+eyes:--
+
+“You're not going back to that place, of course?”
+
+“I--I haven't decided.”
+
+“Then somebody's got to decide for you. The thing for you to do is to
+stay right here, Sidney. People know you on the Street. Nobody here
+would ever accuse you of trying to murder anybody.”
+
+In spite of herself, Sidney smiled a little.
+
+“Nobody thinks I tried to murder him. It was a mistake about the
+medicines. I didn't do it, Joe.”
+
+His love was purely selfish, for he brushed aside her protest as if she
+had not spoken.
+
+“You give me the word and I'll go and get your things; I've got a car of
+my own now.”
+
+“But, Joe, they have only done what they thought was right. Whoever made
+it, there was a mistake.”
+
+He stared at her incredulously.
+
+“You don't mean that you are going to stand for this sort of thing?
+Every time some fool makes a mistake, are they going to blame it on
+you?”
+
+“Please don't be theatrical. Come in and sit down. I can't talk to you
+if you explode like a rocket all the time.”
+
+Her matter-of-fact tone had its effect. He advanced into the room, but
+he still scorned a chair.
+
+“I guess you've been wondering why you haven't heard from me,” he said.
+“I've seen you more than you've seen me.”
+
+Sidney looked uneasy. The idea of espionage is always repugnant, and
+to have a rejected lover always in the offing, as it were, was
+disconcerting.
+
+“I wish you would be just a little bit sensible, Joe. It's so silly of
+you, really. It's not because you care for me; it's really because you
+care for yourself.”
+
+“You can't look at me and say that, Sid.”
+
+He ran his finger around his collar--an old gesture; but the collar was
+very loose. He was thin; his neck showed it.
+
+“I'm just eating my heart out for you, and that's the truth. And it
+isn't only that. Everywhere I go, people say, 'There's the fellow Sidney
+Page turned down when she went to the hospital.' I've got so I keep off
+the Street as much as I can.”
+
+Sidney was half alarmed, half irritated. This wild, excited boy was not
+the doggedly faithful youth she had always known. It seemed to her
+that he was hardly sane--that underneath his quiet manner and carefully
+repressed voice there lurked something irrational, something she could
+not cope with. She looked up at him helplessly.
+
+“But what do you want me to do? You--you almost frighten me. If you'd
+only sit down--”
+
+“I want you to come home. I'm not asking anything else now. I just want
+you to come back, so that things will be the way they used to be. Now
+that they have turned you out--”
+
+“They've done nothing of the sort. I've told you that.”
+
+“You're going back?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“Because you love the hospital, or because you love somebody connected
+with the hospital?”
+
+Sidney was thoroughly angry by this time, angry and reckless. She had
+come through so much that every nerve was crying in passionate protest.
+
+“If it will make you understand things any better,” she cried, “I am
+going back for both reasons!”
+
+She was sorry the next moment. But her words seemed, surprisingly
+enough, to steady him. For the first time, he sat down.
+
+“Then, as far as I am concerned, it's all over, is it?”
+
+“Yes, Joe. I told you that long ago.”
+
+He seemed hardly to be listening. His thoughts had ranged far ahead.
+Suddenly:--
+
+“You think Christine has her hands full with Palmer, don't you? Well,
+if you take Max Wilson, you're going to have more trouble than Christine
+ever dreamed of. I can tell you some things about him now that will make
+you think twice.”
+
+But Sidney had reached her limit. She went over and flung open the door.
+
+“Every word that you say shows me how right I am in not marrying you,
+Joe,” she said. “Real men do not say those things about each other under
+any circumstances. You're behaving like a bad boy. I don't want you to
+come back until you have grown up.”
+
+He was very white, but he picked up his hat and went to the door.
+
+“I guess I AM crazy,” he said. “I've been wanting to go away, but mother
+raises such a fuss--I'll not annoy you any more.”
+
+He reached in his pocket and, pulling out a small box, held it toward
+her. The lid was punched full of holes.
+
+“Reginald,” he said solemnly. “I've had him all winter. Some boys caught
+him in the park, and I brought him home.”
+
+He left her standing there speechless with surprise, with the box in her
+hand, and ran down the stairs and out into the Street. At the foot of
+the steps he almost collided with Dr. Ed.
+
+“Back to see Sidney?” said Dr. Ed genially. “That's fine, Joe. I'm glad
+you've made it up.”
+
+The boy went blindly down the Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Winter relaxed its clutch slowly that year. March was bitterly cold;
+even April found the roads still frozen and the hedgerows clustered with
+ice. But at mid-day there was spring in the air. In the courtyard of the
+hospital, convalescents sat on the benches and watched for robins. The
+fountain, which had frozen out, was being repaired. Here and there on
+ward window-sills tulips opened their gaudy petals to the sun.
+
+Harriet had gone abroad for a flying trip in March and came back laden
+with new ideas, model gowns, and fresh enthusiasm. She carried out and
+planted flowers on her sister's grave, and went back to her work with a
+feeling of duty done. A combination of crocuses and snow on the ground
+had given her an inspiration for a gown. She drew it in pencil on an
+envelope on her way back in the street car.
+
+Grace Irving, having made good during the white sales, had been sent to
+the spring cottons. She began to walk with her head higher. The day she
+sold Sidney material for a simple white gown, she was very happy. Once
+a customer brought her a bunch of primroses. All day she kept them under
+the counter in a glass of water, and at evening she took them to Johnny
+Rosenfeld, still lying prone in the hospital.
+
+On Sidney, on K., and on Christine the winter had left its mark heavily.
+Christine, readjusting her life to new conditions, was graver, more
+thoughtful. She was alone most of the time now. Under K.'s guidance, she
+had given up the “Duchess” and was reading real books. She was thinking
+real thoughts, too, for the first time in her life.
+
+Sidney, as tender as ever, had lost a little of the radiance from her
+eyes; her voice had deepened. Where she had been a pretty girl, she
+was now lovely. She was back in the hospital again, this time in the
+children's ward. K., going in one day to take Johnny Rosenfeld a basket
+of fruit, saw her there with a child in her arms, and a light in her
+eyes that he had never seen before. It hurt him, rather--things being as
+they were with him. When he came out he looked straight ahead.
+
+With the opening of spring the little house at Hillfoot took on fresh
+activities. Tillie was house-cleaning with great thoroughness. She
+scrubbed carpets, took down the clean curtains, and put them up again
+freshly starched. It was as if she found in sheer activity and fatigue a
+remedy for her uneasiness.
+
+Business had not been very good. The impeccable character of the little
+house had been against it. True, Mr. Schwitter had a little bar and
+served the best liquors he could buy; but he discouraged rowdiness--had
+been known to refuse to sell to boys under twenty-one and to men who had
+already overindulged. The word went about that Schwitter's was no place
+for a good time. Even Tillie's chicken and waffles failed against this
+handicap.
+
+By the middle of April the house-cleaning was done. One or two motor
+parties had come out, dined sedately and wined moderately, and had gone
+back to the city again. The next two weeks saw the weather clear. The
+roads dried up, robins filled the trees with their noisy spring songs,
+and still business continued dull.
+
+By the first day of May, Tillie's uneasiness had become certainty. On
+that morning Mr. Schwitter, coming in from the early milking, found her
+sitting in the kitchen, her face buried in her apron. He put down the
+milk-pails and, going over to her, put a hand on her head.
+
+“I guess there's no mistake, then?”
+
+“There's no mistake,” said poor Tillie into her apron.
+
+He bent down and kissed the back of her neck. Then, when she failed to
+brighten, he tiptoed around the kitchen, poured the milk into pans,
+and rinsed the buckets, working methodically in his heavy way. The
+tea-kettle had boiled dry. He filled that, too. Then:--
+
+“Do you want to see a doctor?”
+
+“I'd better see somebody,” she said, without looking up. “And--don't
+think I'm blaming you. I guess I don't really blame anybody. As far as
+that goes, I've wanted a child right along. It isn't the trouble I am
+thinking of either.”
+
+He nodded. Words were unnecessary between them. He made some tea
+clumsily and browned her a piece of toast. When he had put them on one
+end of the kitchen table, he went over to her again.
+
+“I guess I'd ought to have thought of this before, but all I thought of
+was trying to get a little happiness out of life. And,”--he stroked
+her arm,--“as far as I am concerned, it's been worth while, Tillie. No
+matter what I've had to do, I've always looked forward to coming back
+here to you in the evening. Maybe I don't say it enough, but I guess you
+know I feel it all right.”
+
+Without looking up, she placed her hand over his.
+
+“I guess we started wrong,” he went on. “You can't build happiness on
+what isn't right. You and I can manage well enough; but now that there's
+going to be another, it looks different, somehow.”
+
+After that morning Tillie took up her burden stoically. The hope of
+motherhood alternated with black fits of depression. She sang at her
+work, to burst out into sudden tears.
+
+Other things were not going well. Schwitter had given up his nursery
+business; but the motorists who came to Hillfoot did not come back.
+When, at last, he took the horse and buggy and drove about the country
+for orders, he was too late. Other nurserymen had been before him;
+shrubberies and orchards were already being set out. The second payment
+on his mortgage would be due in July. By the middle of May they were
+frankly up against it. Schwitter at last dared to put the situation into
+words.
+
+“We're not making good, Til,” he said. “And I guess you know the reason.
+We are too decent; that's what's the matter with us.” There was no irony
+in his words.
+
+With all her sophistication, Tillie was vastly ignorant of life. He had
+to explain.
+
+“We'll have to keep a sort of hotel,” he said lamely. “Sell to everybody
+that comes along, and--if parties want to stay over-night--”
+
+Tillie's white face turned crimson.
+
+He attempted a compromise. “If it's bad weather, and they're married--”
+
+“How are we to know if they are married or not?”
+
+He admired her very much for it. He had always respected her. But the
+situation was not less acute. There were two or three unfurnished rooms
+on the second floor. He began to make tentative suggestions as to their
+furnishing. Once he got a catalogue from an installment house, and tried
+to hide it from her. Tillie's eyes blazed. She burned it in the kitchen
+stove.
+
+Schwitter himself was ashamed; but the idea obsessed him. Other people
+fattened on the frailties of human nature. Two miles away, on the other
+road, was a public house that had netted the owner ten thousand dollars
+profit the year before. They bought their beer from the same concern.
+He was not as young as he had been; there was the expense of keeping
+his wife--he had never allowed her to go into the charity ward at the
+asylum. Now that there was going to be a child, there would be three
+people dependent upon him. He was past fifty, and not robust.
+
+One night, after Tillie was asleep, he slipped noiselessly into his
+clothes and out to the barn, where he hitched up the horse with nervous
+fingers.
+
+Tillie never learned of that midnight excursion to the “Climbing Rose,”
+ two miles away. Lights blazed in every window; a dozen automobiles were
+parked before the barn. Somebody was playing a piano. From the bar came
+the jingle of glasses and loud, cheerful conversation.
+
+When Schwitter turned the horse's head back toward Hillfoot, his
+mind was made up. He would furnish the upper rooms; he would bring a
+barkeeper from town--these people wanted mixed drinks; he could get a
+second-hand piano somewhere.
+
+Tillie's rebellion was instant and complete. When she found him
+determined, she made the compromise that her condition necessitated. She
+could not leave him, but she would not stay in the rehabilitated little
+house. When, a week after Schwitter's visit to the “Climbing Rose,” an
+installment van arrived from town with the new furniture, Tillie
+moved out to what had been the harness-room of the old barn and there
+established herself.
+
+“I am not leaving you,” she told him. “I don't even know that I am
+blaming you. But I am not going to have anything to do with it, and
+that's flat.”
+
+So it happened that K., making a spring pilgrimage to see Tillie,
+stopped astounded in the road. The weather was warm, and he carried
+his Norfolk coat over his arm. The little house was bustling; a dozen
+automobiles were parked in the barnyard. The bar was crowded, and a
+barkeeper in a white coat was mixing drinks with the casual indifference
+of his kind. There were tables under the trees on the lawn, and a new
+sign on the gate.
+
+Even Schwitter bore a new look of prosperity. Over his schooner of beer
+K. gathered something of the story.
+
+“I'm not proud of it, Mr. Le Moyne. I've come to do a good many things
+the last year or so that I never thought I would do. But one thing leads
+to another. First I took Tillie away from her good position, and after
+that nothing went right. Then there were things coming on”--he looked at
+K. anxiously--“that meant more expense. I would be glad if you wouldn't
+say anything about it at Mrs. McKee's.”
+
+“I'll not speak of it, of course.”
+
+It was then, when K. asked for Tillie, that Mr. Schwitter's unhappiness
+became more apparent.
+
+“She wouldn't stand for it,” he said. “She moved out the day I furnished
+the rooms upstairs and got the piano.”
+
+“Do you mean she has gone?”
+
+“As far as the barn. She wouldn't stay in the house. I--I'll take you
+out there, if you would like to see her.”
+
+K. shrewdly surmised that Tillie would prefer to see him alone, under
+the circumstances.
+
+“I guess I can find her,” he said, and rose from the little table.
+
+“If you--if you can say anything to help me out, sir, I'd appreciate it.
+Of course, she understands how I am driven. But--especially if you would
+tell her that the Street doesn't know--”
+
+“I'll do all I can,” K. promised, and followed the path to the barn.
+
+Tillie received him with a certain dignity. The little harness-room
+was very comfortable. A white iron bed in a corner, a flat table with
+a mirror above it, a rocking-chair, and a sewing-machine furnished the
+room.
+
+“I wouldn't stand for it,” she said simply; “so here I am. Come in, Mr.
+Le Moyne.”
+
+There being but one chair, she sat on the bed. The room was littered
+with small garments in the making. She made no attempt to conceal them;
+rather, she pointed to them with pride.
+
+“I am making them myself. I have a lot of time these days. He's got a
+hired girl at the house. It was hard enough to sew at first, with me
+making two right sleeves almost every time.” Then, seeing his kindly eye
+on her: “Well, it's happened, Mr. Le Moyne. What am I going to do? What
+am I going to be?”
+
+“You're going to be a very good mother, Tillie.”
+
+She was manifestly in need of cheering. K., who also needed cheering
+that spring day, found his consolation in seeing her brighten under the
+small gossip of the Street. The deaf-and-dumb book agent had taken on
+life insurance as a side issue, and was doing well; the grocery store at
+the corner was going to be torn down, and over the new store there
+were to be apartments; Reginald had been miraculously returned, and was
+building a new nest under his bureau; Harriet Kennedy had been to Paris,
+and had brought home six French words and a new figure.
+
+Outside the open door the big barn loomed cool and shadowy, full of
+empty spaces where later the hay would be stored; anxious mother hens
+led their broods about; underneath in the horse stable the restless
+horses pawed in their stalls. From where he sat, Le Moyne could see only
+the round breasts of the two hills, the fresh green of the orchard the
+cows in a meadow beyond.
+
+Tillie followed his eyes.
+
+“I like it here,” she confessed. “I've had more time to think since I
+moved out than I ever had in my life before. Them hills help. When the
+noise is worst down at the house, I look at the hills there and--”
+
+There were great thoughts in her mind--that the hills meant God, and
+that in His good time perhaps it would all come right. But she was
+inarticulate. “The hills help a lot,” she repeated.
+
+K. rose. Tillie's work-basket lay near him. He picked up one of the
+little garments. In his big hands it looked small, absurd.
+
+“I--I want to tell you something, Tillie. Don't count on it too much;
+but Mrs. Schwitter has been failing rapidly for the last month or two.”
+
+Tillie caught his arm.
+
+“You've seen her?”
+
+“I was interested. I wanted to see things work out right for you.”
+
+All the color had faded from Tillie's face.
+
+“You're very good to me, Mr. Le Moyne,” she said. “I don't wish the poor
+soul any harm, but--oh, my God! if she's going, let it be before the
+next four months are over.”
+
+K. had fallen into the habit, after his long walks, of dropping into
+Christine's little parlor for a chat before he went upstairs. Those
+early spring days found Harriet Kennedy busy late in the evenings, and,
+save for Christine and K., the house was practically deserted.
+
+The breach between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was
+too proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her. On those
+occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so
+discontented that he drove her almost to distraction. Although she was
+convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with
+him the night of the accident, she did not trust him. Not that girl,
+perhaps, but there were others. There would always be others.
+
+Into Christine's little parlor, then, K. turned, the evening after he
+had seen Tillie. She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall
+stood open.
+
+“Come in,” she said, as he hesitated in the doorway.
+
+“I am frightfully dusty.”
+
+“There's a brush in the drawer of the hat-rack--although I don't really
+mind how you look.”
+
+The little room always cheered K. Its warmth and light appealed to his
+aesthetic sense; after the bareness of his bedroom, it spelled luxury.
+And perhaps, to be entirely frank, there was more than physical comfort
+and satisfaction in the evenings he spent in Christine's firelit parlor.
+He was entirely masculine, and her evident pleasure in his society
+gratified him. He had fallen into a way of thinking of himself as a sort
+of older brother to all the world because he was a sort of older brother
+to Sidney. The evenings with her did something to reinstate him in his
+own self-esteem. It was subtle, psychological, but also it was very
+human.
+
+“Come and sit down,” said Christine. “Here's a chair, and here are
+cigarettes and there are matches. Now!”
+
+But, for once, K. declined the chair. He stood in front of the fireplace
+and looked down at her, his head bent slightly to one side.
+
+“I wonder if you would like to do a very kind thing,” he said
+unexpectedly.
+
+“Make you coffee?”
+
+“Something much more trouble and not so pleasant.”
+
+Christine glanced up at him. When she was with him, when his steady eyes
+looked down at her, small affectations fell away. She was more genuine
+with K. than with anyone else, even herself.
+
+“Tell me what it is, or shall I promise first?”
+
+“I want you to promise just one thing: to keep a secret.”
+
+“Yours?”
+
+Christine was not over-intelligent, perhaps, but she was shrewd. That Le
+Moyne's past held a secret she had felt from the beginning. She sat up
+with eager curiosity.
+
+“No, not mine. Is it a promise?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“I've found Tillie, Christine. I want you to go out to see her.”
+
+Christine's red lips parted. The Street did not go out to see women in
+Tillie's situation.
+
+“But, K.!” she protested.
+
+“She needs another woman just now. She's going to have a child,
+Christine; and she has had no one to talk to but her hus--but Mr.
+Schwitter and myself. She is depressed and not very well.”
+
+“But what shall I say to her? I'd really rather not go, K. Not,”
+ she hastened to set herself right in his eyes--“not that I feel any
+unwillingness to see her. I know you understand that. But--what in the
+world shall I say to her?”
+
+“Say what your own kind heart prompts.”
+
+It had been rather a long time since Christine had been accused
+of having a kind heart. Not that she was unkind, but in all her
+self-centered young life there had been little call on her sympathies.
+Her eyes clouded.
+
+“I wish I were as good as you think I am.”
+
+There was a little silence between them. Then Le Moyne spoke briskly:--
+
+“I'll tell you how to get there; perhaps I would better write it.”
+
+He moved over to Christine's small writing-table and, seating himself,
+proceeded to write out the directions for reaching Hillfoot.
+
+Behind him, Christine had taken his place on the hearth-rug and stood
+watching his head in the light of the desk-lamp. “What a strong, quiet
+face it is,” she thought. Why did she get the impression of such a
+tremendous reserve power in this man who was a clerk, and a clerk only?
+Behind him she made a quick, unconscious gesture of appeal, both hands
+out for an instant. She dropped them guiltily as K. rose with the paper
+in his hand.
+
+“I've drawn a sort of map of the roads,” he began. “You see, this--”
+
+Christine was looking, not at the paper, but up at him.
+
+“I wonder if you know, K.,” she said, “what a lucky woman the woman will
+be who marries you?”
+
+He laughed good-humoredly.
+
+“I wonder how long I could hypnotize her into thinking that.”
+
+He was still holding out the paper.
+
+“I've had time to do a little thinking lately,” she said, without
+bitterness. “Palmer is away so much now. I've been looking back,
+wondering if I ever thought that about him. I don't believe I ever did.
+I wonder--”
+
+She checked herself abruptly and took the paper from his hand.
+
+“I'll go to see Tillie, of course,” she consented. “It is like you to
+have found her.”
+
+She sat down. Although she picked up the book that she had been reading
+with the evident intention of discussing it, her thoughts were still on
+Tillie, on Palmer, on herself. After a moment:--
+
+“Has it ever occurred to you how terribly mixed up things are? Take this
+Street, for instance. Can you think of anybody on it that--that things
+have gone entirely right with?”
+
+“It's a little world of its own, of course,” said K., “and it has plenty
+of contact points with life. But wherever one finds people, many or few,
+one finds all the elements that make up life--joy and sorrow, birth and
+death, and even tragedy. That's rather trite, isn't it?”
+
+Christine was still pursuing her thoughts.
+
+“Men are different,” she said. “To a certain extent they make their own
+fates. But when you think of the women on the Street,--Tillie,
+Harriet Kennedy, Sidney Page, myself, even Mrs. Rosenfeld back in the
+alley,--somebody else moulds things for us, and all we can do is to sit
+back and suffer. I am beginning to think the world is a terrible place,
+K. Why do people so often marry the wrong people? Why can't a man
+care for one woman and only one all his life? Why--why is it all so
+complicated?”
+
+“There are men who care for only one woman all their lives.”
+
+“You're that sort, aren't you?”
+
+“I don't want to put myself on any pinnacle. If I cared enough for
+a woman to marry her, I'd hope to--But we are being very tragic,
+Christine.”
+
+“I feel tragic. There's going to be another mistake, K., unless you stop
+it.”
+
+He tried to leaven the conversation with a little fun.
+
+“If you're going to ask me to interfere between Mrs. McKee and the
+deaf-and-dumb book and insurance agent, I shall do nothing of the sort.
+She can both speak and hear enough for both of them.”
+
+“I mean Sidney and Max Wilson. He's mad about her, K.; and, because
+she's the sort she is, he'll probably be mad about her all his life,
+even if he marries her. But he'll not be true to her; I know the type
+now.”
+
+K. leaned back with a flicker of pain in his eyes.
+
+“What can I do about it?”
+
+Astute as he was, he did not suspect that Christine was using this
+method to fathom his feeling for Sidney. Perhaps she hardly knew it
+herself.
+
+“You might marry her yourself, K.”
+
+But he had himself in hand by this time, and she learned nothing from
+either his voice or his eyes.
+
+“On twenty dollars a week? And without so much as asking her consent?”
+ He dropped his light tone. “I'm not in a position to marry anybody. Even
+if Sidney cared for me, which she doesn't, of course--”
+
+“Then you don't intend to interfere? You're going to let the Street see
+another failure?”
+
+“I think you can understand,” said K. rather wearily, “that if I cared
+less, Christine, it would be easier to interfere.”
+
+After all, Christine had known this, or surmised it, for weeks. But it
+hurt like a fresh stab in an old wound. It was K. who spoke again after
+a pause:--
+
+“The deadly hard thing, of course, is to sit by and see things happening
+that one--that one would naturally try to prevent.”
+
+“I don't believe that you have always been of those who only stand and
+wait,” said Christine. “Sometime, K., when you know me better and like
+me better, I want you to tell me about it, will you?”
+
+“There's very little to tell. I held a trust. When I discovered that I
+was unfit to hold that trust any longer, I quit. That's all.”
+
+His tone of finality closed the discussion. But Christine's eyes were on
+him often that evening, puzzled, rather sad.
+
+They talked of books, of music--Christine played well in a dashing way.
+K. had brought her soft, tender little things, and had stood over her
+until her noisy touch became gentle. She played for him a little, while
+he sat back in the big chair with his hand screening his eyes.
+
+When, at last, he rose and picked up his cap; it was nine o'clock.
+
+“I've taken your whole evening,” he said remorsefully. “Why don't you
+tell me I am a nuisance and send me off?”
+
+Christine was still at the piano, her hands on the keys. She spoke
+without looking at him:--
+
+“You're never a nuisance, K., and--”
+
+“You'll go out to see Tillie, won't you?”
+
+“Yes. But I'll not go under false pretenses. I am going quite frankly
+because you want me to.”
+
+Something in her tone caught his attention.
+
+“I forgot to tell you,” she went on. “Father has given Palmer five
+thousand dollars. He's going to buy a share in a business.”
+
+“That's fine.”
+
+“Possibly. I don't believe much in Palmer's business ventures.”
+
+Her flat tone still held him. Underneath it he divined strain and
+repression.
+
+“I hate to go and leave you alone,” he said at last from the door. “Have
+you any idea when Palmer will be back?”
+
+“Not the slightest. K., will you come here a moment? Stand behind me; I
+don't want to see you, and I want to tell you something.”
+
+He did as she bade him, rather puzzled.
+
+“Here I am.”
+
+“I think I am a fool for saying this. Perhaps I am spoiling the only
+chance I have to get any happiness out of life. But I have got to say
+it. It's stronger than I am. I was terribly unhappy, K., and then you
+came into my life, and I--now I listen for your step in the hall. I
+can't be a hypocrite any longer, K.”
+
+When he stood behind her, silent and not moving, she turned slowly about
+and faced him. He towered there in the little room, grave eyes on hers.
+
+“It's a long time since I have had a woman friend, Christine,” he said
+soberly. “Your friendship has meant a good deal. In a good many
+ways, I'd not care to look ahead if it were not for you. I value our
+friendship so much that I--”
+
+“That you don't want me to spoil it,” she finished for him. “I know
+you don't care for me, K., not the way I--But I wanted you to know. It
+doesn't hurt a good man to know such a thing. And it--isn't going to
+stop your coming here, is it?”
+
+“Of course not,” said K. heartily. “But to-morrow, when we are both
+clear-headed, we will talk this over. You are mistaken about this thing,
+Christine; I am sure of that. Things have not been going well, and just
+because I am always around, and all that sort of thing, you think things
+that aren't really so. I'm only a reaction, Christine.”
+
+He tried to make her smile up at him. But just then she could not smile.
+
+If she had cried, things might have been different for every one; for
+perhaps K. would have taken her in his arms. He was heart-hungry enough,
+those days, for anything. And perhaps, too, being intuitive, Christine
+felt this. But she had no mind to force him into a situation against his
+will.
+
+“It is because you are good,” she said, and held out her hand.
+“Good-night.”
+
+Le Moyne took it and bent over and kissed it lightly. There was in
+the kiss all that he could not say of respect, of affection and
+understanding.
+
+“Good-night, Christine,” he said, and went into the hall and upstairs.
+
+The lamp was not lighted in his room, but the street light glowed
+through the windows. Once again the waving fronds of the ailanthus tree
+flung ghostly shadows on the walls. There was a faint sweet odor of
+blossoms, so soon to become rank and heavy.
+
+Over the floor in a wild zigzag darted a strip of white paper which
+disappeared under the bureau. Reginald was building another nest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room late in the spring as the result of
+a conversation between the younger Wilson and the Head.
+
+“When are you going to put my protegee into the operating-room?” asked
+Wilson, meeting Miss Gregg in a corridor one bright, spring afternoon.
+
+“That usually comes in the second year, Dr. Wilson.”
+
+He smiled down at her. “That isn't a rule, is it?”
+
+“Not exactly. Miss Page is very young, and of course there are other
+girls who have not yet had the experience. But, if you make the
+request--”
+
+“I am going to have some good cases soon. I'll not make a request, of
+course; but, if you see fit, it would be good training for Miss Page.”
+
+Miss Gregg went on, knowing perfectly that at his next operation Dr.
+Wilson would expect Sidney Page in the operating-room. The other doctors
+were not so exigent. She would have liked to have all the staff old and
+settled, like Dr. O'Hara or the older Wilson. These young men came in
+and tore things up.
+
+She sighed as she went on. There were so many things to go wrong. The
+butter had been bad--she must speak to the matron. The sterilizer in
+the operating-room was out of order--that meant a quarrel with the chief
+engineer. Requisitions were too heavy--that meant going around to the
+wards and suggesting to the head nurses that lead pencils and bandages
+and adhesive plaster and safety-pins cost money.
+
+It was particularly inconvenient to move Sidney just then. Carlotta
+Harrison was off duty, ill. She had been ailing for a month, and now she
+was down with a temperature. As the Head went toward Sidney's ward,
+her busy mind was playing her nurses in their wards like pieces on a
+checkerboard.
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room that afternoon. For her blue
+uniform, kerchief, and cap she exchanged the hideous operating-room
+garb: long, straight white gown with short sleeves and mob-cap,
+gray-white from many sterilizations. But the ugly costume seemed to
+emphasize her beauty, as the habit of a nun often brings out the placid
+saintliness of her face.
+
+The relationship between Sidney and Max had reached that point that
+occurs in all relationships between men and women: when things must
+either go forward or go back, but cannot remain as they are. The
+condition had existed for the last three months. It exasperated the man.
+
+As a matter of fact, Wilson could not go ahead. The situation with
+Carlotta had become tense, irritating. He felt that she stood ready
+to block any move he made. He would not go back, and he dared not go
+forward.
+
+If Sidney was puzzled, she kept it bravely to herself. In her little
+room at night, with the door carefully locked, she tried to think things
+out. There were a few treasures that she looked over regularly: a dried
+flower from the Christmas roses; a label that he had pasted playfully
+on the back of her hand one day after the rush of surgical dressings was
+over and which said “Rx, Take once and forever.”
+
+There was another piece of paper over which Sidney spent much time. It
+was a page torn out of an order book, and it read: “Sigsbee may have
+light diet; Rosenfeld massage.” Underneath was written, very small:
+
+     “You are the most beautiful person in the world.”
+
+Two reasons had prompted Wilson to request to have Sidney in the
+operating-room. He wanted her with him, and he wanted her to see him at
+work: the age-old instinct of the male to have his woman see him at his
+best.
+
+He was in high spirits that first day of Sidney's operating-room
+experience. For the time at least, Carlotta was out of the way. Her
+somber eyes no longer watched him. Once he looked up from his work and
+glanced at Sidney where she stood at strained attention.
+
+“Feeling faint?” he said.
+
+She colored under the eyes that were turned on her.
+
+“No, Dr. Wilson.”
+
+“A great many of them faint on the first day. We sometimes have them
+lying all over the floor.”
+
+He challenged Miss Gregg with his eyes, and she reproved him with a
+shake of her head, as she might a bad boy.
+
+One way and another, he managed to turn the attention of the
+operating-room to Sidney several times. It suited his whim, and it did
+more than that: it gave him a chance to speak to her in his teasing way.
+
+Sidney came through the operation as if she had been through fire--taut
+as a string, rather pale, but undaunted. But when the last case had been
+taken out, Max dropped his bantering manner. The internes were looking
+over instruments; the nurses were busy on the hundred and one tasks of
+clearing up; so he had a chance for a word with her alone.
+
+“I am proud of you, Sidney; you came through it like a soldier.”
+
+“You made it very hard for me.”
+
+A nurse was coming toward him; he had only a moment.
+
+“I shall leave a note in the mail-box,” he said quickly, and proceeded
+with the scrubbing of his hands which signified the end of the day's
+work.
+
+The operations had lasted until late in the afternoon. The night nurses
+had taken up their stations; prayers were over. The internes were
+gathered in the smoking-room, threshing over the day's work, as was
+their custom. When Sidney was free, she went to the office for the note.
+It was very brief:--
+
+I have something I want to say to you, dear. I think you know what it
+is. I never see you alone at home any more. If you can get off for an
+hour, won't you take the trolley to the end of Division Street? I'll be
+there with the car at eight-thirty, and I promise to have you back by
+ten o'clock.
+
+MAX.
+
+The office was empty. No one saw her as she stood by the mail-box. The
+ticking of the office clock, the heavy rumble of a dray outside, the
+roll of the ambulance as it went out through the gateway, and in her
+hand the realization of what she had never confessed as a hope, even to
+herself! He, the great one, was going to stoop to her. It had been in
+his eyes that afternoon; it was there, in his letter, now.
+
+It was eight by the office clock. To get out of her uniform and into
+street clothing, fifteen minutes; on the trolley, another fifteen. She
+would need to hurry.
+
+But she did not meet him, after all. Miss Wardwell met her in the upper
+hall.
+
+“Did you get my message?” she asked anxiously.
+
+“What message?”
+
+“Miss Harrison wants to see you. She has been moved to a private room.”
+
+Sidney glanced at K.'s little watch.
+
+“Must she see me to-night?”
+
+“She has been waiting for hours--ever since you went to the
+operating-room.”
+
+Sidney sighed, but she went to Carlotta at once. The girl's condition
+was puzzling the staff. There was talk of “T.R.”--which is hospital for
+“typhoid restrictions.” But T.R. has apathy, generally, and Carlotta
+was not apathetic. Sidney found her tossing restlessly on her high white
+bed, and put her cool hand over Carlotta's hot one.
+
+“Did you send for me?”
+
+“Hours ago.” Then, seeing her operating-room uniform: “You've been
+THERE, have you?”
+
+“Is there anything I can do, Carlotta?”
+
+Excitement had dyed Sidney's cheeks with color and made her eyes
+luminous. The girl in the bed eyed her, and then abruptly drew her hand
+away.
+
+“Were you going out?”
+
+“Yes; but not right away.”
+
+“I'll not keep you if you have an engagement.”
+
+“The engagement will have to wait. I'm sorry you're ill. If you would
+like me to stay with you tonight--”
+
+Carlotta shook her head on her pillow.
+
+“Mercy, no!” she said irritably. “I'm only worn out. I need a rest. Are
+you going home to-night?”
+
+“No,” Sidney admitted, and flushed.
+
+Nothing escaped Carlotta's eyes--the younger girl's radiance, her
+confusion, even her operating room uniform and what it signified. How
+she hated her, with her youth and freshness, her wide eyes, her soft red
+lips! And this engagement--she had the uncanny divination of fury.
+
+“I was going to ask you to do something for me,” she said shortly; “but
+I've changed my mind about it. Go on and keep your engagement.”
+
+To end the interview, she turned over and lay with her face to the wall.
+Sidney stood waiting uncertainly. All her training had been to ignore
+the irritability of the sick, and Carlotta was very ill; she could see
+that.
+
+“Just remember that I am ready to do anything I can, Carlotta,” she
+said. “Nothing will--will be a trouble.”
+
+She waited a moment, but, receiving no acknowledgement of her offer, she
+turned slowly and went toward the door.
+
+“Sidney!”
+
+She went back to the bed.
+
+“Yes. Don't sit up, Carlotta. What is it?”
+
+“I'm frightened!”
+
+“You're feverish and nervous. There's nothing to be frightened about.”
+
+“If it's typhoid, I'm gone.”
+
+“That's childish. Of course you're not gone, or anything like it.
+Besides, it's probably not typhoid.”
+
+“I'm afraid to sleep. I doze for a little, and when I waken there are
+people in the room. They stand around the bed and talk about me.”
+
+Sidney's precious minutes were flying; but Carlotta had gone into a
+paroxysm of terror, holding to Sidney's hand and begging not to be left
+alone.
+
+“I'm too young to die,” she would whimper. And in the next breath: “I
+want to die--I don't want to live!”
+
+The hands of the little watch pointed to eight-thirty when at last she
+lay quiet, with closed eyes. Sidney, tiptoeing to the door, was brought
+up short by her name again, this time in a more normal voice:--
+
+“Sidney.”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right and I'm going to get over this.”
+
+“Certainly you are. Your nerves are playing tricks with you to-night.”
+
+“I'll tell you now why I sent for you.”
+
+“I'm listening.”
+
+“If--if I get very bad,--you know what I mean,--will you promise to do
+exactly what I tell you?”
+
+“I promise, absolutely.”
+
+“My trunk key is in my pocket-book. There is a letter in the tray--just
+a name, no address on it. Promise to see that it is not delivered; that
+it is destroyed without being read.”
+
+Sidney promised promptly; and, because it was too late now for her
+meeting with Wilson, for the next hour she devoted herself to making
+Carlotta comfortable. So long as she was busy, a sort of exaltation of
+service upheld her. But when at last the night assistant came to sit
+with the sick girl, and Sidney was free, all the life faded from her
+face. He had waited for her and she had not come. Would he understand?
+Would he ask her to meet him again? Perhaps, after all, his question had
+not been what she had thought.
+
+She went miserably to bed. K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow.
+Her stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her
+mirror. Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the
+city--taxicabs, stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging
+home at midnight, a city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates
+to the hospital's always open door. When she could not sleep, she got up
+and padded to the window in bare feet. The light from a passing machine
+showed a youthful figure that looked like Joe Drummond.
+
+Life, that had always seemed so simple, was growing very complicated
+for Sidney: Joe and K., Palmer and Christine, Johnny Rosenfeld,
+Carlotta--either lonely or tragic, all of them, or both. Life in the
+raw.
+
+Toward morning Carlotta wakened. The night assistant was still there. It
+had been a quiet night and she was asleep in her chair. To save her cap
+she had taken it off, and early streaks of silver showed in her hair.
+
+Carlotta roused her ruthlessly.
+
+“I want something from my trunk,” she said.
+
+The assistant wakened reluctantly, and looked at her watch. Almost
+morning. She yawned and pinned on her cap.
+
+“For Heaven's sake,” she protested. “You don't want me to go to the
+trunk-room at this hour!”
+
+“I can go myself,” said Carlotta, and put her feet out of bed.
+
+“What is it you want?”
+
+“A letter on the top tray. If I wait my temperature will go up and I
+can't think.”
+
+“Shall I mail it for you?”
+
+“Bring it here,” said Carlotta shortly. “I want to destroy it.”
+
+The young woman went without haste, to show that a night assistant may
+do such things out of friendship, but not because she must. She stopped
+at the desk where the night nurse in charge of the rooms on that floor
+was filling out records.
+
+“Give me twelve private patients to look after instead of one nurse like
+Carlotta Harrison!” she complained. “I've got to go to the trunk-room
+for her at this hour, and it next door to the mortuary!”
+
+As the first rays of the summer sun came through the window, shadowing
+the fire-escape like a lattice on the wall of the little gray-walled
+room, Carlotta sat up in her bed and lighted the candle on the stand.
+The night assistant, who dreamed sometimes of fire, stood nervously by.
+
+“Why don't you let me do it?” she asked irritably.
+
+Carlotta did not reply at once. The candle was in her hand, and she was
+staring at the letter.
+
+“Because I want to do it myself,” she said at last, and thrust the
+envelope into the flame. It burned slowly, at first a thin blue flame
+tipped with yellow, then, eating its way with a small fine crackling,
+a widening, destroying blaze that left behind it black ash and
+destruction. The acrid odor of burning filled the room. Not until it was
+consumed, and the black ash fell into the saucer of the candlestick, did
+Carlotta speak again. Then:--
+
+“If every fool of a woman who wrote a letter burnt it, there would be
+less trouble in the world,” she said, and lay back among her pillows.
+
+The assistant said nothing. She was sleepy and irritated, and she had
+crushed her best cap by letting the lid of Carlotta's trunk fall on her.
+She went out of the room with disapproval in every line of her back.
+
+“She burned it,” she informed the night nurse at her desk. “A letter to
+a man--one of her suitors, I suppose. The name was K. Le Moyne.”
+
+The deepening and broadening of Sidney's character had been very
+noticeable in the last few months. She had gained in decision without
+becoming hard; had learned to see things as they are, not through the
+rose mist of early girlhood; and, far from being daunted, had developed
+a philosophy that had for its basis God in His heaven and all well with
+the world.
+
+But her new theory of acceptance did not comprehend everything. She was
+in a state of wild revolt, for instance, as to Johnny Rosenfeld, and
+more remotely but not less deeply concerned over Grace Irving. Soon
+she was to learn of Tillie's predicament, and to take up the cudgels
+valiantly for her.
+
+But her revolt was to be for herself too. On the day after her failure
+to keep her appointment with Wilson she had her half-holiday. No word
+had come from him, and when, after a restless night, she went to her new
+station in the operating-room, it was to learn that he had been called
+out of the city in consultation and would not operate that day. O'Hara
+would take advantage of the free afternoon to run in some odds and ends
+of cases.
+
+The operating-room made gauze that morning, and small packets of
+tampons: absorbent cotton covered with sterilized gauze, and fastened
+together--twelve, by careful count, in each bundle.
+
+Miss Grange, who had been kind to Sidney in her probation months, taught
+her the method.
+
+“Used instead of sponges,” she explained. “If you noticed yesterday,
+they were counted before and after each operation. One of these missing
+is worse than a bank clerk out a dollar at the end of the day. There's
+no closing up until it's found!”
+
+Sidney eyed the small packet before her anxiously.
+
+“What a hideous responsibility!” she said.
+
+From that time on she handled the small gauze sponges almost reverently.
+
+The operating-room--all glass, white enamel, and shining
+nickel-plate--first frightened, then thrilled her. It was as if, having
+loved a great actor, she now trod the enchanted boards on which he
+achieved his triumphs. She was glad that it was her afternoon off, and
+that she would not see some lesser star--O'Hara, to wit--usurping his
+place.
+
+But Max had not sent her any word. That hurt. He must have known that
+she had been delayed.
+
+The operating-room was a hive of industry, and tongues kept pace with
+fingers. The hospital was a world, like the Street. The nurses had come
+from many places, and, like cloistered nuns, seemed to have left the
+other world behind. A new President of the country was less real than a
+new interne. The country might wash its soiled linen in public; what was
+that compared with enough sheets and towels for the wards? Big buildings
+were going up in the city. Ah! but the hospital took cognizance of that,
+gathering as it did a toll from each new story added. What news of
+the world came in through the great doors was translated at once into
+hospital terms. What the city forgot the hospital remembered. It took
+up life where the town left it at its gates, and carried it on or saw
+it ended, as the case might be. So these young women knew the ending of
+many stories, the beginning of some; but of none did they know both the
+first and last, the beginning and the end.
+
+By many small kindnesses Sidney had made herself popular. And there was
+more to it than that. She never shirked. The other girls had the respect
+for her of one honest worker for another. The episode that had caused
+her suspension seemed entirely forgotten. They showed her carefully what
+she was to do; and, because she must know the “why” of everything, they
+explained as best they could.
+
+It was while she was standing by the great sterilizer that she heard,
+through an open door, part of a conversation that sent her through the
+day with her world in revolt.
+
+The talkers were putting the anaesthetizing-room in readiness for the
+afternoon. Sidney, waiting for the time to open the sterilizer, was
+busy, for the first time in her hurried morning, with her own thoughts.
+Because she was very human, there was a little exultation in her mind.
+What would these girls say when they learned of how things stood between
+her and their hero--that, out of all his world of society and clubs and
+beautiful women, he was going to choose her?
+
+Not shameful, this: the honest pride of a woman in being chosen from
+many.
+
+The voices were very clear.
+
+“Typhoid! Of course not. She's eating her heart out.”
+
+“Do you think he has really broken with her?”
+
+“Probably not. She knows it's coming; that's all.”
+
+“Sometimes I have wondered--”
+
+“So have others. She oughtn't to be here, of course. But among so many
+there is bound to be one now and then who--who isn't quite--”
+
+She hesitated, at a loss for a word.
+
+“Did you--did you ever think over that trouble with Miss Page about the
+medicines? That would have been easy, and like her.”
+
+“She hates Miss Page, of course, but I hardly think--If that's true, it
+was nearly murder.”
+
+There were two voices, a young one, full of soft southern inflections,
+and an older voice, a trifle hard, as from disillusion.
+
+They were working as they talked. Sidney could hear the clatter of
+bottles on the tray, the scraping of a moved table.
+
+“He was crazy about her last fall.”
+
+“Miss Page?” (The younger voice, with a thrill in it.)
+
+“Carlotta. Of course this is confidential.”
+
+“Surely.”
+
+“I saw her with him in his car one evening. And on her vacation last
+summer--”
+
+The voices dropped to a whisper. Sidney, standing cold and white by the
+sterilizer, put out a hand to steady herself. So that was it! No wonder
+Carlotta had hated her. And those whispering voices! What were they
+saying? How hateful life was, and men and women. Must there always be
+something hideous in the background? Until now she had only seen life.
+Now she felt its hot breath on her cheek.
+
+She was steady enough in a moment, cool and calm, moving about her work
+with ice-cold hands and slightly narrowed eyes. To a sort of physical
+nausea was succeeding anger, a blind fury of injured pride. He had been
+in love with Carlotta and had tired of her. He was bringing her his
+warmed-over emotions. She remembered the bitterness of her month's
+exile, and its probable cause. Max had stood by her then. Well he might,
+if he suspected the truth.
+
+For just a moment she had an illuminating flash of Wilson as he really
+was, selfish and self-indulgent, just a trifle too carefully dressed,
+daring as to eye and speech, with a carefully calculated daring, frankly
+pleasure-loving. She put her hands over her eyes.
+
+The voices in the next room had risen above their whisper.
+
+“Genius has privileges, of course,” said the older voice. “He is a very
+great surgeon. To-morrow he is to do the Edwardes operation again. I am
+glad I am to see him do it.”
+
+Sidney still held her hands over her eyes. He WAS a great surgeon: in
+his hands he held the keys of life and death. And perhaps he had never
+cared for Carlotta: she might have thrown herself at him. He was a man,
+at the mercy of any scheming woman.
+
+She tried to summon his image to her aid. But a curious thing happened.
+She could not visualize him. Instead, there came, clear and distinct, a
+picture of K. Le Moyne in the hall of the little house, reaching one of
+his long arms to the chandelier over his head and looking up at her as
+she stood on the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+“My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!”
+
+“I--I know that. I am asking you something else, Max.”
+
+“I have never been in love with her.”
+
+His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they were
+sitting in the shade, on the grass. It was the Sunday afternoon after
+Sidney's experience in the operating-room.
+
+“You took her out, Max, didn't you?”
+
+“A few times, yes. She seemed to have no friends. I was sorry for her.”
+
+“That was all?”
+
+“Absolutely. Good Heavens, you've put me through a catechism in the last
+ten minutes!”
+
+“If my father were living, or even mother, I--one of them would have
+done this for me, Max. I'm sorry I had to. I've been very wretched for
+several days.”
+
+It was the first encouragement she had given him. There was no coquetry
+about her aloofness. It was only that her faith in him had had a shock
+and was slow of reviving.
+
+“You are very, very lovely, Sidney. I wonder if you have any idea what
+you mean to me?”
+
+“You meant a great deal to me, too,” she said frankly, “until a few days
+ago. I thought you were the greatest man I had ever known, and the best.
+And then--I think I'd better tell you what I overheard. I didn't try to
+hear. It just happened that way.”
+
+He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly and
+with a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself.
+Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for
+self-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! She
+had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had
+never pretended anything else.
+
+There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished. Then:
+
+“You are not a child any longer, Sidney. You have learned a great deal
+in this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man
+has small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the woman
+he wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off--there's
+nothing to them. It's the real thing then, instead of the sham.”
+
+“Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet--”
+
+“Palmer is a cad.”
+
+“I don't want you to think I'm making terms. I'm not. But if this thing
+went on, and I found out afterward that you--that there was anyone else,
+it would kill me.”
+
+“Then you care, after all!”
+
+There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with
+which he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He
+stood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. “You love me,
+dear.”
+
+“I'm afraid I do, Max.”
+
+“Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me,” he said, and took her
+in his arms.
+
+He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to
+him again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
+
+“I love you, love you!” he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the
+warm hollow of her neck.
+
+Sidney glowed under his caresses--was rather startled at his passion, a
+little ashamed.
+
+“Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it.”
+
+“I love you,” said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.
+
+But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with
+his lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in
+the back of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while she
+had given him her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It
+made her passive, prevented her complete surrender.
+
+And after a time he resented it. “You are only letting me love you,” he
+complained. “I don't believe you care, after all.”
+
+He freed her, took a step back from her.
+
+“I am afraid I am jealous,” she said simply. “I keep thinking of--of
+Carlotta.”
+
+“Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?”
+
+“Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so.”
+
+But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyes
+on her. The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busy
+insect life. A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a white
+farmhouse with its barn and outbuildings. In a small room in the barn
+a woman sat; and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she read
+her Bible.
+
+“--and that after this there will be only one woman for me,” finished
+Max, and dropped his hand. He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.
+
+At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyed
+the road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in a
+darkened room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.
+
+“I guess I'll go and get my coat on, Bill,” said the little man heavily.
+“They're starting to come now. I see a machine about a mile down the
+road.”
+
+Sidney broke the news of her engagement to K. herself, the evening of
+the same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at
+the door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed,
+and Christine's rooms were empty. She found Katie on the back porch,
+mountains of Sunday newspapers piled around her.
+
+“I'd about give you up,” said Katie. “I was thinking, rather than see
+your ice-cream that's left from dinner melt and go to waste, I'd take it
+around to the Rosenfelds.”
+
+“Please take it to them. I'd really rather they had it.”
+
+She stood in front of Katie, drawing off her gloves.
+
+“Aunt Harriet's asleep. Is--is Mr. Le Moyne around?”
+
+“You're gettin' prettier every day, Miss Sidney. Is that the blue suit
+Miss Harriet said she made for you? It's right stylish. I'd like to see
+the back.”
+
+Sidney obediently turned, and Katie admired.
+
+“When I think how things have turned out!” she reflected. “You in a
+hospital, doing God knows what for all sorts of people, and Miss Harriet
+making a suit like that and asking a hundred dollars for it, and that
+tony that a person doesn't dare to speak to her when she's in the
+dining-room. And your poor ma...well, it's all in a lifetime! No; Mr.
+K.'s not here. He and Mrs. Howe are gallivanting around together.”
+
+“Katie!”
+
+“Well, that's what I call it. I'm not blind. Don't I hear her dressing
+up about four o'clock every afternoon, and, when she's all ready,
+sittin' in the parlor with the door open, and a book on her knee, as if
+she'd been reading all afternoon? If he doesn't stop, she's at the foot
+of the stairs, calling up to him. 'K.,' she says, 'K., I'm waiting to
+ask you something!' or, 'K., wouldn't you like a cup of tea?' She's
+always feedin' him tea and cake, so that when he comes to table he won't
+eat honest victuals.”
+
+Sidney had paused with one glove half off. Katie's tone carried
+conviction. Was life making another of its queer errors, and were
+Christine and K. in love with each other? K. had always been HER
+friend, HER confidant. To give him up to Christine--she shook herself
+impatiently. What had come over her? Why not be glad that he had some
+sort of companionship?
+
+She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took off
+her hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened to
+her. She did not belong to herself any more. It gave her an odd, lost
+feeling. She was going to be married--not very soon, but ultimately. A
+year ago her half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She
+was loved, and she had thrilled to it.
+
+But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then,
+loomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation:
+that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down
+into the valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved
+very tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.
+
+And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not always
+lovely. This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of
+child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxed
+bodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.
+
+Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving
+about with flat, inelastic steps.
+
+That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case might
+be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a
+little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,
+flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and withered, then, or one
+shriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed very
+terrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable
+hand that had closed about her.
+
+Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying
+as if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.
+
+“You've been overworking,” she said. “You've been getting thinner. Your
+measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this
+hospital training, and after last January--”
+
+She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with
+weeping, told her of her engagement.
+
+“But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to
+marry him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?”
+
+“I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once,
+that I--It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet.”
+
+Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she,
+Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute. She patted
+Sidney's moist hand.
+
+“I guess I understand,” she said. “I'll attend to your wedding things,
+Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be
+outdone.” And, as an afterthought: “I hope Max Wilson will settle down
+now. He's been none too steady.”
+
+K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmer
+had the car out--had, indeed, not been home since the morning of the
+previous day. He played golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday at the
+Country Club, and invariably spent the night there. So K. and Christine
+walked from the end of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'s
+keen direction finding bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden field
+flowers, a dozen wonders of the country that Christine had never dreamed
+of.
+
+The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine,
+with the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note. In her
+endeavor to cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong,
+she fell into the error of pretending that everything was right.
+
+Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently,
+while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of the
+hay-barn and watched automobiles turning in from the road. When
+Christine rose to leave, she confessed her failure frankly.
+
+“I've meant well, Tillie,” she said. “I'm afraid I've said exactly
+what I shouldn't. I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, two
+wonderful pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband--that is, Mr.
+Schwitter--cares for you,--you admit that,--and you are going to have a
+child.”
+
+Tillie's pale eyes filled.
+
+“I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe,” she said simply. “Now I'm not.
+When I look in that glass at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd give
+a good bit to be back on the Street again.”
+
+She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead of
+him out of the barn.
+
+“I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne.” She lowered her
+voice. “Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter
+says he's drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: he
+sent him home last Sunday. What's come over the boy?”
+
+“I'll talk to him.”
+
+“The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. I
+thought maybe Sidney Page could do something with him.”
+
+“I think he'd not like her to know. I'll do what I can.”
+
+K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.
+
+Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than once
+K. found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him. Poor Christine was
+only trying to fit him into the world she knew--a world whose men were
+strong but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not to
+visiting unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, and
+yet how gentle! It gave her a choking feeling in her throat. She took
+advantage of a steep bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingers
+on his shabby gray sleeve.
+
+It was late when they got home. Sidney was sitting on the low step,
+waiting for them.
+
+Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a case
+that evening, and promising an early return. In the little hall he had
+drawn her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on the
+forehead and on each of her white eyelids.
+
+“Little wife-to-be!” he had said, and was rather ashamed of his own
+emotion. From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had waved
+his hand to her.
+
+Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K.
+folded up his long length on the step below Sidney.
+
+“Well, dear ministering angel,” he said, “how goes the world?”
+
+“Things have been happening, K.”
+
+He sat erect and looked at her. Perhaps because she had a woman's
+instinct for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps--more likely,
+indeed--because she divined that the announcement would not be entirely
+agreeable, she delayed it, played with it.
+
+“I have gone into the operating-room.”
+
+“Fine!”
+
+“The costume is ugly. I look hideous in it.”
+
+“Doubtless.”
+
+He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.
+
+“Is that all the news?”
+
+“There is something else, K.”
+
+It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.
+Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment,
+he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.
+
+“I think I know what it is, Sidney.”
+
+“You expected it, didn't you?”
+
+“I--it's not an entire surprise.”
+
+“Aren't you going to wish me happiness?”
+
+“If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would have
+everything in the world.”
+
+His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.
+
+“Am I--are we going to lose you soon?”
+
+“I shall finish my training. I made that a condition.”
+
+Then, in a burst of confidence:--
+
+“I know so little, K., and he knows so much! I am going to read and
+study, so that he can talk to me about his work. That's what marriage
+ought to be, a sort of partnership. Don't you think so?”
+
+K. nodded. His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future.
+Instead, he was looking back--back to those days when he had hoped
+sometime to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved work
+that was no longer his. And, finding it agonizing, as indeed all thought
+was that summer night, he dwelt for a moment on that evening, a year
+before, when in the same June moonlight, he had come up the Street and
+had seen Sidney where she was now, with the tree shadows playing over
+her.
+
+Even that first evening he had been jealous.
+
+It had been Joe then. Now it was another and older man, daring,
+intelligent, unscrupulous. And this time he had lost her absolutely,
+lost her without a struggle to keep her. His only struggle had been with
+himself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure.
+
+“Do you know,” said Sidney suddenly, “that it is almost a year since
+that night you came up the Street, and I was here on the steps?”
+
+“That's a fact, isn't it!” He managed to get some surprise into his
+voice.
+
+“How Joe objected to your coming! Poor Joe!”
+
+“Do you ever see him?”
+
+“Hardly ever now. I think he hates me.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because--well, you know, K. Why do men always hate a woman who just
+happens not to love them?”
+
+“I don't believe they do. It would be much better for them if they
+could. As a matter of fact, there are poor devils who go through life
+trying to do that very thing, and failing.”
+
+Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across. It was Dr. Ed's evening
+office hour, and through the open window she could see a line of people
+waiting their turn. They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, until
+the opening of the back office door promoted them all one chair toward
+the consulting-room.
+
+“I shall be just across the Street,” she said at last. “Nearer than I am
+at the hospital.”
+
+“You will be much farther away. You will be married.”
+
+“But we will still be friends, K.?”
+
+Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled. She was often puzzled with him.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+But, after another silence, he astounded her. She had fallen into the
+way of thinking of him as always belonging to the house, even, in a
+sense, belonging to her. And now--
+
+“Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of going
+away?”
+
+“K.!”
+
+“My dear child, you do not need a roomer here any more. I have always
+received infinitely more than I have paid for, even in the small
+services I have been able to render. Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous.
+You are away, and some day you are going to be married. Don't you see--I
+am not needed?”
+
+“That does not mean you are not wanted.”
+
+“I shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can see
+you”--he changed this hastily--“so that we can still meet and talk
+things over. Old friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to be
+turned on when needed, like a tap.”
+
+“Where will you go?”
+
+“The Rosenfelds are rather in straits. I thought of helping them to get
+a small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely a
+matter of furniture. If they could furnish it even plainly, it could be
+done. I--haven't saved anything.”
+
+“Do you ever think of yourself?” she cried. “Have you always gone
+through life helping people, K.? Save anything! I should think not! You
+spend it all on others.” She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder.
+“It will not be home without you, K.”
+
+To save him, he could not have spoken just then. A riot of rebellion
+surged up in him, that he must let this best thing in his life go out
+of it. To go empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his very
+arms ached to hold her! And she was so near--just above, with her hand
+on his shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, he
+could have brushed her hair.
+
+“You have not wished me happiness, K. Do you remember, when I was going
+to the hospital and you gave me the little watch--do you remember what
+you said?”
+
+“Yes”--huskily.
+
+“Will you say it again?”
+
+“But that was good-bye.”
+
+“Isn't this, in a way? You are going to leave us, and I--say it, K.”
+
+“Good-bye, dear, and--God bless you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year.
+Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that
+it was best. Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would have
+finished her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled to
+the ending of their relationship.
+
+He intended to end that. He had meant every word of what he had sworn to
+Sidney. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly--as far as he could
+be unselfish. The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney's
+sake. The hospital did not approve of engagements between nurses and the
+staff. It was disorganizing, bad for discipline.
+
+Sidney was very happy all that summer. She glowed with pride when her
+lover put through a difficult piece of work; flushed and palpitated when
+she heard his praises sung; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, when
+he was in the house. She wore his ring on a fine chain around her neck,
+and grew prettier every day.
+
+Once or twice, however, when she was at home, away from the glamour, her
+early fears obsessed her. Would he always love her? He was so handsome
+and so gifted, and there were women who were mad about him. That was the
+gossip of the hospital. Suppose she married him and he tired of her? In
+her humility she thought that perhaps only her youth, and such charm as
+she had that belonged to youth, held him. And before her, always, she
+saw the tragic women of the wards.
+
+K. had postponed his leaving until fall. Sidney had been insistent, and
+Harriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way. “If you insist
+on being an idiot and adopting the Rosenfeld family,” she said, “wait
+until September. The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall.”
+
+So K. waited for “the season,” and ate his heart out for Sidney in the
+interval.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down. K.
+was his most frequent visitor. As a matter of fact, he was watching the
+boy closely, at Max Wilson's request.
+
+“Tell me when I'm to do it,” said Wilson, “and when the time comes,
+for God's sake, stand by me. Come to the operation. He's got so much
+confidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail.”
+
+So K. came on visiting days, and, by special dispensation, on Saturday
+afternoons. He was teaching the boy basket-making. Not that he knew
+anything about it himself; but, by means of a blind teacher, he kept
+just one lesson ahead. The ward was intensely interested. It found
+something absurd and rather touching in this tall, serious young man
+with the surprisingly deft fingers, tying raffia knots.
+
+The first basket went, by Johnny's request, to Sidney Page.
+
+“I want her to have it,” he said. “She got corns on her fingers from
+rubbing me when I came in first; and, besides--”
+
+“Yes?” said K. He was tying a most complicated knot, and could not look
+up.
+
+“I know something,” said Johnny. “I'm not going to get in wrong by
+talking, but I know something. You give her the basket.”
+
+K. looked up then, and surprised Johnny's secret in his face.
+
+“Ah!” he said.
+
+“If I'd squealed she'd have finished me for good. They've got me, you
+know. I'm not running in 2.40 these days.”
+
+“I'll not tell, or make it uncomfortable for you. What do you know?”
+
+Johnny looked around. The ward was in the somnolence of mid-afternoon.
+The nearest patient, a man in a wheel-chair, was snoring heavily.
+
+“It was the dark-eyed one that changed the medicine on me,” he said.
+“The one with the heels that were always tapping around, waking me up.
+She did it; I saw her.”
+
+After all, it was only what K. had suspected before. But a sense of
+impending danger to Sidney obsessed him. If Carlotta would do that, what
+would she do when she learned of the engagement? And he had known her
+before. He believed she was totally unscrupulous. The odd coincidence of
+their paths crossing again troubled him.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was well again, and back on duty. Luckily for Sidney,
+her three months' service in the operating-room kept them apart. For
+Carlotta was now not merely jealous. She found herself neglected,
+ignored. It ate her like a fever.
+
+But she did not yet suspect an engagement. It had been her theory that
+Wilson would not marry easily--that, in a sense, he would have to be
+coerced into marriage. Some clever woman would marry him some day, and
+no one would be more astonished than himself. She thought merely that
+Sidney was playing a game like her own, with different weapons. So she
+planned her battle, ignorant that she had lost already.
+
+Her method was simple enough. She stopped sulking, met Max with smiles,
+made no overtures toward a renewal of their relations. At first this
+annoyed him. Later it piqued him. To desert a woman was justifiable,
+under certain circumstances. But to desert a woman, and have her
+apparently not even know it, was against the rules of the game.
+
+During a surgical dressing in a private room, one day, he allowed his
+fingers to touch hers, as on that day a year before when she had taken
+Miss Simpson's place in his office. He was rewarded by the same slow,
+smouldering glance that had caught his attention before. So she was only
+acting indifference!
+
+Then Carlotta made her second move. A new interne had come into the
+house, and was going through the process of learning that from a senior
+at the medical school to a half-baked junior interne is a long step
+back. He had to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, the
+patronizing instructions of nurses as to rules.
+
+Carlotta alone treated him with deference. His uneasy rounds in
+Carlotta's precinct took on the state and form of staff visitations. She
+flattered, cajoled, looked up to him.
+
+After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting more
+attention than himself: that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere in
+the offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her with
+worship. Her indifference had only piqued him. The enthroning of a
+successor galled him. Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily--was
+subject to frequent “bawling out,” as he termed it, in the
+operating-room as he assisted the anaesthetist. He took his troubles to
+Carlotta, who soothed him in the corridor--in plain sight of her quarry,
+of course--by putting a sympathetic hand on his sleeve.
+
+Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech.
+
+“For the love of Heaven, Carlotta,” he said impatiently, “stop making
+love to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you look at him.”
+
+“I like him. He is thoroughly genuine. I respect him, and--he respects
+me.”
+
+“It's rather a silly game, you know.”
+
+“What game?”
+
+“Do you think I don't understand?”
+
+“Perhaps you do. I--I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But I've
+been down-hearted. He cheers me up.”
+
+Her attraction for him was almost gone--not quite. He felt rather sorry
+for her.
+
+“I'm sorry. Then you are not angry with me?”
+
+“Angry? No.” She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was not
+acting. “I knew it would end, of course. I have lost a--a lover. I
+expected that. But I wanted to keep a friend.”
+
+It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend? He
+had treated her cruelly, hideously. If she still desired his friendship,
+there was no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it. And Carlotta was very
+careful. Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes.
+She told him of her worries. Her training was almost over. She had
+a chance to take up institutional work. She abhorred the thought of
+private duty. What would he advise?
+
+The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place to
+talk.
+
+“Come to the office and we'll talk it over.”
+
+“I don't like to go there; Miss Simpson is suspicious.”
+
+The institution she spoke of was in another city. It occurred to
+Wilson that if she took it the affair would have reached a graceful and
+legitimate end.
+
+Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was not
+unpleasant. It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it was
+owing to her. He had treated her badly.
+
+Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptingly
+free.
+
+“Suppose you meet me at the old corner,” he said carelessly, eyes on
+the Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was
+glaring ferociously. “We'll run out into the country and talk things
+over.”
+
+She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.
+
+“What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?”
+
+Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and he
+made his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that he
+had won a victory.
+
+K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. He had been
+sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement. At five
+o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside
+on the pavement.
+
+“Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'd
+come around.”
+
+K. looked at his watch.
+
+“What do you say to a walk?”
+
+“Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go about
+town for a half-hour or so.”
+
+Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to. But here
+again Joe met him more than halfway.
+
+“Well, go on,” he said, when they found themselves in the park; “I don't
+suppose you were paying a call.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I guess I know what you are going to say.”
+
+“I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a man
+insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone.”
+
+“Why make an exception of me?”
+
+“One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that,
+whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are
+putting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else.”
+
+“She is responsible, isn't she?”
+
+“Not in the least. How old are you, Joe?”
+
+“Twenty-three, almost.”
+
+“Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a
+disappointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney.”
+
+“Much she cares! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?”
+
+“There is no announcement of any engagement.”
+
+“She is, and you know it. Well, she'll be happy--not! If I'd go to her
+to-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again.” The idea,
+thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him. He returned to it
+again and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy's
+statement had any basis in fact. His single determination was to save
+Sidney from any pain.
+
+When Joe suddenly announced his inclination to go out into the country
+after all, he suspected a ruse to get rid of him, and insisted on going
+along. Joe consented grudgingly.
+
+“Car's at Bailey's garage,” he said sullenly. “I don't know when I'll
+get back.”
+
+“That won't matter.” K.'s tone was cheerful. “I'm not sleeping, anyhow.”
+
+That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the car
+running smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat. Then:--
+
+“So you've got it too!” he said. “We're a fine pair of fools. We'd both
+be better off if I sent the car over a bank.”
+
+He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to time
+sternly.
+
+They had supper at the White Springs Hotel--not on the terrace, but in
+the little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first meal
+together. K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with bad
+grace.
+
+But the meal cheered and steadied him. K. found him more amenable to
+reason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave the
+city.
+
+“I'm stuck here,” he said. “I'm the only one, and mother yells blue
+murder when I talk about it. I want to go to Cuba. My uncle owns a farm
+down there.”
+
+“Perhaps I can talk your mother over. I've been there.”
+
+Joe was all interest. His dilated pupils became more normal, his
+restless hands grew quiet. K.'s even voice, the picture he drew of
+life on the island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-week
+dullness, seemed to quiet the boy's tortured nerves. He was nearer
+to peace than he had been for many days. But he smoked incessantly,
+lighting one cigarette from another.
+
+At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car. He paused for a moment,
+rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.
+
+“I'm feeling a lot better,” he said. “I haven't got the band around my
+head. You talk to mother.”
+
+That was the last K. saw of Joe Drummond until the next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care--not in black this time, but
+in white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her
+head, and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to
+be gay, cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory.
+He expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the
+secret of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to
+forget their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when
+the late dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a
+faintly perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her
+voice that was only half assumed.
+
+“It's very late,” he complained. “Surely you are not going to be back at
+ten.”
+
+“I have special permission to be out late.”
+
+“Good!” And then, recollecting their new situation: “We have a lot to
+talk over. It will take time.”
+
+At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
+car. Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside
+of the road. The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe
+that the white figure in the car was not Sidney. He went rather white,
+and stepped out of the zone of light. The influence of Le Moyne was
+still on him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing.
+But his hands shook as he filled the radiator.
+
+When Wilson's car had gone on, he went automatically about his
+preparations for the return trip--lifted a seat cushion to investigate
+his own store of gasolene, replacing carefully the revolver he always
+carried under the seat and packed in waste to prevent its accidental
+discharge, lighted his lamps, examined a loose brake-band.
+
+His coolness gratified him. He had been an ass: Le Moyne was right. He'd
+get away--to Cuba if he could--and start over again. He would forget the
+Street and let it forget him.
+
+The men in the garage were talking.
+
+“To Schwitter's, of course,” one of them grumbled. “We might as well go
+out of business.”
+
+“There's no money in running a straight place. Schwitter and half a
+dozen others are getting rich.”
+
+“That was Wilson, the surgeon in town. He cut off my brother-in-law's
+leg--charged him as much as if he had grown a new one for him. He used
+to come here. Now he goes to Schwitter's, like the rest. Pretty girl he
+had with him. You can bet on Wilson.”
+
+So Max Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of
+garage talk! The smiles of the men were evil. Joe's hands grew cold, his
+head hot. A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights.
+He knew Schwitter's, and he knew Wilson.
+
+He flung himself into his car and threw the throttle open. The car
+jerked, stalled.
+
+“You can't start like that, son,” one of the men remonstrated. “You let
+'er in too fast.”
+
+“You go to hell!” Joe snarled, and made a second ineffectual effort.
+
+Thus adjured, the men offered neither further advice nor assistance. The
+minutes went by in useless cranking--fifteen. The red mist grew heavier.
+Every lamp was a danger signal. But when K., growing uneasy, came out
+into the yard, the engine had started at last. He was in time to see Joe
+run his car into the road and turn it viciously toward Schwitter's.
+
+Carlotta's nearness was having its calculated effect on Max Wilson. His
+spirits rose as the engine, marking perfect time, carried them along the
+quiet roads.
+
+Partly it was reaction--relief that she should be so reasonable, so
+complaisant--and a sort of holiday spirit after the day's hard work.
+Oddly enough, and not so irrational as may appear, Sidney formed a
+part of the evening's happiness--that she loved him; that, back in the
+lecture-room, eyes and even mind on the lecturer, her heart was with
+him.
+
+So, with Sidney the basis of his happiness, he made the most of his
+evening's freedom. He sang a little in his clear tenor--even, once when
+they had slowed down at a crossing, bent over audaciously and kissed
+Carlotta's hand in the full glare of a passing train.
+
+“How reckless of you!”
+
+“I like to be reckless,” he replied.
+
+His boyishness annoyed Carlotta. She did not want the situation to get
+out of hand. Moreover, what was so real for her was only too plainly a
+lark for him. She began to doubt her power.
+
+The hopelessness of her situation was dawning on her. Even when the
+touch of her beside him and the solitude of the country roads got in
+his blood, and he bent toward her, she found no encouragement in his
+words:--“I am mad about you to-night.”
+
+She took her courage in her hands:--“Then why give me up for some one
+else?”
+
+“That's--different.”
+
+“Why is it different? I am a woman. I--I love you, Max. No one else will
+ever care as I do.”
+
+“You are in love with the Lamb!”
+
+“That was a trick. I'm sorry, Max. I don't care for anyone else in the
+world. If you let me go I'll want to die.”
+
+Then, as he was silent:--
+
+“If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life. I swear it. There
+will be nobody else, ever.”
+
+The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday
+afternoon under the trees, on this very road! Swift shame overtook
+him, that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in
+ignorance of how things really stood between them.
+
+“I'm sorry, Carlotta. It's impossible. I'm engaged to marry some one
+else.”
+
+“Sidney Page?”--almost a whisper.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He was ashamed at the way she took the news. If she had stormed or wept,
+he would have known what to do. But she sat still, not speaking.
+
+“You must have expected it, sooner or later.”
+
+Still she made no reply. He thought she might faint, and looked at her
+anxiously. Her profile, indistinct beside him, looked white and drawn.
+But Carlotta was not fainting. She was making a desperate plan. If their
+escapade became known, it would end things between Sidney and him. She
+was sure of that. She needed time to think it out. It must become known
+without any apparent move on her part. If, for instance, she became ill,
+and was away from the hospital all night, that might answer. The thing
+would be investigated, and who knew--
+
+The car turned in at Schwitter's road and drew up before the house.
+The narrow porch was filled with small tables, above which hung rows of
+electric lights enclosed in Japanese paper lanterns. Midweek, which had
+found the White Springs Hotel almost deserted, saw Schwitter's crowded
+tables set out under the trees. Seeing the crowd, Wilson drove directly
+to the yard and parked his machine.
+
+“No need of running any risk,” he explained to the still figure beside
+him. “We can walk back and take a table under the trees, away from those
+infernal lanterns.”
+
+She reeled a little as he helped her out.
+
+“Not sick, are you?”
+
+“I'm dizzy. I'm all right.”
+
+She looked white. He felt a stab of pity for her. She leaned rather
+heavily on him as they walked toward the house. The faint perfume that
+had almost intoxicated him, earlier, vaguely irritated him now.
+
+At the rear of the house she shook off his arm and preceded him around
+the building. She chose the end of the porch as the place in which to
+drop, and went down like a stone, falling back.
+
+There was a moderate excitement. The visitors at Schwitter's were too
+much engrossed with themselves to be much interested. She opened her
+eyes almost as soon as she fell--to forestall any tests; she was
+shrewd enough to know that Wilson would detect her malingering very
+quickly--and begged to be taken into the house. “I feel very ill,” she
+said, and her white face bore her out.
+
+Schwitter and Bill carried her in and up the stairs to one of the newly
+furnished rooms. The little man was twittering with anxiety. He had a
+horror of knockout drops and the police. They laid her on the bed, her
+hat beside her; and Wilson, stripping down the long sleeve of her glove,
+felt her pulse.
+
+“There's a doctor in the next town,” said Schwitter. “I was going to
+send for him, anyhow--my wife's not very well.”
+
+“I'm a doctor.”
+
+“Is it anything serious?”
+
+“Nothing serious.”
+
+He closed the door behind the relieved figure of the landlord, and,
+going back to Carlotta, stood looking down at her.
+
+“What did you mean by doing that?”
+
+“Doing what?”
+
+“You were no more faint than I am.”
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+“I don't remember. Everything went black. The lanterns--”
+
+He crossed the room deliberately and went out, closing the door behind
+him. He saw at once where he stood--in what danger. If she insisted
+that she was ill and unable to go back, there would be a fuss. The story
+would come out. Everything would be gone. Schwitter's, of all places!
+
+At the foot of the stairs, Schwitter pulled himself together. After all,
+the girl was only ill. There was nothing for the police. He looked at
+his watch. The doctor ought to be here by this time. It was sooner than
+they had expected. Even the nurse had not come. Tillie was alone, out
+in the harness-room. He looked through the crowded rooms, at the
+overflowing porch with its travesty of pleasure, and he hated the whole
+thing with a desperate hatred.
+
+Another car. Would they never stop coming! But perhaps it was the
+doctor. A young man edged his way into the hall and confronted him.
+
+“Two people just arrived here. A man and a woman--in white. Where are
+they?”
+
+It was trouble then, after all!
+
+“Upstairs--first bedroom to the right.” His teeth chattered. Surely, as
+a man sowed he reaped.
+
+Joe went up the staircase. At the top, on the landing, he confronted
+Wilson. He fired at him without a word--saw him fling up his arms and
+fall back, striking first the wall, then the floor.
+
+The buzz of conversation on the porch suddenly ceased. Joe put his
+revolver in his pocket and went quietly down the stairs. The crowd
+parted to let him through.
+
+Carlotta, crouched in her room, listening, not daring to open the door,
+heard the sound of a car as it swung out into the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late
+operation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture
+notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the
+insistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flying
+fingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.
+There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force
+strength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrils
+dilated, her brain worked like a machine.
+
+That night she received well-deserved praise. When the Lamb, telephoning
+hysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staff
+surgeon was called. His keen eyes watched Sidney--felt her capacity, her
+fiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what was
+in his mind.
+
+“Don't wear yourself out, girl,” he said gravely. “We need people like
+you. It was good work to-night--fine work. I wish we had more like you.”
+
+By midnight the work was done, and the nurse in charge sent Sidney to
+bed.
+
+It was the Lamb who received the message about Wilson; and because he
+was not very keen at the best, and because the news was so startling, he
+refused to credit his ears.
+
+“Who is this at the 'phone?”
+
+“That doesn't matter. Le Moyne's my name. Get the message to Dr. Ed
+Wilson at once. We are starting to the city.”
+
+“Tell me again. I mustn't make a mess of this.”
+
+“Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, has been shot,” came slowly and distinctly.
+“Get the staff there and have a room ready. Get the operating-room
+ready, too.”
+
+The Lamb wakened then, and roused the house. He was incoherent, rather,
+so that Dr. Ed got the impression that it was Le Moyne who had been
+shot, and only learned the truth when he got to the hospital.
+
+“Where is he?” he demanded. He liked K., and his heart was sore within
+him.
+
+“Not in yet, sir. A Mr. Le Moyne is bringing him. Staff's in the
+executive committee room, sir.”
+
+“But--who has been shot? I thought you said--”
+
+The Lamb turned pale at that, and braced himself.
+
+“I'm sorry--I thought you understood. I believe it's not--not serious.
+It's Dr. Max, sir.”
+
+Dr. Ed, who was heavy and not very young, sat down on an office chair.
+Out of sheer habit he had brought the bag. He put it down on the floor
+beside him, and moistened his lips.
+
+“Is he living?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir. I gathered that Mr. Le Moyne did not think it serious.”
+
+He lied, and Dr. Ed knew he lied.
+
+The Lamb stood by the door, and Dr. Ed sat and waited. The office
+clock said half after three. Outside the windows, the night world went
+by--taxi-cabs full of roisterers, women who walked stealthily close
+to the buildings, a truck carrying steel, so heavy that it shook the
+hospital as it rumbled by.
+
+Dr. Ed sat and waited. The bag with the dog-collar in it was on the
+floor. He thought of many things, but mostly of the promise he had made
+his mother. And, having forgotten the injured man's shortcomings, he
+was remembering his good qualities--his cheerfulness, his courage, his
+achievements. He remembered the day Max had done the Edwardes operation,
+and how proud he had been of him. He figured out how old he was--not
+thirty-one yet, and already, perhaps--There he stopped thinking. Cold
+beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
+
+“I think I hear them now, sir,” said the Lamb, and stood back
+respectfully to let him pass out of the door.
+
+Carlotta stayed in the room during the consultation. No one seemed to
+wonder why she was there, or to pay any attention to her. The staff was
+stricken. They moved back to make room for Dr. Ed beside the bed, and
+then closed in again.
+
+Carlotta waited, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
+Surely they would operate; they wouldn't let him die like that!
+
+When she saw the phalanx break up, and realized that they would not
+operate, she went mad. She stood against the door, and accused them of
+cowardice--taunted them.
+
+“Do you think he would let any of you die like that?” she cried. “Die
+like a hurt dog, and none of you to lift a hand?”
+
+It was Pfeiffer who drew her out of the room and tried to talk reason
+and sanity to her.
+
+“It's hopeless,” he said. “If there was a chance, we'd operate, and you
+know it.”
+
+The staff went hopelessly down the stairs to the smoking-room, and
+smoked. It was all they could do. The night assistant sent coffee down
+to them, and they drank it. Dr. Ed stayed in his brother's room, and
+said to his mother, under his breath, that he'd tried to do his best by
+Max, and that from now on it would be up to her.
+
+K. had brought the injured man in. The country doctor had come, too,
+finding Tillie's trial not imminent. On the way in he had taken it
+for granted that K. was a medical man like himself, and had placed his
+hypodermic case at his disposal.
+
+When he missed him,--in the smoking-room, that was,--he asked for him.
+
+“I don't see the chap who came in with us,” he said. “Clever fellow.
+Like to know his name.”
+
+The staff did not know.
+
+K. sat alone on a bench in the hall. He wondered who would tell Sidney;
+he hoped they would be very gentle with her. He sat in the shadow,
+waiting. He did not want to go home and leave her to what she might have
+to face. There was a chance she would ask for him. He wanted to be near,
+in that case.
+
+He sat in the shadow, on the bench. The night watchman went by twice and
+stared at him. At last he asked K. to mind the door until he got some
+coffee.
+
+“One of the staff's been hurt,” he explained. “If I don't get some
+coffee now, I won't get any.”
+
+K. promised to watch the door.
+
+A desperate thing had occurred to Carlotta. Somehow, she had not thought
+of it before. Now she wondered how she could have failed to think of it.
+If only she could find him and he would do it! She would go down on her
+knees--would tell him everything, if only he would consent.
+
+When she found him on his bench, however, she passed him by. She had a
+terrible fear that he might go away if she put the thing to him first.
+He clung hard to his new identity.
+
+So first she went to the staff and confronted them. They were men of
+courage, only declining to undertake what they considered hopeless work.
+The one man among them who might have done the thing with any chance
+of success lay stricken. Not one among them but would have given of his
+best--only his best was not good enough.
+
+“It would be the Edwardes operation, wouldn't it?” demanded Carlotta.
+
+The staff was bewildered. There were no rules to cover such conduct on
+the part of a nurse. One of them--Pfeiffer again, by chance--replied
+rather heavily:--
+
+“If any, it would be the Edwardes operation.”
+
+“Would Dr. Edwardes himself be able to do anything?”
+
+This was going a little far.
+
+“Possibly. One chance in a thousand, perhaps. But Edwardes is dead. How
+did this thing happen, Miss Harrison?”
+
+She ignored his question. Her face was ghastly, save for the trace of
+rouge; her eyes were red-rimmed.
+
+“Dr. Edwardes is sitting on a bench in the hall outside!” she announced.
+
+Her voice rang out. K. heard her and raised his head. His attitude was
+weary, resigned. The thing had come, then! He was to take up the old
+burden. The girl had told.
+
+Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney. Max was still unconscious. Ed remembered
+about her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man's
+estate and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered that
+Max was very fond of Sidney. He had hoped that Sidney would take him and
+do for him what he, Ed, had failed to do.
+
+So Sidney was summoned.
+
+She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a little
+weary. But her courage was indomitable. She forced her shoes on her
+tired feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.
+
+The night watchman was in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she always
+smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the
+nurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall,
+holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty
+too--but he had divined Sidney's romance.
+
+“Coffee! For me?” She was astonished.
+
+“Drink it. You haven't had much sleep.”
+
+She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.
+
+“There is something wrong, daddy.”
+
+That was his name, among the nurses. He had had another name, but it was
+lost in the mists of years.
+
+“Get it down.”
+
+So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. But
+daddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.
+
+“Can you stand a piece of bad news?”
+
+Strangely, her first thought was of K.
+
+“There has been an accident. Dr. Wilson--”
+
+“Which one?”
+
+“Dr. Max--has been hurt. It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to know
+it.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“Downstairs, in Seventeen.”
+
+So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, with
+his untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straight
+figure on the bed. When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms around
+her. His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything. She hardly
+listened to what he said. The fact was all that concerned her--that her
+lover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand,
+so far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.
+
+The why would come later. Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's arms
+about her, and wait.
+
+“If they would only do something!” Sidney's voice sounded strange to her
+ears.
+
+“There is nothing to do.”
+
+But that, it seemed, was wrong. For suddenly Sidney's small world, which
+had always sedately revolved in one direction, began to move the other
+way.
+
+The door opened, and the staff came in. But where before they had
+moved heavily, with drooped heads, now they came quickly, as men with a
+purpose. There was a tall man in a white coat with them. He ordered them
+about like children, and they hastened to do his will. At first Sidney
+only knew that now, at last, they were going to do something--the tall
+man was going to do something. He stood with his back to Sidney, and
+gave orders.
+
+The heaviness of inactivity lifted. The room buzzed. The nurses stood
+by, while the staff did nurses' work. The senior surgical interne,
+essaying assistance, was shoved aside by the senior surgical consultant,
+and stood by, aggrieved.
+
+It was the Lamb, after all, who brought the news to Sidney. The new
+activity had caught Dr. Ed, and she was alone now, her face buried
+against the back of a chair.
+
+“There'll be something doing now, Miss Page,” he offered.
+
+“What are they going to do?”
+
+“Going after the bullet. Do you know who's going to do it?”
+
+His voice echoed the subdued excitement of the room--excitement and new
+hope.
+
+“Did you ever hear of Edwardes, the surgeon?--the Edwardes operation,
+you know. Well, he's here. It sounds like a miracle. They found him
+sitting on a bench in the hall downstairs.”
+
+Sidney raised her head, but she could not see the miraculously found
+Edwardes. She could see the familiar faces of the staff, and that other
+face on the pillow, and--she gave a little cry. There was K.! How like
+him to be there, to be wherever anyone was in trouble! Tears came to her
+eyes--the first tears she had shed.
+
+As if her eyes had called him, he looked up and saw her. He came toward
+her at once. The staff stood back to let him pass, and gazed after him.
+The wonder of what had happened was growing on them.
+
+K. stood beside Sidney, and looked down at her. Just at first it seemed
+as if he found nothing to say. Then:
+
+“There's just a chance, Sidney dear. Don't count too much on it.”
+
+“I have got to count on it. If I don't, I shall die.”
+
+If a shadow passed over his face, no one saw it.
+
+“I'll not ask you to go back to your room. If you will wait somewhere
+near, I'll see that you have immediate word.”
+
+“I am going to the operating-room.”
+
+“Not to the operating-room. Somewhere near.”
+
+His steady voice controlled her hysteria. But she resented it. She was
+not herself, of course, what with strain and weariness.
+
+“I shall ask Dr. Edwardes.”
+
+He was puzzled for a moment. Then he understood. After all, it was as
+well. Whether she knew him as Le Moyne or as Edwardes mattered very
+little, after all. The thing that really mattered was that he must try
+to save Wilson for her. If he failed--It ran through his mind that if he
+failed she might hate him the rest of her life--not for himself, but for
+his failure; that, whichever way things went, he must lose.
+
+“Dr. Edwardes says you are to stay away from the operation, but to
+remain near. He--he promises to call you if--things go wrong.”
+
+She had to be content with that.
+
+Nothing about that night was real to Sidney. She sat in the
+anaesthetizing-room, and after a time she knew that she was not alone.
+There was somebody else. She realized dully that Carlotta was there,
+too, pacing up and down the little room. She was never sure, for
+instance, whether she imagined it, or whether Carlotta really stopped
+before her and surveyed her with burning eyes.
+
+“So you thought he was going to marry you!” said Carlotta--or the dream.
+“Well, you see he isn't.”
+
+Sidney tried to answer, and failed--or that was the way the dream went.
+
+“If you had enough character, I'd think you did it. How do I know you
+didn't follow us, and shoot him as he left the room?”
+
+It must have been reality, after all; for Sidney's numbed mind grasped
+the essential fact here, and held on to it. He had been out with
+Carlotta. He had promised--sworn that this should not happen. It had
+happened. It surprised her. It seemed as if nothing more could hurt her.
+
+In the movement to and from the operating room, the door stood open for
+a moment. A tall figure--how much it looked like K.!--straightened and
+held out something in its hand.
+
+“The bullet!” said Carlotta in a whisper.
+
+Then more waiting, a stir of movement in the room beyond the closed
+door. Carlotta was standing, her face buried in her hands, against the
+door. Sidney suddenly felt sorry for her. She cared a great deal. It
+must be tragic to care like that! She herself was not caring much; she
+was too numb.
+
+Beyond, across the courtyard, was the stable. Before the day of the
+motor ambulances, horses had waited there for their summons, eager as
+fire horses, heads lifted to the gong. When Sidney saw the outline of
+the stable roof, she knew that it was dawn. The city still slept, but
+the torturing night was over. And in the gray dawn the staff, looking
+gray too, and elderly and weary, came out through the closed door and
+took their hushed way toward the elevator. They were talking among
+themselves. Sidney, straining her ears, gathered that they had seen a
+miracle, and that the wonder was still on them.
+
+Carlotta followed them out.
+
+Almost on their heels came K. He was in the white coat, and more and
+more he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held out
+something in his hand. Sidney's head was aching and confused.
+
+She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish. The dawn was
+morning now--horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and across
+the windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles sat on
+a clean towel.
+
+The tall man--or was it K.?--looked at her, and then reached up and
+turned off the electric light. Why, it was K., of course; and he was
+putting out the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light was
+out everything was gray. She could not see. She slid very quietly out of
+her chair, and lay at his feet in a dead faint.
+
+K. carried her to the elevator. He held her as he had held her that day
+at the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as one
+holds something infinitely precious. Not until he had placed her on her
+bed did she open her eyes. But she was conscious before that. She was
+so tired, and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing where
+one was going, or caring--
+
+The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney,
+lying among her pillows, looked up at K.
+
+“How is he?”
+
+“A little better. There's a chance, dear.”
+
+“I have been so mixed up. All the time I was sitting waiting, I kept
+thinking that it was you who were operating! Will he really get well?”
+
+“It looks promising.”
+
+“I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes.”
+
+The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia. There was so much to talk
+about: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had been
+shot by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the great
+Edwardes; and--a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, and
+that thrilled the training-school to the core--that this very Edwardes,
+newly risen, as it were, and being a miracle himself as well as
+performing one, this very Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed and
+putting her down, had kissed her on her white forehead.
+
+The training-school doubted this. How could he know Sidney Page? And,
+after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupied
+at the time in seeing if her cap was straight. The school, therefore,
+accepted the miracle, but refused the kiss.
+
+The miracle was no miracle, of course. But something had happened to K.
+that savored of the marvelous. His faith in himself was coming back--not
+strongly, with a rush, but with all humility. He had been loath to
+take up the burden; but, now that he had it, he breathed a sort of
+inarticulate prayer to be able to carry it.
+
+And, since men have looked for signs since the beginning of time, he too
+asked for a sign. Not, of course, that he put it that way, or that he
+was making terms with Providence. It was like this: if Wilson got well,
+he'd keep on working. He'd feel that, perhaps, after all, this was
+meant. If Wilson died--Sidney held out her hand to him.
+
+“What should I do without you, K.?” she asked wistfully.
+
+“All you have to do is to want me.”
+
+His voice was not too steady, and he took her pulse in a most
+businesslike way to distract her attention from it.
+
+“How very many things you know! You are quite professional about
+pulses.”
+
+Even then he did not tell her. He was not sure, to be frank, that she'd
+be interested. Now, with Wilson as he was, was no time to obtrude his
+own story. There was time enough for that.
+
+“Will you drink some beef tea if I send it to you?”
+
+“I'm not hungry. I will, of course.”
+
+“And--will you try to sleep?”
+
+“Sleep, while he--”
+
+“I promise to tell you if there is any change. I shall stay with him.”
+
+“I'll try to sleep.”
+
+But, as he rose from the chair beside her low bed, she put out her hand
+to him.
+
+“K.”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“He was out with Carlotta. He promised, and he broke his promise.”
+
+“There may have been reasons. Suppose we wait until he can explain.”
+
+“How can he explain?” And, when he hesitated: “I bring all my troubles
+to you, as if you had none. Somehow, I can't go to Aunt Harriet, and of
+course mother--Carlotta cares a great deal for him. She said that I shot
+him. Does anyone really think that?”
+
+“Of course not. Please stop thinking.”
+
+“But who did, K.? He had so many friends, and no enemies that I knew
+of.”
+
+Her mind seemed to stagger about in a circle, making little excursions,
+but always coming back to the one thing.
+
+“Some drunken visitor to the road-house.”
+
+He could have killed himself for the words the moment they were spoken.
+
+“They were at a road-house?”
+
+“It is not just to judge anyone before you hear the story.”
+
+She stirred restlessly.
+
+“What time is it?”
+
+“Half-past six.”
+
+“I must get up and go on duty.”
+
+He was glad to be stern with her. He forbade her rising. When the nurse
+came in with the belated ammonia, she found K. making an arbitrary
+ruling, and Sidney looking up at him mutinously.
+
+“Miss Page is not to go on duty to-day. She is to stay in bed until
+further orders.”
+
+“Very well, Dr. Edwardes.”
+
+The confusion in Sidney's mind cleared away suddenly. K. was Dr.
+Edwardes! It was K. who had performed the miracle operation--K. who
+had dared and perhaps won! Dear K., with his steady eyes and his long
+surgeon's fingers! Then, because she seemed to see ahead as well as
+back into the past in that flash that comes to the drowning and to those
+recovering from shock, and because she knew that now the little house
+would no longer be home to K., she turned her face into her pillow and
+cried. Her world had fallen indeed. Her lover was not true and might
+be dying; her friend would go away to his own world, which was not the
+Street.
+
+K. left her at last and went back to Seventeen, where Dr. Ed still sat
+by the bed. Inaction was telling on him. If Max would only open
+his eyes, so he could tell him what had been in his mind all these
+years--his pride in him and all that.
+
+With a sort of belated desire to make up for where he had failed, he put
+the bag that had been Max's bete noir on the bedside table, and began
+to clear it of rubbish--odd bits of dirty cotton, the tubing from a long
+defunct stethoscope, glass from a broken bottle, a scrap of paper on
+which was a memorandum, in his illegible writing, to send Max a check
+for his graduating suit. When K. came in, he had the old dog-collar in
+his hand.
+
+“Belonged to an old collie of ours,” he said heavily. “Milkman ran over
+him and killed him. Max chased the wagon and licked the driver with his
+own whip.”
+
+His face worked.
+
+“Poor old Bobby Burns!” he said. “We'd raised him from a pup. Got him in
+a grape-basket.”
+
+The sick man opened his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient did
+not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the
+gas office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy to
+reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence
+of the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the
+conviction that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.
+
+For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals
+keep their secrets well. And it is doubtful if the Street would
+have been greatly concerned even had it known. It had never heard of
+Edwardes, of the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation. Its medical
+knowledge comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner.
+When, as would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would
+be more concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of
+it. That was as it should be.
+
+But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood. If
+the boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable. Twenty people had
+seen him at Schwitter's and would know him again.
+
+To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.
+
+At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him. He had not been
+home all night. Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him
+that. “Mrs. Drummond was here,” she said. “She is almost frantic. She
+says Joe has not been home all night. She says he looks up to you, and
+she thought if you could find him and would talk to him--”
+
+“Joe was with me last night. We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.
+Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry.
+I feel sure she will hear from him to-day. Something went wrong with his
+car, perhaps, after he left me.”
+
+He bathed and shaved hurriedly. Katie brought his coffee to his room,
+and he drank it standing. He was working out a theory about the boy.
+Beyond Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, across
+the State. Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating up
+the miles all that night, or--K. would not formulate his fear of what
+might have happened, even to himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a
+little knot of people around her. The Street was getting the night's
+news.
+
+He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the
+country. He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day. He went
+to Schwitter's first. Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill was
+scrubbing the porch, and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass
+into a box. The dead lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on
+the hill came the staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
+
+“Where's Schwitter?”
+
+“At the barn with the missus. Got a boy back there.”
+
+Bill grinned. He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch,
+shoved a chair on it.
+
+“Sit down. Well, how's the man who got his last night? Dead?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“County detectives were here bright and early. After the lady's husband.
+I guess we lose our license over this.”
+
+“What does Schwitter say?”
+
+“Oh, him!” Bill's tone was full of disgust. “He hopes we do. He hates
+the place. Only man I ever knew that hated money. That's what this house
+is--money.”
+
+“Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?”
+
+A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtain
+before his eyes. But his reply came promptly:
+
+“Surest thing in the world. Close to him as you are to me. Dark man,
+about thirty, small mustache--”
+
+“Bill, you're lying, and I know it. Where is he?”
+
+The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
+
+“I don't know anything about him.” He thrust his mop into the pail. K.
+rose.
+
+“Does Schwitter know?”
+
+“He doesn't know nothing. He's been out at the barn all night.”
+
+The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the
+house. K. put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.
+
+“We've got to get him away from here, Bill.”
+
+“Get who away?”
+
+“You know. The county men may come back to search the premises.”
+
+“How do I know you aren't one of them?”
+
+“I guess you know I'm not. He's a friend of mine. As a matter of fact,
+I followed him here; but I was too late. Did he take the revolver away
+with him?”
+
+“I took it from him. It's under the bar.”
+
+“Get it for me.”
+
+In sheer relief, K.'s spirits rose. After all, it was a good world:
+Tillie with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe
+safe, and, without the revolver, secure from his own remorse. Other
+things there were, too--the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, the
+way she had turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, this
+last, but it was worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; it
+had stopped on the hillside. The men were drinking out of a bucket that
+flashed in the sun.
+
+There was one thing wrong. What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless
+a thing? K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
+
+From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne. He noted his
+tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his
+ears. Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job. After his survey he
+went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
+
+K. thrust it into his pocket.
+
+“Now,” he said quietly, “where is he?”
+
+“In my room--top of the house.”
+
+K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had sat
+waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down.
+And last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure.
+Surely the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery. None of it paid.
+No one got away with it.
+
+The room under the eaves was stifling. An unmade bed stood in a corner.
+From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and a
+cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.
+
+Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window. When the door
+swung open, he looked up. He showed no interest on seeing K., who had to
+stoop to enter the low room.
+
+“Hello, Joe.”
+
+“I thought you were the police.”
+
+“Not much. Open that window, Bill. This place is stifling.”
+
+“Is he dead?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“I wish I'd killed him!”
+
+“Oh, no, you don't. You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I.”
+
+“What will they do with me?”
+
+“Nothing until they find you. I came to talk about that. They'd better
+not find you.”
+
+“Huh!”
+
+“It's easier than it sounds.”
+
+K. sat down on the bed.
+
+“If I only had some money!” he said. “But never mind about that, Joe;
+I'll get some.”
+
+Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room. As he closed the door
+behind him, K.'s voice took on a new tone: “Joe, why did you do it?”
+
+“You know.”
+
+“You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Do you know who was with him?”
+
+“Yes, and so do you. Don't go into that. I did it, and I'll stand by
+it.”
+
+“Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?”
+
+“Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!” he sneered. “They
+came here and took a room. I met him coming out of it. I'd do it again
+if I had a chance, and do it better.”
+
+“It was not Sidney.”
+
+“Aw, chuck it!”
+
+“It's a fact. I got here not two minutes after you left. The girl was
+still there. It was some one else. Sidney was not out of the hospital
+last night. She attended a lecture, and then an operation.”
+
+Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not
+been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
+
+“If he is that sort, he deserves what he got,” said the boy grimly.
+
+And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spent
+alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time
+that he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees--his descent of the
+staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to
+walk back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be
+no mistake as to who had committed the crime.
+
+“I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself,” he told K.
+“But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And--”
+
+After a pause: “Does she know who did it?”
+
+“Sidney? No.”
+
+“Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow.”
+
+“Possibly. That's not up to us, Joe. The thing we've got to do is to
+hush the thing up, and get you away.”
+
+“I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money.”
+
+K. rose. “I think I can get it.”
+
+He turned in the doorway.
+
+“Sidney need never know who did it.”
+
+“I'm not ashamed of it.” But his face showed relief.
+
+There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve
+between men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K.
+The boy rose and followed him to the door.
+
+“Why don't you tell her the whole thing?--the whole filthy story?” he
+asked. “She'd never look at him again. You're crazy about her. I haven't
+got a chance. It would give you one.”
+
+“I want her, God knows!” said K. “But not that way, boy.”
+
+Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
+
+“Five hundred gross,” the little man hastened to explain. “But you're
+right, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It's going hard
+with her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about. It's in the
+safe, in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank.” He seemed
+to apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending
+an entire day's gross receipts on no security. “It's better to get him
+away, of course. It's good business. I have tried to have an orderly
+place. If they arrest him here--”
+
+His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walked
+down the Street, and eyed its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.
+Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.
+It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that
+night to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to
+a railroad station. But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.
+
+He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message found
+him there. Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hard
+fight. The message from Schwitter was very brief:--
+
+“Something has happened, and Tillie wants you. I don't like to trouble
+you again, but she--wants you.”
+
+K. was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and little
+food since the day before. But he got into the rented machine again--its
+rental was running up; he tried to forget it--and turned it toward
+Hillfoot. But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walked
+without ringing into Mrs. McKee's.
+
+Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state had
+altered the “mealing” house. The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rack
+in the hall. Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window one
+viewed the spiraea, still in need of spraying. Mrs. McKee herself was in
+the pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaves
+on each of an interminable succession of plates.
+
+K., who was privileged, walked back.
+
+“I've got a car at the door,” he announced, “and there's nothing so
+extravagant as an empty seat in an automobile. Will you take a ride?”
+
+Mrs. McKee agreed. Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap the
+ideal headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.
+
+“If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap,” she said.
+“Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one. If you'll take me in my
+toque--”
+
+K. said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety,
+having not the faintest idea what a toque was. He was not without other
+anxieties. What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that he
+expected? Good women could be most cruel. And Schwitter had been very
+vague. But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice had
+expressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not a
+grief.
+
+He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring them
+together. But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables,
+its whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper window
+behind which Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather. He
+had a masculine dislike for meddling, and yet--Mrs. McKee had suddenly
+seen the name in the wooden arch over the gate: “Schwitter's.”
+
+“I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne.”
+
+“Tillie's not in the house. She's back in the barn.”
+
+“In the barn!”
+
+“She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out. It's
+very comfortable and clean; it smells of hay. You'd be surprised how
+nice it is.”
+
+“The like of her!” snorted Mrs. McKee. “She's late with her conscience,
+I'm thinking.”
+
+“Last night,” K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, “she
+had a child there. It--it's rather like very old times, isn't it? A
+man-child, Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course.”
+
+“What do you want me to do?” Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce at
+the beginning, ended feebly.
+
+“I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had a
+new baby and needed a friend. Lie a little--” Mrs. McKee gasped. “Tell
+her the baby's pretty. Tell her you've been wanting to see her.” His
+tone was suddenly stern. “Lie a little, for your soul's sake.”
+
+She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch with
+the shameful name, and back to the barn. But there he had the tact to
+remain in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone.
+When, five minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn,
+her eyes were red.
+
+“Come in, Mr. K.,” she said. “The wife's dead, poor thing. They're going
+to be married right away.”
+
+The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels. K.
+entered the barn. At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head.
+The child was asleep at her breast.
+
+
+The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe's
+credit. On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at the
+bank with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University and
+Country Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, and
+various small obligations of Christine's.
+
+The immediate result of the money was good. He drank nothing for a week,
+went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat at
+home with Christine on her balcony in the evenings. With the knowledge
+that he could pay his debts, he postponed the day. He liked the feeling
+of a bank account in four figures.
+
+The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him there
+gratified him. He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous. On the third
+evening he was restless. It occurred to him that his wife was beginning
+to take his presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer.
+When he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was
+furious.
+
+Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half
+in it. She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for
+Palmer in the things he liked. They still took their dinners at the
+Lorenz house up the street. When she saw that the haphazard table
+service there irritated him, she coaxed her mother into getting a
+butler.
+
+The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly and
+in its heart, it was proud of him. With a half-dozen automobiles, and
+Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler,
+not to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on
+its commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of
+affectation had lain its charm.
+
+On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.
+He had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since
+the motor accident. To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few
+months had not included women.
+
+The girl had a strange fascination for him. Perhaps she typified the
+care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,
+fundamental. He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was
+shot. The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black
+dress had been enough to set his pulses racing. When he saw that she
+meant to pass him, he fell into step beside her.
+
+“I believe you were going to cut me!”
+
+“I was in a hurry.”
+
+“Still in the store?”
+
+“Yes.” And, after a second's hesitation: “I'm keeping straight, too.”
+
+“How are you getting along?”
+
+“Pretty well. I've had my salary raised.”
+
+“Do you have to walk as fast as this?”
+
+“I said I was in a hurry. Once a week I get off a little early. I--”
+
+He eyed her suspiciously.
+
+“Early! What for?”
+
+“I go to the hospital. The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+But a moment later he burst out irritably:--
+
+“That was an accident, Grace. The boy took the chance when he engaged
+to drive the car. I'm sorry, of course. I dream of the little
+devil sometimes, lying there. I'll tell you what I'll do,” he added
+magnanimously. “I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have done
+something before this.”
+
+“The boy's not strong enough yet. I don't think you can do anything for
+him, unless--”
+
+The monstrous injustice of the thing overcame her. Palmer and she
+walking about, and the boy lying on his hot bed! She choked.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“He worries about his mother. If you could give her some money, it would
+help.”
+
+“Money! Good Heavens--I owe everybody.”
+
+“You owe him too, don't you? He'll never walk again.”
+
+“I can't give them ten dollars. I don't see that I'm under any
+obligation, anyhow. I paid his board for two months in the hospital.”
+
+When she did not acknowledge this generosity,--amounting to forty-eight
+dollars,--his irritation grew. Her silence was an accusation. Her manner
+galled him, into the bargain. She was too calm in his presence, too
+cold. Where she had once palpitated visibly under his warm gaze, she was
+now self-possessed and quiet. Where it had pleased his pride to think
+that he had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the other foot.
+
+At the entrance to a side street she stopped.
+
+“I turn off here.”
+
+“May I come and see you sometime?”
+
+“No, please.”
+
+“That's flat, is it?”
+
+“It is, Palmer.”
+
+He swung around savagely and left her.
+
+The next day he drew the thousand dollars from the bank. A good many
+of his debts he wanted to pay in cash; there was no use putting checks
+through, with incriminating indorsements. Also, he liked the idea of
+carrying a roll of money around. The big fellows at the clubs always had
+a wad and peeled off bills like skin off an onion. He took a couple of
+drinks to celebrate his approaching immunity from debt.
+
+He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the
+hotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be with
+him. He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket.
+Money seemed to bring money! If he could carry the thousand around for a
+day or so, something pretty good might come of it.
+
+He had been drinking a little all afternoon. When the game was over, he
+bought drinks to celebrate his victory. The losers treated, too, to show
+they were no pikers. Palmer was in high spirits. He offered to put up
+the eighty and throw for it. The losers mentioned dinner and various
+engagements.
+
+Palmer did not want to go home. Christine would greet him with raised
+eyebrows. They would eat a stuffy Lorenz dinner, and in the evening
+Christine would sit in the lamplight and drive him mad with soft music.
+He wanted lights, noise, the smiles of women. Luck was with him, and he
+wanted to be happy.
+
+At nine o'clock that night he found Grace. She had moved to a cheap
+apartment which she shared with two other girls from the store. The
+others were out. It was his lucky day, surely.
+
+His drunkenness was of the mind, mostly. His muscles were well
+controlled. The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were
+slightly accentuated, his eyes open a trifle wider than usual. That
+and a slight paleness of the nostrils were the only evidences of his
+condition. But Grace knew the signs.
+
+“You can't come in.”
+
+“Of course I'm coming in.”
+
+She retreated before him, her eyes watchful. Men in his condition were
+apt to be as quick with a blow as with a caress. But, having gained his
+point, he was amiable.
+
+“Get your things on and come out. We can take in a roof-garden.”
+
+“I've told you I'm not doing that sort of thing.”
+
+He was ugly in a flash.
+
+“You've got somebody else on the string.”
+
+“Honestly, no. There--there has never been anybody else, Palmer.”
+
+He caught her suddenly and jerked her toward him.
+
+“You let me hear of anybody else, and I'll cut the guts out of him!”
+
+He held her for a second, his face black and fierce. Then, slowly and
+inevitably, he drew her into his arms. He was drunk, and she knew it.
+But, in the queer loyalty of her class, he was the only man she had
+cared for. She cared now. She took him for that moment, felt his hot
+kisses on her mouth, her throat, submitted while his rather brutal
+hands bruised her arms in fierce caresses. Then she put him from her
+resolutely.
+
+“Now you're going.”
+
+“The hell I'm going!”
+
+But he was less steady than he had been. The heat of the little flat
+brought more blood to his head. He wavered as he stood just inside the
+door.
+
+“You must go back to your wife.”
+
+“She doesn't want me. She's in love with a fellow at the house.”
+
+“Palmer, hush!”
+
+“Lemme come in and sit down, won't you?”
+
+She let him pass her into the sitting-room. He dropped into a chair.
+
+“You've turned me down, and now Christine--she thinks I don't know. I'm
+no fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made her
+miserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don't
+kick about it.”
+
+“You know that.”
+
+She was watching him gravely. She had never seen him just like this.
+Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reed
+he was.
+
+“I got you in wrong. You were a good girl before I knew you. You're
+a good girl now. I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it. I only
+wanted to take you out for a good time. I've got money. Look here!” He
+drew out the roll of bills and showed it to her. Her eyes opened wide.
+She had never known him to have much money.
+
+“Lots more where that comes from.”
+
+A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.
+
+She was instantly cunning.
+
+“Aren't you going to give me some of that?”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“I--I want some clothes.”
+
+The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.
+
+“You lie.”
+
+“I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld.”
+
+He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp of
+it.
+
+“That's it,” he complained. “Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw it
+all up to me!”
+
+“You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you.”
+
+“If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!”
+
+But his eyes were wavering. She could see victory.
+
+“Take off enough for the evening.”
+
+But he drew himself up.
+
+“I'm no piker,” he said largely. “Whole hog or nothing. Take it.”
+
+He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eighty
+dollars, in crushed and wrinkled notes.
+
+“It's my lucky day,” he said thickly. “Plenty more where this came from.
+Do anything for you. Give it to the little devil. I--” He yawned. “God,
+this place is hot!”
+
+His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on a
+stool. She knew him--knew that he would sleep almost all night.
+She would have to make up something to tell the other girls; but no
+matter--she could attend to that later.
+
+She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before. It seemed
+smaller than that amount. Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, in
+pinning on her hat, to count the bills. It was all there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+K. spent all of the evening of that day with Wilson. He was not to go
+for Joe until eleven o'clock. The injured man's vitality was standing
+him in good stead. He had asked for Sidney and she was at his bedside.
+Dr. Ed had gone.
+
+“I'm going, Max. The office is full, they tell me,” he said, bending
+over the bed. “I'll come in later, and if they'll make me a shakedown,
+I'll stay with you to-night.”
+
+The answer was faint, broken but distinct. “Get some sleep...I've been a
+poor stick...try to do better--” His roving eyes fell on the dog collar
+on the stand. He smiled, “Good old Bob!” he said, and put his hand over
+Dr. Ed's, as it lay on the bed.
+
+K. found Sidney in the room, not sitting, but standing by the window.
+The sick man was dozing. One shaded light burned in a far corner. She
+turned slowly and met his eyes. It seemed to K. that she looked at
+him as if she had never really seen him before, and he was right.
+Readjustments are always difficult.
+
+Sidney was trying to reconcile the K. she had known so well with this
+new K., no longer obscure, although still shabby, whose height had
+suddenly become presence, whose quiet was the quiet of infinite power.
+
+She was suddenly shy of him, as he stood looking down at her. He saw the
+gleam of her engagement ring on her finger. It seemed almost defiant. As
+though she had meant by wearing it to emphasize her belief in her lover.
+
+They did not speak beyond their greeting, until he had gone over the
+record. Then:--
+
+“We can't talk here. I want to talk to you, K.”
+
+He led the way into the corridor. It was very dim. Far away was the
+night nurse's desk, with its lamp, its annunciator, its pile of records.
+The passage floor reflected the light on glistening boards.
+
+“I have been thinking until I am almost crazy, K. And now I know how it
+happened. It was Joe.”
+
+“The principal thing is, not how it happened, but that he is going to
+get well, Sidney.”
+
+She stood looking down, twisting her ring around her finger.
+
+“Is Joe in any danger?”
+
+“We are going to get him away to-night. He wants to go to Cuba. He'll
+get off safely, I think.”
+
+“WE are going to get him away! YOU are, you mean. You shoulder all our
+troubles, K., as if they were your own.”
+
+“I?” He was genuinely surprised. “Oh, I see. You mean--but my part in
+getting Joe off is practically nothing. As a matter of fact, Schwitter
+has put up the money. My total capital in the world, after paying the
+taxicab to-day, is seven dollars.”
+
+“The taxicab?”
+
+“By Jove, I was forgetting! Best news you ever heard of! Tillie married
+and has a baby--all in twenty-four hours! Boy--they named it Le Moyne.
+Squalled like a maniac when the water went on its head. I--I took Mrs.
+McKee out in a hired machine. That's what happened to my capital.” He
+grinned sheepishly. “She said she would have to go in her toque. I had
+awful qualms. I thought it was a wrapper.”
+
+“You, of course,” she said. “You find Max and save him--don't look like
+that! You did, didn't you? And you get Joe away, borrowing money to send
+him. And as if that isn't enough, when you ought to have been getting
+some sleep, you are out taking a friend to Tillie, and being godfather
+to the baby.”
+
+He looked uncomfortable, almost guilty.
+
+“I had a day off. I--”
+
+“When I look back and remember how all these months I've been talking
+about service, and you said nothing at all, and all the time you were
+living what I preached--I'm so ashamed, K.”
+
+He would not allow that. It distressed him. She saw that, and tried to
+smile.
+
+“When does Joe go?”
+
+“To-night. I'm to take him across the country to the railroad. I was
+wondering--”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I'd better explain first what happened, and why it happened. Then if
+you are willing to send him a line, I think it would help. He saw a girl
+in white in the car and followed in his own machine. He thought it was
+you, of course. He didn't like the idea of your going to Schwitter's.
+Carlotta was taken ill. And Schwitter and--and Wilson took her upstairs
+to a room.”
+
+“Do you believe that, K.?”
+
+“I do. He saw Max coming out and misunderstood. He fired at him then.”
+
+“He did it for me. I feel very guilty, K., as if it all comes back to
+me. I'll write to him, of course. Poor Joe!”
+
+He watched her go down the hall toward the night nurse's desk. He would
+have given everything just then for the right to call her back, to take
+her in his arms and comfort her. She seemed so alone. He himself had
+gone through loneliness and heartache, and the shadow was still on him.
+He waited until he saw her sit down at the desk and take up a pen. Then
+he went back into the quiet room.
+
+He stood by the bedside, looking down. Wilson was breathing quietly: his
+color was coming up, as he rallied from the shock. In K.'s mind now was
+just one thought--to bring him through for Sidney, and then to go away.
+He might follow Joe to Cuba. There were chances there. He could do
+sanitation work, or he might try the Canal.
+
+The Street would go on working out its own salvation. He would have
+to think of something for the Rosenfelds. And he was worried about
+Christine. But there again, perhaps it would be better if he went away.
+Christine's story would have to work itself out. His hands were tied.
+
+He was glad in a way that Sidney had asked no questions about him, had
+accepted his new identity so calmly. It had been overshadowed by the
+night tragedy. It would have pleased him if she had shown more interest,
+of course. But he understood. It was enough, he told himself, that he
+had helped her, that she counted on him. But more and more he knew in
+his heart that it was not enough. “I'd better get away from here,” he
+told himself savagely.
+
+And having taken the first step toward flight, as happens in such cases,
+he was suddenly panicky with fear, fear that he would get out of hand,
+and take her in his arms, whether or no; a temptation to run from
+temptation, to cut everything and go with Joe that night. But there
+his sense of humor saved him. That would be a sight for the gods, two
+defeated lovers flying together under the soft September moon.
+
+Some one entered the room. He thought it was Sidney and turned with the
+light in his eyes that was only for her. It was Carlotta.
+
+She was not in uniform. She wore a dark skirt and white waist and her
+high heels tapped as she crossed the room. She came directly to him.
+
+“He is better, isn't he?”
+
+“He is rallying. Of course it will be a day or two before we are quite
+sure.”
+
+She stood looking down at Wilson's quiet figure.
+
+“I guess you know I've been crazy about him,” she said quietly. “Well,
+that's all over. He never really cared for me. I played his game and
+I--lost. I've been expelled from the school.”
+
+Quite suddenly she dropped on her knees beside the bed, and put her
+cheek close to the sleeping man's hand. When after a moment she rose,
+she was controlled again, calm, very white.
+
+“Will you tell him, Dr. Edwardes, when he is conscious, that I came in
+and said good-bye?”
+
+“I will, of course. Do you want to leave any other message?”
+
+She hesitated, as if the thought tempted her. Then she shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+“What would be the use? He doesn't want any message from me.”
+
+She turned toward the door. But K. could not let her go like that. Her
+face frightened him. It was too calm, too controlled. He followed her
+across the room.
+
+“What are your plans?”
+
+“I haven't any. I'm about through with my training, but I've lost my
+diploma.”
+
+“I don't like to see you going away like this.”
+
+She avoided his eyes, but his kindly tone did what neither the Head nor
+the Executive Committee had done that day. It shook her control.
+
+“What does it matter to you? You don't owe me anything.”
+
+“Perhaps not. One way and another I've known you a long time.”
+
+“You never knew anything very good.”
+
+“I'll tell you where I live, and--”
+
+“I know where you live.”
+
+“Will you come to see me there? We may be able to think of something.”
+
+“What is there to think of? This story will follow me wherever I go!
+I've tried twice for a diploma and failed. What's the use?”
+
+But in the end he prevailed on her to promise not to leave the city
+until she had seen him again. It was not until she had gone, a straight
+figure with haunted eyes, that he reflected whimsically that once again
+he had defeated his own plans for flight.
+
+In the corridor outside the door Carlotta hesitated. Why not go back?
+Why not tell him? He was kind; he was going to do something for her.
+But the old instinct of self-preservation prevailed. She went on to her
+room.
+
+Sidney brought her letter to Joe back to K. She was flushed with the
+effort and with a new excitement.
+
+“This is the letter, K., and--I haven't been able to say what I wanted,
+exactly. You'll let him know, won't you, how I feel, and how I blame
+myself?”
+
+K. promised gravely.
+
+“And the most remarkable thing has happened. What a day this has been!
+Somebody has sent Johnny Rosenfeld a lot of money. The ward nurse wants
+you to come back.”
+
+The ward had settled for the night. The well-ordered beds of the daytime
+were chaotic now, torn apart by tossing figures. The night was hot and
+an electric fan hummed in a far corner. Under its sporadic breezes, as
+it turned, the ward was trying to sleep.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was not asleep. An incredible thing had happened to
+him. A fortune lay under his pillow. He was sure it was there, for ever
+since it came his hot hand had clutched it.
+
+He was quite sure that somehow or other K. had had a hand in it. When he
+disclaimed it, the boy was bewildered.
+
+“It'll buy the old lady what she wants for the house, anyhow,” he
+said. “But I hope nobody's took up a collection for me. I don't want no
+charity.”
+
+“Maybe Mr. Howe sent it.”
+
+“You can bet your last match he didn't.”
+
+In some unknown way the news had reached the ward that Johnny's friend,
+Mr. Le Moyne, was a great surgeon. Johnny had rejected it scornfully.
+
+“He works in the gas office,” he said, “I've seen him there. If he's a
+surgeon, what's he doing in the gas office. If he's a surgeon, what's he
+doing teaching me raffia-work? Why isn't he on his job?”
+
+But the story had seized on his imagination.
+
+“Say, Mr. Le Moyne.”
+
+“Yes, Jack.”
+
+He called him “Jack.” The boy liked it. It savored of man to man. After
+all, he was a man, or almost. Hadn't he driven a car? Didn't he have a
+state license?
+
+“They've got a queer story about you here in the ward.”
+
+“Not scandal, I trust, Jack!”
+
+“They say that you're a surgeon; that you operated on Dr. Wilson and
+saved his life. They say that you're the king pin where you came from.”
+ He eyed K. wistfully. “I know it's a damn lie, but if it's true--”
+
+“I used to be a surgeon. As a matter of fact I operated on Dr. Wilson
+to-day. I--I am rather apologetic, Jack, because I didn't explain to
+you sooner. For--various reasons--I gave up that--that line of business.
+To-day they rather forced my hand.”
+
+“Don't you think you could do something for me, sir?”
+
+When K. did not reply at once, he launched into an explanation.
+
+“I've been lying here a good while. I didn't say much because I knew I'd
+have to take a chance. Either I'd pull through or I wouldn't, and the
+odds were--well, I didn't say much. The old lady's had a lot of trouble.
+But now, with THIS under my pillow for her, I've got a right to ask.
+I'll take a chance, if you will.”
+
+“It's only a chance, Jack.”
+
+“I know that. But lie here and watch these soaks off the street. Old, a
+lot of them, and gettin' well to go out and starve, and--My God! Mr. Le
+Moyne, they can walk, and I can't.”
+
+K. drew a long breath. He had started, and now he must go on. Faith in
+himself or no faith, he must go on. Life, that had loosed its hold on
+him for a time, had found him again.
+
+“I'll go over you carefully to-morrow, Jack. I'll tell you your chances
+honestly.”
+
+“I have a thousand dollars. Whatever you charge--”
+
+“I'll take it out of my board bill in the new house!”
+
+At four o'clock that morning K. got back from seeing Joe off. The trip
+had been without accident.
+
+Over Sidney's letter Joe had shed a shamefaced tear or two. And during
+the night ride, with K. pushing the car to the utmost, he had felt that
+the boy, in keeping his hand in his pocket, had kept it on the letter.
+When the road was smooth and stretched ahead, a gray-white line into the
+night, he tried to talk a little courage into the boy's sick heart.
+
+“You'll see new people, new life,” he said. “In a month from now you'll
+wonder why you ever hung around the Street. I have a feeling that you're
+going to make good down there.”
+
+And once, when the time for parting was very near,--“No matter what
+happens, keep on believing in yourself. I lost my faith in myself once.
+It was pretty close to hell.”
+
+Joe's response showed his entire self-engrossment.
+
+“If he dies, I'm a murderer.”
+
+“He's not going to die,” said K. stoutly.
+
+At four o'clock in the morning he left the car at the garage and walked
+around to the little house. He had had no sleep for forty-five hours;
+his eyes were sunken in his head; the skin over his temples looked drawn
+and white. His clothes were wrinkled; the soft hat he habitually wore
+was white with the dust of the road.
+
+As he opened the hall door, Christine stirred in the room beyond. She
+came out fully dressed.
+
+“K., are you sick?”
+
+“Rather tired. Why in the world aren't you in bed?”
+
+“Palmer has just come home in a terrible rage. He says he's been robbed
+of a thousand dollars.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+Christine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“He doesn't know, or says he doesn't. I'm glad of it. He seems
+thoroughly frightened. It may be a lesson.”
+
+In the dim hall light he realized that her face was strained and set.
+She looked on the verge of hysteria.
+
+“Poor little woman,” he said. “I'm sorry, Christine.”
+
+The tender words broke down the last barrier of her self-control.
+
+“Oh, K.! Take me away. Take me away! I can't stand it any longer.”
+
+She held her arms out to him, and because he was very tired and lonely,
+and because more than anything else in the world just then he needed a
+woman's arms, he drew her to him and held her close, his cheek to her
+hair.
+
+“Poor girl!” he said. “Poor Christine! Surely there must be some
+happiness for us somewhere.”
+
+But the next moment he let her go and stepped back.
+
+“I'm sorry.” Characteristically he took the blame. “I shouldn't have
+done that--You know how it is with me.”
+
+“Will it always be Sidney?”
+
+“I'm afraid it will always be Sidney.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead. All of K.'s skill had not sufficed to save
+him. The operation had been a marvel, but the boy's long-sapped strength
+failed at the last.
+
+K., set of face, stayed with him to the end. The boy did not know he was
+going. He roused from the coma and smiled up at Le Moyne.
+
+“I've got a hunch that I can move my right foot,” he said. “Look and
+see.”
+
+K. lifted the light covering.
+
+“You're right, old man. It's moving.”
+
+“Brake foot, clutch foot,” said Johnny, and closed his eyes again.
+
+K. had forbidden the white screens, that outward symbol of death. Time
+enough for them later. So the ward had no suspicion, nor had the boy.
+
+The ward passed in review. It was Sunday, and from the chapel far below
+came the faint singing of a hymn. When Johnny spoke again he did not
+open his eyes.
+
+“You're some operator, Mr. Le Moyne. I'll put in a word for you whenever
+I get a chance.”
+
+“Yes, put in a word for me,” said K. huskily.
+
+He felt that Johnny would be a good mediator--that whatever he, K., had
+done of omission or commission, Johnny's voice before the Tribunal would
+count.
+
+The lame young violin-player came into the ward. She had cherished a
+secret and romantic affection for Max Wilson, and now he was in the
+hospital and ill. So she wore the sacrificial air of a young nun and
+played “The Holy City.”
+
+Johnny was close on the edge of his long sleep by that time, and very
+comfortable.
+
+“Tell her nix on the sob stuff,” he complained. “Ask her to play 'I'm
+twenty-one and she's eighteen.'”
+
+She was rather outraged, but on K.'s quick explanation she changed to
+the staccato air.
+
+“Ask her if she'll come a little nearer; I can't hear her.”
+
+So she moved to the foot of the bed, and to the gay little tune Johnny
+began his long sleep. But first he asked K. a question: “Are you sure
+I'm going to walk, Mr. Le Moyne?”
+
+“I give you my solemn word,” said K. huskily, “that you are going to be
+better than you have ever been in your life.”
+
+It was K. who, seeing he would no longer notice, ordered the screens to
+be set around the bed, K. who drew the coverings smooth and folded the
+boy's hands over his breast.
+
+The violin-player stood by uncertainly.
+
+“How very young he is! Was it an accident?”
+
+“It was the result of a man's damnable folly,” said K. grimly. “Somebody
+always pays.”
+
+And so Johnny Rosenfeld paid.
+
+The immediate result of his death was that K., who had gained some of
+his faith in himself on seeing Wilson on the way to recovery, was beset
+by his old doubts. What right had he to arrogate to himself again powers
+of life and death? Over and over he told himself that there had been no
+carelessness here, that the boy would have died ultimately, that he
+had taken the only chance, that the boy himself had known the risk and
+begged for it.
+
+The old doubts came back.
+
+And now came a question that demanded immediate answer. Wilson would
+be out of commission for several months, probably. He was gaining, but
+slowly. And he wanted K. to take over his work.
+
+“Why not?” he demanded, half irritably. “The secret is out. Everybody
+knows who you are. You're not thinking about going back to that
+ridiculous gas office, are you?”
+
+“I had some thought of going to Cuba.”
+
+“I'm damned if I understand you. You've done a marvelous thing; I lie
+here and listen to the staff singing your praises until I'm sick of your
+name! And now, because a boy who wouldn't have lived anyhow--”
+
+“That's not it,” K. put in hastily. “I know all that. I guess I could do
+it and get away with it as well as the average. All that deters me--I've
+never told you, have I, why I gave up before?”
+
+Wilson was propped up in his bed. K. was walking restlessly about the
+room, as was his habit when troubled.
+
+“I've heard the gossip; that's all.”
+
+“When you recognized me that night on the balcony, I told you I'd lost
+my faith in myself, and you said the whole affair had been gone over
+at the State Society. As a matter of fact, the Society knew of only two
+cases. There had been three.”
+
+“Even at that--”
+
+“You know what I always felt about the profession, Max. We went into
+that more than once in Berlin. Either one's best or nothing. I had done
+pretty well. When I left Lorch and built my own hospital, I hadn't
+a doubt of myself. And because I was getting results I got a lot of
+advertising. Men began coming to the clinics. I found I was making
+enough out of the patients who could pay to add a few free wards. I want
+to tell you now, Wilson, that the opening of those free wards was the
+greatest self-indulgence I ever permitted myself. I'd seen so much
+careless attention given the poor--well, never mind that. It was almost
+three years ago that things began to go wrong. I lost a big case.”
+
+“I know. All this doesn't influence me, Edwardes.”
+
+“Wait a moment. We had a system in the operating-room as perfect as I
+could devise it. I never finished an operation without having my first
+assistant verify the clip and sponge count. But that first case died
+because a sponge had been left in the operating field. You know how
+those things go; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count,
+after reasonable caution. Then I lost another case in the same way--a
+free case.
+
+“As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was
+doing from four to six cases a day. After the second one I almost went
+crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go
+away.”
+
+“There was another?”
+
+“Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I
+performed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room.
+He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing again. When I
+told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to
+say he had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was
+responsible. I knew--better.”
+
+“It's incredible.”
+
+“Exactly; but it's true. The last patient was a laborer. He left a
+family. I've sent them money from time to time. I used to sit and think
+about the children he left, and what would become of them. The ironic
+part of it was that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the
+time. Men were sending me cases from all over the country. It was either
+stay and keep on working, with that chance, or--quit. I quit.” “But if
+you had stayed, and taken extra precautions--”
+
+“We'd taken every precaution we knew.”
+
+Neither of the men spoke for a time. K. stood, his tall figure outlined
+against the window. Far off, in the children's ward, children were
+laughing; from near by a very young baby wailed a thin cry of protest
+against life; a bell rang constantly. K.'s mind was busy with the
+past--with the day he decided to give up and go away, with the months of
+wandering and homelessness, with the night he had come upon the Street
+and had seen Sidney on the doorstep of the little house.
+
+“That's the worst, is it?” Max Wilson demanded at last.
+
+“That's enough.”
+
+“It's extremely significant. You had an enemy somewhere--on your
+staff, probably. This profession of ours is a big one, but you know its
+jealousies. Let a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack
+is after him.” He laughed a little. “Mixed figure, but you know what I
+mean.”
+
+K. shook his head. He had had that gift of the big man everywhere, in
+every profession, of securing the loyalty of his followers. He would
+have trusted every one of them with his life.
+
+“You're going to do it, of course.”
+
+“Take up your work?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He stirred restlessly. To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand
+by as Wilson's best man when he was married--it turned him cold. But he
+did not give a decided negative. The sick man was flushed and growing
+fretful; it would not do to irritate him.
+
+“Give me another day on it,” he said at last. And so the matter stood.
+
+Max's injury had been productive of good, in one way. It had brought the
+two brothers closer together. In the mornings Max was restless until
+Dr. Ed arrived. When he came, he brought books in the shabby bag--his
+beloved Burns, although he needed no book for that, the “Pickwick
+Papers,” Renan's “Lives of the Disciples.” Very often Max world doze
+off; at the cessation of Dr. Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir
+fretfully and demand more. But because he listened to everything without
+discrimination, the older man came to the conclusion that it was the
+companionship that counted. It pleased him vastly. It reminded him of
+Max's boyhood, when he had read to Max at night. For once in the last
+dozen years, he needed him.
+
+“Go on, Ed. What in blazes makes you stop every five minutes?” Max
+protested, one day.
+
+Dr. Ed, who had only stopped to bite off the end of a stogie to hold in
+his cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it.
+
+“Stop bullying. I'll read when I'm ready. Have you any idea what I'm
+reading?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Well, I haven't. For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages!”
+
+Max laughed, and suddenly put out his hand. Demonstrations of affection
+were so rare with him that for a moment Dr. Ed was puzzled. Then, rather
+sheepishly, he took it.
+
+“When I get out,” Max said, “we'll have to go out to the White Springs
+again and have supper.”
+
+That was all; but Ed understood.
+
+Morning and evening, Sidney went to Max's room. In the morning she only
+smiled at him from the doorway. In the evening she went to him after
+prayers. She was allowed an hour with him then.
+
+The shooting had been a closed book between them. At first, when he
+began to recover, he tried to talk to her about it. But she refused to
+listen. She was very gentle with him, but very firm.
+
+“I know how it happened, Max,” she said--“about Joe's mistake and all
+that. The rest can wait until you are much better.”
+
+If there had been any change in her manner to him, he would not
+have submitted so easily, probably. But she was as tender as ever,
+unfailingly patient, prompt to come to him and slow to leave. After a
+time he began to dread reopening the subject. She seemed so effectually
+to have closed it. Carlotta was gone. And, after all, what good could he
+do his cause by pleading it? The fact was there, and Sidney knew it.
+
+On the day when K. had told Max his reason for giving up his work, Max
+was allowed out of bed for the first time. It was a great day. A box of
+red roses came that day from the girl who had refused him a year or more
+ago. He viewed them with a carelessness that was half assumed.
+
+The news had traveled to the Street that he was to get up that day.
+Early that morning the doorkeeper had opened the door to a gentleman
+who did not speak, but who handed in a bunch of early chrysanthemums and
+proceeded to write, on a pad he drew from his pocket:--
+
+“From Mrs. McKee's family and guests, with their congratulations on your
+recovery, and their hope that they will see you again soon. If their
+ends are clipped every day and they are placed in ammonia water, they
+will last indefinitely.” Sidney spent her hour with Max that evening as
+usual. His big chair had been drawn close to a window, and she found him
+there, looking out. She kissed him. But this time, instead of letting
+her draw away, he put out his arms and caught her to him.
+
+“Are you glad?”
+
+“Very glad, indeed,” she said soberly.
+
+“Then smile at me. You don't smile any more. You ought to smile; your
+mouth--”
+
+“I am almost always tired; that's all, Max.”
+
+She eyed him bravely.
+
+“Aren't you going to let me make love to you at all? You get away beyond
+my reach.”
+
+“I was looking for the paper to read to you.”
+
+A sudden suspicion flamed in his eyes.
+
+“Sidney.”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“You don't like me to touch you any more. Come here where I can see
+you.”
+
+The fear of agitating him brought her quickly. For a moment he was
+appeased.
+
+“That's more like it. How lovely you are, Sidney!” He lifted first one
+hand and then the other to his lips. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
+
+“If you mean about Carlotta, I forgave that long ago.”
+
+He was almost boyishly relieved. What a wonder she was! So lovely, and
+so sane. Many a woman would have held that over him for years--not that
+he had done anything really wrong on that nightmare excursion. But so
+many women are exigent about promises.
+
+“When are you going to marry me?”
+
+“We needn't discuss that to-night, Max.”
+
+“I want you so very much. I don't want to wait, dear. Let me tell Ed
+that you will marry me soon. Then, when I go away, I'll take you with
+me.”
+
+“Can't we talk things over when you are stronger?”
+
+Her tone caught his attention, and turned him a little white. He faced
+her to the window, so that the light fell full on her.
+
+“What things? What do you mean?”
+
+He had forced her hand. She had meant to wait; but, with his keen eyes
+on her, she could not dissemble.
+
+“I am going to make you very unhappy for a little while.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I've had a lot of time to think. If you had really wanted me, Max--”
+
+“My God, of course I want you!”
+
+“It isn't that I am angry. I am not even jealous. I was at first. It
+isn't that. It's hard to make you understand. I think you care for me--”
+
+“I love you! I swear I never loved any other woman as I love you.”
+
+Suddenly he remembered that he had also sworn to put Carlotta out of his
+life. He knew that Sidney remembered, too; but she gave no sign.
+
+“Perhaps that's true. You might go on caring for me. Sometimes I think
+you would. But there would always be other women, Max. You're like that.
+Perhaps you can't help it.”
+
+“If you loved me you could do anything with me.” He was half sullen.
+
+By the way her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All
+his conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his
+entanglement with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise--that
+she loved him. The mere suspicion made him gasp.
+
+“But, good Heavens, Sidney, you do care for me, don't you?”
+
+“I'm afraid I don't, Max; not enough.”
+
+She tried to explain, rather pitifully. After one look at his face, she
+spoke to the window.
+
+“I'm so wretched about it. I thought I cared. To me you were the best
+and greatest man that ever lived. I--when I said my prayers, I--But that
+doesn't matter. You were a sort of god to me. When the Lamb--that's one
+of the internes, you know--nicknamed you the 'Little Tin God,' I was
+angry. You could never be anything little to me, or do anything that
+wasn't big. Do you see?”
+
+He groaned under his breath.
+
+“No man could live up to that, Sidney.”
+
+“No. I see that now. But that's the way I cared. Now I know that I
+didn't care for you, really, at all. I built up an idol and worshiped
+it. I always saw you through a sort of haze. You were operating, with
+everybody standing by, saying how wonderful it was. Or you were coming
+to the wards, and everything was excitement, getting ready for you. I
+blame myself terribly. But you see, don't you? It isn't that I think you
+are wicked. It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never
+knew you.”
+
+When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself.
+
+“I'd known very few men,” she said. “I came into the hospital, and for
+a time life seemed very terrible. There were wickednesses I had never
+heard of, and somebody always paying for them. I was always asking, Why?
+Why? Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out.
+You gave them their chance, don't you see? Until I knew about Carlotta,
+you always meant that to me. You were like K.--always helping.”
+
+The room was very silent. In the nurses' parlor, a few feet down the
+corridor, the nurses were at prayers.
+
+“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” read the Head, her voice
+calm with the quiet of twilight and the end of the day.
+
+“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
+still waters.”
+
+The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were
+weary.
+
+“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--”
+
+The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the
+shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He said to himself savagely
+that they would better have let him die. “You say you never loved me
+because you never knew me. I'm not a rotter, Sidney. Isn't it possible
+that the man you, cared about, who--who did his best by people and all
+that--is the real me?”
+
+She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the
+sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey
+his greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he
+sank back into his chair.
+
+“The man who did his best is quite real. You have always done the best
+in your work; you always will. But the other is a part of you too, Max.
+Even if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk.”
+
+Under the window rang the sharp gong of a city patrol-wagon. It rumbled
+through the gates back to the courtyard, where its continued clamor
+summoned white-coated orderlies.
+
+An operating-room case, probably. Sidney, chin lifted, listened
+carefully. If it was a case for her, the elevator would go up to the
+operating-room. With a renewed sense of loss, Max saw that already she
+had put him out of her mind. The call to service was to her a call to
+battle. Her sensitive nostrils quivered; her young figure stood erect,
+alert.
+
+“It has gone up!”
+
+She took a step toward the door, hesitated, came back, and put a light
+hand on his shoulder.
+
+“I'm sorry, dear Max.”
+
+She had kissed him lightly on the cheek before he knew what she intended
+to do. So passionless was the little caress that, perhaps more than
+anything else, it typified the change in their relation.
+
+When the door closed behind her, he saw that she had left her ring
+on the arm of his chair. He picked it up. It was still warm from
+her finger. He held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his
+successful young life he had never before felt the bitterness of
+failure. The very warmth of the little ring hurt.
+
+Why hadn't they let him die? He didn't want to live--he wouldn't live.
+Nobody cared for him! He would--
+
+His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that
+had come that morning. Even in the half light, they glowed with fiery
+color.
+
+The ring was in his right hand. With the left he settled his collar and
+soft silk tie.
+
+K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time. Katie brought word to
+him, where he was helping Harriet close her trunk,--she was on her way
+to Europe for the fall styles,--that he was wanted in the lower hall.
+
+“A lady!” she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution. “And
+a good thing for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg
+off you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to
+them from now on.”
+
+So K. had put on his coat and, without so much as a glance in Harriet's
+mirror, had gone down the stairs. Carlotta was in the lower hall. She
+stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble
+had made in her. She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older
+than her age.
+
+“I came, you see, Dr. Edwardes.”
+
+Now and then, when some one came to him for help, which was generally
+money, he used Christine's parlor, if she happened to be out. So now,
+finding the door ajar, and the room dark, he went in and turned on the
+light.
+
+“Come in here; we can talk better.”
+
+She did not sit down at first; but, observing that her standing kept him
+on his feet, she sat finally. Evidently she found it hard to speak.
+
+“You were to come,” K. encouraged her, “to see if we couldn't plan
+something for you. Now, I think I've got it.”
+
+“If it's another hospital--and I don't want to stay here, in the city.”
+
+“You like surgical work, don't you?”
+
+“I don't care for anything else.”
+
+“Before we settle this, I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of.
+You know, of course, that I closed my hospital. I--a series of things
+happened, and I decided I was in the wrong business. That wouldn't be
+important, except for what it leads to. They are trying to persuade me
+to go back, and--I'm trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back.
+You see,”--his tone was determinedly cheerful, “my faith in myself has
+been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there isn't much left.”
+
+“You had been very successful.” She did not look up.
+
+“Well, I had and I hadn't. I'm not going to worry you about that. My
+offer is this: We'll just try to forget about--about Schwitter's and all
+the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating-room.”
+
+“You sent me away once!”
+
+“Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?” He smiled at her
+encouragingly.
+
+“Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?”
+
+“I understand.”
+
+“Don't you think you are taking a risk?”
+
+“Every one makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made
+mistakes since the world began. Most people live in glass houses, Miss
+Harrison. And don't make any mistake about this: people can always come
+back. No depth is too low. All they need is the willpower.”
+
+He smiled down at her. She had come armed with confession. But the offer
+he made was too alluring. It meant reinstatement, another chance, when
+she had thought everything was over. After all, why should she damn
+herself? She would go back. She would work her finger-ends off for him.
+She would make it up to him in other ways. But she could not tell him
+and lose everything.
+
+“Come,” he said. “Shall we go back and start over again?”
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence
+taking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school
+bell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly
+sharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet
+fashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went.
+
+An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised
+the baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach
+them himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne
+intended to go away.
+
+The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had
+gone, and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination
+of writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards
+was a hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up
+new curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.
+
+To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added
+its quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that
+were absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, and
+every Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of
+gas. They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next there
+was the news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the
+gas office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's
+hazarded!--and that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr.
+Max Wilson.
+
+The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
+sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement
+over the matter,--of K., not the sidewalks,--and then had accepted the
+new situation.
+
+But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned. What was
+the matter with things, anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which had
+promised so well,--awnings and palms and everything,--turning out badly.
+True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again. And
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing-days,
+and brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs dry-eyed and
+silent--even the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrill
+her. There was Tillie, too. But one did not speak of her. She was
+married now, of course; but the Street did not tolerate such a reversal
+of the usual processes as Tillie had indulged in. It censured Mrs. McKee
+severely for having been, so to speak, and accessory after the fact.
+
+The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible. If he had shown
+any “high and mightiness,” as they called it, since the change in his
+estate, it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the
+real thing,--so that the newspapers give a column to his having been
+in the city almost two years,--and still goes about in the same shabby
+clothes, with the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstrates
+clearly, as the barytone put it, that “he's got no swelled head on him;
+that's sure.”
+
+“Anybody can see by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's that he's
+been used to a car--likely a foreign one. All the swells have foreign
+cars.” Still the barytone, who was almost as fond of conversation as
+of what he termed “vocal.” “And another thing. Do you notice the way
+he takes Dr. Ed around? Has him at every consultation. The old boy's
+tickled to death.”
+
+A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heard
+the barytone singing:--
+
+      “Home is the hunter, home from the hill,
+       And the sailor, home from sea.”
+
+Home! Why, this WAS home. The Street seemed to stretch out its arms to
+him. The ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house.
+Tree and house were old; September had touched them. Christine sat
+sewing on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something
+on the new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when
+he had finished, and inspected his work. K. caught him up from behind,
+and, swinging him around--
+
+“Hey!” he said severely. “Don't you know better than to write all over
+the street? What'll I do to you? Give you to a policeman?”
+
+“Aw, lemme down, Mr. K.”
+
+“You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more,
+the picnic's off.”
+
+“Aw, Mr. K.!”
+
+“I mean it. Go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school.”
+
+He put the boy down. There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as in
+his voice, when he dealt with children. All his severity did not conceal
+it. “Get along with you, Bill. Last bell's rung.”
+
+As the boy ran off, K.'s eye fell on what he had written on the cement.
+At a certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as the
+Street “cancels” names. It is a part of his birthright. He does it as he
+whittles his school desk or tries to smoke the long dried fruit of the
+Indian cigar tree. So K. read in chalk an the smooth street:--
+
+     Max Wilson Marriage.      Sidney Page Love.
+
+[Note: the a, l, s, and n of “Max Wilson” are crossed through, as are
+the S, d, n, and a of “Sidney Page”]
+
+The childish scrawl stared up at him impudently, a sacred thing profaned
+by the day. K. stood and looked at it. The barytone was still singing;
+but now it was “I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen.” It was a cheerful
+air, as should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to his
+long sleep. The light was gone from K.'s face again. After all, the
+Street meant for him not so much home as it meant Sidney. And now,
+before very long, that book of his life, like others, would have to be
+closed.
+
+He turned and went heavily into the little house.
+
+Christine called to him from her little balcony:--
+
+“I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come out?”
+
+K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyes
+looked down at her.
+
+“I see very little of you now,” she complained. And, when he did not
+reply immediately: “Have you made any definite plans, K.?”
+
+“I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After
+that--”
+
+“You will go away?”
+
+“I think so. I am getting a good many letters, one way and another. I
+suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'd
+go back there--they want me. But it seems so futile, Christine, to leave
+as I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things were;
+and now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced, and
+to take up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do it
+than when I left!”
+
+“I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that.”
+
+He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony.
+
+“But who?” he demanded. “Who would do such a thing? I tell you,
+Christine, it isn't possible.”
+
+She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to the
+little house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or the
+heavy creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it.
+
+But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live.
+She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she must
+build on the shaky foundation of her marriage a house of life, with
+resignation serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always. That
+she knew. But with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and her
+love for Palmer was quite dead.
+
+“Sidney will be here this afternoon.”
+
+“Good.” His tone was non-committal.
+
+“Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney is not very happy?”
+
+He stopped in front of her.
+
+“She's had a great anxiety.”
+
+“She has no anxiety now. Max is doing well.”
+
+“Then what is it?”
+
+“I'm not quite sure, but I think I know. She's lost faith in Max, and
+she's not like me. I--I knew about Palmer before I married him. I got a
+letter. It's all rather hideous--I needn't go into it. I was afraid to
+back out; it was just before my wedding. But Sidney has more character
+than I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether
+she'll marry him.”
+
+K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to
+the sun and to the smiles of the Street. Christine might be right, but
+that did not alter things for him.
+
+Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself; to Palmer, who was
+doing better just now; to K., who was going away--went back with an ache
+to the night K. had taken her in his arms and then put her away. How
+wrong things were! What a mess life was!
+
+“When you go away,” she said at last, “I want you to remember this. I'm
+going to do my best, K. You have taught me all I know. All my life I'll
+have to overlook things; I know that. But, in his way, Palmer cares for
+me. He will always come back, and perhaps sometime--”
+
+Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of her she saw the years stretching
+out, marked, not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away,
+his remorseful returns.
+
+“Do a little more than forgetting,” K. said. “Try to care for him,
+Christine. You did once. And that's your strongest weapon. It's always a
+woman's strongest weapon. And it wins in the end.”
+
+“I shall try, K.,” she answered obediently.
+
+But he turned away from the look in her eyes.
+
+Harriet was abroad. She had sent cards from Paris to her “trade.” It was
+an innovation. The two or three people on the Street who received her
+engraved announcement that she was there, “buying new chic models
+for the autumn and winter--afternoon frocks, evening gowns, reception
+dresses, and wraps, from Poiret, Martial et Armand, and others,” left
+the envelopes casually on the parlor table, as if communications from
+Paris were quite to be expected.
+
+So K. lunched alone, and ate little. After luncheon he fixed a broken
+ironing-stand for Katie, and in return she pressed a pair of trousers
+for him. He had it in mind to ask Sidney to go out with him in Max's
+car, and his most presentable suit was very shabby.
+
+“I'm thinking,” said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up
+over her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door,
+“that these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. They're
+getting mighty thin.”
+
+“I'll take a duster along in case of accident,” he promised her; “and
+to-morrow I'll order a suit, Katie.”
+
+“I'll believe it when I see it,” said Katie from the stairs. “Some fool
+of a woman from the alley will come in to-night and tell you she can't
+pay her rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocket-book--as like
+as not to pay an installment on a piano. There's two new pianos in the
+alley since you came here.”
+
+“I promise it, Katie.”
+
+“Show it to me,” said Katie laconically. “And don't go to picking up
+anything you drop!”
+
+Sidney came home at half-past two--came delicately flushed, as if she
+had hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.
+
+“Bless the child!” she said. “There's no need to ask how he is to-day.
+You're all one smile.”
+
+The smile set just a trifle.
+
+“Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It's
+with Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep it
+off.”
+
+“I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while.”
+
+“Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is--is Mr. K.
+upstairs?”
+
+But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go
+up at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was
+there. She could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as she
+listened.
+
+Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeing
+something in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to her
+throat.
+
+“Sidney!”
+
+“Oh--hello, Chris.”
+
+“Won't you come and sit with me?”
+
+“I haven't much time--that is, I want to speak to K.”
+
+“You can see him when he comes down.”
+
+Sidney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her, all at once,
+that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now. No doubt he was
+in and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was! She was
+unhappy, too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention was
+to be unhappy enough. Well, surely, in that case--
+
+“How is Max?”
+
+“Still better.”
+
+Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful,
+Christine saw, to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony.
+Christine sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.
+
+“Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now.”
+
+“I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris.”
+
+Upstairs, K.'s door slammed. It was one of his failings that he always
+slammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.
+
+Sidney slid from the railing.
+
+“There he is now.”
+
+Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a
+bigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing,
+and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from the
+Street as empty of heart as he had come to it.
+
+“Be very good to him, Sidney,” she said unsteadily. “He cares so much.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+K. was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sidney as
+unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much
+wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude.
+
+“It was glamour, that was all, K.,” said Sidney bravely.
+
+“But, perhaps,” said K., “it's just because of that miserable incident
+with Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told
+me the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard,
+and--”
+
+Sidney was exasperated.
+
+“Do you want me to marry him, K.?”
+
+K. looked straight ahead.
+
+“I want you to be happy, dear.”
+
+They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again. K. had
+ordered dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they both
+liked. But now that it was there, they were not eating. K. had placed
+his chair so that his profile was turned toward her. He had worn the
+duster religiously until nightfall, and then had discarded it. It hung
+limp and dejected on the back of his chair. Past K.'s profile Sidney
+could see the magnolia tree shaped like a heart.
+
+“It seems to me,” said Sidney suddenly, “that you are kind to every one
+but me, K.”
+
+He fairly stammered his astonishment:--
+
+“Why, what on earth have I done?”
+
+“You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you?”
+
+She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply out
+of sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went
+hastily to something else:
+
+“It is hard for me to realize that you--that you lived a life of your
+own, a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish you
+would tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when you
+go away,”--she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat--“I'll want
+to know how to think of you,--who your friends are,--all that.”
+
+He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would be
+visualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its side
+street, as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just
+parted, her hands folded before her on the table.
+
+“I shall be working,” he said at last. “So will you.”
+
+“Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?”
+
+“I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night. You can think of me as
+never forgetting you or the Street, working or playing.”
+
+Playing! Of course he would not work all the time. And he was going back
+to his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls--
+
+He did his best then. He told her of the old family house, built by one
+of his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the
+case for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son then
+to the cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had wept
+when he decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, he
+thought he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions that
+had been the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, the
+choice room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames,
+and of his father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxed
+warm over it at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to
+remember. It brought back the other things that he wanted to forget.
+
+But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney. Side by side with the
+wonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house. What
+an exile it must have been for him! How hopelessly middle-class they
+must have seemed! How idiotic of her to think, for one moment, that she
+could ever belong in this new-old life of his!
+
+What traditions had she? None, of course, save to be honest and good
+and to do her best for the people around her. Her mother's people, the
+Kennedys went back a long way, but they had always been poor. A library
+full of paintings and books! She remembered the lamp with the blue-silk
+shade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister's
+portrait, and the cherry bookcase with the Encyclopaedia in it and
+“Beacon Lights of History.” When K., trying his best to interest her and
+to conceal his own heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather's
+old carriage, she sat back in the shadow.
+
+“Fearful old thing,” said K.,--“regular cabriolet. I can remember yet
+the family rows over it. But the old gentleman liked it--used to have
+it repainted every year. Strangers in the city used to turn around and
+stare at it--thought it was advertising something!”
+
+“When I was a child,” said Sidney quietly, “and a carriage drove up and
+stopped on the Street, I always knew some one had died!”
+
+There was a strained note in her voice. K., whose ear was attuned to
+every note in her voice, looked at her quickly. “My great-grandfather,”
+ said Sidney in the same tone, “sold chickens at market. He didn't do it
+himself; but the fact's there, isn't it?”
+
+K. was puzzled.
+
+“What about it?” he said.
+
+But Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on. This K. she had never
+known, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it--he
+must have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had
+traveled and knew all kinds of things: girls like the daughters of the
+Executive Committee who came in from their country places in summer
+with great armfuls of flowers, and hurried off, after consulting their
+jeweled watches, to luncheon or tea or tennis.
+
+“Go on,” said Sidney dully. “Tell me about the women you have known,
+your friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you.”
+
+K. was rather apologetic.
+
+“I've always been so busy,” he confessed. “I know a lot, but I don't
+think they would interest you. They don't do anything, you know--they
+travel around and have a good time. They're rather nice to look at, some
+of them. But when you've said that you've said it all.”
+
+Nice to look at! Of course they would be, with nothing else to think of
+in all the world but of how they looked.
+
+Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital,
+and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her face
+down on the bed.
+
+“Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?”
+
+He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed.
+And his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he
+thought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care as
+she had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of another
+woman, without a wrench.
+
+“Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting
+there? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll not
+talk if you'd like to be quiet.” Being with K. had become an agony, now
+that she realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds,
+hers and K.'s, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separated
+by as wide a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase--for
+instance,--and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But she
+was not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it,
+every word a stab, if only she might sit beside K. a little longer,
+might feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. “I'd like to
+ride, if you don't mind.”
+
+K. turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was remembering
+acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he
+had had to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and his
+arrival at last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of the
+stairs and Carlotta on her knees beside him.
+
+“K.” “Yes?”
+
+“Was there anybody you cared about,--any girl,--when you left home?”
+
+“I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean.”
+
+“You knew Max before, didn't you?”
+
+“Yes. You know that.”
+
+“If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't you
+tell me?”
+
+“I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow--”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the mere
+fact of your caring for him--” That was shaky ground; he got off it
+quickly. “Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there?”
+
+“Not to-night, please.”
+
+They were near the white house now. Schwitter's had closed up, indeed.
+The sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down,
+and in the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch. As
+if to cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself was
+watering the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.
+
+The car went by. Above the low hum of the engine they could hear
+Tillie's voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of
+love as she sang to the child.
+
+When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware that
+Sidney was crying. She sat with her head turned away, using her
+handkerchief stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road, and in a
+masterful fashion turned her shoulders about until she faced him.
+
+“Now, tell me about it,” he said.
+
+“It's just silliness. I'm--I'm a little bit lonely.”
+
+“Lonely!”
+
+“Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody--”
+
+“Aunt Harriet!”
+
+He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonely
+because the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more
+bewildered. And Joe! “And with you going away and never coming back--”
+
+“I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back when
+you graduate, and send you flowers.”
+
+“I think,” said Sidney, “that I'll become an army nurse.”
+
+“I hope you won't do that.”
+
+“You won't know, K. You'll be back with your old friends. You'll have
+forgotten the Street and all of us.”
+
+“Do you really think that?”
+
+“Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won't
+know a T bandage from a figure eight!”
+
+“There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear.”
+
+His voice was husky.
+
+“You are saying that to comfort me.”
+
+“To comfort you! I--who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to
+think about it! Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you were
+sitting there on the steps--oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared a
+little!”
+
+Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his
+arms,--which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for
+him that way,--he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious
+appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.
+
+“I have been trying to make you say that all evening!” said Sidney. “I
+love you so much that--K., won't you take me in your arms?”
+
+Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him and
+muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up
+for long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her,
+as if to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her
+eyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her
+eyes; they showed him a new heaven and a new earth.
+
+“It was you always, K.,” she confessed. “I just didn't realize it. But
+now, when you look back, don't you see it was?”
+
+He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as
+the stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.
+
+“I never had even a hope.”
+
+“Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles,
+and you always helped.”
+
+Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so
+happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.
+
+“I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one,
+and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person--one goes
+to in trouble.”
+
+He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her
+hand. Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer
+that, since there must be troubles, she would always come to him and he
+would always be able to help her.
+
+And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she became
+engaged to Max, and the lost feeling she had had. She did not feel the
+same at all now. She felt as if she had been wandering, and had come
+home to the arms that were about her. She would be married, and take the
+risk that all women took, with her eyes open. She would go through the
+valley of the shadow, as other women did; but K. would be with her.
+Nothing else mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she
+was safe. She would never wither for him.
+
+Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's
+fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby
+coat.
+
+“I shall love you all my life,” she said shakily.
+
+His arms tightened about her.
+
+The little house was dark when they got back to it. The Street, which
+had heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising its
+windows for the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to
+keep them clean.
+
+In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone slept
+heavily, and made divers unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat,
+and so slept with a wet towel about it.
+
+Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with
+the aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.
+
+The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out. Then it drove
+away, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.
+
+Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited. How lovely it all was! How
+beautiful life was! If one did one's best by life, it did its best too.
+How steady K.'s eyes were! She saw the flicker of the match across the
+street, and knew what it meant. Once she would have thought that that
+was funny; now it seemed very touching to her.
+
+Katie had heard the car, and now she came heavily along the hall. “A
+woman left this for Mr. K.,” she said. “If you think it's a begging
+letter, you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit to-morrow.
+Almost any moment he's likely to bust out.”
+
+But it was not a begging letter. K. read it in the hall, with Sidney's
+shining eyes on him. It began abruptly:--
+
+“I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins. She is a medical
+missionary. Perhaps I can work things out there. It is a bad station on
+the West Coast. I am not going because I feel any call to the work, but
+because I do not know what else to do.
+
+“You were kind to me the other day. I believe, if I had told you then,
+you would still have been kind. I tried to tell you, but I was so
+terribly afraid.
+
+“If I caused death, I did not mean to. You will think that no excuse,
+but it is true. In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on Miss
+Page's medicine-tray, I did not care much what happened. But it was
+different with you.
+
+“You dismissed me, you remember. I had been careless about a sponge
+count. I made up my mind to get back at you. It seemed hopeless--you
+were so secure. For two or three days I tried to think of some way to
+hurt you. I almost gave up. Then I found the way.
+
+“You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in the
+operating-room? There were twelve to each package. When we counted them
+as we got them out, we counted by packages. On the night before I left,
+I went to the operating-room and added one sponge every here and there.
+Out of every dozen packets, perhaps, I fixed one that had thirteen. The
+next day I went away.
+
+“Then I was terrified. What if somebody died? I had meant to give you
+trouble, so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swear
+that was all. I was so frightened that I went down sick over it. When
+I got better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was being
+whispered about. I almost died of terror.
+
+“I tried to get back into the hospital one night. I went up the
+fire-escape, but the windows were locked. Then I left the city. I
+couldn't stand it. I was afraid to read a newspaper.
+
+“I am not going to sign this letter. You know who it is from. And I am
+not going to ask your forgiveness, or anything of that sort. I don't
+expect it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else, the other
+night. You said you'd lost your faith in yourself. This is to tell you
+that you need not. And you said something else--that any one can 'come
+back.' I wonder!”
+
+K. stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand.
+Just beyond on the doorstep was Sidney, waiting for him. His arms were
+still warm from the touch of her. Beyond lay the Street, and beyond that
+lay the world and a man's work to do. Work, and faith to do it, a good
+woman's hand in the dark, a Providence that made things right in the
+end.
+
+“Are you coming, K.?”
+
+“Coming,” he said. And, when he was beside her, his long figure folded
+to the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hem
+of her soft white dress.
+
+Across the Street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and then
+lighted a match.
+
+“So K. is in love with Sidney Page, after all!” he had written. “She
+is a sweet girl, and he is every inch a man. But, to my mind, a certain
+lady--”
+
+Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match.
+
+Late September now on the Street, with Joe gone and his mother eyeing
+the postman with pitiful eagerness; with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavily
+about the setting-up of the new furniture; and with Johnny driving
+heavenly cars, brake and clutch legs well and Strong. Late September,
+with Max recovering and settling his tie for any pretty nurse who
+happened along, but listening eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in the
+hall; with Tillie rocking her baby on the porch at Schwitter's, and
+Carlotta staring westward over rolling seas; with Christine taking up
+her burden and Grace laying hers down; with Joe's tragic young eyes
+growing quiet with the peace of the tropics.
+
+“The Lord is my shepherd,” she reads. “I shall not want.”... “Yea, though
+I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
+
+Sidney, on her knees in the little parlor, repeats the words with the
+others. K. has gone from the Street, and before long she will join him.
+With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayer
+to the others--that the touch of his arms about her may not make her
+forget the vow she has taken, of charity and its sister, service, of a
+cup of water to the thirsty, of open arms to a tired child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
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diff --git a/9931-0.zip b/9931-0.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of K, 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: K
+
+Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2009 [EBook #9931]
+Last Updated: April 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK K ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Brannan, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      K
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Mary Roberts Rinehart
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient houses
+      that seemed to meet in the distance. The man found it infinitely inviting.
+      It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but comfortable. The
+      thought of coming there to live pleased him. Surely here would be peace&mdash;long
+      evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and forget. It
+      was an impression of home, really, that it gave. The man did not know
+      that, or care particularly. He had been wandering about a long time&mdash;not
+      in years, for he was less than thirty. But it seemed a very long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the little house no one had seemed to think about references. He could
+      have given one or two, of a sort. He had gone to considerable trouble to
+      get them; and now, not to have them asked for&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a house across and a little way down the Street, with a card in
+      the window that said: &ldquo;Meals, twenty-five cents.&rdquo; Evidently the midday
+      meal was over; men who looked like clerks and small shopkeepers were
+      hurrying away. The Nottingham curtains were pinned back, and just inside
+      the window a throaty barytone was singing:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Home is the hunter, home from the hill:
+      And the sailor, home from sea.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Across the Street, the man smiled grimly&mdash;Home!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For perhaps an hour Joe Drummond had been wandering up and down the
+      Street. His straw hat was set on the back of his head, for the evening was
+      warm; his slender shoulders, squared and resolute at eight, by nine had
+      taken on a disconsolate droop. Under a street lamp he consulted his watch,
+      but even without that he knew what the hour was. Prayer meeting at the
+      corner church was over; boys of his own age were ranging themselves along
+      the curb, waiting for the girl of the moment. When she came, a youth would
+      appear miraculously beside her, and the world-old pairing off would have
+      taken place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street emptied. The boy wiped the warm band of his hat and slapped it
+      on his head again. She was always treating him like this&mdash;keeping him
+      hanging about, and then coming out, perfectly calm and certain that he
+      would still be waiting. By George, he'd fool her, for once: he'd go away,
+      and let her worry. She WOULD worry. She hated to hurt anyone. Ah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the Street, under an old ailanthus tree, was the house he watched,
+      a small brick, with shallow wooden steps and&mdash;curious architecture of
+      Middle West sixties&mdash;a wooden cellar door beside the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some curious way it preserved an air of distinction among its more
+      pretentious neighbors, much as a very old lady may now and then lend tone
+      to a smart gathering. On either side of it, the taller houses had an
+      appearance of protection rather than of patronage. It was a matter of
+      self-respect, perhaps. No windows on the Street were so spotlessly
+      curtained, no doormat so accurately placed, no &ldquo;yard&rdquo; in the rear so tidy
+      with morning-glory vines over the whitewashed fence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The June moon had risen, sending broken shafts of white light through the
+      ailanthus to the house door. When the girl came at last, she stepped out
+      into a world of soft lights and wavering shadows, fragrant with tree
+      blossoms not yet overpowering, hushed of its daylight sounds of playing
+      children and moving traffic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house had been warm. Her brown hair lay moist on her forehead, her
+      thin white dress was turned in at the throat. She stood on the steps, the
+      door closed behind her, and threw out her arms in a swift gesture to the
+      cool air. The moonlight clothed her as with a garment. From across the
+      Street the boy watched her with adoring, humble eyes. All his courage was
+      for those hours when he was not with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crossed over, emerging out of the shadows into her enveloping radiance.
+      His ardent young eyes worshiped her as he stood on the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm late. I was taking out bastings for mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that's all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sat down on the doorstep, and the boy dropped at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of going to prayer meeting, but mother was tired. Was Christine
+      there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Palmer Howe took her home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at his ease now. He had discarded his hat, and lay back on his
+      elbows, ostensibly to look at the moon. Actually his brown eyes rested on
+      the face of the girl above him. He was very happy. &ldquo;He's crazy about
+      Chris. She's good-looking, but she's not my sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, what IS your sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed softly. &ldquo;You're a goose, Joe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She settled herself more comfortably on the doorstep and drew along
+      breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How tired I am! Oh&mdash;I haven't told you. We've taken a roomer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A roomer.&rdquo; She was half apologetic. The Street did not approve of
+      roomers. &ldquo;It will help with the rent. It's my doing, really. Mother is
+      scandalized.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know? He is coming tonight. I'll tell you in a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe was sitting bolt upright now, a little white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he young?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a good bit older than you, but that's not saying he's old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe was twenty-one, and sensitive of his youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll be crazy about you in two days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke into delighted laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not fall in love with him&mdash;you can be certain of that. He is
+      tall and very solemn. His hair is quite gray over his ears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe cheered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K. Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Interest in the roomer died away. The boy fell into the ecstasy of content
+      that always came with Sidney's presence. His inarticulate young soul was
+      swelling with thoughts that he did not know how to put into words. It was
+      easy enough to plan conversations with Sidney when he was away from her.
+      But, at her feet, with her soft skirts touching him as she moved, her
+      eager face turned to him, he was miserably speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unexpectedly, Sidney yawned. He was outraged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're sleepy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be silly. I love having you. I sat up late last night, reading. I
+      wonder what you think of this: one of the characters in the book I was
+      reading says that every man who&mdash;who cares for a woman leaves his
+      mark on her! I suppose she tries to become what he thinks she is, for the
+      time anyhow, and is never just her old self again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said &ldquo;cares for&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;loves.&rdquo; It is one of the traditions of
+      youth to avoid the direct issue in life's greatest game. Perhaps &ldquo;love&rdquo; is
+      left to the fervent vocabulary of the lover. Certainly, as if treading on
+      dangerous ground, Sidney avoided it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every man! How many men are supposed to care for a woman, anyhow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there's the boy who&mdash;likes her when they're both young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bit of innocent mischief this, but Joe straightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then they both outgrow that foolishness. After that there are usually two
+      rivals, and she marries one of them&mdash;that's three. And&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they always outgrow that foolishness?&rdquo; His voice was unsteady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. One's ideas change. Anyhow, I'm only telling you what
+      the book said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a silly book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it's true,&rdquo; she confessed. &ldquo;When I got started I just
+      read on. I was curious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      More eager than curious, had she only known. She was fairly vibrant with
+      the zest of living. Sitting on the steps of the little brick house, her
+      busy mind was carrying her on to where, beyond the Street, with its dingy
+      lamps and blossoming ailanthus, lay the world that was some day to lie to
+      her hand. Not ambition called her, but life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy was different. Where her future lay visualized before her, heroic
+      deeds, great ambitions, wide charity, he planned years with her, selfish,
+      contented years. As different as smug, satisfied summer from visionary,
+      palpitating spring, he was for her&mdash;but she was for all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By shifting his position his lips came close to her bare young arm. It
+      tempted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't read that nonsense,&rdquo; he said, his eyes on the arm. &ldquo;And&mdash;I'll
+      never outgrow my foolishness about you, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, because he could not help it, he bent over and kissed her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was just eighteen, and Joe's devotion was very pleasant. She thrilled
+      to the touch of his lips on her flesh; but she drew her arm away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please&mdash;I don't like that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; His voice was husky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't right. Besides, the neighbors are always looking out the
+      windows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The drop from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors'
+      curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her head
+      and laughed. He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment. But he was very
+      much in earnest. He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw hat in his
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you know how I feel. Some of the fellows have crushes on girls
+      and get over them. I'm not like that. Since the first day I saw you I've
+      never looked at another girl. Books can say what they like: there are
+      people like that, and I'm one of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a touch of dogged pathos in his voice. He was that sort, and
+      Sidney knew it. Fidelity and tenderness&mdash;those would be hers if she
+      married him. He would always be there when she wanted him, looking at her
+      with loving eyes, a trifle wistful sometimes because of his lack of those
+      very qualities he so admired in her&mdash;her wit, her resourcefulness,
+      her humor. But he would be there, not strong, perhaps, but always loyal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought, perhaps,&rdquo; said Joe, growing red and white, and talking to the
+      hat, &ldquo;that some day, when we're older, you&mdash;you might be willing to
+      marry me, Sid. I'd be awfully good to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It hurt her to say no. Indeed, she could not bring herself to say it. In
+      all her short life she had never willfully inflicted a wound. And because
+      she was young, and did not realize that there is a short cruelty, like the
+      surgeon's, that is mercy in the end, she temporized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is such a lot of time before we need think of such things! Can't we
+      just go on the way we are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not very happy the way we are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Joe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not&rdquo;&mdash;doggedly. &ldquo;You're pretty and attractive. When I see
+      a fellow staring at you, and I'd like to smash his face for him, I haven't
+      the right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a precious good thing for you that you haven't!&rdquo; cried Sidney, rather
+      shocked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for a moment between them. Sidney, to tell the truth,
+      was obsessed by a vision of Joe, young and hot-eyed, being haled to the
+      police station by virtue of his betrothal responsibilities. The boy was
+      vacillating between relief at having spoken and a heaviness of spirit that
+      came from Sidney's lack of enthusiastic response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you think about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are asking me to give you permission to waylay and assault every
+      man who dares to look at me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess this is all a joke to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned over and put a tender hand on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to hurt you; but, Joe, I don't want to be engaged yet. I
+      don't want to think about marrying. There's such a lot to do in the world
+      first. There's such a lot to see and be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; he demanded bitterly. &ldquo;Here on this Street? Do you want more time
+      to pull bastings for your mother? Or to slave for your Aunt Harriet? Or to
+      run up and down stairs, carrying towels to roomers? Marry me and let me
+      take care of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once again her dangerous sense of humor threatened her. He looked so
+      boyish, sitting there with the moonlight on his bright hair, so inadequate
+      to carry out his magnificent offer. Two or three of the star blossoms from
+      the tree had fallen all his head. She lifted them carefully away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me take care of myself for a while. I've never lived my own life. You
+      know what I mean. I'm not unhappy; but I want to do something. And some
+      day I shall,&mdash;not anything big; I know. I can't do that,&mdash;but
+      something useful. Then, after years and years, if you still want me, I'll
+      come back to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How soon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I know that now? But it will be a long time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew a long breath and got up. All the joy had gone out of the summer
+      night for him, poor lad. He glanced down the Street, where Palmer Howe had
+      gone home happily with Sidney's friend Christine. Palmer would always know
+      how he stood with Christine. She would never talk about doing things, or
+      being things. Either she would marry Palmer or she would not. But Sidney
+      was not like that. A fellow did not even caress her easily. When he had
+      only kissed her arm&mdash;He trembled a little at the memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall always want you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Only&mdash;you will never come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had not occurred to either of them that this coming back, so tragically
+      considered, was dependent on an entirely problematical going away.
+      Nothing, that early summer night, seemed more unlikely than that Sidney
+      would ever be free to live her own life. The Street, stretching away to
+      the north and to the south in two lines of houses that seemed to meet in
+      the distance, hemmed her in. She had been born in the little brick house,
+      and, as she was of it, so it was of her. Her hands had smoothed and
+      painted the pine floors; her hands had put up the twine on which the
+      morning-glories in the yard covered the fences; had, indeed, with what
+      agonies of slacking lime and adding blueing, whitewashed the fence itself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's capable,&rdquo; Aunt Harriet had grumblingly admitted, watching from her
+      sewing-machine Sidney's strong young arms at this humble spring task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's wonderful!&rdquo; her mother had said, as she bent over her hand work.
+      She was not strong enough to run the sewing-machine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Joe Drummond stood on the pavement and saw his dream of taking Sidney
+      in his arms fade into an indefinite futurity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to give you up,&rdquo; he said doggedly. &ldquo;When you come back,
+      I'll be waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shock being over, and things only postponed, he dramatized his grief a
+      trifle, thrust his hands savagely into his pockets, and scowled down the
+      Street. In the line of his vision, his quick eye caught a tiny moving
+      shadow, lost it, found it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great Scott! There goes Reginald!&rdquo; he cried, and ran after the shadow.
+      &ldquo;Watch for the McKees' cat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was running by that time; they were gaining. Their quarry, a
+      four-inch chipmunk, hesitated, gave a protesting squeak, and was caught in
+      Sidney's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wretch!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You miserable little beast&mdash;with cats
+      everywhere, and not a nut for miles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That reminds me,&rdquo;&mdash;Joe put a hand into his pocket,&mdash;&ldquo;I brought
+      some chestnuts for him, and forgot them. Here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reginald's escape had rather knocked the tragedy out of the evening. True,
+      Sidney would not marry him for years, but she had practically promised to
+      sometime. And when one is twenty-one, and it is a summer night, and life
+      stretches eternities ahead, what are a few years more or less?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was holding the tiny squirrel in warm, protecting hands. She smiled
+      up at the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night. I say, Sidney, it's more than half an engagement. Won't you
+      kiss me good-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated, flushed and palpitating. Kisses were rare in the staid
+      little household to which she belonged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I think not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please! I'm not very happy, and it will be something to remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps, after all, Sidney's first kiss would have gone without her heart,&mdash;which
+      was a thing she had determined would never happen,&mdash;gone out of sheer
+      pity. But a tall figure loomed out of the shadows and approached with
+      quick strides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The roomer!&rdquo; cried Sidney, and backed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn the roomer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Joe, with the summer evening quite spoiled, with no caress to
+      remember, and with a potential rival who possessed both the years and the
+      inches he lacked, coming up the Street!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roomer advanced steadily. When he reached the doorstep, Sidney was
+      demurely seated and quite alone. The roomer, who had walked fast, stopped
+      and took off his hat. He looked very warm. He carried a suitcase, which
+      was as it should be. The men of the Street always carried their own
+      luggage, except the younger Wilson across the way. His tastes were known
+      to be luxurious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hot, isn't it?&rdquo; Sidney inquired, after a formal greeting. She indicated
+      the place on the step just vacated by Joe. &ldquo;You'd better cool off out
+      here. The house is like an oven. I think I should have warned you of that
+      before you took the room. These little houses with low roofs are fearfully
+      hot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The new roomer hesitated. The steps were very low, and he was tall.
+      Besides, he did not care to establish any relations with the people in the
+      house. Long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and
+      forget&mdash;these were the things he had come for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sidney had moved over and was smiling up at him. He folded up
+      awkwardly on the low step. He seemed much too big for the house. Sidney
+      had a panicky thought of the little room upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mind heat. I&mdash;I suppose I don't think about it,&rdquo; said the
+      roomer, rather surprised at himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reginald, having finished his chestnut, squeaked for another. The roomer
+      started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just Reginald&mdash;my ground-squirrel.&rdquo; Sidney was skinning a nut with
+      her strong white teeth. &ldquo;That's another thing I should have told you. I'm
+      afraid you'll be sorry you took the room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The roomer smiled in the shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm beginning to think that YOU are sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was all anxiety to reassure him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's because of Reginald. He lives under my&mdash;under your bureau. He's
+      really not troublesome; but he's building a nest under the bureau, and if
+      you don't know about him, it's rather unsettling to see a paper pattern
+      from the sewing-room, or a piece of cloth, moving across the floor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Le Moyne thought it might be very interesting. &ldquo;Although, if there's
+      nest-building going on, isn't it&mdash;er&mdash;possible that Reginald is
+      a lady ground-squirrel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was rather distressed, and, seeing this, he hastened to add that,
+      for all he knew, all ground-squirrels built nests, regardless of sex. As a
+      matter of fact, it developed that he knew nothing whatever of
+      ground-squirrels. Sidney was relieved. She chatted gayly of the tiny
+      creature&mdash;of his rescue in the woods from a crowd of little boys, of
+      his restoration to health and spirits, and of her expectation, when he was
+      quite strong, of taking him to the woods and freeing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne, listening attentively, began to be interested. His quick mind
+      had grasped the fact that it was the girl's bedroom he had taken. Other
+      things he had gathered that afternoon from the humming sewing-machine,
+      from Sidney's businesslike way of renting the little room, from the
+      glimpse of a woman in a sunny window, bent over a needle. Genteel poverty
+      was what it meant, and more&mdash;the constant drain of disheartened,
+      middle-aged women on the youth and courage of the girl beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne, who was living his own tragedy those days, what with poverty
+      and other things, sat on the doorstep while Sidney talked, and swore a
+      quiet oath to be no further weight on the girl's buoyant spirit. And,
+      since determining on a virtue is halfway to gaining it, his voice lost its
+      perfunctory note. He had no intention of letting the Street encroach on
+      him. He had built up a wall between himself and the rest of the world, and
+      he would not scale it. But he held no grudge against it. Let others get
+      what they could out of living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, suddenly practical, broke in on his thoughts:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going to get your meals?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn't thought about it. I can stop in somewhere on my way downtown. I
+      work in the gas office&mdash;I don't believe I told you. It's rather
+      haphazard&mdash;not the gas office, but the eating. However, it's
+      convenient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very bad for you,&rdquo; said Sidney, with decision. &ldquo;It leads to slovenly
+      habits, such as going without when you're in a hurry, and that sort of
+      thing. The only thing is to have some one expecting you at a certain
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It sounds like marriage.&rdquo; He was lazily amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It sounds like Mrs. McKee's boarding-house at the corner. Twenty-one
+      meals for five dollars, and a ticket to punch. Tillie, the dining-room
+      girl, punches for every meal you get. If you miss any meals, your ticket
+      is good until it is punched. But Mrs. McKee doesn't like it if you miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. McKee for me,&rdquo; said Le Moyne. &ldquo;I daresay, if I know that&mdash;er&mdash;Tillie
+      is waiting with the punch, I'll be fairly regular to my meals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was growing late. The Street, which mistrusted night air, even on a hot
+      summer evening, was closing its windows. Reginald, having eaten his fill,
+      had cuddled in the warm hollow of Sidney's lap, and slept. By shifting his
+      position, the man was able to see the girl's face. Very lovely it was, he
+      thought. Very pure, almost radiant&mdash;and young. From the middle age of
+      his almost thirty years, she was a child. There had been a boy in the
+      shadows when he came up the Street. Of course there would be a boy&mdash;a
+      nice, clear-eyed chap&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was looking at the moon. With that dreamer's part of her that she
+      had inherited from her dead and gone father, she was quietly worshiping
+      the night. But her busy brain was working, too,&mdash;the practical brain
+      that she had got from her mother's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about your washing?&rdquo; she inquired unexpectedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne, who had built a wall between himself and the world, had
+      already married her to the youth of the shadows, and was feeling an odd
+      sense of loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Washing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you've been sending things to the laundry, and&mdash;what do
+      you do about your stockings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Buy cheap ones and throw 'em away when they're worn out.&rdquo; There seemed to
+      be no reserve with this surprising young person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And buttons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Use safety-pins. When they're closed one can button over them as well as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Sidney, &ldquo;that it is quite time some one took a little care
+      of you. If you will give Katie, our maid, twenty-five cents a week, she'll
+      do your washing and not tear your things to ribbons. And I'll mend them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sheer stupefaction was K. Le Moyne's. After a moment:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're really rather wonderful, Miss Page. Here am I, lodged, fed,
+      washed, ironed, and mended for seven dollars and seventy-five cents a
+      week!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said Sidney severely, &ldquo;that you'll put what you save in the
+      bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still somewhat dazed when he went up the narrow staircase to his
+      swept and garnished room. Never, in all of a life that had been active,&mdash;until
+      recently,&mdash;had he been so conscious of friendliness and kindly
+      interest. He expanded under it. Some of the tired lines left his face.
+      Under the gas chandelier, he straightened and threw out his arms. Then he
+      reached down into his coat pocket and drew out a wide-awake and suspicious
+      Reginald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Reggie!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good-night, old top!&rdquo; He hardly recognized
+      his own voice. It was quite cheerful, although the little room was hot,
+      and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling that the ceiling
+      was close above. He deposited Reginald carefully on the floor in front of
+      the bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him, retreated to its nest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed. Wrapped in a paper and
+      securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
+      underclothing, ragged and buttonless. Not for worlds would he have had
+      Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. &ldquo;New underwear for yours
+      tomorrow, K. Le Moyne,&rdquo; he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
+      &ldquo;New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and thinking
+      hard. &ldquo;Kenneth, King, Kerr&mdash;&rdquo; None of them appealed to him. And,
+      after all, what did it matter? The old heaviness came over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
+      and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney did not sleep much that night. She lay awake, gazing into the
+      scented darkness, her arms under her head. Love had come into her life at
+      last. A man&mdash;only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but
+      what he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms stealing
+      through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life and love,
+      and flung out warm young arms. Joe would be thinking of her now, as she
+      thought of him. Or would he have gone to sleep, secure in her half
+      promise? Did he really love her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The desire to be loved! There was coming to Sidney a time when love would
+      mean, not receiving, but giving&mdash;the divine fire instead of the pale
+      flame of youth. At last she slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A night breeze came through the windows and spread coolness through the
+      little house. The ailanthus tree waved in the moonlight and sent sprawling
+      shadows over the wall of K. Le Moyne's bedroom. In the yard the leaves of
+      the morning-glory vines quivered as if under the touch of a friendly hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne slept diagonally in his bed, being very long. In sleep the
+      lines were smoothed out of his face. He looked like a tired, overgrown
+      boy. And while he slept the ground-squirrel ravaged the pockets of his
+      shabby coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at the table.
+      It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that Aunt Harriet
+      lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney's father
+      had borrowed her small patrimony and she was &ldquo;boarding it out.&rdquo; Eighteen
+      years she had &ldquo;boarded it out.&rdquo; Sidney had been born and grown to
+      girlhood; the dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuable patents
+      lost for lack of money to renew them&mdash;gone with his faith in himself
+      destroyed, but with his faith in the world undiminished: for he left his
+      wife and daughter without a dollar of life insurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet Kennedy had voiced her own view of the matter, the after the
+      funeral, to one of the neighbors:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He left no insurance. Why should he bother? He left me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To the little widow, her sister, she had been no less bitter, and more
+      explicit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks to me, Anna,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;as if by borrowing everything I had
+      George had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life. I'll
+      stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to live my own
+      life. It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a long time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidney was
+      still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first year at the High
+      School, prone to saunter home with three or four knickerbockered boys in
+      her train, reading &ldquo;The Duchess&rdquo; stealthily, and begging for longer
+      dresses. She had given up her dolls, but she still made clothes for them
+      out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room. In the parlance of the Street,
+      Harriet &ldquo;sewed&rdquo;&mdash;and sewed well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of the
+      partnership had always been on Harriet. To give her credit, she had not
+      complained. She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slipped by
+      in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paper patterns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down to
+      breakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tied a
+      small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving
+      breakfast. From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful
+      singing. Sidney was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage of
+      Harriet's tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper,
+      dropped it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Harriet did not sit down. It was her custom to jerk her chair out and
+      drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food. Sidney, not
+      hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Aunt Harriet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come in, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Katie took the iron from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go. She's all dressed up, and she doesn't want any coffee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Sidney went in. It was to her that Harriet made her speech:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney, when your father died, I promised to look after both you and your
+      mother until you were able to take care of yourself. That was five years
+      ago. Of course, even before that I had helped to support you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would only have your coffee, Harriet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Page sat with her hand on the handle of the old silver-plated
+      coffee-pot. Harriet ignored her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a young woman now. You have health and energy, and you have
+      youth, which I haven't. I'm past forty. In the next twenty years, at the
+      outside, I've got not only to support myself, but to save something to
+      keep me after that, if I live. I'll probably live to be ninety. I don't
+      want to live forever, but I've always played in hard luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney returned her gaze steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Well, Aunt Harriet, you're quite right. You've been a saint to us,
+      but if you want to go away&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harriet!&rdquo; wailed Mrs. Page, &ldquo;you're not thinking&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet's eyes softened as she looked at the girl
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can manage,&rdquo; said Sidney quietly. &ldquo;We'll miss you, but it's time we
+      learned to depend on ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that, in a torrent, came Harriet's declaration of independence. And,
+      mixed in with its pathetic jumble of recriminations, hostility to her
+      sister's dead husband, and resentment for her lost years, came poor
+      Harriet's hopes and ambitions, the tragic plea of a woman who must
+      substitute for the optimism and energy of youth the grim determination of
+      middle age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can do good work,&rdquo; she finished. &ldquo;I'm full of ideas, if I could get a
+      chance to work them out. But there's no chance here. There isn't a woman
+      on the Street who knows real clothes when she sees them. They don't even
+      know how to wear their corsets. They send me bundles of hideous stuff,
+      with needles and shields and imitation silk for lining, and when I turn
+      out something worth while out of the mess they think the dress is queer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Page could not get back of Harriet's revolt to its cause. To her,
+      Harriet was not an artist pleading for her art; she was a sister and a
+      bread-winner deserting her trust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure,&rdquo; she said stiffly, &ldquo;we paid you back every cent we borrowed. If
+      you stayed here after George died, it was because you offered to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her chin worked. She fumbled for the handkerchief at her belt. But Sidney
+      went around the table and flung a young arm over her aunt's shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you say all that a year ago? We've been selfish, but we're not
+      as bad as you think. And if any one in this world is entitled to success
+      you are. Of course we'll manage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet's iron repression almost gave way. She covered her emotion with
+      details:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Lorenz is going to let me make Christine some things, and if they're
+      all right I may make her trousseau.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trousseau&mdash;for Christine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's not engaged, but her mother says it's only a matter of a short
+      time. I'm going to take two rooms in the business part of town, and put a
+      couch in the backroom to sleep on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's mind flew to Christine and her bright future, to a trousseau
+      bought with the Lorenz money, to Christine settled down, a married woman,
+      with Palmer Howe. She came back with an effort. Harriet had two triangular
+      red spots in her sallow cheeks.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;I can get a few good models&mdash;that's the only way to start. And if you
+care to do hand work for me, Anna, I'll send it to you, and pay you the
+regular rates. There isn't the call for it there used to be, but just a
+touch gives dash.&rdquo;
+
+ All of Mrs. Page's grievances had worked their way to the surface.  Sidney
+and Harriet had made her world, such as it was, and her world was in
+revolt. She flung out her hands.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I must do something. With you leaving, and Sidney renting her
+      room and sleeping on a folding-bed in the sewing-room, everything seems
+      upside down. I never thought I should live to see strange men running in
+      and out of this house and carrying latch-keys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This in reference to Le Moyne, whose tall figure had made a hurried exit
+      some time before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could have symbolized Harriet's revolt more thoroughly than her
+      going upstairs after a hurried breakfast, and putting on her hat and coat.
+      She had heard of rooms, she said, and there was nothing urgent in the
+      work-room. Her eyes were brighter already as she went out. Sidney, kissing
+      her in the hall and wishing her luck, realized suddenly what a burden she
+      and her mother must have been for the last few years. She threw her head
+      up proudly. They would never be a burden again&mdash;never, as long as she
+      had strength and health!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By evening Mrs. Page had worked herself into a state bordering on
+      hysteria. Harriet was out most of the day. She came in at three o'clock,
+      and Katie gave her a cup of tea. At the news of her sister's condition,
+      she merely shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll not die, Katie,&rdquo; she said calmly. &ldquo;But see that Miss Sidney eats
+      something, and if she is worried tell her I said to get Dr. Ed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoning of
+      the Street's family doctor. She was already dealing in larger figures. A
+      sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning. Already she was
+      learning that peace of mind is essential to successful endeavor. Somewhere
+      Harriet had read a quotation from a Persian poet; she could not remember
+      it, but its sense had stayed with her: &ldquo;What though we spill a few grains
+      of corn, or drops of oil from the cruse? These be the price of peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Harriet, having spilled oil from her cruse in the shape of Dr. Ed,
+      departed blithely. The recklessness of pure adventure was in her blood.
+      She had taken rooms at a rental that she determinedly put out of her mind,
+      and she was on her way to buy furniture. No pirate, fitting out a ship for
+      the highways of the sea, ever experienced more guilty and delightful
+      excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The afternoon dragged away. Dr. Ed was out &ldquo;on a case&rdquo; and might not be in
+      until evening. Sidney sat in the darkened room and waved a fan over her
+      mother's rigid form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half after five, Johnny Rosenfeld from the alley, who worked for a
+      florist after school, brought a box of roses to Sidney, and departed
+      grinning impishly. He knew Joe, had seen him in the store. Soon the alley
+      knew that Sidney had received a dozen Killarney roses at three dollars and
+      a half, and was probably engaged to Joe Drummond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Ed,&rdquo; said Sidney, as he followed her down the stairs, &ldquo;can you spare
+      the time to talk to me a little while?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the elder Wilson had a quick vision of the crowded office waiting
+      across the Street; but his reply was prompt:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any amount of time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused by
+      the petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First of all,&rdquo; said Sidney, &ldquo;did you mean what you said upstairs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed thought quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course; but what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said I was a born nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him. It
+      said&mdash;which was perfectly true&mdash;that he had sacrificed himself
+      to his brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young
+      surgeon, Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him
+      abroad he had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the
+      old buggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, not at
+      all of the stuff martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and,
+      remembering all this, was ashamed of her rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going into a hospital,&rdquo; said Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed waited. He liked to have all the symptoms before he made a
+      diagnosis or ventured an opinion. So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, and
+      quite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's fearfully hard work, of course,&rdquo; he commented, when she had
+      finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So is anything worth while. Look at the way you work!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're too young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll get older.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I like the idea,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It's splendid work for
+      an older woman. But it's life, child&mdash;life in the raw. As we get
+      along in years we lose our illusions&mdash;some of them, not all, thank
+      God. But for you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things as
+      they are, and not as we want them to be&mdash;it seems such an unnecessary
+      sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think,&rdquo; said Sidney bravely, &ldquo;that you are a poor person to
+      talk of sacrifice? Haven't you always, all your life&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed colored to the roots of his straw-colored hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not,&rdquo; he said almost irritably. &ldquo;Max had genius; I had&mdash;ability.
+      That's different. One real success is better than two halves. Not&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      smiled down at her&mdash;&ldquo;not that I minimize my usefulness. Somebody has
+      to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm a pretty good hack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Sidney. &ldquo;Then I shall be a hack, too. Of course, I had
+      thought of other things,&mdash;my father wanted me to go to college,&mdash;but
+      I'm strong and willing. And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; I
+      shall have to support my mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man in the
+      parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders, her thin
+      face, her undisguised middle age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, when she was out of hearing. &ldquo;It's hard, but I dare say
+      it's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only&mdash;I
+      wish it didn't have to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She
+      touched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had called her
+      with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent hands.
+      Life&mdash;in the raw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters. When
+      he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing with
+      vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You and I, Reginald,&rdquo; he apostrophized the bureau, &ldquo;will have to come to
+      an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what blows
+      down is not to be touched.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of
+      spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun
+      was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told
+      himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having sought
+      for peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it. The trouble
+      was, of course, that he came of fighting stock: soldiers and explorers,
+      even a gentleman adventurer or two, had been his forefather. He loathed
+      peace with a deadly loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having given up everything else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the love of
+      woman. That, of course, is figurative. He had been too busy for women; and
+      now he was too idle. A small part of his brain added figures in the office
+      of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per
+      eight-hour working day. But the real K. Le Moyne that had dreamed dreams,
+      had nothing to do with the figures, but sat somewhere in his head and
+      mocked him as he worked at his task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time's going by, and here you are!&rdquo; mocked the real person&mdash;who was,
+      of course, not K. Le Moyne at all. &ldquo;You're the hell of a lot of use,
+      aren't you? Two and two are four and three are seven&mdash;take off the
+      discount. That's right. It's a man's work, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody's got to do this sort of thing,&rdquo; protested the small part of his
+      brain that earned the two-fifty per working day. &ldquo;And it's a great
+      anaesthetic. He can't think when he's doing it. There's something
+      practical about figures, and&mdash;rational.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed quickly, ascertaining that he had enough money to buy a
+      five-dollar ticket at Mrs. McKee's; and, having given up the love of woman
+      with other things, he was careful not to look about for Sidney on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He breakfasted at Mrs. McKee's, and was initiated into the mystery of the
+      ticket punch. The food was rather good, certainly plentiful; and even his
+      squeamish morning appetite could find no fault with the self-respecting
+      tidiness of the place. Tillie proved to be neat and austere. He fancied it
+      would not be pleasant to be very late for one's meals&mdash;in fact,
+      Sidney had hinted as much. Some of the &ldquo;mealers&rdquo;&mdash;the Street's name
+      for them&mdash;ventured on various small familiarities of speech with
+      Tillie. K. Le Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but reserved. He was
+      determined not to let the Street encroach on his wretchedness. Because he
+      had come to live there was no reason why it should adopt him. But he was
+      very polite. When the deaf-and-dumb book agent wrote something on a pencil
+      pad and pushed it toward him, he replied in kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family,&rdquo; was what was
+      written on the pad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very happy, indeed, to be with you,&rdquo; wrote back Le Moyne&mdash;and
+      realized with a sort of shock that he meant it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kindly greeting had touched him. The greeting and the breakfast
+      cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you want a toothpick?&rdquo; she asked, as he went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In K.'s previous walk of life there had been no toothpicks; or, if there
+      were any, they were kept, along with the family scandals, in a closet. But
+      nearly a year of buffeting about had taught him many things. He took one,
+      and placed it nonchalantly in his waistcoat pocket, as he had seen the
+      others do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie, her rush hour over, wandered back into the kitchen and poured
+      herself a cup of coffee. Mrs. McKee was reweighing the meat order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kind of a nice fellow,&rdquo; Tillie said, cup to lips&mdash;&ldquo;the new man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Week or meal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Week. He'd be handsome if he wasn't so grouchy-looking. Lit up some when
+      Mr. Wagner sent him one of his love letters. Rooms over at the Pages'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lamb stew in a book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me over,
+      Tillie. And where they'll put him, in that little house&mdash;he looked
+      thin, what I saw of him. Seven pounds and a quarter.&rdquo; This last referred,
+      not to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thin as a fiddle-string.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough.&rdquo; Then, rather ashamed of
+      her unbusinesslike methods: &ldquo;A thin mealer's a poor advertisement. Do you
+      suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld. In such manner was most of the
+      Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip start
+      at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond,&rdquo; announced Tillie. &ldquo;He sent her a
+      lot of pink roses yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no malice in her flat statement, no envy. Sidney and she, living
+      in the world of the Street, occupied different spheres. But the very
+      lifelessness in her voice told how remotely such things touched her, and
+      thus was tragic. &ldquo;Mealers&rdquo; came and went&mdash;small clerks, petty
+      tradesmen, husbands living alone in darkened houses during the summer
+      hegira of wives. Various and catholic was Tillie's male acquaintance, but
+      compounded of good fellowship only. Once, years before, romance had
+      paraded itself before her in the garb of a traveling nurseryman&mdash;had
+      walked by and not come back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Miss Harriet's going into business for herself. She's taken rooms
+      downtown; she's going to be Madame Something or other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, at last, was Mrs. McKee's attention caught riveted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the love of mercy! At her age! It's downright selfish. If she raises
+      her prices she can't make my new foulard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie sat at the table, her faded blue eyes fixed on the back yard, where
+      her aunt, Mrs. Rosenfeld, was hanging out the week's wash of table linen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know as it's so selfish,&rdquo; she reflected. &ldquo;We've only got one
+      life. I guess a body's got the right to live it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee eyed her suspiciously, but Tillie's face showed no emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't ever hear of Schwitter, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I guess she's still living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Schwitter, the nurseryman, had proved to have a wife in an insane asylum.
+      That was why Tillie's romance had only paraded itself before her and had
+      gone by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You got out of that lucky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie rose and tied a gingham apron over her white one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. Only sometimes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know as it would have been so wrong. He ain't young, and I ain't.
+      And we're not getting any younger. He had nice manners; he'd have been
+      good to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee's voice failed her. For a moment she gasped like a fish. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And him a married man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not going to do it,&rdquo; Tillie soothed her. &ldquo;I get to thinking
+      about it sometimes; that's all. This new fellow made me think of him. He's
+      got the same nice way about him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aye, the new man had made her think of him, and June, and the lovers who
+      lounged along the Street in the moonlit avenues toward the park and love;
+      even Sidney's pink roses. Change was in the very air of the Street that
+      June morning. It was in Tillie, making a last clutch at youth, and
+      finding, in this pale flare of dying passion, courage to remember what she
+      had schooled herself to forget; in Harriet asserting her right to live her
+      life; in Sidney, planning with eager eyes a life of service which did not
+      include Joe; in K. Le Moyne, who had built up a wall between himself and
+      the world, and was seeing it demolished by a deaf-and-dumb book agent
+      whose weapon was a pencil pad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, for a week nothing happened: Joe came in the evenings and sat on
+      the steps with Sidney, his honest heart, in his eyes. She could not bring
+      herself at first to tell him about the hospital. She put it off from day
+      to day. Anna, no longer sulky, accepted with the childlike faith Sidney's
+      statement that &ldquo;they'd get along; she had a splendid scheme,&rdquo; and took to
+      helping Harriet in her preparations for leaving. Tillie, afraid of her
+      rebellious spirit, went to prayer meeting. And K. Le Moyne, finding his
+      little room hot in the evenings and not wishing to intrude on the two on
+      the doorstep, took to reading his paper in the park, and after twilight to
+      long, rapid walks out into the country. The walks satisfied the craving of
+      his active body for exercise, and tired him so he could sleep. On one such
+      occasion he met Mr. Wagner, and they carried on an animated conversation
+      until it was too dark to see the pad. Even then, it developed that Wagner
+      could write in the dark; and he secured the last word in a long argument
+      by doing this and striking a match for K. to read by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When K. was sure that the boy had gone, he would turn back toward the
+      Street. Some of the heaviness of his spirit always left him at sight of
+      the little house. Its kindly atmosphere seemed to reach out and envelop
+      him. Within was order and quiet, the fresh-down bed, the tidiness of his
+      ordered garments. There was even affection&mdash;Reginald, waiting on the
+      fender for his supper, and regarding him with wary and bright-eyed
+      friendliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life, that had seemed so simple, had grown very complicated for Sidney.
+      There was her mother to break the news to, and Joe. Harriet would approve,
+      she felt; but these others! To assure Anna that she must manage alone for
+      three years, in order to be happy and comfortable afterward&mdash;that was
+      hard enough to tell Joe she was planning a future without him, to destroy
+      the light in his blue eyes&mdash;that hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, Sidney told K. first. One Friday evening, coming home late, as
+      usual, he found her on the doorstep, and Joe gone. She moved over
+      hospitably. The moon had waxed and waned, and the Street was dark. Even
+      the ailanthus blossoms had ceased their snow-like dropping. The colored
+      man who drove Dr. Ed in the old buggy on his daily rounds had brought out
+      the hose and sprinkled the street. Within this zone of freshness, of wet
+      asphalt and dripping gutters, Sidney sat, cool and silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please sit down. It is cool now. My idea of luxury is to have the Street
+      sprinkled on a hot night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. disposed of his long legs on the steps. He was trying to fit his own
+      ideas of luxury to a garden hose and a city street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid you're working too hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? I do a minimum of labor for a minimum of wage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you work at night, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was natively honest. He hesitated. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Miss Page.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But You go out every evening!&rdquo; Suddenly the truth burst on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do believe&mdash;why, how silly of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was most uncomfortable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, I like it,&rdquo; he protested. &ldquo;I hang over a desk all day, and in the
+      evening I want to walk. I ramble around the park and see lovers on benches&mdash;it's
+      rather thrilling. They sit on the same benches evening after evening. I
+      know a lot of them by sight, and if they're not there I wonder if they
+      have quarreled, or if they have finally got married and ended the romance.
+      You can see how exciting it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite suddenly Sidney laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very nice you are!&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;and how absurd! Why should their
+      getting married end the romance? And don't you know that, if you insist on
+      walking the streets and parks at night because Joe Drummond is here, I
+      shall have to tell him not to come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This did not follow, to K.'s mind. They had rather a heated argument over
+      it, and became much better acquainted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were engaged to him,&rdquo; Sidney ended, her cheeks very pink, &ldquo;I&mdash;I
+      might understand. But, as I am not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said K., a trifle unsteadily. &ldquo;So you are not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Only a week&mdash;and love was one of the things she had had to give up,
+      with others. Not, of course, that he was in love with Sidney then. But he
+      had been desperately lonely, and, for all her practical clearheadedness,
+      she was softly and appealingly feminine. By way of keeping his head, he
+      talked suddenly and earnestly of Mrs. McKee, and food, and Tillie, and of
+      Mr. Wagner and the pencil pad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's like a game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We disagree on everything, especially
+      Mexico. If you ever tried to spell those Mexican names&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you think I was engaged?&rdquo; she insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in K.'s walk of life&mdash;that walk of life where there are no
+      toothpicks, and no one would have believed that twenty-one meals could
+      have been secured for five dollars with a ticket punch thrown in&mdash;young
+      girls did not receive the attention of one young man to the exclusion of
+      others unless they were engaged. But he could hardly say that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Those things get in the air. I am quite certain, for
+      instance, that Reginald suspects it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Johnny Rosenfeld,&rdquo; said Sidney, with decision. &ldquo;It's horrible, the
+      way things get about. Because Joe sent me a box of roses&mdash;As a matter
+      of fact, I'm not engaged, or going to be, Mr. Le Moyne. I'm going into a
+      hospital to be a nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne said nothing. For just a moment he closed his eyes. A man is in a
+      rather a bad way when, every time he closes his eyes, he sees the same
+      thing, especially if it is rather terrible. When it gets to a point where
+      he lies awake at night and reads, for fear of closing them&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're too young, aren't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Ed&mdash;one of the Wilsons across the Street&mdash;is going to help
+      me about that. His brother Max is a big surgeon there. I expect you've
+      heard of him. We're very proud of him in the Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucky for K. Le Moyne that the moon no longer shone on the low gray
+      doorstep, that Sidney's mind had traveled far away to shining floors and
+      rows of white beds. &ldquo;Life&mdash;in the raw,&rdquo; Dr. Ed had said that other
+      afternoon. Closer to her than the hospital was life in the raw that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, even here, on this quiet street in this distant city, there was to be
+      no peace. Max Wilson just across the way! It&mdash;it was ironic. Was
+      there no place where a man could lose himself? He would have to move on
+      again, of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that, it seemed, was just what he could not do. For:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to ask you to do something, and I hope you'll be quite frank,&rdquo;
+       said Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything that I can do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's this. If you are comfortable, and&mdash;and like the room and all
+      that, I wish you'd stay.&rdquo; She hurried on: &ldquo;If I could feel that mother had
+      a dependable person like you in the house, it would all be easier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dependable! That stung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;forgive my asking; I'm really interested&mdash;can your mother
+      manage? You'll get practically no money during your training.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've thought of that. A friend of mine, Christine Lorenz, is going to be
+      married. Her people are wealthy, but she'll have nothing but what Palmer
+      makes. She'd like to have the parlor and the sitting room behind. They
+      wouldn't interfere with you at all,&rdquo; she added hastily. &ldquo;Christine's
+      father would build a little balcony at the side for them, a sort of porch,
+      and they'd sit there in the evenings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind Sidney's carefully practical tone the man read appeal. Never before
+      had he realized how narrow the girl's world had been. The Street, with but
+      one dimension, bounded it! In her perplexity, she was appealing to him who
+      was practically a stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he knew then that he must do the thing she asked. He, who had fled so
+      long, could roam no more. Here on the Street, with its menace just across,
+      he must live, that she might work. In his world, men had worked that women
+      might live in certain places, certain ways. This girl was going out to
+      earn her living, and he would stay to make it possible. But no hint of all
+      this was in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall stay, of course,&rdquo; he said gravely. &ldquo;I&mdash;this is the nearest
+      thing to home that I've known for a long time. I want you to know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they moved their puppets about, Anna and Harriet, Christine and her
+      husband-to-be, Dr. Ed, even Tillie and the Rosenfelds; shifted and placed
+      them, and, planning, obeyed inevitable law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christine shall come, then,&rdquo; said Sidney forsooth, &ldquo;and we will throw out
+      a balcony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they planned, calmly ignorant that poor Christine's story and Tillie's
+      and Johnny Rosenfeld's and all the others' were already written among the
+      things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good to me,&rdquo; said Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she rose, K. Le Moyne sprang to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anna had noticed that he always rose when she entered his room,&mdash;with
+      fresh towels on Katie's day out, for instance,&mdash;and she liked him for
+      it. Years ago, the men she had known had shown this courtesy to their
+      women; but the Street regarded such things as affectation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if you would do me another favor? I'm afraid you'll take to
+      avoiding me, if I keep on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think you need fear that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This stupid story about Joe Drummond&mdash;I'm not saying I'll never
+      marry him, but I'm certainly not engaged. Now and then, when you are
+      taking your evening walks, if you would ask me to walk with you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. looked rather dazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't imagine anything pleasanter; but I wish you'd explain just how&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney smiled at him. As he stood on the lowest step, their eyes were
+      almost level.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I walk with you, they'll know I'm not engaged to Joe,&rdquo; she said, with
+      engaging directness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was quiet. He waited in the lower hall until she had reached the
+      top of the staircase. For some curious reason, in the time to come, that
+      was the way Sidney always remembered K. Le Moyne&mdash;standing in the
+      little hall, one hand upstretched to shut off the gas overhead, and his
+      eyes on hers above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night,&rdquo; said K. Le Moyne. And all the things he had put out of his
+      life were in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the morning after Sidney had invited K. Le Moyne to take her to walk,
+      Max Wilson came down to breakfast rather late. Dr. Ed had breakfasted an
+      hour before, and had already attended, with much profanity on the part of
+      the patient, to a boil on the back of Mr. Rosenfeld's neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better change your laundry,&rdquo; cheerfully advised Dr. Ed, cutting a strip
+      of adhesive plaster. &ldquo;Your neck's irritated from your white collars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosenfeld eyed him suspiciously, but, possessing a sense of humor also, he
+      grinned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't my everyday things that bother me,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;It's my
+      blankety-blank dress suit. But if a man wants to be tony&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tony&rdquo; was not of the Street, but of its environs. Harriet was &ldquo;tony&rdquo;
+       because she walked with her elbows in and her head up. Dr. Max was &ldquo;tony&rdquo;
+       because he breakfasted late, and had a man come once a week and take away
+      his clothes to be pressed. He was &ldquo;tony,&rdquo; too, because he had brought back
+      from Europe narrow-shouldered English-cut clothes, when the Street was
+      still padding its shoulders. Even K. would have been classed with these
+      others, for the stick that he carried on his walks, for the fact that his
+      shabby gray coat was as unmistakably foreign in cut as Dr. Max's, had the
+      neighborhood so much as known him by sight. But K., so far, had remained
+      in humble obscurity, and, outside of Mrs. McKee's, was known only as the
+      Pages' roomer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Rosenfeld buttoned up the blue flannel shirt which, with a pair of Dr.
+      Ed's cast-off trousers, was his only wear; and fished in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much, Doc?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two dollars,&rdquo; said Dr. Ed briskly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy cats! For one jab of a knife! My old woman works a day and a half
+      for two dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess it's worth two dollars to you to be able to sleep on your back.&rdquo;
+       He was imperturbably straightening his small glass table. He knew
+      Rosenfeld. &ldquo;If you don't like my price, I'll lend you the knife the next
+      time, and you can let your wife attend to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosenfeld drew out a silver dollar, and followed it reluctantly with a
+      limp and dejected dollar bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are times,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when, if you'd put me and the missus and a
+      knife in the same room, you wouldn't have much left but the knife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed waited until he had made his stiff-necked exit. Then he took the
+      two dollars, and, putting the money into an envelope, indorsed it in his
+      illegible hand. He heard his brother's step on the stairs, and Dr. Ed made
+      haste to put away the last vestiges of his little operation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ed's lapses from surgical cleanliness were a sore trial to the younger
+      man, fresh from the clinics of Europe. In his downtown office, to which he
+      would presently make his leisurely progress, he wore a white coat, and
+      sterilized things of which Dr. Ed did not even know the names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny knife with
+      a bit of cotton,&mdash;he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the edge,&mdash;thrust
+      it hastily into his pocket. He had cut boils without boiling anything for
+      a good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise with the wisdom of the
+      serpent and the general practitioner, and there was no use raising a
+      discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one. Now and then the way of the
+      transgressor is disgustingly pleasant. Max, who sat up until all hours of
+      the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing bridge, wakened
+      to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette between shoes, so to
+      speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps been to bring into the
+      world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened customarily to the dark
+      hour of his day, when he dubbed himself failure and loathed the Street
+      with a deadly loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So now Max brought his handsome self down the staircase and paused at the
+      office door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At it, already,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Or have you been to bed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's after nine,&rdquo; protested Ed mildly. &ldquo;If I don't start early, I never
+      get through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max yawned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better come with me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If things go on as they've been doing,
+      I'll have to have an assistant. I'd rather have you than anybody, of
+      course.&rdquo; He put his lithe surgeon's hand on his brother's shoulder. &ldquo;Where
+      would I be if it hadn't been for you? All the fellows know what you've
+      done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of himself, Ed winced. It was one thing to work hard that there
+      might be one success instead of two half successes. It was a different
+      thing to advertise one's mediocrity to the world. His sphere of the Street
+      and the neighborhood was his own. To give it all up and become his younger
+      brother's assistant&mdash;even if it meant, as it would, better hours and
+      more money&mdash;would be to submerge his identity. He could not bring
+      himself to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I'll stay where I am,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They know me around here, and I
+      know them. By the way, will you leave this envelope at Mrs. McKee's?
+      Maggie Rosenfeld is ironing there to-day. It's for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max took the envelope absently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll go on here to the end of your days, working for a pittance,&rdquo; he
+      objected. &ldquo;Inside of ten years there'll be no general practitioners; then
+      where will you be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll manage somehow,&rdquo; said his brother placidly. &ldquo;I guess there will
+      always be a few that can pay my prices better than what you specialists
+      ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max laughed with genuine amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say, if this is the way you let them pay your prices.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out the envelope, and the older man colored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very proud of Dr. Max was his brother, unselfishly proud, of his skill, of
+      his handsome person, of his easy good manners; very humble, too, of his
+      own knowledge and experience. If he ever suspected any lack of finer fiber
+      in Max, he put the thought away. Probably he was too rigid himself. Max
+      was young, a hard worker. He had a right to play hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He prepared his black bag for the day's calls&mdash;stethoscope,
+      thermometer, eye-cup, bandages, case of small vials, a lump of absorbent
+      cotton in a not over-fresh towel; in the bottom, a heterogeneous
+      collection of instruments, a roll of adhesive plaster, a bottle or two of
+      sugar-milk tablets for the children, a dog collar that had belonged to a
+      dead collie, and had put in the bag in some curious fashion and there
+      remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He prepared the bag a little nervously, while Max ate. He felt that modern
+      methods and the best usage might not have approved of the bag. On his way
+      out he paused at the dining-room door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to the hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Operating at four&mdash;wish you could come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid not, Max. I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to you.
+      She wants to enter the training-school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too young,&rdquo; said Max briefly. &ldquo;Why, she can't be over sixteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's eighteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, even eighteen. Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
+      enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I
+      haven't noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing. There is
+      no use filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the internes
+      all stewed up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since when,&rdquo; asked Dr. Ed mildly, &ldquo;have you found good looks in a girl a
+      handicap?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It would
+      be better than having her run across the Street&mdash;would put things on
+      the right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have to
+      learn at once that he was no longer &ldquo;Dr. Max&rdquo;; that, as a matter of fact,
+      he was now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without
+      contradiction or argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at
+      his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having given his promise, Max promptly forgot about it. The Street did not
+      interest him. Christine and Sidney had been children when he went to
+      Vienna, and since his return he had hardly noticed them. Society, always
+      kind to single men of good appearance and easy good manners, had taken him
+      up. He wore dinner or evening clothes five nights out of seven, and was
+      supposed by his conservative old neighbors to be going the pace. The rumor
+      had been fed by Mrs. Rosenfeld, who, starting out for her day's washing at
+      six o'clock one morning, had found Dr. Max's car, lamps lighted, and
+      engine going, drawn up before the house door, with its owner asleep at the
+      wheel. The story traveled the length of the Street that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him,&rdquo; said Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was occasionally flowery, &ldquo;sittin' up as
+      straight as this washboard, and his silk hat shinin' in the sun; but
+      exceptin' the car, which was workin' hard and gettin' nowhere, the whole
+      outfit in the arms of Morpheus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lorenz, whose day it was to have Mrs. Rosenfeld, and who was
+      unfamiliar with mythology, gasped at the last word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you mean to say he's got that awful drug habit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the clean steps went Dr. Max that morning, a big man, almost as tall
+      as K. Le Moyne, eager of life, strong and a bit reckless, not fine,
+      perhaps, but not evil. He had the same zest of living as Sidney, but with
+      this difference&mdash;the girl stood ready to give herself to life: he
+      knew that life would come to him. All-dominating male was Dr. Max, that
+      morning, as he drew on his gloves before stepping into his car. It was
+      after nine o'clock. K. Le Moyne had been an hour at his desk. The McKee
+      napkins lay ironed in orderly piles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, Dr. Max was suffering under a sense of defeat as he rode
+      downtown. The night before, he had proposed to a girl and had been
+      rejected. He was not in love with the girl,&mdash;she would have been a
+      suitable wife, and a surgeon ought to be married; it gives people
+      confidence,&mdash;but his pride was hurt. He recalled the exact words of
+      the rejection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're too good-looking, Max,&rdquo; she had said, &ldquo;and that's the truth. Now
+      that operations are as popular as fancy dancing, and much less bother,
+      half the women I know are crazy about their surgeons. I'm too fond of my
+      peace of mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, good Heavens! haven't you any confidence in me?&rdquo; he had demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever, Max dear.&rdquo; She had looked at him with level, understanding
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He put the disagreeable recollection out of his mind as he parked his car
+      and made his way to his office. Here would be people who believed in him,
+      from the middle-aged nurse in her prim uniform to the row of patients
+      sitting stiffly around the walls of the waiting-room. Dr. Max, pausing in
+      the hall outside the door of his private office, drew a long breath. This
+      was the real thing&mdash;work and plenty of it, a chance to show the other
+      men what he could do, a battle to win! No humanitarian was he, but a
+      fighter: each day he came to his office with the same battle lust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office nurse had her back to him. When she turned, he faced an
+      agreeable surprise. Instead of Miss Simpson, he faced a young and
+      attractive girl, faintly familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We tried to get you by telephone,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;I am from the
+      hospital. Miss Simpson's father died this morning, and she knew you would
+      have to have some one. I was just starting for my vacation, so they sent
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather a poor substitute for a vacation,&rdquo; he commented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a very pretty girl. He had seen her before in the hospital, but he
+      had never really noticed how attractive she was. Rather stunning she was,
+      he thought. The combination of yellow hair and dark eyes was unusual. He
+      remembered, just in time, to express regret at Miss Simpson's bereavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Miss Harrison,&rdquo; explained the substitute, and held out his long
+      white coat. The ceremony, purely perfunctory with Miss Simpson on duty,
+      proved interesting, Miss Harrison, in spite of her high heels, being small
+      and the young surgeon tall. When he was finally in the coat, she was
+      rather flushed and palpitating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I KNEW your name, of course,&rdquo; lied Dr. Max. &ldquo;And&mdash;I'm sorry
+      about the vacation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that came work. Miss Harrison was nimble and alert, but the surgeon
+      worked quickly and with few words, was impatient when she could not find
+      the things he called for, even broke into restrained profanity now and
+      then. She went a little pale over her mistakes, but preserved her dignity
+      and her wits. Now and then he found her dark eyes fixed on him, with
+      something inscrutable but pleasing in their depths. The situation was
+      rather piquant. Consciously he was thinking only of what he was doing.
+      Subconsciously his busy ego was finding solace after last night's rebuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, during the cleaning up between cases, he dropped to a personality.
+      He was drying his hands, while she placed freshly sterilized instruments
+      on a glass table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are almost a foreign type, Miss Harrison. Last year, in a London
+      ballet, I saw a blonde Spanish girl who looked like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother was a Spaniard.&rdquo; She did not look up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where Miss Simpson was in the habit of clumping through the morning in
+      flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on the
+      tiled floor. With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was
+      essentially feminine, almost insistent. When he had time to notice it, it
+      amused him that he did not find it annoying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, as she passed him a bistoury, he deliberately placed his fine hand
+      over her fingers and smiled into her eyes. It was play for him; it
+      lightened the day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was in the waiting-room. There had been no tedium in the morning's
+      waiting. Like all imaginative people, she had the gift of dramatizing
+      herself. She was seeing herself in white from head to foot, like this
+      efficient young woman who came now and then to the waiting-room door; she
+      was healing the sick and closing tired eyes; she was even imagining
+      herself proposed to by an aged widower with grown children and quantities
+      of money, one of her patients.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat very demurely in the waiting-room with a magazine in her lap, and
+      told her aged patient that she admired and respected him, but that she had
+      given herself to the suffering poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything in the world that you want,&rdquo; begged the elderly gentleman.
+      &ldquo;You should see the world, child, and I will see it again through your
+      eyes. To Paris first for clothes and the opera, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do not love you,&rdquo; Sidney replied, mentally but steadily. &ldquo;In all
+      the world I love only one man. He is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated here. It certainly was not Joe, or K. Le Moyne of the gas
+      office. It seem to her suddenly very sad that there was no one she loved.
+      So many people went into hospitals because they had been disappointed in
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Wilson will see you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed Miss Harrison into the consulting room. Dr. Max&mdash;not the
+      gloved and hatted Dr. Max of the Street, but a new person, one she had
+      never known&mdash;stood in his white office, tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired,
+      competent, holding out his long, immaculate surgeon's hand, and smiling
+      down at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men, like jewels, require a setting. A clerk on a high stool, poring over
+      a ledger, is not unimpressive, or a cook over her stove. But place the
+      cook on the stool, poring over the ledger! Dr. Max, who had lived all his
+      life on the edge of Sidney's horizon, now, by the simple changing of her
+      point of view, loomed large and magnificent. Perhaps he knew it. Certainly
+      he stood very erect. Certainly, too, there was considerable manner in the
+      way in which he asked Miss Harrison to go out and close the door behind
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's heart, considering what was happening to it, behaved very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For goodness' sake, Sidney,&rdquo; said Dr. Max, &ldquo;here you are a young lady and
+      I've never noticed it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This, of course, was not what he had intended to say, being staff and all
+      that. But Sidney, visibly palpitant, was very pretty, much prettier than
+      the Harrison girl, beating a tattoo with her heels in the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Max, belonging to the class of man who settles his tie every time he
+      sees an attractive woman, thrust his hands into the pockets of his long
+      white coat and surveyed her quizzically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Dr. Ed tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down. He said something about the hospital. How's your mother and
+      Aunt Harriet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well&mdash;that is, mother's never quite well.&rdquo; She was sitting
+      forward on her chair, her wide young eyes on him. &ldquo;Is that&mdash;is your
+      nurse from the hospital here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But she's not my nurse. She's a substitute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The uniform is so pretty.&rdquo; Poor Sidney! with all the things she had meant
+      to say about a life of service, and that, although she was young, she was
+      terribly in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It takes a lot of plugging before one gets the uniform. Look here,
+      Sidney; if you are going to the hospital because of the uniform, and with
+      any idea of soothing fevered brows and all that nonsense&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted him, deeply flushed. Indeed, no. She wanted to work. She
+      was young and strong, and surely a pair of willing hands&mdash;that was
+      absurd about the uniform. She had no silly ideas. There was so much to do
+      in the world, and she wanted to help. Some people could give money, but
+      she couldn't. She could only offer service. And, partly through
+      earnestness and partly through excitement, she ended in a sort of nervous
+      sob, and, going to the window, stood with her back to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He followed her, and, because they were old neighbors, she did not resent
+      it when he put his hand on her shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know&mdash;of course, if you feel like that about it,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;we'll see what can be done. It's hard work, and a good many times it
+      seems futile. They die, you know, in spite of all we can do. And there are
+      many things that are worse than death&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice trailed off. When he had started out in his profession, he had
+      had some such ideal of service as this girl beside him. For just a moment,
+      as he stood there close to her, he saw things again with the eyes of his
+      young faith: to relieve pain, to straighten the crooked, to hurt that he
+      might heal,&mdash;not to show the other men what he could do,&mdash;that
+      had been his early creed. He sighed a little as he turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll speak to the superintendent about you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Perhaps you'd like
+      me to show you around a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When? To-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had meant in a month, or a year. It was quite a minute before he
+      replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-day, if you say. I'm operating at four. How about three o'clock?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She held out both hands, and he took them, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the kindest person I ever met.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;perhaps you'd better not say you are applying until we find out
+      if there is a vacancy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I tell one person?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. We&mdash;we have a roomer now. He is very much interested. I should
+      like to tell him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much interested! Is he in love with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than
+      half in love with you myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Play for him&mdash;the same victorious instinct that had made him touch
+      Miss Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew
+      how it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we'll say at three,&rdquo; she said calmly, and took an orderly and
+      unflurried departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the
+      last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,&mdash;outgrowing Joe, had she
+      only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,&mdash;had come that day
+      into her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le
+      Moyne. But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension
+      that she was leaving behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put it
+      under his plate:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,&mdash;I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson,
+      the surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish
+      me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft and
+      the other &ldquo;mealers&rdquo; irritable with the heat, he ate little or no luncheon.
+      Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again. To his jealous
+      eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital. Sidney, all vibrant
+      eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and Wilson, sardonically
+      smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself. He drew a long breath,
+      and thrust the note in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little house across the way sat square in the sun. The shades of his
+      windows had been lowered against the heat. K. Le Moyne made an impulsive
+      movement toward it and checked himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le Moyne
+      moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap lay a
+      small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of releasing
+      Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to the point of
+      separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of the apertures
+      and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red and white
+      clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said K. Le Moyne, &ldquo;you liked it all? It didn't startle you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, in one way, of course&mdash;you see, I didn't know it was quite
+      like that: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, on
+      top,&mdash;you know what I mean,&mdash;and the misery there just the same.
+      Have you ever gone through a hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head. For
+      this excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pair of
+      white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat. Sidney had been divided
+      between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street would deem him
+      overdressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch and the
+      bit of blue heaven overhead. He did not reply at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!&rdquo; said Sidney to the pasteboard box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been around hospitals a little. I suppose now there is no question
+      about your going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr.
+      Wilson's would certainly be given a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard work, night and day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I am afraid of work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;Joe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very silly. He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marry
+      him, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't promised to marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to,
+      better tell him, don't you think? What&mdash;what are these idiotic
+      notions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can see how stupid he is, and&mdash;and young. For one thing, he's
+      jealous of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his
+      suspicion is hardly flattering to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled up at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He was furious.
+      And that wasn't all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the day we
+      went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's for
+      soda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle of
+      the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in two people, a
+      man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy lover on the
+      next stool. Now he could view things through Joe's tragic eyes. And there
+      as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably the conversation
+      turned to the young surgeon. Did they start with Reginald, with the
+      condition of the morning-glory vines, with the proposition of taking up
+      the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the Street, they ended with the
+      younger Wilson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her life,
+      was still on herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother is plaintively resigned&mdash;and Aunt Harriet has been a trump.
+      She's going to keep her room. It's really up to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticed that
+      you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up to you the
+      other night. And she didn't object to this trip to-day. Of course, as she
+      said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at all wild.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, God knew,
+      but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old did this
+      child think he was?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog, burglar-alarm,
+      and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of custard.
+      Lightning-conductor, too&mdash;your mother says she isn't afraid of storms
+      if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threw back
+      his fine shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be,
+      whatever his name is&mdash;we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I
+      ever hear of Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled up at him. &ldquo;You are looking very grand to-day. But you have
+      grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity of
+      dress. It put him on his mettle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the
+      doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not over forty, I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is not senility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps we'd better not tell mother,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You don't mind being
+      thought older?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she
+      harked back to the grass stains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid you're not saving, as you promised. Those are new clothes,
+      aren't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed. Bought years ago in England&mdash;the coat in London, the
+      trousers in Bath, on a motor tour. Cost something like twelve shillings.
+      Awfully cheap. They wear them for cricket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was a wrong move, of course. Sidney must hear about England; and she
+      marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there. Poor Le
+      Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here and there,
+      clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To think,&rdquo; said Sidney, &ldquo;that you have really been across the ocean! I
+      never knew but one person who had been abroad. It is Dr. Max Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, was
+      aroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You talk about him rather a lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was sheer recklessness, of course. He expected fury, annihilation. He
+      did not look up, but busied himself with the luncheon. When the silence
+      grew oppressive, he ventured to glance toward her. She was leaning
+      forward, her chin cupped in her palms, staring out over the valley that
+      stretched at their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't speak to me for a minute or two,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm thinking over what
+      you have just said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Manlike, having raised the issue, K. would have given much to evade it.
+      Not that he had owned himself in love with Sidney. Love was not for him.
+      But into his loneliness and despair the girl had came like a ray of light.
+      She typified that youth and hope that he had felt slipping away from him.
+      Through her clear eyes he was beginning to see a new world. Lose her he
+      must, and that he knew; but not this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions to
+      both depth and fury. He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, with
+      this same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,
+      while he snapped the shutter of a camera. He had that picture somewhere
+      now; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only one who
+      had met life and vanquished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've known him all my life,&rdquo; Sidney said at last. &ldquo;You're perfectly right
+      about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him. I'm being candid,
+      because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank? I admire him&mdash;you'd
+      have to see him in the hospital, with every one deferring to him and all
+      that, to understand. And when you think of a man like that, who holds life
+      and death in his hands, of course you rather thrill. I&mdash;I honestly
+      believe that's all there is to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion.&rdquo; He tried to
+      smile; succeeded faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course, there's this, too. I know he'll never look at me. I'll
+      be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a
+      probationer. He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital at
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would be
+      different?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me,&rdquo; said Sidney solemnly,
+      &ldquo;I'd go out of my head with joy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of living
+      each day for itself. Having no past and no future, each day was worth
+      exactly what it brought. He was to look back to this day with mingled
+      feelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; the memory
+      of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to herself,
+      already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and, long, long
+      after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and saved her by his
+      steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward happening that
+      closed the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney fell into the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of a shamefaced
+      tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K. The little
+      squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had darted into the
+      grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ungrateful little beast!&rdquo; said Sidney, and dried her eyes. &ldquo;Do you
+      suppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll be all right,&rdquo; K. replied. &ldquo;The little beggar can take care of
+      himself, if only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If only what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If only he isn't too friendly. He's apt to crawl into the pockets of any
+      one who happens around.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was alarmed at that. To make up for his indiscretion, K. suggested a
+      descent to the river. She accepted eagerly, and he helped her down. That
+      was another memory that outlasted the day&mdash;her small warm hand in
+      his; the time she slipped and he caught her; the pain in her eyes at one
+      of his thoughtless remarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to be pretty lonely,&rdquo; he said, when she had paused in the
+      descent and was taking a stone out of her low shoe. &ldquo;Reginald gone, and
+      you going! I shall hate to come home at night.&rdquo; And then, seeing her
+      wince: &ldquo;I've been whining all day. For Heaven's sake, don't look like
+      that. If there's one sort of man I detest more than another, it's a man
+      who is sorry for himself. Do you suppose your mother would object if we
+      stayed, out here at the hotel for supper? I've ordered a moon,
+      orange-yellow and extra size.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we'll stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's fearfully extravagant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow. For,
+      having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,
+      slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water. K. happened to
+      be looking in another direction. So it occurred that at one moment, Sidney
+      sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly pretty, and
+      knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep in water, much too
+      startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under the rather trying
+      circumstances. K. had not looked around. The splash had been a gentle one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will be good enough,&rdquo; said Sidney, with her chin well up, &ldquo;to give
+      me your hand or a pole or something&mdash;because if the river rises an
+      inch I shall drown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and saw
+      her. He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up its
+      slippery sides. He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefully balanced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you cold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight.&rdquo; Then, remembering
+      her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you for saving me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn't any danger, really, unless&mdash;unless the river had
+      risen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first, perhaps,
+      for months. He shook with it, struggled at the sight of her injured face
+      to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety by fixing his eyes
+      on the river-bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you have quite finished,&rdquo; said Sidney severely, &ldquo;perhaps you will
+      take me to the hotel. I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet skirts clung to her; her shoes
+      were sodden and heavy. She clung to him frantically, her eyes on the river
+      below. With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died. He held her very
+      carefully, very tenderly, as one holds something infinitely precious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital. It was a Wilson day, the
+      young surgeon having six cases. One of the innovations Dr. Max had made
+      was to change the hour for major operations from early morning to
+      mid-afternoon. He could do as well later in the day,&mdash;his nerves were
+      steady, and uncounted numbers of cigarettes did not make his hand shake,&mdash;and
+      he hated to get up early.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The staff had fallen into the way of attending Wilson's operations. His
+      technique was good; but technique alone never gets a surgeon anywhere.
+      Wilson was getting results. Even the most jealous of that most jealous of
+      professions, surgery, had to admit that he got results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Operations were over for the afternoon. The last case had been wheeled out
+      of the elevator. The pit of the operating-room was in disorder&mdash;towels
+      everywhere, tables of instruments, steaming sterilizers. Orderlies were
+      going about, carrying out linens, emptying pans. At a table two nurses
+      were cleaning instruments and putting them away in their glass cases.
+      Irrigators were being emptied, sponges recounted and checked off on
+      written lists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of the confusion, Wilson stood giving last orders to the
+      interne at his elbow. As he talked he scoured his hands and arms with a
+      small brush; bits of lather flew off on to the tiled floor. His speech was
+      incisive, vigorous. At the hospital they said his nerves were iron; there
+      was no let-down after the day's work. The internes worshiped and feared
+      him. He was just, but without mercy. To be able to work like that, so
+      certainly, with so sure a touch, and to look like a Greek god! Wilson's
+      only rival, a gynecologist named O'Hara, got results, too; but he sweated
+      and swore through his operations, was not too careful as to asepsis, and
+      looked like a gorilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day had been a hard one. The operating room nurses were fagged. Two or
+      three probationers had been sent to help cleanup, and a senior nurse.
+      Wilson's eyes caught the nurse's eyes as she passed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, too, Miss Harrison!&rdquo; he said gayly. &ldquo;Have they set you on my
+      trail?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the eyes of the room on her, the girl answered primly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm to be in your office in the mornings, Dr. Wilson, and anywhere I am
+      needed in the afternoons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your vacation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall take it when Miss Simpson comes back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Although he went on at once with his conversation with the interne, he
+      still heard the click of her heels about the room. He had not lost the
+      fact that she had flushed when he spoke to her. The mischief that was
+      latent in him came to the surface. When he had rinsed his hands, he
+      followed her, carrying the towel to where she stood talking to the
+      superintendent of the training school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks very much, Miss Gregg,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Everything went off nicely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sorry about that catgut. We have no trouble with what we prepare
+      ourselves. But with so many operations&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in a magnanimous mood. He smiled at Miss Gregg, who was elderly
+      and gray, but visibly his creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. It's the first time, and of course it will be the
+      last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sponge list, doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced over it, noting accurately sponges prepared, used, turned in.
+      But he missed no gesture of the girl who stood beside Miss Gregg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo; He returned the list. &ldquo;That was a mighty pretty probationer I
+      brought you yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two small frowning lines appeared between Miss Harrison's dark brows. He
+      caught them, caught her somber eyes too, and was amused and rather
+      stimulated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prefer 'em young,&rdquo; said Dr. Max. &ldquo;Willing to learn at that age. You'll
+      have to watch her, though. You'll have all the internes buzzing around,
+      neglecting business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Gregg rather fluttered. She was divided between her disapproval of
+      internes at all times and of young probationers generally, and her
+      allegiance to the brilliant surgeon whose word was rapidly becoming law in
+      the hospital. When an emergency of the cleaning up called her away, doubt
+      still in her eyes, Wilson was left alone with Miss Harrison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tired?&rdquo; He adopted the gentle, almost tender tone that made most women
+      his slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little. It is warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do this evening? Any lectures?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lectures are over for the summer. I shall go to prayers, and after that
+      to the roof for air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a note of bitterness in her voice. Under the eyes of the other
+      nurses, she was carefully contained. They might have been outlining the
+      morning's work at his office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hand lotion, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She brought it obediently and poured it into his cupped hands. The
+      solutions of the operating-room played havoc with the skin: the surgeons,
+      and especially Wilson, soaked their hands plentifully with a healing
+      lotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over the bottle their eyes met again, and this time the girl smiled
+      faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't you take a little ride to-night and cool off? I'll have the car
+      wherever you say. A ride and some supper&mdash;how does it sound? You
+      could get away at seven&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Gregg is coming!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an impassive face, the girl took the bottle away. The workers of the
+      operating-room surged between them. An interne presented an order-book;
+      moppers had come in and waited to clean the tiled floor. There seemed no
+      chance for Wilson to speak to Miss Harrison again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was clever with the guile of the pursuing male. Eyes of all on him,
+      he turned at the door of the wardrobe-room, where he would exchange his
+      white garments for street clothing, and spoke to her over the heads of a
+      dozen nurses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That patient's address that I had forgotten, Miss Harrison, is the corner
+      of the Park and Ellington Avenue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She played the game well, was quite calm. He admired her coolness.
+      Certainly she was pretty, and certainly, too, she was interested in him.
+      The hurt to his pride of a few nights before was healed. He went whistling
+      into the wardrobe-room. As he turned he caught the interne's eye, and
+      there passed between them a glance of complete comprehension. The interne
+      grinned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was not empty. His brother was there, listening to the comments
+      of O'Hara, his friendly rival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good work, boy!&rdquo; said O'Hara, and clapped a hairy hand on his shoulder.
+      &ldquo;That last case was a wonder. I'm proud of you, and your brother here is
+      indecently exalted. It was the Edwardes method, wasn't it? I saw it done
+      at his clinic in New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad you liked it. Yes. Edwardes was a pal at mine in Berlin. A great
+      surgeon, too, poor old chap!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There aren't three men in the country with the nerve and the hand for
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      O'Hara went out, glowing with his own magnanimity. Deep in his heart was a
+      gnawing of envy&mdash;not for himself, but for his work. These young
+      fellows with no family ties, who could run over to Europe and bring back
+      anything new that was worth while, they had it all over the older men. Not
+      that he would have changed things. God forbid!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed stood by and waited while his brother got into his street clothes.
+      He was rather silent. There were many times when he wished that their
+      mother could have lived to see how he had carried out his promise to &ldquo;make
+      a man of Max.&rdquo; This was one of them. Not that he took any credit for Max's
+      brilliant career&mdash;but he would have liked her to know that things
+      were going well. He had a picture of her over his office desk. Sometimes
+      he wondered what she would think of his own untidy methods compared with
+      Max's extravagant order&mdash;of the bag, for instance, with the dog's
+      collar in it, and other things. On these occasions he always determined to
+      clear out the bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I'll be getting along,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Will you be home to dinner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not. I'll&mdash;I'm going to run out of town, and eat where it's
+      cool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street was notoriously hot in summer. When Dr. Max was newly home from
+      Europe, and Dr. Ed was selling a painfully acquired bond or two to furnish
+      the new offices downtown, the brothers had occasionally gone together, by
+      way of the trolley, to the White Springs Hotel for supper. Those had been
+      gala days for the older man. To hear names that he had read with awe, and
+      mispronounced, most of his life, roll off Max's tongue&mdash;&ldquo;Old
+      Steinmetz&rdquo; and &ldquo;that ass of a Heydenreich&rdquo;; to hear the medical and
+      surgical gossip of the Continent, new drugs, new technique, the small
+      heart-burnings of the clinics, student scandal&mdash;had brought into his
+      drab days a touch of color. But that was over now. Max had new friends,
+      new social obligations; his time was taken up. And pride would not allow
+      the older brother to show how he missed the early days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forty-two he was, and, what with sleepless nights and twenty years of
+      hurried food, he looked fifty. Fifty, then, to Max's thirty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a roast of beef. It's a pity to cook a roast for one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wasteful, too, this cooking of food for two and only one to eat it. A
+      roast of beef meant a visit, in Dr. Ed's modest-paying clientele. He still
+      paid the expenses of the house on the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, old man; I've made another arrangement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the hospital together. Everywhere the younger man received the
+      homage of success. The elevator-man bowed and flung the doors open, with a
+      smile; the pharmacy clerk, the doorkeeper, even the convalescent patient
+      who was polishing the great brass doorplate, tendered their tribute. Dr.
+      Ed looked neither to right nor left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the machine they separated. But Dr. Ed stood for a moment with his hand
+      on the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking, up there this afternoon,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;that I'm not
+      sure I want Sidney Page to become a nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a good deal in life that a girl need not know&mdash;not, at
+      least, until her husband tells her. Sidney's been guarded, and it's bound
+      to be a shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's her own choice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. A child reaches out for the fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The motor had started. For the moment, at least, the younger Wilson had no
+      interest in Sidney Page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll manage all right. Plenty of other girls have taken the training
+      and come through without spoiling their zest for life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Already, as the car moved off, his mind was on his appointment for the
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, after her involuntary bath in the river, had gone into temporary
+      eclipse at the White Springs Hotel. In the oven of the kitchen stove sat
+      her two small white shoes, stuffed with paper so that they might dry in
+      shape. Back in a detached laundry, a sympathetic maid was ironing various
+      soft white garments, and singing as she worked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sat in a rocking-chair in a hot bedroom. She was carefully swathed
+      in a sheet from neck to toes, except for her arms, and she was being as
+      philosophic as possible. After all, it was a good chance to think things
+      over. She had very little time to think, generally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant to give up Joe Drummond. She didn't want to hurt him. Well,
+      there was that to think over and a matter of probation dresses to be
+      talked over later with her Aunt Harriet. Also, there was a great deal of
+      advice to K. Le Moyne, who was ridiculously extravagant, before trusting
+      the house to him. She folded her white arms and prepared to think over all
+      these things. As a matter of fact, she went mentally, like an arrow to its
+      mark, to the younger Wilson&mdash;to his straight figure in its white
+      coat, to his dark eyes and heavy hair, to the cleft in his chin when he
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, I have always been more than half in love with you myself...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one tapped lightly at the door. She was back again in the stuffy
+      hotel room, clutching the sheet about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Le Moyne. Are you all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly. How stupid it must be for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm doing very well. The maid will soon be ready. What shall I order for
+      supper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything. I'm starving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever visions K. Le Moyne may have had of a chill or of a feverish cold
+      were dispelled by that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The moon has arrived, as per specifications. Shall we eat on the
+      terrace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never eaten on a terrace in my life. I'd love it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think your shoes have shrunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flatterer!&rdquo; She laughed. &ldquo;Go away and order supper. And I can see fresh
+      lettuce. Shall we have a salad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne assured her through the door that he would order a salad, and
+      prepared to descend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he stood for a moment in front of the closed door, for the mere sound
+      of her moving, beyond it. Things had gone very far with the Pages' roomer
+      that day in the country; not so far as they were to go, but far enough to
+      let him see on the brink of what misery he stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not go away. He had promised her to stay: he was needed. He
+      thought he could have endured seeing her marry Joe, had she cared for the
+      boy. That way, at least, lay safety for her. The boy had fidelity and
+      devotion written large over him. But this new complication&mdash;her
+      romantic interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her,
+      with what he knew of the man&mdash;made him quail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the top of the narrow staircase to the foot, and he had lived a
+      year's torment! At the foot, however, he was startled out of his reverie.
+      Joe Drummond stood there waiting for him, his blue eyes recklessly alight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you dog!&rdquo; said Joe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were people in the hotel parlor. Le Moyne took the frenzied boy by
+      the elbow and led him past the door to the empty porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if you will keep your voice down, I'll listen to what you
+      have to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what I've got to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This failing to draw from K. Le Moyne anything but his steady glance, Joe
+      jerked his arm free, and clenched his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you bring her out here for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know that I owe you any explanation, but I am willing to give
+      you one. I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic luncheon.
+      Incidentally we brought the ground squirrel out and set him free.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was sorry for the boy. Life not having been all beer and skittles to
+      him, he knew that Joe was suffering, and was marvelously patient with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had the misfortune to fall in the river. She is upstairs.&rdquo; And,
+      seeing the light of unbelief in Joe's eyes: &ldquo;If you care to make a tour of
+      investigation, you will find that I am entirely truthful. In the laundry a
+      maid&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is engaged to me&rdquo;&mdash;doggedly. &ldquo;Everybody in the neighborhood
+      knows it; and yet you bring her out here for a picnic! It's&mdash;it's
+      damned rotten treatment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His fist had unclenched. Before K. Le Moyne's eyes his own fell. He felt
+      suddenly young and futile; his just rage turned to blustering in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, be honest with yourself. Is there really an engagement?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even in that case, isn't it rather arrogant to say that&mdash;that the
+      young lady in question can accept no ordinary friendly attentions from
+      another man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Utter astonishment left Joe almost speechless. The Street, of course,
+      regarded an engagement as a setting aside of the affianced couple, an
+      isolation of two, than which marriage itself was not more a solitude a
+      deux. After a moment:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know where you came from,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but around here decent men
+      cut out when a girl's engaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's more, what do we know about you? Who are you, anyhow? I've looked
+      you up. Even at your office they don't know anything. You may be all
+      right, but how do I know it? And, even if you are, renting a room in the
+      Page house doesn't entitle you to interfere with the family. You get her
+      into trouble and I'll kill you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It took courage, that speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches above
+      him and growing a little white about the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to say all these things to Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she allow you to call her Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am. And I am going to find out why you were upstairs just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps never in his twenty-two years had young Drummond been so near a
+      thrashing. Fury that he was ashamed of shook Le Moyne. For very fear of
+      himself, he thrust his hands in the pockets of his Norfolk coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You go to her with just one of these ugly
+      insinuations, and I'll take mighty good care that you are sorry for it. I
+      don't care to threaten. You're younger than I am, and lighter. But if you
+      are going to behave like a bad child, you deserve a licking, and I'll give
+      it to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An overflow from the parlor poured out on the porch. Le Moyne had got
+      himself in hand somewhat. He was still angry, but the look in Joe's eyes
+      startled him. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong, old man,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You're insulting the girl you care for
+      by the things you are thinking. And, if it's any comfort to you, I have no
+      intention of interfering in any way. You can count me out. It's between
+      you and her.&rdquo; Joe picked his straw hat from a chair and stood turning it
+      in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if you don't care for her, how do I know she isn't crazy about you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word of honor, she isn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sends you notes to McKees'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just to clear the air, I'll show it to you. It's no breach of confidence.
+      It's about the hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the breast pocket of his coat he dived and brought up a wallet. The
+      wallet had had a name on it in gilt letters that had been carefully
+      scraped off. But Joe did not wait to see the note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, damn the hospital!&rdquo; he said&mdash;and went swiftly down the steps and
+      into the gathering twilight of the June night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only when he reached the street-car, and sat huddled in a corner,
+      that he remembered something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only about the hospital&mdash;but Le Moyne had kept the note, treasured
+      it! Joe was not subtle, not even clever; but he was a lover, and he knew
+      the ways of love. The Pages' roomer was in love with Sidney whether he
+      knew it or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison pleaded a headache, and was excused from the
+      operating-room and from prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry about the vacation,&rdquo; Miss Gregg said kindly, &ldquo;but in a day or
+      two I can let you off. Go out now and get a little air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl managed to dissemble the triumph in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said languidly, and turned away. Then: &ldquo;About the
+      vacation, I am not in a hurry. If Miss Simpson needs a few days to
+      straighten things out, I can stay on with Dr. Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young women on the eve of a vacation were not usually so reasonable. Miss
+      Gregg was grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will probably need a week. Thank you. I wish more of the girls were
+      as thoughtful, with the house full and operations all day and every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the door of the anaesthetizing-room Miss Harrison's languor
+      vanished. She sped along corridors and up the stairs, not waiting for the
+      deliberate elevator. Inside of her room, she closed and bolted the door,
+      and, standing before her mirror, gazed long at her dark eyes and bright
+      hair. Then she proceeded briskly with her dressing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison was not a child. Though she was only three years older
+      than Sidney, her experience of life was as of three to Sidney's one. The
+      product of a curious marriage,&mdash;when Tommy Harrison of Harrison's
+      Minstrels, touring Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of a
+      Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,&mdash;she had certain qualities of
+      both, a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse,
+      complicated by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious bursts
+      of temper, slow and smouldering vindictiveness. A passionate creature, in
+      reality, smothered under hereditary Massachusetts caution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was well aware of the risks of the evening's adventure. The only dread
+      she had was of the discovery of her escapade by the hospital authorities.
+      Lines were sharply drawn. Nurses were forbidden more than the exchange of
+      professional conversation with the staff. In that world of her choosing,
+      of hard work and little play, of service and self-denial and vigorous
+      rules of conduct, discovery meant dismissal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put on a soft black dress, open at the throat, and with a wide white
+      collar and cuffs of some sheer material. Her yellow hair was drawn high
+      under her low black hat. From her Spanish mother she had learned to please
+      the man, not herself. She guessed that Dr. Max would wish her to be
+      inconspicuous, and she dressed accordingly. Then, being a cautious person,
+      she disarranged her bed slightly and thumped a hollow into her pillow. The
+      nurses' rooms were subject to inspection, and she had pleaded a headache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was exactly on time. Dr. Max, driving up to the corner five minutes
+      late, found her there, quite matter-of-fact but exceedingly handsome, and
+      acknowledged the evening's adventure much to his taste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little air first, and then supper&mdash;how's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Air first, please. I'm very tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned the car toward the suburbs, and then, bending toward her, smiled
+      into her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this is life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm cool for the first time to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that they spoke very little. Even Wilson's superb nerves had felt
+      the strain of the afternoon, and under the girl's dark eyes were purplish
+      shadows. She leaned back, weary but luxuriously content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not uneasy, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not particularly. I'm too comfortable. But I hope we're not seen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if we are, why not? You are going with me to a case. I've driven
+      Miss Simpson about a lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was almost eight when he turned the car into the drive of the White
+      Springs Hotel. The six-to-eight supper was almost over. One or two motor
+      parties were preparing for the moonlight drive back to the city. All
+      around was virgin country, sweet with early summer odors of new-cut grass,
+      of blossoming trees and warm earth. On the grass terrace over the valley,
+      where ran Sidney's unlucky river, was a magnolia full of creamy blossoms
+      among waxed leaves. Its silhouette against the sky was quaintly
+      heart-shaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under her mask of languor, Carlotta's heart was beating wildly. What an
+      adventure! What a night! Let him lose his head a little; she could keep
+      hers. If she were skillful and played things right, who could tell? To
+      marry him, to leave behind the drudgery of the hospital, to feel safe as
+      she had not felt for years, that was a stroke to play for!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magnolia was just beside her. She reached up and, breaking off one of
+      the heavy-scented flowers, placed it in the bosom of her black dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney and K. Le Moyne were dining together. The novelty of the experience
+      had made her eyes shine like stars. She saw only the magnolia tree shaped
+      like a heart, the terrace edged with low shrubbery, and beyond the faint
+      gleam that was the river. For her the dish-washing clatter of the kitchen
+      was stilled, the noises from the bar were lost in the ripple of the river;
+      the scent of the grass killed the odor of stale beer that wafted out
+      through the open windows. The unshaded glare of the lights behind her in
+      the house was eclipsed by the crescent edge of the rising moon. Dinner was
+      over. Sidney was experiencing the rare treat of after-dinner coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne, grave and contained, sat across from her. To give so much
+      pleasure, and so easily! How young she was, and radiant! No wonder the boy
+      was mad about her. She fairly held out her arms to life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, that was too bad! Another table was being brought; they were not to be
+      alone. But, what roused him in violent resentment only appealed to
+      Sidney's curiosity. &ldquo;Two places!&rdquo; she commented. &ldquo;Lovers, of course. Or
+      perhaps honeymooners.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. tried to fall into her mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A box of candy against a good cigar, they are a stolid married couple.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shall we know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's easy. If they loll back and watch the kitchen door, I win. If they
+      lean forward, elbows on the table, and talk, you get the candy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, who had been leaning forward, talking eagerly over the table,
+      suddenly straightened and flushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison came out alone. Although the tapping of her heels was
+      dulled by the grass, although she had exchanged her cap for the black hat,
+      Sidney knew her at once. A sort of thrill ran over her. It was the pretty
+      nurse from Dr. Wilson's office. Was it possible&mdash;but of course not!
+      The book of rules stated explicitly that such things were forbidden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't turn around,&rdquo; she said swiftly. &ldquo;It is the Miss Harrison I told you
+      about. She is looking at us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta's eyes were blinded for a moment by the glare of the house
+      lights. She dropped into her chair, with a flash of resentment at the
+      proximity of the other table. She languidly surveyed its two occupants.
+      Then she sat up, her eyes on Le Moyne's grave profile turned toward the
+      valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucky for her that Wilson had stopped in the bar, that Sidney's
+      instinctive good manners forbade her staring, that only the edge of the
+      summer moon shone through the trees. She went white and clutched the edge
+      of the table, with her eyes closed. That gave her quick brain a chance. It
+      was madness, June madness. She was always seeing him even in her dreams.
+      This man was older, much older. She looked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had not been mistaken. Here, and after all these months! K. Le Moyne,
+      quite unconscious of her presence, looked down into the valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson appeared on the wooden porch above the terrace, and stood, his eyes
+      searching the half light for her. If he came down to her, the man at the
+      next table might turn, would see her&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose and went swiftly back toward the hotel. All the gayety was gone
+      out of the evening for her, but she forced a lightness she did not feel:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so dark and depressing out there&mdash;it makes me sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you do not want to dine in the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you wish. This is your evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was not pleased. The prospect of the glaring lights and soiled
+      linen of the dining-room jarred on his aesthetic sense. He wanted a
+      setting for himself, for the girl. Environment was vital to him. But when,
+      in the full light of the moon, he saw the purplish shadows under her eyes,
+      he forgot his resentment. She had had a hard day. She was tired. His easy
+      sympathies were roused. He leaned over and ran his and caressingly along
+      her bare forearm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wish is my law&mdash;to-night,&rdquo; he said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, the evening was a disappointment to him. The spontaneity had
+      gone out of it, for some reason. The girl who had thrilled to his glance
+      those two mornings in his office, whose somber eyes had met his fire for
+      fire, across the operating-room, was not playing up. She sat back in her
+      chair, eating little, starting at every step. Her eyes, which by every
+      rule of the game should have been gazing into his, were fixed on the
+      oilcloth-covered passage outside the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, after all, you are frightened!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Terribly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little danger adds to the zest of things. You know what Nietzsche says
+      about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not fond of Nietzsche.&rdquo; Then, with an effort: &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two things are wanted by the true man&mdash;danger and play. Therefore he
+      seeketh woman as the most dangerous of toys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women are dangerous only when you think of them as toys. When a man finds
+      that a woman can reason,&mdash;do anything but feel,&mdash;he regards her
+      as a menace. But the reasoning woman is really less dangerous than the
+      other sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was more like the real thing. To talk careful abstractions like this,
+      with beneath each abstraction its concealed personal application, to talk
+      of woman and look in her eyes, to discuss new philosophies with their
+      freedoms, to discard old creeds and old moralities&mdash;that was his
+      game. Wilson became content, interested again. The girl was nimble-minded.
+      She challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to defend it. With the
+      conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and his companion must
+      surely have gone, she gained ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten
+      o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself. He had had the
+      rest he needed in congenial company. The girl stimulated his interest. She
+      was mental, but not too mental. And he approved of his own attitude. He
+      had been discreet. Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But he
+      felt confident that she would not talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney was
+      there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and looked up
+      at her. Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness. Sidney was a mighty
+      pretty girl. The June night was in his blood. He was sorry he had not
+      kissed Carlotta good-night. He rather thought, now he looked back, she had
+      expected it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing in
+      the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you, Joe?&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the boy went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine
+      was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K. in
+      the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night before
+      she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her mother until
+      the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her &ldquo;Daily Thoughts&rdquo;
+       reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant angle.
+      She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its
+      morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the
+      Wilson house across the Street. She looked mostly at the Wilson house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room. She could hear him tramping up and
+      down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier
+      pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up&mdash;except Joe.
+      She would have liked to get that clear, too. She wanted him to know how
+      she felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did
+      not want to hurt him. But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew
+      now that she would never marry him. She thought she would never marry;
+      but, if she did, it would be a man doing a man's work in the world. Her
+      eyes turned wistfully to the house across the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K.'s lamp still burned overhead, but his restless tramping about had
+      ceased. He must be reading&mdash;he read a great deal. She really ought to
+      go to bed. A neighborhood cat came stealthily across the Street, and
+      stared up at the little balcony with green-glowing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Bill Taft,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Reginald is gone, so you are welcome.
+      Come on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe Drummond, passing the house for the fourth time that evening, heard
+      her voice, and hesitated uncertainly on the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you, Sid?&rdquo; he called softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joe! Come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's late; I'd better get home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The misery in his voice hurt her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not keep you long. I want to talk to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He came slowly toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not very kind to me, Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; said poor Joe. &ldquo;Kind to you! Isn't the kindest thing I can do to
+      keep out of your way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you are hating me all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't hate you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why haven't you been to see me? If I have done anything&mdash;&rdquo; Her
+      voice was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't done anything but&mdash;show me where I get off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that's the way you feel about it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not blaming you. I was a fool to think you'd ever care about me. I
+      don't know that I feel so bad&mdash;about the thing. I've been around
+      seeing some other girls, and I notice they're glad to see me, and treat me
+      right, too.&rdquo; There was boyish bravado in his voice. &ldquo;But what makes me
+      sick is to have everyone saying you've jilted me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious! Why, Joe, I never promised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we look at it in different ways; that's all. I took it for a
+      promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled. He bent
+      forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm crazy about you, Sidney. That's the truth. I wish I could die!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and rubbed
+      against the boy's quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked the
+      morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney, facing for
+      the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather frightened, in
+      her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it, all right. If it wasn't for the folks, I'd jump in the river.
+      I lied when I said I'd been to see other girls. What do I want with other
+      girls? I want you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not worth all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No girl's worth what I've been going through,&rdquo; he retorted bitterly. &ldquo;But
+      that doesn't help any. I don't eat; I don't sleep&mdash;I'm afraid
+      sometimes of the way I feel. When I saw you at the White Springs with that
+      roomer chap&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! You were there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I'd had a gun I'd have killed him. I thought&mdash;&rdquo; So far, out of
+      sheer pity, she had left her hand in his. Now she drew it away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is wild, silly talk. You'll be sorry to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the truth,&rdquo; doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he made a clutch at his self-respect. He was acting like a crazy boy,
+      and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When are you going to the hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that Wilson's hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas for his resolve! The red haze of jealousy came again. &ldquo;You'll be
+      seeing him every day, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and a
+      hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you're not
+      rational.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said heavily, &ldquo;I'm not. If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd
+      rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk
+      about Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't necessary to malign my friends.&rdquo; He rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep
+      Reginald. He'd be something to remember you by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the
+      country. I'm sorry, Joe. You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I do, do you think you may change your mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the better.&rdquo;
+       But his next words belied his intention. &ldquo;And Wilson had better lookout.
+      I'll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around you&mdash;well,
+      he'd better look out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell. He had reached the
+      breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out
+      to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact
+      that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want it&mdash;this
+      strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride and threats.
+      Lovers in fiction were of two classes&mdash;the accepted ones, who loved
+      and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in despair,
+      but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future with Joe always
+      around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt aggrieved, insulted.
+      She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously; and then, being human
+      and much upset, and the cat startling her by its sudden return and selfish
+      advances, she shooed it off the veranda and set an imaginary dog after it.
+      Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she went in and locked the balcony
+      window and proceeded upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne's light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She
+      paused outside the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sleepy?&rdquo;&mdash;very softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: &ldquo;No,
+      indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray coat.
+      The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you had forgotten!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Certainly not. I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a
+      visitor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only Joe Drummond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gazed down at her quizzically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;is Joe more reasonable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will be. He knows now that I&mdash;that I shall not marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor chap! He'll buck up, of course. But it's a little hard just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you think I should have married him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am only putting myself in his place and realizing&mdash;When do you
+      leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just after breakfast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going very early. Perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated. Then, hurriedly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got a little present for you&mdash;nothing much, but your mother was
+      quite willing. In fact, we bought it together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went back into his room, and returned with a small box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all sorts of good luck,&rdquo; he said, and placed it in her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dear of you! And may I look now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you would. Because, if you would rather have something else&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She opened the box with excited fingers. Ticking away on its satin bed was
+      a small gold watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll need it, you see,&rdquo; he explained nervously, &ldquo;It wasn't extravagant
+      under the circumstances. Your mother's watch, which you had intended to
+      take, had no second-hand. You'll need a second-hand to take pulses, you
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A watch,&rdquo; said Sidney, eyes on it. &ldquo;A dear little watch, to pin on and
+      not put in a pocket. Why, you're the best person!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid you might think it presumptuous,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I haven't any
+      right, of course. I thought of flowers&mdash;but they fade and what have
+      you? You said that, you know, about Joe's roses. And then, your mother
+      said you wouldn't be offended&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't apologize for making me so happy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It's wonderful,
+      really. And the little hand is for pulses! How many queer things you
+      know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that she must pin it on, and slip in to stand before his mirror and
+      inspect the result. It gave Le Moyne a queer thrill to see her there in
+      the room among his books and his pipes. It make him a little sick, too, in
+      view of to-morrow and the thousand-odd to-morrows when she would not be
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've kept you up shamefully,'&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;and you get up so
+      early. I shall write you a note from the hospital, delivering a little
+      lecture on extravagance&mdash;because how can I now, with this joy shining
+      on me? And about how to keep Katie in order about your socks, and all
+      sorts of things. And&mdash;and now, good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping a little to pass
+      under the low chandelier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night,&rdquo; said Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye&mdash;and God bless you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went out, and he closed the door softly behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they
+      were chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young women coming and
+      going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets
+      with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of
+      sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There
+      were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with
+      friendly, patronizing glances. There were bandages and dressings, and
+      great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths
+      or deaths, as the case might be. And over all brooded the mysterious
+      authority of the superintendent of the training-school, dubbed the Head,
+      for short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission,
+      Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept and dusted the
+      wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled bandages&mdash;did
+      everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had come to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At night she did not go home. She sat on the edge of her narrow white bed
+      and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, and practiced
+      taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s little watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to be waited
+      for and cherished. One was when, early in the afternoon, with the ward in
+      spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, the tables
+      covered with their red covers, and the only sound the drone of the
+      bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the door on
+      his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery greeting. At
+      these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the ticking of the
+      little watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night
+      nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys,
+      having reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in
+      their small parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over the
+      exaltation of that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her
+      healing and peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work
+      meant: charity and its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace.
+      Into the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord is my shepherd,&rdquo; read the Head out of her worn Bible; &ldquo;I shall
+      not want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the nurses: &ldquo;He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me
+      beside the still waters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, &ldquo;And I will dwell
+      in the house of the Lord forever.&rdquo; Now and then there was a death behind
+      one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routine of the
+      ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by the
+      others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on the
+      record, and the body was taken away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to
+      death. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Then she
+      found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned. These
+      things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy made them no
+      less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the angels who
+      keep the Great Record.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and went to
+      church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service. So
+      it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it was only for
+      a short time. Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, and to inspect
+      the balcony, now finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a change in Sidney. Le Moyne was quick to see it. She was a
+      trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Her mouth was
+      tender, as always, but he thought it drooped. There was a new atmosphere
+      of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk
+      shade, and its small nude Eve&mdash;which Anna kept because it had been a
+      gift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister, so
+      that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above the
+      reverend gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the
+      pipe in his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how have things been going?&rdquo; asked Sidney practically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,
+      has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have picked
+      out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask you about
+      the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new fashion of
+      draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making an
+      old woman of you already.&rdquo; Her tone was tragic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the
+      old way, with the bride's face covered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Katie has a new prescription&mdash;recipe&mdash;for bread. It has more
+      bread and fewer air-holes. One cake of yeast&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sprang to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's perfectly terrible!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Because you rent a room in this
+      house is no reason why you should give up your personality and your&mdash;intelligence.
+      Not but that it's good for you. But Katie has made bread without masculine
+      assistance for a good many years, and if Christine can't decide about her
+      own veil she'd better not get married. Mother says you water the flowers
+      every evening, and lock up the house before you go to bed. I&mdash;I never
+      meant you to adopt the family!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And the groceryman
+      has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, and weigh
+      everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are evading the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For&mdash;for
+      some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I lock
+      up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a
+      suggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older than
+      she had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white. And yet, he
+      was just thirty. That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like a boy.
+      But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of his
+      occupancy of the second-floor front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; he said cheerfully, &ldquo;what about yourself? You've lost a lot of
+      illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's a step.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life,&rdquo; observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world,
+      &ldquo;life is a terrible thing, K. We think we've got it, and&mdash;it's got
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I think of how simple I used to think it all was! One grew up and
+      got married, and&mdash;and perhaps had children. And when one got very
+      old, one died. Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists of
+      exceptions&mdash;children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die before
+      they are old. And&rdquo;&mdash;this took an effort, but she looked at him
+      squarely&mdash;&ldquo;and people who have children, but are not married. It all
+      rather hurts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiar
+      objects with tender hands. K. watched her. There was this curious element
+      in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on the guise of
+      friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonely hours that
+      it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch of her hand or
+      a glance from her clear eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently, so
+      that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is something else,&rdquo; she said absently. &ldquo;I cannot talk it over with
+      mother. There is a girl in the ward&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A patient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. She is quite pretty. She has had typhoid, but she is a little
+      better. She's&mdash;not a good person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At first I couldn't bear to go near her. I shivered when I had to
+      straighten her bed. I&mdash;I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk
+      this out with someone. I worried a lot about it, because, although at
+      first I hated her, now I don't. I rather like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this is the question. She's getting better. She'll be able to go
+      out soon. Don't you think something ought to be done to keep her from&mdash;going
+      back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now. She was so young to face all this;
+      and yet, since face it she must, how much better to have her do it
+      squarely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she want to change her mode of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, of course. There are some things one doesn't discuss. She
+      cares a great deal for some man. The other day I propped her up in bed and
+      gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on the floor,
+      and she was crying. The other patients avoid her, and it was some time
+      before I noticed it. The next day she told me that the man was going to
+      marry some one else. 'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' she said; 'but he
+      might have told me.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provide
+      Sidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training. He told her
+      that certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reform the
+      world. Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Help them all you can,&rdquo; he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly
+      didactic. &ldquo;Cure them; send them out with a smile; and&mdash;leave the rest
+      to the Almighty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of the world,
+      she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christine and her
+      fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time for a question
+      between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress from the
+      kitchen to the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?&rdquo; His tone was
+      carefully casual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. It
+      makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the
+      staff never even see the probationers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;the glamour persists?&rdquo; He smiled down at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he is very wonderful,&rdquo; said Sidney valiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Her
+      voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide and
+      showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her
+      all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who had
+      met her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked a
+      cigarette in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You poor thing!&rdquo; said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's.
+      &ldquo;Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of it all;
+      but I said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take that back,&rdquo; Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. &ldquo;There is
+      the look of willing martyrdom in her face. Where is Reginald? I've brought
+      some nuts for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reginald is back in the woods again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, look here,&rdquo; he said solemnly. &ldquo;When we arranged about these rooms,
+      there were certain properties that went with them&mdash;the lady next door
+      who plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and
+      Reginald. If you must take something to the woods, why not the minuet
+      person?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively well
+      dressed. This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, with an
+      English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture. The Street
+      said that he was &ldquo;wild,&rdquo; and that to get into the Country Club set
+      Christine was losing more than she was gaining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. just
+      inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's rather a queer way to live, of course,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But Palmer is a
+      pauper, practically. We are going to take our meals at home for a while.
+      You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house&mdash;a
+      car, for instance. We'll need one for running out to the Country Club to
+      dinner. Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, it
+      will be a cheap one. And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it. He's
+      crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had never known a married couple to take two rooms and go to the
+      bride's mother's for meals in order to keep a car. He looked faintly
+      dazed. Also, certain sophistries of his former world about a cheap
+      chauffeur being costly in the end rose in his mind and were carefully
+      suppressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll find a car a great comfort, I'm sure,&rdquo; he said politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine considered K. rather distinguished. She liked his graying hair
+      and steady eyes, and insisted on considering his shabbiness a pose. She
+      was conscious that she made a pretty picture in the French window, and
+      preened herself like a bright bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll come out with us now and then, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it odd to think that we are going to be practically one family!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd, but very pleasant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught the flash of Christine's smile, and smiled back. Christine was
+      glad she had decided to take the rooms, glad that K. lived there. This
+      thing of marriage being the end of all things was absurd. A married woman
+      should have men friends; they kept her up. She would take him to the
+      Country Club. The women would be mad to know him. How clean-cut his
+      profile was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the Street, the Rosenfeld boy had stopped by Dr. Wilson's car, and
+      was eyeing it with the cool, appraising glance of the street boy whose
+      sole knowledge of machinery has been acquired from the clothes-washer at
+      home. Joe Drummond, eyes carefully ahead, went up the Street. Tillie, at
+      Mrs. McKee's, stood in the doorway and fanned herself with her apron. Max
+      Wilson came out of the house and got into his car. For a minute, perhaps,
+      all the actors, save Carlotta and Dr. Ed, were on the stage. It was that
+      bete noir of the playwright, an ensemble; K. Le Moyne and Sidney, Palmer
+      Howe, Christine, Tillie, the younger Wilson, Joe, even young Rosenfeld,
+      all within speaking distance, almost touching distance, gathered within
+      and about the little house on a side street which K. at first grimly and
+      now tenderly called &ldquo;home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over, a
+      small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee, made
+      his way along the Street. He moved with the air of one having a definite
+      destination but a by no means definite reception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus and
+      maple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street. At the
+      door of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped. Owing to a slight change
+      in the grade of the street, the McKee house had no stoop, but one flat
+      doorstep. Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement, and
+      this the stranger did. It gave him a curious appearance of being ready to
+      cut and run if things were unfavorable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment things were indeed unfavorable. Mrs. McKee herself opened the
+      door. She recognized him at once, but no smile met the nervous one that
+      formed itself on the stranger's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's you, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's me, Mrs. McKee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a conciliatory effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking, as I came along,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you and the neighbors
+      had better get after these here caterpillars. Look at them maples, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you want to see Tillie, she's busy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only want to say how-d 'ye-do. I'm just on my way through town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll say it for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain doggedness took the place of his tentative smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll say it to myself, I guess. I don't want any unpleasantness, but I've
+      come a good ways to see her and I'll hang around until I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee knew herself routed, and retreated to the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wanted out front,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind. Only, my advice to you is, don't be a fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie went suddenly pale. The hands with which she tied a white apron
+      over her gingham one were shaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her visitor had accepted the open door as permission to enter and was
+      standing in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went rather white himself when he saw Tillie coming toward him down the
+      hall. He knew that for Tillie this visit would mean that he was free&mdash;and
+      he was not free. Sheer terror of his errand filled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here I am, Tillie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All dressed up and highly perfumed!&rdquo; said poor Tillie, with the question
+      in her eyes. &ldquo;You're quite a stranger, Mr. Schwitter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was passing through, and I just thought I'd call around and tell you&mdash;My
+      God, Tillie, I'm glad to see you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no reply, but opened the door into the cool and shaded little
+      parlor. He followed her in and closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't help it. I know I promised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's still living. Playing with paper dolls&mdash;that's the latest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie sat down suddenly on one of the stiff chairs. Her lips were as
+      white as her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought, when I saw you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid you'd think that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither spoke for a moment. Tillie's hands twisted nervously in her lap.
+      Mr. Schwitter's eyes were fixed on the window, which looked back on the
+      McKee yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That spiraea back there's not looking very good. If you'll save the cigar
+      butts around here and put them in water, and spray it, you'll kill the
+      lice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie found speech at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know why you come around bothering me,&rdquo; she said dully. &ldquo;I've
+      been getting along all right; now you come and upset everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Schwitter rose and took a step toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll tell you why I came. Look at me. I ain't getting any younger,
+      am I? Time's going on, and I'm wanting you all the time. And what am I
+      getting? What've I got out of life, anyhow? I'm lonely, Tillie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that got to do with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're lonely, too, ain't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me? I haven't got time to be. And, anyhow, there's always a crowd here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can be lonely in a crowd, and I guess&mdash;is there any one around
+      here you like better than me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what's the use!&rdquo; cried poor Tillie. &ldquo;We can talk our heads off and
+      not get anywhere. You've got a wife living, and, unless you intend to do
+      away with her, I guess that's all there is to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all, Tillie? Haven't you got a right to be happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was quick of wit, and she read his tone as well as his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get out of here&mdash;and get out quick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had jumped to her feet; but he only looked at her with understanding
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That's the way I thought of it at first. Maybe I've
+      just got used to the idea, but it doesn't seem so bad to me now. Here are
+      you, drudging for other people when you ought to have a place all your own&mdash;and
+      not gettin' younger any more than I am. Here's both of us lonely. I'd be a
+      good husband to you, Till&mdash;because, whatever it'd be in law, I'd be
+      your husband before God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie cowered against the door, her eyes on his. Here before her,
+      embodied in this man, stood all that she had wanted and never had. He
+      meant a home, tenderness, children, perhaps. He turned away from the look
+      in her eyes and stared out of the front window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Them poplars out there ought to be taken away,&rdquo; he said heavily. &ldquo;They're
+      hell on sewers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie found her voice at last:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't do it, Mr. Schwitter. I guess I'm a coward. Maybe I'll be
+      sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps, if you got used to the idea&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that to do with the right and wrong of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe I'm queer. It don't seem like wrongdoing to me. It seems to me that
+      the Lord would make an exception of us if He knew the circumstances.
+      Perhaps, after you get used to the idea&mdash;What I thought was like
+      this. I've got a little farm about seven miles from the city limits, and
+      the tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebody motors out from
+      town and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper. There ain't much in the
+      nursery business anymore. These landscape fellows buy their stuff direct,
+      and the middleman's out. I've got a good orchard, and there's a spring, so
+      I could put running water in the house. I'd be good to you, Tillie,&mdash;I
+      swear it. It'd be just the same as marriage. Nobody need know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd know it. You wouldn't respect me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't a man respect a woman that's got courage enough to give up
+      everything for him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie was crying softly into her apron. He put a work-hardened hand on
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't as if I'd run around after women,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You're the only
+      one, since Maggie&mdash;&rdquo; He drew a long breath. &ldquo;I'll give you time to
+      think it over. Suppose I stop in to-morrow morning. It doesn't commit you
+      to anything to talk it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been no passion in the interview, and there was none in the
+      touch of his hand. He was not young, and the tragic loneliness of
+      approaching old age confronted him. He was trying to solve his problem and
+      Tillie's, and what he had found was no solution, but a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow morning, then,&rdquo; he said quietly, and went out the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that hot August morning Tillie worked in a daze. Mrs. McKee watched
+      her and said nothing. She interpreted the girl's white face and set lips
+      as the result of having had to dismiss Schwitter again, and looked for
+      time to bring peace, as it had done before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne came late to his midday meal. For once, the mental anaesthesia of
+      endless figures had failed him. On his way home he had drawn his small
+      savings from the bank, and mailed them, in cash and registered, to a back
+      street in the slums of a distant city. He had done this before, and always
+      with a feeling of exaltation, as if, for a time at least, the burden he
+      carried was lightened. But to-day he experienced no compensatory relief.
+      Life was dull and stale to him, effort ineffectual. At thirty a man should
+      look back with tenderness, forward with hope. K. Le Moyne dared not look
+      back, and had no desire to look ahead into empty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although he ate little, the dining-room was empty when he finished.
+      Usually he had some cheerful banter for Tillie, to which she responded in
+      kind. But, what with the heat and with heaviness of spirit, he did not
+      notice her depression until he rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you're not sick, are you, Tillie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me? Oh, no. Low in my mind, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the heat. It's fearful. Look here. If I send you two tickets to a
+      roof garden where there's a variety show, can't you take a friend and go
+      to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks; I guess I'll not go out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, unexpectedly, she bent her head against a chair-back and fell to
+      silent crying. K. let her cry for a moment. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&mdash;tell me about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm just worried; that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see if we can't fix up the worries. Come, now, out with them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a wicked woman, Mr. Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'm the person to tell it to. I&mdash;I'm pretty much a lost soul
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put an arm over her shoulders and drew her up, facing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose we go into the parlor and talk it out. I'll bet things are not as
+      bad as you imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when, in the parlor that had seen Mr. Schwitter's strange proposal of
+      the morning, Tillie poured out her story, K.'s face grew grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wicked part is that I want to go with him,&rdquo; she finished. &ldquo;I keep
+      thinking about being out in the country, and him coming into supper, and
+      everything nice for him and me cleaned up and waiting&mdash;O my God! I've
+      always been a good woman until now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I understand a great deal better than you think I do. You're not
+      wicked. The only thing is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on. Hit me with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might go on and be very happy. And as for the&mdash;for his wife, it
+      won't do her any harm. It's only&mdash;if there are children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot give them a
+      name&mdash;don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that I&mdash;But
+      no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been tried before,
+      Tillie, and it doesn't pan out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. She had
+      acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised to talk
+      to him again before making a decision one way or the other. But against
+      his abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in Tillie the
+      hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were fighting
+      against the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losing battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The hot August days dragged on. Merciless sunlight beat in through the
+      slatted shutters of ward windows. At night, from the roof to which the
+      nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding roofs
+      were seen to be covered with sleepers. Children dozed precariously on the
+      edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque postures of
+      sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air. Even the nurses,
+      stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not at all. Miss
+      Dana, in Sidney's ward, went down with a low fever, and for a day or so
+      Sidney and Miss Grange got along as best they could. Sidney worked like
+      two or more, performed marvels of bed-making, learned to give alcohol
+      baths for fever with the maximum of result and the minimum of time, even
+      made rounds with a member of the staff and came through creditably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed Wilson had sent a woman patient into the ward, and his visits were
+      the breath of life to the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How're they treating you?&rdquo; he asked her, one day, abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at me squarely. You're pretty and you're young. Some of them will
+      try to take it out of you. That's human nature. Has anyone tried it yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney looked distressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Positively, no. It's been hot, and of course it's troublesome to tell me
+      everything. I&mdash;I think they're all very kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached out a square, competent hand, and put it over hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We miss you in the Street,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It's all sort of dead there since
+      you left. Joe Drummond doesn't moon up and down any more, for one thing.
+      What was wrong between you and Joe, Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't want to marry him; that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's considerable. The boy's taking it hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, seeing her face:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're right, of course. Don't marry anyone unless you can't live
+      without him. That's been my motto, and here I am, still single.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went out and down the corridor. He had known Sidney all his life.
+      During the lonely times when Max was at college and in Europe, he had
+      watched her grow from a child to a young girl. He did not suspect for a
+      moment that in that secret heart of hers he sat newly enthroned, in a glow
+      of white light, as Max's brother; that the mere thought that he lived in
+      Max's house (it was, of course Max's house to her), sat at Max's breakfast
+      table, could see him whenever he wished, made the touch of his hand on
+      hers a benediction and a caress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney finished folding linen and went back to the ward. It was Friday and
+      a visiting day. Almost every bed had its visitor beside it; but Sidney,
+      running an eye over the ward, found the girl of whom she had spoken to Le
+      Moyne quite alone. She was propped up in bed, reading; but at each new
+      step in the corridor hope would spring into her eyes and die again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Want anything, Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me? I'm all right. If these people would only get out and let me read in
+      peace&mdash;Say, sit down and talk to me, won't you? It beats the mischief
+      the way your friends forget you when you're laid up in a place like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People can't always come at visiting hours. Besides, it's hot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A girl I knew was sick here last year, and it wasn't too hot for me to
+      trot in twice a week with a bunch of flowers for her. Do you think she's
+      been here once? She hasn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, suddenly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that man I told you about the other day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney nodded. The girl's anxious eyes were on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a shock to me, that's all. I didn't want you to think I'd break my
+      heart over any fellow. All I meant was, I wished he'd let me know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes searched Sidney's. They looked unnaturally large and somber in
+      her face. Her hair had been cut short, and her nightgown, open at the
+      neck, showed her thin throat and prominent clavicles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're from the city, aren't you, Miss Page?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me the street, but I've forgotten it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under
+      the girl's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your
+      street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married. Was
+      the name Lorenz?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The girl's name was Lorenz. I&mdash;I don't remember the man's name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is going to marry a Mr. Howe,&rdquo; said Sidney briskly. &ldquo;Now, how do you
+      feel? More comfy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine! I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her
+      reports. On one record, which said at the top, &ldquo;Grace Irving, age 19,&rdquo; and
+      an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night nurse
+      wrote:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but
+      complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next
+      morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney a
+      curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the
+      thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who
+      had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself by
+      change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once she ventured a protest:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is wrong,
+      show me what you want, and I'll do my best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not
+      speak back when you are spoken to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position in the
+      ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small humiliations
+      were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and often unnecessary
+      tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place, remonstrated with
+      her senior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer,&rdquo; she
+      said, &ldquo;but you are brutal, Miss Harrison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's not at all stupid. She's going to be one of the best nurses in the
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Report me, then. Tell the Head I'm abusing Dr. Wilson's pet probationer,
+      that I don't always say 'please' when I ask her to change a bed or take a
+      temperature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness. She did not go to the Head,
+      which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread
+      through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous of
+      the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson's protegee. Things were still highly
+      unpleasant in the ward, but they grew much better when Sidney was off
+      duty. She was asked to join a small class that was studying French at
+      night. As ignorant of the cause of her popularity as of the reason of her
+      persecution, she went steadily on her way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she was gaining every day. Her mind was forming. She was learning to
+      think for herself. For the first time, she was facing problems and
+      demanding an answer. Why must there be Grace Irvings in the world? Why
+      must the healthy babies of the obstetric ward go out to the slums and come
+      back, in months or years, crippled for the great fight by the handicap of
+      their environment, rickety, tuberculous, twisted? Why need the huge mills
+      feed the hospitals daily with injured men?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there were other things that she thought of. Every night, on her knees
+      in the nurses' parlor at prayers, she promised, if she were accepted as a
+      nurse, to try never to become calloused, never to regard her patients as
+      &ldquo;cases,&rdquo; never to allow the cleanliness and routine of her ward to delay a
+      cup of water to the thirsty, or her arms to a sick child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole, the world was good, she found. And, of all the good things
+      in it, the best was service. True, there were hot days and restless
+      nights, weary feet, and now and then a heartache. There was Miss Harrison,
+      too. But to offset these there was the sound of Dr. Max's step in the
+      corridor, and his smiling nod from the door; there was a &ldquo;God bless you&rdquo;
+       now and then for the comfort she gave; there were wonderful nights on the
+      roof under the stars, until K.'s little watch warned her to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Sidney watched the stars from her hospital roof, while all around
+      her the slum children, on other roofs, fought for the very breath of life,
+      others who knew and loved her watched the stars, too. K. was having his
+      own troubles in those days. Late at night, when Anna and Harriet had
+      retired, he sat on the balcony and thought of many things. Anna Page was
+      not well. He had noticed that her lips were rather blue, and had called in
+      Dr. Ed. It was valvular heart disease. Anna was not to be told, or Sidney.
+      It was Harriet's ruling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney can't help any,&rdquo; said Harriet, &ldquo;and for Heaven's sake let her have
+      her chance. Anna may live for years. You know her as well as I do. If you
+      tell her anything at all, she'll have Sidney here, waiting on her hand and
+      foot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Le Moyne, fearful of urging too much because his own heart was crying
+      out to have the girl back, assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, K. was anxious about Joe. The boy did not seem to get over the thing
+      the way he should. Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit of
+      wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country. On one such
+      night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with his head down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe had not wanted his company, had plainly sulked. But Le Moyne had
+      persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not talk,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but, since we're going the same way, we might
+      as well walk together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But after a time Joe had talked, after all. It was not much at first&mdash;a
+      feverish complaint about the heat, and that if there was trouble in Mexico
+      he thought he'd go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait until fall, if you're thinking of it,&rdquo; K. advised. &ldquo;This is tepid
+      compared with what you'll get down there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got to get away from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. nodded understandingly. Since the scene at the White Springs Hotel,
+      both knew that no explanation was necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't so much that I mind her turning me down,&rdquo; Joe said, after a
+      silence. &ldquo;A girl can't marry all the men who want her. But I don't like
+      this hospital idea. I don't understand it. She didn't have to go.
+      Sometimes&rdquo;&mdash;he turned bloodshot eyes on Le Moyne&mdash;&ldquo;I think she
+      went because she was crazy about somebody there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went because she wanted to be useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She could be useful at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For almost twenty minutes they tramped on without speech. They had made a
+      circle, and the lights of the city were close again. K. stopped and put a
+      kindly hand on Joe's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man's got to stand up under a thing like this, you know. I mean, it
+      mustn't be a knockout. Keeping busy is a darned good method.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe shook himself free, but without resentment. &ldquo;I'll tell you what's
+      eating me up,&rdquo; he exploded. &ldquo;It's Max Wilson. Don't talk to me about her
+      going to the hospital to be useful. She's crazy about him, and he's as
+      crooked as a dog's hind leg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps. But it's always up to the girl. You know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt immeasurably old beside Joe's boyish blustering&mdash;old and
+      rather helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm watching him. Some of these days I'll get something on him. Then
+      she'll know what to think of her hero!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not quite square, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's not square.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe had left him then, wheeling abruptly off into the shadows. K. had gone
+      home alone, rather uneasy. There seemed to be mischief in the very air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tillie was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet
+      Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored
+      maid had announced a visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms
+      in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor
+      store. Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on
+      commission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of a
+      new heaven and a new earth. Here, at last, she found people speaking her
+      own language. She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found it
+      greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with
+      approval and some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About once in ten years,&rdquo; said Mr. Arthurs, &ldquo;we have a woman from out of
+      town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical. When we find
+      people like that, we watch them. They climb, madame,&mdash;climb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business was
+      coming. The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars for an
+      evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of water.
+      Her throat was parched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who can
+      pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered good
+      form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high they
+      may be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales&mdash;no woman
+      over thirty but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft
+      lights. And Harriet herself conformed to the picture. She took a lesson
+      from the New York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns. She strapped
+      her thin figure into the best corset she could get, and had her black hair
+      marcelled and dressed high. And, because she was a lady by birth and
+      instinct, the result was not incongruous, but refined and rather
+      impressive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and
+      wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky. She
+      wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her
+      hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the
+      penalties she paid. Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in the
+      work-room she kicked them off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress. Tillie was rather
+      overwhelmed at first. The Street had always considered Harriet &ldquo;proud.&rdquo;
+       But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Tillie!&rdquo; said Harriet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes'm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie sat. She was not daunted now. While she worked at the fingers of
+      her silk gloves, what Harriet took for nervousness was pure abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very nice of you to come to see me. Do you like my rooms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie surveyed the rooms, and Harriet caught her first full view of her
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything wrong? Have you left Mrs. McKee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so. I came to talk to you about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Harriet's turn to be overwhelmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's very fond of you. If you have had any words&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not that. I'm just leaving. I'd like to talk to you, if you don't
+      mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie hitched her chair closer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm up against something, and I can't seem to make up my mind. Last night
+      I said to myself, 'I've got to talk to some woman who's not married, like
+      me, and not as young as she used to be. There's no use going to Mrs.
+      McKee: she's a widow, and wouldn't understand.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet's voice was a trifle sharp as she replied. She never lied about
+      her age, but she preferred to forget it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you'd tell me what you're getting at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't the sort of thing to come to too sudden. But it's like this. You
+      and I can pretend all we like, Miss Harriet; but we're not getting all out
+      of life that the Lord meant us to have. You've got them wax figures
+      instead of children, and I have mealers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little spot of color came into Harriet's cheek. But she was interested.
+      Regardless of the corset, she bent forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe that's true. Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm almost forty. Ten years more at the most, and I'm through. I'm
+      slowing up. Can't get around the tables as I used to. Why, yesterday I put
+      sugar into Mr. Le Moyne's coffee&mdash;well, never mind about that. Now
+      I've got a chance to get a home, with a good man to look after me&mdash;I
+      like him pretty well, and he thinks a lot of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy sake, Tillie! You are going to get married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No'm,&rdquo; said Tillie; &ldquo;that's it.&rdquo; And sat silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gray curtains with their pink cording swung gently in the open
+      windows. From the work-room came the distant hum of a sewing-machine and
+      the sound of voices. Harriet sat with her hands in her lap and listened
+      while Tillie poured out her story. The gates were down now. She told it
+      all, consistently and with unconscious pathos: her little room under the
+      roof at Mrs. McKee's, and the house in the country; her loneliness, and
+      the loneliness of the man; even the faint stirrings of potential
+      motherhood, her empty arms, her advancing age&mdash;all this she knit into
+      the fabric of her story and laid at Harriet's feet, as the ancients put
+      their questions to their gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet was deeply moved. Too much that Tillie poured out to her found an
+      echo in her own breast. What was this thing she was striving for but a
+      substitute for the real things of life&mdash;love and tenderness,
+      children, a home of her own? Quite suddenly she loathed the gray carpet on
+      the floor, the pink chairs, the shaded lamps. Tillie was no longer the
+      waitress at a cheap boarding-house. She loomed large, potential,
+      courageous, a woman who held life in her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you go to Mrs. Rosenfeld? She's your aunt, isn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She thinks any woman's a fool to take up with a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're giving me a terrible responsibility, Tillie, if you're asking my
+      advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No'm. I'm asking what you'd do if it happened to you. Suppose you had no
+      people that cared anything about you, nobody to disgrace, and all your
+      life nobody had really cared anything about you. And then a chance like
+      this came along. What would you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said poor Harriet. &ldquo;It seems to me&mdash;I'm afraid I'd be
+      tempted. It does seem as if a woman had the right to be happy, even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her own words frightened her. It was as if some hidden self, and not she,
+      had spoken. She hastened to point out the other side of the matter, the
+      insecurity of it, the disgrace. Like K., she insisted that no right can be
+      built out of a wrong. Tillie sat and smoothed her gloves. At last, when
+      Harriet paused in sheer panic, the girl rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know how you feel, and I don't want you to take the responsibility of
+      advising me,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;I guess my mind was made up anyhow. But
+      before I did it I just wanted to be sure that a decent woman would think
+      the way I do about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, for a time, Tillie went out of the life of the Street as she went
+      out of Harriet's handsome rooms, quietly, unobtrusively, with calm purpose
+      in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other changes in the Street. The Lorenz house was being painted
+      for Christine's wedding. Johnny Rosenfeld, not perhaps of the Street
+      itself, but certainly pertaining to it, was learning to drive Palmer
+      Howe's new car, in mingled agony and bliss. He walked along the Street,
+      not &ldquo;right foot, left foot,&rdquo; but &ldquo;brake foot, clutch foot,&rdquo; and took to
+      calling off the vintage of passing cars. &ldquo;So-and-So 1910,&rdquo; he would say,
+      with contempt in his voice. He spent more than he could afford on a large
+      streamer, meant to be fastened across the rear of the automobile, which
+      said, &ldquo;Excuse our dust,&rdquo; and was inconsolable when Palmer refused to let
+      him use it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had yielded to Anna's insistence, and was boarding as well as rooming
+      at the Page house. The Street, rather snobbish to its occasional floating
+      population, was accepting and liking him. It found him tender, infinitely
+      human. And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy into which he
+      had drifted was teeming with life. He busied himself with small things,
+      and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair. When he found
+      himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball club, and sent down to
+      everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of cash-boys from Linden and
+      Hofburg's department store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rosenfelds adored him, with the single exception of the head of the
+      family. The elder Rosenfeld having been &ldquo;sent up,&rdquo; it was K. who
+      discovered that by having him consigned to the workhouse his family would
+      receive from the county some sixty-five cents a day for his labor. As this
+      was exactly sixty-five cents a day more than he was worth to them free,
+      Mrs. Rosenfeld voiced the pious hope that he be kept there forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. made no further attempt to avoid Max Wilson. Some day they would meet
+      face to face. He hoped, when it happened, they two might be alone; that
+      was all. Even had he not been bound by his promise to Sidney, flight would
+      have been foolish. The world was a small place, and, one way and another,
+      he had known many people. Wherever he went, there would be the same
+      chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he did not deceive himself. Other things being equal,&mdash;the eddy
+      and all that it meant&mdash;, he would not willingly take himself out of
+      his small share of Sidney's life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was never to know what she meant to him, of course. He had scourged
+      his heart until it no longer shone in his eyes when he looked at her. But
+      he was very human&mdash;not at all meek. There were plenty of days when
+      his philosophy lay in the dust and savage dogs of jealousy tore at it;
+      more than one evening when he threw himself face downward on the bed and
+      lay without moving for hours. And of these periods of despair he was
+      always heartily ashamed the next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting with Max Wilson took place early in September, and under
+      better circumstances than he could have hoped for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had come home for her weekly visit, and her mother's condition had
+      alarmed her for the first time. When Le Moyne came home at six o'clock, he
+      found her waiting for him in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am just a little frightened, K.,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you think mother is
+      looking quite well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has felt the heat, of course. The summer&mdash;I often think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her lips are blue!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's probably nothing serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says you've had Dr. Ed over to see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put her hands on his arm and looked up at him with appeal and
+      something of terror in her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus cornered, he had to acknowledge that Anna had been out of sorts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall come home, of course. It's tragic and absurd that I should be
+      caring for other people, when my own mother&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped her head on his arm, and he saw that she was crying. If he
+      made a gesture to draw her to him, she never knew it. After a moment she
+      looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm much braver than this in the hospital. But when it's one's own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was sorely tempted to tell her the truth and bring her back to the
+      little house: to their old evenings together, to seeing the younger
+      Wilson, not as the white god of the operating-room and the hospital, but
+      as the dandy of the Street and the neighbor of her childhood&mdash;back
+      even to Joe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, with Anna's precarious health and Harriet's increasing engrossment in
+      her business, he felt it more and more necessary that Sidney go on with
+      her training. A profession was a safeguard. And there was another point:
+      it had been decided that Anna was not to know her condition. If she was
+      not worried she might live for years. There was no surer way to make her
+      suspect it than by bringing Sidney home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sent Katie to ask Dr. Ed to come over after dinner. With the sunset
+      Anna seemed better. She insisted on coming downstairs, and even sat with
+      them on the balcony until the stars came out, talking of Christine's
+      trousseau, and, rather fretfully, of what she would do without the
+      parlors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have your own boudoir upstairs,&rdquo; said Sidney valiantly. &ldquo;Katie
+      can carry your tray up there. We are going to make the sewing-room into
+      your private sitting-room, and I shall nail the machine-top down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This pleased her. When K. insisted on carrying her upstairs, she went in a
+      flutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is so strong, Sidney!&rdquo; she said, when he had placed her on her bed.
+      &ldquo;How can a clerk, bending over a ledger, be so muscular? When I have
+      callers, will it be all right for Katie to show them upstairs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped asleep before the doctor came; and when, at something after
+      eight, the door of the Wilson house slammed and a figure crossed the
+      street, it was not Ed at all, but the surgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had been talking rather more frankly than usual. Lately there had
+      been a reserve about her. K., listening intently that night, read between
+      words a story of small persecutions and jealousies. But the girl minimized
+      them, after her way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's always hard for probationers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I often think Miss
+      Harrison is trying my mettle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harrison!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carlotta Harrison. And now that Miss Gregg has said she will accept me,
+      it's really all over. The other nurses are wonderful&mdash;so kind and so
+      helpful. I hope I shall look well in my cap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison was in Sidney's hospital! A thousand contingencies
+      flashed through his mind. Sidney might grow to like her and bring her to
+      the house. Sidney might insist on the thing she always spoke of&mdash;that
+      he visit the hospital; and he would meet her, face to face. He could have
+      depended on a man to keep his secret. This girl with her somber eyes and
+      her threat to pay him out for what had happened to her&mdash;she meant
+      danger of a sort that no man could fight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soon,&rdquo; said Sidney, through the warm darkness, &ldquo;I shall have a cap, and
+      be always forgetting it and putting my hat on over it&mdash;the new ones
+      always do. One of the girls slept in hers the other night! They are tulle,
+      you know, and quite stiff, and it was the most erratic-looking thing the
+      next day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that the door across the street closed. Sidney did not hear
+      it, but K. bent forward. There was a part of his brain always
+      automatically on watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall get my operating-room training, too,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;That is the
+      real romance of the hospital. A&mdash;a surgeon is a sort of hero in a
+      hospital. You wouldn't think that, would you? There was a lot of
+      excitement to-day. Even the probationers' table was talking about it. Dr.
+      Max Wilson did the Edwardes operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure across the Street was lighting a cigarette. Perhaps, after all&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something tremendously difficult&mdash;I don't know what. It's going into
+      the medical journals. A Dr. Edwardes invented it, or whatever they call
+      it. They took a picture of the operating-room for the article. The
+      photographer had to put on operating clothes and wrap the camera in
+      sterilized towels. It was the most thrilling thing, they say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice died away as her eyes followed K.'s. Max, cigarette in hand, was
+      coming across, under the ailanthus tree. He hesitated on the pavement, his
+      eyes searching the shadowy balcony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! Right back here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was vibrant gladness in her tone. He came slowly toward them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother is not at home, so I came over. How select you are, with your
+      balcony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you see the step?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coming, with bells on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had risen and pushed back his chair. His mind was working quickly. Here
+      in the darkness he could hold the situation for a moment. If he could get
+      Sidney into the house, the rest would not matter. Luckily, the balcony was
+      very dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is any one ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother is not well. This is Mr. Le Moyne, and he knows who you are very
+      well, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've heard a lot of Mr. Le Moyne. Didn't the Street beat the Linburgs the
+      other day? And I believe the Rosenfelds are in receipt of sixty-five cents
+      a day and considerable peace and quiet through you, Mr. Le Moyne. You're
+      the most popular man on the Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've always heard that about YOU. Sidney, if Dr. Wilson is here to see
+      your mother&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going,&rdquo; said Sidney. &ldquo;And Dr. Wilson is a very great person, K., so be
+      polite to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max had roused at the sound of Le Moyne's voice, not to suspicion, of
+      course, but to memory. Without any apparent reason, he was back in Berlin,
+      tramping the country roads, and beside him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonderful night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The mind's a curious thing, isn't it. In the instant
+      since Miss Page went through that window I've been to Berlin and back!
+      Will you have a cigarette?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks; I have my pipe here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. struck a match with his steady hands. Now that the thing had come, he
+      was glad to face it. In the flare, his quiet profile glowed against the
+      night. Then he flung the match over the rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps my voice took you back to Berlin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max stared; then he rose. Blackness had descended on them again, except
+      for the dull glow of K.'s old pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! The neighbors next door have a bad habit of sitting just inside the
+      curtains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down. Sidney will be back in a moment. I'll talk to you, if you'll
+      sit still. Can you hear me plainly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment&mdash;&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been here&mdash;in the city, I mean&mdash;for a year. Name's Le
+      Moyne. Don't forget it&mdash;Le Moyne. I've got a position in the gas
+      office, clerical. I get fifteen dollars a week. I have reason to think I'm
+      going to be moved up. That will be twenty, maybe twenty-two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson stirred, but he found no adequate words. Only a part of what K.
+      said got to him. For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this man
+      across from him&mdash;it was not believable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not hard work, and it's safe. If I make a mistake there's no life
+      hanging on it. Once I made a blunder, a month or two ago. It was a big
+      one. It cost me three dollars out of my own pocket. But&mdash;that's all
+      it cost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was profoundly
+      moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We thought you were dead. There were all sorts of stories. When a year
+      went by&mdash;the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were
+      on it&mdash;we gave up. I&mdash;in June we put up a tablet for you at the
+      college. I went down for the&mdash;for the services.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let it stay,&rdquo; said K. quietly. &ldquo;I'm dead as far as the college goes,
+      anyhow. I'll never go back. I'm Le Moyne now. And, for Heaven's sake,
+      don't be sorry for me. I'm more contented than I've been for a long time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;when you had everything! Why, good Heavens, man, I did your
+      operation to-day, and I've been blowing about it ever since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had everything for a while. Then I lost the essential. When that
+      happened I gave up. All a man in our profession has is a certain method,
+      knowledge&mdash;call it what you like,&mdash;and faith in himself. I lost
+      my self-confidence; that's all. Certain things happened; kept on
+      happening. So I gave it up. That's all. It's not dramatic. For about a
+      year I was damned sorry for myself. I've stopped whining now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If every surgeon gave up because he lost cases&mdash;I've just told you I
+      did your operation to-day. There was just a chance for the man, and I took
+      my courage in my hands and tried it. The poor devil's dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe over the balcony rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not the same. That's the chance he and you took. What happened to
+      me was&mdash;different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pipe in hand, he stood staring out at the ailanthus tree with its crown of
+      stars. Instead of the Street with its quiet houses, he saw the men he had
+      known and worked with and taught, his friends who spoke his language, who
+      had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bronze tablet set in a wall
+      of the old college; he saw their earnest faces and grave eyes. He heard&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little
+      room behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A few days after Wilson's recognition of K., two most exciting things
+      happened to Sidney. One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor
+      at her wedding. The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and given
+      her cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house
+      had no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le
+      Moyne:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR K.,&mdash;I am accepted, and IT is on my head at this minute. I am as
+      conscious of it as if it were a halo, and as if I had done something to
+      deserve it, instead of just hoping that someday I shall. I am writing this
+      on the bureau, so that when I lift my eyes I may see It. I am afraid just
+      now I am thinking more of the cap than of what it means. It IS becoming!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very soon I shall slip down and show it to the ward. I have promised. I
+      shall go to the door when the night nurse is busy somewhere, and turn all
+      around and let them see it, without saying a word. They love a little
+      excitement like that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have been very good to me, dear K. It is you who have made possible
+      this happiness of mine to-night. I am promising myself to be very good,
+      and not so vain, and to love my enemies&mdash;, although I have none now.
+      Miss Harrison has just congratulated me most kindly, and I am sure poor
+      Joe has both forgiven and forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Off to my first lecture!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIDNEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. found the note on the hall table when he got home that night, and
+      carried it upstairs to read. Whatever faint hope he might have had that
+      her youth would prevent her acceptance he knew now was over. With the
+      letter in his hand, he sat by his table and looked ahead into the empty
+      years. Not quite empty, of course. She would be coming home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But more and more the life of the hospital would engross her. He surmised,
+      too, very shrewdly, that, had he ever had a hope that she might come to
+      care for him, his very presence in the little house militated against him.
+      There was none of the illusion of separation; he was always there, like
+      Katie. When she opened the door, she called &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; from the hall. If
+      Anna did not answer, she called him, in much the same voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had built a wall of philosophy that had withstood even Wilson's
+      recognition and protest. But enduring philosophy comes only with time; and
+      he was young. Now and then all his defenses crumbled before a passion
+      that, when he dared to face it, shook him by its very strength. And that
+      day all his stoicism went down before Sidney's letter. Its very frankness
+      and affection hurt&mdash;not that he did not want her affection; but he
+      craved so much more. He threw himself face down on the bed, with the paper
+      crushed in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's letter was not the only one he received that day. When, in
+      response to Katie's summons, he rose heavily and prepared for dinner, he
+      found an unopened envelope on the table. It was from Max Wilson:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR LE MOYNE,&mdash;I have been going around in a sort of haze all day.
+      The fact that I only heard your voice and scarcely saw you last night has
+      made the whole thing even more unreal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have a feeling of delicacy about trying to see you again so soon. I'm
+      bound to respect your seclusion. But there are some things that have got
+      to be discussed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You said last night that things were &ldquo;different&rdquo; with you. I know about
+      that. You'd had one or two unlucky accidents. Do you know any man in our
+      profession who has not? And, for fear you think I do not know what I am
+      talking about, the thing was threshed out at the State Society when the
+      question of the tablet came up. Old Barnes got up and said: &ldquo;Gentlemen,
+      all of us live more or less in glass houses. Let him who is without guilt
+      among us throw the first stone!&rdquo; By George! You should have heard them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't sleep last night. I took my little car and drove around the
+      country roads, and the farther I went the more outrageous your position
+      became. I'm not going to write any rot about the world needing men like
+      you, although it's true enough. But our profession does. You working in a
+      gas office, while old O'Hara bungles and hacks, and I struggle along on
+      what I learned from you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It takes courage to step down from the pinnacle you stood on. So it's not
+      cowardice that has set you down here. It's wrong conception. And I've
+      thought of two things. The first, and best, is for you to go back. No one
+      has taken your place, because no one could do the work. But if that's out
+      of the question,&mdash;and only you know that, for only you know the
+      facts,&mdash;the next best thing is this, and in all humility I make the
+      suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Take the State exams under your present name, and when you've got your
+      certificate, come in with me. This isn't magnanimity. I'll be getting a
+      damn sight more than I give.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Think it over, old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M.W.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a curious fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about
+      women is often the soul of honor to other men. The younger Wilson, taking
+      his pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an offer
+      that meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, with his eyes
+      open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was moved. It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to make it
+      as if he were asking a favor and not conferring one. But the offer left
+      him untempted. He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself
+      wanting. No tablet on the college wall could change that. And when, late
+      that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to argument,
+      the situation remained unchanged. He realized its hopelessness when K.
+      lapsed into whimsical humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not absolutely useless where I am, you know, Max,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I've
+      raised three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped to
+      plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just
+      inside,&mdash;did you notice it?&mdash;and developed a boy pitcher with a
+      ball that twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around a splint!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're going to be humorous&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow,&rdquo; said K. quietly, &ldquo;if I had no sense of humor, I should
+      go upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance into
+      eternity. By the way, that's something I forgot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eternity?&rdquo; &ldquo;No. Among my other activities, I wired the parlor for
+      electric light. The bride-to-be expects some electroliers as wedding
+      gifts, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson rose and flung his cigarette into the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to God I understood you!&rdquo; he said irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. rose with him, and all the suppressed feeling of the interview was
+      crowded into his last few words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&mdash;you've helped
+      a lot. Don't worry about me. I'm as well off as I deserve to be, and
+      better. Good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position&mdash;left
+      him, as it were, with a divided allegiance. Sidney's frank infatuation for
+      the young surgeon was growing. He was quick to see it. And where before he
+      might have felt justified in going to the length of warning her, now his
+      hands were tied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Max was interested in her. K. could see that, too. More than once he had
+      taken Sidney back to the hospital in his car. Le Moyne, handicapped at
+      every turn, found himself facing two alternatives, one but little better
+      than the other. The affair might run a legitimate course, ending in
+      marriage&mdash;a year of happiness for her, and then what marriage with
+      Max, as he knew him, would inevitably mean: wanderings away, remorseful
+      returns to her, infidelities, misery. Or, it might be less serious but
+      almost equally unhappy for her. Max might throw caution to the winds,
+      pursue her for a time,&mdash;K. had seen him do this,&mdash;and then,
+      growing tired, change to some new attraction. In either case, he could
+      only wait and watch, eating his heart out during the long evenings when
+      Anna read her &ldquo;Daily Thoughts&rdquo; upstairs and he sat alone with his pipe on
+      the balcony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney went on night duty shortly after her acceptance. All of her orderly
+      young life had been divided into two parts: day, when one played or
+      worked, and night, when one slept. Now she was compelled to a
+      readjustment: one worked in the night and slept in the day. Things seemed
+      unnatural, chaotic. At the end of her first night report Sidney added what
+      she could remember of a little verse of Stevenson's. She added it to the
+      end of her general report, which was to the effect that everything had
+      been quiet during the night except the neighborhood.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;And does it not seem hard to you,
+      When all the sky is clear and blue,
+      And I should like so much to play,
+      To have to go to bed by day?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The day assistant happened on the report, and was quite scandalized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the night nurses are to spend their time making up poetry,&rdquo; she said
+      crossly, &ldquo;we'd better change this hospital into a young ladies' seminary.
+      If she wants to complain about the noise in the street, she should do so
+      in proper form.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think she made it up,&rdquo; said the Head, trying not to smile. &ldquo;I've
+      heard something like it somewhere, and, what with the heat and the noise
+      of traffic, I don't see how any of them get any sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, because discipline must be observed, she wrote on the slip the
+      assistant carried around: &ldquo;Please submit night reports in prose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney did not sleep much. She tumbled into her low bed at nine o'clock in
+      the morning, those days, with her splendid hair neatly braided down her
+      back and her prayers said, and immediately her active young mind filled
+      with images&mdash;Christine's wedding, Dr. Max passing the door of her old
+      ward and she not there, Joe&mdash;even Tillie, whose story was now the
+      sensation of the Street. A few months before she would not have cared to
+      think of Tillie. She would have retired her into the land of
+      things-one-must-forget. But the Street's conventions were not holding
+      Sidney's thoughts now. She puzzled over Tillie a great deal, and over
+      Grace and her kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her first night on duty, a girl had been brought in from the Avenue.
+      She had taken a poison&mdash;nobody knew just what. When the internes had
+      tried to find out, she had only said: &ldquo;What's the use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney kept asking herself, &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; those mornings when she could not get
+      to sleep. People were kind&mdash;men were kind, really,&mdash;and yet, for
+      some reason or other, those things had to be. Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time Sidney would doze fitfully. But by three o'clock she was
+      always up and dressing. After a time the strain told on her. Lack of sleep
+      wrote hollows around her eyes and killed some of her bright color. Between
+      three and four o'clock in the morning she was overwhelmed on duty by a
+      perfect madness of sleep. There was a penalty for sleeping on duty. The
+      old night watchman had a way of slipping up on one nodding. The night
+      nurses wished they might fasten a bell on him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luckily, at four came early-morning temperatures; that roused her. And
+      after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of dawn
+      over the roofs. Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward dawn,
+      she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves were
+      stretched taut as a string.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her station was in a small room close to her three wards. But she sat very
+      little, as a matter of fact. Her responsibility was heavy on her; she made
+      frequent rounds. The late summer nights were fitful, feverish; the
+      darkened wards stretched away like caverns from the dim light near the
+      door. And from out of these caverns came petulant voices, uneasy
+      movements, the banging of a cup on a bedside, which was the signal of
+      thirst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The older nurses saved themselves when they could. To them, perhaps just a
+      little weary with time and much service, the banging cup meant not so much
+      thirst as annoyance. They visited Sidney sometimes and cautioned her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't jump like that, child; they're not parched, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you have a fever and are thirsty&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirsty nothing! They get lonely. All they want is to see somebody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; Sidney would say, rising resolutely, &ldquo;they are going to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually the older girls saw that she would not save herself. They liked
+      her very much, and they, too, had started in with willing feet and tender
+      hands; but the thousand and one demands of their service had drained them
+      dry. They were efficient, cool-headed, quick-thinking machines, doing
+      their best, of course, but differing from Sidney in that their service was
+      of the mind, while hers was of the heart. To them, pain was a thing to be
+      recorded on a report; to Sidney, it was written on the tablets of her
+      soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison went on night duty at the same time&mdash;her last night
+      service, as it was Sidney's first. She accepted it stoically. She had
+      charge of the three wards on the floor just below Sidney, and of the ward
+      into which all emergency cases were taken. It was a difficult service,
+      perhaps the most difficult in the house. Scarcely a night went by without
+      its patrol or ambulance case. Ordinarily, the emergency ward had its own
+      night nurse. But the house was full to overflowing. Belated vacations and
+      illness had depleted the training-school. Carlotta, given double duty,
+      merely shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've always had things pretty hard here,&rdquo; she commented briefly. &ldquo;When I
+      go out, I'll either be competent enough to run a whole hospital
+      singlehanded, or I'll be carried out feet first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was glad to have her so near. She knew her better than she knew the
+      other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding her at
+      a loss. Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a soft hiss
+      from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and, going out,
+      would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap bending over the
+      stair-rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you,&rdquo; she would say, &ldquo;but So-and-So won't
+      have a fever bath&rdquo;; or, &ldquo;I've a woman here who refuses her medicine.&rdquo; Then
+      would follow rapid questions and equally rapid answers. Much as Carlotta
+      disliked and feared the girl overhead, it never occurred to her to refuse
+      her assistance. Perhaps the angels who keep the great record will put that
+      to her credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney saw her first death shortly after she went on night duty. It was
+      the most terrible experience of all her life; and yet, as death goes, it
+      was quiet enough. So gradual was it that Sidney, with K.'s little watch in
+      hand, was not sure exactly when it happened. The light was very dim behind
+      the little screen. One moment the sheet was quivering slightly under the
+      struggle for breath, the next it was still. That was all. But to the girl
+      it was catastrophe. That life, so potential, so tremendous a thing, could
+      end so ignominiously, that the long battle should terminate always in this
+      capitulation&mdash;it seemed to her that she could not stand it. Added to
+      all her other new problems of living was this one of dying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made mistakes, of course, which the kindly nurses forgot to report&mdash;basins
+      left about, errors on her records. She rinsed her thermometer in hot water
+      one night, and startled an interne by sending him word that Mary McGuire's
+      temperature was a hundred and ten degrees. She let a delirious patient
+      escape from the ward another night and go airily down the fire-escape
+      before she discovered what had happened! Then she distinguished herself by
+      flying down the iron staircase and bringing the runaway back
+      single-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Christine's wedding the Street threw off its drab attire and assumed a
+      wedding garment. In the beginning it was incredulous about some of the
+      details.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An awning from the house door to the curbstone, and a policeman!&rdquo;
+       reported Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was finding steady employment at the Lorenz
+      house. &ldquo;And another awning at the church, with a red carpet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Rosenfeld had arrived home and was making up arrears of rest and
+      recreation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Suppose it don't rain. What then?&rdquo; His Jewish father
+      spoke in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And another policeman at the church!&rdquo; said Mrs. Rosenfeld triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they ask 'em if they don't trust 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the mention of the policemen had been unfortunate. It recalled to him
+      many things that were better forgotten. He rose and scowled at his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tell Johnny something for me,&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;You tell him when he sees
+      his father walking down street, and he sittin' up there alone on that
+      automobile, I want him to stop and pick me up when I hail him. Me walking,
+      while my son swells around in a car! And another thing.&rdquo; He turned
+      savagely at the door. &ldquo;You let me hear of him road-housin', and I'll kill
+      him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The wedding was to be at five o'clock. This, in itself, defied all
+      traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early
+      morning at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at the
+      Presbyterian. There was something reckless about five o'clock. The Street
+      felt the dash of it. It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a marriage
+      was not quite legal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question of what to wear became, for the men, an earnest one. Dr. Ed
+      resurrected an old black frock-coat and had a &ldquo;V&rdquo; of black cambric set in
+      the vest. Mr. Jenkins, the grocer, rented a cutaway, and bought a new
+      Panama to wear with it. The deaf-and-dumb book agent who boarded at
+      McKees', and who, by reason of his affliction, was calmly ignorant of the
+      excitement around him, wore a borrowed dress-suit, and considered himself
+      to the end of his days the only properly attired man in the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers. When the newspapers came
+      out with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that
+      Sidney was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the
+      hospital training-school. A probationer was authorized to find out
+      particulars. It was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had not
+      been to bed at all, was sitting in a sunny window in the Dormitory Annex,
+      drying her hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The probationer was distinctly uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I just wonder,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you would let some of the girls
+      come in to see you when you're dressed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's awfully thrilling, isn't it? And&mdash;isn't Dr. Wilson going to be
+      an usher?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney colored. &ldquo;I believe so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to walk down the aisle with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. They had a rehearsal last night, but of course I was not
+      there. I&mdash;I think I walk alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The probationer had been instructed to find out other things; so she set
+      to work with a fan at Sidney's hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've known Dr. Wilson a long time, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's awfully good-looking, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney considered. She was not ignorant of the methods of the school. If
+      this girl was pumping her&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll have to think that over,&rdquo; she said, with a glint of mischief in her
+      eyes. &ldquo;When you know a person terribly well, you hardly know whether he's
+      good-looking or not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said the probationer, running the long strands of Sidney's
+      hair through her fingers, &ldquo;that when you are at home you see him often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney got off the window-sill, and, taking the probationer smilingly by
+      the shoulders, faced her toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go back to the girls,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and tell them to come in and see me
+      when I am dressed, and tell them this: I don't know whether I am to walk
+      down the aisle with Dr. Wilson, but I hope I am. I see him very often. I
+      like him very much. I hope he likes me. And I think he's handsome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shoved the probationer out into the hall and locked the door behind
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That message in its entirety reached Carlotta Harrison. Her smouldering
+      eyes flamed. The audacity of it startled her. Sidney must be very sure of
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, too, had not slept during the day. When the probationer who had
+      brought her the report had gone out, she lay in her long white night-gown,
+      hands clasped under her head, and stared at the vault-like ceiling of her
+      little room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw there Sidney in her white dress going down the aisle of the
+      church; she saw the group around the altar; and, as surely as she lay
+      there, she knew that Max Wilson's eyes would be, not on the bride, but on
+      the girl who stood beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curious thing was that Carlotta felt that she could stop the wedding
+      if she wanted to. She'd happened on a bit of information&mdash;many a
+      wedding had been stopped for less. It rather obsessed her to think of
+      stopping the wedding, so that Sidney and Max would not walk down the aisle
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came, at last, an hour before the wedding, a lull in the feverish
+      activities of the previous month. Everything was ready. In the Lorenz
+      kitchen, piles of plates, negro waiters, ice-cream freezers, and Mrs.
+      Rosenfeld stood in orderly array. In the attic, in the center of a sheet,
+      before a toilet-table which had been carried upstairs for her benefit,
+      sat, on this her day of days, the bride. All the second story had been
+      prepared for guests and presents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Florists were still busy in the room below. Bridesmaids were clustered on
+      the little staircase, bending over at each new ring of the bell and
+      calling reports to Christine through the closed door:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another wooden box, Christine. It looks like more plates. What will you
+      ever do with them all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens! Here's another of the neighbors who wants to see how you
+      look. Do say you can't have any visitors now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine sat alone in the center of her sheet. The bridesmaids had been
+      sternly forbidden to come into her room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't had a chance to think for a month,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And I've got
+      some things I've got to think out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, when Sidney came, she sent for her. Sidney found her sitting on a
+      stiff chair, in her wedding gown, with her veil spread out on a small
+      stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Close the door,&rdquo; said Christine. And, after Sidney had kissed her:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've a good mind not to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're tired and nervous, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, of course. But that isn't what's wrong with me. Throw that veil
+      some place and sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was undoubtedly rouged, a very delicate touch. Sidney thought
+      brides should be rather pale. But under her eyes were lines that Sidney
+      had never seen there before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to be foolish, Sidney. I'll go through with it, of course.
+      It would put mamma in her grave if I made a scene now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She suddenly turned on Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer gave his bachelor dinner at the Country Club last night. They all
+      drank more than they should. Somebody called father up to-day and said
+      that Palmer had emptied a bottle of wine into the piano. He hasn't been
+      here to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll be along. And as for the other&mdash;perhaps it wasn't Palmer who
+      did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not it, Sidney. I'm frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months before, perhaps, Sidney could not have comforted her; but
+      three months had made a change in Sidney. The complacent sophistries of
+      her girlhood no longer answered for truth. She put her arms around
+      Christine's shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man who drinks is a broken reed,&rdquo; said Christine. &ldquo;That's what I'm
+      going to marry and lean on the rest of my life&mdash;a broken reed. And
+      that isn't all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got up quickly, and, trailing her long satin train across the floor,
+      bolted the door. Then from inside her corsage she brought out and held to
+      Sidney a letter. &ldquo;Special delivery. Read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very short; Sidney read it at a glance:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 &mdash;&mdash; Avenue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney. Now
+      she knew. Christine, more sophisticated, had always known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That's what I'm up against.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 &mdash;&mdash; Avenue was.
+      The paper she held in her hand was hospital paper with the heading torn
+      off. The whole sordid story lay before her: Grace Irving, with her thin
+      face and cropped hair, and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside
+      her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the bridesmaids thumped violently on the door outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another electric lamp,&rdquo; she called excitedly through the door. &ldquo;And
+      Palmer is downstairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Christine said drearily. &ldquo;I have received another electric
+      lamp, and Palmer is downstairs! I've got to go through with it, I suppose.
+      The only difference between me and other brides is that I know what I'm
+      getting. Most of them do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going on with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too late to do anything else. I am not going to give this
+      neighborhood anything to talk about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She picked up her veil and set the coronet on her head. Sidney stood with
+      the letter in her hands. One of K.'s answers to her hot question had been
+      this:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no sense in looking back unless it helps us to look ahead. What
+      your little girl of the ward has been is not so important as what she is
+      going to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even granting this to be true,&rdquo; she said to Christine slowly,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      it may only be malicious after all, Christine,&mdash;it's surely over and
+      done with. It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now; it's his future
+      with you, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine had finally adjusted her veil. A band of duchesse lace rose like
+      a coronet from her soft hair, and from it, sweeping to the end of her
+      train, fell fold after fold of soft tulle. She arranged the coronet
+      carefully with small pearl-topped pins. Then she rose and put her hands on
+      Sidney's shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The simple truth is,&rdquo; she said quietly, &ldquo;that I might hold Palmer if I
+      cared&mdash;terribly. I don't. And I'm afraid he knows it. It's my pride
+      that's hurt, nothing else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus did Christine Lorenz go down to her wedding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in
+      her new philosophy, she had learned many strange things. One of them was
+      this: that women like Grace Irving did not betray their lovers; that the
+      code of the underworld was &ldquo;death to the squealer&rdquo;; that one played the
+      game, and won or lost, and if he lost, took his medicine. If not Grace,
+      then who? Somebody else in the hospital who knew her story, of course. But
+      who? And again&mdash;why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set fire
+      to it with a match. Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street voted the wedding a great success. The alley, however, was
+      rather confused by certain things. For instance, it regarded the awning as
+      essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck in
+      under the side when no one was looking. Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely refused
+      to take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she guessed she
+      was able to walk up alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete chauffeur's
+      outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the shield that was his State
+      license pinned over his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to
+      supper. Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case
+      only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well
+      to trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit down
+      to a cold snack when they got home?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the
+      wedding was Sidney&mdash;Sidney only. He watched her first steps down the
+      aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched the
+      swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she passed him and went
+      forward past the long rows of craning necks. Afterward he could not
+      remember the wedding party at all. The service for him was Sidney, rather
+      awed and very serious, beside the altar. It was Sidney who came down the
+      aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney with Max
+      beside her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her new
+      career. The wedding gowns were successful. They were more than that&mdash;they
+      were triumphant. Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes over the
+      church, filled with potential brides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future of endless lace and
+      chiffon, the joy of creation, triumph eclipsing triumph. But to Anna,
+      watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish lips, was
+      coming her hour. Sitting back in the pew, with her hands folded over her
+      prayer-book, she said a little prayer for her straight young daughter,
+      facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been standing
+      at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He stumbled,
+      rather, as if he could not see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper
+      Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had selected
+      for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of the city,
+      and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson had gone out
+      to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him. For once that he
+      could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes. She
+      knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing&mdash;that he
+      would pay as little as possible. But she knew, too, that, let him want a
+      thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very skillful. The very ardor in her face was in her favor. Behind
+      her hot eyes lurked cold calculation. She would put the thing through, and
+      show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening prayers, a
+      thing or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything more elaborate
+      than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves
+      rolled up to show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders at the
+      little farmhouse. She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square
+      yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully posed
+      over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road. She read Browning,
+      Emerson, Swinburne. Once he found her with a book that she hastily
+      concealed. He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It was a book on
+      brain surgery. Confronted with it, she blushed and dropped her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as she
+      had intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel such an idiot when I am with you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wanted to know a
+      little more about the things you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter he
+      occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her responsive,
+      intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before, lay open to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then their professional discussions ended in something different.
+      The two lines of their interest converged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad!&rdquo; he said one day. &ldquo;I look forward to these evenings. I can talk shop
+      with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the most
+      intelligent woman I know&mdash;and one of the prettiest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible
+      purpose of admiring the view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As long as you talk shop,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I feel that there is nothing wrong
+      in our being together; but when you say the other thing&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under our circumstances, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The loveliest mouth in the world!&rdquo; he said, and kissed her suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.
+      Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, she was not angry, she said. It was only that he had set her thinking.
+      When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and good-bye. He only
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you trust me?&rdquo; he said, leaning out to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her dark eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not that. I do not trust myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the most
+      dangerous of toys.&rdquo; A spice of danger had entered into their relationship.
+      It had become infinitely piquant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison had
+      gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back. That pleased
+      him. Evidently she was frightened. Every man likes to think that he is a
+      bit of a devil. Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his car outside the
+      whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the direction Carlotta had
+      taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree,
+      looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental
+      struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a
+      foot or two, with her hands out before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dare you?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;How dare you follow me! I&mdash;I have got to
+      have a little time alone. I have got to think things out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was quite
+      as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree and
+      lighted a cigarette before he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid of this,&rdquo; he said, playing up. &ldquo;You take it entirely too
+      hard. I am not really a villain, Carlotta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first time he had used her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down and let us talk things over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing to
+      him with the somber eyes that were her great asset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can afford to be very calm,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;because this is only play to
+      you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and not&mdash;unattractive.
+      But what is play for you is not necessarily play for me. I am going away
+      from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why, the
+      girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried&mdash;he was at
+      the mercy of any woman who cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give up your training?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did cry then&mdash;real tears; and he went over beside her and took
+      her in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't do that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Please don't do that. You make me feel like a
+      scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's
+      all. I swear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lifted her head from his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean you are happy with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very, very happy,&rdquo; said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself. She
+      had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But she
+      had left out this important factor in the equation,&mdash;that factor
+      which in every relationship between man and woman determines the equation,&mdash;the
+      woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She
+      who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and the
+      things thereof, found that it would not be put aside. By the end of her
+      short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love with the younger
+      Wilson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They continued to meet, not as often as before, but once a week, perhaps.
+      The meetings were full of danger now; and if for the girl they lost by
+      this quality, they gained attraction for the man. She was shrewd enough to
+      realize her own situation. The thing had gone wrong. She cared, and he did
+      not. It was all a game now, not hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All women are intuitive; women in love are dangerously so. As well as she
+      knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she realized
+      that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the real thing
+      for Sidney Page. Suspicion became certainty after a talk they had over the
+      supper table at a country road-house the day after Christine's wedding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How was the wedding&mdash;tiresome?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thrilling! There's always something thrilling to me in a man tying
+      himself up for life to one woman. It's&mdash;it's so reckless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes narrowed. &ldquo;That's not exactly the Law and the Prophets, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the truth. To think of selecting out of all the world one woman, and
+      electing to spend the rest of one's days with her! Although&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids,&rdquo; he said irrelevantly. &ldquo;She was
+      lovelier than the bride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty, but stupid,&rdquo; said Carlotta. &ldquo;I like her. I've really tried to
+      teach her things, but&mdash;you know&mdash;&rdquo; She shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Max was learning wisdom. If there was a twinkle in his eye, he veiled
+      it discreetly. But, once again in the machine, he bent over and put his
+      cheek against hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little cat! You're jealous,&rdquo; he said exultantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very close
+      to his heart those autumn days. And Carlotta knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney came off night duty the middle of November. The night duty had been
+      a time of comparative peace to Carlotta. There were no evenings when Dr.
+      Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's half-days at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on
+      Carlotta's part. On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she could
+      not contain herself. She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and took the
+      trolley to a point near the end of the Street. After twilight fell, she
+      slowly walked the length of the Street. Christine and Palmer had not
+      returned from their wedding journey. The November evening was not cold,
+      and on the little balcony sat Sidney and Dr. Max. K. was there, too, had
+      she only known it, sitting back in the shadow and saying little, his
+      steady eyes on Sidney's profile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this Carlotta did not know. She went on down the Street in a frenzy of
+      jealous anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that two ideas ran concurrent in Carlotta's mind: one was to get
+      Sidney out of the way, the other was to make Wilson propose to her. In her
+      heart she knew that on the first depended the second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week later she made the same frantic excursion, but with a different
+      result. Sidney was not in sight, or Wilson. But standing on the wooden
+      doorstep of the little house was Le Moyne. The ailanthus trees were bare
+      at that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky. The
+      street-lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep in the shadow, now
+      shone through the branches and threw into strong relief Le Moyne's tall
+      figure and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat. But he did not
+      see her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew. Another
+      element had entered into her plotting. It was the first time she had known
+      that K. lived in the Page house. It gave her a sense of uncertainty and
+      deadly fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made her first friendly overture of many days to Sidney the following
+      day. They met in the locker-room in the basement where the street clothing
+      for the ward patients was kept. Here, rolled in bundles and ticketed, side
+      by side lay the heterogeneous garments in which the patients had met
+      accident or illness. Rags and tidiness, filth and cleanliness, lay almost
+      touching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far away on the other side of the white-washed basement, men were
+      unloading gleaming cans of milk. Floods of sunlight came down the
+      cellar-way, touching their white coats and turning the cans to silver.
+      Everywhere was the religion of the hospital, which is order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, harking back from recent slights to the staircase conversation of
+      her night duty, smiled at Carlotta cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A miracle is happening,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Grace Irving is going out to-day.
+      When one remembers how ill she was and how we thought she could not live,
+      it's rather a triumph, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are those her clothes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can't go out in those; I shall have to lend her something.&rdquo; A little
+      of the light died out of her face. &ldquo;She's had a hard fight, and she has
+      won,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But when I think of what she's probably going back to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all in the day's work,&rdquo; she observed indifferently. &ldquo;You can take
+      them up into the kitchen and give them steady work paring potatoes, or put
+      them in the laundry ironing. In the end it's the same thing. They all go
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew a package from the locker and looked at it ruefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you know about this? Here's a woman who came in in a
+      nightgown and pair of slippers. And now she wants to go out in half an
+      hour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned, on her way out of the locker-room, and shot a quick glance at
+      Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I happened to be on your street the other night,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You live
+      across the street from Wilsons', don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so; I had heard you speak of the house. Your&mdash;your brother
+      was standing on the steps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no brother. That's a roomer, a Mr. Le Moyne. It isn't really right
+      to call him a roomer; he's one of the family now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Le Moyne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had even taken another name. It had hit him hard, for sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K.'s name had struck an always responsive chord in Sidney. The two girls
+      went toward the elevator together. With a very little encouragement,
+      Sidney talked of K. She was pleased at Miss Harrison's friendly tone, glad
+      that things were all right between them again. At her floor, she put a
+      timid hand on the girl's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid I had offended you or displeased you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm so
+      glad it isn't so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta shivered under her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things were not going any too well with K. True, he had received his
+      promotion at the office, and with this present affluence of twenty-two
+      dollars a week he was able to do several things. Mrs. Rosenfeld now washed
+      and ironed one day a week at the little house, so that Katie might have
+      more time to look after Anna. He had increased also the amount of money
+      that he periodically sent East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far, well enough. The thing that rankled and filled him with a sense of
+      failure was Max Wilson's attitude. It was not unfriendly; it was, indeed,
+      consistently respectful, almost reverential. But he clearly considered Le
+      Moyne's position absurd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no true comradeship between the two men; but there was beginning
+      to be constant association, and lately a certain amount of friction. They
+      thought differently about almost everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson began to bring all his problems to Le Moyne. There were long
+      consultations in that small upper room. Perhaps more than one man or woman
+      who did not know of K.'s existence owed his life to him that fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels. Cases began to come in to him from
+      the surrounding towns. To his own daring was added a new and remarkable
+      technique. But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not content, was
+      once again in touch with the work he loved. There were times when, having
+      thrashed a case out together and outlined the next day's work for Max, he
+      would walk for hours into the night out over the hills, fighting his
+      battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick of things again. The
+      thought of the gas office and its deadly round sickened him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on one of his long walks that K. found Tillie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to rain
+      as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside paths
+      thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that Saturday
+      afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the street-car
+      line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he wore no
+      overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat. Somewhere along the road he
+      had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for human society,
+      it trotted companionably at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and
+      stopped in for a glass of Scotch. He was chilled through. The dog went in
+      with him, and stood looking up into his face. It was as if he submitted,
+      but wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road ahead and the
+      trails of rabbits over the fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills. Through the mist
+      of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him. The door
+      was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet.
+      To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth,
+      and in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers. To the
+      left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor of
+      the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over
+      everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house
+      was aggressive with new paint&mdash;the sagging old floors shone with it,
+      the doors gleamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo; called K.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer, the
+      rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing uncertainly
+      on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish, stripped off
+      his sweater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not very busy here this afternoon!&rdquo; he said to the unseen female on the
+      staircase. Then he saw her. It was Tillie. She put a hand against the
+      doorframe to steady herself. Tillie surely, but a new Tillie! With her
+      hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the
+      throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller,
+      infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her. But she did not
+      smile at him. There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's
+      expression, submissive, but questioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne.&rdquo; And, when he held out his hand,
+      smiling: &ldquo;I just had to do it, Mr. K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and&mdash;happy,
+      Tillie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm all right. Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice. He'll be back at
+      five. Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie. The Street did not
+      approve of &ldquo;something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scotch-and-soda,&rdquo; said Le Moyne. &ldquo;And shall I buy a ticket for you to
+      punch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she only smiled faintly. He was sorry he had made the blunder.
+      Evidently the Street and all that pertained was a sore subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So this was Tillie's new home! It was for this that she had exchanged the
+      virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's&mdash;for this wind-swept
+      little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon
+      enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The other was
+      the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of self-abnegation
+      had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed. Back of its
+      position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own situation. On a
+      wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was another vase of dried
+      flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie brought the Scotch, already mixed, in a tall glass. K. would have
+      preferred to mix it himself, but the Scotch was good. He felt a new
+      respect for Mr. Schwitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You gave me a turn at first,&rdquo; said Tillie. &ldquo;But I am right glad to see
+      you, Mr. Le Moyne. Now that the roads are bad, nobody comes very much.
+      It's lonely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Until now, K. and Tillie, when they met, had met conversationally on the
+      common ground of food. They no longer had that, and between them both lay
+      like a barrier their last conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you happy, Tillie?&rdquo; said K. suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expected you'd ask me that. I've been thinking what to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her reply set him watching her face. More attractive it certainly was, but
+      happy? There was a wistfulness about Tillie's mouth that set him
+      wondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he good to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's about the best man on earth. He's never said a cross word to me&mdash;even
+      at first, when I was panicky and scared at every sound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne nodded understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I burned a lot of victuals when I first came, running off and hiding when
+      I heard people around the place. It used to seem to me that what I'd done
+      was written on my face. But he never said a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's over now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't run. I am still frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it has been worth while?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie glanced up at the two pictures over the mantel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes it is&mdash;when he comes in tired, and I've a chicken ready or
+      some fried ham and eggs for his supper, and I see him begin to look
+      rested. He lights his pipe, and many an evening he helps me with the
+      dishes. He's happy; he's getting fat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you?&rdquo; Le Moyne persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't go back to where I was, but I am not happy, Mr. Le Moyne.
+      There's no use pretending. I want a baby. All along I've wanted a baby. He
+      wants one. This place is his, and he'd like a boy to come into it when
+      he's gone. But, my God! if I did have one; what would it be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K.'s eyes followed hers to the picture and the everlastings underneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she&mdash;there isn't any prospect of her&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no solution to Tillie's problem. Le Moyne, standing on the
+      hearth and looking down at her, realized that, after all, Tillie must work
+      out her own salvation. He could offer her no comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They talked far into the growing twilight of the afternoon. Tillie was
+      hungry for news of the Street: must know of Christine's wedding, of
+      Harriet, of Sidney in her hospital. And when he had told her all, she sat
+      silent, rolling her handkerchief in her fingers. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take the four of us,&rdquo; she said suddenly,&mdash;&ldquo;Christine Lorenz and
+      Sidney Page and Miss Harriet and me,&mdash;and which one would you have
+      picked to go wrong like this? I guess, from the looks of things, most
+      folks would have thought it would be the Lorenz girl. They'd have picked
+      Harriet Kennedy for the hospital, and me for the dressmaking, and it would
+      have been Sidney Page that got married and had an automobile. Well, that's
+      life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up at K. shrewdly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were some people out here lately. They didn't know me, and I heard
+      them talking. They said Sidney Page was going to marry Dr. Max Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly. I believe there is no engagement yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had finished with his glass. Tillie rose to take it away. As she stood
+      before him she looked up into his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you like her as well as I think you do, Mr. Le Moyne, you won't let
+      him get her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid that's not up to me, is it? What would I do with a wife,
+      Tillie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd be faithful to her. That's more than he would be. I guess, in the
+      long run, that would count more than money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was what K. took home with him after his encounter with Tillie. He
+      pondered it on his way back to the street-car, as he struggled against the
+      wind. The weather had changed. Wagon-tracks along the road were filled
+      with water and had begun to freeze. The rain had turned to a driving sleet
+      that cut his face. Halfway to the trolley line, the dog turned off into a
+      by-road. K. did not miss him. The dog stared after him, one foot raised.
+      Once again his eyes were like Tillie's, as she had waved good-bye from the
+      porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His head sunk on his breast, K. covered miles of road with his long,
+      swinging pace, and fought his battle. Was Tillie right, after all, and had
+      he been wrong? Why should he efface himself, if it meant Sidney's
+      unhappiness? Why not accept Wilson's offer and start over again? Then if
+      things went well&mdash;the temptation was strong that stormy afternoon. He
+      put it from him at last, because of the conviction that whatever he did
+      would make no change in Sidney's ultimate decision. If she cared enough
+      for Wilson, she would marry him. He felt that she cared enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Palmer and Christine returned from their wedding trip the day K.
+      discovered Tillie. Anna Page made much of the arrival, insisted on dinner
+      for them that night at the little house, must help Christine unpack her
+      trunks and arrange her wedding gifts about the apartment. She was brighter
+      than she had been for days, more interested. The wonders of the trousseau
+      filled her with admiration and a sort of jealous envy for Sidney, who
+      could have none of these things. In a pathetic sort of way, she mothered
+      Christine in lieu of her own daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was her quick eye that discerned something wrong. Christine was not
+      quite happy. Under her excitement was an undercurrent of reserve. Anna,
+      rich in maternity if in nothing else, felt it, and in reply to some speech
+      of Christine's that struck her as hard, not quite fitting, she gave her a
+      gentle admonishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married life takes a little adjusting, my dear,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;After we have
+      lived to ourselves for a number of years, it is not easy to live for some
+      one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine straightened from the tea-table she was arranging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true, of course. But why should the woman do all the adjusting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men are more set,&rdquo; said poor Anna, who had never been set in anything in
+      her life. &ldquo;It is harder for them to give in. And, of course, Palmer is
+      older, and his habits&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The less said about Palmer's habits the better,&rdquo; flashed Christine. &ldquo;I
+      appear to have married a bunch of habits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave over her unpacking, and sat down listlessly by the fire, while
+      Anna moved about, busy with the small activities that delighted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six weeks of Palmer's society in unlimited amounts had bored Christine to
+      distraction. She sat with folded hands and looked into a future that
+      seemed to include nothing but Palmer: Palmer asleep with his mouth open;
+      Palmer shaving before breakfast, and irritable until he had had his
+      coffee; Palmer yawning over the newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there was a darker side to the picture than that. There was a vision
+      of Palmer slipping quietly into his room and falling into the heavy sleep,
+      not of drunkenness perhaps, but of drink. That had happened twice. She
+      knew now that it would happen again and again, as long as he lived.
+      Drinking leads to other things. The letter she had received on her wedding
+      day was burned into her brain. There would be that in the future too,
+      probably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was not without courage. She was making a brave clutch at
+      happiness. But that afternoon of the first day at home she was terrified.
+      She was glad when Anna went and left her alone by her fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she heard a step in the hall, she opened the door herself. She
+      had determined to meet Palmer with a smile. Tears brought nothing; she had
+      learned that already. Men liked smiling women and good cheer. &ldquo;Daughters
+      of joy,&rdquo; they called girls like the one on the Avenue. So she opened the
+      door smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was K. in the hall. She waited while, with his back to her, he
+      shook himself like a great dog. When he turned, she was watching him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; said Le Moyne. &ldquo;Why, welcome home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled down at her, his kindly eyes lighting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's good to be home and to see you again. Won't you come in to my fire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm wet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more reason why you should come,&rdquo; she cried gayly, and held the
+      door wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little parlor was cheerful with fire and soft lamps, bright with
+      silver vases full of flowers. K. stepped inside and took a critical survey
+      of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Between us we have made a pretty good job of this, I
+      with the paper and the wiring, and you with your pretty furnishings and
+      your pretty self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced at her appreciatively. Christine saw his approval, and was
+      happier than she had been for weeks. She put on the thousand little airs
+      and graces that were a part of her&mdash;held her chin high, looked up at
+      him with the little appealing glances that she had found were wasted on
+      Palmer. She lighted the spirit-lamp to make tea, drew out the best chair
+      for him, and patted a cushion with her well-cared-for hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A big chair for a big man!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And see, here's a footstool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ridiculously fond of being babied,&rdquo; said K., and quite basked in his
+      new atmosphere of well-being. This was better than his empty room
+      upstairs, than tramping along country roads, than his own thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, how is everything?&rdquo; asked Christine from across the fire. &ldquo;Do
+      tell me all the scandal of the Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There has been no scandal since you went away,&rdquo; said K. And, because each
+      was glad not to be left to his own thoughts, they laughed at this bit of
+      unconscious humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seriously,&rdquo; said Le Moyne, &ldquo;we have been very quiet. I have had my salary
+      raised and am now rejoicing in twenty-two dollars a week. I am still not
+      accustomed to it. Just when I had all my ideas fixed for fifteen, I get
+      twenty-two and have to reassemble them. I am disgustingly rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very disagreeable when one's income becomes a burden,&rdquo; said
+      Christine gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was finding in Le Moyne something that she needed just then&mdash;a
+      solidity, a sort of dependability, that had nothing to do with heaviness.
+      She felt that here was a man she could trust, almost confide in. She liked
+      his long hands, his shabby but well-cut clothes, his fine profile with its
+      strong chin. She left off her little affectations,&mdash;a tribute to his
+      own lack of them,&mdash;and sat back in her chair, watching the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When K. chose, he could talk well. The Howes had been to Bermuda on their
+      wedding trip. He knew Bermuda; that gave them a common ground. Christine
+      relaxed under his steady voice. As for K., he frankly enjoyed the little
+      visit&mdash;drew himself at last with regret out of his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been very nice to ask me in, Mrs. Howe,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I hope you will
+      allow me to come again. But, of course, you are going to be very gay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Christine she would never be gay again. She did not want him
+      to go away. The sound of his deep voice gave her a sense of security. She
+      liked the clasp of the hand he held out to her, when at last he made a
+      move toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell Mr. Howe I am sorry he missed our little party,&rdquo; said Le Moyne. &ldquo;And&mdash;thank
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come again?&rdquo; asked Christine rather wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as often as you ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he closed the door behind him, there was a new light in Christine's
+      eyes. Things were not right, but, after all, they were not hopeless. One
+      might still have friends, big and strong, steady of eye and voice. When
+      Palmer came home, the smile she gave him was not forced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day's exertion had been bad for Anna. Le Moyne found her on the couch
+      in the transformed sewing-room, and gave her a quick glance of
+      apprehension. She was propped up high with pillows, with a bottle of
+      aromatic ammonia beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just&mdash;short of breath,&rdquo; she panted. &ldquo;I&mdash;I must get down. Sidney&mdash;is
+      coming home&mdash;to supper; and&mdash;the others&mdash;Palmer and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was as far as she got. K., watch in hand, found her pulse thin,
+      stringy, irregular. He had been prepared for some such emergency, and he
+      hurried into his room for amyl-nitrate. When he came back she was almost
+      unconscious. There was no time even to call Katie. He broke the capsule in
+      a towel, and held it over her face. After a time the spasm relaxed, but
+      her condition remained alarming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet, who had come home by that time, sat by the couch and held her
+      sister's hand. Only once in the next hour or so did she speak. They had
+      sent for Dr. Ed, but he had not come yet. Harriet was too wretched to
+      notice the professional manner in which K. set to work over Anna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been a very hard sister to her,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If you can pull her
+      through, I'll try to make up for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine sat on the stairs outside, frightened and helpless. They had
+      sent for Sidney; but the little house had no telephone, and the message
+      was slow in getting off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At six o'clock Dr. Ed came panting up the stairs and into the room. K.
+      stood back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this is sad, Harriet,&rdquo; said Dr. Ed. &ldquo;Why in the name of Heaven,
+      when I wasn't around, didn't you get another doctor. If she had had some
+      amyl-nitrate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave her some nitrate of amyl,&rdquo; said K. quietly. &ldquo;There was really no
+      time to send for anybody. She almost went under at half-past five.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max had kept his word, and even Dr. Ed did not suspect K.'s secret. He
+      gave a quick glance at this tall young man who spoke so quietly of what he
+      had done for the sick woman, and went on with his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney arrived a little after six, and from that moment the confusion in
+      the sick-room was at an end. She moved Christine from the stairs, where
+      Katie on her numerous errands must crawl over her; set Harriet to warming
+      her mother's bed and getting it ready; opened windows, brought order and
+      quiet. And then, with death in her eyes, she took up her position beside
+      her mother. This was no time for weeping; that would come later. Once she
+      turned to K., standing watchfully beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you have known this for a long time,&rdquo; she said. And, when he did
+      not answer: &ldquo;Why did you let me stay away from her? It would have been
+      such a little time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were trying to do our best for both of you,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anna was unconscious and sinking fast. One thought obsessed Sidney. She
+      repeated it over and over. It came as a cry from the depths of the girl's
+      new experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has had so little of life,&rdquo; she said, over and over. &ldquo;So little! Just
+      this Street. She never knew anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And finally K. took it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, Sidney,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the Street IS life: the world is only many
+      streets. She had a great deal. She had love and content, and she had you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anna died a little after midnight, a quiet passing, so that only Sidney
+      and the two men knew when she went away. It was Harriet who collapsed.
+      During all that long evening she had sat looking back over years of small
+      unkindnesses. The thorn of Anna's inefficiency had always rankled in her
+      flesh. She had been hard, uncompromising, thwarted. And now it was forever
+      too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had watched Sidney carefully. Once he thought she was fainting, and
+      went to her. But she shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all right. Do you think you could get them all out of the room and
+      let me have her alone for just a few minutes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cleared the room, and took up his vigil outside the door. And, as he
+      stood there, he thought of what he had said to Sidney about the Street. It
+      was a world of its own. Here in this very house were death and separation;
+      Harriet's starved life; Christine and Palmer beginning a long and doubtful
+      future together; himself, a failure, and an impostor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he opened the door again, Sidney was standing by her mother's bed. He
+      went to her, and she turned and put her head against his shoulder like a
+      tired child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take me away, K.,&rdquo; she said pitifully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, with his arm around her, he led her out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside of her small immediate circle Anna's death was hardly felt. The
+      little house went on much as before. Harriet carried back to her business
+      a heaviness of spirit that made it difficult to bear with the small
+      irritations of her day. Perhaps Anna's incapacity, which had always
+      annoyed her, had been physical. She must have had her trouble a longtime.
+      She remembered other women of the Street who had crept through inefficient
+      days, and had at last laid down their burdens and closed their mild eyes,
+      to the lasting astonishment of their families. What did they think about,
+      these women, as they pottered about? Did they resent the impatience that
+      met their lagging movements, the indifference that would not see how they
+      were failing? Hot tears fell on Harriet's fashion-book as it lay on her
+      knee. Not only for Anna&mdash;for Anna's prototypes everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sidney&mdash;and in less measure, of course, on K.&mdash;fell the real
+      brunt of the disaster. Sidney kept up well until after the funeral, but
+      went down the next day with a low fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Overwork and grief,&rdquo; Dr. Ed said, and sternly forbade the hospital again
+      until Christmas. Morning and evening K. stopped at her door and inquired
+      for her, and morning and evening came Sidney's reply:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much better. I'll surely be up to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the days dragged on and she did not get about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Downstairs, Christine and Palmer had entered on the round of midwinter
+      gayeties. Palmer's &ldquo;crowd&rdquo; was a lively one. There were dinners and
+      dances, week-end excursions to country-houses. The Street grew accustomed
+      to seeing automobiles stop before the little house at all hours of the
+      night. Johnny Rosenfeld, driving Palmer's car, took to falling asleep at
+      the wheel in broad daylight, and voiced his discontent to his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never know where you are with them guys,&rdquo; he said briefly. &ldquo;We start
+      out for half an hour's run in the evening, and get home with the
+      milk-wagons. And the more some of them have had to drink, the more they
+      want to drive the machine. If I get a chance, I'm going to beat it while
+      the wind's my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, talk as he might, in Johnny Rosenfeld's loyal heart there was no
+      thought of desertion. Palmer had given him a man's job, and he would stick
+      by it, no matter what came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were some things that Johnny Rosenfeld did not tell his mother.
+      There were evenings when the Howe car was filled, not with Christine and
+      her friends, but with women of a different world; evenings when the
+      destination was not a country estate, but a road-house; evenings when
+      Johnny Rosenfeld, ousted from the driver's seat by some drunken youth,
+      would hold tight to the swinging car and say such fragments of prayers as
+      he could remember. Johnny Rosenfeld, who had started life with few
+      illusions, was in danger of losing such as he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One such night Christine put in, lying wakefully in her bed, while the
+      clock on the mantel tolled hour after hour into the night. Palmer did not
+      come home at all. He sent a note from the office in the morning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are not worried, darling. The car broke down near the Country
+      Club last night, and there was nothing to do but to spend the night there.
+      I would have sent you word, but I did not want to rouse you. What do you
+      say to the theater to-night and supper afterward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was learning. She telephoned the Country Club that morning, and
+      found that Palmer had not been there. But, although she knew now that he
+      was deceiving her, as he always had deceived her, as probably he always
+      would, she hesitated to confront him with what she knew. She shrank, as
+      many a woman has shrunk before, from confronting him with his lie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the second time it happened, she was roused. It was almost Christmas
+      then, and Sidney was well on the way to recovery, thinner and very white,
+      but going slowly up and down the staircase on K.'s arm, and sitting with
+      Harriet and K. at the dinner table. She was begging to be back on duty for
+      Christmas, and K. felt that he would have to give her up soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At three o'clock one morning Sidney roused from a light sleep to hear a
+      rapping on her door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Aunt Harriet?&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Christine. May I come in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney unlocked her door. Christine slipped into the room. She carried a
+      candle, and before she spoke she looked at Sidney's watch on the bedside
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hoped my clock was wrong,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am sorry to waken you, Sidney,
+      but I don't know what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Palmer has not come home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After three o'clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had lighted the gas and was throwing on her dressing-gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he went out did he say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said nothing. We had been quarreling. Sidney, I am going home in the
+      morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean that, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't I look as if I mean it? How much of this sort of thing is a woman
+      supposed to endure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he has been delayed. These things always seem terrible in the
+      middle of the night, but by morning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine whirled on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn't the first time. You remember the letter I got on my wedding
+      day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's gone back to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christine! Oh, I am sure you're wrong. He's devoted to you. I don't
+      believe it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe it or not,&rdquo; said Christine doggedly, &ldquo;that's exactly what has
+      happened. I got something out of that little rat of a Rosenfeld boy, and
+      the rest I know because I know Palmer. He's out with her to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to make
+      a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious. But vice had
+      remained for her a clear abstraction. There were such people, and because
+      one was in the world for service one cared for them. Even the Saviour had
+      been kind to the woman of the streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world&mdash;that
+      because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked. Her young
+      spirit rose in hot rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't fair!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It makes me hate all the men in the world.
+      Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room. Mere companionship
+      had soothed her. She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than
+      Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There are decent
+      men. My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home. Christine met him in
+      the lower hall. He was rather pale, but entirely sober. She confronted him
+      in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry to be so late, Chris,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The fact is, I am all in. I
+      was driving the car out Seven Mile Run. We blew out a tire and the thing
+      turned over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits
+      with his wedding day. In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much in
+      love with his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of marriage
+      had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face value. Grace
+      had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed to be. With
+      Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now&mdash;all his small
+      indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on, like other women
+      since the world began, she would learn to dissemble, to affect to believe
+      him what he was not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grace had learned this lesson long ago. It was the ABC of her knowledge.
+      And so, back to Grace six weeks after his wedding day came Palmer Howe,
+      not with a suggestion to renew the old relationship, but for comradeship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine sulked&mdash;he wanted good cheer; Christine was intolerant&mdash;he
+      wanted tolerance; she disapproved of him and showed her disapproval&mdash;he
+      wanted approval. He wanted life to be comfortable and cheerful, without
+      recriminations, a little work and much play, a drink when one was thirsty.
+      Distorted though it was, and founded on a wrong basis, perhaps, deep in
+      his heart Palmer's only longing was for happiness; but this happiness must
+      be of an active sort&mdash;not content, which is passive, but enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I've got a car now. No taxi working its head off
+      for us. Just a little run over the country roads, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the afternoon of the day before Christine's night visit to Sidney.
+      The office had been closed, owing to a death, and Palmer was in possession
+      of a holiday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he coaxed. &ldquo;We'll go out to the Climbing Rose and have supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not true, Grace, and you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You and I are through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's your doing, not mine. The roads are frozen hard; an hour's run into
+      the country will bring your color back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much you care about that. Go and ride with your wife,&rdquo; said the girl, and
+      flung away from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last few weeks had filled out her thin figure, but she still bore
+      traces of her illness. Her short hair was curled over her head. She looked
+      curiously boyish, almost sexless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because she saw him wince when she mentioned Christine, her ill temper
+      increased. She showed her teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get out of here,&rdquo; she said suddenly. &ldquo;I didn't ask you to come back.
+      I don't want you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens, Grace! You always knew I would have to marry some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sick; I nearly died. I didn't hear any reports of you hanging
+      around the hospital to learn how I was getting along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed rather sheepishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to be careful. You know that as well as I do. I know half the staff
+      there. Besides, one of&mdash;&rdquo; He hesitated over his wife's name. &ldquo;A girl
+      I know very well was in the training-school. There would have been the
+      devil to pay if I'd as much as called up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never told me you were going to get married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornered, he slipped an arm around her. But she shook him off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant to tell you, honey; but you got sick. Anyhow, I&mdash;I hated to
+      tell you, honey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had furnished the flat for her. There was a comfortable feeling of
+      coming home about going there again. And, now that the worst minute of
+      their meeting was over, he was visibly happier. But Grace continued to
+      stand eyeing him somberly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got something to tell you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Don't have a fit, and don't
+      laugh. If you do, I'll&mdash;I'll jump out of the window. I've got a place
+      in a store. I'm going to be straight, Palmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He meant it. She was a nice girl and he was fond of her. The other was a
+      dog's life. And he was not unselfish about it. She could not belong to
+      him. He did not want her to belong to any one else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the nurses in the hospital, a Miss Page, has got me something to
+      do at Lipton and Homburg's. I am going on for the January white sale. If I
+      make good they will keep me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had put her aside without a qualm; and now he met her announcement with
+      approval. He meant to let her alone. They would have a holiday together,
+      and then they would say good-bye. And she had not fooled him. She still
+      cared. He was getting off well, all things considered. She might have
+      raised a row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good work!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You'll be a lot happier. But that isn't any reason
+      why we shouldn't be friends, is it? Just friends; I mean that. I would
+      like to feel that I can stop in now and then and say how do you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promised Miss Page.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind Miss Page.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mention of Sidney's name brought up in his mind Christine as he had
+      left her that morning. He scowled. Things were not going well at home.
+      There was something wrong with Christine. She used to be a good sport, but
+      she had never been the same since the day of the wedding. He thought her
+      attitude toward him was one of suspicion. It made him uncomfortable. But
+      any attempt on his part to fathom it only met with cold silence. That had
+      been her attitude that morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what we'll do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We won't go to any of the old
+      places. I've found a new roadhouse in the country that's respectable
+      enough to suit anybody. We'll go out to Schwitter's and get some dinner.
+      I'll promise to get you back early. How's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end she gave in. And on the way out he lived up to the letter of
+      their agreement. The situation exhilarated him: Grace with her new air of
+      virtue, her new aloofness; his comfortable car; Johnny Rosenfeld's
+      discreet back and alert ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The adventure had all the thrill of a new conquest in it. He treated the
+      girl with deference, did not insist when she refused a cigarette, felt
+      glowingly virtuous and exultant at the same time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the car drew up before the Schwitter place, he slipped a five-dollar
+      bill into Johnny Rosenfeld's not over-clean hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mind the ears,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just watch your tongue, lad.&rdquo; And
+      Johnny stalled his engine in sheer surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's just enough of the Jew in me,&rdquo; said Johnny, &ldquo;to know how to talk
+      a lot and say nothing, Mr. Howe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crawled stiffly out of the car and prepared to crank it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll just give her the 'once over' now and then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She'll freeze
+      solid if I let her stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grace had gone up the narrow path to the house. She had the gift of
+      looking well in her clothes, and her small hat with its long quill and her
+      motor-coat were chic and becoming. She never overdressed, as Christine was
+      inclined to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately for Palmer, Tillie did not see him. A heavy German maid waited
+      at the table in the dining-room, while Tillie baked waffles in the
+      kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld, going around the side path to the kitchen door with
+      visions of hot coffee and a country supper for his frozen stomach, saw her
+      through the window bending flushed over the stove, and hesitated. Then,
+      without a word, he tiptoed back to the car again, and, crawling into the
+      tonneau, covered himself with rugs. In his untutored mind were certain
+      great qualities, and loyalty to his employer was one. The five dollars in
+      his pocket had nothing whatever to do with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eighteen he had developed a philosophy of four words. It took the place
+      of the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism. It was: &ldquo;Mind
+      your own business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The discovery of Tillie's hiding-place interested but did not thrill him.
+      Tillie was his cousin. If she wanted to do the sort of thing she was
+      doing, that was her affair. Tillie and her middle-aged lover, Palmer Howe
+      and Grace&mdash;the alley was not unfamiliar with such relationships. It
+      viewed them with tolerance until they were found out, when it raised its
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True to his promise, Palmer wakened the sleeping boy before nine o'clock.
+      Grace had eaten little and drunk nothing; but Howe was slightly
+      stimulated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give her the 'once over,'&rdquo; he told Johnny, &ldquo;and then go back and crawl
+      into the rugs again. I'll drive in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grace sat beside him. Their progress was slow and rough over the country
+      roads, but when they reached the State road Howe threw open the throttle.
+      He drove well. The liquor was in his blood. He took chances and got away
+      with them, laughing at the girl's gasps of dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait until I get beyond Simkinsville,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I'll let her out.
+      You're going to travel tonight, honey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl sat beside him with her eyes fixed ahead. He had been drinking,
+      and the warmth of the liquor was in his voice. She was determined on one
+      thing. She was going to make him live up to the letter of his promise to
+      go away at the house door; and more and more she realized that it would be
+      difficult. His mood was reckless, masterful. Instead of laughing when she
+      drew back from a proffered caress, he turned surly. Obstinate lines that
+      she remembered appeared from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. She
+      was uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally she hit on a plan to make him stop somewhere in her neighborhood
+      and let her get out of the car. She would not come back after that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another car going toward the city. Now it passed them, and as
+      often they passed it. It became a contest of wits. Palmer's car lost on
+      the hills, but gained on the long level stretches, which gleamed with a
+      coating of thin ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you'd let them get ahead, Palmer. It's silly and it's reckless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you we'd travel to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned a little glance at her. What the deuce was the matter with
+      women, anyhow? Were none of them cheerful any more? Here was Grace as
+      sober as Christine. He felt outraged, defrauded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His light car skidded and struck the big car heavily. On a smooth road
+      perhaps nothing more serious than broken mudguards would have been the
+      result. But on the ice the small car slewed around and slid over the edge
+      of the bank. At the bottom of the declivity it turned over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grace was flung clear of the wreckage. Howe freed himself and stood erect,
+      with one arm hanging at his side. There was no sound at all from the boy
+      under the tonneau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The big car had stopped. Down the bank plunged a heavy, gorilla-like
+      figure, long arms pushing aside the frozen branches of trees. When he
+      reached the car, O'Hara found Grace sitting unhurt on the ground. In the
+      wreck of the car the lamps had not been extinguished, and by their light
+      he made out Howe, swaying dizzily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anybody underneath?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The chauffeur. He's dead, I think. He doesn't answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that
+      time. With the aid of a jack, they got the car up. Johnny Rosenfeld lay
+      doubled on his face underneath. When he came to and opened his eyes, Grace
+      almost shrieked with relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm all right,&rdquo; said Johnny Rosenfeld. And, when they offered him
+      whiskey: &ldquo;Away with the fire-water. I am no drinker. I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; A
+      spasm of pain twisted his face. &ldquo;I guess I'll get up.&rdquo; With his arms he
+      lifted himself to a sitting position, and fell back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I can't move my legs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but
+      valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a
+      talk with K. the night before she left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by the
+      table and watched her as she moved about the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and down
+      the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch in the
+      sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home for her
+      tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to bear them in
+      triumph to that upper room&mdash;he had not been so happy in years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it was over. He drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on,&rdquo; she said anxiously. &ldquo;Not
+      that we don't want you&mdash;you know better than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to,&rdquo; he said
+      simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to&mdash;to keep
+      things together. First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it
+      is you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it is I who
+      am undeniably grateful to you? This is home now. I have lived around&mdash;in
+      different places and in different ways. I would rather be here than
+      anywhere else in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not look at her. There was so much that was hopeless in his
+      eyes that he did not want her to see. She would be quite capable, he told
+      himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she ever guessed.
+      And he was afraid&mdash;afraid, since he wanted her so much&mdash;that he
+      would be fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms. So he
+      looked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was ready for her return to the hospital. She had been out that
+      day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with folded hands;
+      she had made her round of little visits on the Street; and now her
+      suit-case, packed, was in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In one way, it will be a little better for you than if Christine and
+      Palmer were not in the house. You like Christine, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She likes you, K. She depends on you, too, especially since that night
+      when you took care of Palmer's arm before we got Dr. Max. I often think,
+      K., what a good doctor you would have been. You knew so well what to do
+      for mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke off. She still could not trust her voice about her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer's arm is going to be quite straight. Dr. Ed is so proud of Max
+      over it. It was a bad fracture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been waiting for that. Once at least, whenever they were together,
+      she brought Max into the conversation. She was quite unconscious of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You and Max are great friends. I knew you would like him. He is
+      interesting, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very,&rdquo; said K.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To save his life, he could not put any warmth into his voice. He would be
+      fair. It was not in human nature to expect more of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those long talks you have, shut in your room&mdash;what in the world do
+      you talk about? Politics?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Occasionally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little jealous of those evenings, when she sat alone, or when
+      Harriet, sitting with her, made sketches under the lamp to the
+      accompaniment of a steady hum of masculine voices from across the hall.
+      Not that she was ignored, of course. Max came in always, before he went,
+      and, leaning over the back of a chair, would inform her of the absolute
+      blankness of life in the hospital without her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go every day because I must,&rdquo; he would assure her gayly; &ldquo;but, I tell
+      you, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every cap
+      was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling.&rdquo; He had
+      a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of the
+      shoulders. &ldquo;Cui bono?&rdquo; he said&mdash;which, being translated, means: &ldquo;What
+      the devil's the use!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And K. would stand in the doorway, quietly smoking, or go back to his room
+      and lock away in his trunk the great German books on surgery with which he
+      and Max had been working out a case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So K. sat by the dining-room table and listened to her talk of Max that
+      last evening together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told Mrs. Rosenfeld to-day not to be too much discouraged about Johnny.
+      I had seen Dr. Max do such wonderful things. Now that you are such
+      friends,&rdquo;&mdash;she eyed him wistfully,&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps some day you will
+      come to one of his operations. Even if you didn't understand exactly, I
+      know it would thrill you. And&mdash;I'd like you to see me in my uniform,
+      K. You never have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew a little sad as the evening went on. She was going to miss K.
+      very much. While she was ill she had watched the clock for the time to
+      listen for him. She knew the way he slammed the front door. Palmer never
+      slammed the door. She knew too that, just after a bang that threatened the
+      very glass in the transom, K. would come to the foot of the stairs and
+      call:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ahoy, there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, aye,&rdquo; she would answer&mdash;which was, he assured her, the proper
+      response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether he came up the stairs at once or took his way back to Katie had
+      depended on whether his tribute for the day was fruit or sweetbreads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that was all over. They were such good friends. He would miss her,
+      too; but he would have Harriet and Christine and&mdash;Max. Back in a
+      circle to Max, of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She insisted, that last evening, on sitting up with him until midnight
+      ushered in Christmas Day. Christine and Palmer were out; Harriet, having
+      presented Sidney with a blouse that had been left over in the shop from
+      the autumn's business, had yawned herself to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bells announced midnight, Sidney roused with a start. She
+      realized that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes were fixed on
+      her. The little clock on the shelf took up the burden of the churches, and
+      struck the hour in quick staccato notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney rose and went over to K., her black dress in soft folds about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is born, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is born, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stooped and kissed his cheek lightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christmas Day dawned thick and white. Sidney left the little house at six,
+      with the street light still burning through a mist of falling snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hospital wards and corridors were still lighted when she went on duty
+      at seven o'clock. She had been assigned to the men's surgical ward, and
+      went there at once. She had not seen Carlotta Harrison since her mother's
+      death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward. For the second time
+      in four months, the two girls were working side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made her
+      nervous. But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were all sorry to hear of your trouble,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I hope we shall
+      get on nicely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing. At the far end two cots had
+      been placed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ward is heavy, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very. I've been almost mad at dressing hour. There are three of us&mdash;you,
+      myself, and a probationer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows.
+      Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a business-like way to her
+      records.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The probationer's name is Wardwell,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Perhaps you'd better help
+      her with the breakfasts. If there's any way to make a mistake, she makes
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You here in the ward, Johnny!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suffering had refined the boy's features. His dark, heavily fringed eyes
+      looked at her from a pale face. But he smiled up at her cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved.
+      Why pay rent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had not seen him since his accident. She had wished to go, but K.
+      had urged against it. She was not strong, and she had already suffered
+      much. And now the work of the ward pressed hard. She had only a moment.
+      She stood beside him and stroked his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, Johnny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estate
+      of a private patient to the free ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I'm all right, Miss Sidney,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Mr. Howe is paying six dollars
+      a week for me. The difference between me and the other fellows around here
+      is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before his determined cheerfulness Sidney choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some. I wish you'd tell Mr. Howe
+      to give ma the six dollars. She'll be needing it. I'm no bloated
+      aristocrat; I don't have to have a napkin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they told you what the trouble is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back's broke. But don't let that worry you. Dr. Max Wilson is going to
+      operate on me. I'll be doing the tango yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's eyes shone. Of course, Max could do it. What a thing it was to be
+      able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld's and make it life
+      again!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All sorts of men made up Sidney's world: the derelicts who wandered
+      through the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; the
+      unshaven men in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, if
+      not of pain; Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, but
+      filling no especial place in the world. Towering over them all was the
+      younger Wilson. He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that the
+      other men were not&mdash;to their weakness strength, courage, daring,
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was a kid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Max a
+      dude, I never thought I'd lie here watching that door to see him come in.
+      You have had trouble, too. Ain't it the hell of a world, anyhow? It ain't
+      much of a Christmas to you, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up with
+      tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as she
+      might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled up at
+      her whimsically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run for your life. The dam's burst!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. The
+      internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in their
+      buttonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where the
+      kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting
+      turkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, services were
+      held in the chapel downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down elevators.
+      Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor the
+      wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for the
+      occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who drove
+      the ambulance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in crisp
+      caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved a place for
+      the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready to run out
+      between rejoicings, as it were&mdash;for a cigarette or an ambulance call,
+      as the case might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising
+      above the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glass
+      windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her
+      cap, always just a little awry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes
+      straying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! What a
+      zest for living and for happiness she had!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even
+      thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was Sidney. She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil of
+      gladness. And he&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brother was singing. His deep bass voice, not always true, boomed out
+      above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to him; he
+      had been a good son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his
+      mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the girl
+      who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to Carlotta
+      last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line of nurses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted
+      her head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurses sang:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O holy Child of Bethlehem!
+      Descend to us, we pray;
+      Cast out our sin, and enter in,
+      Be born in us to-day.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
+      heavy throat shook with earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and
+      weary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her a
+      silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror. But
+      the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a great box of
+      roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, &ldquo;From a neighbor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
+      afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the
+      corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merry Christmas!&rdquo; he said, and held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merry Christmas!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You see!&rdquo;&mdash;she glanced down to the rose
+      she wore. &ldquo;The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they were for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
+      chance to enjoy them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty
+      speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died
+      before her frank glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her that
+      he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without her;
+      that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy man to
+      his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire politely
+      whether she had had her Christmas dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
+      friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn discipline!&rdquo; said the pride of the staff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes roused
+      the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,
+      and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for a
+      ride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he
+      maliciously raised his voice a trifle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a little run,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;Put on your warmest things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock; but
+      she had promised to go home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K. is alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. The
+      heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreen
+      in the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And,
+      besides, if K. were with Christine&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's forbidden, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe it is.&rdquo; He smiled at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and
+      then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend and
+      neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellion
+      of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; I'll go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta had gone by that time&mdash;gone with hate in her heart and black
+      despair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive
+      with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on her
+      face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleigh would
+      throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He would touch
+      Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method: to play
+      at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the cloak
+      dropped and the danger was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went
+      back to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair of
+      woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays of holly
+      scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey and
+      ice-cream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the
+      ward. She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the
+      instant composing of the restless ward to peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas was
+      a festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she played
+      cheerful things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across
+      from bed to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
+      long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
+      the music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last Christmas,&rdquo; she said plaintively, &ldquo;we went out into the country in a
+      hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for, anyhow. I
+      am a fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Carlotta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's
+      the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of
+      what I sat down to to-day&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital
+      differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while
+      Sidney's had been to care for her patients.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idly glued
+      the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was scratching
+      a skull and cross-bones on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if you have noticed something,&rdquo; she said, eyes on the label.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given,&rdquo; said
+      Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the
+      rounds of the ward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she came back she was sulky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm no gossip,&rdquo; she said, putting the tray on the table. &ldquo;If you won't
+      see, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta paid
+      no attention to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What won't I see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importance and
+      let her superior ask her twice. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're old friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you
+      wanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll
+      never finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish,&rdquo; concluded the
+      probationer plaintively, &ldquo;that some good-looking fellow like that would
+      take a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, but
+      I've got style.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her lanky,
+      ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy would have
+      dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long jade earrings,
+      and made her a fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny
+      Rosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.
+      The ward echoed with it. &ldquo;I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen,&rdquo; hummed the
+      ward under its breath. Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord, how I'd like to dance! If I ever get out of this charnel-house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.
+      This crude girl was right&mdash;right. Carlotta knew it down to the depths
+      of her tortured brain. As inevitably as the night followed the day, she
+      was losing her game. She had lost already, unless&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things. She
+      surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wide apart. It
+      was here that they met on common ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lame violin-player limped out of the ward; the shadows of the early
+      winter twilight settled down. At five o'clock Carlotta sent Miss Wardwell
+      to first supper, to the surprise of that seldom surprised person. The ward
+      lay still or shuffled abut quietly. Christmas was over, and there were no
+      evening papers to look forward to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta gave the five-o'clock medicines. Then she sat down at the table
+      near the door, with the tray in front of her. There are certain thoughts
+      that are at first functions of the brain; after a long time the spinal
+      cord takes them up and converts them into acts almost automatically.
+      Perhaps because for the last month she had done the thing so often in her
+      mind, its actual performance was almost without conscious thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta took a bottle from her medicine cupboard, and, writing a new
+      label for it, pasted it over the old one. Then she exchanged it for one of
+      the same size on the medicine tray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining-room, at the probationers' table, Miss Wardwell was talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;me for the country and the simple life after
+      this. They think I'm only a probationer and don't see anything, but I've
+      got eyes in my head. Harrison is stark crazy over Dr. Wilson, and she
+      thinks I don't see it. But never mind; I paid, her up to-day for a few of
+      the jolts she has given me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Throughout the dining-room busy and competent young women came and ate,
+      hastily or leisurely as their opportunity was, and went on their way
+      again. In their hands they held the keys, not always of life and death
+      perhaps, but of ease from pain, of tenderness, of smooth pillows, and cups
+      of water to thirsty lips. In their eyes, as in Sidney's, burned the light
+      of service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here and there one found women, like Carlotta and Miss Wardwell, who
+      had mistaken their vocation, who railed against the monotony of the life,
+      its limitations, its endless sacrifices. They showed it in their eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifty or so against two&mdash;fifty who looked out on the world with the
+      fearless glance of those who have seen life to its depths, and, with the
+      broad understanding of actual contact, still found it good. Fifty who were
+      learning or had learned not to draw aside their clean starched skirts from
+      the drab of the streets. And the fifty, who found the very scum of the
+      gutters not too filthy for tenderness and care, let Carlotta and, in
+      lesser measure, the new probationer alone. They could not have voiced
+      their reasons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The supper-room was filled with their soft voices, the rustle of their
+      skirts, the gleam of their stiff white caps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Carlotta came in, she greeted none of them. They did not like her,
+      and she knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before her, instead of the tidy supper-table, she was seeing the
+      medicine-tray as she had left it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I've fixed her,&rdquo; she said to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day. This was when the gay
+      little sleigh had stopped in front of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment. Christine's parlor was gay
+      with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her
+      tea-cups.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had turned to see Sidney in
+      the doorway, and leaped to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't come in,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I am only here for a moment. I am out
+      sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson. It's perfectly delightful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask him in for a cup of tea,&rdquo; Christine called out. &ldquo;Here's Aunt Harriet
+      and mother and even Palmer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine had aged during the last weeks, but she was putting up a brave
+      front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll ask him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney ran to the front door and called: &ldquo;Will you come in for a cup of
+      tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tea! Good Heavens, no. Hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Sidney turned back into the house, she met Palmer. He had come out in
+      the hall, and had closed the door into the parlor behind him. His arm was
+      still in splints, and swung suspended in a gay silk sling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of laughter came through the door faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is he to-day?&rdquo; He meant Johnny, of course. The boy's face was always
+      with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better in some ways, but of course&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When are they going to operate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he is a little stronger. Why don't you come into see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't. That's the truth. I can't face the poor youngster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn't seem to blame you; he says it's all in the game.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney, does Christine know that I was not alone that night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she guesses, it is not because of anything the boy has said. He has
+      told nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of the firelight, away from the chatter and the laughter, Palmer's
+      face showed worn and haggard. He put his free hand on Sidney's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking that perhaps if I went away&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be cowardly, wouldn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Christine would only say something and get it over with! She doesn't
+      sulk; I think she's really trying to be kind. But she hates me, Sidney.
+      She turns pale every time I touch her hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the light had died out of Sidney's face. Life was terrible, after all&mdash;overwhelming.
+      One did wrong things, and other people suffered; or one was good, as her
+      mother had been, and was left lonely, a widow, or like Aunt Harriet. Life
+      was a sham, too. Things were so different from what they seemed to be:
+      Christine beyond the door, pouring tea and laughing with her heart in
+      ashes; Palmer beside her, faultlessly dressed and wretched. The only one
+      she thought really contented was K. He seemed to move so calmly in his
+      little orbit. He was always so steady, so balanced. If life held no
+      heights for him, at least it held no depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Sidney thought, in her ignorance!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's only one thing, Palmer,&rdquo; she said gravely. &ldquo;Johnny Rosenfeld is
+      going to have his chance. If anybody in the world can save him, Max Wilson
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light of that speech was in her eyes when she went out to the sleigh
+      again. K. followed her out and tucked the robes in carefully about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Warm enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go too far. Is there any chance of having you home for supper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not. I am to go on duty at six again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If there was a shadow in K.'s eyes, she did not see it. He waved them off
+      smilingly from the pavement, and went rather heavily back into the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just how many men are in love with you, Sidney?&rdquo; asked Max, as Peggy
+      started up the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one that I know of, unless&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. Unless&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I meant,&rdquo; she said with dignity, &ldquo;is that unless one counts very
+      young men, and that isn't really love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll leave out Joe Drummond and myself&mdash;for, of course, I am very
+      young. Who is in love with you besides Le Moyne? Any of the internes at
+      the hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me! Le Moyne is not in love with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was such sincerity in her voice that Wilson was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K., older than himself and more grave, had always had an odd attraction
+      for women. He had been frankly bored by them, but the fact had remained.
+      And Max more than suspected that now, at last, he had been caught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you really mean that you are in love with Le Moyne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't be absurd. I am not in love with anybody; I haven't time to
+      be in love. I have my profession now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! A woman's real profession is love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney differed from this hotly. So warm did the argument become that they
+      passed without seeing a middle-aged gentleman, short and rather heavy set,
+      struggling through a snowdrift on foot, and carrying in his hand a
+      dilapidated leather bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed hailed them. But the cutter slipped by and left him knee-deep,
+      looking ruefully after them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young scamp!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So that's where Peggy is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, there was no anger in Dr. Ed's mind, only a vague and
+      inarticulate regret. These things that came so easily to Max, the
+      affection of women, gay little irresponsibilities like the stealing of
+      Peggy and the sleigh, had never been his. If there was any faint
+      resentment, it was at himself. He had raised the boy wrong&mdash;he had
+      taught him to be selfish. Holding the bag high out of the drifts, he made
+      his slow progress up the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At something after two o'clock that night, K. put down his pipe and
+      listened. He had not been able to sleep since midnight. In his
+      dressing-gown he had sat by the small fire, thinking. The content of his
+      first few months on the Street was rapidly giving way to unrest. He who
+      had meant to cut himself off from life found himself again in close touch
+      with it; his eddy was deep with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time, he had begun to question the wisdom of what he had
+      done. Had it been cowardice, after all? It had taken courage, God knew, to
+      give up everything and come away. In a way, it would have taken more
+      courage to have stayed. Had he been right or wrong?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there was a new element. He had thought, at first, that he could fight
+      down this love for Sidney. But it was increasingly hard. The innocent
+      touch of her hand on his arm, the moment when he had held her in his arms
+      after her mother's death, the thousand small contacts of her returns to
+      the little house&mdash;all these set his blood on fire. And it was
+      fighting blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under his quiet exterior K. fought many conflicts those winter days&mdash;over
+      his desk and ledger at the office, in his room alone, with Harriet
+      planning fresh triumphs beyond the partition, even by Christine's fire,
+      with Christine just across, sitting in silence and watching his grave
+      profile and steady eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a little picture of Sidney&mdash;a snap-shot that he had taken
+      himself. It showed Sidney minus a hand, which had been out of range when
+      the camera had been snapped, and standing on a steep declivity which would
+      have been quite a level had he held the camera straight. Nevertheless it
+      was Sidney, her hair blowing about her, eyes looking out, tender lips
+      smiling. When she was not at home, it sat on K.'s dresser, propped against
+      his collar-box. When she was in the house, it lay under the pin-cushion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two o'clock in the morning, then, and K. in his dressing-gown, with the
+      picture propped, not against the collar-box, but against his lamp, where
+      he could see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat forward in his chair, his hands folded around his knee, and looked
+      at it. He was trying to picture the Sidney of the photograph in his old
+      life&mdash;trying to find a place for her. But it was difficult. There had
+      been few women in his old life. His mother had died many years before.
+      There had been women who had cared for him, but he put them impatiently
+      out of his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was moving about below. He could hear her quick steps. Almost
+      before he had heaved his long legs out of the chair, she was tapping at
+      his door outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Mrs. Rosenfeld. She says she wants to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went down the stairs. Mrs. Rosenfeld was standing in the lower hall, a
+      shawl about her shoulders. Her face was white and drawn above it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've had word to go to the hospital,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought maybe you'd go
+      with me. It seems as if I can't stand it alone. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Palmer?&rdquo; K. demanded of Christine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's not in yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you afraid to stay in the house alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; please go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ran up the staircase to his room and flung on some clothing. In the
+      lower hall, Mrs. Rosenfeld's sobs had become low moans; Christine stood
+      helplessly over her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am terribly sorry,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;terribly sorry! When I think whose
+      fault all this is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Rosenfeld put out a work-hardened hand and caught Christine's
+      fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind that,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You didn't do it. I guess you and I
+      understand each other. Only pray God you never have a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. never forgot the scene in the small emergency ward to which Johnny had
+      been taken. Under the white lights his boyish figure looked strangely
+      long. There was a group around the bed&mdash;Max Wilson, two or three
+      internes, the night nurse on duty, and the Head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting just inside the door on a straight chair was Sidney&mdash;such a
+      Sidney as he never had seen before, her face colorless, her eyes wide and
+      unseeing, her hands clenched in her lap. When he stood beside her, she did
+      not move or look up. The group around the bed had parted to admit Mrs.
+      Rosenfeld, and closed again. Only Sidney and K. remained by the door,
+      isolated, alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not take it like that, dear. It's sad, of course. But, after
+      all, in that condition&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her first knowledge that he was there. But she did not turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say I poisoned him.&rdquo; Her voice was dreary, inflectionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say I gave him the wrong medicine; that he's dying; that I murdered
+      him.&rdquo; She shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. touched her hands. They were ice-cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to tell. I came on duty at six o'clock and gave the
+      medicines. When the night nurse came on at seven, everything was all
+      right. The medicine-tray was just as it should be. Johnny was asleep. I
+      went to say good-night to him and he&mdash;he was asleep. I didn't give
+      him anything but what was on the tray,&rdquo; she finished piteously. &ldquo;I looked
+      at the label; I always look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By a shifting of the group around the bed, K.'s eyes looked for a moment
+      directly into Carlotta's. Just for a moment; then the crowd closed up
+      again. It was well for Carlotta that it did. She looked as if she had seen
+      a ghost&mdash;closed her eyes, even reeled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Harrison is worn out,&rdquo; Dr. Wilson said brusquely. &ldquo;Get some one to
+      take her place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Carlotta rallied. After all, the presence of this man in this room at
+      such a time meant nothing. He was Sidney's friend, that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her nerve was shaken. The thing had gone beyond her. She had not meant
+      to kill. It was the boy's weakened condition that was turning her revenge
+      into tragedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all right,&rdquo; she pleaded across the bed to the Head. &ldquo;Let me stay,
+      please. He's from my ward. I&mdash;I am responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson was at his wits' end. He had done everything he knew without
+      result. The boy, rousing for an instant, would lapse again into stupor.
+      With a healthy man they could have tried more vigorous measures&mdash;could
+      have forced him to his feet and walked him about, could have beaten him
+      with knotted towels dipped in ice-water. But the wrecked body on the bed
+      could stand no such heroic treatment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Le Moyne, after all, who saved Johnny Rosenfeld's life. For, when
+      staff and nurses had exhausted all their resources, he stepped forward
+      with a quiet word that brought the internes to their feet astonished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a new treatment for such cases&mdash;it had been tried abroad.
+      He looked at Max.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Max had never heard of it. He threw out his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try it, for Heaven's sake,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm all in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The apparatus was not in the house&mdash;must be extemporized, indeed, at
+      last, of odds and ends from the operating-room. K. did the work, his long
+      fingers deft and skillful&mdash;while Mrs. Rosenfeld knelt by the bed with
+      her face buried; while Sidney sat, dazed and bewildered, on her little
+      chair inside the door; while night nurses tiptoed along the corridor, and
+      the night watchman stared incredulous from outside the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two great rectangles that were the emergency ward windows had
+      turned from mirrors reflecting the room to gray rectangles in the morning
+      light; Johnny Rosenfeld opened his eyes and spoke the first words that
+      marked his return from the dark valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, this is the life!&rdquo; he said, and smiled into K.'s watchful face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was clear that the boy would live, K. rose stiffly from the
+      bedside and went over to Sidney's chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's all right now,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;as all right as he can be, poor lad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did it&mdash;you! How strange that you should know such a thing. How
+      am I to thank you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The internes, talking among themselves, had wandered down to their
+      dining-room for early coffee. Wilson was giving a few last instructions as
+      to the boy's care. Quite unexpectedly, Sidney caught K.'s hand and held it
+      to her lips. The iron repression of the night, of months indeed, fell away
+      before her simple caress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, my dear,&rdquo; he said huskily. &ldquo;Anything that I can do&mdash;for you&mdash;at
+      any time&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was after Sidney had crept like a broken thing to her room that
+      Carlotta Harrison and K. came face to face. Johnny was quite conscious by
+      that time, a little blue around the lips, but valiantly cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More things can happen to a fellow than I ever knew there was!&rdquo; he said
+      to his mother, and submitted rather sheepishly to her tears and caresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were always a good boy, Johnny,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Just you get well enough
+      to come home. I'll take care of you the rest of my life. We will get you a
+      wheel-chair when you can be about, and I can take you out in the park when
+      I come from work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be passenger and you'll be chauffeur, ma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Le Moyne is going to get your father sent up again. With sixty-five
+      cents a day and what I make, we'll get along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet we will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Johnny, if I could see you coming in the door again and yelling
+      'mother' and 'supper' in one breath!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting between Carlotta and Le Moyne was very quiet. She had been
+      making a sort of subconscious impression on the retina of his mind during
+      all the night. It would be difficult to tell when he actually knew her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the preparations for moving Johnny back to the big ward had been
+      made, the other nurses left the room, and Carlotta and the boy were
+      together. K. stopped her on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Harrison!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Dr. Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not Dr. Edwardes here; my name is Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen you since you left St. John's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I&mdash;I rested for a few months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they do not know that you were&mdash;that you have had any
+      previous hospital experience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Are you going to tell them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not tell them, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, by simple mutual consent, it was arranged that each should
+      respect the other's confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta staggered to her room. There had been a time, just before dawn,
+      when she had had one of those swift revelations that sometimes come at the
+      end of a long night. She had seen herself as she was. The boy was very
+      low, hardly breathing. Her past stretched behind her, a series of small
+      revenges and passionate outbursts, swift yieldings, slow remorse. She
+      dared not look ahead. She would have given every hope she had in the
+      world, just then, for Sidney's stainless past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hated herself with that deadliest loathing that comes of complete
+      self-revelation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she carried to her room the knowledge that the night's struggle had
+      been in vain&mdash;that, although Johnny Rosenfeld would live, she had
+      gained nothing by what he had suffered. The whole night had shown her the
+      hopelessness of any stratagem to win Wilson from his new allegiance. She
+      had surprised him in the hallway, watching Sidney's slender figure as she
+      made her way up the stairs to her room. Never, in all his past overtures
+      to her, had she seen that look in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To Harriet Kennedy, Sidney's sentence of thirty days' suspension came as a
+      blow. K. broke the news to her that evening before the time for Sidney's
+      arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little household was sharing in Harriet's prosperity. Katie had a
+      helper now, a little Austrian girl named Mimi. And Harriet had established
+      on the Street the innovation of after-dinner coffee. It was over the
+      after-dinner coffee that K. made his announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by saying she is coming home for thirty days? Is the
+      child ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ill, although she is not quite well. The fact is, Harriet,&rdquo;&mdash;for
+      it was &ldquo;Harriet&rdquo; and &ldquo;K.&rdquo; by this time,&mdash;&ldquo;there has been a sort of
+      semi-accident up at the hospital. It hasn't resulted seriously, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet put down the apostle-spoon in her hand and stared across at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she has been suspended? What did she do? I don't believe she did
+      anything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a mistake about the medicine, and she was blamed; that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'd better come home and stay home,&rdquo; said Harriet shortly. &ldquo;I hope it
+      doesn't get in the papers. This dressmaking business is a funny sort of
+      thing. One word against you or any of your family, and the crowd's off
+      somewhere else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's nothing against Sidney,&rdquo; K. reminded her. &ldquo;Nothing in the world.
+      I saw the superintendent myself this afternoon. It seems it's a mere
+      matter of discipline. Somebody made a mistake, and they cannot let such a
+      thing go by. But he believes, as I do, that it was not Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However Harriet had hardened herself against the girl's arrival, all she
+      had meant to say fled when she saw Sidney's circled eyes and pathetic
+      mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You child!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You poor little girl!&rdquo; And took her corseted
+      bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the time at least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her. All
+      her brave vaunt of service faded before her disgrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Christine would have seen her, she kept her door locked and asked for
+      just that one evening alone. But after Harriet had retired, and Mimi, the
+      Austrian, had crept out to the corner to mail a letter back to Gratz,
+      Sidney unbolted her door and listened in the little upper hall. Harriet,
+      her head in a towel, her face carefully cold-creamed, had gone to bed; but
+      K.'s light, as usual, was shining over the transom. Sidney tiptoed to the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost immediately he opened the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I come in and talk to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and took a quick survey of the room. The picture was against the
+      collar-box. But he took the risk and held the door wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney came in and sat down by the fire. By being adroit he managed to
+      slip the little picture over and under the box before she saw it. It is
+      doubtful if she would have realized its significance, had she seen it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been thinking things over,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It seems to me I'd better not
+      go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had left the door carefully open. Men are always more conventional than
+      women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be foolish, wouldn't it, when you have done so well? And,
+      besides, since you are not guilty, Sidney&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't do it!&rdquo; she cried passionately. &ldquo;I know I didn't. But I've lost
+      faith in myself. I can't keep on; that's all there is to it. All last
+      night, in the emergency ward, I felt it going. I clutched at it. I kept
+      saying to myself: 'You didn't do it, you didn't do it'; and all the time
+      something inside of me was saying, 'Not now, perhaps; but sometime you
+      may.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor K., who had reasoned all this out for himself and had come to the
+      same impasse!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go on like this, feeling that one has life and death in one's hand,
+      and then perhaps some day to make a mistake like that!&rdquo; She looked up at
+      him forlornly. &ldquo;I am just not brave enough, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't it be braver to keep on? Aren't you giving up very easily?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her world was in pieces about her, and she felt alone in a wide and empty
+      place. And, because her nerves were drawn taut until they were ready to
+      snap, Sidney turned on him shrewishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are all afraid I will come back to stay. Nobody really wants
+      me anywhere&mdash;in all the world! Not at the hospital, not here, not
+      anyplace. I am no use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you say that nobody wants you,&rdquo; said K., not very steadily, &ldquo;I&mdash;I
+      think you are making a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Christine? Aunt Harriet? Katie? The only person who
+      ever really wanted me was my mother, and I went away and left her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She scanned his face closely, and, reading there something she did not
+      understand, she colored suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you mean Joe Drummond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I do not mean Joe Drummond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If he had found any encouragement in her face, he would have gone on
+      recklessly; but her blank eyes warned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean Max Wilson,&rdquo; said Sidney, &ldquo;you are entirely wrong. He's not
+      in love with me&mdash;not, that is, any more than he is in love with a
+      dozen girls. He likes to be with me&mdash;oh, I know that; but that
+      doesn't mean&mdash;anything else. Anyhow, after this disgrace&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no disgrace, child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll think me careless, at the least. And his ideals are so high, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say he likes to be with you. What about you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had been sitting in a low chair by the fire. She rose with a sudden
+      passionate movement. In the informality of the household, she had visited
+      K. in her dressing-gown and slippers; and now she stood before him, a
+      tragic young figure, clutching the folds of her gown across her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I worship him, K.,&rdquo; she said tragically. &ldquo;When I see him coming, I want
+      to get down and let him walk on me. I know his step in the hall. I know
+      the very way he rings for the elevator. When I see him in the
+      operating-room, cool and calm while every one else is flustered and
+      excited, he&mdash;he looks like a god.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, half ashamed of her outburst, she turned her back to him and stood
+      gazing at the small coal fire. It was as well for K. that she did not see
+      his face. For that one moment the despair that was in him shone in his
+      eyes. He glanced around the shabby little room, at the sagging bed, the
+      collar-box, the pincushion, the old marble-topped bureau under which
+      Reginald had formerly made his nest, at his untidy table, littered with
+      pipes and books, at the image in the mirror of his own tall figure,
+      stooped and weary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's real, all this?&rdquo; he asked after a pause. &ldquo;You're sure it's not just&mdash;glamour,
+      Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's real&mdash;terribly real.&rdquo; Her voice was muffled, and he knew then
+      that she was crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was mightily ashamed of it. Tears, of course, except in the privacy of
+      one's closet, were not ethical on the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he cares very much, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a handkerchief,&rdquo; said Sidney in a muffled tone, and the little
+      scene was broken into while K. searched through a bureau drawer. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all over, anyhow, since this. If he'd really cared he'd have come
+      over to-night. When one is in trouble one needs friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Back in a circle she came inevitably to her suspension. She would never go
+      back, she said passionately. She was innocent, had been falsely accused.
+      If they could think such a thing about her, she didn't want to be in their
+      old hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. questioned her, alternately soothing and probing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are positive about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely. I have given him his medicines dozens of times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You looked at the label?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear I did, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who else had access to the medicine closet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carlotta Harrison carried the keys, of course. I was off duty from four
+      to six. When Carlotta left the ward, the probationer would have them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you reason to think that either one of these girls would wish you
+      harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever,&rdquo; began Sidney vehemently; and then, checking herself,&mdash;&ldquo;unless&mdash;but
+      that's rather ridiculous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is ridiculous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've sometimes thought that Carlotta&mdash;but I am sure she is perfectly
+      fair with me. Even if she&mdash;if she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if she likes Dr. Wilson, I don't believe&mdash;Why, K., she
+      wouldn't! It would be murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder, of course,&rdquo; said K., &ldquo;in intention, anyhow. Of course she didn't
+      do it. I'm only trying to find out whose mistake it was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after that she said good-night and went out. She turned in the
+      doorway and smiled tremulously back at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have done me a lot of good. You almost make me believe in myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's because I believe in you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a quick movement that was one of her charms, Sidney suddenly closed
+      the door and slipped back into the room. K., hearing the door close,
+      thought she had gone, and dropped heavily into a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My best friend in all the world!&rdquo; said Sidney suddenly from behind him,
+      and, bending over, she kissed him on the cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next instant the door had closed behind her, and K. was left alone to
+      such wretchedness and bliss as the evening had brought him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On toward morning, Harriet, who slept but restlessly in her towel, wakened
+      to the glare of his light over the transom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.!&rdquo; she called pettishly from her door. &ldquo;I wish you wouldn't go to sleep
+      and let your light burn!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K., surmising the towel and cold cream, had the tact not to open his door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not asleep, Harriet, and I am sorry about the light. It's going out
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he extinguished the light, he walked over to the old dresser and
+      surveyed himself in the glass. Two nights without sleep and much anxiety
+      had told on him. He looked old, haggard; infinitely tired. Mentally he
+      compared himself with Wilson, flushed with success, erect, triumphant,
+      almost insolent. Nothing had more certainly told him the hopelessness of
+      his love for Sidney than her good-night kiss. He was her brother, her
+      friend. He would never be her lover. He drew a long breath and proceeded
+      to undress in the dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe Drummond came to see Sidney the next day. She would have avoided him
+      if she could, but Mimi had ushered him up to the sewing-room boudoir
+      before she had time to escape. She had not seen the boy for two months,
+      and the change in him startled her. He was thinner, rather hectic,
+      scrupulously well dressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Joe!&rdquo; she said, and then: &ldquo;Won't you sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still rather theatrical. He dramatized himself, as he had that
+      night the June before when he had asked Sidney to marry him. He stood just
+      inside the doorway. He offered no conventional greeting whatever; but,
+      after surveying her briefly, her black gown, the lines around her eyes:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not going back to that place, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I haven't decided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then somebody's got to decide for you. The thing for you to do is to stay
+      right here, Sidney. People know you on the Street. Nobody here would ever
+      accuse you of trying to murder anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of herself, Sidney smiled a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody thinks I tried to murder him. It was a mistake about the
+      medicines. I didn't do it, Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His love was purely selfish, for he brushed aside her protest as if she
+      had not spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You give me the word and I'll go and get your things; I've got a car of
+      my own now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Joe, they have only done what they thought was right. Whoever made
+      it, there was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her incredulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean that you are going to stand for this sort of thing? Every
+      time some fool makes a mistake, are they going to blame it on you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't be theatrical. Come in and sit down. I can't talk to you if
+      you explode like a rocket all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her matter-of-fact tone had its effect. He advanced into the room, but he
+      still scorned a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you've been wondering why you haven't heard from me,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;I've seen you more than you've seen me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney looked uneasy. The idea of espionage is always repugnant, and to
+      have a rejected lover always in the offing, as it were, was disconcerting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you would be just a little bit sensible, Joe. It's so silly of
+      you, really. It's not because you care for me; it's really because you
+      care for yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't look at me and say that, Sid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ran his finger around his collar&mdash;an old gesture; but the collar
+      was very loose. He was thin; his neck showed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm just eating my heart out for you, and that's the truth. And it isn't
+      only that. Everywhere I go, people say, 'There's the fellow Sidney Page
+      turned down when she went to the hospital.' I've got so I keep off the
+      Street as much as I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was half alarmed, half irritated. This wild, excited boy was not
+      the doggedly faithful youth she had always known. It seemed to her that he
+      was hardly sane&mdash;that underneath his quiet manner and carefully
+      repressed voice there lurked something irrational, something she could not
+      cope with. She looked up at him helplessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what do you want me to do? You&mdash;you almost frighten me. If you'd
+      only sit down&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want you to come home. I'm not asking anything else now. I just want
+      you to come back, so that things will be the way they used to be. Now that
+      they have turned you out&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They've done nothing of the sort. I've told you that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you love the hospital, or because you love somebody connected
+      with the hospital?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was thoroughly angry by this time, angry and reckless. She had come
+      through so much that every nerve was crying in passionate protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it will make you understand things any better,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I am going
+      back for both reasons!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sorry the next moment. But her words seemed, surprisingly enough,
+      to steady him. For the first time, he sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, as far as I am concerned, it's all over, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Joe. I told you that long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed hardly to be listening. His thoughts had ranged far ahead.
+      Suddenly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think Christine has her hands full with Palmer, don't you? Well, if
+      you take Max Wilson, you're going to have more trouble than Christine ever
+      dreamed of. I can tell you some things about him now that will make you
+      think twice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sidney had reached her limit. She went over and flung open the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every word that you say shows me how right I am in not marrying you,
+      Joe,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Real men do not say those things about each other under
+      any circumstances. You're behaving like a bad boy. I don't want you to
+      come back until you have grown up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very white, but he picked up his hat and went to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I AM crazy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I've been wanting to go away, but mother
+      raises such a fuss&mdash;I'll not annoy you any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached in his pocket and, pulling out a small box, held it toward her.
+      The lid was punched full of holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reginald,&rdquo; he said solemnly. &ldquo;I've had him all winter. Some boys caught
+      him in the park, and I brought him home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left her standing there speechless with surprise, with the box in her
+      hand, and ran down the stairs and out into the Street. At the foot of the
+      steps he almost collided with Dr. Ed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to see Sidney?&rdquo; said Dr. Ed genially. &ldquo;That's fine, Joe. I'm glad
+      you've made it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy went blindly down the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Winter relaxed its clutch slowly that year. March was bitterly cold; even
+      April found the roads still frozen and the hedgerows clustered with ice.
+      But at mid-day there was spring in the air. In the courtyard of the
+      hospital, convalescents sat on the benches and watched for robins. The
+      fountain, which had frozen out, was being repaired. Here and there on ward
+      window-sills tulips opened their gaudy petals to the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet had gone abroad for a flying trip in March and came back laden
+      with new ideas, model gowns, and fresh enthusiasm. She carried out and
+      planted flowers on her sister's grave, and went back to her work with a
+      feeling of duty done. A combination of crocuses and snow on the ground had
+      given her an inspiration for a gown. She drew it in pencil on an envelope
+      on her way back in the street car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grace Irving, having made good during the white sales, had been sent to
+      the spring cottons. She began to walk with her head higher. The day she
+      sold Sidney material for a simple white gown, she was very happy. Once a
+      customer brought her a bunch of primroses. All day she kept them under the
+      counter in a glass of water, and at evening she took them to Johnny
+      Rosenfeld, still lying prone in the hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sidney, on K., and on Christine the winter had left its mark heavily.
+      Christine, readjusting her life to new conditions, was graver, more
+      thoughtful. She was alone most of the time now. Under K.'s guidance, she
+      had given up the &ldquo;Duchess&rdquo; and was reading real books. She was thinking
+      real thoughts, too, for the first time in her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, as tender as ever, had lost a little of the radiance from her
+      eyes; her voice had deepened. Where she had been a pretty girl, she was
+      now lovely. She was back in the hospital again, this time in the
+      children's ward. K., going in one day to take Johnny Rosenfeld a basket of
+      fruit, saw her there with a child in her arms, and a light in her eyes
+      that he had never seen before. It hurt him, rather&mdash;things being as
+      they were with him. When he came out he looked straight ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the opening of spring the little house at Hillfoot took on fresh
+      activities. Tillie was house-cleaning with great thoroughness. She
+      scrubbed carpets, took down the clean curtains, and put them up again
+      freshly starched. It was as if she found in sheer activity and fatigue a
+      remedy for her uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Business had not been very good. The impeccable character of the little
+      house had been against it. True, Mr. Schwitter had a little bar and served
+      the best liquors he could buy; but he discouraged rowdiness&mdash;had been
+      known to refuse to sell to boys under twenty-one and to men who had
+      already overindulged. The word went about that Schwitter's was no place
+      for a good time. Even Tillie's chicken and waffles failed against this
+      handicap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the middle of April the house-cleaning was done. One or two motor
+      parties had come out, dined sedately and wined moderately, and had gone
+      back to the city again. The next two weeks saw the weather clear. The
+      roads dried up, robins filled the trees with their noisy spring songs, and
+      still business continued dull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the first day of May, Tillie's uneasiness had become certainty. On that
+      morning Mr. Schwitter, coming in from the early milking, found her sitting
+      in the kitchen, her face buried in her apron. He put down the milk-pails
+      and, going over to her, put a hand on her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess there's no mistake, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's no mistake,&rdquo; said poor Tillie into her apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent down and kissed the back of her neck. Then, when she failed to
+      brighten, he tiptoed around the kitchen, poured the milk into pans, and
+      rinsed the buckets, working methodically in his heavy way. The tea-kettle
+      had boiled dry. He filled that, too. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to see a doctor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd better see somebody,&rdquo; she said, without looking up. &ldquo;And&mdash;don't
+      think I'm blaming you. I guess I don't really blame anybody. As far as
+      that goes, I've wanted a child right along. It isn't the trouble I am
+      thinking of either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. Words were unnecessary between them. He made some tea clumsily
+      and browned her a piece of toast. When he had put them on one end of the
+      kitchen table, he went over to her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I'd ought to have thought of this before, but all I thought of
+      was trying to get a little happiness out of life. And,&rdquo;&mdash;he stroked
+      her arm,&mdash;&ldquo;as far as I am concerned, it's been worth while, Tillie.
+      No matter what I've had to do, I've always looked forward to coming back
+      here to you in the evening. Maybe I don't say it enough, but I guess you
+      know I feel it all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without looking up, she placed her hand over his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess we started wrong,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;You can't build happiness on what
+      isn't right. You and I can manage well enough; but now that there's going
+      to be another, it looks different, somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that morning Tillie took up her burden stoically. The hope of
+      motherhood alternated with black fits of depression. She sang at her work,
+      to burst out into sudden tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other things were not going well. Schwitter had given up his nursery
+      business; but the motorists who came to Hillfoot did not come back. When,
+      at last, he took the horse and buggy and drove about the country for
+      orders, he was too late. Other nurserymen had been before him; shrubberies
+      and orchards were already being set out. The second payment on his
+      mortgage would be due in July. By the middle of May they were frankly up
+      against it. Schwitter at last dared to put the situation into words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're not making good, Til,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And I guess you know the reason.
+      We are too decent; that's what's the matter with us.&rdquo; There was no irony
+      in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all her sophistication, Tillie was vastly ignorant of life. He had to
+      explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll have to keep a sort of hotel,&rdquo; he said lamely. &ldquo;Sell to everybody
+      that comes along, and&mdash;if parties want to stay over-night&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie's white face turned crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He attempted a compromise. &ldquo;If it's bad weather, and they're married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are we to know if they are married or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He admired her very much for it. He had always respected her. But the
+      situation was not less acute. There were two or three unfurnished rooms on
+      the second floor. He began to make tentative suggestions as to their
+      furnishing. Once he got a catalogue from an installment house, and tried
+      to hide it from her. Tillie's eyes blazed. She burned it in the kitchen
+      stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schwitter himself was ashamed; but the idea obsessed him. Other people
+      fattened on the frailties of human nature. Two miles away, on the other
+      road, was a public house that had netted the owner ten thousand dollars
+      profit the year before. They bought their beer from the same concern. He
+      was not as young as he had been; there was the expense of keeping his wife&mdash;he
+      had never allowed her to go into the charity ward at the asylum. Now that
+      there was going to be a child, there would be three people dependent upon
+      him. He was past fifty, and not robust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night, after Tillie was asleep, he slipped noiselessly into his
+      clothes and out to the barn, where he hitched up the horse with nervous
+      fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie never learned of that midnight excursion to the &ldquo;Climbing Rose,&rdquo;
+       two miles away. Lights blazed in every window; a dozen automobiles were
+      parked before the barn. Somebody was playing a piano. From the bar came
+      the jingle of glasses and loud, cheerful conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Schwitter turned the horse's head back toward Hillfoot, his mind was
+      made up. He would furnish the upper rooms; he would bring a barkeeper from
+      town&mdash;these people wanted mixed drinks; he could get a second-hand
+      piano somewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie's rebellion was instant and complete. When she found him
+      determined, she made the compromise that her condition necessitated. She
+      could not leave him, but she would not stay in the rehabilitated little
+      house. When, a week after Schwitter's visit to the &ldquo;Climbing Rose,&rdquo; an
+      installment van arrived from town with the new furniture, Tillie moved out
+      to what had been the harness-room of the old barn and there established
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not leaving you,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;I don't even know that I am blaming
+      you. But I am not going to have anything to do with it, and that's flat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened that K., making a spring pilgrimage to see Tillie, stopped
+      astounded in the road. The weather was warm, and he carried his Norfolk
+      coat over his arm. The little house was bustling; a dozen automobiles were
+      parked in the barnyard. The bar was crowded, and a barkeeper in a white
+      coat was mixing drinks with the casual indifference of his kind. There
+      were tables under the trees on the lawn, and a new sign on the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even Schwitter bore a new look of prosperity. Over his schooner of beer K.
+      gathered something of the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not proud of it, Mr. Le Moyne. I've come to do a good many things the
+      last year or so that I never thought I would do. But one thing leads to
+      another. First I took Tillie away from her good position, and after that
+      nothing went right. Then there were things coming on&rdquo;&mdash;he looked at
+      K. anxiously&mdash;&ldquo;that meant more expense. I would be glad if you
+      wouldn't say anything about it at Mrs. McKee's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not speak of it, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then, when K. asked for Tillie, that Mr. Schwitter's unhappiness
+      became more apparent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wouldn't stand for it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She moved out the day I furnished
+      the rooms upstairs and got the piano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean she has gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As far as the barn. She wouldn't stay in the house. I&mdash;I'll take you
+      out there, if you would like to see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. shrewdly surmised that Tillie would prefer to see him alone, under the
+      circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I can find her,&rdquo; he said, and rose from the little table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you&mdash;if you can say anything to help me out, sir, I'd appreciate
+      it. Of course, she understands how I am driven. But&mdash;especially if
+      you would tell her that the Street doesn't know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll do all I can,&rdquo; K. promised, and followed the path to the barn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie received him with a certain dignity. The little harness-room was
+      very comfortable. A white iron bed in a corner, a flat table with a mirror
+      above it, a rocking-chair, and a sewing-machine furnished the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't stand for it,&rdquo; she said simply; &ldquo;so here I am. Come in, Mr. Le
+      Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There being but one chair, she sat on the bed. The room was littered with
+      small garments in the making. She made no attempt to conceal them; rather,
+      she pointed to them with pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am making them myself. I have a lot of time these days. He's got a
+      hired girl at the house. It was hard enough to sew at first, with me
+      making two right sleeves almost every time.&rdquo; Then, seeing his kindly eye
+      on her: &ldquo;Well, it's happened, Mr. Le Moyne. What am I going to do? What am
+      I going to be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going to be a very good mother, Tillie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was manifestly in need of cheering. K., who also needed cheering that
+      spring day, found his consolation in seeing her brighten under the small
+      gossip of the Street. The deaf-and-dumb book agent had taken on life
+      insurance as a side issue, and was doing well; the grocery store at the
+      corner was going to be torn down, and over the new store there were to be
+      apartments; Reginald had been miraculously returned, and was building a
+      new nest under his bureau; Harriet Kennedy had been to Paris, and had
+      brought home six French words and a new figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the open door the big barn loomed cool and shadowy, full of empty
+      spaces where later the hay would be stored; anxious mother hens led their
+      broods about; underneath in the horse stable the restless horses pawed in
+      their stalls. From where he sat, Le Moyne could see only the round breasts
+      of the two hills, the fresh green of the orchard the cows in a meadow
+      beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie followed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like it here,&rdquo; she confessed. &ldquo;I've had more time to think since I
+      moved out than I ever had in my life before. Them hills help. When the
+      noise is worst down at the house, I look at the hills there and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were great thoughts in her mind&mdash;that the hills meant God, and
+      that in His good time perhaps it would all come right. But she was
+      inarticulate. &ldquo;The hills help a lot,&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. rose. Tillie's work-basket lay near him. He picked up one of the little
+      garments. In his big hands it looked small, absurd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I want to tell you something, Tillie. Don't count on it too much;
+      but Mrs. Schwitter has been failing rapidly for the last month or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie caught his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've seen her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was interested. I wanted to see things work out right for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the color had faded from Tillie's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're very good to me, Mr. Le Moyne,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I don't wish the poor
+      soul any harm, but&mdash;oh, my God! if she's going, let it be before the
+      next four months are over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had fallen into the habit, after his long walks, of dropping into
+      Christine's little parlor for a chat before he went upstairs. Those early
+      spring days found Harriet Kennedy busy late in the evenings, and, save for
+      Christine and K., the house was practically deserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The breach between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was too
+      proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her. On those
+      occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so
+      discontented that he drove her almost to distraction. Although she was
+      convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with him the
+      night of the accident, she did not trust him. Not that girl, perhaps, but
+      there were others. There would always be others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into Christine's little parlor, then, K. turned, the evening after he had
+      seen Tillie. She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall stood
+      open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; she said, as he hesitated in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am frightfully dusty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a brush in the drawer of the hat-rack&mdash;although I don't
+      really mind how you look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little room always cheered K. Its warmth and light appealed to his
+      aesthetic sense; after the bareness of his bedroom, it spelled luxury. And
+      perhaps, to be entirely frank, there was more than physical comfort and
+      satisfaction in the evenings he spent in Christine's firelit parlor. He
+      was entirely masculine, and her evident pleasure in his society gratified
+      him. He had fallen into a way of thinking of himself as a sort of older
+      brother to all the world because he was a sort of older brother to Sidney.
+      The evenings with her did something to reinstate him in his own
+      self-esteem. It was subtle, psychological, but also it was very human.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and sit down,&rdquo; said Christine. &ldquo;Here's a chair, and here are
+      cigarettes and there are matches. Now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, for once, K. declined the chair. He stood in front of the fireplace
+      and looked down at her, his head bent slightly to one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if you would like to do a very kind thing,&rdquo; he said
+      unexpectedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make you coffee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something much more trouble and not so pleasant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine glanced up at him. When she was with him, when his steady eyes
+      looked down at her, small affectations fell away. She was more genuine
+      with K. than with anyone else, even herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me what it is, or shall I promise first?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want you to promise just one thing: to keep a secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was not over-intelligent, perhaps, but she was shrewd. That Le
+      Moyne's past held a secret she had felt from the beginning. She sat up
+      with eager curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not mine. Is it a promise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found Tillie, Christine. I want you to go out to see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine's red lips parted. The Street did not go out to see women in
+      Tillie's situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, K.!&rdquo; she protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She needs another woman just now. She's going to have a child, Christine;
+      and she has had no one to talk to but her hus&mdash;but Mr. Schwitter and
+      myself. She is depressed and not very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what shall I say to her? I'd really rather not go, K. Not,&rdquo; she
+      hastened to set herself right in his eyes&mdash;&ldquo;not that I feel any
+      unwillingness to see her. I know you understand that. But&mdash;what in
+      the world shall I say to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say what your own kind heart prompts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been rather a long time since Christine had been accused of having
+      a kind heart. Not that she was unkind, but in all her self-centered young
+      life there had been little call on her sympathies. Her eyes clouded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I were as good as you think I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little silence between them. Then Le Moyne spoke briskly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you how to get there; perhaps I would better write it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved over to Christine's small writing-table and, seating himself,
+      proceeded to write out the directions for reaching Hillfoot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind him, Christine had taken his place on the hearth-rug and stood
+      watching his head in the light of the desk-lamp. &ldquo;What a strong, quiet
+      face it is,&rdquo; she thought. Why did she get the impression of such a
+      tremendous reserve power in this man who was a clerk, and a clerk only?
+      Behind him she made a quick, unconscious gesture of appeal, both hands out
+      for an instant. She dropped them guiltily as K. rose with the paper in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've drawn a sort of map of the roads,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;You see, this&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was looking, not at the paper, but up at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder if you know, K.,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what a lucky woman the woman will
+      be who marries you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed good-humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder how long I could hypnotize her into thinking that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still holding out the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've had time to do a little thinking lately,&rdquo; she said, without
+      bitterness. &ldquo;Palmer is away so much now. I've been looking back, wondering
+      if I ever thought that about him. I don't believe I ever did. I wonder&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She checked herself abruptly and took the paper from his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go to see Tillie, of course,&rdquo; she consented. &ldquo;It is like you to have
+      found her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down. Although she picked up the book that she had been reading
+      with the evident intention of discussing it, her thoughts were still on
+      Tillie, on Palmer, on herself. After a moment:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it ever occurred to you how terribly mixed up things are? Take this
+      Street, for instance. Can you think of anybody on it that&mdash;that
+      things have gone entirely right with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a little world of its own, of course,&rdquo; said K., &ldquo;and it has plenty
+      of contact points with life. But wherever one finds people, many or few,
+      one finds all the elements that make up life&mdash;joy and sorrow, birth
+      and death, and even tragedy. That's rather trite, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was still pursuing her thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men are different,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;To a certain extent they make their own
+      fates. But when you think of the women on the Street,&mdash;Tillie,
+      Harriet Kennedy, Sidney Page, myself, even Mrs. Rosenfeld back in the
+      alley,&mdash;somebody else moulds things for us, and all we can do is to
+      sit back and suffer. I am beginning to think the world is a terrible
+      place, K. Why do people so often marry the wrong people? Why can't a man
+      care for one woman and only one all his life? Why&mdash;why is it all so
+      complicated?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are men who care for only one woman all their lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're that sort, aren't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to put myself on any pinnacle. If I cared enough for a woman
+      to marry her, I'd hope to&mdash;But we are being very tragic, Christine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel tragic. There's going to be another mistake, K., unless you stop
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to leaven the conversation with a little fun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're going to ask me to interfere between Mrs. McKee and the
+      deaf-and-dumb book and insurance agent, I shall do nothing of the sort.
+      She can both speak and hear enough for both of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean Sidney and Max Wilson. He's mad about her, K.; and, because she's
+      the sort she is, he'll probably be mad about her all his life, even if he
+      marries her. But he'll not be true to her; I know the type now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. leaned back with a flicker of pain in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can I do about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Astute as he was, he did not suspect that Christine was using this method
+      to fathom his feeling for Sidney. Perhaps she hardly knew it herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might marry her yourself, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had himself in hand by this time, and she learned nothing from
+      either his voice or his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On twenty dollars a week? And without so much as asking her consent?&rdquo; He
+      dropped his light tone. &ldquo;I'm not in a position to marry anybody. Even if
+      Sidney cared for me, which she doesn't, of course&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you don't intend to interfere? You're going to let the Street see
+      another failure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you can understand,&rdquo; said K. rather wearily, &ldquo;that if I cared
+      less, Christine, it would be easier to interfere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, Christine had known this, or surmised it, for weeks. But it
+      hurt like a fresh stab in an old wound. It was K. who spoke again after a
+      pause:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deadly hard thing, of course, is to sit by and see things happening
+      that one&mdash;that one would naturally try to prevent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe that you have always been of those who only stand and
+      wait,&rdquo; said Christine. &ldquo;Sometime, K., when you know me better and like me
+      better, I want you to tell me about it, will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's very little to tell. I held a trust. When I discovered that I was
+      unfit to hold that trust any longer, I quit. That's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tone of finality closed the discussion. But Christine's eyes were on
+      him often that evening, puzzled, rather sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They talked of books, of music&mdash;Christine played well in a dashing
+      way. K. had brought her soft, tender little things, and had stood over her
+      until her noisy touch became gentle. She played for him a little, while he
+      sat back in the big chair with his hand screening his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, he rose and picked up his cap; it was nine o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've taken your whole evening,&rdquo; he said remorsefully. &ldquo;Why don't you tell
+      me I am a nuisance and send me off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was still at the piano, her hands on the keys. She spoke without
+      looking at him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're never a nuisance, K., and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll go out to see Tillie, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But I'll not go under false pretenses. I am going quite frankly
+      because you want me to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in her tone caught his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forgot to tell you,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Father has given Palmer five
+      thousand dollars. He's going to buy a share in a business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly. I don't believe much in Palmer's business ventures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her flat tone still held him. Underneath it he divined strain and
+      repression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate to go and leave you alone,&rdquo; he said at last from the door. &ldquo;Have
+      you any idea when Palmer will be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the slightest. K., will you come here a moment? Stand behind me; I
+      don't want to see you, and I want to tell you something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did as she bade him, rather puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I am a fool for saying this. Perhaps I am spoiling the only
+      chance I have to get any happiness out of life. But I have got to say it.
+      It's stronger than I am. I was terribly unhappy, K., and then you came
+      into my life, and I&mdash;now I listen for your step in the hall. I can't
+      be a hypocrite any longer, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he stood behind her, silent and not moving, she turned slowly about
+      and faced him. He towered there in the little room, grave eyes on hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a long time since I have had a woman friend, Christine,&rdquo; he said
+      soberly. &ldquo;Your friendship has meant a good deal. In a good many ways, I'd
+      not care to look ahead if it were not for you. I value our friendship so
+      much that I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you don't want me to spoil it,&rdquo; she finished for him. &ldquo;I know you
+      don't care for me, K., not the way I&mdash;But I wanted you to know. It
+      doesn't hurt a good man to know such a thing. And it&mdash;isn't going to
+      stop your coming here, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; said K. heartily. &ldquo;But to-morrow, when we are both
+      clear-headed, we will talk this over. You are mistaken about this thing,
+      Christine; I am sure of that. Things have not been going well, and just
+      because I am always around, and all that sort of thing, you think things
+      that aren't really so. I'm only a reaction, Christine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to make her smile up at him. But just then she could not smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she had cried, things might have been different for every one; for
+      perhaps K. would have taken her in his arms. He was heart-hungry enough,
+      those days, for anything. And perhaps, too, being intuitive, Christine
+      felt this. But she had no mind to force him into a situation against his
+      will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is because you are good,&rdquo; she said, and held out her hand.
+      &ldquo;Good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Moyne took it and bent over and kissed it lightly. There was in the
+      kiss all that he could not say of respect, of affection and understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Christine,&rdquo; he said, and went into the hall and upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lamp was not lighted in his room, but the street light glowed through
+      the windows. Once again the waving fronds of the ailanthus tree flung
+      ghostly shadows on the walls. There was a faint sweet odor of blossoms, so
+      soon to become rank and heavy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over the floor in a wild zigzag darted a strip of white paper which
+      disappeared under the bureau. Reginald was building another nest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sidney went into the operating-room late in the spring as the result of a
+      conversation between the younger Wilson and the Head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When are you going to put my protegee into the operating-room?&rdquo; asked
+      Wilson, meeting Miss Gregg in a corridor one bright, spring afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That usually comes in the second year, Dr. Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled down at her. &ldquo;That isn't a rule, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly. Miss Page is very young, and of course there are other girls
+      who have not yet had the experience. But, if you make the request&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to have some good cases soon. I'll not make a request, of
+      course; but, if you see fit, it would be good training for Miss Page.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Gregg went on, knowing perfectly that at his next operation Dr.
+      Wilson would expect Sidney Page in the operating-room. The other doctors
+      were not so exigent. She would have liked to have all the staff old and
+      settled, like Dr. O'Hara or the older Wilson. These young men came in and
+      tore things up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed as she went on. There were so many things to go wrong. The
+      butter had been bad&mdash;she must speak to the matron. The sterilizer in
+      the operating-room was out of order&mdash;that meant a quarrel with the
+      chief engineer. Requisitions were too heavy&mdash;that meant going around
+      to the wards and suggesting to the head nurses that lead pencils and
+      bandages and adhesive plaster and safety-pins cost money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was particularly inconvenient to move Sidney just then. Carlotta
+      Harrison was off duty, ill. She had been ailing for a month, and now she
+      was down with a temperature. As the Head went toward Sidney's ward, her
+      busy mind was playing her nurses in their wards like pieces on a
+      checkerboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney went into the operating-room that afternoon. For her blue uniform,
+      kerchief, and cap she exchanged the hideous operating-room garb: long,
+      straight white gown with short sleeves and mob-cap, gray-white from many
+      sterilizations. But the ugly costume seemed to emphasize her beauty, as
+      the habit of a nun often brings out the placid saintliness of her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The relationship between Sidney and Max had reached that point that occurs
+      in all relationships between men and women: when things must either go
+      forward or go back, but cannot remain as they are. The condition had
+      existed for the last three months. It exasperated the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Wilson could not go ahead. The situation with
+      Carlotta had become tense, irritating. He felt that she stood ready to
+      block any move he made. He would not go back, and he dared not go forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Sidney was puzzled, she kept it bravely to herself. In her little room
+      at night, with the door carefully locked, she tried to think things out.
+      There were a few treasures that she looked over regularly: a dried flower
+      from the Christmas roses; a label that he had pasted playfully on the back
+      of her hand one day after the rush of surgical dressings was over and
+      which said &ldquo;Rx, Take once and forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another piece of paper over which Sidney spent much time. It was
+      a page torn out of an order book, and it read: &ldquo;Sigsbee may have light
+      diet; Rosenfeld massage.&rdquo; Underneath was written, very small:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;You are the most beautiful person in the world.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Two reasons had prompted Wilson to request to have Sidney in the
+      operating-room. He wanted her with him, and he wanted her to see him at
+      work: the age-old instinct of the male to have his woman see him at his
+      best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in high spirits that first day of Sidney's operating-room
+      experience. For the time at least, Carlotta was out of the way. Her somber
+      eyes no longer watched him. Once he looked up from his work and glanced at
+      Sidney where she stood at strained attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feeling faint?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She colored under the eyes that were turned on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Dr. Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great many of them faint on the first day. We sometimes have them lying
+      all over the floor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He challenged Miss Gregg with his eyes, and she reproved him with a shake
+      of her head, as she might a bad boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One way and another, he managed to turn the attention of the
+      operating-room to Sidney several times. It suited his whim, and it did
+      more than that: it gave him a chance to speak to her in his teasing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney came through the operation as if she had been through fire&mdash;taut
+      as a string, rather pale, but undaunted. But when the last case had been
+      taken out, Max dropped his bantering manner. The internes were looking
+      over instruments; the nurses were busy on the hundred and one tasks of
+      clearing up; so he had a chance for a word with her alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am proud of you, Sidney; you came through it like a soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You made it very hard for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A nurse was coming toward him; he had only a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall leave a note in the mail-box,&rdquo; he said quickly, and proceeded
+      with the scrubbing of his hands which signified the end of the day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The operations had lasted until late in the afternoon. The night nurses
+      had taken up their stations; prayers were over. The internes were gathered
+      in the smoking-room, threshing over the day's work, as was their custom.
+      When Sidney was free, she went to the office for the note. It was very
+      brief:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have something I want to say to you, dear. I think you know what it is.
+      I never see you alone at home any more. If you can get off for an hour,
+      won't you take the trolley to the end of Division Street? I'll be there
+      with the car at eight-thirty, and I promise to have you back by ten
+      o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MAX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office was empty. No one saw her as she stood by the mail-box. The
+      ticking of the office clock, the heavy rumble of a dray outside, the roll
+      of the ambulance as it went out through the gateway, and in her hand the
+      realization of what she had never confessed as a hope, even to herself!
+      He, the great one, was going to stoop to her. It had been in his eyes that
+      afternoon; it was there, in his letter, now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was eight by the office clock. To get out of her uniform and into
+      street clothing, fifteen minutes; on the trolley, another fifteen. She
+      would need to hurry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not meet him, after all. Miss Wardwell met her in the upper
+      hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you get my message?&rdquo; she asked anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What message?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Harrison wants to see you. She has been moved to a private room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney glanced at K.'s little watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must she see me to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has been waiting for hours&mdash;ever since you went to the
+      operating-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sighed, but she went to Carlotta at once. The girl's condition was
+      puzzling the staff. There was talk of &ldquo;T.R.&rdquo;&mdash;which is hospital for
+      &ldquo;typhoid restrictions.&rdquo; But T.R. has apathy, generally, and Carlotta was
+      not apathetic. Sidney found her tossing restlessly on her high white bed,
+      and put her cool hand over Carlotta's hot one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you send for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hours ago.&rdquo; Then, seeing her operating-room uniform: &ldquo;You've been THERE,
+      have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything I can do, Carlotta?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Excitement had dyed Sidney's cheeks with color and made her eyes luminous.
+      The girl in the bed eyed her, and then abruptly drew her hand away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you going out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but not right away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not keep you if you have an engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The engagement will have to wait. I'm sorry you're ill. If you would like
+      me to stay with you tonight&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta shook her head on her pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy, no!&rdquo; she said irritably. &ldquo;I'm only worn out. I need a rest. Are
+      you going home to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Sidney admitted, and flushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing escaped Carlotta's eyes&mdash;the younger girl's radiance, her
+      confusion, even her operating room uniform and what it signified. How she
+      hated her, with her youth and freshness, her wide eyes, her soft red lips!
+      And this engagement&mdash;she had the uncanny divination of fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going to ask you to do something for me,&rdquo; she said shortly; &ldquo;but
+      I've changed my mind about it. Go on and keep your engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To end the interview, she turned over and lay with her face to the wall.
+      Sidney stood waiting uncertainly. All her training had been to ignore the
+      irritability of the sick, and Carlotta was very ill; she could see that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just remember that I am ready to do anything I can, Carlotta,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;Nothing will&mdash;will be a trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited a moment, but, receiving no acknowledgement of her offer, she
+      turned slowly and went toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went back to the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Don't sit up, Carlotta. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm frightened!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're feverish and nervous. There's nothing to be frightened about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's typhoid, I'm gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's childish. Of course you're not gone, or anything like it. Besides,
+      it's probably not typhoid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid to sleep. I doze for a little, and when I waken there are
+      people in the room. They stand around the bed and talk about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's precious minutes were flying; but Carlotta had gone into a
+      paroxysm of terror, holding to Sidney's hand and begging not to be left
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm too young to die,&rdquo; she would whimper. And in the next breath: &ldquo;I want
+      to die&mdash;I don't want to live!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hands of the little watch pointed to eight-thirty when at last she lay
+      quiet, with closed eyes. Sidney, tiptoeing to the door, was brought up
+      short by her name again, this time in a more normal voice:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are right and I'm going to get over this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly you are. Your nerves are playing tricks with you to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you now why I sent for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm listening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If&mdash;if I get very bad,&mdash;you know what I mean,&mdash;will you
+      promise to do exactly what I tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise, absolutely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My trunk key is in my pocket-book. There is a letter in the tray&mdash;just
+      a name, no address on it. Promise to see that it is not delivered; that it
+      is destroyed without being read.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney promised promptly; and, because it was too late now for her meeting
+      with Wilson, for the next hour she devoted herself to making Carlotta
+      comfortable. So long as she was busy, a sort of exaltation of service
+      upheld her. But when at last the night assistant came to sit with the sick
+      girl, and Sidney was free, all the life faded from her face. He had waited
+      for her and she had not come. Would he understand? Would he ask her to
+      meet him again? Perhaps, after all, his question had not been what she had
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went miserably to bed. K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow. Her
+      stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her mirror.
+      Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the city&mdash;taxicabs,
+      stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging home at midnight, a
+      city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates to the hospital's
+      always open door. When she could not sleep, she got up and padded to the
+      window in bare feet. The light from a passing machine showed a youthful
+      figure that looked like Joe Drummond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life, that had always seemed so simple, was growing very complicated for
+      Sidney: Joe and K., Palmer and Christine, Johnny Rosenfeld, Carlotta&mdash;either
+      lonely or tragic, all of them, or both. Life in the raw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward morning Carlotta wakened. The night assistant was still there. It
+      had been a quiet night and she was asleep in her chair. To save her cap
+      she had taken it off, and early streaks of silver showed in her hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta roused her ruthlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want something from my trunk,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assistant wakened reluctantly, and looked at her watch. Almost
+      morning. She yawned and pinned on her cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Heaven's sake,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;You don't want me to go to the
+      trunk-room at this hour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can go myself,&rdquo; said Carlotta, and put her feet out of bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter on the top tray. If I wait my temperature will go up and I can't
+      think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I mail it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring it here,&rdquo; said Carlotta shortly. &ldquo;I want to destroy it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young woman went without haste, to show that a night assistant may do
+      such things out of friendship, but not because she must. She stopped at
+      the desk where the night nurse in charge of the rooms on that floor was
+      filling out records.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me twelve private patients to look after instead of one nurse like
+      Carlotta Harrison!&rdquo; she complained. &ldquo;I've got to go to the trunk-room for
+      her at this hour, and it next door to the mortuary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the first rays of the summer sun came through the window, shadowing the
+      fire-escape like a lattice on the wall of the little gray-walled room,
+      Carlotta sat up in her bed and lighted the candle on the stand. The night
+      assistant, who dreamed sometimes of fire, stood nervously by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you let me do it?&rdquo; she asked irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta did not reply at once. The candle was in her hand, and she was
+      staring at the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I want to do it myself,&rdquo; she said at last, and thrust the
+      envelope into the flame. It burned slowly, at first a thin blue flame
+      tipped with yellow, then, eating its way with a small fine crackling, a
+      widening, destroying blaze that left behind it black ash and destruction.
+      The acrid odor of burning filled the room. Not until it was consumed, and
+      the black ash fell into the saucer of the candlestick, did Carlotta speak
+      again. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If every fool of a woman who wrote a letter burnt it, there would be less
+      trouble in the world,&rdquo; she said, and lay back among her pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assistant said nothing. She was sleepy and irritated, and she had
+      crushed her best cap by letting the lid of Carlotta's trunk fall on her.
+      She went out of the room with disapproval in every line of her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She burned it,&rdquo; she informed the night nurse at her desk. &ldquo;A letter to a
+      man&mdash;one of her suitors, I suppose. The name was K. Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deepening and broadening of Sidney's character had been very
+      noticeable in the last few months. She had gained in decision without
+      becoming hard; had learned to see things as they are, not through the rose
+      mist of early girlhood; and, far from being daunted, had developed a
+      philosophy that had for its basis God in His heaven and all well with the
+      world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her new theory of acceptance did not comprehend everything. She was in
+      a state of wild revolt, for instance, as to Johnny Rosenfeld, and more
+      remotely but not less deeply concerned over Grace Irving. Soon she was to
+      learn of Tillie's predicament, and to take up the cudgels valiantly for
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her revolt was to be for herself too. On the day after her failure to
+      keep her appointment with Wilson she had her half-holiday. No word had
+      come from him, and when, after a restless night, she went to her new
+      station in the operating-room, it was to learn that he had been called out
+      of the city in consultation and would not operate that day. O'Hara would
+      take advantage of the free afternoon to run in some odds and ends of
+      cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The operating-room made gauze that morning, and small packets of tampons:
+      absorbent cotton covered with sterilized gauze, and fastened together&mdash;twelve,
+      by careful count, in each bundle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Grange, who had been kind to Sidney in her probation months, taught
+      her the method.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Used instead of sponges,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;If you noticed yesterday, they
+      were counted before and after each operation. One of these missing is
+      worse than a bank clerk out a dollar at the end of the day. There's no
+      closing up until it's found!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney eyed the small packet before her anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a hideous responsibility!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that time on she handled the small gauze sponges almost reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The operating-room&mdash;all glass, white enamel, and shining nickel-plate&mdash;first
+      frightened, then thrilled her. It was as if, having loved a great actor,
+      she now trod the enchanted boards on which he achieved his triumphs. She
+      was glad that it was her afternoon off, and that she would not see some
+      lesser star&mdash;O'Hara, to wit&mdash;usurping his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Max had not sent her any word. That hurt. He must have known that she
+      had been delayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The operating-room was a hive of industry, and tongues kept pace with
+      fingers. The hospital was a world, like the Street. The nurses had come
+      from many places, and, like cloistered nuns, seemed to have left the other
+      world behind. A new President of the country was less real than a new
+      interne. The country might wash its soiled linen in public; what was that
+      compared with enough sheets and towels for the wards? Big buildings were
+      going up in the city. Ah! but the hospital took cognizance of that,
+      gathering as it did a toll from each new story added. What news of the
+      world came in through the great doors was translated at once into hospital
+      terms. What the city forgot the hospital remembered. It took up life where
+      the town left it at its gates, and carried it on or saw it ended, as the
+      case might be. So these young women knew the ending of many stories, the
+      beginning of some; but of none did they know both the first and last, the
+      beginning and the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By many small kindnesses Sidney had made herself popular. And there was
+      more to it than that. She never shirked. The other girls had the respect
+      for her of one honest worker for another. The episode that had caused her
+      suspension seemed entirely forgotten. They showed her carefully what she
+      was to do; and, because she must know the &ldquo;why&rdquo; of everything, they
+      explained as best they could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was while she was standing by the great sterilizer that she heard,
+      through an open door, part of a conversation that sent her through the day
+      with her world in revolt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The talkers were putting the anaesthetizing-room in readiness for the
+      afternoon. Sidney, waiting for the time to open the sterilizer, was busy,
+      for the first time in her hurried morning, with her own thoughts. Because
+      she was very human, there was a little exultation in her mind. What would
+      these girls say when they learned of how things stood between her and
+      their hero&mdash;that, out of all his world of society and clubs and
+      beautiful women, he was going to choose her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not shameful, this: the honest pride of a woman in being chosen from many.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices were very clear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Typhoid! Of course not. She's eating her heart out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he has really broken with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably not. She knows it's coming; that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I have wondered&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So have others. She oughtn't to be here, of course. But among so many
+      there is bound to be one now and then who&mdash;who isn't quite&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated, at a loss for a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you&mdash;did you ever think over that trouble with Miss Page about
+      the medicines? That would have been easy, and like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She hates Miss Page, of course, but I hardly think&mdash;If that's true,
+      it was nearly murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two voices, a young one, full of soft southern inflections, and
+      an older voice, a trifle hard, as from disillusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were working as they talked. Sidney could hear the clatter of bottles
+      on the tray, the scraping of a moved table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was crazy about her last fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Page?&rdquo; (The younger voice, with a thrill in it.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carlotta. Of course this is confidential.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw her with him in his car one evening. And on her vacation last
+      summer&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices dropped to a whisper. Sidney, standing cold and white by the
+      sterilizer, put out a hand to steady herself. So that was it! No wonder
+      Carlotta had hated her. And those whispering voices! What were they
+      saying? How hateful life was, and men and women. Must there always be
+      something hideous in the background? Until now she had only seen life. Now
+      she felt its hot breath on her cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was steady enough in a moment, cool and calm, moving about her work
+      with ice-cold hands and slightly narrowed eyes. To a sort of physical
+      nausea was succeeding anger, a blind fury of injured pride. He had been in
+      love with Carlotta and had tired of her. He was bringing her his
+      warmed-over emotions. She remembered the bitterness of her month's exile,
+      and its probable cause. Max had stood by her then. Well he might, if he
+      suspected the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For just a moment she had an illuminating flash of Wilson as he really
+      was, selfish and self-indulgent, just a trifle too carefully dressed,
+      daring as to eye and speech, with a carefully calculated daring, frankly
+      pleasure-loving. She put her hands over her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices in the next room had risen above their whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Genius has privileges, of course,&rdquo; said the older voice. &ldquo;He is a very
+      great surgeon. To-morrow he is to do the Edwardes operation again. I am
+      glad I am to see him do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney still held her hands over her eyes. He WAS a great surgeon: in his
+      hands he held the keys of life and death. And perhaps he had never cared
+      for Carlotta: she might have thrown herself at him. He was a man, at the
+      mercy of any scheming woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to summon his image to her aid. But a curious thing happened.
+      She could not visualize him. Instead, there came, clear and distinct, a
+      picture of K. Le Moyne in the hall of the little house, reaching one of
+      his long arms to the chandelier over his head and looking up at her as she
+      stood on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I know that. I am asking you something else, Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never been in love with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they were
+      sitting in the shade, on the grass. It was the Sunday afternoon after
+      Sidney's experience in the operating-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You took her out, Max, didn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few times, yes. She seemed to have no friends. I was sorry for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely. Good Heavens, you've put me through a catechism in the last
+      ten minutes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my father were living, or even mother, I&mdash;one of them would have
+      done this for me, Max. I'm sorry I had to. I've been very wretched for
+      several days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first encouragement she had given him. There was no coquetry
+      about her aloofness. It was only that her faith in him had had a shock and
+      was slow of reviving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very, very lovely, Sidney. I wonder if you have any idea what you
+      mean to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You meant a great deal to me, too,&rdquo; she said frankly, &ldquo;until a few days
+      ago. I thought you were the greatest man I had ever known, and the best.
+      And then&mdash;I think I'd better tell you what I overheard. I didn't try
+      to hear. It just happened that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly and
+      with a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself.
+      Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for
+      self-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! She
+      had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had never
+      pretended anything else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not a child any longer, Sidney. You have learned a great deal in
+      this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man has
+      small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the woman he wants
+      to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off&mdash;there's nothing
+      to them. It's the real thing then, instead of the sham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer is a cad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want you to think I'm making terms. I'm not. But if this thing
+      went on, and I found out afterward that you&mdash;that there was anyone
+      else, it would kill me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you care, after all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which
+      he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He stood up
+      and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. &ldquo;You love me, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I do, Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me,&rdquo; he said, and took her in
+      his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to
+      him again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you, love you!&rdquo; he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the
+      warm hollow of her neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney glowed under his caresses&mdash;was rather startled at his passion,
+      a little ashamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with his
+      lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in the back
+      of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while she had given him
+      her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It made her
+      passive, prevented her complete surrender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And after a time he resented it. &ldquo;You are only letting me love you,&rdquo; he
+      complained. &ldquo;I don't believe you care, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He freed her, took a step back from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I am jealous,&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;I keep thinking of&mdash;of
+      Carlotta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyes on
+      her. The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busy insect
+      life. A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a white farmhouse
+      with its barn and outbuildings. In a small room in the barn a woman sat;
+      and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she read her Bible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;and that after this there will be only one woman for me,&rdquo; finished
+      Max, and dropped his hand. He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyed the
+      road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in a darkened
+      room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I'll go and get my coat on, Bill,&rdquo; said the little man heavily.
+      &ldquo;They're starting to come now. I see a machine about a mile down the
+      road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney broke the news of her engagement to K. herself, the evening of the
+      same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at the
+      door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed, and
+      Christine's rooms were empty. She found Katie on the back porch, mountains
+      of Sunday newspapers piled around her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd about give you up,&rdquo; said Katie. &ldquo;I was thinking, rather than see your
+      ice-cream that's left from dinner melt and go to waste, I'd take it around
+      to the Rosenfelds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please take it to them. I'd really rather they had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood in front of Katie, drawing off her gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Harriet's asleep. Is&mdash;is Mr. Le Moyne around?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're gettin' prettier every day, Miss Sidney. Is that the blue suit
+      Miss Harriet said she made for you? It's right stylish. I'd like to see
+      the back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney obediently turned, and Katie admired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I think how things have turned out!&rdquo; she reflected. &ldquo;You in a
+      hospital, doing God knows what for all sorts of people, and Miss Harriet
+      making a suit like that and asking a hundred dollars for it, and that tony
+      that a person doesn't dare to speak to her when she's in the dining-room.
+      And your poor ma...well, it's all in a lifetime! No; Mr. K.'s not here. He
+      and Mrs. Howe are gallivanting around together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Katie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's what I call it. I'm not blind. Don't I hear her dressing up
+      about four o'clock every afternoon, and, when she's all ready, sittin' in
+      the parlor with the door open, and a book on her knee, as if she'd been
+      reading all afternoon? If he doesn't stop, she's at the foot of the
+      stairs, calling up to him. 'K.,' she says, 'K., I'm waiting to ask you
+      something!' or, 'K., wouldn't you like a cup of tea?' She's always feedin'
+      him tea and cake, so that when he comes to table he won't eat honest
+      victuals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney had paused with one glove half off. Katie's tone carried
+      conviction. Was life making another of its queer errors, and were
+      Christine and K. in love with each other? K. had always been HER friend,
+      HER confidant. To give him up to Christine&mdash;she shook herself
+      impatiently. What had come over her? Why not be glad that he had some sort
+      of companionship?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took off her
+      hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened to her. She did
+      not belong to herself any more. It gave her an odd, lost feeling. She was
+      going to be married&mdash;not very soon, but ultimately. A year ago her
+      half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She was loved, and
+      she had thrilled to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then, loomed
+      large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation: that for
+      every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down into the
+      valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved very
+      tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not always
+      lovely. This very maternity&mdash;was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of
+      child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxed
+      bodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving about
+      with flat, inelastic steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case might
+      be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a
+      little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,
+      flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and withered, then, or one
+      shriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed very terrible
+      to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable hand that had
+      closed about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying as
+      if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been overworking,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You've been getting thinner. Your
+      measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this
+      hospital training, and after last January&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with
+      weeping, told her of her engagement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to marry
+      him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once,
+      that I&mdash;It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she,
+      Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute. She patted
+      Sidney's moist hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I understand,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'll attend to your wedding things,
+      Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be outdone.&rdquo;
+       And, as an afterthought: &ldquo;I hope Max Wilson will settle down now. He's
+      been none too steady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmer had the
+      car out&mdash;had, indeed, not been home since the morning of the previous
+      day. He played golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday at the Country
+      Club, and invariably spent the night there. So K. and Christine walked
+      from the end of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'s keen
+      direction finding bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden field flowers, a
+      dozen wonders of the country that Christine had never dreamed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine, with
+      the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note. In her endeavor to
+      cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong, she fell into
+      the error of pretending that everything was right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently,
+      while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of the hay-barn
+      and watched automobiles turning in from the road. When Christine rose to
+      leave, she confessed her failure frankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've meant well, Tillie,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm afraid I've said exactly what I
+      shouldn't. I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, two wonderful
+      pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband&mdash;that is, Mr. Schwitter&mdash;cares
+      for you,&mdash;you admit that,&mdash;and you are going to have a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tillie's pale eyes filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe,&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;Now I'm not.
+      When I look in that glass at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd give a
+      good bit to be back on the Street again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead of him
+      out of the barn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne.&rdquo; She lowered her voice.
+      &ldquo;Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter says he's
+      drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: he sent him home
+      last Sunday. What's come over the boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll talk to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. I
+      thought maybe Sidney Page could do something with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he'd not like her to know. I'll do what I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than once K.
+      found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him. Poor Christine was only
+      trying to fit him into the world she knew&mdash;a world whose men were
+      strong but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not to
+      visiting unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, and yet
+      how gentle! It gave her a choking feeling in her throat. She took
+      advantage of a steep bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingers
+      on his shabby gray sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late when they got home. Sidney was sitting on the low step,
+      waiting for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a case that
+      evening, and promising an early return. In the little hall he had drawn
+      her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on the forehead
+      and on each of her white eyelids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little wife-to-be!&rdquo; he had said, and was rather ashamed of his own
+      emotion. From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had waved his
+      hand to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K. folded
+      up his long length on the step below Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, dear ministering angel,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how goes the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things have been happening, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat erect and looked at her. Perhaps because she had a woman's instinct
+      for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps&mdash;more likely, indeed&mdash;because
+      she divined that the announcement would not be entirely agreeable, she
+      delayed it, played with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have gone into the operating-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The costume is ugly. I look hideous in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubtless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all the news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is something else, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.
+      Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment,
+      he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I know what it is, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You expected it, didn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;it's not an entire surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't you going to wish me happiness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would have everything
+      in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I&mdash;are we going to lose you soon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall finish my training. I made that a condition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, in a burst of confidence:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know so little, K., and he knows so much! I am going to read and study,
+      so that he can talk to me about his work. That's what marriage ought to
+      be, a sort of partnership. Don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. nodded. His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future.
+      Instead, he was looking back&mdash;back to those days when he had hoped
+      sometime to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved work that
+      was no longer his. And, finding it agonizing, as indeed all thought was
+      that summer night, he dwelt for a moment on that evening, a year before,
+      when in the same June moonlight, he had come up the Street and had seen
+      Sidney where she was now, with the tree shadows playing over her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even that first evening he had been jealous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been Joe then. Now it was another and older man, daring,
+      intelligent, unscrupulous. And this time he had lost her absolutely, lost
+      her without a struggle to keep her. His only struggle had been with
+      himself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; said Sidney suddenly, &ldquo;that it is almost a year since that
+      night you came up the Street, and I was here on the steps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a fact, isn't it!&rdquo; He managed to get some surprise into his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How Joe objected to your coming! Poor Joe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you ever see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hardly ever now. I think he hates me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;well, you know, K. Why do men always hate a woman who just
+      happens not to love them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe they do. It would be much better for them if they could.
+      As a matter of fact, there are poor devils who go through life trying to
+      do that very thing, and failing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across. It was Dr. Ed's evening
+      office hour, and through the open window she could see a line of people
+      waiting their turn. They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, until the
+      opening of the back office door promoted them all one chair toward the
+      consulting-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be just across the Street,&rdquo; she said at last. &ldquo;Nearer than I am
+      at the hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be much farther away. You will be married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we will still be friends, K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled. She was often puzzled with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after another silence, he astounded her. She had fallen into the way
+      of thinking of him as always belonging to the house, even, in a sense,
+      belonging to her. And now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of going away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear child, you do not need a roomer here any more. I have always
+      received infinitely more than I have paid for, even in the small services
+      I have been able to render. Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous. You are away,
+      and some day you are going to be married. Don't you see&mdash;I am not
+      needed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That does not mean you are not wanted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can see you&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      changed this hastily&mdash;&ldquo;so that we can still meet and talk things
+      over. Old friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to be turned on
+      when needed, like a tap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where will you go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Rosenfelds are rather in straits. I thought of helping them to get a
+      small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely a
+      matter of furniture. If they could furnish it even plainly, it could be
+      done. I&mdash;haven't saved anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you ever think of yourself?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Have you always gone through
+      life helping people, K.? Save anything! I should think not! You spend it
+      all on others.&rdquo; She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder. &ldquo;It will
+      not be home without you, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To save him, he could not have spoken just then. A riot of rebellion
+      surged up in him, that he must let this best thing in his life go out of
+      it. To go empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his very arms
+      ached to hold her! And she was so near&mdash;just above, with her hand on
+      his shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, he could
+      have brushed her hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not wished me happiness, K. Do you remember, when I was going to
+      the hospital and you gave me the little watch&mdash;do you remember what
+      you said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;huskily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you say it again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this, in a way? You are going to leave us, and I&mdash;say it, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, dear, and&mdash;God bless you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year.
+      Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that it
+      was best. Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would have finished
+      her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled to the ending
+      of their relationship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He intended to end that. He had meant every word of what he had sworn to
+      Sidney. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly&mdash;as far as he
+      could be unselfish. The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney's
+      sake. The hospital did not approve of engagements between nurses and the
+      staff. It was disorganizing, bad for discipline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was very happy all that summer. She glowed with pride when her
+      lover put through a difficult piece of work; flushed and palpitated when
+      she heard his praises sung; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, when he
+      was in the house. She wore his ring on a fine chain around her neck, and
+      grew prettier every day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once or twice, however, when she was at home, away from the glamour, her
+      early fears obsessed her. Would he always love her? He was so handsome and
+      so gifted, and there were women who were mad about him. That was the
+      gossip of the hospital. Suppose she married him and he tired of her? In
+      her humility she thought that perhaps only her youth, and such charm as
+      she had that belonged to youth, held him. And before her, always, she saw
+      the tragic women of the wards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had postponed his leaving until fall. Sidney had been insistent, and
+      Harriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way. &ldquo;If you insist on
+      being an idiot and adopting the Rosenfeld family,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;wait until
+      September. The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So K. waited for &ldquo;the season,&rdquo; and ate his heart out for Sidney in the
+      interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down. K. was
+      his most frequent visitor. As a matter of fact, he was watching the boy
+      closely, at Max Wilson's request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me when I'm to do it,&rdquo; said Wilson, &ldquo;and when the time comes, for
+      God's sake, stand by me. Come to the operation. He's got so much
+      confidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So K. came on visiting days, and, by special dispensation, on Saturday
+      afternoons. He was teaching the boy basket-making. Not that he knew
+      anything about it himself; but, by means of a blind teacher, he kept just
+      one lesson ahead. The ward was intensely interested. It found something
+      absurd and rather touching in this tall, serious young man with the
+      surprisingly deft fingers, tying raffia knots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first basket went, by Johnny's request, to Sidney Page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want her to have it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She got corns on her fingers from
+      rubbing me when I came in first; and, besides&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said K. He was tying a most complicated knot, and could not look
+      up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know something,&rdquo; said Johnny. &ldquo;I'm not going to get in wrong by
+      talking, but I know something. You give her the basket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. looked up then, and surprised Johnny's secret in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I'd squealed she'd have finished me for good. They've got me, you
+      know. I'm not running in 2.40 these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not tell, or make it uncomfortable for you. What do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny looked around. The ward was in the somnolence of mid-afternoon. The
+      nearest patient, a man in a wheel-chair, was snoring heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the dark-eyed one that changed the medicine on me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The
+      one with the heels that were always tapping around, waking me up. She did
+      it; I saw her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, it was only what K. had suspected before. But a sense of
+      impending danger to Sidney obsessed him. If Carlotta would do that, what
+      would she do when she learned of the engagement? And he had known her
+      before. He believed she was totally unscrupulous. The odd coincidence of
+      their paths crossing again troubled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta Harrison was well again, and back on duty. Luckily for Sidney,
+      her three months' service in the operating-room kept them apart. For
+      Carlotta was now not merely jealous. She found herself neglected, ignored.
+      It ate her like a fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not yet suspect an engagement. It had been her theory that
+      Wilson would not marry easily&mdash;that, in a sense, he would have to be
+      coerced into marriage. Some clever woman would marry him some day, and no
+      one would be more astonished than himself. She thought merely that Sidney
+      was playing a game like her own, with different weapons. So she planned
+      her battle, ignorant that she had lost already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her method was simple enough. She stopped sulking, met Max with smiles,
+      made no overtures toward a renewal of their relations. At first this
+      annoyed him. Later it piqued him. To desert a woman was justifiable, under
+      certain circumstances. But to desert a woman, and have her apparently not
+      even know it, was against the rules of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During a surgical dressing in a private room, one day, he allowed his
+      fingers to touch hers, as on that day a year before when she had taken
+      Miss Simpson's place in his office. He was rewarded by the same slow,
+      smouldering glance that had caught his attention before. So she was only
+      acting indifference!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Carlotta made her second move. A new interne had come into the house,
+      and was going through the process of learning that from a senior at the
+      medical school to a half-baked junior interne is a long step back. He had
+      to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, the patronizing
+      instructions of nurses as to rules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta alone treated him with deference. His uneasy rounds in Carlotta's
+      precinct took on the state and form of staff visitations. She flattered,
+      cajoled, looked up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting more
+      attention than himself: that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere in the
+      offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her with worship.
+      Her indifference had only piqued him. The enthroning of a successor galled
+      him. Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily&mdash;was subject to
+      frequent &ldquo;bawling out,&rdquo; as he termed it, in the operating-room as he
+      assisted the anaesthetist. He took his troubles to Carlotta, who soothed
+      him in the corridor&mdash;in plain sight of her quarry, of course&mdash;by
+      putting a sympathetic hand on his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the love of Heaven, Carlotta,&rdquo; he said impatiently, &ldquo;stop making love
+      to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you look at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like him. He is thoroughly genuine. I respect him, and&mdash;he
+      respects me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's rather a silly game, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What game?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I don't understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you do. I&mdash;I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But
+      I've been down-hearted. He cheers me up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her attraction for him was almost gone&mdash;not quite. He felt rather
+      sorry for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry. Then you are not angry with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Angry? No.&rdquo; She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was not acting.
+      &ldquo;I knew it would end, of course. I have lost a&mdash;a lover. I expected
+      that. But I wanted to keep a friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend? He had
+      treated her cruelly, hideously. If she still desired his friendship, there
+      was no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it. And Carlotta was very careful.
+      Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes. She told him
+      of her worries. Her training was almost over. She had a chance to take up
+      institutional work. She abhorred the thought of private duty. What would
+      he advise?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place to
+      talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to the office and we'll talk it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like to go there; Miss Simpson is suspicious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The institution she spoke of was in another city. It occurred to Wilson
+      that if she took it the affair would have reached a graceful and
+      legitimate end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was not
+      unpleasant. It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it was
+      owing to her. He had treated her badly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptingly
+      free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose you meet me at the old corner,&rdquo; he said carelessly, eyes on the
+      Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was glaring
+      ferociously. &ldquo;We'll run out into the country and talk things over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and he
+      made his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that he had
+      won a victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. He had been
+      sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement. At five
+      o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside on
+      the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'd come
+      around.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. looked at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you say to a walk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go about
+      town for a half-hour or so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to. But here again
+      Joe met him more than halfway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, go on,&rdquo; he said, when they found themselves in the park; &ldquo;I don't
+      suppose you were paying a call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I know what you are going to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a man
+      insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why make an exception of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that,
+      whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are
+      putting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is responsible, isn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least. How old are you, Joe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-three, almost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a
+      disappointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much she cares! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no announcement of any engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is, and you know it. Well, she'll be happy&mdash;not! If I'd go to
+      her to-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again.&rdquo; The
+      idea, thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him. He returned to it
+      again and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy's
+      statement had any basis in fact. His single determination was to save
+      Sidney from any pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Joe suddenly announced his inclination to go out into the country
+      after all, he suspected a ruse to get rid of him, and insisted on going
+      along. Joe consented grudgingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Car's at Bailey's garage,&rdquo; he said sullenly. &ldquo;I don't know when I'll get
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That won't matter.&rdquo; K.'s tone was cheerful. &ldquo;I'm not sleeping, anyhow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the car
+      running smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you've got it too!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We're a fine pair of fools. We'd both be
+      better off if I sent the car over a bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to time
+      sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had supper at the White Springs Hotel&mdash;not on the terrace, but
+      in the little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first meal
+      together. K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with bad grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the meal cheered and steadied him. K. found him more amenable to
+      reason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave the
+      city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm stuck here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm the only one, and mother yells blue murder
+      when I talk about it. I want to go to Cuba. My uncle owns a farm down
+      there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I can talk your mother over. I've been there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe was all interest. His dilated pupils became more normal, his restless
+      hands grew quiet. K.'s even voice, the picture he drew of life on the
+      island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-week dullness, seemed
+      to quiet the boy's tortured nerves. He was nearer to peace than he had
+      been for many days. But he smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car. He paused for a moment,
+      rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm feeling a lot better,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I haven't got the band around my
+      head. You talk to mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the last K. saw of Joe Drummond until the next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care&mdash;not in black this time,
+      but in white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her
+      head, and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to
+      be gay, cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory. He
+      expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the secret
+      of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to forget
+      their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when the late
+      dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a faintly
+      perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her voice that was
+      only half assumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very late,&rdquo; he complained. &ldquo;Surely you are not going to be back at
+      ten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have special permission to be out late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; And then, recollecting their new situation: &ldquo;We have a lot to talk
+      over. It will take time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
+      car. Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside of
+      the road. The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe that
+      the white figure in the car was not Sidney. He went rather white, and
+      stepped out of the zone of light. The influence of Le Moyne was still on
+      him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing. But his hands
+      shook as he filled the radiator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Wilson's car had gone on, he went automatically about his
+      preparations for the return trip&mdash;lifted a seat cushion to
+      investigate his own store of gasolene, replacing carefully the revolver he
+      always carried under the seat and packed in waste to prevent its
+      accidental discharge, lighted his lamps, examined a loose brake-band.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His coolness gratified him. He had been an ass: Le Moyne was right. He'd
+      get away&mdash;to Cuba if he could&mdash;and start over again. He would
+      forget the Street and let it forget him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men in the garage were talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Schwitter's, of course,&rdquo; one of them grumbled. &ldquo;We might as well go
+      out of business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's no money in running a straight place. Schwitter and half a dozen
+      others are getting rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was Wilson, the surgeon in town. He cut off my brother-in-law's leg&mdash;charged
+      him as much as if he had grown a new one for him. He used to come here.
+      Now he goes to Schwitter's, like the rest. Pretty girl he had with him.
+      You can bet on Wilson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Max Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of
+      garage talk! The smiles of the men were evil. Joe's hands grew cold, his
+      head hot. A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights.
+      He knew Schwitter's, and he knew Wilson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung himself into his car and threw the throttle open. The car jerked,
+      stalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't start like that, son,&rdquo; one of the men remonstrated. &ldquo;You let
+      'er in too fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go to hell!&rdquo; Joe snarled, and made a second ineffectual effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus adjured, the men offered neither further advice nor assistance. The
+      minutes went by in useless cranking&mdash;fifteen. The red mist grew
+      heavier. Every lamp was a danger signal. But when K., growing uneasy, came
+      out into the yard, the engine had started at last. He was in time to see
+      Joe run his car into the road and turn it viciously toward Schwitter's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta's nearness was having its calculated effect on Max Wilson. His
+      spirits rose as the engine, marking perfect time, carried them along the
+      quiet roads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Partly it was reaction&mdash;relief that she should be so reasonable, so
+      complaisant&mdash;and a sort of holiday spirit after the day's hard work.
+      Oddly enough, and not so irrational as may appear, Sidney formed a part of
+      the evening's happiness&mdash;that she loved him; that, back in the
+      lecture-room, eyes and even mind on the lecturer, her heart was with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, with Sidney the basis of his happiness, he made the most of his
+      evening's freedom. He sang a little in his clear tenor&mdash;even, once
+      when they had slowed down at a crossing, bent over audaciously and kissed
+      Carlotta's hand in the full glare of a passing train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How reckless of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like to be reckless,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His boyishness annoyed Carlotta. She did not want the situation to get out
+      of hand. Moreover, what was so real for her was only too plainly a lark
+      for him. She began to doubt her power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hopelessness of her situation was dawning on her. Even when the touch
+      of her beside him and the solitude of the country roads got in his blood,
+      and he bent toward her, she found no encouragement in his words:&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      am mad about you to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her courage in her hands:&mdash;&ldquo;Then why give me up for some one
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's&mdash;different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is it different? I am a woman. I&mdash;I love you, Max. No one else
+      will ever care as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are in love with the Lamb!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a trick. I'm sorry, Max. I don't care for anyone else in the
+      world. If you let me go I'll want to die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as he was silent:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life. I swear it. There
+      will be nobody else, ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday
+      afternoon under the trees, on this very road! Swift shame overtook him,
+      that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in
+      ignorance of how things really stood between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, Carlotta. It's impossible. I'm engaged to marry some one
+      else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney Page?&rdquo;&mdash;almost a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was ashamed at the way she took the news. If she had stormed or wept,
+      he would have known what to do. But she sat still, not speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have expected it, sooner or later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still she made no reply. He thought she might faint, and looked at her
+      anxiously. Her profile, indistinct beside him, looked white and drawn. But
+      Carlotta was not fainting. She was making a desperate plan. If their
+      escapade became known, it would end things between Sidney and him. She was
+      sure of that. She needed time to think it out. It must become known
+      without any apparent move on her part. If, for instance, she became ill,
+      and was away from the hospital all night, that might answer. The thing
+      would be investigated, and who knew&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The car turned in at Schwitter's road and drew up before the house. The
+      narrow porch was filled with small tables, above which hung rows of
+      electric lights enclosed in Japanese paper lanterns. Midweek, which had
+      found the White Springs Hotel almost deserted, saw Schwitter's crowded
+      tables set out under the trees. Seeing the crowd, Wilson drove directly to
+      the yard and parked his machine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need of running any risk,&rdquo; he explained to the still figure beside
+      him. &ldquo;We can walk back and take a table under the trees, away from those
+      infernal lanterns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She reeled a little as he helped her out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not sick, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm dizzy. I'm all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked white. He felt a stab of pity for her. She leaned rather
+      heavily on him as they walked toward the house. The faint perfume that had
+      almost intoxicated him, earlier, vaguely irritated him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the rear of the house she shook off his arm and preceded him around the
+      building. She chose the end of the porch as the place in which to drop,
+      and went down like a stone, falling back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moderate excitement. The visitors at Schwitter's were too much
+      engrossed with themselves to be much interested. She opened her eyes
+      almost as soon as she fell&mdash;to forestall any tests; she was shrewd
+      enough to know that Wilson would detect her malingering very quickly&mdash;and
+      begged to be taken into the house. &ldquo;I feel very ill,&rdquo; she said, and her
+      white face bore her out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schwitter and Bill carried her in and up the stairs to one of the newly
+      furnished rooms. The little man was twittering with anxiety. He had a
+      horror of knockout drops and the police. They laid her on the bed, her hat
+      beside her; and Wilson, stripping down the long sleeve of her glove, felt
+      her pulse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a doctor in the next town,&rdquo; said Schwitter. &ldquo;I was going to send
+      for him, anyhow&mdash;my wife's not very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it anything serious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed the door behind the relieved figure of the landlord, and, going
+      back to Carlotta, stood looking down at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you mean by doing that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doing what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were no more faint than I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She closed her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't remember. Everything went black. The lanterns&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crossed the room deliberately and went out, closing the door behind
+      him. He saw at once where he stood&mdash;in what danger. If she insisted
+      that she was ill and unable to go back, there would be a fuss. The story
+      would come out. Everything would be gone. Schwitter's, of all places!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the foot of the stairs, Schwitter pulled himself together. After all,
+      the girl was only ill. There was nothing for the police. He looked at his
+      watch. The doctor ought to be here by this time. It was sooner than they
+      had expected. Even the nurse had not come. Tillie was alone, out in the
+      harness-room. He looked through the crowded rooms, at the overflowing
+      porch with its travesty of pleasure, and he hated the whole thing with a
+      desperate hatred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another car. Would they never stop coming! But perhaps it was the doctor.
+      A young man edged his way into the hall and confronted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two people just arrived here. A man and a woman&mdash;in white. Where are
+      they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was trouble then, after all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upstairs&mdash;first bedroom to the right.&rdquo; His teeth chattered. Surely,
+      as a man sowed he reaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe went up the staircase. At the top, on the landing, he confronted
+      Wilson. He fired at him without a word&mdash;saw him fling up his arms and
+      fall back, striking first the wall, then the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The buzz of conversation on the porch suddenly ceased. Joe put his
+      revolver in his pocket and went quietly down the stairs. The crowd parted
+      to let him through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta, crouched in her room, listening, not daring to open the door,
+      heard the sound of a car as it swung out into the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late
+      operation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture
+      notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the
+      insistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flying
+      fingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.
+      There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force
+      strength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrils
+      dilated, her brain worked like a machine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night she received well-deserved praise. When the Lamb, telephoning
+      hysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staff
+      surgeon was called. His keen eyes watched Sidney&mdash;felt her capacity,
+      her fiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what
+      was in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't wear yourself out, girl,&rdquo; he said gravely. &ldquo;We need people like
+      you. It was good work to-night&mdash;fine work. I wish we had more like
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By midnight the work was done, and the nurse in charge sent Sidney to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Lamb who received the message about Wilson; and because he was
+      not very keen at the best, and because the news was so startling, he
+      refused to credit his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is this at the 'phone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't matter. Le Moyne's my name. Get the message to Dr. Ed Wilson
+      at once. We are starting to the city.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me again. I mustn't make a mess of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, has been shot,&rdquo; came slowly and distinctly. &ldquo;Get
+      the staff there and have a room ready. Get the operating-room ready, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lamb wakened then, and roused the house. He was incoherent, rather, so
+      that Dr. Ed got the impression that it was Le Moyne who had been shot, and
+      only learned the truth when he got to the hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; he demanded. He liked K., and his heart was sore within
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in yet, sir. A Mr. Le Moyne is bringing him. Staff's in the executive
+      committee room, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;who has been shot? I thought you said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lamb turned pale at that, and braced himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry&mdash;I thought you understood. I believe it's not&mdash;not
+      serious. It's Dr. Max, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed, who was heavy and not very young, sat down on an office chair. Out
+      of sheer habit he had brought the bag. He put it down on the floor beside
+      him, and moistened his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he living?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, sir. I gathered that Mr. Le Moyne did not think it serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He lied, and Dr. Ed knew he lied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lamb stood by the door, and Dr. Ed sat and waited. The office clock
+      said half after three. Outside the windows, the night world went by&mdash;taxi-cabs
+      full of roisterers, women who walked stealthily close to the buildings, a
+      truck carrying steel, so heavy that it shook the hospital as it rumbled
+      by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed sat and waited. The bag with the dog-collar in it was on the floor.
+      He thought of many things, but mostly of the promise he had made his
+      mother. And, having forgotten the injured man's shortcomings, he was
+      remembering his good qualities&mdash;his cheerfulness, his courage, his
+      achievements. He remembered the day Max had done the Edwardes operation,
+      and how proud he had been of him. He figured out how old he was&mdash;not
+      thirty-one yet, and already, perhaps&mdash;There he stopped thinking. Cold
+      beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I hear them now, sir,&rdquo; said the Lamb, and stood back respectfully
+      to let him pass out of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta stayed in the room during the consultation. No one seemed to
+      wonder why she was there, or to pay any attention to her. The staff was
+      stricken. They moved back to make room for Dr. Ed beside the bed, and then
+      closed in again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta waited, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
+      Surely they would operate; they wouldn't let him die like that!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she saw the phalanx break up, and realized that they would not
+      operate, she went mad. She stood against the door, and accused them of
+      cowardice&mdash;taunted them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he would let any of you die like that?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Die like
+      a hurt dog, and none of you to lift a hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Pfeiffer who drew her out of the room and tried to talk reason and
+      sanity to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hopeless,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If there was a chance, we'd operate, and you
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The staff went hopelessly down the stairs to the smoking-room, and smoked.
+      It was all they could do. The night assistant sent coffee down to them,
+      and they drank it. Dr. Ed stayed in his brother's room, and said to his
+      mother, under his breath, that he'd tried to do his best by Max, and that
+      from now on it would be up to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had brought the injured man in. The country doctor had come, too,
+      finding Tillie's trial not imminent. On the way in he had taken it for
+      granted that K. was a medical man like himself, and had placed his
+      hypodermic case at his disposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he missed him,&mdash;in the smoking-room, that was,&mdash;he asked
+      for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see the chap who came in with us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Clever fellow. Like
+      to know his name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The staff did not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. sat alone on a bench in the hall. He wondered who would tell Sidney; he
+      hoped they would be very gentle with her. He sat in the shadow, waiting.
+      He did not want to go home and leave her to what she might have to face.
+      There was a chance she would ask for him. He wanted to be near, in that
+      case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat in the shadow, on the bench. The night watchman went by twice and
+      stared at him. At last he asked K. to mind the door until he got some
+      coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the staff's been hurt,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;If I don't get some coffee
+      now, I won't get any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. promised to watch the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A desperate thing had occurred to Carlotta. Somehow, she had not thought
+      of it before. Now she wondered how she could have failed to think of it.
+      If only she could find him and he would do it! She would go down on her
+      knees&mdash;would tell him everything, if only he would consent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she found him on his bench, however, she passed him by. She had a
+      terrible fear that he might go away if she put the thing to him first. He
+      clung hard to his new identity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So first she went to the staff and confronted them. They were men of
+      courage, only declining to undertake what they considered hopeless work.
+      The one man among them who might have done the thing with any chance of
+      success lay stricken. Not one among them but would have given of his best&mdash;only
+      his best was not good enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be the Edwardes operation, wouldn't it?&rdquo; demanded Carlotta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The staff was bewildered. There were no rules to cover such conduct on the
+      part of a nurse. One of them&mdash;Pfeiffer again, by chance&mdash;replied
+      rather heavily:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any, it would be the Edwardes operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would Dr. Edwardes himself be able to do anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was going a little far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly. One chance in a thousand, perhaps. But Edwardes is dead. How
+      did this thing happen, Miss Harrison?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She ignored his question. Her face was ghastly, save for the trace of
+      rouge; her eyes were red-rimmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Edwardes is sitting on a bench in the hall outside!&rdquo; she announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice rang out. K. heard her and raised his head. His attitude was
+      weary, resigned. The thing had come, then! He was to take up the old
+      burden. The girl had told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney. Max was still unconscious. Ed remembered about
+      her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man's estate
+      and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered that Max was
+      very fond of Sidney. He had hoped that Sidney would take him and do for
+      him what he, Ed, had failed to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Sidney was summoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a little
+      weary. But her courage was indomitable. She forced her shoes on her tired
+      feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night watchman was in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she always
+      smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the
+      nurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall,
+      holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty
+      too&mdash;but he had divined Sidney's romance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coffee! For me?&rdquo; She was astonished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink it. You haven't had much sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is something wrong, daddy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was his name, among the nurses. He had had another name, but it was
+      lost in the mists of years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get it down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. But
+      daddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you stand a piece of bad news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Strangely, her first thought was of K.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There has been an accident. Dr. Wilson&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Max&mdash;has been hurt. It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Downstairs, in Seventeen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, with his
+      untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straight
+      figure on the bed. When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms around
+      her. His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything. She hardly
+      listened to what he said. The fact was all that concerned her&mdash;that
+      her lover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand,
+      so far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The why would come later. Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's arms
+      about her, and wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they would only do something!&rdquo; Sidney's voice sounded strange to her
+      ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But that, it seemed, was wrong. For suddenly Sidney's small world, which
+      had always sedately revolved in one direction, began to move the other
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened, and the staff came in. But where before they had moved
+      heavily, with drooped heads, now they came quickly, as men with a purpose.
+      There was a tall man in a white coat with them. He ordered them about like
+      children, and they hastened to do his will. At first Sidney only knew that
+      now, at last, they were going to do something&mdash;the tall man was going
+      to do something. He stood with his back to Sidney, and gave orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heaviness of inactivity lifted. The room buzzed. The nurses stood by,
+      while the staff did nurses' work. The senior surgical interne, essaying
+      assistance, was shoved aside by the senior surgical consultant, and stood
+      by, aggrieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Lamb, after all, who brought the news to Sidney. The new
+      activity had caught Dr. Ed, and she was alone now, her face buried against
+      the back of a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There'll be something doing now, Miss Page,&rdquo; he offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going after the bullet. Do you know who's going to do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice echoed the subdued excitement of the room&mdash;excitement and
+      new hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever hear of Edwardes, the surgeon?&mdash;the Edwardes operation,
+      you know. Well, he's here. It sounds like a miracle. They found him
+      sitting on a bench in the hall downstairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney raised her head, but she could not see the miraculously found
+      Edwardes. She could see the familiar faces of the staff, and that other
+      face on the pillow, and&mdash;she gave a little cry. There was K.! How
+      like him to be there, to be wherever anyone was in trouble! Tears came to
+      her eyes&mdash;the first tears she had shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As if her eyes had called him, he looked up and saw her. He came toward
+      her at once. The staff stood back to let him pass, and gazed after him.
+      The wonder of what had happened was growing on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. stood beside Sidney, and looked down at her. Just at first it seemed as
+      if he found nothing to say. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's just a chance, Sidney dear. Don't count too much on it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have got to count on it. If I don't, I shall die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If a shadow passed over his face, no one saw it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not ask you to go back to your room. If you will wait somewhere
+      near, I'll see that you have immediate word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to the operating-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to the operating-room. Somewhere near.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His steady voice controlled her hysteria. But she resented it. She was not
+      herself, of course, what with strain and weariness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall ask Dr. Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was puzzled for a moment. Then he understood. After all, it was as
+      well. Whether she knew him as Le Moyne or as Edwardes mattered very
+      little, after all. The thing that really mattered was that he must try to
+      save Wilson for her. If he failed&mdash;It ran through his mind that if he
+      failed she might hate him the rest of her life&mdash;not for himself, but
+      for his failure; that, whichever way things went, he must lose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Edwardes says you are to stay away from the operation, but to remain
+      near. He&mdash;he promises to call you if&mdash;things go wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had to be content with that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing about that night was real to Sidney. She sat in the
+      anaesthetizing-room, and after a time she knew that she was not alone.
+      There was somebody else. She realized dully that Carlotta was there, too,
+      pacing up and down the little room. She was never sure, for instance,
+      whether she imagined it, or whether Carlotta really stopped before her and
+      surveyed her with burning eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you thought he was going to marry you!&rdquo; said Carlotta&mdash;or the
+      dream. &ldquo;Well, you see he isn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney tried to answer, and failed&mdash;or that was the way the dream
+      went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had enough character, I'd think you did it. How do I know you
+      didn't follow us, and shoot him as he left the room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been reality, after all; for Sidney's numbed mind grasped the
+      essential fact here, and held on to it. He had been out with Carlotta. He
+      had promised&mdash;sworn that this should not happen. It had happened. It
+      surprised her. It seemed as if nothing more could hurt her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the movement to and from the operating room, the door stood open for a
+      moment. A tall figure&mdash;how much it looked like K.!&mdash;straightened
+      and held out something in its hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bullet!&rdquo; said Carlotta in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then more waiting, a stir of movement in the room beyond the closed door.
+      Carlotta was standing, her face buried in her hands, against the door.
+      Sidney suddenly felt sorry for her. She cared a great deal. It must be
+      tragic to care like that! She herself was not caring much; she was too
+      numb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond, across the courtyard, was the stable. Before the day of the motor
+      ambulances, horses had waited there for their summons, eager as fire
+      horses, heads lifted to the gong. When Sidney saw the outline of the
+      stable roof, she knew that it was dawn. The city still slept, but the
+      torturing night was over. And in the gray dawn the staff, looking gray
+      too, and elderly and weary, came out through the closed door and took
+      their hushed way toward the elevator. They were talking among themselves.
+      Sidney, straining her ears, gathered that they had seen a miracle, and
+      that the wonder was still on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carlotta followed them out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost on their heels came K. He was in the white coat, and more and more
+      he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held out
+      something in his hand. Sidney's head was aching and confused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish. The dawn was
+      morning now&mdash;horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and
+      across the windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles
+      sat on a clean towel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tall man&mdash;or was it K.?&mdash;looked at her, and then reached up
+      and turned off the electric light. Why, it was K., of course; and he was
+      putting out the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light was out
+      everything was gray. She could not see. She slid very quietly out of her
+      chair, and lay at his feet in a dead faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. carried her to the elevator. He held her as he had held her that day at
+      the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as one
+      holds something infinitely precious. Not until he had placed her on her
+      bed did she open her eyes. But she was conscious before that. She was so
+      tired, and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing where one
+      was going, or caring&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney, lying
+      among her pillows, looked up at K.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little better. There's a chance, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been so mixed up. All the time I was sitting waiting, I kept
+      thinking that it was you who were operating! Will he really get well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks promising.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia. There was so much to talk
+      about: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had been shot
+      by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the great Edwardes;
+      and&mdash;a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, and that
+      thrilled the training-school to the core&mdash;that this very Edwardes,
+      newly risen, as it were, and being a miracle himself as well as performing
+      one, this very Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed and putting her down,
+      had kissed her on her white forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The training-school doubted this. How could he know Sidney Page? And,
+      after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupied at the
+      time in seeing if her cap was straight. The school, therefore, accepted
+      the miracle, but refused the kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The miracle was no miracle, of course. But something had happened to K.
+      that savored of the marvelous. His faith in himself was coming back&mdash;not
+      strongly, with a rush, but with all humility. He had been loath to take up
+      the burden; but, now that he had it, he breathed a sort of inarticulate
+      prayer to be able to carry it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, since men have looked for signs since the beginning of time, he too
+      asked for a sign. Not, of course, that he put it that way, or that he was
+      making terms with Providence. It was like this: if Wilson got well, he'd
+      keep on working. He'd feel that, perhaps, after all, this was meant. If
+      Wilson died&mdash;Sidney held out her hand to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What should I do without you, K.?&rdquo; she asked wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you have to do is to want me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was not too steady, and he took her pulse in a most businesslike
+      way to distract her attention from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very many things you know! You are quite professional about pulses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then he did not tell her. He was not sure, to be frank, that she'd be
+      interested. Now, with Wilson as he was, was no time to obtrude his own
+      story. There was time enough for that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you drink some beef tea if I send it to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not hungry. I will, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;will you try to sleep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep, while he&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise to tell you if there is any change. I shall stay with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll try to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as he rose from the chair beside her low bed, she put out her hand to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was out with Carlotta. He promised, and he broke his promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may have been reasons. Suppose we wait until he can explain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can he explain?&rdquo; And, when he hesitated: &ldquo;I bring all my troubles to
+      you, as if you had none. Somehow, I can't go to Aunt Harriet, and of
+      course mother&mdash;Carlotta cares a great deal for him. She said that I
+      shot him. Does anyone really think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not. Please stop thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who did, K.? He had so many friends, and no enemies that I knew of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her mind seemed to stagger about in a circle, making little excursions,
+      but always coming back to the one thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some drunken visitor to the road-house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could have killed himself for the words the moment they were spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were at a road-house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not just to judge anyone before you hear the story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stirred restlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-past six.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must get up and go on duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was glad to be stern with her. He forbade her rising. When the nurse
+      came in with the belated ammonia, she found K. making an arbitrary ruling,
+      and Sidney looking up at him mutinously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Page is not to go on duty to-day. She is to stay in bed until
+      further orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, Dr. Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The confusion in Sidney's mind cleared away suddenly. K. was Dr. Edwardes!
+      It was K. who had performed the miracle operation&mdash;K. who had dared
+      and perhaps won! Dear K., with his steady eyes and his long surgeon's
+      fingers! Then, because she seemed to see ahead as well as back into the
+      past in that flash that comes to the drowning and to those recovering from
+      shock, and because she knew that now the little house would no longer be
+      home to K., she turned her face into her pillow and cried. Her world had
+      fallen indeed. Her lover was not true and might be dying; her friend would
+      go away to his own world, which was not the Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. left her at last and went back to Seventeen, where Dr. Ed still sat by
+      the bed. Inaction was telling on him. If Max would only open his eyes, so
+      he could tell him what had been in his mind all these years&mdash;his
+      pride in him and all that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a sort of belated desire to make up for where he had failed, he put
+      the bag that had been Max's bete noir on the bedside table, and began to
+      clear it of rubbish&mdash;odd bits of dirty cotton, the tubing from a long
+      defunct stethoscope, glass from a broken bottle, a scrap of paper on which
+      was a memorandum, in his illegible writing, to send Max a check for his
+      graduating suit. When K. came in, he had the old dog-collar in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Belonged to an old collie of ours,&rdquo; he said heavily. &ldquo;Milkman ran over
+      him and killed him. Max chased the wagon and licked the driver with his
+      own whip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face worked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor old Bobby Burns!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We'd raised him from a pup. Got him in a
+      grape-basket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sick man opened his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient did
+      not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the gas
+      office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy to
+      reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence of
+      the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the conviction
+      that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals keep
+      their secrets well. And it is doubtful if the Street would have been
+      greatly concerned even had it known. It had never heard of Edwardes, of
+      the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation. Its medical knowledge
+      comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner. When, as
+      would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would be more
+      concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of it. That
+      was as it should be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood. If the
+      boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable. Twenty people had seen him
+      at Schwitter's and would know him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him. He had not been home
+      all night. Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him that.
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Drummond was here,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is almost frantic. She says Joe
+      has not been home all night. She says he looks up to you, and she thought
+      if you could find him and would talk to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joe was with me last night. We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.
+      Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry. I
+      feel sure she will hear from him to-day. Something went wrong with his
+      car, perhaps, after he left me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bathed and shaved hurriedly. Katie brought his coffee to his room, and
+      he drank it standing. He was working out a theory about the boy. Beyond
+      Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, across the State.
+      Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating up the miles all
+      that night, or&mdash;K. would not formulate his fear of what might have
+      happened, even to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a
+      little knot of people around her. The Street was getting the night's news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the country.
+      He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day. He went to Schwitter's
+      first. Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill was scrubbing the porch,
+      and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass into a box. The dead
+      lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on the hill came the
+      staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Schwitter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the barn with the missus. Got a boy back there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bill grinned. He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch,
+      shoved a chair on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down. Well, how's the man who got his last night? Dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;County detectives were here bright and early. After the lady's husband. I
+      guess we lose our license over this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does Schwitter say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, him!&rdquo; Bill's tone was full of disgust. &ldquo;He hopes we do. He hates the
+      place. Only man I ever knew that hated money. That's what this house is&mdash;money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtain
+      before his eyes. But his reply came promptly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surest thing in the world. Close to him as you are to me. Dark man, about
+      thirty, small mustache&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bill, you're lying, and I know it. Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know anything about him.&rdquo; He thrust his mop into the pail. K.
+      rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Schwitter know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn't know nothing. He's been out at the barn all night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the
+      house. K. put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've got to get him away from here, Bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get who away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know. The county men may come back to search the premises.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know you aren't one of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you know I'm not. He's a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, I
+      followed him here; but I was too late. Did he take the revolver away with
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took it from him. It's under the bar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get it for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In sheer relief, K.'s spirits rose. After all, it was a good world: Tillie
+      with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe safe, and,
+      without the revolver, secure from his own remorse. Other things there
+      were, too&mdash;the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, the way she
+      had turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, this last, but it
+      was worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; it had stopped on
+      the hillside. The men were drinking out of a bucket that flashed in the
+      sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one thing wrong. What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless a
+      thing? K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne. He noted his
+      tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his
+      ears. Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job. After his survey he
+      went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. thrust it into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said quietly, &ldquo;where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my room&mdash;top of the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had sat
+      waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down. And
+      last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure. Surely
+      the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery. None of it paid. No one got
+      away with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room under the eaves was stifling. An unmade bed stood in a corner.
+      From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and a
+      cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window. When the door
+      swung open, he looked up. He showed no interest on seeing K., who had to
+      stoop to enter the low room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you were the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much. Open that window, Bill. This place is stifling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I'd killed him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, you don't. You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will they do with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing until they find you. I came to talk about that. They'd better not
+      find you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's easier than it sounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. sat down on the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I only had some money!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But never mind about that, Joe; I'll
+      get some.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room. As he closed the door
+      behind him, K.'s voice took on a new tone: &ldquo;Joe, why did you do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know who was with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and so do you. Don't go into that. I did it, and I'll stand by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!&rdquo; he sneered. &ldquo;They came
+      here and took a room. I met him coming out of it. I'd do it again if I had
+      a chance, and do it better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aw, chuck it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a fact. I got here not two minutes after you left. The girl was
+      still there. It was some one else. Sidney was not out of the hospital last
+      night. She attended a lecture, and then an operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not
+      been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he is that sort, he deserves what he got,&rdquo; said the boy grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spent
+      alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time that
+      he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees&mdash;his descent of the
+      staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to walk
+      back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be no
+      mistake as to who had committed the crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself,&rdquo; he told K. &ldquo;But
+      the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a pause: &ldquo;Does she know who did it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney? No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly. That's not up to us, Joe. The thing we've got to do is to hush
+      the thing up, and get you away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. rose. &ldquo;I think I can get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney need never know who did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not ashamed of it.&rdquo; But his face showed relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve
+      between men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K. The
+      boy rose and followed him to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you tell her the whole thing?&mdash;the whole filthy story?&rdquo; he
+      asked. &ldquo;She'd never look at him again. You're crazy about her. I haven't
+      got a chance. It would give you one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want her, God knows!&rdquo; said K. &ldquo;But not that way, boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five hundred gross,&rdquo; the little man hastened to explain. &ldquo;But you're
+      right, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It's going hard with
+      her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about. It's in the safe,
+      in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank.&rdquo; He seemed to
+      apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending an
+      entire day's gross receipts on no security. &ldquo;It's better to get him away,
+      of course. It's good business. I have tried to have an orderly place. If
+      they arrest him here&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walked
+      down the Street, and eyed its poplars with appraising eyes&mdash;a far
+      way. Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic
+      eyes. It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that
+      night to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to a
+      railroad station. But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message found
+      him there. Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hard
+      fight. The message from Schwitter was very brief:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something has happened, and Tillie wants you. I don't like to trouble you
+      again, but she&mdash;wants you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and little
+      food since the day before. But he got into the rented machine again&mdash;its
+      rental was running up; he tried to forget it&mdash;and turned it toward
+      Hillfoot. But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walked without
+      ringing into Mrs. McKee's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state had
+      altered the &ldquo;mealing&rdquo; house. The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rack in
+      the hall. Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window one viewed
+      the spiraea, still in need of spraying. Mrs. McKee herself was in the
+      pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaves on each
+      of an interminable succession of plates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K., who was privileged, walked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got a car at the door,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;and there's nothing so
+      extravagant as an empty seat in an automobile. Will you take a ride?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee agreed. Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap the ideal
+      headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one. If you'll take me in my
+      toque&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety, having
+      not the faintest idea what a toque was. He was not without other
+      anxieties. What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that he
+      expected? Good women could be most cruel. And Schwitter had been very
+      vague. But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice had
+      expressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not a
+      grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring them
+      together. But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables, its
+      whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper window behind
+      which Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather. He had a
+      masculine dislike for meddling, and yet&mdash;Mrs. McKee had suddenly seen
+      the name in the wooden arch over the gate: &ldquo;Schwitter's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tillie's not in the house. She's back in the barn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the barn!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out. It's very
+      comfortable and clean; it smells of hay. You'd be surprised how nice it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The like of her!&rdquo; snorted Mrs. McKee. &ldquo;She's late with her conscience,
+      I'm thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last night,&rdquo; K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, &ldquo;she had a
+      child there. It&mdash;it's rather like very old times, isn't it? A
+      man-child, Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want me to do?&rdquo; Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce at
+      the beginning, ended feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had a new
+      baby and needed a friend. Lie a little&mdash;&rdquo; Mrs. McKee gasped. &ldquo;Tell
+      her the baby's pretty. Tell her you've been wanting to see her.&rdquo; His tone
+      was suddenly stern. &ldquo;Lie a little, for your soul's sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch with the
+      shameful name, and back to the barn. But there he had the tact to remain
+      in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone. When, five
+      minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn, her eyes were
+      red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Mr. K.,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The wife's dead, poor thing. They're going
+      to be married right away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels. K.
+      entered the barn. At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head. The
+      child was asleep at her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe's
+      credit. On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at the bank
+      with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University and
+      Country Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, and
+      various small obligations of Christine's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate result of the money was good. He drank nothing for a week,
+      went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat at
+      home with Christine on her balcony in the evenings. With the knowledge
+      that he could pay his debts, he postponed the day. He liked the feeling of
+      a bank account in four figures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him there
+      gratified him. He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous. On the third
+      evening he was restless. It occurred to him that his wife was beginning to
+      take his presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer. When
+      he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was furious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half in it.
+      She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for Palmer in
+      the things he liked. They still took their dinners at the Lorenz house up
+      the street. When she saw that the haphazard table service there irritated
+      him, she coaxed her mother into getting a butler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly and in
+      its heart, it was proud of him. With a half-dozen automobiles, and
+      Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler, not
+      to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on its
+      commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of affectation
+      had lain its charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless. He
+      had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since the motor
+      accident. To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few months had
+      not included women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl had a strange fascination for him. Perhaps she typified the
+      care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,
+      fundamental. He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was shot.
+      The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black dress had
+      been enough to set his pulses racing. When he saw that she meant to pass
+      him, he fell into step beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you were going to cut me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was in a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still in the store?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; And, after a second's hesitation: &ldquo;I'm keeping straight, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you getting along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty well. I've had my salary raised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you have to walk as fast as this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said I was in a hurry. Once a week I get off a little early. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He eyed her suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Early! What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go to the hospital. The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But a moment later he burst out irritably:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was an accident, Grace. The boy took the chance when he engaged to
+      drive the car. I'm sorry, of course. I dream of the little devil
+      sometimes, lying there. I'll tell you what I'll do,&rdquo; he added
+      magnanimously. &ldquo;I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have done
+      something before this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy's not strong enough yet. I don't think you can do anything for
+      him, unless&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The monstrous injustice of the thing overcame her. Palmer and she walking
+      about, and the boy lying on his hot bed! She choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He worries about his mother. If you could give her some money, it would
+      help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money! Good Heavens&mdash;I owe everybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You owe him too, don't you? He'll never walk again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't give them ten dollars. I don't see that I'm under any obligation,
+      anyhow. I paid his board for two months in the hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she did not acknowledge this generosity,&mdash;amounting to
+      forty-eight dollars,&mdash;his irritation grew. Her silence was an
+      accusation. Her manner galled him, into the bargain. She was too calm in
+      his presence, too cold. Where she had once palpitated visibly under his
+      warm gaze, she was now self-possessed and quiet. Where it had pleased his
+      pride to think that he had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the
+      other foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the entrance to a side street she stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I turn off here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I come and see you sometime?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's flat, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, Palmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swung around savagely and left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day he drew the thousand dollars from the bank. A good many of
+      his debts he wanted to pay in cash; there was no use putting checks
+      through, with incriminating indorsements. Also, he liked the idea of
+      carrying a roll of money around. The big fellows at the clubs always had a
+      wad and peeled off bills like skin off an onion. He took a couple of
+      drinks to celebrate his approaching immunity from debt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the
+      hotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be with him.
+      He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket. Money
+      seemed to bring money! If he could carry the thousand around for a day or
+      so, something pretty good might come of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been drinking a little all afternoon. When the game was over, he
+      bought drinks to celebrate his victory. The losers treated, too, to show
+      they were no pikers. Palmer was in high spirits. He offered to put up the
+      eighty and throw for it. The losers mentioned dinner and various
+      engagements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Palmer did not want to go home. Christine would greet him with raised
+      eyebrows. They would eat a stuffy Lorenz dinner, and in the evening
+      Christine would sit in the lamplight and drive him mad with soft music. He
+      wanted lights, noise, the smiles of women. Luck was with him, and he
+      wanted to be happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nine o'clock that night he found Grace. She had moved to a cheap
+      apartment which she shared with two other girls from the store. The others
+      were out. It was his lucky day, surely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His drunkenness was of the mind, mostly. His muscles were well controlled.
+      The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were slightly
+      accentuated, his eyes open a trifle wider than usual. That and a slight
+      paleness of the nostrils were the only evidences of his condition. But
+      Grace knew the signs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I'm coming in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She retreated before him, her eyes watchful. Men in his condition were apt
+      to be as quick with a blow as with a caress. But, having gained his point,
+      he was amiable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get your things on and come out. We can take in a roof-garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've told you I'm not doing that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was ugly in a flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got somebody else on the string.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honestly, no. There&mdash;there has never been anybody else, Palmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught her suddenly and jerked her toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You let me hear of anybody else, and I'll cut the guts out of him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held her for a second, his face black and fierce. Then, slowly and
+      inevitably, he drew her into his arms. He was drunk, and she knew it. But,
+      in the queer loyalty of her class, he was the only man she had cared for.
+      She cared now. She took him for that moment, felt his hot kisses on her
+      mouth, her throat, submitted while his rather brutal hands bruised her
+      arms in fierce caresses. Then she put him from her resolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you're going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell I'm going!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was less steady than he had been. The heat of the little flat
+      brought more blood to his head. He wavered as he stood just inside the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must go back to your wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She doesn't want me. She's in love with a fellow at the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer, hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lemme come in and sit down, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She let him pass her into the sitting-room. He dropped into a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've turned me down, and now Christine&mdash;she thinks I don't know.
+      I'm no fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made her
+      miserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don't kick
+      about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was watching him gravely. She had never seen him just like this.
+      Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reed he
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got you in wrong. You were a good girl before I knew you. You're a good
+      girl now. I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it. I only wanted to
+      take you out for a good time. I've got money. Look here!&rdquo; He drew out the
+      roll of bills and showed it to her. Her eyes opened wide. She had never
+      known him to have much money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lots more where that comes from.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was instantly cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't you going to give me some of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I want some clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; he complained. &ldquo;Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw it
+      all up to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his eyes were wavering. She could see victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take off enough for the evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he drew himself up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm no piker,&rdquo; he said largely. &ldquo;Whole hog or nothing. Take it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eighty
+      dollars, in crushed and wrinkled notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's my lucky day,&rdquo; he said thickly. &ldquo;Plenty more where this came from.
+      Do anything for you. Give it to the little devil. I&mdash;&rdquo; He yawned.
+      &ldquo;God, this place is hot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on a
+      stool. She knew him&mdash;knew that he would sleep almost all night. She
+      would have to make up something to tell the other girls; but no matter&mdash;she
+      could attend to that later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before. It seemed
+      smaller than that amount. Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, in
+      pinning on her hat, to count the bills. It was all there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      K. spent all of the evening of that day with Wilson. He was not to go for
+      Joe until eleven o'clock. The injured man's vitality was standing him in
+      good stead. He had asked for Sidney and she was at his bedside. Dr. Ed had
+      gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going, Max. The office is full, they tell me,&rdquo; he said, bending over
+      the bed. &ldquo;I'll come in later, and if they'll make me a shakedown, I'll
+      stay with you to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was faint, broken but distinct. &ldquo;Get some sleep...I've been a
+      poor stick...try to do better&mdash;&rdquo; His roving eyes fell on the dog
+      collar on the stand. He smiled, &ldquo;Good old Bob!&rdquo; he said, and put his hand
+      over Dr. Ed's, as it lay on the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. found Sidney in the room, not sitting, but standing by the window. The
+      sick man was dozing. One shaded light burned in a far corner. She turned
+      slowly and met his eyes. It seemed to K. that she looked at him as if she
+      had never really seen him before, and he was right. Readjustments are
+      always difficult.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was trying to reconcile the K. she had known so well with this new
+      K., no longer obscure, although still shabby, whose height had suddenly
+      become presence, whose quiet was the quiet of infinite power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was suddenly shy of him, as he stood looking down at her. He saw the
+      gleam of her engagement ring on her finger. It seemed almost defiant. As
+      though she had meant by wearing it to emphasize her belief in her lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not speak beyond their greeting, until he had gone over the
+      record. Then:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can't talk here. I want to talk to you, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led the way into the corridor. It was very dim. Far away was the night
+      nurse's desk, with its lamp, its annunciator, its pile of records. The
+      passage floor reflected the light on glistening boards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been thinking until I am almost crazy, K. And now I know how it
+      happened. It was Joe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The principal thing is, not how it happened, but that he is going to get
+      well, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood looking down, twisting her ring around her finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Joe in any danger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are going to get him away to-night. He wants to go to Cuba. He'll get
+      off safely, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WE are going to get him away! YOU are, you mean. You shoulder all our
+      troubles, K., as if they were your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; He was genuinely surprised. &ldquo;Oh, I see. You mean&mdash;but my part in
+      getting Joe off is practically nothing. As a matter of fact, Schwitter has
+      put up the money. My total capital in the world, after paying the taxicab
+      to-day, is seven dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The taxicab?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove, I was forgetting! Best news you ever heard of! Tillie married
+      and has a baby&mdash;all in twenty-four hours! Boy&mdash;they named it Le
+      Moyne. Squalled like a maniac when the water went on its head. I&mdash;I
+      took Mrs. McKee out in a hired machine. That's what happened to my
+      capital.&rdquo; He grinned sheepishly. &ldquo;She said she would have to go in her
+      toque. I had awful qualms. I thought it was a wrapper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, of course,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You find Max and save him&mdash;don't look
+      like that! You did, didn't you? And you get Joe away, borrowing money to
+      send him. And as if that isn't enough, when you ought to have been getting
+      some sleep, you are out taking a friend to Tillie, and being godfather to
+      the baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked uncomfortable, almost guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a day off. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I look back and remember how all these months I've been talking
+      about service, and you said nothing at all, and all the time you were
+      living what I preached&mdash;I'm so ashamed, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would not allow that. It distressed him. She saw that, and tried to
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When does Joe go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night. I'm to take him across the country to the railroad. I was
+      wondering&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd better explain first what happened, and why it happened. Then if you
+      are willing to send him a line, I think it would help. He saw a girl in
+      white in the car and followed in his own machine. He thought it was you,
+      of course. He didn't like the idea of your going to Schwitter's. Carlotta
+      was taken ill. And Schwitter and&mdash;and Wilson took her upstairs to a
+      room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe that, K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. He saw Max coming out and misunderstood. He fired at him then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did it for me. I feel very guilty, K., as if it all comes back to me.
+      I'll write to him, of course. Poor Joe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He watched her go down the hall toward the night nurse's desk. He would
+      have given everything just then for the right to call her back, to take
+      her in his arms and comfort her. She seemed so alone. He himself had gone
+      through loneliness and heartache, and the shadow was still on him. He
+      waited until he saw her sit down at the desk and take up a pen. Then he
+      went back into the quiet room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood by the bedside, looking down. Wilson was breathing quietly: his
+      color was coming up, as he rallied from the shock. In K.'s mind now was
+      just one thought&mdash;to bring him through for Sidney, and then to go
+      away. He might follow Joe to Cuba. There were chances there. He could do
+      sanitation work, or he might try the Canal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street would go on working out its own salvation. He would have to
+      think of something for the Rosenfelds. And he was worried about Christine.
+      But there again, perhaps it would be better if he went away. Christine's
+      story would have to work itself out. His hands were tied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was glad in a way that Sidney had asked no questions about him, had
+      accepted his new identity so calmly. It had been overshadowed by the night
+      tragedy. It would have pleased him if she had shown more interest, of
+      course. But he understood. It was enough, he told himself, that he had
+      helped her, that she counted on him. But more and more he knew in his
+      heart that it was not enough. &ldquo;I'd better get away from here,&rdquo; he told
+      himself savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And having taken the first step toward flight, as happens in such cases,
+      he was suddenly panicky with fear, fear that he would get out of hand, and
+      take her in his arms, whether or no; a temptation to run from temptation,
+      to cut everything and go with Joe that night. But there his sense of humor
+      saved him. That would be a sight for the gods, two defeated lovers flying
+      together under the soft September moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one entered the room. He thought it was Sidney and turned with the
+      light in his eyes that was only for her. It was Carlotta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not in uniform. She wore a dark skirt and white waist and her high
+      heels tapped as she crossed the room. She came directly to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is better, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is rallying. Of course it will be a day or two before we are quite
+      sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood looking down at Wilson's quiet figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you know I've been crazy about him,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;Well,
+      that's all over. He never really cared for me. I played his game and I&mdash;lost.
+      I've been expelled from the school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite suddenly she dropped on her knees beside the bed, and put her cheek
+      close to the sleeping man's hand. When after a moment she rose, she was
+      controlled again, calm, very white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell him, Dr. Edwardes, when he is conscious, that I came in and
+      said good-bye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, of course. Do you want to leave any other message?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated, as if the thought tempted her. Then she shrugged her
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would be the use? He doesn't want any message from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned toward the door. But K. could not let her go like that. Her
+      face frightened him. It was too calm, too controlled. He followed her
+      across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are your plans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't any. I'm about through with my training, but I've lost my
+      diploma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like to see you going away like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She avoided his eyes, but his kindly tone did what neither the Head nor
+      the Executive Committee had done that day. It shook her control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter to you? You don't owe me anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not. One way and another I've known you a long time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never knew anything very good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you where I live, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know where you live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come to see me there? We may be able to think of something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there to think of? This story will follow me wherever I go! I've
+      tried twice for a diploma and failed. What's the use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But in the end he prevailed on her to promise not to leave the city until
+      she had seen him again. It was not until she had gone, a straight figure
+      with haunted eyes, that he reflected whimsically that once again he had
+      defeated his own plans for flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the corridor outside the door Carlotta hesitated. Why not go back? Why
+      not tell him? He was kind; he was going to do something for her. But the
+      old instinct of self-preservation prevailed. She went on to her room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney brought her letter to Joe back to K. She was flushed with the
+      effort and with a new excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the letter, K., and&mdash;I haven't been able to say what I
+      wanted, exactly. You'll let him know, won't you, how I feel, and how I
+      blame myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. promised gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the most remarkable thing has happened. What a day this has been!
+      Somebody has sent Johnny Rosenfeld a lot of money. The ward nurse wants
+      you to come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ward had settled for the night. The well-ordered beds of the daytime
+      were chaotic now, torn apart by tossing figures. The night was hot and an
+      electric fan hummed in a far corner. Under its sporadic breezes, as it
+      turned, the ward was trying to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld was not asleep. An incredible thing had happened to him.
+      A fortune lay under his pillow. He was sure it was there, for ever since
+      it came his hot hand had clutched it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite sure that somehow or other K. had had a hand in it. When he
+      disclaimed it, the boy was bewildered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll buy the old lady what she wants for the house, anyhow,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;But I hope nobody's took up a collection for me. I don't want no
+      charity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe Mr. Howe sent it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can bet your last match he didn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In some unknown way the news had reached the ward that Johnny's friend,
+      Mr. Le Moyne, was a great surgeon. Johnny had rejected it scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He works in the gas office,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I've seen him there. If he's a
+      surgeon, what's he doing in the gas office. If he's a surgeon, what's he
+      doing teaching me raffia-work? Why isn't he on his job?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the story had seized on his imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Mr. Le Moyne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Jack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He called him &ldquo;Jack.&rdquo; The boy liked it. It savored of man to man. After
+      all, he was a man, or almost. Hadn't he driven a car? Didn't he have a
+      state license?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They've got a queer story about you here in the ward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not scandal, I trust, Jack!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say that you're a surgeon; that you operated on Dr. Wilson and saved
+      his life. They say that you're the king pin where you came from.&rdquo; He eyed
+      K. wistfully. &ldquo;I know it's a damn lie, but if it's true&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to be a surgeon. As a matter of fact I operated on Dr. Wilson
+      to-day. I&mdash;I am rather apologetic, Jack, because I didn't explain to
+      you sooner. For&mdash;various reasons&mdash;I gave up that&mdash;that line
+      of business. To-day they rather forced my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think you could do something for me, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When K. did not reply at once, he launched into an explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been lying here a good while. I didn't say much because I knew I'd
+      have to take a chance. Either I'd pull through or I wouldn't, and the odds
+      were&mdash;well, I didn't say much. The old lady's had a lot of trouble.
+      But now, with THIS under my pillow for her, I've got a right to ask. I'll
+      take a chance, if you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's only a chance, Jack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that. But lie here and watch these soaks off the street. Old, a
+      lot of them, and gettin' well to go out and starve, and&mdash;My God! Mr.
+      Le Moyne, they can walk, and I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. drew a long breath. He had started, and now he must go on. Faith in
+      himself or no faith, he must go on. Life, that had loosed its hold on him
+      for a time, had found him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go over you carefully to-morrow, Jack. I'll tell you your chances
+      honestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a thousand dollars. Whatever you charge&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll take it out of my board bill in the new house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At four o'clock that morning K. got back from seeing Joe off. The trip had
+      been without accident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over Sidney's letter Joe had shed a shamefaced tear or two. And during the
+      night ride, with K. pushing the car to the utmost, he had felt that the
+      boy, in keeping his hand in his pocket, had kept it on the letter. When
+      the road was smooth and stretched ahead, a gray-white line into the night,
+      he tried to talk a little courage into the boy's sick heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see new people, new life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;In a month from now you'll
+      wonder why you ever hung around the Street. I have a feeling that you're
+      going to make good down there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And once, when the time for parting was very near,&mdash;&ldquo;No matter what
+      happens, keep on believing in yourself. I lost my faith in myself once. It
+      was pretty close to hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joe's response showed his entire self-engrossment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he dies, I'm a murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's not going to die,&rdquo; said K. stoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At four o'clock in the morning he left the car at the garage and walked
+      around to the little house. He had had no sleep for forty-five hours; his
+      eyes were sunken in his head; the skin over his temples looked drawn and
+      white. His clothes were wrinkled; the soft hat he habitually wore was
+      white with the dust of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he opened the hall door, Christine stirred in the room beyond. She came
+      out fully dressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K., are you sick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather tired. Why in the world aren't you in bed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palmer has just come home in a terrible rage. He says he's been robbed of
+      a thousand dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn't know, or says he doesn't. I'm glad of it. He seems thoroughly
+      frightened. It may be a lesson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dim hall light he realized that her face was strained and set. She
+      looked on the verge of hysteria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little woman,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm sorry, Christine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tender words broke down the last barrier of her self-control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, K.! Take me away. Take me away! I can't stand it any longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She held her arms out to him, and because he was very tired and lonely,
+      and because more than anything else in the world just then he needed a
+      woman's arms, he drew her to him and held her close, his cheek to her
+      hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor girl!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Poor Christine! Surely there must be some happiness
+      for us somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the next moment he let her go and stepped back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry.&rdquo; Characteristically he took the blame. &ldquo;I shouldn't have done
+      that&mdash;You know how it is with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it always be Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid it will always be Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Rosenfeld was dead. All of K.'s skill had not sufficed to save him.
+      The operation had been a marvel, but the boy's long-sapped strength failed
+      at the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K., set of face, stayed with him to the end. The boy did not know he was
+      going. He roused from the coma and smiled up at Le Moyne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got a hunch that I can move my right foot,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Look and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. lifted the light covering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're right, old man. It's moving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brake foot, clutch foot,&rdquo; said Johnny, and closed his eyes again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. had forbidden the white screens, that outward symbol of death. Time
+      enough for them later. So the ward had no suspicion, nor had the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ward passed in review. It was Sunday, and from the chapel far below
+      came the faint singing of a hymn. When Johnny spoke again he did not open
+      his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're some operator, Mr. Le Moyne. I'll put in a word for you whenever I
+      get a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, put in a word for me,&rdquo; said K. huskily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt that Johnny would be a good mediator&mdash;that whatever he, K.,
+      had done of omission or commission, Johnny's voice before the Tribunal
+      would count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lame young violin-player came into the ward. She had cherished a
+      secret and romantic affection for Max Wilson, and now he was in the
+      hospital and ill. So she wore the sacrificial air of a young nun and
+      played &ldquo;The Holy City.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny was close on the edge of his long sleep by that time, and very
+      comfortable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her nix on the sob stuff,&rdquo; he complained. &ldquo;Ask her to play 'I'm
+      twenty-one and she's eighteen.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was rather outraged, but on K.'s quick explanation she changed to the
+      staccato air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask her if she'll come a little nearer; I can't hear her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she moved to the foot of the bed, and to the gay little tune Johnny
+      began his long sleep. But first he asked K. a question: &ldquo;Are you sure I'm
+      going to walk, Mr. Le Moyne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I give you my solemn word,&rdquo; said K. huskily, &ldquo;that you are going to be
+      better than you have ever been in your life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was K. who, seeing he would no longer notice, ordered the screens to be
+      set around the bed, K. who drew the coverings smooth and folded the boy's
+      hands over his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The violin-player stood by uncertainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very young he is! Was it an accident?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the result of a man's damnable folly,&rdquo; said K. grimly. &ldquo;Somebody
+      always pays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so Johnny Rosenfeld paid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate result of his death was that K., who had gained some of his
+      faith in himself on seeing Wilson on the way to recovery, was beset by his
+      old doubts. What right had he to arrogate to himself again powers of life
+      and death? Over and over he told himself that there had been no
+      carelessness here, that the boy would have died ultimately, that he had
+      taken the only chance, that the boy himself had known the risk and begged
+      for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old doubts came back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now came a question that demanded immediate answer. Wilson would be
+      out of commission for several months, probably. He was gaining, but
+      slowly. And he wanted K. to take over his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; he demanded, half irritably. &ldquo;The secret is out. Everybody
+      knows who you are. You're not thinking about going back to that ridiculous
+      gas office, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had some thought of going to Cuba.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm damned if I understand you. You've done a marvelous thing; I lie here
+      and listen to the staff singing your praises until I'm sick of your name!
+      And now, because a boy who wouldn't have lived anyhow&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not it,&rdquo; K. put in hastily. &ldquo;I know all that. I guess I could do
+      it and get away with it as well as the average. All that deters me&mdash;I've
+      never told you, have I, why I gave up before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson was propped up in his bed. K. was walking restlessly about the
+      room, as was his habit when troubled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've heard the gossip; that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you recognized me that night on the balcony, I told you I'd lost my
+      faith in myself, and you said the whole affair had been gone over at the
+      State Society. As a matter of fact, the Society knew of only two cases.
+      There had been three.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even at that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what I always felt about the profession, Max. We went into that
+      more than once in Berlin. Either one's best or nothing. I had done pretty
+      well. When I left Lorch and built my own hospital, I hadn't a doubt of
+      myself. And because I was getting results I got a lot of advertising. Men
+      began coming to the clinics. I found I was making enough out of the
+      patients who could pay to add a few free wards. I want to tell you now,
+      Wilson, that the opening of those free wards was the greatest
+      self-indulgence I ever permitted myself. I'd seen so much careless
+      attention given the poor&mdash;well, never mind that. It was almost three
+      years ago that things began to go wrong. I lost a big case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. All this doesn't influence me, Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a moment. We had a system in the operating-room as perfect as I
+      could devise it. I never finished an operation without having my first
+      assistant verify the clip and sponge count. But that first case died
+      because a sponge had been left in the operating field. You know how those
+      things go; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count, after
+      reasonable caution. Then I lost another case in the same way&mdash;a free
+      case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was
+      doing from four to six cases a day. After the second one I almost went
+      crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I
+      performed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room.
+      He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing again. When I
+      told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to say he
+      had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was responsible. I
+      knew&mdash;better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's incredible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly; but it's true. The last patient was a laborer. He left a family.
+      I've sent them money from time to time. I used to sit and think about the
+      children he left, and what would become of them. The ironic part of it was
+      that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the time. Men were
+      sending me cases from all over the country. It was either stay and keep on
+      working, with that chance, or&mdash;quit. I quit.&rdquo; &ldquo;But if you had stayed,
+      and taken extra precautions&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'd taken every precaution we knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of the men spoke for a time. K. stood, his tall figure outlined
+      against the window. Far off, in the children's ward, children were
+      laughing; from near by a very young baby wailed a thin cry of protest
+      against life; a bell rang constantly. K.'s mind was busy with the past&mdash;with
+      the day he decided to give up and go away, with the months of wandering
+      and homelessness, with the night he had come upon the Street and had seen
+      Sidney on the doorstep of the little house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the worst, is it?&rdquo; Max Wilson demanded at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's extremely significant. You had an enemy somewhere&mdash;on your
+      staff, probably. This profession of ours is a big one, but you know its
+      jealousies. Let a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack is
+      after him.&rdquo; He laughed a little. &ldquo;Mixed figure, but you know what I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. shook his head. He had had that gift of the big man everywhere, in
+      every profession, of securing the loyalty of his followers. He would have
+      trusted every one of them with his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going to do it, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take up your work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stirred restlessly. To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand by
+      as Wilson's best man when he was married&mdash;it turned him cold. But he
+      did not give a decided negative. The sick man was flushed and growing
+      fretful; it would not do to irritate him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me another day on it,&rdquo; he said at last. And so the matter stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Max's injury had been productive of good, in one way. It had brought the
+      two brothers closer together. In the mornings Max was restless until Dr.
+      Ed arrived. When he came, he brought books in the shabby bag&mdash;his
+      beloved Burns, although he needed no book for that, the &ldquo;Pickwick Papers,&rdquo;
+       Renan's &ldquo;Lives of the Disciples.&rdquo; Very often Max world doze off; at the
+      cessation of Dr. Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir fretfully and
+      demand more. But because he listened to everything without discrimination,
+      the older man came to the conclusion that it was the companionship that
+      counted. It pleased him vastly. It reminded him of Max's boyhood, when he
+      had read to Max at night. For once in the last dozen years, he needed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, Ed. What in blazes makes you stop every five minutes?&rdquo; Max
+      protested, one day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Ed, who had only stopped to bite off the end of a stogie to hold in
+      his cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop bullying. I'll read when I'm ready. Have you any idea what I'm
+      reading?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I haven't. For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Max laughed, and suddenly put out his hand. Demonstrations of affection
+      were so rare with him that for a moment Dr. Ed was puzzled. Then, rather
+      sheepishly, he took it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I get out,&rdquo; Max said, &ldquo;we'll have to go out to the White Springs
+      again and have supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was all; but Ed understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morning and evening, Sidney went to Max's room. In the morning she only
+      smiled at him from the doorway. In the evening she went to him after
+      prayers. She was allowed an hour with him then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shooting had been a closed book between them. At first, when he began
+      to recover, he tried to talk to her about it. But she refused to listen.
+      She was very gentle with him, but very firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know how it happened, Max,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;about Joe's mistake and all
+      that. The rest can wait until you are much better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If there had been any change in her manner to him, he would not have
+      submitted so easily, probably. But she was as tender as ever, unfailingly
+      patient, prompt to come to him and slow to leave. After a time he began to
+      dread reopening the subject. She seemed so effectually to have closed it.
+      Carlotta was gone. And, after all, what good could he do his cause by
+      pleading it? The fact was there, and Sidney knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the day when K. had told Max his reason for giving up his work, Max was
+      allowed out of bed for the first time. It was a great day. A box of red
+      roses came that day from the girl who had refused him a year or more ago.
+      He viewed them with a carelessness that was half assumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The news had traveled to the Street that he was to get up that day. Early
+      that morning the doorkeeper had opened the door to a gentleman who did not
+      speak, but who handed in a bunch of early chrysanthemums and proceeded to
+      write, on a pad he drew from his pocket:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Mrs. McKee's family and guests, with their congratulations on your
+      recovery, and their hope that they will see you again soon. If their ends
+      are clipped every day and they are placed in ammonia water, they will last
+      indefinitely.&rdquo; Sidney spent her hour with Max that evening as usual. His
+      big chair had been drawn close to a window, and she found him there,
+      looking out. She kissed him. But this time, instead of letting her draw
+      away, he put out his arms and caught her to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you glad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very glad, indeed,&rdquo; she said soberly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then smile at me. You don't smile any more. You ought to smile; your
+      mouth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am almost always tired; that's all, Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She eyed him bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't you going to let me make love to you at all? You get away beyond
+      my reach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was looking for the paper to read to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sudden suspicion flamed in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't like me to touch you any more. Come here where I can see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fear of agitating him brought her quickly. For a moment he was
+      appeased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's more like it. How lovely you are, Sidney!&rdquo; He lifted first one
+      hand and then the other to his lips. &ldquo;Are you ever going to forgive me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean about Carlotta, I forgave that long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was almost boyishly relieved. What a wonder she was! So lovely, and so
+      sane. Many a woman would have held that over him for years&mdash;not that
+      he had done anything really wrong on that nightmare excursion. But so many
+      women are exigent about promises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When are you going to marry me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We needn't discuss that to-night, Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want you so very much. I don't want to wait, dear. Let me tell Ed that
+      you will marry me soon. Then, when I go away, I'll take you with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't we talk things over when you are stronger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her tone caught his attention, and turned him a little white. He faced her
+      to the window, so that the light fell full on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What things? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had forced her hand. She had meant to wait; but, with his keen eyes on
+      her, she could not dissemble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to make you very unhappy for a little while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've had a lot of time to think. If you had really wanted me, Max&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, of course I want you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't that I am angry. I am not even jealous. I was at first. It isn't
+      that. It's hard to make you understand. I think you care for me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you! I swear I never loved any other woman as I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he remembered that he had also sworn to put Carlotta out of his
+      life. He knew that Sidney remembered, too; but she gave no sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps that's true. You might go on caring for me. Sometimes I think you
+      would. But there would always be other women, Max. You're like that.
+      Perhaps you can't help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you loved me you could do anything with me.&rdquo; He was half sullen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the way her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All his
+      conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his entanglement
+      with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise&mdash;that she loved
+      him. The mere suspicion made him gasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, good Heavens, Sidney, you do care for me, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I don't, Max; not enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to explain, rather pitifully. After one look at his face, she
+      spoke to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm so wretched about it. I thought I cared. To me you were the best and
+      greatest man that ever lived. I&mdash;when I said my prayers, I&mdash;But
+      that doesn't matter. You were a sort of god to me. When the Lamb&mdash;that's
+      one of the internes, you know&mdash;nicknamed you the 'Little Tin God,' I
+      was angry. You could never be anything little to me, or do anything that
+      wasn't big. Do you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He groaned under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No man could live up to that, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I see that now. But that's the way I cared. Now I know that I didn't
+      care for you, really, at all. I built up an idol and worshiped it. I
+      always saw you through a sort of haze. You were operating, with everybody
+      standing by, saying how wonderful it was. Or you were coming to the wards,
+      and everything was excitement, getting ready for you. I blame myself
+      terribly. But you see, don't you? It isn't that I think you are wicked.
+      It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never knew you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd known very few men,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I came into the hospital, and for a
+      time life seemed very terrible. There were wickednesses I had never heard
+      of, and somebody always paying for them. I was always asking, Why? Why?
+      Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out. You gave
+      them their chance, don't you see? Until I knew about Carlotta, you always
+      meant that to me. You were like K.&mdash;always helping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was very silent. In the nurses' parlor, a few feet down the
+      corridor, the nurses were at prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,&rdquo; read the Head, her voice calm
+      with the quiet of twilight and the end of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
+      still waters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were weary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the
+      shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He said to himself savagely that
+      they would better have let him die. &ldquo;You say you never loved me because
+      you never knew me. I'm not a rotter, Sidney. Isn't it possible that the
+      man you, cared about, who&mdash;who did his best by people and all that&mdash;is
+      the real me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the
+      sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey his
+      greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he sank
+      back into his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man who did his best is quite real. You have always done the best in
+      your work; you always will. But the other is a part of you too, Max. Even
+      if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the window rang the sharp gong of a city patrol-wagon. It rumbled
+      through the gates back to the courtyard, where its continued clamor
+      summoned white-coated orderlies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An operating-room case, probably. Sidney, chin lifted, listened carefully.
+      If it was a case for her, the elevator would go up to the operating-room.
+      With a renewed sense of loss, Max saw that already she had put him out of
+      her mind. The call to service was to her a call to battle. Her sensitive
+      nostrils quivered; her young figure stood erect, alert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has gone up!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a step toward the door, hesitated, came back, and put a light
+      hand on his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, dear Max.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had kissed him lightly on the cheek before he knew what she intended
+      to do. So passionless was the little caress that, perhaps more than
+      anything else, it typified the change in their relation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door closed behind her, he saw that she had left her ring on the
+      arm of his chair. He picked it up. It was still warm from her finger. He
+      held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his successful young life
+      he had never before felt the bitterness of failure. The very warmth of the
+      little ring hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why hadn't they let him die? He didn't want to live&mdash;he wouldn't
+      live. Nobody cared for him! He would&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that had
+      come that morning. Even in the half light, they glowed with fiery color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ring was in his right hand. With the left he settled his collar and
+      soft silk tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time. Katie brought word to him,
+      where he was helping Harriet close her trunk,&mdash;she was on her way to
+      Europe for the fall styles,&mdash;that he was wanted in the lower hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady!&rdquo; she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution. &ldquo;And a
+      good thing for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg off
+      you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to them
+      from now on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So K. had put on his coat and, without so much as a glance in Harriet's
+      mirror, had gone down the stairs. Carlotta was in the lower hall. She
+      stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble
+      had made in her. She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older than
+      her age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came, you see, Dr. Edwardes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then, when some one came to him for help, which was generally
+      money, he used Christine's parlor, if she happened to be out. So now,
+      finding the door ajar, and the room dark, he went in and turned on the
+      light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in here; we can talk better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not sit down at first; but, observing that her standing kept him
+      on his feet, she sat finally. Evidently she found it hard to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were to come,&rdquo; K. encouraged her, &ldquo;to see if we couldn't plan
+      something for you. Now, I think I've got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's another hospital&mdash;and I don't want to stay here, in the
+      city.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You like surgical work, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care for anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before we settle this, I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of. You
+      know, of course, that I closed my hospital. I&mdash;a series of things
+      happened, and I decided I was in the wrong business. That wouldn't be
+      important, except for what it leads to. They are trying to persuade me to
+      go back, and&mdash;I'm trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back.
+      You see,&rdquo;&mdash;his tone was determinedly cheerful, &ldquo;my faith in myself
+      has been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there isn't much left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had been very successful.&rdquo; She did not look up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I had and I hadn't. I'm not going to worry you about that. My offer
+      is this: We'll just try to forget about&mdash;about Schwitter's and all
+      the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sent me away once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?&rdquo; He smiled at her
+      encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think you are taking a risk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made
+      mistakes since the world began. Most people live in glass houses, Miss
+      Harrison. And don't make any mistake about this: people can always come
+      back. No depth is too low. All they need is the willpower.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled down at her. She had come armed with confession. But the offer
+      he made was too alluring. It meant reinstatement, another chance, when she
+      had thought everything was over. After all, why should she damn herself?
+      She would go back. She would work her finger-ends off for him. She would
+      make it up to him in other ways. But she could not tell him and lose
+      everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Shall we go back and start over again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence
+      taking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school
+      bell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly
+      sharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet
+      fashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised the
+      baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach them
+      himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne intended to
+      go away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had gone,
+      and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination of writing
+      on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards was a
+      hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up new
+      curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added its
+      quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that were
+      absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, and every
+      Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of gas.
+      They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next there was the
+      news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the gas office,&mdash;paying
+      off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's hazarded!&mdash;and that he
+      was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr. Max Wilson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
+      sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement
+      over the matter,&mdash;of K., not the sidewalks,&mdash;and then had
+      accepted the new situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned. What was the
+      matter with things, anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which had
+      promised so well,&mdash;awnings and palms and everything,&mdash;turning
+      out badly. True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out
+      again. And Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on
+      washing-days, and brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs
+      dry-eyed and silent&mdash;even the approaching move to a larger house
+      failed to thrill her. There was Tillie, too. But one did not speak of her.
+      She was married now, of course; but the Street did not tolerate such a
+      reversal of the usual processes as Tillie had indulged in. It censured
+      Mrs. McKee severely for having been, so to speak, and accessory after the
+      fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible. If he had shown any
+      &ldquo;high and mightiness,&rdquo; as they called it, since the change in his estate,
+      it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the real
+      thing,&mdash;so that the newspapers give a column to his having been in
+      the city almost two years,&mdash;and still goes about in the same shabby
+      clothes, with the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstrates
+      clearly, as the barytone put it, that &ldquo;he's got no swelled head on him;
+      that's sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anybody can see by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's that he's
+      been used to a car&mdash;likely a foreign one. All the swells have foreign
+      cars.&rdquo; Still the barytone, who was almost as fond of conversation as of
+      what he termed &ldquo;vocal.&rdquo; &ldquo;And another thing. Do you notice the way he takes
+      Dr. Ed around? Has him at every consultation. The old boy's tickled to
+      death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heard
+      the barytone singing:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;Home is the hunter, home from the hill,
+       And the sailor, home from sea.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Home! Why, this WAS home. The Street seemed to stretch out its arms to
+      him. The ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house.
+      Tree and house were old; September had touched them. Christine sat sewing
+      on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something on the
+      new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when he had
+      finished, and inspected his work. K. caught him up from behind, and,
+      swinging him around&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; he said severely. &ldquo;Don't you know better than to write all over the
+      street? What'll I do to you? Give you to a policeman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aw, lemme down, Mr. K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more, the
+      picnic's off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aw, Mr. K.!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it. Go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put the boy down. There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as in
+      his voice, when he dealt with children. All his severity did not conceal
+      it. &ldquo;Get along with you, Bill. Last bell's rung.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the boy ran off, K.'s eye fell on what he had written on the cement. At
+      a certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as the
+      Street &ldquo;cancels&rdquo; names. It is a part of his birthright. He does it as he
+      whittles his school desk or tries to smoke the long dried fruit of the
+      Indian cigar tree. So K. read in chalk an the smooth street:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Max Wilson Marriage.      Sidney Page Love.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      [Note: the a, l, s, and n of &ldquo;Max Wilson&rdquo; are crossed through, as are the
+      S, d, n, and a of &ldquo;Sidney Page&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The childish scrawl stared up at him impudently, a sacred thing profaned
+      by the day. K. stood and looked at it. The barytone was still singing; but
+      now it was &ldquo;I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen.&rdquo; It was a cheerful air, as
+      should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to his long sleep.
+      The light was gone from K.'s face again. After all, the Street meant for
+      him not so much home as it meant Sidney. And now, before very long, that
+      book of his life, like others, would have to be closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and went heavily into the little house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine called to him from her little balcony:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyes
+      looked down at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see very little of you now,&rdquo; she complained. And, when he did not reply
+      immediately: &ldquo;Have you made any definite plans, K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will go away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so. I am getting a good many letters, one way and another. I
+      suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'd
+      go back there&mdash;they want me. But it seems so futile, Christine, to
+      leave as I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things
+      were; and now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced,
+      and to take up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do
+      it than when I left!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Who would do such a thing? I tell you, Christine,
+      it isn't possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to the little
+      house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or the heavy
+      creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live.
+      She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she must build
+      on the shaky foundation of her marriage a house of life, with resignation
+      serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always. That she knew. But
+      with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and her love for Palmer
+      was quite dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney will be here this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good.&rdquo; His tone was non-committal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney is not very happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped in front of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's had a great anxiety.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has no anxiety now. Max is doing well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not quite sure, but I think I know. She's lost faith in Max, and
+      she's not like me. I&mdash;I knew about Palmer before I married him. I got
+      a letter. It's all rather hideous&mdash;I needn't go into it. I was afraid
+      to back out; it was just before my wedding. But Sidney has more character
+      than I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether she'll
+      marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to the
+      sun and to the smiles of the Street. Christine might be right, but that
+      did not alter things for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself; to Palmer, who was
+      doing better just now; to K., who was going away&mdash;went back with an
+      ache to the night K. had taken her in his arms and then put her away. How
+      wrong things were! What a mess life was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you go away,&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;I want you to remember this. I'm
+      going to do my best, K. You have taught me all I know. All my life I'll
+      have to overlook things; I know that. But, in his way, Palmer cares for
+      me. He will always come back, and perhaps sometime&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of her she saw the years stretching out,
+      marked, not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away, his
+      remorseful returns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do a little more than forgetting,&rdquo; K. said. &ldquo;Try to care for him,
+      Christine. You did once. And that's your strongest weapon. It's always a
+      woman's strongest weapon. And it wins in the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall try, K.,&rdquo; she answered obediently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he turned away from the look in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet was abroad. She had sent cards from Paris to her &ldquo;trade.&rdquo; It was
+      an innovation. The two or three people on the Street who received her
+      engraved announcement that she was there, &ldquo;buying new chic models for the
+      autumn and winter&mdash;afternoon frocks, evening gowns, reception
+      dresses, and wraps, from Poiret, Martial et Armand, and others,&rdquo; left the
+      envelopes casually on the parlor table, as if communications from Paris
+      were quite to be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So K. lunched alone, and ate little. After luncheon he fixed a broken
+      ironing-stand for Katie, and in return she pressed a pair of trousers for
+      him. He had it in mind to ask Sidney to go out with him in Max's car, and
+      his most presentable suit was very shabby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thinking,&rdquo; said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up over
+      her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door, &ldquo;that
+      these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. They're getting
+      mighty thin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll take a duster along in case of accident,&rdquo; he promised her; &ldquo;and
+      to-morrow I'll order a suit, Katie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll believe it when I see it,&rdquo; said Katie from the stairs. &ldquo;Some fool of
+      a woman from the alley will come in to-night and tell you she can't pay
+      her rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocket-book&mdash;as like
+      as not to pay an installment on a piano. There's two new pianos in the
+      alley since you came here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise it, Katie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show it to me,&rdquo; said Katie laconically. &ldquo;And don't go to picking up
+      anything you drop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney came home at half-past two&mdash;came delicately flushed, as if she
+      had hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless the child!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There's no need to ask how he is to-day.
+      You're all one smile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smile set just a trifle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It's
+      with Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep it off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is&mdash;is Mr. K.
+      upstairs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go up
+      at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was there. She
+      could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as she listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeing
+      something in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to her
+      throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;hello, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you come and sit with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't much time&mdash;that is, I want to speak to K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can see him when he comes down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her, all at once,
+      that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now. No doubt he was in
+      and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was! She was unhappy,
+      too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention was to be
+      unhappy enough. Well, surely, in that case&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is Max?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful, Christine
+      saw, to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony. Christine
+      sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upstairs, K.'s door slammed. It was one of his failings that he always
+      slammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney slid from the railing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There he is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a
+      bigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing,
+      and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from the
+      Street as empty of heart as he had come to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be very good to him, Sidney,&rdquo; she said unsteadily. &ldquo;He cares so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      K. was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sidney as
+      unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much
+      wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was glamour, that was all, K.,&rdquo; said Sidney bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, perhaps,&rdquo; said K., &ldquo;it's just because of that miserable incident
+      with Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told me
+      the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney was exasperated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to marry him, K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. looked straight ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want you to be happy, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again. K. had ordered
+      dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they both liked. But
+      now that it was there, they were not eating. K. had placed his chair so
+      that his profile was turned toward her. He had worn the duster religiously
+      until nightfall, and then had discarded it. It hung limp and dejected on
+      the back of his chair. Past K.'s profile Sidney could see the magnolia
+      tree shaped like a heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; said Sidney suddenly, &ldquo;that you are kind to every one
+      but me, K.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fairly stammered his astonishment:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what on earth have I done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply out of
+      sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went
+      hastily to something else:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard for me to realize that you&mdash;that you lived a life of your
+      own, a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish you
+      would tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when you go
+      away,&rdquo;&mdash;she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat&mdash;&ldquo;I'll
+      want to know how to think of you,&mdash;who your friends are,&mdash;all
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would be
+      visualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its side street,
+      as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just parted, her
+      hands folded before her on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be working,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;So will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night. You can think of me as never
+      forgetting you or the Street, working or playing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Playing! Of course he would not work all the time. And he was going back
+      to his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did his best then. He told her of the old family house, built by one of
+      his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the case
+      for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son then to the
+      cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had wept when he
+      decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, he thought
+      he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions that had been
+      the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, the choice
+      room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames, and of his
+      father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxed warm over it
+      at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to remember. It brought
+      back the other things that he wanted to forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney. Side by side with the
+      wonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house. What
+      an exile it must have been for him! How hopelessly middle-class they must
+      have seemed! How idiotic of her to think, for one moment, that she could
+      ever belong in this new-old life of his!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What traditions had she? None, of course, save to be honest and good and
+      to do her best for the people around her. Her mother's people, the
+      Kennedys went back a long way, but they had always been poor. A library
+      full of paintings and books! She remembered the lamp with the blue-silk
+      shade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister's
+      portrait, and the cherry bookcase with the Encyclopaedia in it and &ldquo;Beacon
+      Lights of History.&rdquo; When K., trying his best to interest her and to
+      conceal his own heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather's old
+      carriage, she sat back in the shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fearful old thing,&rdquo; said K.,&mdash;&ldquo;regular cabriolet. I can remember yet
+      the family rows over it. But the old gentleman liked it&mdash;used to have
+      it repainted every year. Strangers in the city used to turn around and
+      stare at it&mdash;thought it was advertising something!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was a child,&rdquo; said Sidney quietly, &ldquo;and a carriage drove up and
+      stopped on the Street, I always knew some one had died!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a strained note in her voice. K., whose ear was attuned to every
+      note in her voice, looked at her quickly. &ldquo;My great-grandfather,&rdquo; said
+      Sidney in the same tone, &ldquo;sold chickens at market. He didn't do it
+      himself; but the fact's there, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about it?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on. This K. she had never
+      known, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it&mdash;he
+      must have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had
+      traveled and knew all kinds of things: girls like the daughters of the
+      Executive Committee who came in from their country places in summer with
+      great armfuls of flowers, and hurried off, after consulting their jeweled
+      watches, to luncheon or tea or tennis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said Sidney dully. &ldquo;Tell me about the women you have known, your
+      friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. was rather apologetic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've always been so busy,&rdquo; he confessed. &ldquo;I know a lot, but I don't think
+      they would interest you. They don't do anything, you know&mdash;they
+      travel around and have a good time. They're rather nice to look at, some
+      of them. But when you've said that you've said it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nice to look at! Of course they would be, with nothing else to think of in
+      all the world but of how they looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital,
+      and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her face
+      down on the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed. And
+      his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he
+      thought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care as
+      she had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of another
+      woman, without a wrench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting
+      there? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll not
+      talk if you'd like to be quiet.&rdquo; Being with K. had become an agony, now
+      that she realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds,
+      hers and K.'s, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separated
+      by as wide a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase&mdash;for
+      instance,&mdash;and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But
+      she was not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it,
+      every word a stab, if only she might sit beside K. a little longer, might
+      feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. &ldquo;I'd like to ride, if
+      you don't mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was remembering
+      acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he had had
+      to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and his arrival at
+      last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of the stairs and
+      Carlotta on her knees beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;K.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there anybody you cared about,&mdash;any girl,&mdash;when you left
+      home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew Max before, didn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't you
+      tell me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the mere
+      fact of your caring for him&mdash;&rdquo; That was shaky ground; he got off it
+      quickly. &ldquo;Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-night, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were near the white house now. Schwitter's had closed up, indeed. The
+      sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down, and in
+      the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch. As if to
+      cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself was watering
+      the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The car went by. Above the low hum of the engine they could hear Tillie's
+      voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of love as she
+      sang to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware that Sidney
+      was crying. She sat with her head turned away, using her handkerchief
+      stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road, and in a masterful fashion
+      turned her shoulders about until she faced him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, tell me about it,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's just silliness. I'm&mdash;I'm a little bit lonely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lonely!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Harriet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonely because
+      the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more bewildered.
+      And Joe! &ldquo;And with you going away and never coming back&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back when you
+      graduate, and send you flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Sidney, &ldquo;that I'll become an army nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you won't do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't know, K. You'll be back with your old friends. You'll have
+      forgotten the Street and all of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won't
+      know a T bandage from a figure eight!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was husky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are saying that to comfort me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To comfort you! I&mdash;who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to
+      think about it! Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you were
+      sitting there on the steps&mdash;oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared a
+      little!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his
+      arms,&mdash;which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for
+      him that way,&mdash;he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious
+      appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been trying to make you say that all evening!&rdquo; said Sidney. &ldquo;I
+      love you so much that&mdash;K., won't you take me in your arms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him and
+      muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up for
+      long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her, as if
+      to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her eyes to
+      corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her eyes; they
+      showed him a new heaven and a new earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was you always, K.,&rdquo; she confessed. &ldquo;I just didn't realize it. But
+      now, when you look back, don't you see it was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as the
+      stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never had even a hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles,
+      and you always helped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so
+      happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one,
+      and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person&mdash;one
+      goes to in trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her
+      hand. Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer
+      that, since there must be troubles, she would always come to him and he
+      would always be able to help her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she became engaged
+      to Max, and the lost feeling she had had. She did not feel the same at all
+      now. She felt as if she had been wandering, and had come home to the arms
+      that were about her. She would be married, and take the risk that all
+      women took, with her eyes open. She would go through the valley of the
+      shadow, as other women did; but K. would be with her. Nothing else
+      mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she was safe. She
+      would never wither for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's
+      fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall love you all my life,&rdquo; she said shakily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His arms tightened about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little house was dark when they got back to it. The Street, which had
+      heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising its windows for
+      the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to keep them
+      clean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone slept
+      heavily, and made divers unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat, and
+      so slept with a wet towel about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with the
+      aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out. Then it drove
+      away, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited. How lovely it all was! How
+      beautiful life was! If one did one's best by life, it did its best too.
+      How steady K.'s eyes were! She saw the flicker of the match across the
+      street, and knew what it meant. Once she would have thought that that was
+      funny; now it seemed very touching to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Katie had heard the car, and now she came heavily along the hall. &ldquo;A woman
+      left this for Mr. K.,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If you think it's a begging letter,
+      you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit to-morrow. Almost any
+      moment he's likely to bust out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not a begging letter. K. read it in the hall, with Sidney's
+      shining eyes on him. It began abruptly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins. She is a medical missionary.
+      Perhaps I can work things out there. It is a bad station on the West
+      Coast. I am not going because I feel any call to the work, but because I
+      do not know what else to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were kind to me the other day. I believe, if I had told you then, you
+      would still have been kind. I tried to tell you, but I was so terribly
+      afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I caused death, I did not mean to. You will think that no excuse, but
+      it is true. In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on Miss Page's
+      medicine-tray, I did not care much what happened. But it was different
+      with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dismissed me, you remember. I had been careless about a sponge count.
+      I made up my mind to get back at you. It seemed hopeless&mdash;you were so
+      secure. For two or three days I tried to think of some way to hurt you. I
+      almost gave up. Then I found the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in the
+      operating-room? There were twelve to each package. When we counted them as
+      we got them out, we counted by packages. On the night before I left, I
+      went to the operating-room and added one sponge every here and there. Out
+      of every dozen packets, perhaps, I fixed one that had thirteen. The next
+      day I went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I was terrified. What if somebody died? I had meant to give you
+      trouble, so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swear that
+      was all. I was so frightened that I went down sick over it. When I got
+      better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was being whispered
+      about. I almost died of terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried to get back into the hospital one night. I went up the
+      fire-escape, but the windows were locked. Then I left the city. I couldn't
+      stand it. I was afraid to read a newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going to sign this letter. You know who it is from. And I am not
+      going to ask your forgiveness, or anything of that sort. I don't expect
+      it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else, the other night. You
+      said you'd lost your faith in yourself. This is to tell you that you need
+      not. And you said something else&mdash;that any one can 'come back.' I
+      wonder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      K. stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand. Just
+      beyond on the doorstep was Sidney, waiting for him. His arms were still
+      warm from the touch of her. Beyond lay the Street, and beyond that lay the
+      world and a man's work to do. Work, and faith to do it, a good woman's
+      hand in the dark, a Providence that made things right in the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you coming, K.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coming,&rdquo; he said. And, when he was beside her, his long figure folded to
+      the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hem of her
+      soft white dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the Street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and then lighted
+      a match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So K. is in love with Sidney Page, after all!&rdquo; he had written. &ldquo;She is a
+      sweet girl, and he is every inch a man. But, to my mind, a certain lady&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late September now on the Street, with Joe gone and his mother eyeing the
+      postman with pitiful eagerness; with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavily about
+      the setting-up of the new furniture; and with Johnny driving heavenly
+      cars, brake and clutch legs well and Strong. Late September, with Max
+      recovering and settling his tie for any pretty nurse who happened along,
+      but listening eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in the hall; with Tillie
+      rocking her baby on the porch at Schwitter's, and Carlotta staring
+      westward over rolling seas; with Christine taking up her burden and Grace
+      laying hers down; with Joe's tragic young eyes growing quiet with the
+      peace of the tropics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord is my shepherd,&rdquo; she reads. &ldquo;I shall not want.&rdquo;... &ldquo;Yea, though I
+      walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, on her knees in the little parlor, repeats the words with the
+      others. K. has gone from the Street, and before long she will join him.
+      With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayer to
+      the others&mdash;that the touch of his arms about her may not make her
+      forget the vow she has taken, of charity and its sister, service, of a cup
+      of water to the thirsty, of open arms to a tired child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of K, 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
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+Title: K
+
+Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9931]
+Posting Date: June 16, 2009
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK K ***
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+
+K
+
+By Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient
+houses that seemed to meet in the distance. The man found it infinitely
+inviting. It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but
+comfortable. The thought of coming there to live pleased him. Surely
+here would be peace--long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in
+which to sleep and forget. It was an impression of home, really, that
+it gave. The man did not know that, or care particularly. He had been
+wandering about a long time--not in years, for he was less than thirty.
+But it seemed a very long time.
+
+At the little house no one had seemed to think about references. He
+could have given one or two, of a sort. He had gone to considerable
+trouble to get them; and now, not to have them asked for--
+
+There was a house across and a little way down the Street, with a card
+in the window that said: "Meals, twenty-five cents." Evidently the
+midday meal was over; men who looked like clerks and small shopkeepers
+were hurrying away. The Nottingham curtains were pinned back, and just
+inside the window a throaty barytone was singing:
+
+     "Home is the hunter, home from the hill:
+      And the sailor, home from sea."
+
+Across the Street, the man smiled grimly--Home!
+
+For perhaps an hour Joe Drummond had been wandering up and down the
+Street. His straw hat was set on the back of his head, for the evening
+was warm; his slender shoulders, squared and resolute at eight, by nine
+had taken on a disconsolate droop. Under a street lamp he consulted his
+watch, but even without that he knew what the hour was. Prayer meeting
+at the corner church was over; boys of his own age were ranging
+themselves along the curb, waiting for the girl of the moment. When she
+came, a youth would appear miraculously beside her, and the world-old
+pairing off would have taken place.
+
+The Street emptied. The boy wiped the warm band of his hat and slapped
+it on his head again. She was always treating him like this--keeping him
+hanging about, and then coming out, perfectly calm and certain that
+he would still be waiting. By George, he'd fool her, for once: he'd go
+away, and let her worry. She WOULD worry. She hated to hurt anyone. Ah!
+
+Across the Street, under an old ailanthus tree, was the house he
+watched, a small brick, with shallow wooden steps and--curious
+architecture of Middle West sixties--a wooden cellar door beside the
+steps.
+
+In some curious way it preserved an air of distinction among its more
+pretentious neighbors, much as a very old lady may now and then lend
+tone to a smart gathering. On either side of it, the taller houses had
+an appearance of protection rather than of patronage. It was a matter
+of self-respect, perhaps. No windows on the Street were so spotlessly
+curtained, no doormat so accurately placed, no "yard" in the rear so
+tidy with morning-glory vines over the whitewashed fence.
+
+The June moon had risen, sending broken shafts of white light through
+the ailanthus to the house door. When the girl came at last, she stepped
+out into a world of soft lights and wavering shadows, fragrant with tree
+blossoms not yet overpowering, hushed of its daylight sounds of playing
+children and moving traffic.
+
+The house had been warm. Her brown hair lay moist on her forehead, her
+thin white dress was turned in at the throat. She stood on the steps,
+the door closed behind her, and threw out her arms in a swift gesture to
+the cool air. The moonlight clothed her as with a garment. From across
+the Street the boy watched her with adoring, humble eyes. All his
+courage was for those hours when he was not with her.
+
+"Hello, Joe."
+
+"Hello, Sidney."
+
+He crossed over, emerging out of the shadows into her enveloping
+radiance. His ardent young eyes worshiped her as he stood on the
+pavement.
+
+"I'm late. I was taking out bastings for mother."
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+Sidney sat down on the doorstep, and the boy dropped at her feet.
+
+"I thought of going to prayer meeting, but mother was tired. Was
+Christine there?"
+
+"Yes; Palmer Howe took her home."
+
+He was at his ease now. He had discarded his hat, and lay back on his
+elbows, ostensibly to look at the moon. Actually his brown eyes rested
+on the face of the girl above him. He was very happy. "He's crazy about
+Chris. She's good-looking, but she's not my sort."
+
+"Pray, what IS your sort?"
+
+"You."
+
+She laughed softly. "You're a goose, Joe!"
+
+She settled herself more comfortably on the doorstep and drew along
+breath.
+
+"How tired I am! Oh--I haven't told you. We've taken a roomer!"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A roomer." She was half apologetic. The Street did not approve of
+roomers. "It will help with the rent. It's my doing, really. Mother is
+scandalized."
+
+"A woman?"
+
+"A man."
+
+"What sort of man?"
+
+"How do I know? He is coming tonight. I'll tell you in a week."
+
+Joe was sitting bolt upright now, a little white.
+
+"Is he young?"
+
+"He's a good bit older than you, but that's not saying he's old."
+
+Joe was twenty-one, and sensitive of his youth.
+
+"He'll be crazy about you in two days."
+
+She broke into delighted laughter.
+
+"I'll not fall in love with him--you can be certain of that. He is tall
+and very solemn. His hair is quite gray over his ears."
+
+Joe cheered.
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"K. Le Moyne."
+
+"K.?"
+
+"That's what he said."
+
+Interest in the roomer died away. The boy fell into the ecstasy of
+content that always came with Sidney's presence. His inarticulate young
+soul was swelling with thoughts that he did not know how to put into
+words. It was easy enough to plan conversations with Sidney when he was
+away from her. But, at her feet, with her soft skirts touching him as
+she moved, her eager face turned to him, he was miserably speechless.
+
+Unexpectedly, Sidney yawned. He was outraged.
+
+"If you're sleepy--"
+
+"Don't be silly. I love having you. I sat up late last night, reading.
+I wonder what you think of this: one of the characters in the book I was
+reading says that every man who--who cares for a woman leaves his mark
+on her! I suppose she tries to become what he thinks she is, for the
+time anyhow, and is never just her old self again."
+
+She said "cares for" instead of "loves." It is one of the traditions of
+youth to avoid the direct issue in life's greatest game. Perhaps
+"love" is left to the fervent vocabulary of the lover. Certainly, as if
+treading on dangerous ground, Sidney avoided it.
+
+"Every man! How many men are supposed to care for a woman, anyhow?"
+
+"Well, there's the boy who--likes her when they're both young."
+
+A bit of innocent mischief this, but Joe straightened.
+
+"Then they both outgrow that foolishness. After that there are usually
+two rivals, and she marries one of them--that's three. And--"
+
+"Why do they always outgrow that foolishness?" His voice was unsteady.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. One's ideas change. Anyhow, I'm only telling you what
+the book said."
+
+"It's a silly book."
+
+"I don't believe it's true," she confessed. "When I got started I just
+read on. I was curious."
+
+More eager than curious, had she only known. She was fairly vibrant with
+the zest of living. Sitting on the steps of the little brick house,
+her busy mind was carrying her on to where, beyond the Street, with its
+dingy lamps and blossoming ailanthus, lay the world that was some day to
+lie to her hand. Not ambition called her, but life.
+
+The boy was different. Where her future lay visualized before her,
+heroic deeds, great ambitions, wide charity, he planned years with her,
+selfish, contented years. As different as smug, satisfied summer from
+visionary, palpitating spring, he was for her--but she was for all the
+world.
+
+By shifting his position his lips came close to her bare young arm. It
+tempted him.
+
+"Don't read that nonsense," he said, his eyes on the arm. "And--I'll
+never outgrow my foolishness about you, Sidney."
+
+Then, because he could not help it, he bent over and kissed her arm.
+
+She was just eighteen, and Joe's devotion was very pleasant. She
+thrilled to the touch of his lips on her flesh; but she drew her arm
+away.
+
+"Please--I don't like that sort of thing."
+
+"Why not?" His voice was husky.
+
+"It isn't right. Besides, the neighbors are always looking out the
+windows."
+
+The drop from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors'
+curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her
+head and laughed. He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment. But he
+was very much in earnest. He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw
+hat in his hands.
+
+"I guess you know how I feel. Some of the fellows have crushes on girls
+and get over them. I'm not like that. Since the first day I saw you I've
+never looked at another girl. Books can say what they like: there are
+people like that, and I'm one of them."
+
+There was a touch of dogged pathos in his voice. He was that sort, and
+Sidney knew it. Fidelity and tenderness--those would be hers if she
+married him. He would always be there when she wanted him, looking at
+her with loving eyes, a trifle wistful sometimes because of his lack of
+those very qualities he so admired in her--her wit, her resourcefulness,
+her humor. But he would be there, not strong, perhaps, but always loyal.
+
+"I thought, perhaps," said Joe, growing red and white, and talking to
+the hat, "that some day, when we're older, you--you might be willing to
+marry me, Sid. I'd be awfully good to you."
+
+It hurt her to say no. Indeed, she could not bring herself to say it.
+In all her short life she had never willfully inflicted a wound.
+And because she was young, and did not realize that there is a short
+cruelty, like the surgeon's, that is mercy in the end, she temporized.
+
+"There is such a lot of time before we need think of such things! Can't
+we just go on the way we are?"
+
+"I'm not very happy the way we are."
+
+"Why, Joe!"
+
+"Well, I'm not"--doggedly. "You're pretty and attractive. When I see a
+fellow staring at you, and I'd like to smash his face for him, I haven't
+the right."
+
+"And a precious good thing for you that you haven't!" cried Sidney,
+rather shocked.
+
+There was silence for a moment between them. Sidney, to tell the truth,
+was obsessed by a vision of Joe, young and hot-eyed, being haled to the
+police station by virtue of his betrothal responsibilities. The boy was
+vacillating between relief at having spoken and a heaviness of spirit
+that came from Sidney's lack of enthusiastic response.
+
+"Well, what do you think about it?"
+
+"If you are asking me to give you permission to waylay and assault every
+man who dares to look at me--"
+
+"I guess this is all a joke to you."
+
+She leaned over and put a tender hand on his arm.
+
+"I don't want to hurt you; but, Joe, I don't want to be engaged yet.
+I don't want to think about marrying. There's such a lot to do in the
+world first. There's such a lot to see and be."
+
+"Where?" he demanded bitterly. "Here on this Street? Do you want
+more time to pull bastings for your mother? Or to slave for your Aunt
+Harriet? Or to run up and down stairs, carrying towels to roomers? Marry
+me and let me take care of you."
+
+Once again her dangerous sense of humor threatened her. He looked
+so boyish, sitting there with the moonlight on his bright hair, so
+inadequate to carry out his magnificent offer. Two or three of the
+star blossoms from the tree had fallen all his head. She lifted them
+carefully away.
+
+"Let me take care of myself for a while. I've never lived my own life.
+You know what I mean. I'm not unhappy; but I want to do something.
+And some day I shall,--not anything big; I know. I can't do that,--but
+something useful. Then, after years and years, if you still want me,
+I'll come back to you."
+
+"How soon?"
+
+"How can I know that now? But it will be a long time."
+
+He drew a long breath and got up. All the joy had gone out of the summer
+night for him, poor lad. He glanced down the Street, where Palmer Howe
+had gone home happily with Sidney's friend Christine. Palmer would
+always know how he stood with Christine. She would never talk about
+doing things, or being things. Either she would marry Palmer or she
+would not. But Sidney was not like that. A fellow did not even caress
+her easily. When he had only kissed her arm--He trembled a little at the
+memory.
+
+"I shall always want you," he said. "Only--you will never come back."
+
+It had not occurred to either of them that this coming back, so
+tragically considered, was dependent on an entirely problematical going
+away. Nothing, that early summer night, seemed more unlikely than that
+Sidney would ever be free to live her own life. The Street, stretching
+away to the north and to the south in two lines of houses that seemed
+to meet in the distance, hemmed her in. She had been born in the little
+brick house, and, as she was of it, so it was of her. Her hands had
+smoothed and painted the pine floors; her hands had put up the twine on
+which the morning-glories in the yard covered the fences; had, indeed,
+with what agonies of slacking lime and adding blueing, whitewashed the
+fence itself!
+
+"She's capable," Aunt Harriet had grumblingly admitted, watching from
+her sewing-machine Sidney's strong young arms at this humble spring
+task.
+
+"She's wonderful!" her mother had said, as she bent over her hand work.
+She was not strong enough to run the sewing-machine.
+
+So Joe Drummond stood on the pavement and saw his dream of taking Sidney
+in his arms fade into an indefinite futurity.
+
+"I'm not going to give you up," he said doggedly. "When you come back,
+I'll be waiting."
+
+The shock being over, and things only postponed, he dramatized his grief
+a trifle, thrust his hands savagely into his pockets, and scowled down
+the Street. In the line of his vision, his quick eye caught a tiny
+moving shadow, lost it, found it again.
+
+"Great Scott! There goes Reginald!" he cried, and ran after the shadow.
+"Watch for the McKees' cat!"
+
+Sidney was running by that time; they were gaining. Their quarry, a
+four-inch chipmunk, hesitated, gave a protesting squeak, and was caught
+in Sidney's hand.
+
+"You wretch!" she cried. "You miserable little beast--with cats
+everywhere, and not a nut for miles!"
+
+"That reminds me,"--Joe put a hand into his pocket,--"I brought some
+chestnuts for him, and forgot them. Here."
+
+Reginald's escape had rather knocked the tragedy out of the evening.
+True, Sidney would not marry him for years, but she had practically
+promised to sometime. And when one is twenty-one, and it is a summer
+night, and life stretches eternities ahead, what are a few years more or
+less?
+
+Sidney was holding the tiny squirrel in warm, protecting hands. She
+smiled up at the boy.
+
+"Good-night, Joe."
+
+"Good-night. I say, Sidney, it's more than half an engagement. Won't you
+kiss me good-night?"
+
+She hesitated, flushed and palpitating. Kisses were rare in the staid
+little household to which she belonged.
+
+"I--I think not."
+
+"Please! I'm not very happy, and it will be something to remember."
+
+Perhaps, after all, Sidney's first kiss would have gone without her
+heart,--which was a thing she had determined would never happen,--gone
+out of sheer pity. But a tall figure loomed out of the shadows and
+approached with quick strides.
+
+"The roomer!" cried Sidney, and backed away.
+
+"Damn the roomer!"
+
+Poor Joe, with the summer evening quite spoiled, with no caress to
+remember, and with a potential rival who possessed both the years and
+the inches he lacked, coming up the Street!
+
+The roomer advanced steadily. When he reached the doorstep, Sidney
+was demurely seated and quite alone. The roomer, who had walked
+fast, stopped and took off his hat. He looked very warm. He carried
+a suitcase, which was as it should be. The men of the Street always
+carried their own luggage, except the younger Wilson across the way. His
+tastes were known to be luxurious.
+
+"Hot, isn't it?" Sidney inquired, after a formal greeting. She indicated
+the place on the step just vacated by Joe. "You'd better cool off out
+here. The house is like an oven. I think I should have warned you of
+that before you took the room. These little houses with low roofs are
+fearfully hot."
+
+The new roomer hesitated. The steps were very low, and he was tall.
+Besides, he did not care to establish any relations with the people
+in the house. Long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to
+sleep and forget--these were the things he had come for.
+
+But Sidney had moved over and was smiling up at him. He folded up
+awkwardly on the low step. He seemed much too big for the house. Sidney
+had a panicky thought of the little room upstairs.
+
+"I don't mind heat. I--I suppose I don't think about it," said the
+roomer, rather surprised at himself.
+
+Reginald, having finished his chestnut, squeaked for another. The roomer
+started.
+
+"Just Reginald--my ground-squirrel." Sidney was skinning a nut with her
+strong white teeth. "That's another thing I should have told you. I'm
+afraid you'll be sorry you took the room."
+
+The roomer smiled in the shadow.
+
+"I'm beginning to think that YOU are sorry."
+
+She was all anxiety to reassure him:--
+
+"It's because of Reginald. He lives under my--under your bureau. He's
+really not troublesome; but he's building a nest under the bureau,
+and if you don't know about him, it's rather unsettling to see a paper
+pattern from the sewing-room, or a piece of cloth, moving across the
+floor."
+
+Mr. Le Moyne thought it might be very interesting. "Although, if there's
+nest-building going on, isn't it--er--possible that Reginald is a lady
+ground-squirrel?"
+
+Sidney was rather distressed, and, seeing this, he hastened to add that,
+for all he knew, all ground-squirrels built nests, regardless of sex.
+As a matter of fact, it developed that he knew nothing whatever of
+ground-squirrels. Sidney was relieved. She chatted gayly of the tiny
+creature--of his rescue in the woods from a crowd of little boys, of his
+restoration to health and spirits, and of her expectation, when he was
+quite strong, of taking him to the woods and freeing him.
+
+Le Moyne, listening attentively, began to be interested. His quick mind
+had grasped the fact that it was the girl's bedroom he had taken. Other
+things he had gathered that afternoon from the humming sewing-machine,
+from Sidney's businesslike way of renting the little room, from the
+glimpse of a woman in a sunny window, bent over a needle. Genteel
+poverty was what it meant, and more--the constant drain of disheartened,
+middle-aged women on the youth and courage of the girl beside him.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who was living his own tragedy those days, what with
+poverty and other things, sat on the doorstep while Sidney talked, and
+swore a quiet oath to be no further weight on the girl's buoyant spirit.
+And, since determining on a virtue is halfway to gaining it, his voice
+lost its perfunctory note. He had no intention of letting the Street
+encroach on him. He had built up a wall between himself and the rest of
+the world, and he would not scale it. But he held no grudge against it.
+Let others get what they could out of living.
+
+Sidney, suddenly practical, broke in on his thoughts:--
+
+"Where are you going to get your meals?"
+
+"I hadn't thought about it. I can stop in somewhere on my way downtown.
+I work in the gas office--I don't believe I told you. It's rather
+haphazard--not the gas office, but the eating. However, it's
+convenient."
+
+"It's very bad for you," said Sidney, with decision. "It leads to
+slovenly habits, such as going without when you're in a hurry, and that
+sort of thing. The only thing is to have some one expecting you at a
+certain time."
+
+"It sounds like marriage." He was lazily amused.
+
+"It sounds like Mrs. McKee's boarding-house at the corner. Twenty-one
+meals for five dollars, and a ticket to punch. Tillie, the dining-room
+girl, punches for every meal you get. If you miss any meals, your ticket
+is good until it is punched. But Mrs. McKee doesn't like it if you
+miss."
+
+"Mrs. McKee for me," said Le Moyne. "I daresay, if I know
+that--er--Tillie is waiting with the punch, I'll be fairly regular to my
+meals."
+
+It was growing late. The Street, which mistrusted night air, even on a
+hot summer evening, was closing its windows. Reginald, having eaten
+his fill, had cuddled in the warm hollow of Sidney's lap, and slept.
+By shifting his position, the man was able to see the girl's face. Very
+lovely it was, he thought. Very pure, almost radiant--and young. From
+the middle age of his almost thirty years, she was a child. There had
+been a boy in the shadows when he came up the Street. Of course there
+would be a boy--a nice, clear-eyed chap--
+
+Sidney was looking at the moon. With that dreamer's part of her that she
+had inherited from her dead and gone father, she was quietly worshiping
+the night. But her busy brain was working, too,--the practical brain
+that she had got from her mother's side.
+
+"What about your washing?" she inquired unexpectedly.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who had built a wall between himself and the world, had
+already married her to the youth of the shadows, and was feeling an odd
+sense of loss.
+
+"Washing?"
+
+"I suppose you've been sending things to the laundry, and--what do you
+do about your stockings?"
+
+"Buy cheap ones and throw 'em away when they're worn out." There seemed
+to be no reserve with this surprising young person.
+
+"And buttons?"
+
+"Use safety-pins. When they're closed one can button over them as well
+as--"
+
+"I think," said Sidney, "that it is quite time some one took a little
+care of you. If you will give Katie, our maid, twenty-five cents a week,
+she'll do your washing and not tear your things to ribbons. And I'll
+mend them."
+
+Sheer stupefaction was K. Le Moyne's. After a moment:--
+
+"You're really rather wonderful, Miss Page. Here am I, lodged, fed,
+washed, ironed, and mended for seven dollars and seventy-five cents a
+week!"
+
+"I hope," said Sidney severely, "that you'll put what you save in the
+bank."
+
+He was still somewhat dazed when he went up the narrow staircase to
+his swept and garnished room. Never, in all of a life that had been
+active,--until recently,--had he been so conscious of friendliness and
+kindly interest. He expanded under it. Some of the tired lines left his
+face. Under the gas chandelier, he straightened and threw out his arms.
+Then he reached down into his coat pocket and drew out a wide-awake and
+suspicious Reginald.
+
+"Good-night, Reggie!" he said. "Good-night, old top!" He hardly
+recognized his own voice. It was quite cheerful, although the little
+room was hot, and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling
+that the ceiling was close above. He deposited Reginald carefully on
+the floor in front of the bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him,
+retreated to its nest.
+
+It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed. Wrapped in a paper and
+securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
+underclothing, ragged and buttonless. Not for worlds would he have had
+Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. "New underwear for yours
+tomorrow, K. Le Moyne," he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
+"New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name."
+
+He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and
+thinking hard. "Kenneth, King, Kerr--" None of them appealed to him.
+And, after all, what did it matter? The old heaviness came over him.
+
+He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
+and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.
+
+Sidney did not sleep much that night. She lay awake, gazing into the
+scented darkness, her arms under her head. Love had come into her life
+at last. A man--only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but
+what he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.
+
+In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms
+stealing through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life
+and love, and flung out warm young arms. Joe would be thinking of her
+now, as she thought of him. Or would he have gone to sleep, secure in
+her half promise? Did he really love her?
+
+The desire to be loved! There was coming to Sidney a time when love
+would mean, not receiving, but giving--the divine fire instead of the
+pale flame of youth. At last she slept.
+
+A night breeze came through the windows and spread coolness through
+the little house. The ailanthus tree waved in the moonlight and sent
+sprawling shadows over the wall of K. Le Moyne's bedroom. In the yard
+the leaves of the morning-glory vines quivered as if under the touch of
+a friendly hand.
+
+K. Le Moyne slept diagonally in his bed, being very long. In sleep the
+lines were smoothed out of his face. He looked like a tired, overgrown
+boy. And while he slept the ground-squirrel ravaged the pockets of his
+shabby coat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at the
+table. It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that Aunt
+Harriet lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney's
+father had borrowed her small patrimony and she was "boarding it out."
+Eighteen years she had "boarded it out." Sidney had been born and grown
+to girlhood; the dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuable
+patents lost for lack of money to renew them--gone with his faith in
+himself destroyed, but with his faith in the world undiminished: for he
+left his wife and daughter without a dollar of life insurance.
+
+Harriet Kennedy had voiced her own view of the matter, the after the
+funeral, to one of the neighbors:--
+
+"He left no insurance. Why should he bother? He left me."
+
+To the little widow, her sister, she had been no less bitter, and more
+explicit.
+
+"It looks to me, Anna," she said, "as if by borrowing everything I had
+George had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life.
+I'll stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to live
+my own life. It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a long
+time."
+
+The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidney
+was still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first year
+at the High School, prone to saunter home with three or four
+knickerbockered boys in her train, reading "The Duchess" stealthily, and
+begging for longer dresses. She had given up her dolls, but she still
+made clothes for them out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room. In the
+parlance of the Street, Harriet "sewed"--and sewed well.
+
+She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of the
+partnership had always been on Harriet. To give her credit, she had not
+complained. She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slipped
+by in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paper
+patterns.
+
+On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down to
+breakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tied
+a small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving
+breakfast. From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful
+singing. Sidney was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage
+of Harriet's tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper,
+dropped it.
+
+But Harriet did not sit down. It was her custom to jerk her chair out
+and drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food. Sidney,
+not hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Harriet."
+
+"Will you come in, please?"
+
+Katie took the iron from her.
+
+"You go. She's all dressed up, and she doesn't want any coffee."
+
+So Sidney went in. It was to her that Harriet made her speech:--
+
+"Sidney, when your father died, I promised to look after both you and
+your mother until you were able to take care of yourself. That was five
+years ago. Of course, even before that I had helped to support you."
+
+"If you would only have your coffee, Harriet!"
+
+Mrs. Page sat with her hand on the handle of the old silver-plated
+coffee-pot. Harriet ignored her.
+
+"You are a young woman now. You have health and energy, and you have
+youth, which I haven't. I'm past forty. In the next twenty years, at the
+outside, I've got not only to support myself, but to save something to
+keep me after that, if I live. I'll probably live to be ninety. I don't
+want to live forever, but I've always played in hard luck."
+
+Sidney returned her gaze steadily.
+
+"I see. Well, Aunt Harriet, you're quite right. You've been a saint to
+us, but if you want to go away--"
+
+"Harriet!" wailed Mrs. Page, "you're not thinking--"
+
+"Please, mother."
+
+Harriet's eyes softened as she looked at the girl
+
+"We can manage," said Sidney quietly. "We'll miss you, but it's time we
+learned to depend on ourselves."
+
+After that, in a torrent, came Harriet's declaration of independence.
+And, mixed in with its pathetic jumble of recriminations, hostility to
+her sister's dead husband, and resentment for her lost years, came
+poor Harriet's hopes and ambitions, the tragic plea of a woman who must
+substitute for the optimism and energy of youth the grim determination
+of middle age.
+
+"I can do good work," she finished. "I'm full of ideas, if I could get a
+chance to work them out. But there's no chance here. There isn't a woman
+on the Street who knows real clothes when she sees them. They don't even
+know how to wear their corsets. They send me bundles of hideous stuff,
+with needles and shields and imitation silk for lining, and when I
+turn out something worth while out of the mess they think the dress is
+queer!"
+
+Mrs. Page could not get back of Harriet's revolt to its cause. To her,
+Harriet was not an artist pleading for her art; she was a sister and a
+bread-winner deserting her trust.
+
+"I'm sure," she said stiffly, "we paid you back every cent we borrowed.
+If you stayed here after George died, it was because you offered to."
+
+Her chin worked. She fumbled for the handkerchief at her belt. But
+Sidney went around the table and flung a young arm over her aunt's
+shoulders.
+
+"Why didn't you say all that a year ago? We've been selfish, but we're
+not as bad as you think. And if any one in this world is entitled to
+success you are. Of course we'll manage."
+
+Harriet's iron repression almost gave way. She covered her emotion with
+details:--
+
+"Mrs. Lorenz is going to let me make Christine some things, and if
+they're all right I may make her trousseau."
+
+"Trousseau--for Christine!"
+
+"She's not engaged, but her mother says it's only a matter of a short
+time. I'm going to take two rooms in the business part of town, and put
+a couch in the backroom to sleep on."
+
+Sidney's mind flew to Christine and her bright future, to a trousseau
+bought with the Lorenz money, to Christine settled down, a married
+woman, with Palmer Howe. She came back with an effort. Harriet had two
+triangular red spots in her sallow cheeks.
+
+"I can get a few good models--that's the only way to start. And if you
+care to do hand work for me, Anna, I'll send it to you, and pay you the
+regular rates. There isn't the call for it there used to be, but just a
+touch gives dash."
+
+ All of Mrs. Page's grievances had worked their way to the surface.  Sidney
+and Harriet had made her world, such as it was, and her world was in
+revolt. She flung out her hands.
+
+"I suppose I must do something. With you leaving, and Sidney renting her
+room and sleeping on a folding-bed in the sewing-room, everything seems
+upside down. I never thought I should live to see strange men running in
+and out of this house and carrying latch-keys."
+
+This in reference to Le Moyne, whose tall figure had made a hurried exit
+some time before.
+
+Nothing could have symbolized Harriet's revolt more thoroughly than her
+going upstairs after a hurried breakfast, and putting on her hat and
+coat. She had heard of rooms, she said, and there was nothing urgent in
+the work-room. Her eyes were brighter already as she went out. Sidney,
+kissing her in the hall and wishing her luck, realized suddenly what
+a burden she and her mother must have been for the last few years. She
+threw her head up proudly. They would never be a burden again--never, as
+long as she had strength and health!
+
+By evening Mrs. Page had worked herself into a state bordering on
+hysteria. Harriet was out most of the day. She came in at three o'clock,
+and Katie gave her a cup of tea. At the news of her sister's condition,
+she merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"She'll not die, Katie," she said calmly. "But see that Miss Sidney eats
+something, and if she is worried tell her I said to get Dr. Ed."
+
+Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoning
+of the Street's family doctor. She was already dealing in larger
+figures. A sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning.
+Already she was learning that peace of mind is essential to successful
+endeavor. Somewhere Harriet had read a quotation from a Persian poet;
+she could not remember it, but its sense had stayed with her: "What
+though we spill a few grains of corn, or drops of oil from the cruse?
+These be the price of peace."
+
+So Harriet, having spilled oil from her cruse in the shape of Dr. Ed,
+departed blithely. The recklessness of pure adventure was in her blood.
+She had taken rooms at a rental that she determinedly put out of her
+mind, and she was on her way to buy furniture. No pirate, fitting out
+a ship for the highways of the sea, ever experienced more guilty and
+delightful excitement.
+
+The afternoon dragged away. Dr. Ed was out "on a case" and might not be
+in until evening. Sidney sat in the darkened room and waved a fan over
+her mother's rigid form.
+
+At half after five, Johnny Rosenfeld from the alley, who worked for a
+florist after school, brought a box of roses to Sidney, and departed
+grinning impishly. He knew Joe, had seen him in the store. Soon the
+alley knew that Sidney had received a dozen Killarney roses at three
+dollars and a half, and was probably engaged to Joe Drummond.
+
+"Dr. Ed," said Sidney, as he followed her down the stairs, "can you
+spare the time to talk to me a little while?"
+
+Perhaps the elder Wilson had a quick vision of the crowded office
+waiting across the Street; but his reply was prompt:
+
+"Any amount of time."
+
+Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused by
+the petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.
+
+"First of all," said Sidney, "did you mean what you said upstairs?"
+
+Dr. Ed thought quickly.
+
+"Of course; but what?"
+
+"You said I was a born nurse."
+
+The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him.
+It said--which was perfectly true--that he had sacrificed himself to his
+brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon,
+Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroad
+he had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the old
+buggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, not at
+all of the stuff martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and,
+remembering all this, was ashamed of her rebellion.
+
+"I'm going into a hospital," said Sidney.
+
+Dr. Ed waited. He liked to have all the symptoms before he made a
+diagnosis or ventured an opinion. So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, and
+quite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.
+
+"It's fearfully hard work, of course," he commented, when she had
+finished.
+
+"So is anything worth while. Look at the way you work!"
+
+Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.
+
+"You're too young."
+
+"I'll get older."
+
+"I don't think I like the idea," he said at last. "It's splendid work
+for an older woman. But it's life, child--life in the raw. As we get
+along in years we lose our illusions--some of them, not all, thank God.
+But for you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things as
+they are, and not as we want them to be--it seems such an unnecessary
+sacrifice."
+
+"Don't you think," said Sidney bravely, "that you are a poor person to
+talk of sacrifice? Haven't you always, all your life--"
+
+Dr. Ed colored to the roots of his straw-colored hair.
+
+"Certainly not," he said almost irritably. "Max had genius; I
+had--ability. That's different. One real success is better than two
+halves. Not"--he smiled down at her--"not that I minimize my usefulness.
+Somebody has to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm a
+pretty good hack."
+
+"Very well," said Sidney. "Then I shall be a hack, too. Of course, I had
+thought of other things,--my father wanted me to go to college,--but I'm
+strong and willing. And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; I
+shall have to support my mother."
+
+Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man in
+the parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders,
+her thin face, her undisguised middle age.
+
+"Yes," he said, when she was out of hearing. "It's hard, but I dare say
+it's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only--I wish
+it didn't have to be."
+
+Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She
+touched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had called
+her with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent
+hands. Life--in the raw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters.
+When he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing
+with vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly.
+
+"You and I, Reginald," he apostrophized the bureau, "will have to come
+to an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what
+blows down is not to be touched."
+
+Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness
+of spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the
+sun was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office.
+He told himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having
+sought for peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it. The
+trouble was, of course, that he came of fighting stock: soldiers and
+explorers, even a gentleman adventurer or two, had been his forefather.
+He loathed peace with a deadly loathing.
+
+Having given up everything else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the
+love of woman. That, of course, is figurative. He had been too busy for
+women; and now he was too idle. A small part of his brain added figures
+in the office of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and
+fifty cents per eight-hour working day. But the real K. Le Moyne
+that had dreamed dreams, had nothing to do with the figures, but sat
+somewhere in his head and mocked him as he worked at his task.
+
+"Time's going by, and here you are!" mocked the real person--who was, of
+course, not K. Le Moyne at all. "You're the hell of a lot of use, aren't
+you? Two and two are four and three are seven--take off the discount.
+That's right. It's a man's work, isn't it?"
+
+"Somebody's got to do this sort of thing," protested the small part of
+his brain that earned the two-fifty per working day. "And it's a great
+anaesthetic. He can't think when he's doing it. There's something
+practical about figures, and--rational."
+
+He dressed quickly, ascertaining that he had enough money to buy a
+five-dollar ticket at Mrs. McKee's; and, having given up the love of
+woman with other things, he was careful not to look about for Sidney on
+his way.
+
+He breakfasted at Mrs. McKee's, and was initiated into the mystery of
+the ticket punch. The food was rather good, certainly plentiful;
+and even his squeamish morning appetite could find no fault with the
+self-respecting tidiness of the place. Tillie proved to be neat and
+austere. He fancied it would not be pleasant to be very late for one's
+meals--in fact, Sidney had hinted as much. Some of the "mealers"--the
+Street's name for them--ventured on various small familiarities of
+speech with Tillie. K. Le Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but
+reserved. He was determined not to let the Street encroach on his
+wretchedness. Because he had come to live there was no reason why it
+should adopt him. But he was very polite. When the deaf-and-dumb book
+agent wrote something on a pencil pad and pushed it toward him, he
+replied in kind.
+
+"We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family," was what was
+written on the pad.
+
+"Very happy, indeed, to be with you," wrote back Le Moyne--and realized
+with a sort of shock that he meant it.
+
+The kindly greeting had touched him. The greeting and the breakfast
+cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
+
+"Don't you want a toothpick?" she asked, as he went out.
+
+In K.'s previous walk of life there had been no toothpicks; or, if there
+were any, they were kept, along with the family scandals, in a closet.
+But nearly a year of buffeting about had taught him many things. He took
+one, and placed it nonchalantly in his waistcoat pocket, as he had seen
+the others do.
+
+Tillie, her rush hour over, wandered back into the kitchen and poured
+herself a cup of coffee. Mrs. McKee was reweighing the meat order.
+
+"Kind of a nice fellow," Tillie said, cup to lips--"the new man."
+
+"Week or meal?"
+
+"Week. He'd be handsome if he wasn't so grouchy-looking. Lit up some
+when Mr. Wagner sent him one of his love letters. Rooms over at the
+Pages'."
+
+Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lam stew in a book.
+
+"When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me
+over, Tillie. And where they'll put him, in that little house--he
+looked thin, what I saw of him. Seven pounds and a quarter." This last
+referred, not to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.
+
+"Thin as a fiddle-string."
+
+"Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough." Then, rather ashamed of
+her unbusinesslike methods: "A thin mealer's a poor advertisement. Do
+you suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?"
+
+Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld. In such manner was most of the
+Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip
+start at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.
+
+"Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond," announced Tillie. "He sent her
+a lot of pink roses yesterday."
+
+There was no malice in her flat statement, no envy. Sidney and she,
+living in the world of the Street, occupied different spheres. But the
+very lifelessness in her voice told how remotely such things touched
+her, and thus was tragic. "Mealers" came and went--small clerks, petty
+tradesmen, husbands living alone in darkened houses during the summer
+hegira of wives. Various and catholic was Tillie's male acquaintance,
+but compounded of good fellowship only. Once, years before, romance had
+paraded itself before her in the garb of a traveling nurseryman--had
+walked by and not come back.
+
+"And Miss Harriet's going into business for herself. She's taken rooms
+downtown; she's going to be Madame Something or other."
+
+Now, at last, was Mrs. McKee's attention caught riveted.
+
+"For the love of mercy! At her age! It's downright selfish. If she
+raises her prices she can't make my new foulard."
+
+Tillie sat at the table, her faded blue eyes fixed on the back yard,
+where her aunt, Mrs. Rosenfeld, was hanging out the week's wash of table
+linen.
+
+"I don't know as it's so selfish," she reflected. "We've only got one
+life. I guess a body's got the right to live it."
+
+Mrs. McKee eyed her suspiciously, but Tillie's face showed no emotion.
+
+"You don't ever hear of Schwitter, do you?"
+
+"No; I guess she's still living."
+
+Schwitter, the nurseryman, had proved to have a wife in an insane
+asylum. That was why Tillie's romance had only paraded itself before her
+and had gone by.
+
+"You got out of that lucky."
+
+Tillie rose and tied a gingham apron over her white one.
+
+"I guess so. Only sometimes--"
+
+"I don't know as it would have been so wrong. He ain't young, and I
+ain't. And we're not getting any younger. He had nice manners; he'd have
+been good to me."
+
+Mrs. McKee's voice failed her. For a moment she gasped like a fish.
+Then:
+
+"And him a married man!"
+
+"Well, I'm not going to do it," Tillie soothed her. "I get to thinking
+about it sometimes; that's all. This new fellow made me think of him.
+He's got the same nice way about him."
+
+Aye, the new man had made her think of him, and June, and the lovers
+who lounged along the Street in the moonlit avenues toward the park and
+love; even Sidney's pink roses. Change was in the very air of the Street
+that June morning. It was in Tillie, making a last clutch at youth, and
+finding, in this pale flare of dying passion, courage to remember what
+she had schooled herself to forget; in Harriet asserting her right to
+live her life; in Sidney, planning with eager eyes a life of service
+which did not include Joe; in K. Le Moyne, who had built up a wall
+between himself and the world, and was seeing it demolished by a
+deaf-and-dumb book agent whose weapon was a pencil pad!
+
+And yet, for a week nothing happened: Joe came in the evenings and sat
+on the steps with Sidney, his honest heart, in his eyes. She could not
+bring herself at first to tell him about the hospital. She put it off
+from day to day. Anna, no longer sulky, accepted wit the childlike faith
+Sidney's statement that "they'd get along; she had a splendid scheme,"
+and took to helping Harriet in her preparations for leaving. Tillie,
+afraid of her rebellious spirit, went to prayer meeting. And K. Le
+Moyne, finding his little room hot in the evenings and not wishing to
+intrude on the two on the doorstep, took to reading his paper in the
+park, and after twilight to long, rapid walks out into the country. The
+walks satisfied the craving of his active body for exercise, and tired
+him so he could sleep. On one such occasion he met Mr. Wagner, and they
+carried on an animated conversation until it was too dark to see the
+pad. Even then, it developed that Wagner could write in the dark; and
+he secured the last word in a long argument by doing this and striking a
+match for K. to read by.
+
+When K. was sure that the boy had gone, he would turn back toward the
+Street. Some of the heaviness of his spirit always left him at sight of
+the little house. Its kindly atmosphere seemed to reach out and envelop
+him. Within was order and quiet, the fresh-down bed, the tidiness of
+his ordered garments. There was even affection--Reginald, waiting on
+the fender for his supper, and regarding him with wary and bright-eyed
+friendliness.
+
+Life, that had seemed so simple, had grown very complicated for Sidney.
+There was her mother to break the news to, and Joe. Harriet would
+approve, she felt; but these others! To assure Anna that she must
+manage alone for three years, in order to be happy and comfortable
+afterward--that was hard enough to tell Joe she was planning a future
+without him, to destroy the light in his blue eyes--that hurt.
+
+After all, Sidney told K. first. One Friday evening, coming home late,
+as usual, he found her on the doorstep, and Joe gone. She moved over
+hospitably. The moon had waxed and waned, and the Street was dark. Even
+the ailanthus blossoms had ceased their snow-like dropping. The colored
+man who drove Dr. Ed in the old buggy on his daily rounds had brought
+out the hose and sprinkled the street. Within this zone of freshness, of
+wet asphalt and dripping gutters, Sidney sat, cool and silent.
+
+"Please sit down. It is cool now. My idea of luxury is to have the
+Street sprinkled on a hot night."
+
+K. disposed of his long legs on the steps. He was trying to fit his own
+ideas of luxury to a garden hose and a city street.
+
+"I'm afraid you're working too hard."
+
+"I? I do a minimum of labor for a minimum of wage.
+
+"But you work at night, don't you?"
+
+K. was natively honest. He hesitated. Then:
+
+"No, Miss Page."
+
+"But You go out every evening!" Suddenly the truth burst on her.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said. "I do believe--why, how silly of you!"
+
+K. was most uncomfortable.
+
+"Really, I like it," he protested. "I hang over a desk all day, and in
+the evening I want to walk. I ramble around the park and see lovers on
+benches--it's rather thrilling. They sit on the same benches evening
+after evening. I know a lot of them by sight, and if they're not there
+I wonder if they have quarreled, or if they have finally got married and
+ended the romance. You can see how exciting it is."
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney laughed.
+
+"How very nice you are!" she said--"and how absurd! Why should their
+getting married end the romance? And don't you know that, if you insist
+on walking the streets and parks at night because Joe Drummond is here,
+I shall have to tell him not to come?"
+
+This did not follow, to K.'s mind. They had rather a heated argument
+over it, and became much better acquainted.
+
+"If I were engaged to him," Sidney ended, her cheeks very pink, "I--I
+might understand. But, as I am not--"
+
+"Ah!" said K., a trifle unsteadily. "So you are not?"
+
+Only a week--and love was one of the things she had had to give up, with
+others. Not, of course, that he was in love with Sidney then. But he had
+been desperately lonely, and, for all her practical clearheadedness,
+she was softly and appealingly feminine. By way of keeping his head, he
+talked suddenly and earnestly of Mrs. McKee, and food, and Tillie, and
+of Mr. Wagner and the pencil pad.
+
+"It's like a game," he said. "We disagree on everything, especially
+Mexico. If you ever tried to spell those Mexican names--"
+
+"Why did you think I was engaged?" she insisted.
+
+Now, in K.'s walk of life--that walk of life where there are no
+toothpicks, and no one would have believed that twenty-one meals could
+have been secured for five dollars with a ticket punch thrown in--young
+girls did not receive the attention of one young man to the exclusion of
+others unless they were engaged. But he could hardly say that.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Those things get in the air. I am quite certain, for
+instance, that Reginald suspects it."
+
+"It's Johnny Rosenfeld," said Sidney, with decision. "It's horrible, the
+way things get about. Because Joe sent me a box of roses--As a matter
+of fact, I'm not engaged, or going to be, Mr. Le Moyne. I'm going into a
+hospital to be a nurse."
+
+Le Moyne said nothing. For just a moment he closed his eyes. A man is in
+a rather a bad way when, every time he closes his eyes, he sees the
+same thing, especially if it is rather terrible. When it gets to a point
+where he lies awake at night and reads, for fear of closing them--
+
+"You're too young, aren't you?"
+
+"Dr. Ed--one of the Wilsons across the Street--is going to help me about
+that. His brother Max is a big surgeon there. I expect you've heard of
+him. We're very proud of him in the Street."
+
+Lucky for K. Le Moyne that the moon no longer shone on the low gray
+doorstep, that Sidney's mind had traveled far away to shining floors
+and rows of white beds. "Life--in the raw," Dr. Ed had said that other
+afternoon. Closer to her than the hospital was life in the raw that
+night.
+
+So, even here, on this quiet street in this distant city, there was
+to be no peace. Max Wilson just across the way! It--it was ironic. Was
+there no place where a man could lose himself? He would have to move on
+again, of course.
+
+But that, it seemed, was just what he could not do. For:
+
+"I want to ask you to do something, and I hope you'll be quite frank,"
+said Sidney.
+
+"Anything that I can do--"
+
+"It's this. If you are comfortable, and--and like the room and all that,
+I wish you'd stay." She hurried on: "If I could feel that mother had a
+dependable person like you in the house, it would all be easier."
+
+Dependable! That stung.
+
+"But--forgive my asking; I'm really interested--can your mother manage?
+You'll get practically no money during your training."
+
+"I've thought of that. A friend of mine, Christine Lorenz, is going to
+be married. Her people are wealthy, but she'll have nothing but what
+Palmer makes. She'd like to have the parlor and the sitting room
+behind. They wouldn't interfere with you at all," she added hastily.
+"Christine's father would build a little balcony at the side for them, a
+sort of porch, and they'd sit there in the evenings."
+
+Behind Sidney's carefully practical tone the man read appeal. Never
+before had he realized how narrow the girl's world had been. The Street,
+with but one dimension, bounded it! In her perplexity, she was appealing
+to him who was practically a stranger.
+
+And he knew then that he must do the thing she asked. He, who had fled
+so long, could roam no more. Here on the Street, with its menace just
+across, he must live, that she might work. In his world, men had worked
+that women might live in certain places, certain ways. This girl was
+going out to earn her living, and he would stay to make it possible. But
+no hint of all this was in his voice.
+
+"I shall stay, of course," he said gravely. "I--this is the nearest
+thing to home that I've known for a long time. I want you to know that."
+
+So they moved their puppets about, Anna and Harriet, Christine and
+her husband-to-be, Dr. Ed, even Tillie and the Rosenfelds; shifted and
+placed them, and, planning, obeyed inevitable law.
+
+"Christine shall come, then," said Sidney forsooth, "and we will throw
+out a balcony."
+
+So they planned, calmly ignorant that poor Christine's story and
+Tillie's and Johnny Rosenfeld's and all the others' were already written
+among the things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.
+
+"You are very good to me," said Sidney.
+
+When she rose, K. Le Moyne sprang to his feet.
+
+Anna had noticed that he always rose when she entered his room,--with
+fresh towels on Katie's day out, for instance,--and she liked him for
+it. Years ago, the men she had known had shown this courtesy to their
+women; but the Street regarded such things as affectation.
+
+"I wonder if you would do me another favor? I'm afraid you'll take to
+avoiding me, if I keep on."
+
+"I don't think you need fear that."
+
+"This stupid story about Joe Drummond--I'm not saying I'll never marry
+him, but I'm certainly not engaged. Now and then, when you are taking
+your evening walks, if you would ask me to walk with you--"
+
+K. looked rather dazed.
+
+"I can't imagine anything pleasanter; but I wish you'd explain just
+how--"
+
+Sidney smiled at him. As he stood on the lowest step, their eyes were
+almost level.
+
+"If I walk with you, they'll know I'm not engaged to Joe," she said,
+with engaging directness.
+
+The house was quiet. He waited in the lower hall until she had reached
+the top of the staircase. For some curious reason, in the time to come,
+that was the way Sidney always remembered K. Le Moyne--standing in the
+little hall, one hand upstretched to shut off the gas overhead, and his
+eyes on hers above.
+
+"Good-night," said K. Le Moyne. And all the things he had put out of his
+life were in his voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+On the morning after Sidney had invited K. Le Moyne to take her to walk,
+Max Wilson came down to breakfast rather late. Dr. Ed had breakfasted an
+hour before, and had already attended, with much profanity on the part
+of the patient, to a boil on the back of Mr. Rosenfeld's neck.
+
+"Better change your laundry," cheerfully advised Dr. Ed, cutting a strip
+of adhesive plaster. "Your neck's irritated from your white collars."
+
+Rosenfeld eyed him suspiciously, but, possessing a sense of humor also,
+he grinned.
+
+"It ain't my everyday things that bother me," he replied. "It's my
+blankety-blank dress suit. But if a man wants to be tony--"
+
+"Tony" was not of the Street, but of its environs. Harriet was "tony"
+because she walked with her elbows in and her head up. Dr. Max was
+"tony" because he breakfasted late, and had a man come once a week and
+take away his clothes to be pressed. He was "tony," too, because he had
+brought back from Europe narrow-shouldered English-cut clothes, when the
+Street was still padding its shoulders. Even K. would have been classed
+with these others, for the stick that he carried on his walks, for the
+fact that his shabby gray coat was as unmistakably foreign in cut as Dr.
+Max's, had the neighborhood so much as known him by sight. But K., so
+far, had remained in humble obscurity, and, outside of Mrs. McKee's, was
+known only as the Pages' roomer.
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld buttoned up the blue flannel shirt which, with a pair of
+Dr. Ed's cast-off trousers, was his only wear; and fished in his pocket.
+
+"How much, Doc?"
+
+"Two dollars," said Dr. Ed briskly.
+
+"Holy cats! For one jab of a knife! My old woman works a day and a half
+for two dollars."
+
+"I guess it's worth two dollars to you to be able to sleep on your
+back." He was imperturbably straightening his small glass table. He knew
+Rosenfeld. "If you don't like my price, I'll lend you the knife the next
+time, and you can let your wife attend to you."
+
+Rosenfeld drew out a silver dollar, and followed it reluctantly with a
+limp and dejected dollar bill.
+
+"There are times," he said, "when, if you'd put me and the missus and a
+knife in the same room, you wouldn't have much left but the knife."
+
+Dr. Ed waited until he had made his stiff-necked exit. Then he took the
+two dollars, and, putting the money into an envelope, indorsed it in his
+illegible hand. He heard his brother's step on the stairs, and Dr. Ed
+made haste to put away the last vestiges of his little operation.
+
+Ed's lapses from surgical cleanliness were a sore trial to the younger
+man, fresh from the clinics of Europe. In his downtown office, to which
+he would presently make his leisurely progress, he wore a white coat,
+and sterilized things of which Dr. Ed did not even know the names.
+
+So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny
+knife with a bit of cotton,--he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the
+edge,--thrust it hastily into his pocket. He had cut boils without
+boiling anything for a good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise
+with the wisdom of the serpent and the general practitioner, and there
+was no use raising a discussion.
+
+Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one. Now and then the way of
+the transgressor is disgustingly pleasant. Max, who sat up until all
+hours of the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing
+bridge, wakened to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette
+between shoes, so to speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps
+been to bring into the world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened
+customarily to the dark hour of his day, when he dubbed himself failure
+and loathed the Street with a deadly loathing.
+
+So now Max brought his handsome self down the staircase and paused at
+the office door.
+
+"At it, already," he said. "Or have you been to bed?"
+
+"It's after nine," protested Ed mildly. "If I don't start early, I never
+get through."
+
+Max yawned.
+
+"Better come with me," he said. "If things go on as they've been doing,
+I'll have to have an assistant. I'd rather have you than anybody, of
+course." He put his lithe surgeon's hand on his brother's shoulder.
+"Where would I be if it hadn't been for you? All the fellows know what
+you've done."
+
+In spite of himself, Ed winced. It was one thing to work hard that there
+might be one success instead of two half successes. It was a different
+thing to advertise one's mediocrity to the world. His sphere of the
+Street and the neighborhood was his own. To give it all up and become
+his younger brother's assistant--even if it meant, as it would, better
+hours and more money--would be to submerge his identity. He could not
+bring himself to it.
+
+"I guess I'll stay where I am," he said. "They know me around here, and
+I know them. By the way, will you leave this envelope at Mrs. McKee's?
+Maggie Rosenfeld is ironing there to-day. It's for her."
+
+Max took the envelope absently.
+
+"You'll go on here to the end of your days, working for a pittance,"
+he objected. "Inside of ten years there'll be no general practitioners;
+then where will you be?"
+
+"I'll manage somehow," said his brother placidly. "I guess there will
+always be a few that can pay my prices better than what you specialists
+ask."
+
+Max laughed with genuine amusement.
+
+"I dare say, if this is the way you let them pay your prices."
+
+He held out the envelope, and the older man colored.
+
+Very proud of Dr. Max was his brother, unselfishly proud, of his skill,
+of his handsome person, of his easy good manners; very humble, too, of
+his own knowledge and experience. If he ever suspected any lack of
+finer fiber in Max, he put the thought away. Probably he was too rigid
+himself. Max was young, a hard worker. He had a right to play hard.
+
+He prepared his black bag for the day's calls--stethoscope, thermometer,
+eye-cup, bandages, case of small vials, a lump of absorbent cotton in
+a not over-fresh towel; in the bottom, a heterogeneous collection of
+instruments, a roll of adhesive plaster, a bottle or two of sugar-milk
+tablets for the children, a dog collar that had belonged to a dead
+collie, and had put in the bag in some curious fashion and there
+remained.
+
+He prepared the bag a little nervously, while Max ate. He felt that
+modern methods and the best usage might not have approved of the bag. On
+his way out he paused at the dining-room door.
+
+"Are you going to the hospital?"
+
+"Operating at four--wish you could come in."
+
+"I'm afraid not, Max. I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to
+you. She wants to enter the training-school."
+
+"Too young," said Max briefly. "Why, she can't be over sixteen."
+
+"She's eighteen."
+
+"Well, even eighteen. Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
+enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I
+haven't noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing. There
+is no use filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the
+internes all stewed up."
+
+"Since when," asked Dr. Ed mildly, "have you found good looks in a girl
+a handicap?"
+
+In the end they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It
+would be better than having her run across the Street--would put things
+on the right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have
+to learn at once that he was no longer "Dr. Max"; that, as a matter of
+fact, he was now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without
+contradiction or argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at
+his elbow.
+
+Having given his promise, Max promptly forgot about it. The Street did
+not interest him. Christine and Sidney had been children when he went to
+Vienna, and since his return he had hardly noticed them. Society, always
+kind to single men of good appearance and easy good manners, had taken
+him up. He wore dinner or evening clothes five nights out of seven, and
+was supposed by his conservative old neighbors to be going the pace. The
+rumor had been fed by Mrs. Rosenfeld, who, starting out for her day's
+washing at six o'clock one morning, had found Dr. Max's car, lamps
+lighted, and engine going, drawn up before the house door, with its
+owner asleep at the wheel. The story traveled the length of the Street
+that day.
+
+"Him," said Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was occasionally flowery, "sittin' up
+as straight as this washboard, and his silk hat shinin' in the sun; but
+exceptin' the car, which was workin' hard and gettin' nowhere, the whole
+outfit in the arms of Morpheus."
+
+Mrs. Lorenz, whose day it was to have Mrs. Rosenfeld, and who was
+unfamiliar with mythology, gasped at the last word.
+
+"Mercy!" she said. "Do you mean to say he's got that awful drug habit!"
+
+Down the clean steps went Dr. Max that morning, a big man, almost as
+tall as K. Le Moyne, eager of life, strong and a bit reckless, not fine,
+perhaps, but not evil. He had the same zest of living as Sidney, but
+with this difference--the girl stood ready to give herself to life: he
+knew that life would come to him. All-dominating male was Dr. Max, that
+morning, as he drew on his gloves before stepping into his car. It was
+after nine o'clock. K. Le Moyne had been an hour at his desk. The McKee
+napkins lay ironed in orderly piles.
+
+Nevertheless, Dr. Max was suffering under a sense of defeat as he rode
+downtown. The night before, he had proposed to a girl and had been
+rejected. He was not in love with the girl,--she would have been a
+suitable wife, and a surgeon ought to be married; it gives people
+confidence,--but his pride was hurt. He recalled the exact words of the
+rejection.
+
+"You're too good-looking, Max," she had said, "and that's the truth. Now
+that operations are as popular as fancy dancing, and much less bother,
+half the women I know are crazy about their surgeons. I'm too fond of my
+peace of mind."
+
+"But, good Heavens! haven't you any confidence in me?" he had demanded.
+
+"None whatever, Max dear." She had looked at him with level,
+understanding eyes.
+
+He put the disagreeable recollection out of his mind as he parked his
+car and made his way to his office. Here would be people who believed
+in him, from the middle-aged nurse in her prim uniform to the row of
+patients sitting stiffly around the walls of the waiting-room. Dr. Max,
+pausing in the hall outside the door of his private office, drew a long
+breath. This was the real thing--work and plenty of it, a chance to show
+the other men what he could do, a battle to win! No humanitarian was he,
+but a fighter: each day he came to his office with the same battle lust.
+
+The office nurse had her back to him. When she turned, he faced an
+agreeable surprise. Instead of Miss Simpson, he faced a young and
+attractive girl, faintly familiar.
+
+"We tried to get you by telephone," she explained. "I am from the
+hospital. Miss Simpson's father died this morning, and she knew you
+would have to have some one. I was just starting for my vacation, so
+they sent me."
+
+"Rather a poor substitute for a vacation," he commented.
+
+She was a very pretty girl. He had seen her before in the hospital, but
+he had never really noticed how attractive she was. Rather stunning
+she was, he thought. The combination of yellow hair and dark eyes
+was unusual. He remembered, just in time, to express regret at Miss
+Simpson's bereavement.
+
+"I am Miss Harrison," explained the substitute, and held out his long
+white coat. The ceremony, purely perfunctory with Miss Simpson on duty,
+proved interesting, Miss Harrison, in spite of her high heels, being
+small and the young surgeon tall. When he was finally in the coat, she
+was rather flushed and palpitating.
+
+"But I KNEW your name, of course," lied Dr. Max. "And--I'm sorry about
+the vacation."
+
+After that came work. Miss Harrison was nimble and alert, but the
+surgeon worked quickly and with few words, was impatient when she could
+not find the things he called for, even broke into restrained profanity
+now and then. She went a little pale over her mistakes, but preserved
+her dignity and her wits. Now and then he found her dark eyes fixed
+on him, with something inscrutable but pleasing in their depths. The
+situation was: rather piquant. Consciously he was thinking only of what
+he was doing. Subconsciously his busy ego was finding solace after last
+night's rebuff.
+
+Once, during the cleaning up between cases, he dropped to a personality.
+He was drying his hands, while she placed freshly sterilized instruments
+on a glass table.
+
+"You are almost a foreign type, Miss Harrison. Last year, in a London
+ballet, I saw a blonde Spanish girl who looked like you."
+
+"My mother was a Spaniard." She did not look up.
+
+Where Miss Simpson was in the habit of clumping through the morning in
+flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on
+the tiled floor. With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was
+essentially feminine, almost insistent. When he had time to notice it,
+it amused him that he did not find it annoying.
+
+Once, as she passed him a bistoury, he deliberately placed his fine
+hand over her fingers and smiled into her eyes. It was play for him; it
+lightened the day's work.
+
+Sidney was in the waiting-room. There had been no tedium in the
+morning's waiting. Like all imaginative people, she had the gift of
+dramatizing herself. She was seeing herself in white from head to
+foot, like this efficient young woman who came now and then to the
+waiting-room door; she was healing the sick and closing tired eyes; she
+was even imagining herself proposed to by an aged widower with grown
+children and quantities of money, one of her patients.
+
+She sat very demurely in the waiting-room with a magazine in her lap,
+and told her aged patient that she admired and respected him, but that
+she had given herself to the suffering poor.
+
+"Everything in the world that you want," begged the elderly gentleman.
+"You should see the world, child, and I will see it again through your
+eyes. To Paris first for clothes and the opera, and then--"
+
+"But I do not love you," Sidney replied, mentally but steadily. "In all
+the world I love only one man. He is--"
+
+She hesitated here. It certainly was not Joe, or K. Le Moyne of the
+gas office. It seem to her suddenly very sad that there was no one
+she loved. So many people went into hospitals because they had been
+disappointed in love.
+
+"Dr. Wilson will see you now."
+
+She followed Miss Harrison into the consulting room. Dr. Max--not the
+gloved and hatted Dr. Max of the Street, but a new person, one she had
+never known--stood in his white office, tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired,
+competent, holding out his long, immaculate surgeon's hand, and smiling
+down at her.
+
+Men, like jewels, require a setting. A clerk on a high stool, poring
+over a ledger, is not unimpressive, or a cook over her stove. But place
+the cook on the stool, poring over the ledger! Dr. Max, who had lived
+all his life on the edge of Sidney's horizon, now, by the simple
+changing of her point of view, loomed large and magnificent. Perhaps
+he knew it. Certainly he stood very erect. Certainly, too, there was
+considerable manner in the way in which he asked Miss Harrison to go out
+and close the door behind her.
+
+Sidney's heart, considering what was happening to it, behaved very well.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Sidney," said Dr. Max, "here you are a young lady
+and I've never noticed it!"
+
+This, of course, was not what he had intended to say, being staff and
+all that. But Sidney, visibly palpitant, was very pretty, much prettier
+than the Harrison girl, beating a tattoo with her heels in the next
+room.
+
+Dr. Max, belonging to the class of man who settles his tie every time he
+sees an attractive woman, thrust his hands into the pockets of his long
+white coat and surveyed her quizzically.
+
+"Did Dr. Ed tell you?"
+
+"Sit down. He said something about the hospital. How's your mother and
+Aunt Harriet?"
+
+"Very well--that is, mother's never quite well." She was sitting forward
+on her chair, her wide young eyes on him. "Is that--is your nurse from
+the hospital here?"
+
+"Yes. But she's not my nurse. She's a substitute."
+
+"The uniform is so pretty." Poor Sidney! with all the things she had
+meant to say about a life of service, and that, although she was young,
+she was terribly in earnest.
+
+"It takes a lot of plugging before one gets the uniform. Look here,
+Sidney; if you are going to the hospital because of the uniform, and
+with any idea of soothing fevered brows and all that nonsense--"
+
+She interrupted him, deeply flushed. Indeed, no. She wanted to work.
+She was young and strong, and surely a pair of willing hands--that was
+absurd about the uniform. She had no silly ideas. There was so much to
+do in the world, and she wanted to help. Some people could give money,
+but she couldn't. She could only offer service. And, partly through
+earnestness and partly through excitement, she ended in a sort of
+nervous sob, and, going to the window, stood with her back to him.
+
+He followed her, and, because they were old neighbors, she did not
+resent it when he put his hand on her shoulder.
+
+"I don't know--of course, if you feel like that about it," he said,
+"we'll see what can be done. It's hard work, and a good many times it
+seems futile. They die, you know, in spite of all we can do. And there
+are many things that are worse than death--"
+
+His voice trailed off. When he had started out in his profession, he
+had had some such ideal of service as this girl beside him. For just
+a moment, as he stood there close to her, he saw things again with the
+eyes of his young faith: to relieve pain, to straighten the crooked,
+to hurt that he might heal,--not to show the other men what he could
+do,--that had been his early creed. He sighed a little as he turned
+away.
+
+"I'll speak to the superintendent about you," he said. "Perhaps you'd
+like me to show you around a little."
+
+"When? To-day?"
+
+He had meant in a month, or a year. It was quite a minute before he
+replied:--
+
+"Yes, to-day, if you say. I'm operating at four. How about three
+o'clock?"
+
+She held out both hands, and he took them, smiling.
+
+"You are the kindest person I ever met."
+
+"And--perhaps you'd better not say you are applying until we find out if
+there is a vacancy."
+
+"May I tell one person?"
+
+"Mother?"
+
+"No. We--we have a roomer now. He is very much interested. I should like
+to tell him."
+
+He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
+
+"Much interested! Is he in love with you?"
+
+"Mercy, no!"
+
+"I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than
+half in love with you myself!"
+
+Play for him--the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss
+Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how
+it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
+
+"Then we'll say at three," she said calmly, and took an orderly and
+unflurried departure.
+
+But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the
+last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,--outgrowing Joe, had she
+only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,--had come that day into
+her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne.
+But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that
+she was leaving behind her.
+
+She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put
+it under his plate:--
+
+DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,--I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the
+surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish
+me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.
+
+K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft
+and the other "mealers" irritable with the heat, he ate little or no
+luncheon. Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again.
+To his jealous eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital.
+Sidney, all vibrant eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and
+Wilson, sardonically smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself.
+He drew a long breath, and thrust the note in his pocket.
+
+The little house across the way sat square in the sun. The shades of his
+windows had been lowered against the heat. K. Le Moyne made an impulsive
+movement toward it and checked himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le
+Moyne moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go
+by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap
+lay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of
+releasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to
+the point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of
+the apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red
+and white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
+
+"And so," said K. Le Moyne, "you liked it all? It didn't startle you?"
+
+"Well, in one way, of course--you see, I didn't know it was quite like
+that: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, on
+top,--you know what I mean,--and the misery there just the same. Have
+you ever gone through a hospital?"
+
+K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head. For
+this excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pair
+of white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat. Sidney had been
+divided between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street would
+deem him overdressed.
+
+At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch and
+the bit of blue heaven overhead. He did not reply at once.
+
+"Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!" said Sidney to the pasteboard
+box.
+
+But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
+
+"I've been around hospitals a little. I suppose now there is no question
+about your going?"
+
+"The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr.
+Wilson's would certainly be given a chance."
+
+"It is hard work, night and day."
+
+"Do you think I am afraid of work?"
+
+"And--Joe?"
+
+Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
+
+"He is very silly. He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head."
+
+"Such as--"
+
+"Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marry
+him, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready."
+
+"Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?"
+
+"I haven't promised to marry him."
+
+"But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to,
+better tell him, don't you think? What--what are these idiotic notions?"
+
+Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the
+box.
+
+"You can see how stupid he is, and--and young. For one thing, he's
+jealous of you!"
+
+"I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his
+suspicion is hardly flattering to me."
+
+He smiled up at her.
+
+"I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He was
+furious. And that wasn't all."
+
+"No?"
+
+"He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the day
+we went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's for
+soda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic."
+
+K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle
+of the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in two
+people, a man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy
+lover on the next stool. Now he could view things through Joe's tragic
+eyes. And there as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably
+the conversation turned to the young surgeon. Did they start with
+Reginald, with the condition of the morning-glory vines, with the
+proposition of taking up the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the
+Street, they ended with the younger Wilson.
+
+Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her
+life, was still on herself.
+
+"Mother is plaintively resigned--and Aunt Harriet has been a trump.
+She's going to keep her room. It's really up to you."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticed
+that you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up
+to you the other night. And she didn't object to this trip to-day. Of
+course, as she said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at all
+wild."
+
+In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, God
+knew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old
+did this child think he was?
+
+"I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog,
+burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of
+custard. Lightning-conductor, too--your mother says she isn't afraid of
+storms if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course."
+
+The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threw
+back his fine shoulders.
+
+"Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be,
+whatever his name is--we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I
+ever hear of Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon--"
+
+She smiled up at him. "You are looking very grand to-day. But you have
+grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out."
+
+Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity
+of dress. It put him on his mettle.
+
+"How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?"
+
+She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the
+doubt.
+
+"Not over forty, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is not
+senility."
+
+She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
+
+"Perhaps we'd better not tell mother," she said. "You don't mind being
+thought older?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she
+harked back to the grass stains.
+
+"I'm afraid you're not saving, as you promised. Those are new clothes,
+aren't they?"
+
+"No, indeed. Bought years ago in England--the coat in London, the
+trousers in Bath, on a motor tour. Cost something like twelve shillings.
+Awfully cheap. They wear them for cricket."
+
+That was a wrong move, of course. Sidney must hear about England; and
+she marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there.
+Poor Le Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here and
+there, clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
+
+"To think," said Sidney, "that you have really been across the ocean! I
+never knew but one person who had been abroad. It is Dr. Max Wilson."
+
+Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, was
+aroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
+
+"You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don't you?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You talk about him rather a lot."
+
+This was sheer recklessness, of course. He expected fury, annihilation.
+He did not look up, but busied himself with the luncheon. When the
+silence grew oppressive, he ventured to glance toward her. She was
+leaning forward, her chin cupped in her palms, staring out over the
+valley that stretched at their feet.
+
+"Don't speak to me for a minute or two," she said. "I'm thinking over
+what you have just said."
+
+Manlike, having raised the issue, K. would have given much to evade it.
+Not that he had owned himself in love with Sidney. Love was not for
+him. But into his loneliness and despair the girl had came like a ray of
+light. She typified that youth and hope that he had felt slipping away
+from him. Through her clear eyes he was beginning to see a new world.
+Lose her he must, and that he knew; but not this way.
+
+Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions to
+both depth and fury. He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, with
+this same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,
+while he snapped the shutter of a camera. He had that picture somewhere
+now; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only one
+who had met life and vanquished it.
+
+"I've known him all my life," Sidney said at last. "You're perfectly
+right about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him. I'm being
+candid, because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank?
+I admire him--you'd have to see him in the hospital, with every one
+deferring to him and all that, to understand. And when you think of
+a manlike that, who holds life and death in his hands, of course you
+rather thrill. I--I honestly believe that's all there is to it."
+
+"If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion." He tried to
+smile; succeeded faintly.
+
+"Well, of course, there's this, too. I know he'll never look at me.
+I'll be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a
+probationer. He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital at
+all."
+
+"I see. Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would be
+different?"
+
+"If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me," said Sidney solemnly,
+"I'd go out of my head with joy."
+
+One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of living
+each day for itself. Having no past and no future, each day was worth
+exactly what it brought. He was to look back to this day with mingled
+feelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; the
+memory of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to
+herself, already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and,
+long, long after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and
+saved her by his steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward
+happening that closed the day.
+
+Sidney fell into the river.
+
+They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of a
+shamefaced tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K. The
+little squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had darted
+into the grass.
+
+"Ungrateful little beast!" said Sidney, and dried her eyes. "Do you
+suppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?"
+
+"He'll be all right," K. replied. "The little beggar can take care of
+himself, if only--"
+
+"If only what?"
+
+"If only he isn't too friendly. He's apt to crawl into the pockets of
+any one who happens around."
+
+She was alarmed at that. To make up for his indiscretion, K. suggested a
+descent to the river. She accepted eagerly, and he helped her down. That
+was another memory that outlasted the day--her small warm hand in his;
+the time she slipped and he caught her; the pain in her eyes at one of
+his thoughtless remarks.
+
+"I'm going to be pretty lonely," he said, when she had paused in the
+descent and was taking a stone out of her low shoe. "Reginald gone, and
+you going! I shall hate to come home at night." And then, seeing her
+wince: "I've been whining all day. For Heaven's sake, don't look like
+that. If there's one sort of man I detest more than another, it's a man
+who is sorry for himself. Do you suppose your mother would object if
+we stayed, out here at the hotel for supper? I've ordered a moon,
+orange-yellow and extra size."
+
+"I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted."
+
+"Then we'll stay."
+
+"It's fearfully extravagant."
+
+"I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital."
+
+So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow. For,
+having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,
+slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water. K. happened
+to be looking in another direction. So it occurred that at one moment,
+Sidney sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly
+pretty, and knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep in
+water, much too startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under the
+rather trying circumstances. K. had not looked around. The splash had
+been a gentle one.
+
+"If you will be good enough," said Sidney, with her chin well up, "to
+give me your hand or a pole or something--because if the river rises an
+inch I shall drown."
+
+To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and saw
+her. He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up its
+slippery sides. He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
+
+"Well!" said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefully
+balanced.
+
+"Are you cold?"
+
+"Not a bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then,
+remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:--
+
+"Thank you for saving me."
+
+"There wasn't any danger, really, unless--unless the river had risen."
+
+And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first,
+perhaps, for months. He shook with it, struggled at the sight of her
+injured face to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety by
+fixing his eyes on the river-bank.
+
+"When you have quite finished," said Sidney severely, "perhaps you will
+take me to the hotel. I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed."
+
+He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet skirts clung to her; her
+shoes were sodden and heavy. She clung to him frantically, her eyes on
+the river below. With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died.
+He held her very carefully, very tenderly, as one holds something
+infinitely precious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital. It was a Wilson day, the
+young surgeon having six cases. One of the innovations Dr. Max had
+made was to change the hour for major operations from early morning to
+mid-afternoon. He could do as well later in the day,--his nerves were
+steady, and uncounted numbers of cigarettes did not make his hand
+shake,--and he hated to get up early.
+
+The staff had fallen into the way of attending Wilson's operations. His
+technique was good; but technique alone never gets a surgeon anywhere.
+Wilson was getting results. Even the most jealous of that most jealous
+of professions, surgery, had to admit that he got results.
+
+Operations were over for the afternoon. The last case had been
+wheeled out of the elevator. The pit of the operating-room was
+in disorder--towels everywhere, tables of instruments, steaming
+sterilizers. Orderlies were going about, carrying out linens, emptying
+pans. At a table two nurses were cleaning instruments and putting
+them away in their glass cases. Irrigators were being emptied, sponges
+recounted and checked off on written lists.
+
+In the midst of the confusion, Wilson stood giving last orders to the
+interne at his elbow. As he talked he scoured his hands and arms with a
+small brush; bits of lather flew off on to the tiled floor. His speech
+was incisive, vigorous. At the hospital they said his nerves were iron;
+there was no let-down after the day's work. The internes worshiped and
+feared him. He was just, but without mercy. To be able to work like
+that, so certainly, with so sure a touch, and to look like a Greek god!
+Wilson's only rival, a gynecologist named O'Hara, got results, too; but
+he sweated and swore through his operations, was not too careful as to
+asepsis, and looked like a gorilla.
+
+The day had been a hard one. The operating room nurses were fagged. Two
+or three probationers had been sent to help cleanup, and a senior nurse.
+Wilson's eyes caught the nurse's eyes as she passed him.
+
+"Here, too, Miss Harrison!" he said gayly. "Have they set you on my
+trail?"
+
+With the eyes of the room on her, the girl answered primly:--
+
+"I'm to be in your office in the mornings, Dr. Wilson, and anywhere I am
+needed in the afternoons."
+
+"And your vacation?"
+
+"I shall take it when Miss Simpson comes back."
+
+Although he went on at once with his conversation with the interne, he
+still heard the click of her heels about the room. He had not lost the
+fact that she had flushed when he spoke to her. The mischief that was
+latent in him came to the surface. When he had rinsed his hands, he
+followed her, carrying the towel to where she stood talking to the
+superintendent of the training school.
+
+"Thanks very much, Miss Gregg," he said. "Everything went off nicely."
+
+"I was sorry about that catgut. We have no trouble with what we prepare
+ourselves. But with so many operations--"
+
+He was in a magnanimous mood. He smiled' at Miss Gregg, who was elderly
+and gray, but visibly his creature.
+
+"That's all right. It's the first time, and of course it will be the
+last."
+
+"The sponge list, doctor."
+
+He glanced over it, noting accurately sponges prepared, used, turned in.
+But he missed no gesture of the girl who stood beside Miss Gregg.
+
+"All right." He returned the list. "That was a mighty pretty probationer
+I brought you yesterday."
+
+Two small frowning lines appeared between Miss Harrison's dark brows.
+He caught them, caught her somber eyes too, and was amused and rather
+stimulated.
+
+"She is very young."
+
+"Prefer 'em young," said Dr. Max. "Willing to learn at that age. You'll
+have to watch her, though. You'll have all the internes buzzing around,
+neglecting business."
+
+Miss Gregg rather fluttered. She was divided between her disapproval
+of internes at all times and of young probationers generally, and her
+allegiance to the brilliant surgeon whose word was rapidly becoming law
+in the hospital. When an emergency of the cleaning up called her away,
+doubt still in her eyes, Wilson was left alone with Miss Harrison.
+
+"Tired?" He adopted the gentle, almost tender tone that made most women
+his slaves.
+
+"A little. It is warm."
+
+"What are you going to do this evening? Any lectures?"
+
+"Lectures are over for the summer. I shall go to prayers, and after that
+to the roof for air."
+
+There was a note of bitterness in her voice. Under the eyes of the other
+nurses, she was carefully contained. They might have been outlining the
+morning's work at his office.
+
+"The hand lotion, please."
+
+She brought it obediently and poured it into his cupped hands. The
+solutions of the operating-room played havoc with the skin: the
+surgeons, and especially Wilson, soaked their hands plentifully with a
+healing lotion.
+
+Over the bottle their eyes met again, and this time the girl smiled
+faintly.
+
+"Can't you take a little ride to-night and cool off? I'll have the car
+wherever you say. A ride and some supper--how does it sound? You could
+get away at seven--"
+
+"Miss Gregg is coming!"
+
+With an impassive face, the girl took the bottle away. The workers
+of the operating-room surged between them. An interne presented an
+order-book; moppers had come in and waited to clean the tiled floor.
+There seemed no chance for Wilson to speak to Miss Harrison again.
+
+But he was clever with the guile of the pursuing male. Eyes of all on
+him, he turned at the door of the wardrobe-room, where he would exchange
+his white garments for street clothing, and spoke to her over the heads
+of a dozen nurses.
+
+"That patient's address that I had forgotten, Miss Harrison, is the
+corner of the Park and Ellington Avenue."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+She played the game well, was quite calm. He admired her coolness.
+Certainly she was pretty, and certainly, too, she was interested in
+him. The hurt to his pride of a few nights before was healed. He went
+whistling into the wardrobe-room. As he turned he caught the interne's
+eye, and there passed between them a glance of complete comprehension.
+The interne grinned.
+
+The room was not empty. His brother was there, listening to the comments
+of O'Hara, his friendly rival.
+
+"Good work, boy!" said O'Hara, and clapped a hairy hand on his shoulder.
+"That last case was a wonder. I'm proud of you, and your brother here is
+indecently exalted. It was the Edwardes method, wasn't it? I saw it done
+at his clinic in New York."
+
+"Glad you liked it. Yes. Edwardes was a pal at mine in Berlin. A great
+surgeon, too, poor old chap!"
+
+"There aren't three men in the country with the nerve and the hand for
+it."
+
+O'Hara went out, glowing with his own magnanimity. Deep in his heart
+was a gnawing of envy--not for himself, but for his work. These young
+fellows with no family ties, who could run over to Europe and bring back
+anything new that was worth while, they had it all over the older men.
+Not that he would have changed things. God forbid!
+
+Dr. Ed stood by and waited while his brother got into his street
+clothes. He was rather silent. There were many times when he wished that
+their mother could have lived to see how he had carried out his promise
+to "make a man of Max." This was one of them. Not that he took any
+credit for Max's brilliant career--but he would have liked her to know
+that things were going well. He had a picture of her over his office
+desk. Sometimes he wondered what she would think of his own untidy
+methods compared with Max's extravagant order--of the bag, for instance,
+with the dog's collar in it, and other things. On these occasions he
+always determined to clear out the bag.
+
+"I guess I'll be getting along," he said. "Will you be home to dinner?"
+
+"I think not. I'll--I'm going to run out of town, and eat where it's
+cool."
+
+The Street was notoriously hot in summer. When Dr. Max was newly home
+from Europe, and Dr. Ed was selling a painfully acquired bond or two
+to furnish the new offices downtown, the brothers had occasionally gone
+together, by way of the trolley, to the White Springs Hotel for supper.
+Those had been gala days for the older man. To hear names that he had
+read with awe, and mispronounced, most of his life, roll off Max's
+tongue--"Old Steinmetz" and "that ass of a Heydenreich"; to hear the
+medical and surgical gossip of the Continent, new drugs, new technique,
+the small heart-burnings of the clinics, student scandal--had brought
+into his drab days a touch of color. But that was over now. Max had new
+friends, new social obligations; his time was taken up. And pride would
+not allow the older brother to show how he missed the early days.
+
+Forty-two he was, and; what with sleepless nights and twenty years of
+hurried food, he looked fifty. Fifty, then, to Max's thirty.
+
+"There's a roast of beef. It's a pity to cook a roast for one."
+
+Wasteful, too, this cooking of food for two and only one to eat it. A
+roast of beef meant a visit, in Dr. Ed's modest-paying clientele. He
+still paid the expenses of the house on the Street.
+
+"Sorry, old man; I've made another arrangement."
+
+They left the hospital together. Everywhere the younger man received the
+homage of success. The elevator-man bowed and flung the doors open,
+with a smile; the pharmacy clerk, the doorkeeper, even the convalescent
+patient who was polishing the great brass doorplate, tendered their
+tribute. Dr. Ed looked neither to right nor left.
+
+At the machine they separated. But Dr. Ed stood for a moment with his
+hand on the car.
+
+"I was thinking, up there this afternoon," he said slowly, "that I'm not
+sure I want Sidney Page to become a nurse."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There's a good deal in life that a girl need not know--not, at least,
+until her husband tells her. Sidney's been guarded, and it's bound to be
+a shock."
+
+"It's her own choice."
+
+"Exactly. A child reaches out for the fire."
+
+The motor had started. For the moment, at least, the younger Wilson had
+no interest in Sidney Page.
+
+"She'll manage all right. Plenty of other girls have taken the training
+and come through without spoiling their zest for life."
+
+Already, as the car moved off, his mind was on his appointment for the
+evening.
+
+Sidney, after her involuntary bath in the river, had gone into temporary
+eclipse at the White Springs Hotel. In the oven of the kitchen stove sat
+her two small white shoes, stuffed with paper so that they might dry
+in shape. Back in a detached laundry, a sympathetic maid was ironing
+various soft white garments, and singing as she worked.
+
+Sidney sat in a rocking-chair in a hot bedroom. She was carefully
+swathed in a sheet from neck to toes, except for her arms, and she was
+being as philosophic as possible. After all, it was a good chance to
+think things over. She had very little time to think, generally.
+
+She meant to give up Joe Drummond. She didn't want to hurt him. Well,
+there was that to think over and a matter of probation dresses to be
+talked over later with her Aunt Harriet. Also, there was a great deal of
+advice to K. Le Moyne, who was ridiculously extravagant, before trusting
+the house to him. She folded her white arms and prepared to think over
+all these things. As a matter of fact, she went mentally, like an arrow
+to its mark, to the younger Wilson--to his straight figure in its white
+coat, to his dark eyes and heavy hair, to the cleft in his chin when he
+smiled.
+
+"You know, I have always been more than half in love with you myself..."
+
+Some one tapped lightly at the door. She was back again in the stuffy
+hotel room, clutching the sheet about her.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"It's Le Moyne. Are you all right?"
+
+"Perfectly. How stupid it must be for you!"
+
+"I'm doing very well. The maid will soon be ready. What shall I order
+for supper?"
+
+"Anything. I'm starving."
+
+Whatever visions K. Le Moyne may have had of a chill or of a feverish
+cold were dispelled by that.
+
+"The moon has arrived, as per specifications. Shall we eat on the
+terrace?"
+
+"I have never eaten on a terrace in my life. I'd love it."
+
+"I think your shoes have shrunk."
+
+"Flatterer!" She laughed. "Go away and order supper. And I can see fresh
+lettuce. Shall we have a salad?"
+
+K. Le Moyne assured her through the door that he would order a salad,
+and prepared to descend.
+
+But he stood for a moment in front of the closed door, for the mere
+sound of her moving, beyond it. Things had gone very far with the Pages'
+roomer that day in the country; not so far as they were to go, but far
+enough to let him see on the brink of what misery he stood.
+
+He could not go away. He had promised her to stay: he was needed. He
+thought he could have endured seeing her marry Joe, had she cared for
+the boy. That way, at least, lay safety for her. The boy had fidelity
+and devotion written large over him. But this new complication--her
+romantic interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her,
+with what he knew of the man--made him quail.
+
+From the top of the narrow staircase to the foot, and he had lived
+a year's torment! At the foot, however, he was startled out of his
+reverie. Joe Drummond stood there waiting for him, his blue eyes
+recklessly alight.
+
+"You--you dog!" said Joe.
+
+There were people in the hotel parlor. Le Moyne took the frenzied boy by
+the elbow and led him past the door to the empty porch.
+
+"Now," he said, "if you will keep your voice down, I'll listen to what
+you have to say."
+
+"You know what I've got to say."
+
+This failing to draw from K. Le Moyne anything but his steady glance,
+Joe jerked his arm free, and clenched his fist.
+
+"What did you bring her out here for?"
+
+"I do not know that I owe you any explanation, but I am willing to
+give you one. I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic
+luncheon. Incidentally we brought the ground squirrel out and set him
+free."
+
+He was sorry for the boy. Life not having been all beer and skittles to
+him, he knew that Joe was suffering, and was marvelously patient with
+him.
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"She had the misfortune to fall in the river. She is upstairs." And,
+seeing the light of unbelief in Joe's eyes: "If you care to make a tour
+of investigation, you will find that I am entirely truthful. In the
+laundry a maid--"
+
+"She is engaged to me"--doggedly. "Everybody in the neighborhood knows
+it; and yet you bring her out here for a picnic! It's--it's damned
+rotten treatment."
+
+His fist had unclenched. Before K. Le Moyne's eyes his own fell. He felt
+suddenly young and futile; his just rage turned to blustering in his
+ears.
+
+"Now, be honest with yourself. Is there really an engagement?"
+
+"Yes," doggedly.
+
+"Even in that case, isn't it rather arrogant to say that--that the young
+lady in question can accept no ordinary friendly attentions from another
+man?"
+
+Utter astonishment left Joe almost speechless. The Street, of course,
+regarded an engagement as a setting aside of the affianced couple, an
+isolation of two, than which marriage itself was not more a solitude a
+deux. After a moment:--
+
+"I don't know where you came from," he said, "but around here decent men
+cut out when a girl's engaged."
+
+"I see!"
+
+"What's more, what do we know about you? Who are you, anyhow? I've
+looked you up. Even at your office they don't know anything. You may be
+all right, but how do I know it? And, even if you are, renting a room in
+the Page house doesn't entitle you to interfere with the family. You get
+her into trouble and I'll kill you!"
+
+It took courage, that speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches
+above him and growing a little white about the lips.
+
+"Are you going to say all these things to Sidney?"
+
+"Does she allow you to call her Sidney?"
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"I am. And I am going to find out why you were upstairs just now."
+
+Perhaps never in his twenty-two years had young Drummond been so near a
+thrashing. Fury that he was ashamed of shook Le Moyne. For very fear of
+himself, he thrust his hands in the pockets of his Norfolk coat.
+
+"Very well," he said. "You go to her with just one of these ugly
+insinuations, and I'll take mighty good care that you are sorry for it.
+I don't care to threaten. You're younger than I am, and lighter. But
+if you are going to behave like a bad child, you deserve a licking, and
+I'll give it to you."
+
+An overflow from the parlor poured out on the porch. Le Moyne had got
+himself in hand somewhat. He was still angry, but the look in Joe's eyes
+startled him. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
+
+"You're wrong, old man," he said. "You're insulting the girl you care
+for by the things you are thinking. And, if it's any comfort to you, I
+have no intention of interfering in any way. You can count me out. It's
+between you and her." Joe picked his straw hat from a chair and stood
+turning it in his hands.
+
+"Even if you don't care for her, how do I know she isn't crazy about
+you?"
+
+"My word of honor, she isn't."
+
+"She sends you notes to McKees'."
+
+"Just to clear the air, I'll show it to you. It's no breach of
+confidence. It's about the hospital."
+
+Into the breast pocket of his coat he dived and brought up a wallet.
+The wallet had had a name on it in gilt letters that had been carefully
+scraped off. But Joe did not wait to see the note.
+
+"Oh, damn the hospital!" he said--and went swiftly down the steps and
+into the gathering twilight of the June night.
+
+It was only when he reached the street-car, and sat huddled in a corner,
+that he remembered something.
+
+Only about the hospital--but Le Moyne had kept the note, treasured it!
+Joe was not subtle, not even clever; but he was a lover, and he knew the
+ways of love. The Pages' roomer was in love with Sidney whether he knew
+it or not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Carlotta Harrison pleaded a headache, and was excused from the
+operating-room and from prayers.
+
+"I'm sorry about the vacation," Miss Gregg said kindly, "but in a day or
+two I can let you off. Go out now and get a little air."
+
+The girl managed to dissemble the triumph in her eyes.
+
+"Thank you," she said languidly, and turned away. Then: "About the
+vacation, I am not in a hurry. If Miss Simpson needs a few days to
+straighten things out, I can stay on with Dr. Wilson."
+
+Young women on the eve of a vacation were not usually so reasonable.
+Miss Gregg was grateful.
+
+"She will probably need a week. Thank you. I wish more of the girls
+were as thoughtful, with the house full and operations all day and every
+day."
+
+Outside the door of the anaesthetizing-room Miss Harrison's languor
+vanished. She sped along corridors and up the stairs, not waiting for
+the deliberate elevator. Inside of her room, she closed and bolted the
+door, and, standing before her mirror, gazed long at her dark eyes and
+bright hair. Then she proceeded briskly with her dressing.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was not a child. Though she was only three years older
+than Sidney, her experience of life was as of three to Sidney's one.
+The product of a curious marriage,--when Tommy Harrison of Harrison's
+Minstrels, touring Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of
+a Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,--she had certain qualities of
+both, a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse,
+complicated by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious
+bursts of temper, slow and smouldering vindictiveness. A passionate
+creature, in reality, smothered under hereditary Massachusetts caution.
+
+She was well aware of the risks of the evening's adventure. The only
+dread she had was of the discovery of her escapade by the hospital
+authorities. Lines were sharply drawn. Nurses were forbidden more than
+the exchange of professional conversation with the staff. In that
+world of her choosing, of hard work and little play, of service and
+self-denial and vigorous rules of conduct, discovery meant dismissal.
+
+She put on a soft black dress, open at the throat, and with a wide white
+collar and cuffs of some sheer material. Her yellow hair was drawn high
+under her low black hat. From her Spanish mother she had learned to
+please the man, not herself. She guessed that Dr. Max would wish her to
+be inconspicuous, and she dressed accordingly. Then, being a cautious
+person, she disarranged her bed slightly and thumped a hollow into
+her pillow. The nurses' rooms were subject to inspection, and she had
+pleaded a headache.
+
+She was exactly on time. Dr. Max, driving up to the corner five minutes
+late, found her there, quite matter-of-fact but exceedingly handsome,
+and acknowledged the evening's adventure much to his taste.
+
+"A little air first, and then supper--how's that?"
+
+"Air first, please. I'm very tired."
+
+He turned the car toward the suburbs, and then, bending toward her,
+smiled into her eyes.
+
+"Well, this is life!"
+
+"I'm cool for the first time to-day."
+
+After that they spoke very little. Even Wilson's superb nerves had
+felt the strain of the afternoon, and under the girl's dark eyes were
+purplish shadows. She leaned back, weary but luxuriously content.
+
+"Not uneasy, are you?"
+
+"Not particularly. I'm too comfortable. But I hope we're not seen."
+
+"Even if we are, why not? You are going with me to a case. I've driven
+Miss Simpson about a lot."
+
+It was almost eight when he turned the car into the drive of the White
+Springs Hotel. The six-to-eight supper was almost over. One or two motor
+parties were preparing for the moonlight drive back to the city. All
+around was virgin country, sweet with early summer odors of new-cut
+grass, of blossoming trees and warm earth. On the grass terrace over the
+valley, where ran Sidney's unlucky river, was a magnolia full of creamy
+blossoms among waxed leaves. Its silhouette against the sky was quaintly
+heart-shaped.
+
+Under her mask of languor, Carlotta's heart was beating wildly. What an
+adventure! What a night! Let him lose his head a little; she could keep
+hers. If she were skillful and played things right, who could tell? To
+marry him, to leave behind the drudgery of the hospital, to feel safe as
+she had not felt for years, that was a stroke to play for!
+
+The magnolia was just beside her. She reached up and, breaking off one
+of the heavy-scented flowers, placed it in the bosom of her black dress.
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne were dining together. The novelty of the
+experience had made her eyes shine like stars. She saw only the magnolia
+tree shaped like a heart, the terrace edged with low shrubbery, and
+beyond the faint gleam that was the river. For her the dish-washing
+clatter of the kitchen was stilled, the noises from the bar were lost in
+the ripple of the river; the scent of the grass killed the odor of stale
+beer that wafted out through the open windows. The unshaded glare of the
+lights behind her in the house was eclipsed by the crescent edge of the
+rising moon. Dinner was over. Sidney was experiencing the rare treat of
+after-dinner coffee.
+
+Le Moyne, grave and contained, sat across from her. To give so much
+pleasure, and so easily! How young she was, and radiant! No wonder the
+boy was mad about her. She fairly held out her arms to life.
+
+Ah, that was too bad! Another table was being brought; they were not to
+be alone. But, what roused him in violent resentment only appealed to
+Sidney's curiosity. "Two places!" she commented. "Lovers, of course. Or
+perhaps honeymooners."
+
+K. tried to fall into her mood.
+
+"A box of candy against a good cigar, they are a stolid married couple."
+
+"How shall we know?"
+
+"That's easy. If they loll back and watch the kitchen door, I win. If
+they lean forward, elbows on the table, and talk, you get the candy."
+
+Sidney, who had been leaning forward, talking eagerly over the table,
+suddenly straightened and flushed.
+
+Carlotta Harrison came out alone. Although the tapping of her heels was
+dulled by the grass, although she had exchanged her cap for the black
+hat, Sidney knew her at once. A sort of thrill ran over her. It was the
+pretty nurse from Dr. Wilson's office. Was it possible--but of
+course not! The book of rules stated explicitly that such things were
+forbidden.
+
+"Don't turn around," she said swiftly. "It is the Miss Harrison I told
+you about. She is looking at us."
+
+Carlotta's eyes were blinded for a moment by the glare of the house
+lights. She dropped into her chair, with a flash of resentment at the
+proximity of the other table. She languidly surveyed its two occupants.
+Then she sat up, her eyes on Le Moyne's grave profile turned toward the
+valley.
+
+Lucky for her that Wilson had stopped in the bar, that Sidney's
+instinctive good manners forbade her staring, that only the edge of the
+summer moon shone through the trees. She went white and clutched the
+edge of the table, with her eyes closed. That gave her quick brain a
+chance. It was madness, June madness. She was always seeing him even in
+her dreams. This man was older, much older. She looked again.
+
+She had not been mistaken. Here, and after all these months! K. Le
+Moyne, quite unconscious of her presence, looked down into the valley.
+
+Wilson appeared on the wooden porch above the terrace, and stood, his
+eyes searching the half light for her. If he came down to her, the man
+at the next table might turn, would see her--
+
+She rose and went swiftly back toward the hotel. All the gayety was
+gone out of the evening for her, but she forced a lightness she did not
+feel:--
+
+"It is so dark and depressing out there--it makes me sad."
+
+"Surely you do not want to dine in the house?"
+
+"Do you mind?"
+
+"Just as you wish. This is your evening."
+
+But he was not pleased. The prospect of the glaring lights and soiled
+linen of the dining-room jarred on his aesthetic sense. He wanted a
+setting for himself, for the girl. Environment was vital to him. But
+when, in the full light of the moon, he saw the purplish shadows under
+her eyes, he forgot his resentment. She had had a hard day. She was
+tired. His easy sympathies were roused. He leaned over and ran his and
+caressingly along her bare forearm.
+
+"Your wish is my law--to-night," he said softly.
+
+After all, the evening was a disappointment to him. The spontaneity had
+gone out of it, for some reason. The girl who had thrilled to his glance
+those two mornings in his office, whose somber eyes had met his fire for
+fire, across the operating-room, was not playing up. She sat back in her
+chair, eating little, starting at every step. Her eyes, which by every
+rule of the game should have been gazing into his, were fixed on the
+oilcloth-covered passage outside the door.
+
+"I think, after all, you are frightened!"
+
+"Terribly."
+
+"A little danger adds to the zest of things. You know what Nietzsche
+says about that."
+
+"I am not fond of Nietzsche." Then, with an effort: "What does he say?"
+
+"Two things are wanted by the true man--danger and play. Therefore he
+seeketh woman as the most dangerous of toys."
+
+"Women are dangerous only when you think of them as toys. When a man
+finds that a woman can reason,--do anything but feel,--he regards her
+as a menace. But the reasoning woman is really less dangerous than the
+other sort."
+
+This was more like the real thing. To talk careful abstractions like
+this, with beneath each abstraction its concealed personal application,
+to talk of woman and look in her eyes, to discuss new philosophies with
+their freedoms, to discard old creeds and old moralities--that was
+his game. Wilson became content, interested again. The girl was
+nimble-minded. She challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to
+defend it. With the conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and
+his companion must surely have gone, she gained ease.
+
+It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten
+o'clock.
+
+Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself. He had had the
+rest he needed in congenial company. The girl stimulated his interest.
+She was mental, but not too mental. And he approved of his own attitude.
+He had been discreet. Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But
+he felt confident that she would not talk.
+
+As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney
+was there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and
+looked up at her. Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness. Sidney was a
+mighty pretty girl. The June night was in his blood. He was sorry he had
+not kissed Carlotta good-night. He rather thought, now he looked back,
+she had expected it.
+
+As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing
+in the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.
+
+Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.
+
+"That you, Joe?" he called.
+
+But the boy went on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine
+was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K.
+in the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.
+
+The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night
+before she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her
+mother until the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her
+"Daily Thoughts" reading.
+
+Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant
+angle. She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its
+morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the
+Wilson house across the Street. She looked mostly at the Wilson house.
+
+K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room. She could hear him tramping up and
+down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier
+pipe.
+
+All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up--except Joe. She
+would have liked to get that clear, too. She wanted him to know how she
+felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did not
+want to hurt him. But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew
+now that she would never marry him. She thought she would never marry;
+but, if she did, it would be a man doing a man's work in the world. Her
+eyes turned wistfully to the house across the Street.
+
+K.'s lamp still burned overhead, but his restless tramping about had
+ceased. He must be reading--he read a great deal. She really ought to go
+to bed. A neighborhood cat came stealthily across the Street, and stared
+up at the little balcony with green-glowing eyes.
+
+"Come on, Bill Taft," she said. "Reginald is gone, so you are welcome.
+Come on."
+
+Joe Drummond, passing the house for the fourth time that evening, heard
+her voice, and hesitated uncertainly on the pavement.
+
+"That you, Sid?" he called softly.
+
+"Joe! Come in."
+
+"It's late; I'd better get home."
+
+The misery in his voice hurt her.
+
+"I'll not keep you long. I want to talk to you."
+
+He came slowly toward her.
+
+"Well?" he said hoarsely.
+
+"You're not very kind to me, Joe."
+
+"My God!" said poor Joe. "Kind to you! Isn't the kindest thing I can do
+to keep out of your way?"
+
+"Not if you are hating me all the time."
+
+"I don't hate you."
+
+"Then why haven't you been to see me? If I have done anything--" Her
+voice was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
+
+"You haven't done anything but--show me where I get off."
+
+He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
+
+"If that's the way you feel about it--"
+
+"I'm not blaming you. I was a fool to think you'd ever care about me. I
+don't know that I feel so bad--about the thing. I've been around seeing
+some other girls, and I notice they're glad to see me, and treat me
+right, too." There was boyish bravado in his voice. "But what makes me
+sick is to have everyone saying you've jilted me."
+
+"Good gracious! Why, Joe, I never promised."
+
+"Well, we look at it in different ways; that's all. I took it for a
+promise."
+
+Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled. He bent
+forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
+
+"I'm crazy about you, Sidney. That's the truth. I wish I could die!"
+
+The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and
+rubbed against the boy's quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked
+the morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney,
+facing for the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather
+frightened, in her chair.
+
+"You don't mean that!"
+
+"I mean it, all right. If it wasn't for the folks, I'd jump in the
+river. I lied when I said I'd been to see other girls. What do I want
+with other girls? I want you!"
+
+"I'm not worth all that."
+
+"No girl's worth what I've been going through," he retorted bitterly.
+"But that doesn't help any. I don't eat; I don't sleep--I'm afraid
+sometimes of the way I feel. When I saw you at the White Springs with
+that roomer chap--"
+
+"Ah! You were there!"
+
+"If I'd had a gun I'd have killed him. I thought--" So far, out of sheer
+pity, she had left her hand in his. Now she drew it away.
+
+"This is wild, silly talk. You'll be sorry to-morrow."
+
+"It's the truth," doggedly.
+
+But he made a clutch at his self-respect. He was acting like a crazy
+boy, and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
+
+"When are you going to the hospital?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Is that Wilson's hospital?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Alas for his resolve! The red haze of jealousy came again. "You'll be
+seeing him every day, I suppose."
+
+"I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and
+a hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you're not
+rational."
+
+"No," he said heavily, "I'm not. If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd
+rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk
+about Wilson."
+
+"It isn't necessary to malign my friends." He rose.
+
+"I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep
+Reginald. He'd be something to remember you by."
+
+"One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the
+country. I'm sorry, Joe. You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?"
+
+"If I do, do you think you may change your mind?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the
+better." But his next words belied his intention. "And Wilson had better
+lookout. I'll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around
+you--well, he'd better look out!"
+
+That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell. He had reached the
+breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out
+to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact
+that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
+
+Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want
+it--this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride and
+threats. Lovers in fiction were of two classes--the accepted ones, who
+loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in
+despair, but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future
+with Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt
+aggrieved, insulted. She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously;
+and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its
+sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and
+set an imaginary dog after it. Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she
+went in and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.
+
+Le Moyne's light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She
+paused outside the door.
+
+"Are you sleepy?"--very softly.
+
+There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: "No,
+indeed."
+
+"I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow."
+
+"Just a minute."
+
+From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray
+coat. The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the
+corridor.
+
+"I believe you had forgotten!"
+
+"I? Certainly not. I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a
+visitor."
+
+"Only Joe Drummond."
+
+He gazed down at her quizzically.
+
+"And--is Joe more reasonable?"
+
+"He will be. He knows now that I--that I shall not marry him."
+
+"Poor chap! He'll buck up, of course. But it's a little hard just now."
+
+"I believe you think I should have married him."
+
+"I am only putting myself in his place and realizing--When do you
+leave?"
+
+"Just after breakfast."
+
+"I am going very early. Perhaps--"
+
+He hesitated. Then, hurriedly:--
+
+"I got a little present for you--nothing much, but your mother was quite
+willing. In fact, we bought it together."
+
+He went back into his room, and returned with a small box.
+
+"With all sorts of good luck," he said, and placed it in her hands.
+
+"How dear of you! And may I look now?"
+
+"I wish you would. Because, if you would rather have something else--"
+
+She opened the box with excited fingers. Ticking away on its satin bed
+was a small gold watch.
+
+"You'll need it, you see," he explained nervously, "It wasn't
+extravagant under the circumstances. Your mother's watch, which you had
+intended to take, had no second-hand. You'll need a second-hand to take
+pulses, you know."
+
+"A watch," said Sidney, eyes on it. "A dear little watch, to pin on and
+not put in a pocket. Why, you're the best person!"
+
+"I was afraid you might think it presumptuous," he said. "I haven't any
+right, of course. I thought of flowers--but they fade and what have you?
+You said that, you know, about Joe's roses. And then, your mother said
+you wouldn't be offended--"
+
+"Don't apologize for making me so happy!" she cried. "It's wonderful,
+really. And the little hand is for pulses! How many queer things you
+know!"
+
+After that she must pin it on, and slip in to stand before his mirror
+and inspect the result. It gave Le Moyne a queer thrill to see her there
+in the room among his books and his pipes. It make him a little sick,
+too, in view of to-morrow and the thousand-odd to-morrows when she would
+not be there.
+
+"I've kept you up shamefully,'" she said at last, "and you get up so
+early. I shall write you a note from the hospital, delivering a little
+lecture on extravagance--because how can I now, with this joy shining on
+me? And about how to keep Katie in order about your socks, and all sorts
+of things. And--and now, good-night."
+
+She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping a little to
+pass under the low chandelier.
+
+"Good-night," said Sidney.
+
+"Good-bye--and God bless you."
+
+She went out, and he closed the door softly behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they
+were chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young women
+coming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were
+medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with
+great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and
+lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass
+buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were
+bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played
+little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over
+all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent of the
+training-school, dubbed the Head, for short.
+
+Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission,
+Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept and
+dusted the wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled
+bandages--did everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had come
+to do.
+
+At night she did not go home. She sat on the edge of her narrow white
+bed and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, and
+practiced taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s little
+watch.
+
+Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to be
+waited for and cherished. One was when, early in the afternoon, with
+the ward in spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, the
+tables covered with their red covers, and the only sound the drone of
+the bandage-machine as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the
+door on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery
+greeting. At these times Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the
+ticking of the little watch.
+
+The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night
+nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys,
+having reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in
+their small parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over the
+exaltation of that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her
+healing and peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work
+meant: charity and its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace.
+Into the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired
+hands.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd," read the Head out of her worn Bible; "I shall
+not want."
+
+And the nurses: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth
+me beside the still waters."
+
+And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, "And I will
+dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Now and then there was a death
+behind one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routine
+of the ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by
+the others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on
+the record, and the body was taken away.
+
+At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to
+death. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Then
+she found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned.
+These things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy made
+them no less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the
+angels who keep the Great Record.
+
+On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and went
+to church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service.
+So it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it was
+only for a short time. Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, and
+to inspect the balcony, now finished.
+
+But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.
+
+There was a change in Sidney. Le Moyne was quick to see it. She was
+a trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Her mouth was
+tender, as always, but he thought it drooped. There was a new atmosphere
+of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.
+
+They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk
+shade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been a
+gift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister,
+so that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above
+the reverend gentleman.
+
+K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the
+pipe in his teeth.
+
+"And how have things been going?" asked Sidney practically.
+
+"Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,
+has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have
+picked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask
+you about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new
+fashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--"
+
+Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.
+
+"There," she said--"I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making an
+old woman of you already." Her tone was tragic.
+
+"Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the
+old way, with the bride's face covered."
+
+He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.
+
+"Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread. It has more bread and
+fewer air-holes. One cake of yeast--"
+
+Sidney sprang to her feet.
+
+"It's perfectly terrible!" she cried. "Because you rent a room in
+this house is no reason why you should give up your personality and
+your--intelligence. Not but that it's good for you. But Katie has
+made bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and if
+Christine can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married.
+Mother says you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the house
+before you go to bed. I--I never meant you to adopt the family!"
+
+K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.
+
+"Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch," he said. "And the
+groceryman has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, and
+weigh everything."
+
+"You are evading the question."
+
+"Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--for
+some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I
+lock up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a
+suggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward."
+
+Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older than
+she had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white. And yet,
+he was just thirty. That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like a
+boy. But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of his
+occupancy of the second-floor front.
+
+"And now," he said cheerfully, "what about yourself? You've lost a lot
+of illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's a
+step."
+
+"Life," observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world,
+"life is a terrible thing, K. We think we've got it, and--it's got us."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"When I think of how simple I used to think it all was! One grew up and
+got married, and--and perhaps had children. And when one got very
+old, one died. Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists of
+exceptions--children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die before
+they are old. And"--this took an effort, but she looked at him
+squarely--"and people who have children, but are not married. It all
+rather hurts."
+
+"All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting."
+
+Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiar
+objects with tender hands. K. watched her. There was this curious
+element in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on the
+guise of friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonely
+hours that it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch of
+her hand or a glance from her clear eyes.
+
+Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently,
+so that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.
+
+"There is something else," she said absently. "I cannot talk it over
+with mother. There is a girl in the ward--"
+
+"A patient?"
+
+"Yes. She is quite pretty. She has had typhoid, but she is a little
+better. She's--not a good person."
+
+"I see."
+
+"At first I couldn't bear to go near her. I shivered when I had to
+straighten her bed. I--I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk this
+out with someone. I worried a lot about it, because, although at first I
+hated her, now I don't. I rather like her."
+
+She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, this is the question. She's getting better. She'll be able to
+go out soon. Don't you think something ought to be done to keep her
+from--going back?"
+
+There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now. She was so young to face all this;
+and yet, since face it she must, how much better to have her do it
+squarely.
+
+"Does she want to change her mode of life?"
+
+"I don't know, of course. There are some things one doesn't discuss. She
+cares a great deal for some man. The other day I propped her up in bed
+and gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on the
+floor, and she was crying. The other patients avoid her, and it was
+some time before I noticed it. The next day she told me that the man
+was going to marry some one else. 'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' she
+said; 'but he might have told me.'"
+
+Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provide
+Sidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training. He told her
+that certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reform
+the world. Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.
+
+"Help them all you can," he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly
+didactic. "Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest to
+the Almighty."
+
+Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of the
+world, she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christine
+and her fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time for
+a question between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress
+from the kitchen to the front door.
+
+"How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?" His tone was
+carefully casual.
+
+"Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. It
+makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the
+staff never even see the probationers."
+
+"And--the glamour persists?" He smiled down at her.
+
+"I think he is very wonderful," said Sidney valiantly.
+
+Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Her
+voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide
+and showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her
+all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who had
+met her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked a
+cigarette in the hall.
+
+"You poor thing!" said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's.
+"Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of it
+all; but I said--"
+
+"I take that back," Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. "There
+is the look of willing martyrdom in her face. Where is Reginald? I've
+brought some nuts for him."
+
+"Reginald is back in the woods again."
+
+"Now, look here," he said solemnly. "When we arranged about these rooms,
+there were certain properties that went with them--the lady next door
+who plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and
+Reginald. If you must take something to the woods, why not the minuet
+person?"
+
+Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively well
+dressed. This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, with
+an English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture. The
+Street said that he was "wild," and that to get into the Country Club
+set Christine was losing more than she was gaining.
+
+Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. just
+inside.
+
+"It's rather a queer way to live, of course," she said. "But Palmer is a
+pauper, practically. We are going to take our meals at home for a while.
+You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house--a
+car, for instance. We'll need one for running out to the Country Club to
+dinner. Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, it
+will be a cheap one. And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it.
+He's crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing."
+
+K. had never known a married couple to take two rooms and go to the
+bride's mother's for meals in order to keep a car. He looked faintly
+dazed. Also, certain sophistries of his former world about a cheap
+chauffeur being costly in the end rose in his mind and were carefully
+suppressed.
+
+"You'll find a car a great comfort, I'm sure," he said politely.
+
+Christine considered K. rather distinguished. She liked his graying hair
+and steady eyes, and insisted on considering his shabbiness a pose. She
+was conscious that she made a pretty picture in the French window, and
+preened herself like a bright bird.
+
+"You'll come out with us now and then, I hope."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Isn't it odd to think that we are going to be practically one family!"
+
+"Odd, but very pleasant."
+
+He caught the flash of Christine's smile, and smiled back. Christine was
+glad she had decided to take the rooms, glad that K. lived there. This
+thing of marriage being the end of all things was absurd. A married
+woman should have men friends; they kept her up. She would take him to
+the Country Club. The women would be mad to know him. How clean-cut his
+profile was!
+
+Across the Street, the Rosenfeld boy had stopped by Dr. Wilson's car,
+and was eyeing it with the cool, appraising glance of the street
+boy whose sole knowledge of machinery has been acquired from the
+clothes-washer at home. Joe Drummond, eyes carefully ahead, went up the
+Street. Tillie, at Mrs. McKee's, stood in the doorway and fanned herself
+with her apron. Max Wilson came out of the house and got into his car.
+For a minute, perhaps, all the actors, save Carlotta and Dr. Ed, were on
+the stage. It was that bete noir of the playwright, an ensemble; K. Le
+Moyne and Sidney, Palmer Howe, Christine, Tillie, the younger Wilson,
+Joe, even young Rosenfeld, all within speaking distance, almost touching
+distance, gathered within and about the little house on a side street
+which K. at first grimly and now tenderly called "home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over,
+a small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee,
+made his way along the Street. He moved with the air of one having a
+definite destination but a by no means definite reception.
+
+As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus and
+maple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street. At the
+door of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped. Owing to a slight change
+in the grade of the street, the McKee house had no stoop, but one flat
+doorstep. Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement,
+and this the stranger did. It gave him a curious appearance of being
+ready to cut and run if things were unfavorable.
+
+For a moment things were indeed unfavorable. Mrs. McKee herself opened
+the door. She recognized him at once, but no smile met the nervous one
+that formed itself on the stranger's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it?"
+
+"It's me, Mrs. McKee."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He made a conciliatory effort.
+
+"I was thinking, as I came along," he said, "that you and the neighbors
+had better get after these here caterpillars. Look at them maples, now."
+
+"If you want to see Tillie, she's busy."
+
+"I only want to say how-d 'ye-do. I'm just on my way through town."
+
+"I'll say it for you."
+
+A certain doggedness took the place of his tentative smile.
+
+"I'll say it to myself, I guess. I don't want any unpleasantness, but
+I've come a good ways to see her and I'll hang around until I do."
+
+Mrs. McKee knew herself routed, and retreated to the kitchen.
+
+"You're wanted out front," she said.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Never mind. Only, my advice to you is, don't be a fool."
+
+Tillie went suddenly pale. The hands with which she tied a white apron
+over her gingham one were shaking.
+
+Her visitor had accepted the open door as permission to enter and was
+standing in the hall.
+
+He went rather white himself when he saw Tillie coming toward him down
+the hall. He knew that for Tillie this visit would mean that he was
+free--and he was not free. Sheer terror of his errand filled him.
+
+"Well, here I am, Tillie."
+
+"All dressed up and highly perfumed!" said poor Tillie, with the
+question in her eyes. "You're quite a stranger, Mr. Schwitter."
+
+"I was passing through, and I just thought I'd call around and tell
+you--My God, Tillie, I'm glad to see you!"
+
+She made no reply, but opened the door into the cool and, shaded little
+parlor. He followed her in and closed the door behind him.
+
+"I couldn't help it. I know I promised."
+
+"Then she--?"
+
+"She's still living. Playing with paper dolls--that's the latest."
+
+Tillie sat down suddenly on one of the stiff chairs. Her lips were as
+white as her face.
+
+"I thought, when I saw you--"
+
+"I was afraid you'd think that."
+
+Neither spoke for a moment. Tillie's hands twisted nervously in her lap.
+Mr. Schwitter's eyes were fixed on the window, which looked back on the
+McKee yard.
+
+"That spiraea back there's not looking very good. If you'll save the
+cigar butts around here and put them in water, and spray it, you'll kill
+the lice."
+
+Tillie found speech at last.
+
+"I don't know why you come around bothering me," she said dully. "I've
+been getting along all right; now you come and upset everything."
+
+Mr. Schwitter rose and took a step toward her.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you why I came. Look at me. I ain't getting any
+younger, am I? Time's going on, and I'm wanting you all the time.
+And what am I getting? What've I got out of life, anyhow? I'm lonely,
+Tillie!"
+
+"What's that got to do with me?"
+
+"You're lonely, too, ain't you?"
+
+"Me? I haven't got time to be. And, anyhow, there's always a crowd
+here."
+
+"You can be lonely in a crowd, and I guess--is there any one around here
+you like better than me?"
+
+"Oh, what's the use!" cried poor Tillie. "We can talk our heads off and
+not get anywhere. You've got a wife living, and, unless you intend to do
+away with her, I guess that's all there is to it."
+
+"Is that all, Tillie? Haven't you got a right to be happy?"
+
+She was quick of wit, and she read his tone as well as his words.
+
+"You get out of here--and get out quick!"
+
+She had jumped to her feet; but he only looked at her with understanding
+eyes.
+
+"I know," he said. "That's the way I thought of it at first. Maybe I've
+just got used to the idea, but it doesn't seem so bad to me now. Here
+are you, drudging for other people when you ought to have a place all
+your own--and not gettin' younger any more than I am. Here's both of us
+lonely. I'd be a good husband to you, Till--because, whatever it'd be in
+law, I'd be your husband before God."
+
+Tillie cowered against the door, her eyes on his. Here before her,
+embodied in this man, stood all that she had wanted and never had. He
+meant a home, tenderness, children, perhaps. He turned away from the
+look in her eyes and stared out of the front window.
+
+"Them poplars out there ought to be taken away," he said heavily.
+"They're hell on sewers."
+
+Tillie found her voice at last:--
+
+"I couldn't do it, Mr. Schwitter. I guess I'm a coward. Maybe I'll be
+sorry."
+
+"Perhaps, if you got used to the idea--"
+
+"What's that to do with the right and wrong of it?"
+
+"Maybe I'm queer. It don't seem like wrongdoing to me. It seems to
+me that the Lord would make an exception of us if He knew the
+circumstances. Perhaps, after you get used to the idea--What I thought
+was like this. I've got a little farm about seven miles from the city
+limits, and the tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebody
+motors out from town and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper. There ain't
+much in the nursery business anymore. These landscape fellows buy their
+stuff direct, and the middleman's out. I've got a good orchard, and
+there's a spring, so I could put running water in the house. I'd be good
+to you, Tillie,--I swear it. It'd be just the same as marriage. Nobody
+need know it."
+
+"You'd know it. You wouldn't respect me."
+
+"Don't a man respect a woman that's got courage enough to give up
+everything for him?"
+
+Tillie was crying softly into her apron. He put a work-hardened hand on
+her head.
+
+"It isn't as if I'd run around after women," he said. "You're the only
+one, since Maggie--" He drew a long breath. "I'll give you time to think
+it over. Suppose I stop in to-morrow morning. It doesn't commit you to
+anything to talk it over."
+
+There had been no passion in the interview, and there was none in
+the touch of his hand. He was not young, and the tragic loneliness of
+approaching old age confronted him. He was trying to solve his problem
+and Tillie's, and what he had found was no solution, but a compromise.
+
+"To-morrow morning, then," he said quietly, and went out the door.
+
+All that hot August morning Tillie worked in a daze. Mrs. McKee watched
+her and said nothing. She interpreted the girl's white face and set lips
+as the result of having had to dismiss Schwitter again, and looked for
+time to bring peace, as it had done before.
+
+Le Moyne came late to his midday meal. For once, the mental anaesthesia
+of endless figures had failed him. On his way home he had drawn his
+small savings from the bank, and mailed them, in cash and registered, to
+a back street in the slums of a distant city. He had done this before,
+and always with a feeling of exaltation, as if, for a time at least,
+the burden he carried was lightened. But to-day he experienced no
+compensatory relief. Life was dull and stale to him, effort ineffectual.
+At thirty a man should look back with tenderness, forward with hope. K.
+Le Moyne dared not look back, and had no desire to look ahead into empty
+years.
+
+Although he ate little, the dining-room was empty when he finished.
+Usually he had some cheerful banter for Tillie, to which she responded
+in kind. But, what with the heat and with heaviness of spirit, he did
+not notice her depression until he rose.
+
+"Why, you're not sick, are you, Tillie?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no. Low in my mind, I guess."
+
+"It's the heat. It's fearful. Look here. If I send you two tickets to a
+roof garden where there's a variety show, can't you take a friend and go
+to-night?"
+
+"Thanks; I guess I'll not go out."
+
+Then, unexpectedly, she bent her head against a chair-back and fell to
+silent crying. K. let her cry for a moment. Then:--
+
+"Now--tell me about it."
+
+"I'm just worried; that's all."
+
+"Let's see if we can't fix up the worries. Come, now, out with them!"
+
+"I'm a wicked woman, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Then I'm the person to tell it to. I--I'm pretty much a lost soul
+myself."
+
+He put an arm over her shoulders and drew her up, facing him.
+
+"Suppose we go into the parlor and talk it out. I'll bet things are not
+as bad as you imagine."
+
+But when, in the parlor that had seen Mr. Schwitter's strange proposal
+of the morning, Tillie poured out her story, K.'s face grew grave.
+
+"The wicked part is that I want to go with him," she finished. "I keep
+thinking about being out in the country, and him coming into supper, and
+everything nice for him and me cleaned up and waiting--O my God! I've
+always been a good woman until now."
+
+"I--I understand a great deal better than you think I do. You're not
+wicked. The only thing is--"
+
+"Go on. Hit me with it."
+
+"You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, it
+won't do her any harm. It's only--if there are children."
+
+"I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!"
+
+"Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot give
+them a name--don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that
+I--But no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been tried
+before, Tillie, and it doesn't pan out."
+
+He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. She
+had acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised
+to talk to him again before making a decision one way or the other. But
+against his abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in
+Tillie the hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were
+fighting against the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losing
+battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The hot August days dragged on. Merciless sunlight beat in through the
+slatted shutters of ward windows. At night, from the roof to which the
+nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding
+roofs were seen to be covered with sleepers. Children dozed precariously
+on the edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque
+postures of sleep.
+
+There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air. Even the nurses,
+stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not at all.
+Miss Dana, in Sidney's ward, went down with a low fever, and for a day
+or so Sidney and Miss Grange got along as best they could. Sidney worked
+like two or more, performed marvels of bed-making, learned to give
+alcohol baths for fever with the maximum of result and the minimum
+of time, even made rounds with a member of the staff and came through
+creditably.
+
+Dr. Ed Wilson had sent a woman patient into the ward, and his visits
+were the breath of life to the girl.
+
+"How're they treating you?" he asked her, one day, abruptly.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Look at me squarely. You're pretty and you're young. Some of them will
+try to take it out of you. That's human nature. Has anyone tried it
+yet?"
+
+Sidney looked distressed.
+
+"Positively, no. It's been hot, and of course it's troublesome to tell
+me everything. I--I think they're all very kind."
+
+He reached out a square, competent hand, and put it over hers.
+
+"We miss you in the Street," he said. "It's all sort of dead there since
+you left. Joe Drummond doesn't moon up and down any more, for one thing.
+What was wrong between you and Joe, Sidney?"
+
+"I didn't want to marry him; that's all."
+
+"That's considerable. The boy's taking it hard."
+
+Then, seeing her face:--
+
+"But you're right, of course. Don't marry anyone unless you can't live
+without him. That's been my motto, and here I am, still single."
+
+He went out and down the corridor. He had known Sidney all his life.
+During the lonely times when Max was at college and in Europe, he had
+watched her grow from a child to a young girl. He did not suspect for
+a moment that in that secret heart of hers he sat newly enthroned, in
+a glow of white light, as Max's brother; that the mere thought that
+he lived in Max's house (it was, of course Max's house to her), sat at
+Max's breakfast table, could see him whenever he wished, made the touch
+of his hand on hers a benediction and a caress.
+
+Sidney finished folding linen and went back to the ward. It was Friday
+and a visiting day. Almost every bed had its visitor beside it; but
+Sidney, running an eye over the ward, found the girl of whom she had
+spoken to Le Moyne quite alone. She was propped up in bed, reading; but
+at each new step in the corridor hope would spring into her eyes and die
+again.
+
+"Want anything, Grace?"
+
+"Me? I'm all right. If these people would only get out and let me read
+in peace--Say, sit down and talk to me, won't you? It beats the mischief
+the way your friends forget you when you're laid up in a place like
+this."
+
+"People can't always come at visiting hours. Besides, it's hot."
+
+"A girl I knew was sick here last year, and it wasn't too hot for me to
+trot in twice a week with a bunch of flowers for her. Do you think she's
+been here once? She hasn't."
+
+Then, suddenly:--
+
+"You know that man I told you about the other day?"
+
+Sidney nodded. The girl's anxious eyes were on her.
+
+"It was a shock to me, that's all. I didn't want you to think I'd break
+my heart over any fellow. All I meant was, I wished he'd let me know."
+
+Her eyes searched Sidney's. They looked unnaturally large and somber in
+her face. Her hair had been cut short, and her nightgown, open at the
+neck, showed her thin throat and prominent clavicles.
+
+"You're from the city, aren't you, Miss Page?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You told me the street, but I've forgotten it."
+
+Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under
+the girl's head.
+
+"The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your
+street."
+
+"Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married.
+Was the name Lorenz?"
+
+"The girl's name was Lorenz. I--I don't remember the man's name."
+
+"She is going to marry a Mr. Howe," said Sidney briskly. "Now, how do
+you feel? More comfy?"
+
+"Fine! I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?"
+
+"If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go."
+
+Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her
+reports. On one record, which said at the top, "Grace Irving, age 19,"
+and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night
+nurse wrote:--
+
+"Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but
+complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three."
+
+Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next
+morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney
+a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the
+thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who
+had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself
+by change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
+
+Once she ventured a protest:--
+
+"I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is
+wrong, show me what you want, and I'll do my best."
+
+"I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not
+speak back when you are spoken to."
+
+Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position
+in the ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small
+humiliations were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and
+often unnecessary tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place,
+remonstrated with her senior.
+
+"I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer," she
+said, "but you are brutal, Miss Harrison."
+
+"She's stupid."
+
+"She's not at all stupid. She's going to be one of the best nurses in
+the house."
+
+"Report me, then. Tell the Head I'm abusing Dr. Wilson's pet
+probationer, that I don't always say 'please' when I ask her to change a
+bed or take a temperature."
+
+Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness. She died not go to the Head,
+which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread
+through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous
+of the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson's protegee. Things were still highly
+unpleasant in the ward, but they grew much better when Sidney was off
+duty. She was asked to join a small class that was studying French at
+night. As ignorant of the cause of her popularity as of the reason of
+her persecution, she went steadily on her way.
+
+And she was gaining every day. Her mind was forming. She was learning
+to think for herself. For the first time, she was facing problems and
+demanding an answer. Why must there be Grace Irvings in the world? Why
+must the healthy babies of the obstetric ward go out to the slums and
+come back, in months or years, crippled for the great fight by the
+handicap of their environment, rickety, tuberculous, twisted? Why need
+the huge mills feed the hospitals daily with injured men?
+
+And there were other things that she thought of. Every night, on her
+knees in the nurses' parlor at prayers, she promised, if she were
+accepted as a nurse, to try never to become calloused, never to regard
+her patients as "cases," never to allow the cleanliness and routine of
+her ward to delay a cup of water to the thirsty, or her arms to a sick
+child.
+
+On the whole, the world was good, she found. And, of all the good things
+in it, the best was service. True, there were hot days and restless
+nights, weary feet, and now and then a heartache. There was Miss
+Harrison, too. But to offset these there was the sound of Dr. Max's step
+in the corridor, and his smiling nod from the door; there was a "God
+bless you" now and then for the comfort she gave; there were wonderful
+nights on the roof under the stars, until K.'s little watch warned her
+to bed.
+
+While Sidney watched the stars from her hospital roof, while all around
+her the slum children, on other roofs, fought for the very breath of
+life, others who knew and loved her watched the stars, too. K. was
+having his own troubles in those days. Late at night, when Anna and
+Harriet had retired, he sat on the balcony and thought of many things.
+Anna Page was not well. He had noticed that her lips were rather blue,
+and had called in Dr. Ed. It was valvular heart disease. Anna was not to
+be told, or Sidney. It was Harriet's ruling.
+
+"Sidney can't help any," said Harriet, "and for Heaven's sake let her
+have her chance. Anna may live for years. You know her as well as I do.
+If you tell her anything at all, she'll have Sidney here, waiting on her
+hand and foot."
+
+And Le Moyne, fearful of urging too much because his own heart was
+crying out to have the girl back, assented.
+
+Then, K. was anxious about Joe. The boy did not seem to get over the
+thing the way he should. Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit
+of wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country. On one
+such night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with his head down.
+
+Joe had not wanted his company, had plainly sulked. But Le Moyne had
+persisted.
+
+"I'll not talk," he said; "but, since we're going the same way, we might
+as well walk together."
+
+But after a time Joe had talked, after all. It was not much at first--a
+feverish complaint about the heat, and that if there was trouble in
+Mexico he thought he'd go.
+
+"Wait until fall, if you're thinking of it," K. advised. "This is tepid
+compared with what you'll get down there."
+
+"I've got to get away from here."
+
+K. nodded understandingly. Since the scene at the White Springs Hotel,
+both knew that no explanation was necessary.
+
+"It isn't so much that I mind her turning me down," Joe said, after a
+silence. "A girl can't marry all the men who want her. But I don't
+like this hospital idea. I don't understand it. She didn't have to go.
+Sometimes"--he turned bloodshot eyes on Le Moyne--"I think she went
+because she was crazy about somebody there."
+
+"She went because she wanted to be useful."
+
+"She could be useful at home."
+
+For almost twenty minutes they tramped on without speech. They had made
+a circle, and the lights of the city were close again. K. stopped and
+put a kindly hand on Joe's shoulder.
+
+"A man's got to stand up under a thing like this, you know. I mean, it
+mustn't be a knockout. Keeping busy is a darned good method."
+
+Joe shook himself free, but without resentment. "I'll tell you what's
+eating me up," he exploded. "It's Max Wilson. Don't talk to me about her
+going to the hospital to be useful. She's crazy about him, and he's as
+crooked as a dog's hind leg."
+
+"Perhaps. But it's always up to the girl. You know that."
+
+He felt immeasurably old beside Joe's boyish blustering--old and rather
+helpless.
+
+"I'm watching him. Some of these days I'll get something on him. Then
+she'll know what to think of her hero!"
+
+"That's not quite square, is it?"
+
+"He's not square."
+
+Joe had left him then, wheeling abruptly off into the shadows. K. had
+gone home alone, rather uneasy. There seemed to be mischief in the very
+air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Tillie was gone.
+
+Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet
+Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored
+maid had announced a visitor.
+
+Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms
+in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor
+store. Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on
+commission.
+
+Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of
+a new heaven and a new earth. Here, at last, she found people speaking
+her own language. She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found
+it greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with
+approval and some surprise.
+
+"About once in ten years," said Mr. Arthurs, "we have a woman from out
+of town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical. When we
+find people like that, we watch them. They climb, madame,--climb."
+
+Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business
+was coming. The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars
+for an evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of
+water. Her throat was parched.
+
+She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who
+can pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered
+good form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high
+they may be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales--no woman
+over thirty but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft
+lights. And Harriet herself conformed to the picture. She took a lesson
+from the New York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns. She strapped
+her thin figure into the best corset she could get, and had her black
+hair marcelled and dressed high. And, because she was a lady by birth
+and instinct, the result was not incongruous, but refined and rather
+impressive.
+
+She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and
+wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky. She
+wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her
+hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the
+penalties she paid. Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in
+the work-room she kicked them off.
+
+To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress. Tillie was
+rather overwhelmed at first. The Street had always considered Harriet
+"proud." But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.
+
+"Why, Tillie!" said Harriet.
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Will you sit down?"
+
+Tillie sat. She was not daunted now. While she worked at the fingers of
+her silk gloves, what Harriet took for nervousness was pure abstraction.
+
+"It's very nice of you to come to see me. Do you like my rooms?"
+
+Tillie surveyed the rooms, and Harriet caught her first full view of her
+face.
+
+"Is there anything wrong? Have you left Mrs. McKee?"
+
+"I think so. I came to talk to you about it."
+
+It was Harriet's turn to be overwhelmed.
+
+"She's very fond of you. If you have had any words--"
+
+"It's not that. I'm just leaving. I'd like to talk to you, if you don't
+mind."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Tillie hitched her chair closer.
+
+"I'm up against something, and I can't seem to make up my mind. Last
+night I said to myself, 'I've got to talk to some woman who's not
+married, like me, and not as young as she used to be. There's no use
+going to Mrs. McKee: she's a widow, and wouldn't understand.'"
+
+Harriet's voice was a trifle sharp as she replied. She never lied about
+her age, but she preferred to forget it.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what you're getting at."
+
+"It ain't the sort of thing to come to too sudden. But it's like this.
+You and I can pretend all we like, Miss Harriet; but we're not getting
+all out of life that the Lord meant us to have. You've got them wax
+figures instead of children, and I have mealers."
+
+A little spot of color came into Harriet's cheek. But she was
+interested. Regardless of the corset, she bent forward.
+
+"Maybe that's true. Go on."
+
+"I'm almost forty. Ten years more at the most, and I'm through. I'm
+slowing up. Can't get around the tables as I used to. Why, yesterday I
+put sugar into Mr. Le Moyne's coffee--well, never mind about that. Now
+I've got a chance to get a home, with a good man to look after me--I
+like him pretty well, and he thinks a lot of me."
+
+"Mercy sake, Tillie! You are going to get married?"
+
+"No'm," said Tillie; "that's it." And sat silent for a moment.
+
+The gray curtains with their pink cording swung gently in the open
+windows. From the work-room came the distant hum of a sewing-machine and
+the sound of voices. Harriet sat with her hands in her lap and listened
+while Tillie poured out her story. The gates were down now. She told it
+all, consistently and with unconscious pathos: her little room under the
+roof at Mrs. McKee's, and the house in the country; her loneliness,
+and the loneliness of the man; even the faint stirrings of potential
+motherhood, her empty arms, her advancing age--all this she knit into
+the fabric of her story and laid at Harriet's feet, as the ancients put
+their questions to their gods.
+
+Harriet was deeply moved. Too much that Tillie poured out to her found
+an echo in her own breast. What was this thing she was striving for but
+a substitute for the real things of life--love and tenderness, children,
+a home of her own? Quite suddenly she loathed the gray carpet on the
+floor, the pink chairs, the shaded lamps. Tillie was no longer the
+waitress at a cheap boarding-house. She loomed large, potential,
+courageous, a woman who held life in her hands.
+
+"Why don't you go to Mrs. Rosenfeld? She's your aunt, isn't she?"
+
+"She thinks any woman's a fool to take up with a man."
+
+"You're giving me a terrible responsibility, Tillie, if you're asking my
+advice."
+
+"No'm. I'm asking what you'd do if it happened to you. Suppose you had
+no people that cared anything about you, nobody to disgrace, and all
+your life nobody had really cared anything about you. And then a chance
+like this came along. What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know," said poor Harriet. "It seems to me--I'm afraid I'd be
+tempted. It does seem as if a woman had the right to be happy, even
+if--"
+
+Her own words frightened her. It was as if some hidden self, and not
+she, had spoken. She hastened to point out the other side of the matter,
+the insecurity of it, the disgrace. Like K., she insisted that no right
+can be built out of a wrong. Tillie sat and smoothed her gloves. At
+last, when Harriet paused in sheer panic, the girl rose.
+
+"I know how you feel, and I don't want you to take the responsibility of
+advising me," she said quietly. "I guess my mind was made up anyhow. But
+before I did it I just wanted to be sure that a decent woman would think
+the way I do about it."
+
+And so, for a time, Tillie went out of the life of the Street as she
+went out of Harriet's handsome rooms, quietly, unobtrusively, with calm
+purpose in her eyes.
+
+There were other changes in the Street. The Lorenz house was being
+painted for Christine's wedding. Johnny Rosenfeld, not perhaps of the
+Street itself, but certainly pertaining to it, was learning to drive
+Palmer Howe's new car, in mingled agony and bliss. He walked along the
+Street, not "right foot, left foot," but "brake foot, clutch foot," and
+took to calling off the vintage of passing cars. "So-and-So 1910,"
+he would say, with contempt in his voice. He spent more than he could
+afford on a large streamer, meant to be fastened across the rear of the
+automobile, which said, "Excuse our dust," and was inconsolable when
+Palmer refused to let him use it.
+
+K. had yielded to Anna's insistence, and was boarding as well as
+rooming at the Page house. The Street, rather snobbish to its occasional
+floating population, was accepting and liking him. It found him tender,
+infinitely human. And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy
+into which he had drifted was teeming with life. He busied himself with
+small things, and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair.
+When he found himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball
+club, and sent down to everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of
+cash-boys from Linden and Hofburg's department store.
+
+The Rosenfelds adored him, with the single exception of the head of
+the family. The elder Rosenfeld having been "sent up," it was K. who
+discovered that by having him consigned to the workhouse his family
+would receive from the county some sixty-five cents a day for his labor.
+As this was exactly sixty-five cents a day more than he was worth to
+them free, Mrs. Rosenfeld voiced the pious hope that he be kept there
+forever.
+
+K. made no further attempt to avoid Max Wilson. Some day they would meet
+face to face. He hoped, when it happened, they two might be alone; that
+was all. Even had he not been bound by his promise to Sidney, flight
+would have been foolish. The world was a small place, and, one way and
+another, he had known many people. Wherever he went, there would be the
+same chance.
+
+And he did not deceive himself. Other things being equal,--the eddy
+and all that it meant--, he would not willingly take himself out of his
+small share of Sidney's life.
+
+She was never to know what she meant to him, of course. He had scourged
+his heart until it no longer shone in his eyes when he looked at her.
+But he was very human--not at all meek. There were plenty of days when
+his philosophy lay in the dust and savage dogs of jealousy tore at it;
+more than one evening when he threw himself face downward on the bed
+and lay without moving for hours. And of these periods of despair he was
+always heartily ashamed the next day.
+
+The meeting with Max Wilson took place early in September, and under
+better circumstances than he could have hoped for.
+
+Sidney had come home for her weekly visit, and her mother's condition
+had alarmed her for the first time. When Le Moyne came home at six
+o'clock, he found her waiting for him in the hall.
+
+"I am just a little frightened, K.," she said. "Do you think mother is
+looking quite well?"
+
+"She has felt the heat, of course. The summer--I often think--"
+
+"Her lips are blue!"
+
+"It's probably nothing serious."
+
+"She says you've had Dr. Ed over to see her."
+
+She put her hands on his arm and looked up at him with appeal and
+something of terror in her face.
+
+Thus cornered, he had to acknowledge that Anna had been out of sorts.
+
+"I shall come home, of course. It's tragic and absurd that I should be
+caring for other people, when my own mother--"
+
+She dropped her head on his arm, and he saw that she was crying. If he
+made a gesture to draw her to him, she never knew it. After a moment she
+looked up.
+
+"I'm much braver than this in the hospital. But when it's one's own!"
+
+K. was sorely tempted to tell her the truth and bring her back to the
+little house: to their old evenings together, to seeing the younger
+Wilson, not as the white god of the operating-room and the hospital, but
+as the dandy of the Street and the neighbor of her childhood--back even
+to Joe.
+
+But, with Anna's precarious health and Harriet's increasing engrossment
+in her business, he felt it more and more necessary that Sidney go on
+with her training. A profession was a safeguard. And there was another
+point: it had been decided that Anna was not to know her condition. If
+she was not worried she might live for years. There was no surer way to
+make her suspect it than by bringing Sidney home.
+
+Sidney sent Katie to ask Dr. Ed to come over after dinner. With the
+sunset Anna seemed better. She insisted on coming downstairs, and
+even sat with them on the balcony until the stars came out, talking
+of Christine's trousseau, and, rather fretfully, of what she would do
+without the parlors.
+
+"You shall have your own boudoir upstairs," said Sidney valiantly.
+"Katie can carry your tray up there. We are going to make the
+sewing-room into your private sitting-room, and I shall nail the
+machine-top down."
+
+This pleased her. When K. insisted on carrying her upstairs, she went in
+a flutter.
+
+"He is so strong, Sidney!" she said, when he had placed her on her bed.
+"How can a clerk, bending over a ledger, be so muscular? When I have
+callers, will it be all right for Katie to show them upstairs?"
+
+She dropped asleep before the doctor came; and when, at something after
+eight, the door of the Wilson house slammed and a figure crossed the
+street, it was not Ed at all, but the surgeon.
+
+Sidney had been talking rather more frankly than usual. Lately there
+had been a reserve about her. K., listening intently that night, read
+between words a story of small persecutions and jealousies. But the girl
+minimized them, after her way.
+
+"It's always hard for probationers," she said. "I often think Miss
+Harrison is trying my mettle."
+
+"Harrison!"
+
+"Carlotta Harrison. And now that Miss Gregg has said she will accept
+me, it's really all over. The other nurses are wonderful--so kind and so
+helpful. I hope I shall look well in my cap."
+
+Carlotta Harrison was in Sidney's hospital! A thousand contingencies
+flashed through his mind. Sidney might grow to like her and bring her to
+the house. Sidney might insist on the thing she always spoke of--that he
+visit the hospital; and he would meet her, face to face. He could have
+depended on a man to keep his secret. This girl with her somber eyes and
+her threat to pay him out for what had happened to her--she meant danger
+of a sort that no man could fight.
+
+"Soon," said Sidney, through the warm darkness, "I shall have a cap,
+and be always forgetting it and putting my hat on over it--the new ones
+always do. One of the girls slept in hers the other night! They are
+tulle, you know, and quite stiff, and it was the most erratic-looking
+thing the next day!"
+
+It was then that the door across the street closed. Sidney did not
+hear it, but K. bent forward. There was a part of his brain always
+automatically on watch.
+
+"I shall get my operating-room training, too," she went on. "That is
+the real romance of the hospital. A--a surgeon is a sort of hero in
+a hospital. You wouldn't think that, would you? There was a lot of
+excitement to-day. Even the probationers' table was talking about it.
+Dr. Max Wilson did the Edwardes operation."
+
+The figure across the Street was lighting a cigarette. Perhaps, after
+all--
+
+"Something tremendously difficult--I don't know what. It's going into
+the medical journals. A Dr. Edwardes invented it, or whatever they
+call it. They took a picture of the operating-room for the article.
+The photographer had to put on operating clothes and wrap the camera in
+sterilized towels. It was the most thrilling thing, they say--"
+
+Her voice died away as her eyes followed K.'s. Max, cigarette in
+hand, was coming across, under the ailanthus tree. He hesitated on the
+pavement, his eyes searching the shadowy balcony.
+
+"Sidney?"
+
+"Here! Right back here!"
+
+There was vibrant gladness in her tone. He came slowly toward them.
+
+"My brother is not at home, so I came over. How select you are, with
+your balcony!"
+
+"Can you see the step?"
+
+"Coming, with bells on."
+
+K. had risen and pushed back his chair. His mind was working quickly.
+Here in the darkness he could hold the situation for a moment. If he
+could get Sidney into the house, the rest would not matter. Luckily, the
+balcony was very dark.
+
+"Is any one ill?"
+
+"Mother is not well. This is Mr. Le Moyne, and he knows who you are very
+well, indeed."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"I've heard a lot of Mr. Le Moyne. Didn't the Street beat the Linburgs
+the other day? And I believe the Rosenfelds are in receipt of sixty-five
+cents a day and considerable peace and quiet through you, Mr. Le Moyne.
+You're the most popular man on the Street."
+
+"I've always heard that about YOU. Sidney, if Dr. Wilson is here to see
+your mother--"
+
+"Going," said Sidney. "And Dr. Wilson is a very great person, K., so be
+polite to him."
+
+Max had roused at the sound of Le Moyne's voice, not to suspicion,
+of course, but to memory. Without any apparent reason, he was back in
+Berlin, tramping the country roads, and beside him--
+
+"Wonderful night!"
+
+"Great," he replied. "The mind's a curious thing, isn't it. In the
+instant since Miss Page went through that window I've been to Berlin and
+back! Will you have a cigarette?"
+
+"Thanks; I have my pipe here."
+
+K. struck a match with his steady hands. Now that the thing had come, he
+was glad to face it. In the flare, his quiet profile glowed against the
+night. Then he flung the match over the rail.
+
+"Perhaps my voice took you back to Berlin."
+
+Max stared; then he rose. Blackness had descended on them again, except
+for the dull glow of K.'s old pipe.
+
+"For God's sake!"
+
+"Sh! The neighbors next door have a bad habit of sitting just inside the
+curtains."
+
+"But--you!"
+
+"Sit down. Sidney will be back in a moment. I'll talk to you, if you'll
+sit still. Can you hear me plainly?"
+
+After a moment--"Yes."
+
+"I've been here--in the city, I mean--for a year. Name's Le Moyne. Don't
+forget it--Le Moyne. I've got a position in the gas office, clerical. I
+get fifteen dollars a week. I have reason to think I'm going to be moved
+up. That will be twenty, maybe twenty-two."
+
+Wilson stirred, but he found no adequate words. Only a part of what K.
+said got to him. For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this
+man across from him--it was not believable!
+
+"It's not hard work, and it's safe. If I make a mistake there's no life
+hanging on it. Once I made a blunder, a month or two ago. It was a big
+one. It cost me three dollars out of my own pocket. But--that's all it
+cost."
+
+Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was
+profoundly moved.
+
+"We thought you were dead. There were all sorts of stories. When a year
+went by--the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were on
+it--we gave up. I--in June we put up a tablet for you at the college. I
+went down for the--for the services."
+
+"Let it stay," said K. quietly. "I'm dead as far as the college goes,
+anyhow. I'll never go back. I'm Le Moyne now. And, for Heaven's sake,
+don't be sorry for me. I'm more contented than I've been for a long
+time."
+
+The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation.
+
+"But--when you had everything! Why, good Heavens, man, I did your
+operation to-day, and I've been blowing about it ever since."
+
+"I had everything for a while. Then I lost the essential. When that
+happened I gave up. All a man in our profession has is a certain method,
+knowledge--call it what you like,--and faith in himself. I lost my
+self-confidence; that's all. Certain things happened; kept on happening.
+So I gave it up. That's all. It's not dramatic. For about a year I was
+damned sorry for myself. I've stopped whining now."
+
+"If every surgeon gave up because he lost cases--I've just told you I
+did your operation to-day. There was just a chance for the man, and I
+took my courage in my hands and tried it. The poor devil's dead."
+
+K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe over the balcony rail.
+
+"That's not the same. That's the chance he and you took. What happened
+to me was--different."
+
+Pipe in hand, he stood staring out at the ailanthus tree with its crown
+of stars. Instead of the Street with its quiet houses, he saw the men
+he had known and worked with and taught, his friends who spoke his
+language, who had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bronze
+tablet set in a wall of the old college; he saw their earnest faces and
+grave eyes. He heard--
+
+He heard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little
+room behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A few days after Wilson's recognition of K., two most exciting things
+happened to Sidney. One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor
+at her wedding. The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and
+given her cap.
+
+Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house
+had no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le
+Moyne:
+
+DEAR K.,--I am accepted, and IT is on my head at this minute. I am as
+conscious of it as if it were a halo, and as if I had done something to
+deserve it, instead of just hoping that someday I shall. I am writing
+this on the bureau, so that when I lift my eyes I may see It. I am
+afraid just now I am thinking more of the cap than of what it means. It
+IS becoming!
+
+Very soon I shall slip down and show it to the ward. I have promised.
+I shall go to the door when the night nurse is busy somewhere, and
+turn all around and let them see it, without saying a word. They love a
+little excitement like that.
+
+You have been very good to me, dear K. It is you who have made possible
+this happiness of mine to-night. I am promising myself to be very good,
+and not so vain, and to love my enemies--, although I have none now.
+Miss Harrison has just congratulated me most kindly, and I am sure poor
+Joe has both forgiven and forgotten.
+
+Off to my first lecture!
+
+SIDNEY.
+
+K. found the note on the hall table when he got home that night, and
+carried it upstairs to read. Whatever faint hope he might have had that
+her youth would prevent her acceptance he knew now was over. With the
+letter in his hand, he sat by his table and looked ahead into the empty
+years. Not quite empty, of course. She would be coming home.
+
+But more and more the life of the hospital would engross her. He
+surmised, too, very shrewdly, that, had he ever had a hope that she
+might come to care for him, his very presence in the little house
+militated against him. There was none of the illusion of separation;
+he was always there, like Katie. When she opened the door, she called
+"Mother" from the hall. If Anna did not answer, she called him, in much
+the same voice.
+
+He had built a wall of philosophy that had withstood even Wilson's
+recognition and protest. But enduring philosophy comes only with time;
+and he was young. Now and then all his defenses crumbled before a
+passion that, when he dared to face it, shook him by its very strength.
+And that day all his stoicism went down before Sidney's letter. Its very
+frankness and affection hurt--not that he did not want her affection;
+but he craved so much more. He threw himself face down on the bed, with
+the paper crushed in his hand.
+
+Sidney's letter was not the only one he received that day. When, in
+response to Katie's summons, he rose heavily and prepared for dinner, he
+found an unopened envelope on the table. It was from Max Wilson:--
+
+DEAR LE MOYNE,--I have been going around in a sort of haze all day. The
+fact that I only heard your voice and scarcely saw you last night has
+made the whole thing even more unreal.
+
+I have a feeling of delicacy about trying to see you again so soon. I'm
+bound to respect your seclusion. But there are some things that have got
+to be discussed.
+
+You said last night that things were "different" with you. I know about
+that. You'd had one or two unlucky accidents. Do you know any man in our
+profession who has not? And, for fear you think I do not know what I am
+talking about, the thing was threshed out at the State Society when the
+question of the tablet came up. Old Barnes got up and said: "Gentlemen,
+all of us live more or less in glass houses. Let him who is without
+guilt among us throw the first stone!" By George! You should have heard
+them!
+
+I didn't sleep last night. I took my little car and drove around the
+country roads, and the farther I went the more outrageous your position
+became. I'm not going to write any rot about the world needing men like
+you, although it's true enough. But our profession does. You working in
+a gas office, while old O'Hara bungles and hacks, and I struggle along
+on what I learned from you!
+
+It takes courage to step down from the pinnacle you stood on. So it's
+not cowardice that has set you down here. It's wrong conception. And
+I've thought of two things. The first, and best, is for you to go back.
+No one has taken your place, because no one could do the work. But if
+that's out of the question,--and only you know that, for only you know
+the facts,--the next best thing is this, and in all humility I make the
+suggestion.
+
+Take the State exams under your present name, and when you've got your
+certificate, come in with me. This isn't magnanimity. I'll be getting a
+damn sight more than I give.
+
+Think it over, old man.
+
+M.W.
+
+It is a curious fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about
+women is often the soul of honor to other men. The younger Wilson,
+taking his pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an
+offer that meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, with his
+eyes open.
+
+K. was moved. It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to make it
+as if he were asking a favor and not conferring one. But the offer left
+him untempted. He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself
+wanting. No tablet on the college wall could change that. And when,
+late that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to
+argument, the situation remained unchanged. He realized its hopelessness
+when K. lapsed into whimsical humor.
+
+"I'm not absolutely useless where I am, you know, Max," he said. "I've
+raised three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped
+to plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just
+inside,--did you notice it?--and developed a boy pitcher with a ball
+that twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around a splint!"
+
+"If you're going to be humorous--"
+
+"My dear fellow," said K. quietly, "if I had no sense of humor, I should
+go upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance
+into eternity. By the way, that's something I forgot!"
+
+"Eternity?" "No. Among my other activities, I wired the parlor for
+electric light. The bride-to-be expects some electroliers as wedding
+gifts, and--"
+
+Wilson rose and flung his cigarette into the grass.
+
+"I wish to God I understood you!" he said irritably.
+
+K. rose with him, and all the suppressed feeling of the interview was
+crowded into his last few words.
+
+"I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max," he said. "I--you've helped
+a lot. Don't worry about me. I'm as well off as I deserve to be, and
+better. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position--left him,
+as it were, with a divided allegiance. Sidney's frank infatuation for
+the young surgeon was growing. He was quick to see it. And where before
+he might have felt justified in going to the length of warning her, now
+his hands were tied.
+
+Max was interested in her. K. could see that, too. More than once he had
+taken Sidney back to the hospital in his car. Le Moyne, handicapped at
+every turn, found himself facing two alternatives, one but little better
+than the other. The affair might run a legitimate course, ending in
+marriage--a year of happiness for her, and then what marriage with
+Max, as he knew him, would inevitably mean: wanderings away, remorseful
+returns to her, infidelities, misery. Or, it might be less serious but
+almost equally unhappy for her. Max might throw caution to the winds,
+pursue her for a time,--K. had seen him do this,--and then, growing
+tired, change to some new attraction. In either case, he could only wait
+and watch, eating his heart out during the long evenings when Anna read
+her "Daily Thoughts" upstairs and he sat alone with his pipe on the
+balcony.
+
+Sidney went on night duty shortly after her acceptance. All of her
+orderly young life had been divided into two parts: day, when one
+played or worked, and night, when one slept. Now she was compelled to
+a readjustment: one worked in the night and slept in the day. Things
+seemed unnatural, chaotic. At the end of her first night report Sidney
+added what she could remember of a little verse of Stevenson's. She
+added it to the end of her general report, which was to the effect that
+everything had been quiet during the night except the neighborhood.
+
+     "And does it not seem hard to you,
+      When all the sky is clear and blue,
+      And I should like so much to play,
+      To have to go to bed by day?"
+
+The day assistant happened on the report, and was quite scandalized.
+
+"If the night nurses are to spend their time making up poetry," she
+said crossly, "we'd better change this hospital into a young ladies'
+seminary. If she wants to complain about the noise in the street, she
+should do so in proper form."
+
+"I don't think she made it up," said the Head, trying not to smile.
+"I've heard something like it somewhere, and, what with the heat and the
+noise of traffic, I don't see how any of them get any sleep."
+
+But, because discipline must be observed, she wrote on the slip the
+assistant carried around: "Please submit night reports in prose."
+
+Sidney did not sleep much. She tumbled into her low bed at nine o'clock
+in the morning, those days, with her splendid hair neatly braided down
+her back and her prayers said, and immediately her active young mind
+filled with images--Christine's wedding, Dr. Max passing the door of her
+old ward and she not there, Joe--even Tillie, whose story was now the
+sensation of the Street. A few months before she would not have cared
+to think of Tillie. She would have retired her into the land of
+things-one-must-forget. But the Street's conventions were not holding
+Sidney's thoughts now. She puzzled over Tillie a great deal, and over
+Grace and her kind.
+
+On her first night on duty, a girl had been brought in from the Avenue.
+She had taken a poison--nobody knew just what. When the internes had
+tried to find out, she had only said: "What's the use?"
+
+And she had died.
+
+Sidney kept asking herself, "Why?" those mornings when she could not get
+to sleep. People were kind--men were kind, really,--and yet, for some
+reason or other, those things had to be. Why?
+
+After a time Sidney would doze fitfully. But by three o'clock she was
+always up and dressing. After a time the strain told on her. Lack of
+sleep wrote hollows around her eyes and killed some of her bright color.
+Between three and four o'clock in the morning she was overwhelmed on
+duty by a perfect madness of sleep. There was a penalty for sleeping on
+duty. The old night watchman had a way of slipping up on one nodding.
+The night nurses wished they might fasten a bell on him!
+
+Luckily, at four came early-morning temperatures; that roused her. And
+after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of
+dawn over the roofs. Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward
+dawn, she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves
+were stretched taut as a string.
+
+Her station was in a small room close to her three wards. But she sat
+very little, as a matter of fact. Her responsibility was heavy on her;
+she made frequent rounds. The late summer nights were fitful, feverish;
+the darkened wards stretched away like caverns from the dim light near
+the door. And from out of these caverns came petulant voices, uneasy
+movements, the banging of a cup on a bedside, which was the signal of
+thirst.
+
+The older nurses saved themselves when they could. To them, perhaps just
+a little weary with time and much service, the banging cup meant not so
+much thirst as annoyance. They visited Sidney sometimes and cautioned
+her.
+
+"Don't jump like that, child; they're not parched, you know."
+
+"But if you have a fever and are thirsty--"
+
+"Thirsty nothing! They get lonely. All they want is to see somebody."
+
+"Then," Sidney would say, rising resolutely, "they are going to see me."
+
+Gradually the older girls saw that she would not save herself. They
+liked her very much, and they, too, had started in with willing feet
+and tender hands; but the thousand and one demands of their service
+had drained them dry. They were efficient, cool-headed, quick-thinking
+machines, doing their best, of course, but differing from Sidney in that
+their service was of the mind, while hers was of the heart. To them,
+pain was a thing to be recorded on a report; to Sidney, it was written
+on the tablets of her soul.
+
+Carlotta Harrison went on night duty at the same time--her last night
+service, as it was Sidney's first. She accepted it stoically. She had
+charge of the three wards on the floor just below Sidney, and of the
+ward into which all emergency cases were taken. It was a difficult
+service, perhaps the most difficult in the house. Scarcely a night went
+by without its patrol or ambulance case. Ordinarily, the emergency ward
+had its own night nurse. But the house was full to overflowing. Belated
+vacations and illness had depleted the training-school. Carlotta, given
+double duty, merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I've always had things pretty hard here," she commented briefly.
+"When I go out, I'll either be competent enough to run a whole hospital
+singlehanded, or I'll be carried out feet first."
+
+Sidney was glad to have her so near. She knew her better than she knew
+the other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding
+her at a loss. Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a
+soft hiss from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and,
+going out, would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap
+bending over the stair-rail.
+
+"I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you," she would say, "but So-and-So
+won't have a fever bath"; or, "I've a woman here who refuses her
+medicine." Then would follow rapid questions and equally rapid answers.
+Much as Carlotta disliked and feared the girl overhead, it never
+occurred to her to refuse her assistance. Perhaps the angels who keep
+the great record will put that to her credit.
+
+Sidney saw her first death shortly after she went on night duty. It was
+the most terrible experience of all her life; and yet, as death goes, it
+was quiet enough. So gradual was it that Sidney, with K.'s little watch
+in hand, was not sure exactly when it happened. The light was very dim
+behind the little screen. One moment the sheet was quivering slightly
+under the struggle for breath, the next it was still. That was all. But
+to the girl it was catastrophe. That life, so potential, so tremendous a
+thing, could end so ignominiously, that the long battle should terminate
+always in this capitulation--it seemed to her that she could not stand
+it. Added to all her other new problems of living was this one of dying.
+
+She made mistakes, of course, which the kindly nurses forgot to
+report--basins left about, errors on her records. She rinsed her
+thermometer in hot water one night, and startled an interne by sending
+him word that Mary McGuire's temperature was a hundred and ten degrees.
+She let a delirious patient escape from the ward another night and go
+airily down the fire-escape before she discovered what had happened!
+Then she distinguished herself by flying down the iron staircase and
+bringing the runaway back single-handed.
+
+For Christine's wedding the Street threw off its drab attire and assumed
+a wedding garment. In the beginning it was incredulous about some of the
+details.
+
+"An awning from the house door to the curbstone, and a policeman!"
+reported Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was finding steady employment at the Lorenz
+house. "And another awning at the church, with a red carpet!"
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld had arrived home and was making up arrears of rest and
+recreation.
+
+"Huh!" he said. "Suppose it don't rain. What then?" His Jewish father
+spoke in him.
+
+"And another policeman at the church!" said Mrs. Rosenfeld triumphantly.
+
+"Why do they ask 'em if they don't trust 'em?"
+
+But the mention of the policemen had been unfortunate. It recalled to
+him many things that were better forgotten. He rose and scowled at his
+wife.
+
+"You tell Johnny something for me," he snarled. "You tell him when he
+sees his father walking down street, and he sittin' up there alone on
+that automobile, I want him to stop and pick me up when I hail him. Me
+walking, while my son swells around in a car! And another thing." He
+turned savagely at the door. "You let me hear of him road-housin', and
+I'll kill him!"
+
+The wedding was to be at five o'clock. This, in itself, defied all
+traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early
+morning at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at
+the Presbyterian. There was something reckless about five o'clock. The
+Street felt the dash of it. It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a
+marriage was not quite legal.
+
+The question of what to wear became, for the men, an earnest one. Dr. Ed
+resurrected an old black frock-coat and had a "V" of black cambric set
+in the vest. Mr. Jenkins, the grocer, rented a cutaway, and bought a
+new Panama to wear with it. The deaf-and-dumb book agent who boarded at
+McKees', and who, by reason of his affliction, was calmly ignorant of
+the excitement around him, wore a borrowed dress-suit, and considered
+himself to the end of his days the only properly attired man in the
+church.
+
+The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers. When the newspapers came
+out with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that
+Sidney was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the
+hospital training-school. A probationer was authorized to find out
+particulars. It was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had
+not been to bed at all, was sitting in a sunny window in the Dormitory
+Annex, drying her hair.
+
+The probationer was distinctly uneasy.
+
+"I--I just wonder," she said, "if you would let some of the girls come
+in to see you when you're dressed?"
+
+"Why, of course I will."
+
+"It's awfully thrilling, isn't it? And--isn't Dr. Wilson going to be an
+usher?"
+
+Sidney colored. "I believe so."
+
+"Are you going to walk down the aisle with him?"
+
+"I don't know. They had a rehearsal last night, but of course I was not
+there. I--I think I walk alone."
+
+The probationer had been instructed to find out other things; so she set
+to work with a fan at Sidney's hair.
+
+"You've known Dr. Wilson a long time, haven't you?"
+
+"Ages."
+
+"He's awfully good-looking, isn't he?"
+
+Sidney considered. She was not ignorant of the methods of the school. If
+this girl was pumping her--
+
+"I'll have to think that over," she said, with a glint of mischief in
+her eyes. "When you know a person terribly well, you hardly know whether
+he's good-looking or not."
+
+"I suppose," said the probationer, running the long strands of Sidney's
+hair through her fingers, "that when you are at home you see him often."
+
+Sidney got off the window-sill, and, taking the probationer smilingly by
+the shoulders, faced her toward the door.
+
+"You go back to the girls," she said, "and tell them to come in and see
+me when I am dressed, and tell them this: I don't know whether I am to
+walk down the aisle with Dr. Wilson, but I hope I am. I see him very
+often. I like him very much. I hope he likes me. And I think he's
+handsome."
+
+She shoved the probationer out into the hall and locked the door behind
+her.
+
+That message in its entirety reached Carlotta Harrison. Her smouldering
+eyes flamed. The audacity of it startled her. Sidney must be very sure
+of herself.
+
+She, too, had not slept during the day. When the probationer who
+had brought her the report had gone out, she lay in her long white
+night-gown, hands clasped under her head, and stared at the vault-like
+ceiling of her little room.
+
+She saw there Sidney in her white dress going down the aisle of the
+church; she saw the group around the altar; and, as surely as she lay
+there, she knew that Max Wilson's eyes would be, not on the bride, but
+on the girl who stood beside her.
+
+The curious thing was that Carlotta felt that she could stop the wedding
+if she wanted to. She'd happened on a bit of information--many a wedding
+had been stopped for less. It rather obsessed her to think of stopping
+the wedding, so that Sidney and Max would not walk down the aisle
+together.
+
+There came, at last, an hour before the wedding, a lull in the feverish
+activities of the previous month. Everything was ready. In the Lorenz
+kitchen, piles of plates, negro waiters, ice-cream freezers, and Mrs.
+Rosenfeld stood in orderly array. In the attic, in the center of a
+sheet, before a toilet-table which had been carried upstairs for her
+benefit, sat, on this her day of days, the bride. All the second story
+had been prepared for guests and presents.
+
+Florists were still busy in the room below. Bridesmaids were clustered
+on the little staircase, bending over at each new ring of the bell and
+calling reports to Christine through the closed door:--
+
+"Another wooden box, Christine. It looks like more plates. What will you
+ever do with them all?"
+
+"Good Heavens! Here's another of the neighbors who wants to see how you
+look. Do say you can't have any visitors now."
+
+Christine sat alone in the center of her sheet. The bridesmaids had been
+sternly forbidden to come into her room.
+
+"I haven't had a chance to think for a month," she said. "And I've got
+some things I've got to think out."
+
+But, when Sidney came, she sent for her. Sidney found her sitting on a
+stiff chair, in her wedding gown, with her veil spread out on a small
+stand.
+
+"Close the door," said Christine. And, after Sidney had kissed her:--
+
+"I've a good mind not to do it."
+
+"You're tired and nervous, that's all."
+
+"I am, of course. But that isn't what's wrong with me. Throw that veil
+some place and sit down."
+
+Christine was undoubtedly rouged, a very delicate touch. Sidney thought
+brides should be rather pale. But under her eyes were lines that Sidney
+had never seen there before.
+
+"I'm not going to be foolish, Sidney. I'll go through with it, of
+course. It would put mamma in her grave if I made a scene now."
+
+She suddenly turned on Sidney.
+
+"Palmer gave his bachelor dinner at the Country Club last night. They
+all drank more than they should. Somebody called father up to-day and
+said that Palmer had emptied a bottle of wine into the piano. He hasn't
+been here to-day."
+
+"He'll be along. And as for the other--perhaps it wasn't Palmer who did
+it."
+
+"That's not it, Sidney. I'm frightened."
+
+Three months before, perhaps, Sidney could not have comforted her; but
+three months had made a change in Sidney. The complacent sophistries
+of her girlhood no longer answered for truth. She put her arms around
+Christine's shoulders.
+
+"A man who drinks is a broken reed," said Christine. "That's what I'm
+going to marry and lean on the rest of my life--a broken reed. And that
+isn't all!"
+
+She got up quickly, and, trailing her long satin train across the floor,
+bolted the door. Then from inside her corsage she brought out and held
+to Sidney a letter. "Special delivery. Read it."
+
+It was very short; Sidney read it at a glance:--
+
+Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 ---- Avenue.
+
+Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney. Now
+she knew. Christine, more sophisticated, had always known.
+
+"You see," she said. "That's what I'm up against."
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 ---- Avenue was. The
+paper she held in her hand was hospital paper with the heading torn off.
+The whole sordid story lay before her: Grace Irving, with her thin face
+and cropped hair, and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside her!
+
+One of the bridesmaids thumped violently on the door outside.
+
+"Another electric lamp," she called excitedly through the door. "And
+Palmer is downstairs."
+
+"You see," Christine said drearily. "I have received another electric
+lamp, and Palmer is downstairs! I've got to go through with it, I
+suppose. The only difference between me and other brides is that I know
+what I'm getting. Most of them do not."
+
+"You're going on with it?"
+
+"It's too late to do anything else. I am not going to give this
+neighborhood anything to talk about."
+
+She picked up her veil and set the coronet on her head. Sidney stood
+with the letter in her hands. One of K.'s answers to her hot question
+had been this:--
+
+"There is no sense in looking back unless it helps us to look ahead.
+What your little girl of the ward has been is not so important as what
+she is going to be."
+
+"Even granting this to be true," she said to Christine slowly,--"and it
+may only be malicious after all, Christine,--it's surely over and done
+with. It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now; it's his future with
+you, isn't it?"
+
+Christine had finally adjusted her veil. A band of duchesse lace rose
+like a coronet from her soft hair, and from it, sweeping to the end of
+her train, fell fold after fold of soft tulle. She arranged the coronet
+carefully with small pearl-topped pins. Then she rose and put her hands
+on Sidney's shoulders.
+
+"The simple truth is," she said quietly, "that I might hold Palmer if
+I cared--terribly. I don't. And I'm afraid he knows it. It's my pride
+that's hurt, nothing else."
+
+And thus did Christine Lorenz go down to her wedding.
+
+Sidney stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in
+her new philosophy, she had learned many strange things. One of them was
+this: that women like Grace Irving did not betray their lovers; that the
+code of the underworld was "death to the squealer"; that one played the
+game, and won or lost, and if he lost, took his medicine. If not Grace,
+then who? Somebody else in the hospital who knew her story, of course.
+But who? And again--why?
+
+Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set
+fire to it with a match. Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.
+
+The Street voted the wedding a great success. The alley, however, was
+rather confused by certain things. For instance, it regarded the awning
+as essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck
+in under the side when no one was looking. Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely
+refused to take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she
+guessed she was able to walk up alone.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete
+chauffeur's outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the shield that was
+his State license pinned over his heart.
+
+The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to
+supper. Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case
+only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well
+to trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit
+down to a cold snack when they got home?
+
+To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the
+wedding was Sidney--Sidney only. He watched her first steps down the
+aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched
+the swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she passed him
+and went forward past the long rows of craning necks. Afterward he could
+not remember the wedding party at all. The service for him was Sidney,
+rather awed and very serious, beside the altar. It was Sidney who came
+down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney
+with Max beside her!
+
+On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her
+new career. The wedding gowns were successful. They were more than
+that--they were triumphant. Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes
+over the church, filled with potential brides.
+
+To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future of endless lace
+and chiffon, the joy of creation, triumph eclipsing triumph. But to
+Anna, watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish
+lips, was coming her hour. Sitting back in the pew, with her hands
+folded over her prayer-book, she said a little prayer for her straight
+young daughter, facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.
+
+As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been
+standing at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He
+stumbled, rather, as if he could not see.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper
+Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had
+selected for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of
+the city, and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson
+had gone out to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him.
+For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice.
+
+She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes.
+She knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing--that he
+would pay as little as possible. But she knew, too, that, let him want a
+thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage.
+
+She was very skillful. The very ardor in her face was in her favor.
+Behind her hot eyes lurked cold calculation. She would put the thing
+through, and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening
+prayers, a thing or two.
+
+During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything more elaborate
+than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves
+rolled up to show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders at the
+little farmhouse. She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square
+yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully
+posed over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road. She read
+Browning, Emerson, Swinburne. Once he found her with a book that she
+hastily concealed. He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It was a
+book on brain surgery. Confronted with it, she blushed and dropped her
+eyes.
+
+His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as
+she had intended.
+
+"I feel such an idiot when I am with you," she said. "I wanted to know a
+little more about the things you do."
+
+That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter
+he occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her
+responsive, intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before,
+lay open to her.
+
+Now and then their professional discussions ended in something
+different. The two lines of their interest converged.
+
+"Gad!" he said one day. "I look forward to these evenings. I can talk
+shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the
+most intelligent woman I know--and one of the prettiest."
+
+He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible
+purpose of admiring the view.
+
+"As long as you talk shop," she said, "I feel that there is nothing
+wrong in our being together; but when you say the other thing--"
+
+"Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?"
+
+"Under our circumstances, yes."
+
+He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.
+
+"The loveliest mouth in the world!" he said, and kissed her suddenly.
+
+She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.
+Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.
+
+No, she was not angry, she said. It was only that he had set her
+thinking. When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and
+good-bye. He only laughed.
+
+"Don't you trust me?" he said, leaning out to her.
+
+She raised her dark eyes.
+
+"It is not that. I do not trust myself."
+
+After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.
+
+"Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the
+most dangerous of toys." A spice of danger had entered into their
+relationship. It had become infinitely piquant.
+
+He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison
+had gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back. That
+pleased him. Evidently she was frightened. Every man likes to think that
+he is a bit of a devil. Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his
+car outside the whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the
+direction Carlotta had taken.
+
+She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree,
+looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental
+struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a
+foot or two, with her hands out before her.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried. "How dare you follow me! I--I have got to
+have a little time alone. I have got to think things out."
+
+He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was
+quite as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree
+and lighted a cigarette before he answered.
+
+"I was afraid of this," he said, playing up. "You take it entirely too
+hard. I am not really a villain, Carlotta."
+
+It was the first time he had used her name.
+
+"Sit down and let us talk things over."
+
+She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing
+to him with the somber eyes that were her great asset.
+
+"You can afford to be very calm," she said, "because this is only play
+to you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and
+not--unattractive. But what is play for you is not necessarily play for
+me. I am going away from here."
+
+For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why,
+the girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried--he was at
+the mercy of any woman who cried.
+
+"Give up your training?"
+
+"What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max."
+
+She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her
+in his arms.
+
+"Don't do that," he said. "Please don't do that. You make me feel like
+a scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's
+all. I swear it."
+
+She lifted her head from his shoulder.
+
+"You mean you are happy with me?"
+
+"Very, very happy," said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.
+
+
+The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself.
+She had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But
+she had left out this important factor in the equation,--that factor
+which in every relationship between man and woman determines the
+equation,--the woman.
+
+Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She
+who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and
+the things thereof, found that it would not be put aside. By the end of
+her short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love with the younger
+Wilson.
+
+They continued to meet, not as often as before, but once a week,
+perhaps. The meetings were full of danger now; and if for the girl they
+lost by this quality, they gained attraction for the man. She was shrewd
+enough to realize her own situation. The thing had gone wrong. She
+cared, and he did not. It was all a game now, not hers.
+
+All women are intuitive; women in love are dangerously so. As well as
+she knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she
+realized that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the
+real thing for Sidney Page. Suspicion became certainty after a talk
+they had over the supper table at a country road-house the day after
+Christine's wedding.
+
+"How was the wedding--tiresome?" she asked.
+
+"Thrilling! There's always something thrilling to me in a man tying
+himself up for life to one woman. It's--it's so reckless."
+
+Her eyes narrowed. "That's not exactly the Law and the Prophets, is it?"
+
+"It's the truth. To think of selecting out of all the world one woman,
+and electing to spend the rest of one's days with her! Although--"
+
+His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance.
+
+"Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids," he said irrelevantly. "She was
+lovelier than the bride."
+
+"Pretty, but stupid," said Carlotta. "I like her. I've really tried to
+teach her things, but--you know--" She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+Dr. Max was learning wisdom. If there was a twinkle in his eye, he
+veiled it discreetly. But, once again in the machine, he bent over and
+put his cheek against hers.
+
+"You little cat! You're jealous," he said exultantly.
+
+Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very
+close to his heart those autumn days. And Carlotta knew it.
+
+Sidney came off night duty the middle of November. The night duty had
+been a time of comparative peace to Carlotta. There were no evenings
+when Dr. Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car.
+
+Sidney's half-days at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on
+Carlotta's part. On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she
+could not contain herself. She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and
+took the trolley to a point near the end of the Street. After twilight
+fell, she slowly walked the length of the Street. Christine and Palmer
+had not returned from their wedding journey. The November evening was
+not cold, and on the little balcony sat Sidney and Dr. Max. K. was
+there, too, had she only known it, sitting back in the shadow and saying
+little, his steady eyes on Sidney's profile.
+
+But this Carlotta did not know. She went on down the Street in a frenzy
+of jealous anger.
+
+After that two ideas ran concurrent in Carlotta's mind: one was to get
+Sidney out of the way, the other was to make Wilson propose to her. In
+her heart she knew that on the first depended the second.
+
+A week later she made the same frantic excursion, but with a different
+result. Sidney was not in sight, or Wilson. But standing on the wooden
+doorstep of the little house was Le Moyne. The ailanthus trees were
+bare at that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky. The
+street-lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep in the shadow, now
+shone through the branches and threw into strong relief Le Moyne's tall
+figure and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat. But he
+did not see her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew.
+Another element had entered into her plotting. It was the first time
+she had known that K. lived in the Page house. It gave her a sense of
+uncertainty and deadly fear.
+
+She made her first friendly overture of many days to Sidney the
+following day. They met in the locker-room in the basement where the
+street clothing for the ward patients was kept. Here, rolled in bundles
+and ticketed, side by side lay the heterogeneous garments in which
+the patients had met accident or illness. Rags and tidiness, filth and
+cleanliness, lay almost touching.
+
+Far away on the other side of the white-washed basement, men were
+unloading gleaming cans of milk. Floods of sunlight came down the
+cellar-way, touching their white coats and turning the cans to silver.
+Everywhere was the religion of the hospital, which is order.
+
+Sidney, harking back from recent slights to the staircase conversation
+of her night duty, smiled at Carlotta cheerfully.
+
+"A miracle is happening," she said. "Grace Irving is going out to-day.
+When one remembers how ill she was and how we thought she could not
+live, it's rather a triumph, isn't it?"
+
+"Are those her clothes?"
+
+Sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her
+hand.
+
+"She can't go out in those; I shall have to lend her something." A
+little of the light died out of her face. "She's had a hard fight, and
+she has won," she said. "But when I think of what she's probably going
+back to--"
+
+Carlotta shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"It's all in the day's work," she observed indifferently. "You can take
+them up into the kitchen and give them steady work paring potatoes, or
+put them in the laundry ironing. In the end it's the same thing. They
+all go back."
+
+She drew a package from the locker and looked at it ruefully.
+
+"Well, what do you know about this? Here's a woman who came in in a
+nightgown and pair of slippers. And now she wants to go out in half an
+hour!"
+
+She turned, on her way out of the locker-room, and shot a quick glance
+at Sidney.
+
+"I happened to be on your street the other night," she said. "You live
+across the street from Wilsons', don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought so; I had heard you speak of the house. Your--your brother
+was standing on the steps."
+
+Sidney laughed.
+
+"I have no brother. That's a roomer, a Mr. Le Moyne. It isn't really
+right to call him a roomer; he's one of the family now."
+
+"Le Moyne!"
+
+He had even taken another name. It had hit him hard, for sure.
+
+K.'s name had struck an always responsive chord in Sidney. The two girls
+went toward the elevator together. With a very little encouragement,
+Sidney talked of K. She was pleased at Miss Harrison's friendly tone,
+glad that things were all right between them again. At her floor, she
+put a timid hand on the girl's arm.
+
+"I was afraid I had offended you or displeased you," she said. "I'm so
+glad it isn't so."
+
+Carlotta shivered under her hand.
+
+Things were not going any too well with K. True, he had received his
+promotion at the office, and with this present affluence of twenty-two
+dollars a week he was able to do several things. Mrs. Rosenfeld now
+washed and ironed one day a week at the little house, so that Katie
+might have more time to look after Anna. He had increased also the
+amount of money that he periodically sent East.
+
+So far, well enough. The thing that rankled and filled him with a sense
+of failure was Max Wilson's attitude. It was not unfriendly; it was,
+indeed, consistently respectful, almost reverential. But he clearly
+considered Le Moyne's position absurd.
+
+There was no true comradeship between the two men; but there was
+beginning to be constant association, and lately a certain amount of
+friction. They thought differently about almost everything.
+
+Wilson began to bring all his problems to Le Moyne. There were long
+consultations in that small upper room. Perhaps more than one man or
+woman who did not know of K.'s existence owed his life to him that fall.
+
+Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels. Cases began to come in to him
+from the surrounding towns. To his own daring was added a new and
+remarkable technique. But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not
+content, was once again in touch with the work he loved. There were
+times when, having thrashed a case out together and outlined the next
+day's work for Max, he would walk for hours into the night out over the
+hills, fighting his battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick
+of things again. The thought of the gas office and its deadly round
+sickened him.
+
+It was on one of his long walks that K. found Tillie.
+
+It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to
+rain as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside
+paths thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that
+Saturday afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the
+street-car line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he
+wore no overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat. Somewhere along
+the road he had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for
+human society, it trotted companionably at his heels.
+
+Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and
+stopped in for a glass of Scotch. He was chilled through. The dog
+went in with him, and stood looking up into his face. It was as if he
+submitted, but wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road
+ahead and the trails of rabbits over the fields.
+
+The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills. Through the mist
+of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him. The door
+was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet.
+To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth,
+and in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers. To the
+left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor
+of the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over
+everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house
+was aggressive with new paint--the sagging old floors shone with it, the
+doors gleamed.
+
+"Hello!" called K.
+
+There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer,
+the rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing
+uncertainly on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish,
+stripped off his sweater.
+
+"Not very busy here this afternoon!" he said to the unseen female on the
+staircase. Then he saw her. It was Tillie. She put a hand against the
+doorframe to steady herself. Tillie surely, but a new Tillie! With her
+hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the
+throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller,
+infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her. But she did not
+smile at him. There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's
+expression, submissive, but questioning.
+
+"Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne." And, when he held out his hand,
+smiling: "I just had to do it, Mr. K."
+
+"And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and--happy, Tillie."
+
+"I'm all right. Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice. He'll be back at
+five. Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?"
+
+The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie. The Street did
+not approve of "something else."
+
+"Scotch-and-soda," said Le Moyne. "And shall I buy a ticket for you to
+punch?"
+
+But she only smiled faintly. He was sorry he had made the blunder.
+Evidently the Street and all that pertained was a sore subject.
+
+So this was Tillie's new home! It was for this that she had exchanged
+the virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's--for this wind-swept
+little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon
+enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The
+other was the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of
+self-abnegation had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed.
+Back of its position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own
+situation. On a wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was
+another vase of dried flowers.
+
+Tillie brought the Scotch, already mixed, in a tall glass. K. would
+have preferred to mix it himself, but the Scotch was good. He felt a new
+respect for Mr. Schwitter.
+
+"You gave me a turn at first," said Tillie. "But I am right glad to see
+you, Mr. Le Moyne. Now that the roads are bad, nobody comes very much.
+It's lonely."
+
+Until now, K. and Tillie, when they met, had met conversationally on the
+common ground of food. They no longer had that, and between them both
+lay like a barrier their last conversation.
+
+"Are you happy, Tillie?" said K. suddenly.
+
+"I expected you'd ask me that. I've been thinking what to say."
+
+Her reply set him watching her face. More attractive it certainly was,
+but happy? There was a wistfulness about Tillie's mouth that set him
+wondering.
+
+"Is he good to you?"
+
+"He's about the best man on earth. He's never said a cross word to
+me--even at first, when I was panicky and scared at every sound."
+
+Le Moyne nodded understandingly.
+
+"I burned a lot of victuals when I first came, running off and hiding
+when I heard people around the place. It used to seem to me that what
+I'd done was written on my face. But he never said a word."
+
+"That's over now?"
+
+"I don't run. I am still frightened."
+
+"Then it has been worth while?"
+
+Tillie glanced up at the two pictures over the mantel.
+
+"Sometimes it is--when he comes in tired, and I've a chicken ready or
+some fried ham and eggs for his supper, and I see him begin to look
+rested. He lights his pipe, and many an evening he helps me with the
+dishes. He's happy; he's getting fat."
+
+"But you?" Le Moyne persisted.
+
+"I wouldn't go back to where I was, but I am not happy, Mr. Le Moyne.
+There's no use pretending. I want a baby. All along I've wanted a baby.
+He wants one. This place is his, and he'd like a boy to come into it
+when he's gone. But, my God! if I did have one; what would it be?"
+
+K.'s eyes followed hers to the picture and the everlastings underneath.
+
+"And she--there isn't any prospect of her--?"
+
+"No."
+
+There was no solution to Tillie's problem. Le Moyne, standing on the
+hearth and looking down at her, realized that, after all, Tillie must
+work out her own salvation. He could offer her no comfort.
+
+They talked far into the growing twilight of the afternoon. Tillie was
+hungry for news of the Street: must know of Christine's wedding, of
+Harriet, of Sidney in her hospital. And when he had told her all, she
+sat silent, rolling her handkerchief in her fingers. Then:--
+
+"Take the four of us," she said suddenly,--"Christine Lorenz and Sidney
+Page and Miss Harriet and me,--and which one would you have picked to
+go wrong like this? I guess, from the looks of things, most folks would
+have thought it would be the Lorenz girl. They'd have picked Harriet
+Kennedy for the hospital, and me for the dressmaking, and it would have
+been Sidney Page that got married and had an automobile. Well, that's
+life."
+
+She looked up at K. shrewdly.
+
+"There were some people out here lately. They didn't know me, and I
+heard them talking. They said Sidney Page was going to marry Dr. Max
+Wilson."
+
+"Possibly. I believe there is no engagement yet."
+
+He had finished with his glass. Tillie rose to take it away. As she
+stood before him she looked up into his face.
+
+"If you like her as well as I think you do, Mr. Le Moyne, you won't let
+him get her."
+
+"I am afraid that's not up to me, is it? What would I do with a wife,
+Tillie?"
+
+"You'd be faithful to her. That's more than he would be. I guess, in the
+long run, that would count more than money."
+
+That was what K. took home with him after his encounter with Tillie. He
+pondered it on his way back to the street-car, as he struggled against
+the wind. The weather had changed. Wagon-tracks along the road were
+filled with water and had begun to freeze. The rain had turned to a
+driving sleet that cut his face. Halfway to the trolley line, the dog
+turned off into a by-road. K. did not miss him. The dog stared after
+him, one foot raised. Once again his eyes were like Tillie's, as she had
+waved good-bye from the porch.
+
+His head sunk on his breast, K. covered miles of road with his long,
+swinging pace, and fought his battle. Was Tillie right, after all, and
+had he been wrong? Why should he efface himself, if it meant Sidney's
+unhappiness? Why not accept Wilson's offer and start over again? Then
+if things went well--the temptation was strong that stormy afternoon. He
+put it from him at last, because of the conviction that whatever he did
+would make no change in Sidney's ultimate decision. If she cared enough
+for Wilson, she would marry him. He felt that she cared enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Palmer and Christine returned from their wedding trip the day K.
+discovered Tillie. Anna Page made much of the arrival, insisted on
+dinner for them that night at the little house, must help Christine
+unpack her trunks and arrange her wedding gifts about the apartment. She
+was brighter than she had been for days, more interested. The wonders of
+the trousseau filled her with admiration and a sort of jealous envy for
+Sidney, who could have none of these things. In a pathetic sort of way,
+she mothered Christine in lieu of her own daughter.
+
+And it was her quick eye that discerned something wrong. Christine was
+not quite happy. Under her excitement was an undercurrent of reserve.
+Anna, rich in maternity if in nothing else, felt it, and in reply to
+some speech of Christine's that struck her as hard, not quite fitting,
+she gave her a gentle admonishing.
+
+"Married life takes a little adjusting, my dear," she said. "After we
+have lived to ourselves for a number of years, it is not easy to live
+for some one else."
+
+Christine straightened from the tea-table she was arranging.
+
+"That's true, of course. But why should the woman do all the adjusting?"
+
+"Men are more set," said poor Anna, who had never been set in anything
+in her life. "It is harder for them to give in. And, of course, Palmer
+is older, and his habits--"
+
+"The less said about Palmer's habits the better," flashed Christine. "I
+appear to have married a bunch of habits."
+
+She gave over her unpacking, and sat down listlessly by the fire, while
+Anna moved about, busy with the small activities that delighted her.
+
+Six weeks of Palmer's society in unlimited amounts had bored Christine
+to distraction. She sat with folded hands and looked into a future that
+seemed to include nothing but Palmer: Palmer asleep with his mouth open;
+Palmer shaving before breakfast, and irritable until he had had his
+coffee; Palmer yawning over the newspaper.
+
+And there was a darker side to the picture than that. There was a vision
+of Palmer slipping quietly into his room and falling into the heavy
+sleep, not of drunkenness perhaps, but of drink. That had happened
+twice. She knew now that it would happen again and again, as long as he
+lived. Drinking leads to other things. The letter she had received on
+her wedding day was burned into her brain. There would be that in the
+future too, probably.
+
+Christine was not without courage. She was making a brave clutch
+at happiness. But that afternoon of the first day at home she was
+terrified. She was glad when Anna went and left her alone by her fire.
+
+But when she heard a step in the hall, she opened the door herself. She
+had determined to meet Palmer with a smile. Tears brought nothing;
+she had learned that already. Men liked smiling women and good cheer.
+"Daughters of joy," they called girls like the one on the Avenue. So she
+opened the door smiling.
+
+But it was K. in the hall. She waited while, with his back to her, he
+shook himself like a great dog. When he turned, she was watching him.
+
+"You!" said Le Moyne. "Why, welcome home."
+
+He smiled down at her, his kindly eyes lighting.
+
+"It's good to be home and to see you again. Won't you come in to my
+fire?"
+
+"I'm wet."
+
+"All the more reason why you should come," she cried gayly, and held the
+door wide.
+
+The little parlor was cheerful with fire and soft lamps, bright with
+silver vases full of flowers. K. stepped inside and took a critical
+survey of the room.
+
+"Well!" he said. "Between us we have made a pretty good job of this, I
+with the paper and the wiring, and you with your pretty furnishings and
+your pretty self."
+
+He glanced at her appreciatively. Christine saw his approval, and was
+happier than she had been for weeks. She put on the thousand little airs
+and graces that were a part of her--held her chin high, looked up at
+him with the little appealing glances that she had found were wasted on
+Palmer. She lighted the spirit-lamp to make tea, drew out the best chair
+for him, and patted a cushion with her well-cared-for hands.
+
+"A big chair for a big man!" she said. "And see, here's a footstool."
+
+"I am ridiculously fond of being babied," said K., and quite basked in
+his new atmosphere of well-being. This was better than his empty room
+upstairs, than tramping along country roads, than his own thoughts.
+
+"And now, how is everything?" asked Christine from across the fire. "Do
+tell me all the scandal of the Street."
+
+"There has been no scandal since you went away," said K. And, because
+each was glad not to be left to his own thoughts, they laughed at this
+bit of unconscious humor.
+
+"Seriously," said Le Moyne, "we have been very quiet. I have had my
+salary raised and am now rejoicing in twenty-two dollars a week. I
+am still not accustomed to it. Just when I had all my ideas fixed for
+fifteen, I get twenty-two and have to reassemble them. I am disgustingly
+rich."
+
+"It is very disagreeable when one's income becomes a burden," said
+Christine gravely.
+
+She was finding in Le Moyne something that she needed just then--a
+solidity, a sort of dependability, that had nothing to do with
+heaviness. She felt that here was a man she could trust, almost confide
+in. She liked his long hands, his shabby but well-cut clothes, his fine
+profile with its strong chin. She left off her little affectations,--a
+tribute to his own lack of them,--and sat back in her chair, watching
+the fire.
+
+When K. chose, he could talk well. The Howes had been to Bermuda on
+their wedding trip. He knew Bermuda; that gave them a common ground.
+Christine relaxed under his steady voice. As for K., he frankly enjoyed
+the little visit--drew himself at last with regret out of his chair.
+
+"You've been very nice to ask me in, Mrs. Howe," he said. "I hope you
+will allow me to come again. But, of course, you are going to be very
+gay."
+
+It seemed to Christine she would never be gay again. She did not
+want him to go away. The sound of his deep voice gave her a sense of
+security. She liked the clasp of the hand he held out to her, when at
+last he made a move toward the door.
+
+"Tell Mr. Howe I am sorry he missed our little party," said Le Moyne.
+"And--thank you."
+
+"Will you come again?" asked Christine rather wistfully.
+
+"Just as often as you ask me."
+
+As he closed the door behind him, there was a new light in Christine's
+eyes. Things were not right, but, after all, they were not hopeless. One
+might still have friends, big and strong, steady of eye and voice. When
+Palmer came home, the smile she gave him was not forced.
+
+The day's exertion had been bad for Anna. Le Moyne found her on the
+couch in the transformed sewing-room, and gave her a quick glance of
+apprehension. She was propped up high with pillows, with a bottle of
+aromatic ammonia beside her.
+
+"Just--short of breath," she panted. "I--I must get down. Sidney--is
+coming home--to supper; and--the others--Palmer and--"
+
+That was as far as she got. K., watch in hand, found her pulse thin,
+stringy, irregular. He had been prepared for some such emergency, and he
+hurried into his room for amyl-nitrate. When he came back she was almost
+unconscious. There was no time even to call Katie. He broke the capsule
+in a towel, and held it over her face. After a time the spasm relaxed,
+but her condition remained alarming.
+
+Harriet, who had come home by that time, sat by the couch and held her
+sister's hand. Only once in the next hour or so did she speak. They had
+sent for Dr. Ed, but he had not come yet. Harriet was too wretched to
+notice the professional manner in which K. set to work over Anna.
+
+"I've been a very hard sister to her," she said. "If you can pull her
+through, I'll try to make up for it."
+
+Christine sat on the stairs outside, frightened and helpless. They had
+sent for Sidney; but the little house had no telephone, and the message
+was slow in getting off.
+
+At six o'clock Dr. Ed came panting up the stairs and into the room. K.
+stood back.
+
+"Well, this is sad, Harriet," said Dr. Ed. "Why in the name of Heaven,
+when I wasn't around, didn't you get another doctor. If she had had some
+amyl-nitrate--"
+
+"I gave her some nitrate of amyl," said K. quietly. "There was really no
+time to send for anybody. She almost went under at half-past five."
+
+Max had kept his word, and even Dr. Ed did not suspect K.'s secret. He
+gave a quick glance at this tall young man who spoke so quietly of what
+he had done for the sick woman, and went on with his work.
+
+Sidney arrived a little after six, and from that moment the confusion in
+the sick-room was at an end. She moved Christine from the stairs,
+where Katie on her numerous errands must crawl over her; set Harriet to
+warming her mother's bed and getting it ready; opened windows, brought
+order and quiet. And then, with death in her eyes, she took up her
+position beside her mother. This was no time for weeping; that would
+come later. Once she turned to K., standing watchfully beside her.
+
+"I think you have known this for a long time," she said. And, when he
+did not answer: "Why did you let me stay away from her? It would have
+been such a little time!"
+
+"We were trying to do our best for both of you," he replied.
+
+Anna was unconscious and sinking fast. One thought obsessed Sidney.
+She repeated it over and over. It came as a cry from the depths of the
+girl's new experience.
+
+"She has had so little of life," she said, over and over. "So little!
+Just this Street. She never knew anything else."
+
+And finally K. took it up.
+
+"After all, Sidney," he said, "the Street IS life: the world is only
+many streets. She had a great deal. She had love and content, and she
+had you."
+
+Anna died a little after midnight, a quiet passing, so that only Sidney
+and the two men knew when she went away. It was Harriet who collapsed.
+During all that long evening she had sat looking back over years of
+small unkindnesses. The thorn of Anna's inefficiency had always rankled
+in her flesh. She had been hard, uncompromising, thwarted. And now it
+was forever too late.
+
+K. had watched Sidney carefully. Once he thought she was fainting, and
+went to her. But she shook her head.
+
+"I am all right. Do you think you could get them all out of the room and
+let me have her alone for just a few minutes?"
+
+He cleared the room, and took up his vigil outside the door. And, as he
+stood there, he thought of what he had said to Sidney about the Street.
+It was a world of its own. Here in this very house were death and
+separation; Harriet's starved life; Christine and Palmer beginning a
+long and doubtful future together; himself, a failure, and an impostor.
+
+When he opened the door again, Sidney was standing by her mother's bed.
+He went to her, and she turned and put her head against his shoulder
+like a tired child.
+
+"Take me away, K.," she said pitifully.
+
+And, with his arm around her, he led her out of the room.
+
+Outside of her small immediate circle Anna's death was hardly felt.
+The little house went on much as before. Harriet carried back to her
+business a heaviness of spirit that made it difficult to bear with
+the small irritations of her day. Perhaps Anna's incapacity, which had
+always annoyed her, had been physical. She must have had her trouble a
+longtime. She remembered other women of the Street who had crept through
+inefficient days, and had at last laid down their burdens and closed
+their mild eyes, to the lasting astonishment of their families. What did
+they think about, these women, as they pottered about? Did they resent
+the impatience that met their lagging movements, the indifference
+that would not see how they were failing? Hot tears fell on Harriet's
+fashion-book as it lay on her knee. Not only for Anna--for Anna's
+prototypes everywhere.
+
+On Sidney--and in less measure, of course, on K.--fell the real brunt of
+the disaster. Sidney kept up well until after the funeral, but went down
+the next day with a low fever.
+
+"Overwork and grief," Dr. Ed said, and sternly forbade the hospital
+again until Christmas. Morning and evening K. stopped at her door and
+inquired for her, and morning and evening came Sidney's reply:--
+
+"Much better. I'll surely be up to-morrow!"
+
+But the days dragged on and she did not get about.
+
+Downstairs, Christine and Palmer had entered on the round of midwinter
+gayeties. Palmer's "crowd" was a lively one. There were dinners
+and dances, week-end excursions to country-houses. The Street grew
+accustomed to seeing automobiles stop before the little house at all
+hours of the night. Johnny Rosenfeld, driving Palmer's car, took to
+falling asleep at the wheel in broad daylight, and voiced his discontent
+to his mother.
+
+"You never know where you are with them guys," he said briefly. "We
+start out for half an hour's run in the evening, and get home with the
+milk-wagons. And the more some of them have had to drink, the more they
+want to drive the machine. If I get a chance, I'm going to beat it while
+the wind's my way."
+
+But, talk as he might, in Johnny Rosenfeld's loyal heart there was no
+thought of desertion. Palmer had given him a man's job, and he would
+stick by it, no matter what came.
+
+There were some things that Johnny Rosenfeld did not tell his mother.
+There were evenings when the Howe car was filled, not with Christine
+and her friends, but with women of a different world; evenings when the
+destination was not a country estate, but a road-house; evenings when
+Johnny Rosenfeld, ousted from the driver's seat by some drunken youth,
+would hold tight to the swinging car and say such fragments of prayers
+as he could remember. Johnny Rosenfeld, who had started life with few
+illusions, was in danger of losing such as he had.
+
+One such night Christine put in, lying wakefully in her bed, while the
+clock on the mantel tolled hour after hour into the night. Palmer did
+not come home at all. He sent a note from the office in the morning:
+
+"I hope you are not worried, darling. The car broke down near the
+Country Club last night, and there was nothing to do but to spend the
+night there. I would have sent you word, but I did not want to rouse
+you. What do you say to the theater to-night and supper afterward?"
+
+Christine was learning. She telephoned the Country Club that morning,
+and found that Palmer had not been there. But, although she knew now
+that he was deceiving her, as he always had deceived her, as probably
+he always would, she hesitated to confront him with what she knew. She
+shrank, as many a woman has shrunk before, from confronting him with his
+lie.
+
+But the second time it happened, she was roused. It was almost Christmas
+then, and Sidney was well on the way to recovery, thinner and very
+white, but going slowly up and down the staircase on K.'s arm, and
+sitting with Harriet and K. at the dinner table. She was begging to be
+back on duty for Christmas, and K. felt that he would have to give her
+up soon.
+
+At three o'clock one morning Sidney roused from a light sleep to hear a
+rapping on her door.
+
+"Is that you, Aunt Harriet?" she called.
+
+"It's Christine. May I come in?"
+
+Sidney unlocked her door. Christine slipped into the room. She carried a
+candle, and before she spoke she looked at Sidney's watch on the bedside
+table.
+
+"I hoped my clock was wrong," she said. "I am sorry to waken you,
+Sidney, but I don't know what to do."
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No. Palmer has not come home."
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"After three o'clock."
+
+Sidney had lighted the gas and was throwing on her dressing-gown.
+
+"When he went out did he say--"
+
+"He said nothing. We had been quarreling. Sidney, I am going home in the
+morning."
+
+"You don't mean that, do you?"
+
+"Don't I look as if I mean it? How much of this sort of thing is a woman
+supposed to endure?"
+
+"Perhaps he has been delayed. These things always seem terrible in the
+middle of the night, but by morning--"
+
+Christine whirled on her.
+
+"This isn't the first time. You remember the letter I got on my wedding
+day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's gone back to her."
+
+"Christine! Oh, I am sure you're wrong. He's devoted to you. I don't
+believe it!"
+
+"Believe it or not," said Christine doggedly, "that's exactly what has
+happened. I got something out of that little rat of a Rosenfeld boy, and
+the rest I know because I know Palmer. He's out with her to-night."
+
+The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to
+make a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious. But
+vice had remained for her a clear abstraction. There were such people,
+and because one was in the world for service one cared for them. Even
+the Saviour had been kind to the woman of the streets.
+
+But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world--that
+because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked. Her young
+spirit rose in hot rebellion.
+
+"It isn't fair!" she cried. "It makes me hate all the men in the world.
+Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!"
+
+Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room. Mere companionship
+had soothed her. She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than
+Sidney.
+
+"They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven," she said. "There are
+decent men. My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is
+another."
+
+At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home. Christine met
+him in the lower hall. He was rather pale, but entirely sober. She
+confronted him in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.
+
+"I am sorry to be so late, Chris," he said. "The fact is, I am all in. I
+was driving the car out Seven Mile Run. We blew out a tire and the thing
+turned over."
+
+Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits
+with his wedding day. In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much
+in love with his wife.
+
+But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of
+marriage had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face
+value. Grace had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed
+to be. With Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now--all his small
+indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on, like other
+women since the world began, she would learn to dissemble, to affect to
+believe him what he was not.
+
+Grace had learned this lesson long ago. It was the ABC of her knowledge.
+And so, back to Grace six weeks after his wedding day came Palmer
+Howe, not with a suggestion to renew the old relationship, but for
+comradeship.
+
+Christine sulked--he wanted good cheer; Christine was intolerant--he
+wanted tolerance; she disapproved of him and showed her disapproval--he
+wanted approval. He wanted life to be comfortable and cheerful, without
+recriminations, a little work and much play, a drink when one was
+thirsty. Distorted though it was, and founded on a wrong basis, perhaps,
+deep in his heart Palmer's only longing was for happiness; but this
+happiness must be of an active sort--not content, which is passive, but
+enjoyment.
+
+"Come on out," he said. "I've got a car now. No taxi working its head
+off for us. Just a little run over the country roads, eh?"
+
+It was the afternoon of the day before Christine's night visit to
+Sidney. The office had been closed, owing to a death, and Palmer was in
+possession of a holiday.
+
+"Come on," he coaxed. "We'll go out to the Climbing Rose and have
+supper."
+
+"I don't want to go."
+
+"That's not true, Grace, and you know it."
+
+"You and I are through."
+
+"It's your doing, not mine. The roads are frozen hard; an hour's run
+into the country will bring your color back."
+
+"Much you care about that. Go and ride with your wife," said the girl,
+and flung away from him.
+
+The last few weeks had filled out her thin figure, but she still bore
+traces of her illness. Her short hair was curled over her head. She
+looked curiously boyish, almost sexless.
+
+Because she saw him wince when she mentioned Christine, her ill temper
+increased. She showed her teeth.
+
+"You get out of here," she said suddenly. "I didn't ask you to come
+back. I don't want you."
+
+"Good Heavens, Grace! You always knew I would have to marry some day."
+
+"I was sick; I nearly died. I didn't hear any reports of you hanging
+around the hospital to learn how I was getting along."
+
+He laughed rather sheepishly.
+
+"I had to be careful. You know that as well as I do. I know half the
+staff there. Besides, one of--" He hesitated over his wife's name. "A
+girl I know very well was in the training-school. There would have been
+the devil to pay if I'd as much as called up."
+
+"You never told me you were going to get married."
+
+Cornered, he slipped an arm around her. But she shook him off.
+
+"I meant to tell you, honey; but you got sick. Anyhow, I--I hated to
+tell you, honey."
+
+He had furnished the flat for her. There was a comfortable feeling of
+coming home about going there again. And, now that the worst minute of
+their meeting was over, he was visibly happier. But Grace continued to
+stand eyeing him somberly.
+
+"I've got something to tell you," she said. "Don't have a fit, and don't
+laugh. If you do, I'll--I'll jump out of the window. I've got a place in
+a store. I'm going to be straight, Palmer."
+
+"Good for you!"
+
+He meant it. She was a nice girl and he was fond of her. The other was
+a dog's life. And he was not unselfish about it. She could not belong to
+him. He did not want her to belong to any one else.
+
+"One of the nurses in the hospital, a Miss Page, has got me something to
+do at Lipton and Homburg's. I am going on for the January white sale. If
+I make good they will keep me."
+
+He had put her aside without a qualm; and now he met her announcement
+with approval. He meant to let her alone. They would have a holiday
+together, and then they would say good-bye. And she had not fooled him.
+She still cared. He was getting off well, all things considered. She
+might have raised a row.
+
+"Good work!" he said. "You'll be a lot happier. But that isn't any
+reason why we shouldn't be friends, is it? Just friends; I mean that.
+I would like to feel that I can stop in now and then and say how do you
+do."
+
+"I promised Miss Page."
+
+"Never mind Miss Page."
+
+The mention of Sidney's name brought up in his mind Christine as he had
+left her that morning. He scowled. Things were not going well at home.
+There was something wrong with Christine. She used to be a good sport,
+but she had never been the same since the day of the wedding. He thought
+her attitude toward him was one of suspicion. It made him uncomfortable.
+But any attempt on his part to fathom it only met with cold silence.
+That had been her attitude that morning.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," he said. "We won't go to any of the old
+places. I've found a new roadhouse in the country that's respectable
+enough to suit anybody. We'll go out to Schwitter's and get some dinner.
+I'll promise to get you back early. How's that?"
+
+In the end she gave in. And on the way out he lived up to the letter of
+their agreement. The situation exhilarated him: Grace with her new air
+of virtue, her new aloofness; his comfortable car; Johnny Rosenfeld's
+discreet back and alert ears.
+
+The adventure had all the thrill of a new conquest in it. He treated the
+girl with deference, did not insist when she refused a cigarette, felt
+glowingly virtuous and exultant at the same time.
+
+When the car drew up before the Schwitter place, he slipped a
+five-dollar bill into Johnny Rosenfeld's not over-clean hand.
+
+"I don't mind the ears," he said. "Just watch your tongue, lad." And
+Johnny stalled his engine in sheer surprise.
+
+"There's just enough of the Jew in me," said Johnny, "to know how to
+talk a lot and say nothing, Mr. Howe."
+
+He crawled stiffly out of the car and prepared to crank it.
+
+"I'll just give her the 'once over' now and then," he said. "She'll
+freeze solid if I let her stand."
+
+Grace had gone up the narrow path to the house. She had the gift of
+looking well in her clothes, and her small hat with its long quill
+and her motor-coat were chic and becoming. She never overdressed, as
+Christine was inclined to do.
+
+Fortunately for Palmer, Tillie did not see him. A heavy German maid
+waited at the table in the dining-room, while Tillie baked waffles in
+the kitchen.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld, going around the side path to the kitchen door with
+visions of hot coffee and a country supper for his frozen stomach, saw
+her through the window bending flushed over the stove, and hesitated.
+Then, without a word, he tiptoed back to the car again, and, crawling
+into the tonneau, covered himself with rugs. In his untutored mind were
+certain great qualities, and loyalty to his employer was one. The five
+dollars in his pocket had nothing whatever to do with it.
+
+At eighteen he had developed a philosophy of four words. It took the
+place of the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism. It
+was: "Mind your own business."
+
+The discovery of Tillie's hiding-place interested but did not thrill
+him. Tillie was his cousin. If she wanted to do the sort of thing she
+was doing, that was her affair. Tillie and her middle-aged lover, Palmer
+Howe and Grace--the alley was not unfamiliar with such relationships. It
+viewed them with tolerance until they were found out, when it raised its
+hands.
+
+True to his promise, Palmer wakened the sleeping boy before nine
+o'clock. Grace had eaten little and drunk nothing; but Howe was slightly
+stimulated.
+
+"Give her the 'once over,'" he told Johnny, "and then go back and crawl
+into the rugs again. I'll drive in."
+
+Grace sat beside him. Their progress was slow and rough over the
+country roads, but when they reached the State road Howe threw open the
+throttle. He drove well. The liquor was in his blood. He took chances
+and got away with them, laughing at the girl's gasps of dismay.
+
+"Wait until I get beyond Simkinsville," he said, "and I'll let her out.
+You're going to travel tonight, honey."
+
+The girl sat beside him with her eyes fixed ahead. He had been drinking,
+and the warmth of the liquor was in his voice. She was determined on one
+thing. She was going to make him live up to the letter of his promise to
+go away at the house door; and more and more she realized that it would
+be difficult. His mood was reckless, masterful. Instead of laughing when
+she drew back from a proffered caress, he turned surly. Obstinate lines
+that she remembered appeared from his nostrils to the corners of his
+mouth. She was uneasy.
+
+Finally she hit on a plan to make him stop somewhere in her neighborhood
+and let her get out of the car. She would not come back after that.
+
+There was another car going toward the city. Now it passed them, and as
+often they passed it. It became a contest of wits. Palmer's car lost on
+the hills, but gained on the long level stretches, which gleamed with a
+coating of thin ice.
+
+"I wish you'd let them get ahead, Palmer. It's silly and it's reckless."
+
+"I told you we'd travel to-night."
+
+He turned a little glance at her. What the deuce was the matter with
+women, anyhow? Were none of them cheerful any more? Here was Grace as
+sober as Christine. He felt outraged, defrauded.
+
+His light car skidded and struck the big car heavily. On a smooth road
+perhaps nothing more serious than broken mudguards would have been the
+result. But on the ice the small car slewed around and slid over the
+edge of the bank. At the bottom of the declivity it turned over.
+
+Grace was flung clear of the wreckage. Howe freed himself and stood
+erect, with one arm hanging at his side. There was no sound at all from
+the boy under the tonneau.
+
+The big car had stopped. Down the bank plunged a heavy, gorilla-like
+figure, long arms pushing aside the frozen branches of trees. When he
+reached the car, O'Hara found Grace sitting unhurt on the ground. In the
+wreck of the car the lamps had not been extinguished, and by their light
+he made out Howe, swaying dizzily.
+
+"Anybody underneath?"
+
+"The chauffeur. He's dead, I think. He doesn't answer."
+
+The other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that
+time. With the aid of a jack, they got the car up. Johnny Rosenfeld lay
+doubled on his face underneath. When he came to and opened his eyes,
+Grace almost shrieked with relief.
+
+"I'm all right," said Johnny Rosenfeld. And, when they offered him
+whiskey: "Away with the fire-water. I am no drinker. I--I--" A spasm of
+pain twisted his face. "I guess I'll get up." With his arms he lifted
+himself to a sitting position, and fell back again.
+
+"God!" he said. "I can't move my legs."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but
+valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a
+talk with K. the night before she left.
+
+Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by
+the table and watched her as she moved about the room.
+
+The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and
+down the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch
+in the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home
+for her tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to
+bear them in triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy in
+years.
+
+And now it was over. He drew a long breath.
+
+"I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on," she said anxiously. "Not
+that we don't want you--you know better than that."
+
+"There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to," he
+said simply.
+
+"I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to--to keep things
+together. First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it is
+you."
+
+"Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it is
+I who am undeniably grateful to you? This is home now. I have lived
+around--in different places and in different ways. I would rather be
+here than anywhere else in the world."
+
+But he did not look at her. There was so much that was hopeless in his
+eyes that he did not want her to see. She would be quite capable, he
+told himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she ever
+guessed. And he was afraid--afraid, since he wanted her so much--that he
+would be fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms. So he
+looked away.
+
+Everything was ready for her return to the hospital. She had been out
+that day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with folded
+hands; she had made her round of little visits on the Street; and now
+her suit-case, packed, was in the hall.
+
+"In one way, it will be a little better for you than if Christine and
+Palmer were not in the house. You like Christine, don't you?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"She likes you, K. She depends on you, too, especially since that night
+when you took care of Palmer's arm before we got Dr. Max. I often think,
+K., what a good doctor you would have been. You knew so well what to do
+for mother."
+
+She broke off. She still could not trust her voice about her mother.
+
+"Palmer's arm is going to be quite straight. Dr. Ed is so proud of Max
+over it. It was a bad fracture."
+
+He had been waiting for that. Once at least, whenever they were
+together, she brought Max into the conversation. She was quite
+unconscious of it.
+
+"You and Max are great friends. I knew you would like him. He is
+interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"Very," said K.
+
+To save his life, he could not put any warmth into his voice. He would
+be fair. It was not in human nature to expect more of him.
+
+"Those long talks you have, shut in your room--what in the world do you
+talk about? Politics?"
+
+"Occasionally."
+
+She was a little jealous of those evenings, when she sat alone, or
+when Harriet, sitting with her, made sketches under the lamp to the
+accompaniment of a steady hum of masculine voices from across the hall.
+Not that she was ignored, of course. Max came in always, before he went,
+and, leaning over the back of a chair, would inform her of the absolute
+blankness of life in the hospital without her.
+
+"I go every day because I must," he would assure her gayly; "but, I tell
+you, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every cap
+was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling." He
+had a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of
+the shoulders. "Cui bono?" he said--which, being translated, means:
+"What the devil's the use!"
+
+And K. would stand in the doorway, quietly smoking, or go back to his
+room and lock away in his trunk the great German books on surgery with
+which he and Max had been working out a case.
+
+So K. sat by the dining-room table and listened to her talk of Max that
+last evening together.
+
+"I told Mrs. Rosenfeld to-day not to be too much discouraged about
+Johnny. I had seen Dr. Max do such wonderful things. Now that you are
+such friends,"--she eyed him wistfully,--"perhaps some day you will come
+to one of his operations. Even if you didn't understand exactly, I know
+it would thrill you. And--I'd like you to see me in my uniform, K. You
+never have."
+
+She grew a little sad as the evening went on. She was going to miss K.
+very much. While she was ill she had watched the clock for the time to
+listen for him. She knew the way he slammed the front door. Palmer never
+slammed the door. She knew too that, just after a bang that threatened
+the very glass in the transom, K. would come to the foot of the stairs
+and call:--
+
+"Ahoy, there!"
+
+"Aye, aye," she would answer--which was, he assured her, the proper
+response.
+
+Whether he came up the stairs at once or took his way back to Katie had
+depended on whether his tribute for the day was fruit or sweetbreads.
+
+Now that was all over. They were such good friends. He would miss her,
+too; but he would have Harriet and Christine and--Max. Back in a circle
+to Max, of course.
+
+She insisted, that last evening, on sitting up with him until midnight
+ushered in Christmas Day. Christine and Palmer were out; Harriet, having
+presented Sidney with a blouse that had been left over in the shop from
+the autumn's business, had yawned herself to bed.
+
+When the bells announced midnight, Sidney roused with a start. She
+realized that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes were
+fixed on her. The little clock on the shelf took up the burden of the
+churches, and struck the hour in quick staccato notes.
+
+Sidney rose and went over to K., her black dress in soft folds about
+her.
+
+"He is born, K."
+
+"He is born, dear."
+
+She stooped and kissed his cheek lightly.
+
+Christmas Day dawned thick and white. Sidney left the little house at
+six, with the street light still burning through a mist of falling snow.
+
+The hospital wards and corridors were still lighted when she went on
+duty at seven o'clock. She had been assigned to the men's surgical ward,
+and went there at once. She had not seen Carlotta Harrison since her
+mother's death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward. For the
+second time in four months, the two girls were working side by side.
+
+Sidney's recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made her
+nervous. But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.
+
+"We were all sorry to hear of your trouble," she said. "I hope we shall
+get on nicely."
+
+Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing. At the far end two cots
+had been placed.
+
+"The ward is heavy, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. I've been almost mad at dressing hour. There are three of
+us--you, myself, and a probationer."
+
+The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows.
+Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a business-like way to her
+records.
+
+"The probationer's name is Wardwell," she said. "Perhaps you'd better
+help her with the breakfasts. If there's any way to make a mistake, she
+makes it."
+
+It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.
+
+"You here in the ward, Johnny!" she said.
+
+Suffering had refined the boy's features. His dark, heavily fringed eyes
+looked at her from a pale face. But he smiled up at her cheerfully.
+
+"I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved.
+Why pay rent?"
+
+Sidney had not seen him since his accident. She had wished to go, but K.
+had urged against it. She was not strong, and she had already suffered
+much. And now the work of the ward pressed hard. She had only a moment.
+She stood beside him and stroked his hand.
+
+"I'm sorry, Johnny."
+
+He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estate
+of a private patient to the free ward.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Miss Sidney," he said. "Mr. Howe is paying six
+dollars a week for me. The difference between me and the other fellows
+around here is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don't."
+
+Before his determined cheerfulness Sidney choked.
+
+"Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some. I wish you'd tell Mr.
+Howe to give ma the six dollars. She'll be needing it. I'm no bloated
+aristocrat; I don't have to have a napkin."
+
+"Have they told you what the trouble is?"
+
+"Back's broke. But don't let that worry you. Dr. Max Wilson is going to
+operate on me. I'll be doing the tango yet."
+
+Sidney's eyes shone. Of course, Max could do it. What a thing it was
+to be able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld's and make it
+life again!
+
+All sorts of men made up Sidney's world: the derelicts who wandered
+through the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; the
+unshaven men in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, if
+not of pain; Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, but
+filling no especial place in the world. Towering over them all was the
+younger Wilson. He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that the
+other men were not--to their weakness strength, courage, daring, power.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.
+
+"When I was a kid," he said, "and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Max
+a dude, I never thought I'd lie here watching that door to see him come
+in. You have had trouble, too. Ain't it the hell of a world, anyhow? It
+ain't much of a Christmas to you, either."
+
+Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up
+with tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as
+she might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled
+up at her whimsically.
+
+"Run for your life. The dam's burst!" he said.
+
+As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. The
+internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in
+their buttonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where the
+kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting
+turkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, services
+were held in the chapel downstairs.
+
+Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down
+elevators. Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet
+slippers.
+
+Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor
+the wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for
+the occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who
+drove the ambulance.
+
+On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in
+crisp caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved a
+place for the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready to
+run out between rejoicings, as it were--for a cigarette or an ambulance
+call, as the case might be.
+
+Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.
+
+The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising
+above the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glass
+windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her
+cap, always just a little awry.
+
+Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes
+straying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! What
+a zest for living and for happiness she had!
+
+The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:
+
+"Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even
+thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
+
+That was Sidney. She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil of
+gladness. And he--
+
+His brother was singing. His deep bass voice, not always true, boomed
+out above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to
+him; he had been a good son.
+
+Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his
+mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the
+girl who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to
+Carlotta last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line
+of nurses.
+
+Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted
+her head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.
+
+The nurses sang:--
+
+     "O holy Child of Bethlehem!
+      Descend to us, we pray;
+      Cast out our sin, and enter in,
+      Be born in us to-day."
+
+The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
+heavy throat shook with earnestness.
+
+The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and
+weary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.
+
+The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her
+a silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.
+But the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a
+great box of roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From a
+neighbor."
+
+Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
+afternoon.
+
+Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the
+corridor.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" she said. "You see!"--she glanced down to the rose
+she wore. "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."
+
+"But they were for you!"
+
+"They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
+chance to enjoy them."
+
+Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty
+speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died
+before her frank glance.
+
+There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her
+that he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without
+her; that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy
+man to his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire
+politely whether she had had her Christmas dinner.
+
+Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.
+
+"What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
+friends?"
+
+"Damn discipline!" said the pride of the staff.
+
+Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes roused
+the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.
+
+"My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,
+and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for a
+ride."
+
+He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he
+maliciously raised his voice a trifle.
+
+"Just a little run," he urged. "Put on your warmest things."
+
+Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock;
+but she had promised to go home.
+
+"K. is alone."
+
+"K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now."
+
+The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. The
+heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreen
+in the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And,
+besides, if K. were with Christine--
+
+"It's forbidden, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe it is." He smiled at her.
+
+"And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!"
+
+"One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and
+then."
+
+After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend and
+neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellion
+of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.
+
+"Very well; I'll go."
+
+Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and black
+despair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive
+with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on
+her face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleigh
+would throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He would
+touch Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method:
+to play at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the
+cloak dropped and the danger was there.
+
+The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went
+back to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair
+of woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays of
+holly scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey
+and ice-cream.
+
+The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the
+ward. She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the
+instant composing of the restless ward to peace.
+
+She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas
+was a festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she
+played cheerful things.
+
+The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across
+from bed to bed.
+
+The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
+long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
+the music.
+
+"Last Christmas," she said plaintively, "we went out into the country
+in a hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for,
+anyhow. I am a fool."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Carlotta.
+
+"Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's
+the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of
+what I sat down to to-day--!"
+
+She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital
+differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while
+Sidney's had been to care for her patients.
+
+Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idly
+glued the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was
+scratching a skull and cross-bones on it.
+
+"I wonder if you have noticed something," she said, eyes on the label.
+
+"I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given," said
+Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the
+rounds of the ward.
+
+When she came back she was sulky.
+
+"I'm no gossip," she said, putting the tray on the table. "If you won't
+see, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying."
+
+As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta
+paid no attention to this.
+
+"What won't I see?"
+
+It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importance
+and let her superior ask her twice. Then:--
+
+"Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page."
+
+A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.
+
+"They're old friends."
+
+"Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you
+wanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll
+never finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish," concluded the
+probationer plaintively, "that some good-looking fellow like that would
+take a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, but
+I've got style."
+
+She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her
+lanky, ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy
+would have dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long
+jade earrings, and made her a fashion.
+
+Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny
+Rosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.
+The ward echoed with it. "I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen," hummed the
+ward under its breath. Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.
+
+"Lord, how I'd like to dance! If I ever get out of this charnel-house!"
+
+The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.
+This crude girl was right--right. Carlotta knew it down to the depths of
+her tortured brain. As inevitably as the night followed the day, she was
+losing her game. She had lost already, unless--
+
+If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things.
+She surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wide
+apart. It was here that they met on common ground.
+
+The lame violin-player limped out of the ward; the shadows of the
+early winter twilight settled down. At five o'clock Carlotta sent Miss
+Wardwell to first supper, to the surprise of that seldom surprised
+person. The ward lay still or shuffled abut quietly. Christmas was over,
+and there were no evening papers to look forward to.
+
+Carlotta gave the five-o'clock medicines. Then she sat down at the table
+near the door, with the tray in front of her. There are certain thoughts
+that are at first functions of the brain; after a long time the spinal
+cord takes them up and converts them into acts almost automatically.
+Perhaps because for the last month she had done the thing so often in
+her mind, its actual performance was almost without conscious thought.
+
+Carlotta took a bottle from her medicine cupboard, and, writing a new
+label for it, pasted it over the old one. Then she exchanged it for one
+of the same size on the medicine tray.
+
+In the dining-room, at the probationers' table, Miss Wardwell was
+talking.
+
+"Believe me," she said, "me for the country and the simple life after
+this. They think I'm only a probationer and don't see anything, but I've
+got eyes in my head. Harrison is stark crazy over Dr. Wilson, and she
+thinks I don't see it. But never mind; I paid, her up to-day for a few
+of the jolts she has given me."
+
+Throughout the dining-room busy and competent young women came and ate,
+hastily or leisurely as their opportunity was, and went on their way
+again. In their hands they held the keys, not always of life and death
+perhaps, but of ease from pain, of tenderness, of smooth pillows, and
+cups of water to thirsty lips. In their eyes, as in Sidney's, burned the
+light of service.
+
+But here and there one found women, like Carlotta and Miss Wardwell,
+who had mistaken their vocation, who railed against the monotony of the
+life, its limitations, its endless sacrifices. They showed it in their
+eyes.
+
+Fifty or so against two--fifty who looked out on the world with the
+fearless glance of those who have seen life to its depths, and, with the
+broad understanding of actual contact, still found it good. Fifty who
+were learning or had learned not to draw aside their clean starched
+skirts from the drab of the streets. And the fifty, who found the very
+scum of the gutters not too filthy for tenderness and care, let Carlotta
+and, in lesser measure, the new probationer alone. They could not have
+voiced their reasons.
+
+The supper-room was filled with their soft voices, the rustle of their
+skirts, the gleam of their stiff white caps.
+
+When Carlotta came in, she greeted none of them. They did not like her,
+and she knew it.
+
+Before her, instead of the tidy supper-table, she was seeing the
+medicine-tray as she had left it.
+
+"I guess I've fixed her," she said to herself.
+
+Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day. This was when the gay
+little sleigh had stopped in front of the house.
+
+Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment. Christine's parlor was
+gay with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her
+tea-cups.
+
+K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had turned to see Sidney
+in the doorway, and leaped to his feet.
+
+"I can't come in," she cried. "I am only here for a moment. I am out
+sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson. It's perfectly delightful."
+
+"Ask him in for a cup of tea," Christine called out. "Here's Aunt
+Harriet and mother and even Palmer!"
+
+Christine had aged during the last weeks, but she was putting up a brave
+front.
+
+"I'll ask him."
+
+Sidney ran to the front door and called: "Will you come in for a cup of
+tea?"
+
+"Tea! Good Heavens, no. Hurry."
+
+As Sidney turned back into the house, she met Palmer. He had come out
+in the hall, and had closed the door into the parlor behind him. His arm
+was still in splints, and swung suspended in a gay silk sling.
+
+The sound of laughter came through the door faintly.
+
+"How is he to-day?" He meant Johnny, of course. The boy's face was
+always with him.
+
+"Better in some ways, but of course--"
+
+"When are they going to operate?"
+
+"When he is a little stronger. Why don't you come into see him?"
+
+"I can't. That's the truth. I can't face the poor youngster."
+
+"He doesn't seem to blame you; he says it's all in the game."
+
+"Sidney, does Christine know that I was not alone that night?"
+
+"If she guesses, it is not because of anything the boy has said. He has
+told nothing."
+
+Out of the firelight, away from the chatter and the laughter, Palmer's
+face showed worn and haggard. He put his free hand on Sidney's shoulder.
+
+"I was thinking that perhaps if I went away--"
+
+"That would be cowardly, wouldn't it?"
+
+"If Christine would only say something and get it over with! She doesn't
+sulk; I think she's really trying to be kind. But she hates me, Sidney.
+She turns pale every time I touch her hand."
+
+All the light had died out of Sidney's face. Life was terrible, after
+all--overwhelming. One did wrong things, and other people suffered; or
+one was good, as her mother had been, and was left lonely, a widow, or
+like Aunt Harriet. Life was a sham, too. Things were so different from
+what they seemed to be: Christine beyond the door, pouring tea and
+laughing with her heart in ashes; Palmer beside her, faultlessly dressed
+and wretched. The only one she thought really contented was K. He seemed
+to move so calmly in his little orbit. He was always so steady, so
+balanced. If life held no heights for him, at least it held no depths.
+
+So Sidney thought, in her ignorance!
+
+"There's only one thing, Palmer," she said gravely. "Johnny Rosenfeld
+is going to have his chance. If anybody in the world can save him, Max
+Wilson can."
+
+The light of that speech was in her eyes when she went out to the sleigh
+again. K. followed her out and tucked the robes in carefully about her.
+
+"Warm enough?"
+
+"All right, thank you."
+
+"Don't go too far. Is there any chance of having you home for supper?"
+
+"I think not. I am to go on duty at six again."
+
+If there was a shadow in K.'s eyes, she did not see it. He waved them
+off smilingly from the pavement, and went rather heavily back into the
+house.
+
+"Just how many men are in love with you, Sidney?" asked Max, as Peggy
+started up the Street.
+
+"No one that I know of, unless--"
+
+"Exactly. Unless--"
+
+"What I meant," she said with dignity, "is that unless one counts very
+young men, and that isn't really love."
+
+"We'll leave out Joe Drummond and myself--for, of course, I am very
+young. Who is in love with you besides Le Moyne? Any of the internes at
+the hospital?"
+
+"Me! Le Moyne is not in love with me."
+
+There was such sincerity in her voice that Wilson was relieved.
+
+K., older than himself and more grave, had always had an odd attraction
+for women. He had been frankly bored by them, but the fact had remained.
+And Max more than suspected that now, at last, he had been caught.
+
+"Don't you really mean that you are in love with Le Moyne?"
+
+"Please don't be absurd. I am not in love with anybody; I haven't time
+to be in love. I have my profession now."
+
+"Bah! A woman's real profession is love."
+
+Sidney differed from this hotly. So warm did the argument become that
+they passed without seeing a middle-aged gentleman, short and rather
+heavy set, struggling through a snowdrift on foot, and carrying in his
+hand a dilapidated leather bag.
+
+Dr. Ed hailed them. But the cutter slipped by and left him knee-deep,
+looking ruefully after them.
+
+"The young scamp!" he said. "So that's where Peggy is!"
+
+Nevertheless, there was no anger in Dr. Ed's mind, only a vague and
+inarticulate regret. These things that came so easily to Max, the
+affection of women, gay little irresponsibilities like the stealing
+of Peggy and the sleigh, had never been his. If there was any faint
+resentment, it was at himself. He had raised the boy wrong--he had
+taught him to be selfish. Holding the bag high out of the drifts, he
+made his slow progress up the Street.
+
+At something after two o'clock that night, K. put down his pipe
+and listened. He had not been able to sleep since midnight. In his
+dressing-gown he had sat by the small fire, thinking. The content of his
+first few months on the Street was rapidly giving way to unrest. He
+who had meant to cut himself off from life found himself again in close
+touch with it; his eddy was deep with it.
+
+For the first time, he had begun to question the wisdom of what he had
+done. Had it been cowardice, after all? It had taken courage, God knew,
+to give up everything and come away. In a way, it would have taken more
+courage to have stayed. Had he been right or wrong?
+
+And there was a new element. He had thought, at first, that he could
+fight down this love for Sidney. But it was increasingly hard. The
+innocent touch of her hand on his arm, the moment when he had held her
+in his arms after her mother's death, the thousand small contacts of her
+returns to the little house--all these set his blood on fire. And it was
+fighting blood.
+
+Under his quiet exterior K. fought many conflicts those winter
+days--over his desk and ledger at the office, in his room alone,
+with Harriet planning fresh triumphs beyond the partition, even by
+Christine's fire, with Christine just across, sitting in silence and
+watching his grave profile and steady eyes.
+
+He had a little picture of Sidney--a snap-shot that he had taken
+himself. It showed Sidney minus a hand, which had been out of range when
+the camera had been snapped, and standing on a steep declivity
+which would have been quite a level had he held the camera straight.
+Nevertheless it was Sidney, her hair blowing about her, eyes looking
+out, tender lips smiling. When she was not at home, it sat on K.'s
+dresser, propped against his collar-box. When she was in the house, it
+lay under the pin-cushion.
+
+Two o'clock in the morning, then, and K. in his dressing-gown, with the
+picture propped, not against the collar-box, but against his lamp, where
+he could see it.
+
+He sat forward in his chair, his hands folded around his knee, and
+looked at it. He was trying to picture the Sidney of the photograph
+in his old life--trying to find a place for her. But it was difficult.
+There had been few women in his old life. His mother had died many years
+before. There had been women who had cared for him, but he put them
+impatiently out of his mind.
+
+Then the bell rang.
+
+Christine was moving about below. He could hear her quick steps. Almost
+before he had heaved his long legs out of the chair, she was tapping at
+his door outside.
+
+"It's Mrs. Rosenfeld. She says she wants to see you."
+
+He went down the stairs. Mrs. Rosenfeld was standing in the lower hall,
+a shawl about her shoulders. Her face was white and drawn above it.
+
+"I've had word to go to the hospital," she said. "I thought maybe you'd
+go with me. It seems as if I can't stand it alone. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!"
+
+"Where's Palmer?" K. demanded of Christine.
+
+"He's not in yet."
+
+"Are you afraid to stay in the house alone?"
+
+"No; please go."
+
+He ran up the staircase to his room and flung on some clothing. In the
+lower hall, Mrs. Rosenfeld's sobs had become low moans; Christine stood
+helplessly over her.
+
+"I am terribly sorry," she said--"terribly sorry! When I think whose
+fault all this is!"
+
+Mrs. Rosenfeld put out a work-hardened hand and caught Christine's
+fingers.
+
+"Never mind that," she said. "You didn't do it. I guess you and I
+understand each other. Only pray God you never have a child."
+
+K. never forgot the scene in the small emergency ward to which Johnny
+had been taken. Under the white lights his boyish figure looked
+strangely long. There was a group around the bed--Max Wilson, two or
+three internes, the night nurse on duty, and the Head.
+
+Sitting just inside the door on a straight chair was Sidney--such a
+Sidney as he never had seen before, her face colorless, her eyes wide
+and unseeing, her hands clenched in her lap. When he stood beside her,
+she did not move or look up. The group around the bed had parted to
+admit Mrs. Rosenfeld, and closed again. Only Sidney and K. remained by
+the door, isolated, alone.
+
+"You must not take it like that, dear. It's sad, of course. But, after
+all, in that condition--"
+
+It was her first knowledge that he was there. But she did not turn.
+
+"They say I poisoned him." Her voice was dreary, inflectionless.
+
+"You--what?"
+
+"They say I gave him the wrong medicine; that he's dying; that I
+murdered him." She shivered.
+
+K. touched her hands. They were ice-cold.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"There is nothing to tell. I came on duty at six o'clock and gave the
+medicines. When the night nurse came on at seven, everything was all
+right. The medicine-tray was just as it should be. Johnny was asleep. I
+went to say good-night to him and he--he was asleep. I didn't give him
+anything but what was on the tray," she finished piteously. "I looked at
+the label; I always look."
+
+By a shifting of the group around the bed, K.'s eyes looked for a moment
+directly into Carlotta's. Just for a moment; then the crowd closed up
+again. It was well for Carlotta that it did. She looked as if she had
+seen a ghost--closed her eyes, even reeled.
+
+"Miss Harrison is worn out," Dr. Wilson said brusquely. "Get some one to
+take her place."
+
+But Carlotta rallied. After all, the presence of this man in this room
+at such a time meant nothing. He was Sidney's friend, that was all.
+
+But her nerve was shaken. The thing had gone beyond her. She had not
+meant to kill. It was the boy's weakened condition that was turning her
+revenge into tragedy.
+
+"I am all right," she pleaded across the bed to the Head. "Let me stay,
+please. He's from my ward. I--I am responsible."
+
+Wilson was at his wits' end. He had done everything he knew without
+result. The boy, rousing for an instant, would lapse again into stupor.
+With a healthy man they could have tried more vigorous measures--could
+have forced him to his feet and walked him about, could have beaten him
+with knotted towels dipped in ice-water. But the wrecked body on the bed
+could stand no such heroic treatment.
+
+It was Le Moyne, after all, who saved Johnny Rosenfeld's life. For, when
+staff and nurses had exhausted all their resources, he stepped forward
+with a quiet word that brought the internes to their feet astonished.
+
+There was a new treatment for such cases--it had been tried abroad. He
+looked at Max.
+
+Max had never heard of it. He threw out his hands.
+
+"Try it, for Heaven's sake," he said. "I'm all in."
+
+The apparatus was not in the house--must be extemporized, indeed, at
+last, of odds and ends from the operating-room. K. did the work, his
+long fingers deft and skillful--while Mrs. Rosenfeld knelt by the bed
+with her face buried; while Sidney sat, dazed and bewildered, on her
+little chair inside the door; while night nurses tiptoed along the
+corridor, and the night watchman stared incredulous from outside the
+door.
+
+When the two great rectangles that were the emergency ward windows
+had turned from mirrors reflecting the room to gray rectangles in the
+morning light; Johnny Rosenfeld opened his eyes and spoke the first
+words that marked his return from the dark valley.
+
+"Gee, this is the life!" he said, and smiled into K.'s watchful face.
+
+When it was clear that the boy would live, K. rose stiffly from the
+bedside and went over to Sidney's chair.
+
+"He's all right now," he said--"as all right as he can be, poor lad!"
+
+"You did it--you! How strange that you should know such a thing. How am
+I to thank you?"
+
+The internes, talking among themselves, had wandered down to their
+dining-room for early coffee. Wilson was giving a few last instructions
+as to the boy's care. Quite unexpectedly, Sidney caught K.'s hand and
+held it to her lips. The iron repression of the night, of months indeed,
+fell away before her simple caress.
+
+"My dear, my dear," he said huskily. "Anything that I can do--for
+you--at any time--"
+
+It was after Sidney had crept like a broken thing to her room that
+Carlotta Harrison and K. came face to face. Johnny was quite conscious
+by that time, a little blue around the lips, but valiantly cheerful.
+
+"More things can happen to a fellow than I ever knew there was!" he
+said to his mother, and submitted rather sheepishly to her tears and
+caresses.
+
+"You were always a good boy, Johnny," she said. "Just you get well
+enough to come home. I'll take care of you the rest of my life. We will
+get you a wheel-chair when you can be about, and I can take you out in
+the park when I come from work."
+
+"I'll be passenger and you'll be chauffeur, ma."
+
+"Mr. Le Moyne is going to get your father sent up again. With sixty-five
+cents a day and what I make, we'll get along."
+
+"You bet we will!"
+
+"Oh, Johnny, if I could see you coming in the door again and yelling
+'mother' and 'supper' in one breath!"
+
+The meeting between Carlotta and Le Moyne was very quiet. She had been
+making a sort of subconscious impression on the retina of his mind
+during all the night. It would be difficult to tell when he actually
+knew her.
+
+When the preparations for moving Johnny back to the big ward had been
+made, the other nurses left the room, and Carlotta and the boy were
+together. K. stopped her on her way to the door.
+
+"Miss Harrison!"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+"I am not Dr. Edwardes here; my name is Le Moyne."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I have not seen you since you left St. John's."
+
+"No; I--I rested for a few months."
+
+"I suppose they do not know that you were--that you have had any
+previous hospital experience."
+
+"No. Are you going to tell them?"
+
+"I shall not tell them, of course."
+
+And thus, by simple mutual consent, it was arranged that each should
+respect the other's confidence.
+
+Carlotta staggered to her room. There had been a time, just before dawn,
+when she had had one of those swift revelations that sometimes come at
+the end of a long night. She had seen herself as she was. The boy was
+very low, hardly breathing. Her past stretched behind her, a series of
+small revenges and passionate outbursts, swift yieldings, slow remorse.
+She dared not look ahead. She would have given every hope she had in the
+world, just then, for Sidney's stainless past.
+
+She hated herself with that deadliest loathing that comes of complete
+self-revelation.
+
+And she carried to her room the knowledge that the night's struggle had
+been in vain--that, although Johnny Rosenfeld would live, she had gained
+nothing by what he had suffered. The whole night had shown her the
+hopelessness of any stratagem to win Wilson from his new allegiance. She
+had surprised him in the hallway, watching Sidney's slender figure
+as she made her way up the stairs to her room. Never, in all his past
+overtures to her, had she seen that look in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+To Harriet Kennedy, Sidney's sentence of thirty days' suspension came
+as a blow. K. broke the news to her that evening before the time for
+Sidney's arrival.
+
+The little household was sharing in Harriet's prosperity. Katie had
+a helper now, a little Austrian girl named Mimi. And Harriet had
+established on the Street the innovation of after-dinner coffee. It was
+over the after-dinner coffee that K. made his announcement.
+
+"What do you mean by saying she is coming home for thirty days? Is the
+child ill?"
+
+"Not ill, although she is not quite well. The fact is, Harriet,"--for
+it was "Harriet" and "K." by this time,--"there has been a sort of
+semi-accident up at the hospital. It hasn't resulted seriously, but--"
+
+Harriet put down the apostle-spoon in her hand and stared across at him.
+
+"Then she has been suspended? What did she do? I don't believe she did
+anything!"
+
+"There was a mistake about the medicine, and she was blamed; that's
+all."
+
+"She'd better come home and stay home," said Harriet shortly. "I hope it
+doesn't get in the papers. This dressmaking business is a funny sort of
+thing. One word against you or any of your family, and the crowd's off
+somewhere else."
+
+"There's nothing against Sidney," K. reminded her. "Nothing in the
+world. I saw the superintendent myself this afternoon. It seems it's a
+mere matter of discipline. Somebody made a mistake, and they cannot let
+such a thing go by. But he believes, as I do, that it was not Sidney."
+
+However Harriet had hardened herself against the girl's arrival, all she
+had meant to say fled when she saw Sidney's circled eyes and pathetic
+mouth.
+
+"You child!" she said. "You poor little girl!" And took her corseted
+bosom.
+
+For the time at least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her. All
+her brave vaunt of service faded before her disgrace.
+
+When Christine would have seen her, she kept her door locked and asked
+for just that one evening alone. But after Harriet had retired, and
+Mimi, the Austrian, had crept out to the corner to mail a letter back to
+Gratz, Sidney unbolted her door and listened in the little upper hall.
+Harriet, her head in a towel, her face carefully cold-creamed, had gone
+to bed; but K.'s light, as usual, was shining over the transom. Sidney
+tiptoed to the door.
+
+"K.!"
+
+Almost immediately he opened the door.
+
+"May I come in and talk to you?"
+
+He turned and took a quick survey of the room. The picture was against
+the collar-box. But he took the risk and held the door wide.
+
+Sidney came in and sat down by the fire. By being adroit he managed to
+slip the little picture over and under the box before she saw it. It is
+doubtful if she would have realized its significance, had she seen it.
+
+"I've been thinking things over," she said. "It seems to me I'd better
+not go back."
+
+He had left the door carefully open. Men are always more conventional
+than women.
+
+"That would be foolish, wouldn't it, when you have done so well? And,
+besides, since you are not guilty, Sidney--"
+
+"I didn't do it!" she cried passionately. "I know I didn't. But I've
+lost faith in myself. I can't keep on; that's all there is to it. All
+last night, in the emergency ward, I felt it going. I clutched at it. I
+kept saying to myself: 'You didn't do it, you didn't do it'; and all the
+time something inside of me was saying, 'Not now, perhaps; but sometime
+you may.'"
+
+Poor K., who had reasoned all this out for himself and had come to the
+same impasse!
+
+"To go on like this, feeling that one has life and death in one's hand,
+and then perhaps some day to make a mistake like that!" She looked up at
+him forlornly. "I am just not brave enough, K."
+
+"Wouldn't it be braver to keep on? Aren't you giving up very easily?"
+
+Her world was in pieces about her, and she felt alone in a wide and
+empty place. And, because her nerves were drawn taut until they were
+ready to snap, Sidney turned on him shrewishly.
+
+"I think you are all afraid I will come back to stay. Nobody really
+wants me anywhere--in all the world! Not at the hospital, not here, not
+anyplace. I am no use."
+
+"When you say that nobody wants you," said K., not very steadily, "I--I
+think you are making a mistake."
+
+"Who?" she demanded. "Christine? Aunt Harriet? Katie? The only person
+who ever really wanted me was my mother, and I went away and left her!"
+
+She scanned his face closely, and, reading there something she did not
+understand, she colored suddenly.
+
+"I believe you mean Joe Drummond."
+
+"No; I do not mean Joe Drummond."
+
+If he had found any encouragement in her face, he would have gone on
+recklessly; but her blank eyes warned him.
+
+"If you mean Max Wilson," said Sidney, "you are entirely wrong. He's not
+in love with me--not, that is, any more than he is in love with a
+dozen girls. He likes to be with me--oh, I know that; but that doesn't
+mean--anything else. Anyhow, after this disgrace--"
+
+"There is no disgrace, child."
+
+"He'll think me careless, at the least. And his ideals are so high, K."
+
+"You say he likes to be with you. What about you?"
+
+Sidney had been sitting in a low chair by the fire. She rose with a
+sudden passionate movement. In the informality of the household, she,
+had visited K. in her dressing-gown and slippers; and now she stood
+before him, a tragic young figure, clutching the folds of her gown
+across her breast.
+
+"I worship him, K.," she said tragically. "When I see him coming, I want
+to get down and let him walk on me. I know his step in the hall. I
+know the very way he rings for the elevator. When I see him in the
+operating-room, cool and calm while every one else is flustered and
+excited, he--he looks like a god."
+
+Then, half ashamed of her outburst, she turned her back to him and stood
+gazing at the small coal fire. It was as well for K. that she did not
+see his face. For that one moment the despair that was in him shone in
+his eyes. He glanced around the shabby little room, at the sagging bed,
+the collar-box, the pincushion, the old marble-topped bureau under which
+Reginald had formerly made his nest, at his untidy table, littered with
+pipes and books, at the image in the mirror of his own tall figure,
+stooped and weary.
+
+"It's real, all this?" he asked after a pause. "You're sure it's not
+just--glamour, Sidney?"
+
+"It's real--terribly real." Her voice was muffled, and he knew then that
+she was crying.
+
+She was mightily ashamed of it. Tears, of course, except in the privacy
+of one's closet, were not ethical on the Street.
+
+"Perhaps he cares very much, too."
+
+"Give me a handkerchief," said Sidney in a muffled tone, and the little
+scene was broken into while K. searched through a bureau drawer. Then:
+
+"It's all over, anyhow, since this. If he'd really cared he'd have come
+over to-night. When one is in trouble one needs friends."
+
+Back in a circle she came inevitably to her suspension. She would never
+go back, she said passionately. She was innocent, had been falsely
+accused. If they could think such a thing about her, she didn't want to
+be in their old hospital.
+
+K. questioned her, alternately soothing and probing.
+
+"You are positive about it?"
+
+"Absolutely. I have given him his medicines dozens of times."
+
+"You looked at the label?"
+
+"I swear I did, K."
+
+"Who else had access to the medicine closet?"
+
+"Carlotta Harrison carried the keys, of course. I was off duty from four
+to six. When Carlotta left the ward, the probationer would have them."
+
+"Have you reason to think that either one of these girls would wish you
+harm?"
+
+"None whatever," began Sidney vehemently; and then, checking
+herself,--"unless--but that's rather ridiculous."
+
+"What is ridiculous?"
+
+"I've sometimes thought that Carlotta--but I am sure she is perfectly
+fair with me. Even if she--if she--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Even if she likes Dr. Wilson, I don't believe--Why, K., she wouldn't!
+It would be murder."
+
+"Murder, of course," said K., "in intention, anyhow. Of course she
+didn't do it. I'm only trying to find out whose mistake it was."
+
+Soon after that she said good-night and went out. She turned in the
+doorway and smiled tremulously back at him.
+
+"You have done me a lot of good. You almost make me believe in myself."
+
+"That's because I believe in you."
+
+With a quick movement that was one of her charms, Sidney suddenly closed
+the door and slipped back into the room. K., hearing the door close,
+thought she had gone, and dropped heavily into a chair.
+
+"My best friend in all the world!" said Sidney suddenly from behind him,
+and, bending over, she kissed him on the cheek.
+
+The next instant the door had closed behind her, and K. was left alone
+to such wretchedness and bliss as the evening had brought him.
+
+On toward morning, Harriet, who slept but restlessly in her towel,
+wakened to the glare of his light over the transom.
+
+"K.!" she called pettishly from her door. "I wish you wouldn't go to
+sleep and let your light burn!"
+
+K., surmising the towel and cold cream, had the tact not to open his
+door.
+
+"I am not asleep, Harriet, and I am sorry about the light. It's going
+out now."
+
+Before he extinguished the light, he walked over to the old dresser and
+surveyed himself in the glass. Two nights without sleep and much anxiety
+had told on him. He looked old, haggard; infinitely tired. Mentally he
+compared himself with Wilson, flushed with success, erect, triumphant,
+almost insolent. Nothing had more certainly told him the hopelessness
+of his love for Sidney than her good-night kiss. He was her brother, her
+friend. He would never be her lover. He drew a long breath and proceeded
+to undress in the dark.
+
+Joe Drummond came to see Sidney the next day. She would have avoided
+him if she could, but Mimi had ushered him up to the sewing-room boudoir
+before she had time to escape. She had not seen the boy for two months,
+and the change in him startled her. He was thinner, rather hectic,
+scrupulously well dressed.
+
+"Why, Joe!" she said, and then: "Won't you sit down?"
+
+He was still rather theatrical. He dramatized himself, as he had that
+night the June before when he had asked Sidney to marry him. He stood
+just inside the doorway. He offered no conventional greeting whatever;
+but, after surveying her briefly, her black gown, the lines around her
+eyes:--
+
+"You're not going back to that place, of course?"
+
+"I--I haven't decided."
+
+"Then somebody's got to decide for you. The thing for you to do is to
+stay right here, Sidney. People know you on the Street. Nobody here
+would ever accuse you of trying to murder anybody."
+
+In spite of herself, Sidney smiled a little.
+
+"Nobody thinks I tried to murder him. It was a mistake about the
+medicines. I didn't do it, Joe."
+
+His love was purely selfish, for he brushed aside her protest as if she
+had not spoken.
+
+"You give me the word and I'll go and get your things; I've got a car of
+my own now."
+
+"But, Joe, they have only done what they thought was right. Whoever made
+it, there was a mistake."
+
+He stared at her incredulously.
+
+"You don't mean that you are going to stand for this sort of thing?
+Every time some fool makes a mistake, are they going to blame it on
+you?"
+
+"Please don't be theatrical. Come in and sit down. I can't talk to you
+if you explode like a rocket all the time."
+
+Her matter-of-fact tone had its effect. He advanced into the room, but
+he still scorned a chair.
+
+"I guess you've been wondering why you haven't heard from me," he said.
+"I've seen you more than you've seen me."
+
+Sidney looked uneasy. The idea of espionage is always repugnant, and
+to have a rejected lover always in the offing, as it were, was
+disconcerting.
+
+"I wish you would be just a little bit sensible, Joe. It's so silly of
+you, really. It's not because you care for me; it's really because you
+care for yourself."
+
+"You can't look at me and say that, Sid."
+
+He ran his finger around his collar--an old gesture; but the collar was
+very loose. He was thin; his neck showed it.
+
+"I'm just eating my heart out for you, and that's the truth. And it
+isn't only that. Everywhere I go, people say, 'There's the fellow Sidney
+Page turned down when she went to the hospital.' I've got so I keep off
+the Street as much as I can."
+
+Sidney was half alarmed, half irritated. This wild, excited boy was not
+the doggedly faithful youth she had always known. It seemed to her
+that he was hardly sane--that underneath his quiet manner and carefully
+repressed voice there lurked something irrational, something she could
+not cope with. She looked up at him helplessly.
+
+"But what do you want me to do? You--you almost frighten me. If you'd
+only sit down--"
+
+"I want you to come home. I'm not asking anything else now. I just want
+you to come back, so that things will be the way they used to be. Now
+that they have turned you out--"
+
+"They've done nothing of the sort. I've told you that."
+
+"You're going back?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Because you love the hospital, or because you love somebody connected
+with the hospital?"
+
+Sidney was thoroughly angry by this time, angry and reckless. She had
+come through so much that every nerve was crying in passionate protest.
+
+"If it will make you understand things any better," she cried, "I am
+going back for both reasons!"
+
+She was sorry the next moment. But her words seemed, surprisingly
+enough, to steady him. For the first time, he sat down.
+
+"Then, as far as I am concerned, it's all over, is it?"
+
+"Yes, Joe. I told you that long ago."
+
+He seemed hardly to be listening. His thoughts had ranged far ahead.
+Suddenly:--
+
+"You think Christine has her hands full with Palmer, don't you? Well,
+if you take Max Wilson, you're going to have more trouble than Christine
+ever dreamed of. I can tell you some things about him now that will make
+you think twice."
+
+But Sidney had reached her limit. She went over and flung open the door.
+
+"Every word that you say shows me how right I am in not marrying you,
+Joe," she said. "Real men do not say those things about each other under
+any circumstances. You're behaving like a bad boy. I don't want you to
+come back until you have grown up."
+
+He was very white, but he picked up his hat and went to the door.
+
+"I guess I AM crazy," he said. "I've been wanting to go away, but mother
+raises such a fuss--I'll not annoy you any more."
+
+He reached in his pocket and, pulling out a small box, held it toward
+her. The lid was punched full of holes.
+
+"Reginald," he said solemnly. "I've had him all winter. Some boys caught
+him in the park, and I brought him home."
+
+He left her standing there speechless with surprise, with the box in her
+hand, and ran down the stairs and out into the Street. At the foot of
+the steps he almost collided with Dr. Ed.
+
+"Back to see Sidney?" said Dr. Ed genially. "That's fine, Joe. I'm glad
+you've made it up."
+
+The boy went blindly down the Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Winter relaxed its clutch slowly that year. March was bitterly cold;
+even April found the roads still frozen and the hedgerows clustered with
+ice. But at mid-day there was spring in the air. In the courtyard of the
+hospital, convalescents sat on the benches and watched for robins. The
+fountain, which had frozen out, was being repaired. Here and there on
+ward window-sills tulips opened their gaudy petals to the sun.
+
+Harriet had gone abroad for a flying trip in March and came back laden
+with new ideas, model gowns, and fresh enthusiasm. She carried out and
+planted flowers on her sister's grave, and went back to her work with a
+feeling of duty done. A combination of crocuses and snow on the ground
+had given her an inspiration for a gown. She drew it in pencil on an
+envelope on her way back in the street car.
+
+Grace Irving, having made good during the white sales, had been sent to
+the spring cottons. She began to walk with her head higher. The day she
+sold Sidney material for a simple white gown, she was very happy. Once
+a customer brought her a bunch of primroses. All day she kept them under
+the counter in a glass of water, and at evening she took them to Johnny
+Rosenfeld, still lying prone in the hospital.
+
+On Sidney, on K., and on Christine the winter had left its mark heavily.
+Christine, readjusting her life to new conditions, was graver, more
+thoughtful. She was alone most of the time now. Under K.'s guidance, she
+had given up the "Duchess" and was reading real books. She was thinking
+real thoughts, too, for the first time in her life.
+
+Sidney, as tender as ever, had lost a little of the radiance from her
+eyes; her voice had deepened. Where she had been a pretty girl, she
+was now lovely. She was back in the hospital again, this time in the
+children's ward. K., going in one day to take Johnny Rosenfeld a basket
+of fruit, saw her there with a child in her arms, and a light in her
+eyes that he had never seen before. It hurt him, rather--things being as
+they were with him. When he came out he looked straight ahead.
+
+With the opening of spring the little house at Hillfoot took on fresh
+activities. Tillie was house-cleaning with great thoroughness. She
+scrubbed carpets, took down the clean curtains, and put them up again
+freshly starched. It was as if she found in sheer activity and fatigue a
+remedy for her uneasiness.
+
+Business had not been very good. The impeccable character of the little
+house had been against it. True, Mr. Schwitter had a little bar and
+served the best liquors he could buy; but he discouraged rowdiness--had
+been known to refuse to sell to boys under twenty-one and to men who had
+already overindulged. The word went about that Schwitter's was no place
+for a good time. Even Tillie's chicken and waffles failed against this
+handicap.
+
+By the middle of April the house-cleaning was done. One or two motor
+parties had come out, dined sedately and wined moderately, and had gone
+back to the city again. The next two weeks saw the weather clear. The
+roads dried up, robins filled the trees with their noisy spring songs,
+and still business continued dull.
+
+By the first day of May, Tillie's uneasiness had become certainty. On
+that morning Mr. Schwitter, coming in from the early milking, found her
+sitting in the kitchen, her face buried in her apron. He put down the
+milk-pails and, going over to her, put a hand on her head.
+
+"I guess there's no mistake, then?"
+
+"There's no mistake," said poor Tillie into her apron.
+
+He bent down and kissed the back of her neck. Then, when she failed to
+brighten, he tiptoed around the kitchen, poured the milk into pans,
+and rinsed the buckets, working methodically in his heavy way. The
+tea-kettle had boiled dry. He filled that, too. Then:--
+
+"Do you want to see a doctor?"
+
+"I'd better see somebody," she said, without looking up. "And--don't
+think I'm blaming you. I guess I don't really blame anybody. As far as
+that goes, I've wanted a child right along. It isn't the trouble I am
+thinking of either."
+
+He nodded. Words were unnecessary between them. He made some tea
+clumsily and browned her a piece of toast. When he had put them on one
+end of the kitchen table, he went over to her again.
+
+"I guess I'd ought to have thought of this before, but all I thought of
+was trying to get a little happiness out of life. And,"--he stroked
+her arm,--"as far as I am concerned, it's been worth while, Tillie. No
+matter what I've had to do, I've always looked forward to coming back
+here to you in the evening. Maybe I don't say it enough, but I guess you
+know I feel it all right."
+
+Without looking up, she placed her hand over his.
+
+"I guess we started wrong," he went on. "You can't build happiness on
+what isn't right. You and I can manage well enough; but now that there's
+going to be another, it looks different, somehow."
+
+After that morning Tillie took up her burden stoically. The hope of
+motherhood alternated with black fits of depression. She sang at her
+work, to burst out into sudden tears.
+
+Other things were not going well. Schwitter had given up his nursery
+business; but the motorists who came to Hillfoot did not come back.
+When, at last, he took the horse and buggy and drove about the country
+for orders, he was too late. Other nurserymen had been before him;
+shrubberies and orchards were already being set out. The second payment
+on his mortgage would be due in July. By the middle of May they were
+frankly up against it. Schwitter at last dared to put the situation into
+words.
+
+"We're not making good, Til," he said. "And I guess you know the reason.
+We are too decent; that's what's the matter with us." There was no irony
+in his words.
+
+With all her sophistication, Tillie was vastly ignorant of life. He had
+to explain.
+
+"We'll have to keep a sort of hotel," he said lamely. "Sell to everybody
+that comes along, and--if parties want to stay over-night--"
+
+Tillie's white face turned crimson.
+
+He attempted a compromise. "If it's bad weather, and they're married--"
+
+"How are we to know if they are married or not?"
+
+He admired her very much for it. He had always respected her. But the
+situation was not less acute. There were two or three unfurnished rooms
+on the second floor. He began to make tentative suggestions as to their
+furnishing. Once he got a catalogue from an installment house, and tried
+to hide it from her. Tillie's eyes blazed. She burned it in the kitchen
+stove.
+
+Schwitter himself was ashamed; but the idea obsessed him. Other people
+fattened on the frailties of human nature. Two miles away, on the other
+road, was a public house that had netted the owner ten thousand dollars
+profit the year before. They bought their beer from the same concern.
+He was not as young as he had been; there was the expense of keeping
+his wife--he had never allowed her to go into the charity ward at the
+asylum. Now that there was going to be a child, there would be three
+people dependent upon him. He was past fifty, and not robust.
+
+One night, after Tillie was asleep, he slipped noiselessly into his
+clothes and out to the barn, where he hitched up the horse with nervous
+fingers.
+
+Tillie never learned of that midnight excursion to the "Climbing Rose,"
+two miles away. Lights blazed in every window; a dozen automobiles were
+parked before the barn. Somebody was playing a piano. From the bar came
+the jingle of glasses and loud, cheerful conversation.
+
+When Schwitter turned the horse's head back toward Hillfoot, his
+mind was made up. He would furnish the upper rooms; he would bring a
+barkeeper from town--these people wanted mixed drinks; he could get a
+second-hand piano somewhere.
+
+Tillie's rebellion was instant and complete. When she found him
+determined, she made the compromise that her condition necessitated. She
+could not leave him, but she would not stay in the rehabilitated little
+house. When, a week after Schwitter's visit to the "Climbing Rose," an
+installment van arrived from town with the new furniture, Tillie
+moved out to what had been the harness-room of the old barn and there
+established herself.
+
+"I am not leaving you," she told him. "I don't even know that I am
+blaming you. But I am not going to have anything to do with it, and
+that's flat."
+
+So it happened that K., making a spring pilgrimage to see Tillie,
+stopped astounded in the road. The weather was warm, and he carried
+his Norfolk coat over his arm. The little house was bustling; a dozen
+automobiles were parked in the barnyard. The bar was crowded, and a
+barkeeper in a white coat was mixing drinks with the casual indifference
+of his kind. There were tables under the trees on the lawn, and a new
+sign on the gate.
+
+Even Schwitter bore a new look of prosperity. Over his schooner of beer
+K. gathered something of the story.
+
+"I'm not proud of it, Mr. Le Moyne. I've come to do a good many things
+the last year or so that I never thought I would do. But one thing leads
+to another. First I took Tillie away from her good position, and after
+that nothing went right. Then there were things coming on"--he looked at
+K. anxiously--"that meant more expense. I would be glad if you wouldn't
+say anything about it at Mrs. McKee's."
+
+"I'll not speak of it, of course."
+
+It was then, when K. asked for Tillie, that Mr. Schwitter's unhappiness
+became more apparent.
+
+"She wouldn't stand for it," he said. "She moved out the day I furnished
+the rooms upstairs and got the piano."
+
+"Do you mean she has gone?"
+
+"As far as the barn. She wouldn't stay in the house. I--I'll take you
+out there, if you would like to see her."
+
+K. shrewdly surmised that Tillie would prefer to see him alone, under
+the circumstances.
+
+"I guess I can find her," he said, and rose from the little table.
+
+"If you--if you can say anything to help me out, sir, I'd appreciate it.
+Of course, she understands how I am driven. But--especially if you would
+tell her that the Street doesn't know--"
+
+"I'll do all I can," K. promised, and followed the path to the barn.
+
+Tillie received him with a certain dignity. The little harness-room
+was very comfortable. A white iron bed in a corner, a flat table with
+a mirror above it, a rocking-chair, and a sewing-machine furnished the
+room.
+
+"I wouldn't stand for it," she said simply; "so here I am. Come in, Mr.
+Le Moyne."
+
+There being but one chair, she sat on the bed. The room was littered
+with small garments in the making. She made no attempt to conceal them;
+rather, she pointed to them with pride.
+
+"I am making them myself. I have a lot of time these days. He's got a
+hired girl at the house. It was hard enough to sew at first, with me
+making two right sleeves almost every time." Then, seeing his kindly eye
+on her: "Well, it's happened, Mr. Le Moyne. What am I going to do? What
+am I going to be?"
+
+"You're going to be a very good mother, Tillie."
+
+She was manifestly in need of cheering. K., who also needed cheering
+that spring day, found his consolation in seeing her brighten under the
+small gossip of the Street. The deaf-and-dumb book agent had taken on
+life insurance as a side issue, and was doing well; the grocery store at
+the corner was going to be torn down, and over the new store there
+were to be apartments; Reginald had been miraculously returned, and was
+building a new nest under his bureau; Harriet Kennedy had been to Paris,
+and had brought home six French words and a new figure.
+
+Outside the open door the big barn loomed cool and shadowy, full of
+empty spaces where later the hay would be stored; anxious mother hens
+led their broods about; underneath in the horse stable the restless
+horses pawed in their stalls. From where he sat, Le Moyne could see only
+the round breasts of the two hills, the fresh green of the orchard the
+cows in a meadow beyond.
+
+Tillie followed his eyes.
+
+"I like it here," she confessed. "I've had more time to think since I
+moved out than I ever had in my life before. Them hills help. When the
+noise is worst down at the house, I look at the hills there and--"
+
+There were great thoughts in her mind--that the hills meant God, and
+that in His good time perhaps it would all come right. But she was
+inarticulate. "The hills help a lot," she repeated.
+
+K. rose. Tillie's work-basket lay near him. He picked up one of the
+little garments. In his big hands it looked small, absurd.
+
+"I--I want to tell you something, Tillie. Don't count on it too much;
+but Mrs. Schwitter has been failing rapidly for the last month or two."
+
+Tillie caught his arm.
+
+"You've seen her?"
+
+"I was interested. I wanted to see things work out right for you."
+
+All the color had faded from Tillie's face.
+
+"You're very good to me, Mr. Le Moyne," she said. "I don't wish the poor
+soul any harm, but--oh, my God! if she's going, let it be before the
+next four months are over."
+
+K. had fallen into the habit, after his long walks, of dropping into
+Christine's little parlor for a chat before he went upstairs. Those
+early spring days found Harriet Kennedy busy late in the evenings, and,
+save for Christine and K., the house was practically deserted.
+
+The breach between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was
+too proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her. On those
+occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so
+discontented that he drove her almost to distraction. Although she was
+convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with
+him the night of the accident, she did not trust him. Not that girl,
+perhaps, but there were others. There would always be others.
+
+Into Christine's little parlor, then, K. turned, the evening after he
+had seen Tillie. She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall
+stood open.
+
+"Come in," she said, as he hesitated in the doorway.
+
+"I am frightfully dusty."
+
+"There's a brush in the drawer of the hat-rack--although I don't really
+mind how you look."
+
+The little room always cheered K. Its warmth and light appealed to his
+aesthetic sense; after the bareness of his bedroom, it spelled luxury.
+And perhaps, to be entirely frank, there was more than physical comfort
+and satisfaction in the evenings he spent in Christine's firelit parlor.
+He was entirely masculine, and her evident pleasure in his society
+gratified him. He had fallen into a way of thinking of himself as a sort
+of older brother to all the world because he was a sort of older brother
+to Sidney. The evenings with her did something to reinstate him in his
+own self-esteem. It was subtle, psychological, but also it was very
+human.
+
+"Come and sit down," said Christine. "Here's a chair, and here are
+cigarettes and there are matches. Now!"
+
+But, for once, K. declined the chair. He stood in front of the fireplace
+and looked down at her, his head bent slightly to one side.
+
+"I wonder if you would like to do a very kind thing," he said
+unexpectedly.
+
+"Make you coffee?"
+
+"Something much more trouble and not so pleasant."
+
+Christine glanced up at him. When she was with him, when his steady eyes
+looked down at her, small affectations fell away. She was more genuine
+with K. than with anyone else, even herself.
+
+"Tell me what it is, or shall I promise first?"
+
+"I want you to promise just one thing: to keep a secret."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+Christine was not over-intelligent, perhaps, but she was shrewd. That Le
+Moyne's past held a secret she had felt from the beginning. She sat up
+with eager curiosity.
+
+"No, not mine. Is it a promise?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I've found Tillie, Christine. I want you to go out to see her."
+
+Christine's red lips parted. The Street did not go out to see women in
+Tillie's situation.
+
+"But, K.!" she protested.
+
+"She needs another woman just now. She's going to have a child,
+Christine; and she has had no one to talk to but her hus--but Mr.
+Schwitter and myself. She is depressed and not very well."
+
+"But what shall I say to her? I'd really rather not go, K. Not,"
+she hastened to set herself right in his eyes--"not that I feel any
+unwillingness to see her. I know you understand that. But--what in the
+world shall I say to her?"
+
+"Say what your own kind heart prompts."
+
+It had been rather a long time since Christine had been accused
+of having a kind heart. Not that she was unkind, but in all her
+self-centered young life there had been little call on her sympathies.
+Her eyes clouded.
+
+"I wish I were as good as you think I am."
+
+There was a little silence between them. Then Le Moyne spoke briskly:--
+
+"I'll tell you how to get there; perhaps I would better write it."
+
+He moved over to Christine's small writing-table and, seating himself,
+proceeded to write out the directions for reaching Hillfoot.
+
+Behind him, Christine had taken his place on the hearth-rug and stood
+watching his head in the light of the desk-lamp. "What a strong, quiet
+face it is," she thought. Why did she get the impression of such a
+tremendous reserve power in this man who was a clerk, and a clerk only?
+Behind him she made a quick, unconscious gesture of appeal, both hands
+out for an instant. She dropped them guiltily as K. rose with the paper
+in his hand.
+
+"I've drawn a sort of map of the roads," he began. "You see, this--"
+
+Christine was looking, not at the paper, but up at him.
+
+"I wonder if you know, K.," she said, "what a lucky woman the woman will
+be who marries you?"
+
+He laughed good-humoredly.
+
+"I wonder how long I could hypnotize her into thinking that."
+
+He was still holding out the paper.
+
+"I've had time to do a little thinking lately," she said, without
+bitterness. "Palmer is away so much now. I've been looking back,
+wondering if I ever thought that about him. I don't believe I ever did.
+I wonder--"
+
+She checked herself abruptly and took the paper from his hand.
+
+"I'll go to see Tillie, of course," she consented. "It is like you to
+have found her."
+
+She sat down. Although she picked up the book that she had been reading
+with the evident intention of discussing it, her thoughts were still on
+Tillie, on Palmer, on herself. After a moment:--
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you how terribly mixed up things are? Take this
+Street, for instance. Can you think of anybody on it that--that things
+have gone entirely right with?"
+
+"It's a little world of its own, of course," said K., "and it has plenty
+of contact points with life. But wherever one finds people, many or few,
+one finds all the elements that make up life--joy and sorrow, birth and
+death, and even tragedy. That's rather trite, isn't it?"
+
+Christine was still pursuing her thoughts.
+
+"Men are different," she said. "To a certain extent they make their own
+fates. But when you think of the women on the Street,--Tillie,
+Harriet Kennedy, Sidney Page, myself, even Mrs. Rosenfeld back in the
+alley,--somebody else moulds things for us, and all we can do is to sit
+back and suffer. I am beginning to think the world is a terrible place,
+K. Why do people so often marry the wrong people? Why can't a man
+care for one woman and only one all his life? Why--why is it all so
+complicated?"
+
+"There are men who care for only one woman all their lives."
+
+"You're that sort, aren't you?"
+
+"I don't want to put myself on any pinnacle. If I cared enough for
+a woman to marry her, I'd hope to--But we are being very tragic,
+Christine."
+
+"I feel tragic. There's going to be another mistake, K., unless you stop
+it."
+
+He tried to leaven the conversation with a little fun.
+
+"If you're going to ask me to interfere between Mrs. McKee and the
+deaf-and-dumb book and insurance agent, I shall do nothing of the sort.
+She can both speak and hear enough for both of them."
+
+"I mean Sidney and Max Wilson. He's mad about her, K.; and, because
+she's the sort she is, he'll probably be mad about her all his life,
+even if he marries her. But he'll not be true to her; I know the type
+now."
+
+K. leaned back with a flicker of pain in his eyes.
+
+"What can I do about it?"
+
+Astute as he was, he did not suspect that Christine was using this
+method to fathom his feeling for Sidney. Perhaps she hardly knew it
+herself.
+
+"You might marry her yourself, K."
+
+But he had himself in hand by this time, and she learned nothing from
+either his voice or his eyes.
+
+"On twenty dollars a week? And without so much as asking her consent?"
+He dropped his light tone. "I'm not in a position to marry anybody. Even
+if Sidney cared for me, which she doesn't, of course--"
+
+"Then you don't intend to interfere? You're going to let the Street see
+another failure?"
+
+"I think you can understand," said K. rather wearily, "that if I cared
+less, Christine, it would be easier to interfere."
+
+After all, Christine had known this, or surmised it, for weeks. But it
+hurt like a fresh stab in an old wound. It was K. who spoke again after
+a pause:--
+
+"The deadly hard thing, of course, is to sit by and see things happening
+that one--that one would naturally try to prevent."
+
+"I don't believe that you have always been of those who only stand and
+wait," said Christine. "Sometime, K., when you know me better and like
+me better, I want you to tell me about it, will you?"
+
+"There's very little to tell. I held a trust. When I discovered that I
+was unfit to hold that trust any longer, I quit. That's all."
+
+His tone of finality closed the discussion. But Christine's eyes were on
+him often that evening, puzzled, rather sad.
+
+They talked of books, of music--Christine played well in a dashing way.
+K. had brought her soft, tender little things, and had stood over her
+until her noisy touch became gentle. She played for him a little, while
+he sat back in the big chair with his hand screening his eyes.
+
+When, at last, he rose and picked up his cap; it was nine o'clock.
+
+"I've taken your whole evening," he said remorsefully. "Why don't you
+tell me I am a nuisance and send me off?"
+
+Christine was still at the piano, her hands on the keys. She spoke
+without looking at him:--
+
+"You're never a nuisance, K., and--"
+
+"You'll go out to see Tillie, won't you?"
+
+"Yes. But I'll not go under false pretenses. I am going quite frankly
+because you want me to."
+
+Something in her tone caught his attention.
+
+"I forgot to tell you," she went on. "Father has given Palmer five
+thousand dollars. He's going to buy a share in a business."
+
+"That's fine."
+
+"Possibly. I don't believe much in Palmer's business ventures."
+
+Her flat tone still held him. Underneath it he divined strain and
+repression.
+
+"I hate to go and leave you alone," he said at last from the door. "Have
+you any idea when Palmer will be back?"
+
+"Not the slightest. K., will you come here a moment? Stand behind me; I
+don't want to see you, and I want to tell you something."
+
+He did as she bade him, rather puzzled.
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"I think I am a fool for saying this. Perhaps I am spoiling the only
+chance I have to get any happiness out of life. But I have got to say
+it. It's stronger than I am. I was terribly unhappy, K., and then you
+came into my life, and I--now I listen for your step in the hall. I
+can't be a hypocrite any longer, K."
+
+When he stood behind her, silent and not moving, she turned slowly about
+and faced him. He towered there in the little room, grave eyes on hers.
+
+"It's a long time since I have had a woman friend, Christine," he said
+soberly. "Your friendship has meant a good deal. In a good many
+ways, I'd not care to look ahead if it were not for you. I value our
+friendship so much that I--"
+
+"That you don't want me to spoil it," she finished for him. "I know
+you don't care for me, K., not the way I--But I wanted you to know. It
+doesn't hurt a good man to know such a thing. And it--isn't going to
+stop your coming here, is it?"
+
+"Of course not," said K. heartily. "But to-morrow, when we are both
+clear-headed, we will talk this over. You are mistaken about this thing,
+Christine; I am sure of that. Things have not been going well, and just
+because I am always around, and all that sort of thing, you think things
+that aren't really so. I'm only a reaction, Christine."
+
+He tried to make her smile up at him. But just then she could not smile.
+
+If she had cried, things might have been different for every one; for
+perhaps K. would have taken her in his arms. He was heart-hungry enough,
+those days, for anything. And perhaps, too, being intuitive, Christine
+felt this. But she had no mind to force him into a situation against his
+will.
+
+"It is because you are good," she said, and held out her hand.
+"Good-night."
+
+Le Moyne took it and bent over and kissed it lightly. There was in
+the kiss all that he could not say of respect, of affection and
+understanding.
+
+"Good-night, Christine," he said, and went into the hall and upstairs.
+
+The lamp was not lighted in his room, but the street light glowed
+through the windows. Once again the waving fronds of the ailanthus tree
+flung ghostly shadows on the walls. There was a faint sweet odor of
+blossoms, so soon to become rank and heavy.
+
+Over the floor in a wild zigzag darted a strip of white paper which
+disappeared under the bureau. Reginald was building another nest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room late in the spring as the result of
+a conversation between the younger Wilson and the Head.
+
+"When are you going to put my protegee into the operating-room?" asked
+Wilson, meeting Miss Gregg in a corridor one bright, spring afternoon.
+
+"That usually comes in the second year, Dr. Wilson."
+
+He smiled down at her. "That isn't a rule, is it?"
+
+"Not exactly. Miss Page is very young, and of course there are other
+girls who have not yet had the experience. But, if you make the
+request--"
+
+"I am going to have some good cases soon. I'll not make a request, of
+course; but, if you see fit, it would be good training for Miss Page."
+
+Miss Gregg went on, knowing perfectly that at his next operation Dr.
+Wilson would expect Sidney Page in the operating-room. The other doctors
+were not so exigent. She would have liked to have all the staff old and
+settled, like Dr. O'Hara or the older Wilson. These young men came in
+and tore things up.
+
+She sighed as she went on. There were so many things to go wrong. The
+butter had been bad--she must speak to the matron. The sterilizer in
+the operating-room was out of order--that meant a quarrel with the chief
+engineer. Requisitions were too heavy--that meant going around to the
+wards and suggesting to the head nurses that lead pencils and bandages
+and adhesive plaster and safety-pins cost money.
+
+It was particularly inconvenient to move Sidney just then. Carlotta
+Harrison was off duty, ill. She had been ailing for a month, and now she
+was down with a temperature. As the Head went toward Sidney's ward,
+her busy mind was playing her nurses in their wards like pieces on a
+checkerboard.
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room that afternoon. For her blue
+uniform, kerchief, and cap she exchanged the hideous operating-room
+garb: long, straight white gown with short sleeves and mob-cap,
+gray-white from many sterilizations. But the ugly costume seemed to
+emphasize her beauty, as the habit of a nun often brings out the placid
+saintliness of her face.
+
+The relationship between Sidney and Max had reached that point that
+occurs in all relationships between men and women: when things must
+either go forward or go back, but cannot remain as they are. The
+condition had existed for the last three months. It exasperated the man.
+
+As a matter of fact, Wilson could not go ahead. The situation with
+Carlotta had become tense, irritating. He felt that she stood ready
+to block any move he made. He would not go back, and he dared not go
+forward.
+
+If Sidney was puzzled, she kept it bravely to herself. In her little
+room at night, with the door carefully locked, she tried to think things
+out. There were a few treasures that she looked over regularly: a dried
+flower from the Christmas roses; a label that he had pasted playfully
+on the back of her hand one day after the rush of surgical dressings was
+over and which said "Rx, Take once and forever."
+
+There was another piece of paper over which Sidney spent much time. It
+was a page torn out of an order book, and it read: "Sigsbee may have
+light diet; Rosenfeld massage." Underneath was written, very small:
+
+     "You are the most beautiful person in the world."
+
+Two reasons had prompted Wilson to request to have Sidney in the
+operating-room. He wanted her with him, and he wanted her to see him at
+work: the age-old instinct of the male to have his woman see him at his
+best.
+
+He was in high spirits that first day of Sidney's operating-room
+experience. For the time at least, Carlotta was out of the way. Her
+somber eyes no longer watched him. Once he looked up from his work and
+glanced at Sidney where she stood at strained attention.
+
+"Feeling faint?" he said.
+
+She colored under the eyes that were turned on her.
+
+"No, Dr. Wilson."
+
+"A great many of them faint on the first day. We sometimes have them
+lying all over the floor."
+
+He challenged Miss Gregg with his eyes, and she reproved him with a
+shake of her head, as she might a bad boy.
+
+One way and another, he managed to turn the attention of the
+operating-room to Sidney several times. It suited his whim, and it did
+more than that: it gave him a chance to speak to her in his teasing way.
+
+Sidney came through the operation as if she had been through fire--taut
+as a string, rather pale, but undaunted. But when the last case had been
+taken out, Max dropped his bantering manner. The internes were looking
+over instruments; the nurses were busy on the hundred and one tasks of
+clearing up; so he had a chance for a word with her alone.
+
+"I am proud of you, Sidney; you came through it like a soldier."
+
+"You made it very hard for me."
+
+A nurse was coming toward him; he had only a moment.
+
+"I shall leave a note in the mail-box," he said quickly, and proceeded
+with the scrubbing of his hands which signified the end of the day's
+work.
+
+The operations had lasted until late in the afternoon. The night nurses
+had taken up their stations; prayers were over. The internes were
+gathered in the smoking-room, threshing over the day's work, as was
+their custom. When Sidney was free, she went to the office for the note.
+It was very brief:--
+
+I have something I want to say to you, dear. I think you know what it
+is. I never see you alone at home any more. If you can get off for an
+hour, won't you take the trolley to the end of Division Street? I'll be
+there with the car at eight-thirty, and I promise to have you back by
+ten o'clock.
+
+MAX.
+
+The office was empty. No one saw her as she stood by the mail-box. The
+ticking of the office clock, the heavy rumble of a dray outside, the
+roll of the ambulance as it went out through the gateway, and in her
+hand the realization of what she had never confessed as a hope, even to
+herself! He, the great one, was going to stoop to her. It had been in
+his eyes that afternoon; it was there, in his letter, now.
+
+It was eight by the office clock. To get out of her uniform and into
+street clothing, fifteen minutes; on the trolley, another fifteen. She
+would need to hurry.
+
+But she did not meet him, after all. Miss Wardwell met her in the upper
+hall.
+
+"Did you get my message?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"What message?"
+
+"Miss Harrison wants to see you. She has been moved to a private room."
+
+Sidney glanced at K.'s little watch.
+
+"Must she see me to-night?"
+
+"She has been waiting for hours--ever since you went to the
+operating-room."
+
+Sidney sighed, but she went to Carlotta at once. The girl's condition
+was puzzling the staff. There was talk of "T.R."--which is hospital for
+"typhoid restrictions." But T.R. has apathy, generally, and Carlotta
+was not apathetic. Sidney found her tossing restlessly on her high white
+bed, and put her cool hand over Carlotta's hot one.
+
+"Did you send for me?"
+
+"Hours ago." Then, seeing her operating-room uniform: "You've been
+THERE, have you?"
+
+"Is there anything I can do, Carlotta?"
+
+Excitement had dyed Sidney's cheeks with color and made her eyes
+luminous. The girl in the bed eyed her, and then abruptly drew her hand
+away.
+
+"Were you going out?"
+
+"Yes; but not right away."
+
+"I'll not keep you if you have an engagement."
+
+"The engagement will have to wait. I'm sorry you're ill. If you would
+like me to stay with you tonight--"
+
+Carlotta shook her head on her pillow.
+
+"Mercy, no!" she said irritably. "I'm only worn out. I need a rest. Are
+you going home to-night?"
+
+"No," Sidney admitted, and flushed.
+
+Nothing escaped Carlotta's eyes--the younger girl's radiance, her
+confusion, even her operating room uniform and what it signified. How
+she hated her, with her youth and freshness, her wide eyes, her soft red
+lips! And this engagement--she had the uncanny divination of fury.
+
+"I was going to ask you to do something for me," she said shortly; "but
+I've changed my mind about it. Go on and keep your engagement."
+
+To end the interview, she turned over and lay with her face to the wall.
+Sidney stood waiting uncertainly. All her training had been to ignore
+the irritability of the sick, and Carlotta was very ill; she could see
+that.
+
+"Just remember that I am ready to do anything I can, Carlotta," she
+said. "Nothing will--will be a trouble."
+
+She waited a moment, but, receiving no acknowledgement of her offer, she
+turned slowly and went toward the door.
+
+"Sidney!"
+
+She went back to the bed.
+
+"Yes. Don't sit up, Carlotta. What is it?"
+
+"I'm frightened!"
+
+"You're feverish and nervous. There's nothing to be frightened about."
+
+"If it's typhoid, I'm gone."
+
+"That's childish. Of course you're not gone, or anything like it.
+Besides, it's probably not typhoid."
+
+"I'm afraid to sleep. I doze for a little, and when I waken there are
+people in the room. They stand around the bed and talk about me."
+
+Sidney's precious minutes were flying; but Carlotta had gone into a
+paroxysm of terror, holding to Sidney's hand and begging not to be left
+alone.
+
+"I'm too young to die," she would whimper. And in the next breath: "I
+want to die--I don't want to live!"
+
+The hands of the little watch pointed to eight-thirty when at last she
+lay quiet, with closed eyes. Sidney, tiptoeing to the door, was brought
+up short by her name again, this time in a more normal voice:--
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Perhaps you are right and I'm going to get over this."
+
+"Certainly you are. Your nerves are playing tricks with you to-night."
+
+"I'll tell you now why I sent for you."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"If--if I get very bad,--you know what I mean,--will you promise to do
+exactly what I tell you?"
+
+"I promise, absolutely."
+
+"My trunk key is in my pocket-book. There is a letter in the tray--just
+a name, no address on it. Promise to see that it is not delivered; that
+it is destroyed without being read."
+
+Sidney promised promptly; and, because it was too late now for her
+meeting with Wilson, for the next hour she devoted herself to making
+Carlotta comfortable. So long as she was busy, a sort of exaltation of
+service upheld her. But when at last the night assistant came to sit
+with the sick girl, and Sidney was free, all the life faded from her
+face. He had waited for her and she had not come. Would he understand?
+Would he ask her to meet him again? Perhaps, after all, his question had
+not been what she had thought.
+
+She went miserably to bed. K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow.
+Her stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her
+mirror. Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the
+city--taxicabs, stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging
+home at midnight, a city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates
+to the hospital's always open door. When she could not sleep, she got up
+and padded to the window in bare feet. The light from a passing machine
+showed a youthful figure that looked like Joe Drummond.
+
+Life, that had always seemed so simple, was growing very complicated
+for Sidney: Joe and K., Palmer and Christine, Johnny Rosenfeld,
+Carlotta--either lonely or tragic, all of them, or both. Life in the
+raw.
+
+Toward morning Carlotta wakened. The night assistant was still there. It
+had been a quiet night and she was asleep in her chair. To save her cap
+she had taken it off, and early streaks of silver showed in her hair.
+
+Carlotta roused her ruthlessly.
+
+"I want something from my trunk," she said.
+
+The assistant wakened reluctantly, and looked at her watch. Almost
+morning. She yawned and pinned on her cap.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," she protested. "You don't want me to go to the
+trunk-room at this hour!"
+
+"I can go myself," said Carlotta, and put her feet out of bed.
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+"A letter on the top tray. If I wait my temperature will go up and I
+can't think."
+
+"Shall I mail it for you?"
+
+"Bring it here," said Carlotta shortly. "I want to destroy it."
+
+The young woman went without haste, to show that a night assistant may
+do such things out of friendship, but not because she must. She stopped
+at the desk where the night nurse in charge of the rooms on that floor
+was filling out records.
+
+"Give me twelve private patients to look after instead of one nurse like
+Carlotta Harrison!" she complained. "I've got to go to the trunk-room
+for her at this hour, and it next door to the mortuary!"
+
+As the first rays of the summer sun came through the window, shadowing
+the fire-escape like a lattice on the wall of the little gray-walled
+room, Carlotta sat up in her bed and lighted the candle on the stand.
+The night assistant, who dreamed sometimes of fire, stood nervously by.
+
+"Why don't you let me do it?" she asked irritably.
+
+Carlotta did not reply at once. The candle was in her hand, and she was
+staring at the letter.
+
+"Because I want to do it myself," she said at last, and thrust the
+envelope into the flame. It burned slowly, at first a thin blue flame
+tipped with yellow, then, eating its way with a small fine crackling,
+a widening, destroying blaze that left behind it black ash and
+destruction. The acrid odor of burning filled the room. Not until it was
+consumed, and the black ash fell into the saucer of the candlestick, did
+Carlotta speak again. Then:--
+
+"If every fool of a woman who wrote a letter burnt it, there would be
+less trouble in the world," she said, and lay back among her pillows.
+
+The assistant said nothing. She was sleepy and irritated, and she had
+crushed her best cap by letting the lid of Carlotta's trunk fall on her.
+She went out of the room with disapproval in every line of her back.
+
+"She burned it," she informed the night nurse at her desk. "A letter to
+a man--one of her suitors, I suppose. The name was K. Le Moyne."
+
+The deepening and broadening of Sidney's character had been very
+noticeable in the last few months. She had gained in decision without
+becoming hard; had learned to see things as they are, not through the
+rose mist of early girlhood; and, far from being daunted, had developed
+a philosophy that had for its basis God in His heaven and all well with
+the world.
+
+But her new theory of acceptance did not comprehend everything. She was
+in a state of wild revolt, for instance, as to Johnny Rosenfeld, and
+more remotely but not less deeply concerned over Grace Irving. Soon
+she was to learn of Tillie's predicament, and to take up the cudgels
+valiantly for her.
+
+But her revolt was to be for herself too. On the day after her failure
+to keep her appointment with Wilson she had her half-holiday. No word
+had come from him, and when, after a restless night, she went to her new
+station in the operating-room, it was to learn that he had been called
+out of the city in consultation and would not operate that day. O'Hara
+would take advantage of the free afternoon to run in some odds and ends
+of cases.
+
+The operating-room made gauze that morning, and small packets of
+tampons: absorbent cotton covered with sterilized gauze, and fastened
+together--twelve, by careful count, in each bundle.
+
+Miss Grange, who had been kind to Sidney in her probation months, taught
+her the method.
+
+"Used instead of sponges," she explained. "If you noticed yesterday,
+they were counted before and after each operation. One of these missing
+is worse than a bank clerk out a dollar at the end of the day. There's
+no closing up until it's found!"
+
+Sidney eyed the small packet before her anxiously.
+
+"What a hideous responsibility!" she said.
+
+From that time on she handled the small gauze sponges almost reverently.
+
+The operating-room--all glass, white enamel, and shining
+nickel-plate--first frightened, then thrilled her. It was as if, having
+loved a great actor, she now trod the enchanted boards on which he
+achieved his triumphs. She was glad that it was her afternoon off, and
+that she would not see some lesser star--O'Hara, to wit--usurping his
+place.
+
+But Max had not sent her any word. That hurt. He must have known that
+she had been delayed.
+
+The operating-room was a hive of industry, and tongues kept pace with
+fingers. The hospital was a world, like the Street. The nurses had come
+from many places, and, like cloistered nuns, seemed to have left the
+other world behind. A new President of the country was less real than a
+new interne. The country might wash its soiled linen in public; what was
+that compared with enough sheets and towels for the wards? Big buildings
+were going up in the city. Ah! but the hospital took cognizance of that,
+gathering as it did a toll from each new story added. What news of
+the world came in through the great doors was translated at once into
+hospital terms. What the city forgot the hospital remembered. It took
+up life where the town left it at its gates, and carried it on or saw
+it ended, as the case might be. So these young women knew the ending of
+many stories, the beginning of some; but of none did they know both the
+first and last, the beginning and the end.
+
+By many small kindnesses Sidney had made herself popular. And there was
+more to it than that. She never shirked. The other girls had the respect
+for her of one honest worker for another. The episode that had caused
+her suspension seemed entirely forgotten. They showed her carefully what
+she was to do; and, because she must know the "why" of everything, they
+explained as best they could.
+
+It was while she was standing by the great sterilizer that she heard,
+through an open door, part of a conversation that sent her through the
+day with her world in revolt.
+
+The talkers were putting the anaesthetizing-room in readiness for the
+afternoon. Sidney, waiting for the time to open the sterilizer, was
+busy, for the first time in her hurried morning, with her own thoughts.
+Because she was very human, there was a little exultation in her mind.
+What would these girls say when they learned of how things stood between
+her and their hero--that, out of all his world of society and clubs and
+beautiful women, he was going to choose her?
+
+Not shameful, this: the honest pride of a woman in being chosen from
+many.
+
+The voices were very clear.
+
+"Typhoid! Of course not. She's eating her heart out."
+
+"Do you think he has really broken with her?"
+
+"Probably not. She knows it's coming; that's all."
+
+"Sometimes I have wondered--"
+
+"So have others. She oughtn't to be here, of course. But among so many
+there is bound to be one now and then who--who isn't quite--"
+
+She hesitated, at a loss for a word.
+
+"Did you--did you ever think over that trouble with Miss Page about the
+medicines? That would have been easy, and like her."
+
+"She hates Miss Page, of course, but I hardly think--If that's true, it
+was nearly murder."
+
+There were two voices, a young one, full of soft southern inflections,
+and an older voice, a trifle hard, as from disillusion.
+
+They were working as they talked. Sidney could hear the clatter of
+bottles on the tray, the scraping of a moved table.
+
+"He was crazy about her last fall."
+
+"Miss Page?" (The younger voice, with a thrill in it.)
+
+"Carlotta. Of course this is confidential."
+
+"Surely."
+
+"I saw her with him in his car one evening. And on her vacation last
+summer--"
+
+The voices dropped to a whisper. Sidney, standing cold and white by the
+sterilizer, put out a hand to steady herself. So that was it! No wonder
+Carlotta had hated her. And those whispering voices! What were they
+saying? How hateful life was, and men and women. Must there always be
+something hideous in the background? Until now she had only seen life.
+Now she felt its hot breath on her cheek.
+
+She was steady enough in a moment, cool and calm, moving about her work
+with ice-cold hands and slightly narrowed eyes. To a sort of physical
+nausea was succeeding anger, a blind fury of injured pride. He had been
+in love with Carlotta and had tired of her. He was bringing her his
+warmed-over emotions. She remembered the bitterness of her month's
+exile, and its probable cause. Max had stood by her then. Well he might,
+if he suspected the truth.
+
+For just a moment she had an illuminating flash of Wilson as he really
+was, selfish and self-indulgent, just a trifle too carefully dressed,
+daring as to eye and speech, with a carefully calculated daring, frankly
+pleasure-loving. She put her hands over her eyes.
+
+The voices in the next room had risen above their whisper.
+
+"Genius has privileges, of course," said the older voice. "He is a very
+great surgeon. To-morrow he is to do the Edwardes operation again. I am
+glad I am to see him do it."
+
+Sidney still held her hands over her eyes. He WAS a great surgeon: in
+his hands he held the keys of life and death. And perhaps he had never
+cared for Carlotta: she might have thrown herself at him. He was a man,
+at the mercy of any scheming woman.
+
+She tried to summon his image to her aid. But a curious thing happened.
+She could not visualize him. Instead, there came, clear and distinct, a
+picture of K. Le Moyne in the hall of the little house, reaching one of
+his long arms to the chandelier over his head and looking up at her as
+she stood on the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!"
+
+"I--I know that. I am asking you something else, Max."
+
+"I have never been in love with her."
+
+His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they were
+sitting in the shade, on the grass. It was the Sunday afternoon after
+Sidney's experience in the operating-room.
+
+"You took her out, Max, didn't you?"
+
+"A few times, yes. She seemed to have no friends. I was sorry for her."
+
+"That was all?"
+
+"Absolutely. Good Heavens, you've put me through a catechism in the last
+ten minutes!"
+
+"If my father were living, or even mother, I--one of them would have
+done this for me, Max. I'm sorry I had to. I've been very wretched for
+several days."
+
+It was the first encouragement she had given him. There was no coquetry
+about her aloofness. It was only that her faith in him had had a shock
+and was slow of reviving.
+
+"You are very, very lovely, Sidney. I wonder if you have any idea what
+you mean to me?"
+
+"You meant a great deal to me, too," she said frankly, "until a few days
+ago. I thought you were the greatest man I had ever known, and the best.
+And then--I think I'd better tell you what I overheard. I didn't try to
+hear. It just happened that way."
+
+He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly and
+with a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself.
+Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for
+self-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! She
+had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had
+never pretended anything else.
+
+There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished. Then:
+
+"You are not a child any longer, Sidney. You have learned a great deal
+in this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man
+has small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the woman
+he wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off--there's
+nothing to them. It's the real thing then, instead of the sham."
+
+"Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet--"
+
+"Palmer is a cad."
+
+"I don't want you to think I'm making terms. I'm not. But if this thing
+went on, and I found out afterward that you--that there was anyone else,
+it would kill me."
+
+"Then you care, after all!"
+
+There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with
+which he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He
+stood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. "You love me,
+dear."
+
+"I'm afraid I do, Max."
+
+"Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me," he said, and took her
+in his arms.
+
+He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to
+him again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
+
+"I love you, love you!" he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the
+warm hollow of her neck.
+
+Sidney glowed under his caresses--was rather startled at his passion, a
+little ashamed.
+
+"Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it."
+
+"I love you," said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.
+
+But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with
+his lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in
+the back of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while she
+had given him her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It
+made her passive, prevented her complete surrender.
+
+And after a time he resented it. "You are only letting me love you," he
+complained. "I don't believe you care, after all."
+
+He freed her, took a step back from her.
+
+"I am afraid I am jealous," she said simply. "I keep thinking of--of
+Carlotta."
+
+"Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?"
+
+"Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so."
+
+But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyes
+on her. The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busy
+insect life. A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a white
+farmhouse with its barn and outbuildings. In a small room in the barn
+a woman sat; and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she read
+her Bible.
+
+"--and that after this there will be only one woman for me," finished
+Max, and dropped his hand. He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.
+
+At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyed
+the road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in a
+darkened room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.
+
+"I guess I'll go and get my coat on, Bill," said the little man heavily.
+"They're starting to come now. I see a machine about a mile down the
+road."
+
+Sidney broke the news of her engagement to K. herself, the evening of
+the same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at
+the door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed,
+and Christine's rooms were empty. She found Katie on the back porch,
+mountains of Sunday newspapers piled around her.
+
+"I'd about give you up," said Katie. "I was thinking, rather than see
+your ice-cream that's left from dinner melt and go to waste, I'd take it
+around to the Rosenfelds."
+
+"Please take it to them. I'd really rather they had it."
+
+She stood in front of Katie, drawing off her gloves.
+
+"Aunt Harriet's asleep. Is--is Mr. Le Moyne around?"
+
+"You're gettin' prettier every day, Miss Sidney. Is that the blue suit
+Miss Harriet said she made for you? It's right stylish. I'd like to see
+the back."
+
+Sidney obediently turned, and Katie admired.
+
+"When I think how things have turned out!" she reflected. "You in a
+hospital, doing God knows what for all sorts of people, and Miss Harriet
+making a suit like that and asking a hundred dollars for it, and that
+tony that a person doesn't dare to speak to her when she's in the
+dining-room. And your poor ma...well, it's all in a lifetime! No; Mr.
+K.'s not here. He and Mrs. Howe are gallivanting around together."
+
+"Katie!"
+
+"Well, that's what I call it. I'm not blind. Don't I hear her dressing
+up about four o'clock every afternoon, and, when she's all ready,
+sittin' in the parlor with the door open, and a book on her knee, as if
+she'd been reading all afternoon? If he doesn't stop, she's at the foot
+of the stairs, calling up to him. 'K.,' she says, 'K., I'm waiting to
+ask you something!' or, 'K., wouldn't you like a cup of tea?' She's
+always feedin' him tea and cake, so that when he comes to table he won't
+eat honest victuals."
+
+Sidney had paused with one glove half off. Katie's tone carried
+conviction. Was life making another of its queer errors, and were
+Christine and K. in love with each other? K. had always been HER
+friend, HER confidant. To give him up to Christine--she shook herself
+impatiently. What had come over her? Why not be glad that he had some
+sort of companionship?
+
+She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took off
+her hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened to
+her. She did not belong to herself any more. It gave her an odd, lost
+feeling. She was going to be married--not very soon, but ultimately. A
+year ago her half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She
+was loved, and she had thrilled to it.
+
+But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then,
+loomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation:
+that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down
+into the valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved
+very tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.
+
+And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not always
+lovely. This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of
+child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxed
+bodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.
+
+Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving
+about with flat, inelastic steps.
+
+That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case might
+be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a
+little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,
+flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and withered, then, or one
+shriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed very
+terrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable
+hand that had closed about her.
+
+Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying
+as if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.
+
+"You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner. Your
+measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this
+hospital training, and after last January--"
+
+She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with
+weeping, told her of her engagement.
+
+"But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to
+marry him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"
+
+"I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once,
+that I--It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet."
+
+Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she,
+Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute. She patted
+Sidney's moist hand.
+
+"I guess I understand," she said. "I'll attend to your wedding things,
+Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be
+outdone." And, as an afterthought: "I hope Max Wilson will settle down
+now. He's been none too steady."
+
+K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmer
+had the car out--had, indeed, not been home since the morning of the
+previous day. He played golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday at the
+Country Club, and invariably spent the night there. So K. and Christine
+walked from the end of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'s
+keen direction finding bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden field
+flowers, a dozen wonders of the country that Christine had never dreamed
+of.
+
+The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine,
+with the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note. In her
+endeavor to cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong,
+she fell into the error of pretending that everything was right.
+
+Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently,
+while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of the
+hay-barn and watched automobiles turning in from the road. When
+Christine rose to leave, she confessed her failure frankly.
+
+"I've meant well, Tillie," she said. "I'm afraid I've said exactly
+what I shouldn't. I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, two
+wonderful pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband--that is, Mr.
+Schwitter--cares for you,--you admit that,--and you are going to have a
+child."
+
+Tillie's pale eyes filled.
+
+"I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe," she said simply. "Now I'm not.
+When I look in that glass at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd give
+a good bit to be back on the Street again."
+
+She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead of
+him out of the barn.
+
+"I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne." She lowered her
+voice. "Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter
+says he's drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: he
+sent him home last Sunday. What's come over the boy?"
+
+"I'll talk to him."
+
+"The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. I
+thought maybe Sidney Page could do something with him."
+
+"I think he'd not like her to know. I'll do what I can."
+
+K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.
+
+Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than once
+K. found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him. Poor Christine was
+only trying to fit him into the world she knew--a world whose men were
+strong but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not to
+visiting unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, and
+yet how gentle! It gave her a choking feeling in her throat. She took
+advantage of a steep bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingers
+on his shabby gray sleeve.
+
+It was late when they got home. Sidney was sitting on the low step,
+waiting for them.
+
+Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a case
+that evening, and promising an early return. In the little hall he had
+drawn her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on the
+forehead and on each of her white eyelids.
+
+"Little wife-to-be!" he had said, and was rather ashamed of his own
+emotion. From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had waved
+his hand to her.
+
+Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K.
+folded up his long length on the step below Sidney.
+
+"Well, dear ministering angel," he said, "how goes the world?"
+
+"Things have been happening, K."
+
+He sat erect and looked at her. Perhaps because she had a woman's
+instinct for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps--more likely,
+indeed--because she divined that the announcement would not be entirely
+agreeable, she delayed it, played with it.
+
+"I have gone into the operating-room."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+"The costume is ugly. I look hideous in it."
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.
+
+"Is that all the news?"
+
+"There is something else, K."
+
+It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.
+Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment,
+he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.
+
+"I think I know what it is, Sidney."
+
+"You expected it, didn't you?"
+
+"I--it's not an entire surprise."
+
+"Aren't you going to wish me happiness?"
+
+"If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would have
+everything in the world."
+
+His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.
+
+"Am I--are we going to lose you soon?"
+
+"I shall finish my training. I made that a condition."
+
+Then, in a burst of confidence:--
+
+"I know so little, K., and he knows so much! I am going to read and
+study, so that he can talk to me about his work. That's what marriage
+ought to be, a sort of partnership. Don't you think so?"
+
+K. nodded. His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future.
+Instead, he was looking back--back to those days when he had hoped
+sometime to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved work
+that was no longer his. And, finding it agonizing, as indeed all thought
+was that summer night, he dwelt for a moment on that evening, a year
+before, when in the same June moonlight, he had come up the Street and
+had seen Sidney where she was now, with the tree shadows playing over
+her.
+
+Even that first evening he had been jealous.
+
+It had been Joe then. Now it was another and older man, daring,
+intelligent, unscrupulous. And this time he had lost her absolutely,
+lost her without a struggle to keep her. His only struggle had been with
+himself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure.
+
+"Do you know," said Sidney suddenly, "that it is almost a year since
+that night you came up the Street, and I was here on the steps?"
+
+"That's a fact, isn't it!" He managed to get some surprise into his
+voice.
+
+"How Joe objected to your coming! Poor Joe!"
+
+"Do you ever see him?"
+
+"Hardly ever now. I think he hates me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--well, you know, K. Why do men always hate a woman who just
+happens not to love them?"
+
+"I don't believe they do. It would be much better for them if they
+could. As a matter of fact, there are poor devils who go through life
+trying to do that very thing, and failing."
+
+Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across. It was Dr. Ed's evening
+office hour, and through the open window she could see a line of people
+waiting their turn. They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, until
+the opening of the back office door promoted them all one chair toward
+the consulting-room.
+
+"I shall be just across the Street," she said at last. "Nearer than I am
+at the hospital."
+
+"You will be much farther away. You will be married."
+
+"But we will still be friends, K.?"
+
+Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled. She was often puzzled with him.
+
+"Of course."
+
+But, after another silence, he astounded her. She had fallen into the
+way of thinking of him as always belonging to the house, even, in a
+sense, belonging to her. And now--
+
+"Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of going
+away?"
+
+"K.!"
+
+"My dear child, you do not need a roomer here any more. I have always
+received infinitely more than I have paid for, even in the small
+services I have been able to render. Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous.
+You are away, and some day you are going to be married. Don't you see--I
+am not needed?"
+
+"That does not mean you are not wanted."
+
+"I shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can see
+you"--he changed this hastily--"so that we can still meet and talk
+things over. Old friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to be
+turned on when needed, like a tap."
+
+"Where will you go?"
+
+"The Rosenfelds are rather in straits. I thought of helping them to get
+a small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely a
+matter of furniture. If they could furnish it even plainly, it could be
+done. I--haven't saved anything."
+
+"Do you ever think of yourself?" she cried. "Have you always gone
+through life helping people, K.? Save anything! I should think not! You
+spend it all on others." She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder.
+"It will not be home without you, K."
+
+To save him, he could not have spoken just then. A riot of rebellion
+surged up in him, that he must let this best thing in his life go out
+of it. To go empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his very
+arms ached to hold her! And she was so near--just above, with her hand
+on his shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, he
+could have brushed her hair.
+
+"You have not wished me happiness, K. Do you remember, when I was going
+to the hospital and you gave me the little watch--do you remember what
+you said?"
+
+"Yes"--huskily.
+
+"Will you say it again?"
+
+"But that was good-bye."
+
+"Isn't this, in a way? You are going to leave us, and I--say it, K."
+
+"Good-bye, dear, and--God bless you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year.
+Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that
+it was best. Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would have
+finished her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled to
+the ending of their relationship.
+
+He intended to end that. He had meant every word of what he had sworn to
+Sidney. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly--as far as he could
+be unselfish. The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney's
+sake. The hospital did not approve of engagements between nurses and the
+staff. It was disorganizing, bad for discipline.
+
+Sidney was very happy all that summer. She glowed with pride when her
+lover put through a difficult piece of work; flushed and palpitated when
+she heard his praises sung; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, when
+he was in the house. She wore his ring on a fine chain around her neck,
+and grew prettier every day.
+
+Once or twice, however, when she was at home, away from the glamour, her
+early fears obsessed her. Would he always love her? He was so handsome
+and so gifted, and there were women who were mad about him. That was the
+gossip of the hospital. Suppose she married him and he tired of her? In
+her humility she thought that perhaps only her youth, and such charm as
+she had that belonged to youth, held him. And before her, always, she
+saw the tragic women of the wards.
+
+K. had postponed his leaving until fall. Sidney had been insistent, and
+Harriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way. "If you insist
+on being an idiot and adopting the Rosenfeld family," she said, "wait
+until September. The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall."
+
+So K. waited for "the season," and ate his heart out for Sidney in the
+interval.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down. K.
+was his most frequent visitor. As a matter of fact, he was watching the
+boy closely, at Max Wilson's request.
+
+"Tell me when I'm to do it," said Wilson, "and when the time comes,
+for God's sake, stand by me. Come to the operation. He's got so much
+confidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail."
+
+So K. came on visiting days, and, by special dispensation, on Saturday
+afternoons. He was teaching the boy basket-making. Not that he knew
+anything about it himself; but, by means of a blind teacher, he kept
+just one lesson ahead. The ward was intensely interested. It found
+something absurd and rather touching in this tall, serious young man
+with the surprisingly deft fingers, tying raffia knots.
+
+The first basket went, by Johnny's request, to Sidney Page.
+
+"I want her to have it," he said. "She got corns on her fingers from
+rubbing me when I came in first; and, besides--"
+
+"Yes?" said K. He was tying a most complicated knot, and could not look
+up.
+
+"I know something," said Johnny. "I'm not going to get in wrong by
+talking, but I know something. You give her the basket."
+
+K. looked up then, and surprised Johnny's secret in his face.
+
+"Ah!" he said.
+
+"If I'd squealed she'd have finished me for good. They've got me, you
+know. I'm not running in 2.40 these days."
+
+"I'll not tell, or make it uncomfortable for you. What do you know?"
+
+Johnny looked around. The ward was in the somnolence of mid-afternoon.
+The nearest patient, a man in a wheel-chair, was snoring heavily.
+
+"It was the dark-eyed one that changed the medicine on me," he said.
+"The one with the heels that were always tapping around, waking me up.
+She did it; I saw her."
+
+After all, it was only what K. had suspected before. But a sense of
+impending danger to Sidney obsessed him. If Carlotta would do that, what
+would she do when she learned of the engagement? And he had known her
+before. He believed she was totally unscrupulous. The odd coincidence of
+their paths crossing again troubled him.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was well again, and back on duty. Luckily for Sidney,
+her three months' service in the operating-room kept them apart. For
+Carlotta was now not merely jealous. She found herself neglected,
+ignored. It ate her like a fever.
+
+But she did not yet suspect an engagement. It had been her theory that
+Wilson would not marry easily--that, in a sense, he would have to be
+coerced into marriage. Some clever woman would marry him some day, and
+no one would be more astonished than himself. She thought merely that
+Sidney was playing a game like her own, with different weapons. So she
+planned her battle, ignorant that she had lost already.
+
+Her method was simple enough. She stopped sulking, met Max with smiles,
+made no overtures toward a renewal of their relations. At first this
+annoyed him. Later it piqued him. To desert a woman was justifiable,
+under certain circumstances. But to desert a woman, and have her
+apparently not even know it, was against the rules of the game.
+
+During a surgical dressing in a private room, one day, he allowed his
+fingers to touch hers, as on that day a year before when she had taken
+Miss Simpson's place in his office. He was rewarded by the same slow,
+smouldering glance that had caught his attention before. So she was only
+acting indifference!
+
+Then Carlotta made her second move. A new interne had come into the
+house, and was going through the process of learning that from a senior
+at the medical school to a half-baked junior interne is a long step
+back. He had to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, the
+patronizing instructions of nurses as to rules.
+
+Carlotta alone treated him with deference. His uneasy rounds in
+Carlotta's precinct took on the state and form of staff visitations. She
+flattered, cajoled, looked up to him.
+
+After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting more
+attention than himself: that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere in
+the offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her with
+worship. Her indifference had only piqued him. The enthroning of a
+successor galled him. Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily--was
+subject to frequent "bawling out," as he termed it, in the
+operating-room as he assisted the anaesthetist. He took his troubles to
+Carlotta, who soothed him in the corridor--in plain sight of her quarry,
+of course--by putting a sympathetic hand on his sleeve.
+
+Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech.
+
+"For the love of Heaven, Carlotta," he said impatiently, "stop making
+love to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you look at him."
+
+"I like him. He is thoroughly genuine. I respect him, and--he respects
+me."
+
+"It's rather a silly game, you know."
+
+"What game?"
+
+"Do you think I don't understand?"
+
+"Perhaps you do. I--I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But I've
+been down-hearted. He cheers me up."
+
+Her attraction for him was almost gone--not quite. He felt rather sorry
+for her.
+
+"I'm sorry. Then you are not angry with me?"
+
+"Angry? No." She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was not
+acting. "I knew it would end, of course. I have lost a--a lover. I
+expected that. But I wanted to keep a friend."
+
+It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend? He
+had treated her cruelly, hideously. If she still desired his friendship,
+there was no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it. And Carlotta was very
+careful. Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes.
+She told him of her worries. Her training was almost over. She had
+a chance to take up institutional work. She abhorred the thought of
+private duty. What would he advise?
+
+The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place to
+talk.
+
+"Come to the office and we'll talk it over."
+
+"I don't like to go there; Miss Simpson is suspicious."
+
+The institution she spoke of was in another city. It occurred to
+Wilson that if she took it the affair would have reached a graceful and
+legitimate end.
+
+Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was not
+unpleasant. It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it was
+owing to her. He had treated her badly.
+
+Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptingly
+free.
+
+"Suppose you meet me at the old corner," he said carelessly, eyes on
+the Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was
+glaring ferociously. "We'll run out into the country and talk things
+over."
+
+She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.
+
+"What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?"
+
+Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and he
+made his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that he
+had won a victory.
+
+K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. He had been
+sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement. At five
+o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside
+on the pavement.
+
+"Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'd
+come around."
+
+K. looked at his watch.
+
+"What do you say to a walk?"
+
+"Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go about
+town for a half-hour or so."
+
+Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to. But here
+again Joe met him more than halfway.
+
+"Well, go on," he said, when they found themselves in the park; "I don't
+suppose you were paying a call."
+
+"No."
+
+"I guess I know what you are going to say."
+
+"I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a man
+insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone."
+
+"Why make an exception of me?"
+
+"One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that,
+whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are
+putting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else."
+
+"She is responsible, isn't she?"
+
+"Not in the least. How old are you, Joe?"
+
+"Twenty-three, almost."
+
+"Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a
+disappointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney."
+
+"Much she cares! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?"
+
+"There is no announcement of any engagement."
+
+"She is, and you know it. Well, she'll be happy--not! If I'd go to her
+to-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again." The idea,
+thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him. He returned to it
+again and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy's
+statement had any basis in fact. His single determination was to save
+Sidney from any pain.
+
+When Joe suddenly announced his inclination to go out into the country
+after all, he suspected a ruse to get rid of him, and insisted on going
+along. Joe consented grudgingly.
+
+"Car's at Bailey's garage," he said sullenly. "I don't know when I'll
+get back."
+
+"That won't matter." K.'s tone was cheerful. "I'm not sleeping, anyhow."
+
+That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the car
+running smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat. Then:--
+
+"So you've got it too!" he said. "We're a fine pair of fools. We'd both
+be better off if I sent the car over a bank."
+
+He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to time
+sternly.
+
+They had supper at the White Springs Hotel--not on the terrace, but in
+the little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first meal
+together. K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with bad
+grace.
+
+But the meal cheered and steadied him. K. found him more amenable to
+reason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave the
+city.
+
+"I'm stuck here," he said. "I'm the only one, and mother yells blue
+murder when I talk about it. I want to go to Cuba. My uncle owns a farm
+down there."
+
+"Perhaps I can talk your mother over. I've been there."
+
+Joe was all interest. His dilated pupils became more normal, his
+restless hands grew quiet. K.'s even voice, the picture he drew of
+life on the island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-week
+dullness, seemed to quiet the boy's tortured nerves. He was nearer
+to peace than he had been for many days. But he smoked incessantly,
+lighting one cigarette from another.
+
+At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car. He paused for a moment,
+rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.
+
+"I'm feeling a lot better," he said. "I haven't got the band around my
+head. You talk to mother."
+
+That was the last K. saw of Joe Drummond until the next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care--not in black this time, but
+in white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her
+head, and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to
+be gay, cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory.
+He expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the
+secret of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to
+forget their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when
+the late dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a
+faintly perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her
+voice that was only half assumed.
+
+"It's very late," he complained. "Surely you are not going to be back at
+ten."
+
+"I have special permission to be out late."
+
+"Good!" And then, recollecting their new situation: "We have a lot to
+talk over. It will take time."
+
+At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
+car. Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside
+of the road. The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe
+that the white figure in the car was not Sidney. He went rather white,
+and stepped out of the zone of light. The influence of Le Moyne was
+still on him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing.
+But his hands shook as he filled the radiator.
+
+When Wilson's car had gone on, he went automatically about his
+preparations for the return trip--lifted a seat cushion to investigate
+his own store of gasolene, replacing carefully the revolver he always
+carried under the seat and packed in waste to prevent its accidental
+discharge, lighted his lamps, examined a loose brake-band.
+
+His coolness gratified him. He had been an ass: Le Moyne was right. He'd
+get away--to Cuba if he could--and start over again. He would forget the
+Street and let it forget him.
+
+The men in the garage were talking.
+
+"To Schwitter's, of course," one of them grumbled. "We might as well go
+out of business."
+
+"There's no money in running a straight place. Schwitter and half a
+dozen others are getting rich."
+
+"That was Wilson, the surgeon in town. He cut off my brother-in-law's
+leg--charged him as much as if he had grown a new one for him. He used
+to come here. Now he goes to Schwitter's, like the rest. Pretty girl he
+had with him. You can bet on Wilson."
+
+So Max Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of
+garage talk! The smiles of the men were evil. Joe's hands grew cold, his
+head hot. A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights.
+He knew Schwitter's, and he knew Wilson.
+
+He flung himself into his car and threw the throttle open. The car
+jerked, stalled.
+
+"You can't start like that, son," one of the men remonstrated. "You let
+'er in too fast."
+
+"You go to hell!" Joe snarled, and made a second ineffectual effort.
+
+Thus adjured, the men offered neither further advice nor assistance. The
+minutes went by in useless cranking--fifteen. The red mist grew heavier.
+Every lamp was a danger signal. But when K., growing uneasy, came out
+into the yard, the engine had started at last. He was in time to see Joe
+run his car into the road and turn it viciously toward Schwitter's.
+
+Carlotta's nearness was having its calculated effect on Max Wilson. His
+spirits rose as the engine, marking perfect time, carried them along the
+quiet roads.
+
+Partly it was reaction--relief that she should be so reasonable, so
+complaisant--and a sort of holiday spirit after the day's hard work.
+Oddly enough, and not so irrational as may appear, Sidney formed a
+part of the evening's happiness--that she loved him; that, back in the
+lecture-room, eyes and even mind on the lecturer, her heart was with
+him.
+
+So, with Sidney the basis of his happiness, he made the most of his
+evening's freedom. He sang a little in his clear tenor--even, once when
+they had slowed down at a crossing, bent over audaciously and kissed
+Carlotta's hand in the full glare of a passing train.
+
+"How reckless of you!"
+
+"I like to be reckless," he replied.
+
+His boyishness annoyed Carlotta. She did not want the situation to get
+out of hand. Moreover, what was so real for her was only too plainly a
+lark for him. She began to doubt her power.
+
+The hopelessness of her situation was dawning on her. Even when the
+touch of her beside him and the solitude of the country roads got in
+his blood, and he bent toward her, she found no encouragement in his
+words:--"I am mad about you to-night."
+
+She took her courage in her hands:--"Then why give me up for some one
+else?"
+
+"That's--different."
+
+"Why is it different? I am a woman. I--I love you, Max. No one else will
+ever care as I do."
+
+"You are in love with the Lamb!"
+
+"That was a trick. I'm sorry, Max. I don't care for anyone else in the
+world. If you let me go I'll want to die."
+
+Then, as he was silent:--
+
+"If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life. I swear it. There
+will be nobody else, ever."
+
+The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday
+afternoon under the trees, on this very road! Swift shame overtook
+him, that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in
+ignorance of how things really stood between them.
+
+"I'm sorry, Carlotta. It's impossible. I'm engaged to marry some one
+else."
+
+"Sidney Page?"--almost a whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was ashamed at the way she took the news. If she had stormed or wept,
+he would have known what to do. But she sat still, not speaking.
+
+"You must have expected it, sooner or later."
+
+Still she made no reply. He thought she might faint, and looked at her
+anxiously. Her profile, indistinct beside him, looked white and drawn.
+But Carlotta was not fainting. She was making a desperate plan. If their
+escapade became known, it would end things between Sidney and him. She
+was sure of that. She needed time to think it out. It must become known
+without any apparent move on her part. If, for instance, she became ill,
+and was away from the hospital all night, that might answer. The thing
+would be investigated, and who knew--
+
+The car turned in at Schwitter's road and drew up before the house.
+The narrow porch was filled with small tables, above which hung rows of
+electric lights enclosed in Japanese paper lanterns. Midweek, which had
+found the White Springs Hotel almost deserted, saw Schwitter's crowded
+tables set out under the trees. Seeing the crowd, Wilson drove directly
+to the yard and parked his machine.
+
+"No need of running any risk," he explained to the still figure beside
+him. "We can walk back and take a table under the trees, away from those
+infernal lanterns."
+
+She reeled a little as he helped her out.
+
+"Not sick, are you?"
+
+"I'm dizzy. I'm all right."
+
+She looked white. He felt a stab of pity for her. She leaned rather
+heavily on him as they walked toward the house. The faint perfume that
+had almost intoxicated him, earlier, vaguely irritated him now.
+
+At the rear of the house she shook off his arm and preceded him around
+the building. She chose the end of the porch as the place in which to
+drop, and went down like a stone, falling back.
+
+There was a moderate excitement. The visitors at Schwitter's were too
+much engrossed with themselves to be much interested. She opened her
+eyes almost as soon as she fell--to forestall any tests; she was
+shrewd enough to know that Wilson would detect her malingering very
+quickly--and begged to be taken into the house. "I feel very ill," she
+said, and her white face bore her out.
+
+Schwitter and Bill carried her in and up the stairs to one of the newly
+furnished rooms. The little man was twittering with anxiety. He had a
+horror of knockout drops and the police. They laid her on the bed, her
+hat beside her; and Wilson, stripping down the long sleeve of her glove,
+felt her pulse.
+
+"There's a doctor in the next town," said Schwitter. "I was going to
+send for him, anyhow--my wife's not very well."
+
+"I'm a doctor."
+
+"Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Nothing serious."
+
+He closed the door behind the relieved figure of the landlord, and,
+going back to Carlotta, stood looking down at her.
+
+"What did you mean by doing that?"
+
+"Doing what?"
+
+"You were no more faint than I am."
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+"I don't remember. Everything went black. The lanterns--"
+
+He crossed the room deliberately and went out, closing the door behind
+him. He saw at once where he stood--in what danger. If she insisted
+that she was ill and unable to go back, there would be a fuss. The story
+would come out. Everything would be gone. Schwitter's, of all places!
+
+At the foot of the stairs, Schwitter pulled himself together. After all,
+the girl was only ill. There was nothing for the police. He looked at
+his watch. The doctor ought to be here by this time. It was sooner than
+they had expected. Even the nurse had not come. Tillie was alone, out
+in the harness-room. He looked through the crowded rooms, at the
+overflowing porch with its travesty of pleasure, and he hated the whole
+thing with a desperate hatred.
+
+Another car. Would they never stop coming! But perhaps it was the
+doctor. A young man edged his way into the hall and confronted him.
+
+"Two people just arrived here. A man and a woman--in white. Where are
+they?"
+
+It was trouble then, after all!
+
+"Upstairs--first bedroom to the right." His teeth chattered. Surely, as
+a man sowed he reaped.
+
+Joe went up the staircase. At the top, on the landing, he confronted
+Wilson. He fired at him without a word--saw him fling up his arms and
+fall back, striking first the wall, then the floor.
+
+The buzz of conversation on the porch suddenly ceased. Joe put his
+revolver in his pocket and went quietly down the stairs. The crowd
+parted to let him through.
+
+Carlotta, crouched in her room, listening, not daring to open the door,
+heard the sound of a car as it swung out into the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late
+operation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture
+notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the
+insistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flying
+fingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.
+There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force
+strength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrils
+dilated, her brain worked like a machine.
+
+That night she received well-deserved praise. When the Lamb, telephoning
+hysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staff
+surgeon was called. His keen eyes watched Sidney--felt her capacity, her
+fiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what was
+in his mind.
+
+"Don't wear yourself out, girl," he said gravely. "We need people like
+you. It was good work to-night--fine work. I wish we had more like you."
+
+By midnight the work was done, and the nurse in charge sent Sidney to
+bed.
+
+It was the Lamb who received the message about Wilson; and because he
+was not very keen at the best, and because the news was so startling, he
+refused to credit his ears.
+
+"Who is this at the 'phone?"
+
+"That doesn't matter. Le Moyne's my name. Get the message to Dr. Ed
+Wilson at once. We are starting to the city."
+
+"Tell me again. I mustn't make a mess of this."
+
+"Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, has been shot," came slowly and distinctly.
+"Get the staff there and have a room ready. Get the operating-room
+ready, too."
+
+The Lamb wakened then, and roused the house. He was incoherent, rather,
+so that Dr. Ed got the impression that it was Le Moyne who had been
+shot, and only learned the truth when he got to the hospital.
+
+"Where is he?" he demanded. He liked K., and his heart was sore within
+him.
+
+"Not in yet, sir. A Mr. Le Moyne is bringing him. Staff's in the
+executive committee room, sir."
+
+"But--who has been shot? I thought you said--"
+
+The Lamb turned pale at that, and braced himself.
+
+"I'm sorry--I thought you understood. I believe it's not--not serious.
+It's Dr. Max, sir."
+
+Dr. Ed, who was heavy and not very young, sat down on an office chair.
+Out of sheer habit he had brought the bag. He put it down on the floor
+beside him, and moistened his lips.
+
+"Is he living?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. I gathered that Mr. Le Moyne did not think it serious."
+
+He lied, and Dr. Ed knew he lied.
+
+The Lamb stood by the door, and Dr. Ed sat and waited. The office
+clock said half after three. Outside the windows, the night world went
+by--taxi-cabs full of roisterers, women who walked stealthily close
+to the buildings, a truck carrying steel, so heavy that it shook the
+hospital as it rumbled by.
+
+Dr. Ed sat and waited. The bag with the dog-collar in it was on the
+floor. He thought of many things, but mostly of the promise he had made
+his mother. And, having forgotten the injured man's shortcomings, he
+was remembering his good qualities--his cheerfulness, his courage, his
+achievements. He remembered the day Max had done the Edwardes operation,
+and how proud he had been of him. He figured out how old he was--not
+thirty-one yet, and already, perhaps--There he stopped thinking. Cold
+beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
+
+"I think I hear them now, sir," said the Lamb, and stood back
+respectfully to let him pass out of the door.
+
+Carlotta stayed in the room during the consultation. No one seemed to
+wonder why she was there, or to pay any attention to her. The staff was
+stricken. They moved back to make room for Dr. Ed beside the bed, and
+then closed in again.
+
+Carlotta waited, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
+Surely they would operate; they wouldn't let him die like that!
+
+When she saw the phalanx break up, and realized that they would not
+operate, she went mad. She stood against the door, and accused them of
+cowardice--taunted them.
+
+"Do you think he would let any of you die like that?" she cried. "Die
+like a hurt dog, and none of you to lift a hand?"
+
+It was Pfeiffer who drew her out of the room and tried to talk reason
+and sanity to her.
+
+"It's hopeless," he said. "If there was a chance, we'd operate, and you
+know it."
+
+The staff went hopelessly down the stairs to the smoking-room, and
+smoked. It was all they could do. The night assistant sent coffee down
+to them, and they drank it. Dr. Ed stayed in his brother's room, and
+said to his mother, under his breath, that he'd tried to do his best by
+Max, and that from now on it would be up to her.
+
+K. had brought the injured man in. The country doctor had come, too,
+finding Tillie's trial not imminent. On the way in he had taken it
+for granted that K. was a medical man like himself, and had placed his
+hypodermic case at his disposal.
+
+When he missed him,--in the smoking-room, that was,--he asked for him.
+
+"I don't see the chap who came in with us," he said. "Clever fellow.
+Like to know his name."
+
+The staff did not know.
+
+K. sat alone on a bench in the hall. He wondered who would tell Sidney;
+he hoped they would be very gentle with her. He sat in the shadow,
+waiting. He did not want to go home and leave her to what she might have
+to face. There was a chance she would ask for him. He wanted to be near,
+in that case.
+
+He sat in the shadow, on the bench. The night watchman went by twice and
+stared at him. At last he asked K. to mind the door until he got some
+coffee.
+
+"One of the staff's been hurt," he explained. "If I don't get some
+coffee now, I won't get any."
+
+K. promised to watch the door.
+
+A desperate thing had occurred to Carlotta. Somehow, she had not thought
+of it before. Now she wondered how she could have failed to think of it.
+If only she could find him and he would do it! She would go down on her
+knees--would tell him everything, if only he would consent.
+
+When she found him on his bench, however, she passed him by. She had a
+terrible fear that he might go away if she put the thing to him first.
+He clung hard to his new identity.
+
+So first she went to the staff and confronted them. They were men of
+courage, only declining to undertake what they considered hopeless work.
+The one man among them who might have done the thing with any chance
+of success lay stricken. Not one among them but would have given of his
+best--only his best was not good enough.
+
+"It would be the Edwardes operation, wouldn't it?" demanded Carlotta.
+
+The staff was bewildered. There were no rules to cover such conduct on
+the part of a nurse. One of them--Pfeiffer again, by chance--replied
+rather heavily:--
+
+"If any, it would be the Edwardes operation."
+
+"Would Dr. Edwardes himself be able to do anything?"
+
+This was going a little far.
+
+"Possibly. One chance in a thousand, perhaps. But Edwardes is dead. How
+did this thing happen, Miss Harrison?"
+
+She ignored his question. Her face was ghastly, save for the trace of
+rouge; her eyes were red-rimmed.
+
+"Dr. Edwardes is sitting on a bench in the hall outside!" she announced.
+
+Her voice rang out. K. heard her and raised his head. His attitude was
+weary, resigned. The thing had come, then! He was to take up the old
+burden. The girl had told.
+
+Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney. Max was still unconscious. Ed remembered
+about her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man's
+estate and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered that
+Max was very fond of Sidney. He had hoped that Sidney would take him and
+do for him what he, Ed, had failed to do.
+
+So Sidney was summoned.
+
+She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a little
+weary. But her courage was indomitable. She forced her shoes on her
+tired feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.
+
+The night watchman was in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she always
+smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the
+nurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall,
+holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty
+too--but he had divined Sidney's romance.
+
+"Coffee! For me?" She was astonished.
+
+"Drink it. You haven't had much sleep."
+
+She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.
+
+"There is something wrong, daddy."
+
+That was his name, among the nurses. He had had another name, but it was
+lost in the mists of years.
+
+"Get it down."
+
+So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. But
+daddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.
+
+"Can you stand a piece of bad news?"
+
+Strangely, her first thought was of K.
+
+"There has been an accident. Dr. Wilson--"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Dr. Max--has been hurt. It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to know
+it."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Downstairs, in Seventeen."
+
+So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, with
+his untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straight
+figure on the bed. When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms around
+her. His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything. She hardly
+listened to what he said. The fact was all that concerned her--that her
+lover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand,
+so far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.
+
+The why would come later. Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's arms
+about her, and wait.
+
+"If they would only do something!" Sidney's voice sounded strange to her
+ears.
+
+"There is nothing to do."
+
+But that, it seemed, was wrong. For suddenly Sidney's small world, which
+had always sedately revolved in one direction, began to move the other
+way.
+
+The door opened, and the staff came in. But where before they had
+moved heavily, with drooped heads, now they came quickly, as men with a
+purpose. There was a tall man in a white coat with them. He ordered them
+about like children, and they hastened to do his will. At first Sidney
+only knew that now, at last, they were going to do something--the tall
+man was going to do something. He stood with his back to Sidney, and
+gave orders.
+
+The heaviness of inactivity lifted. The room buzzed. The nurses stood
+by, while the staff did nurses' work. The senior surgical interne,
+essaying assistance, was shoved aside by the senior surgical consultant,
+and stood by, aggrieved.
+
+It was the Lamb, after all, who brought the news to Sidney. The new
+activity had caught Dr. Ed, and she was alone now, her face buried
+against the back of a chair.
+
+"There'll be something doing now, Miss Page," he offered.
+
+"What are they going to do?"
+
+"Going after the bullet. Do you know who's going to do it?"
+
+His voice echoed the subdued excitement of the room--excitement and new
+hope.
+
+"Did you ever hear of Edwardes, the surgeon?--the Edwardes operation,
+you know. Well, he's here. It sounds like a miracle. They found him
+sitting on a bench in the hall downstairs."
+
+Sidney raised her head, but she could not see the miraculously found
+Edwardes. She could see the familiar faces of the staff, and that other
+face on the pillow, and--she gave a little cry. There was K.! How like
+him to be there, to be wherever anyone was in trouble! Tears came to her
+eyes--the first tears she had shed.
+
+As if her eyes had called him, he looked up and saw her. He came toward
+her at once. The staff stood back to let him pass, and gazed after him.
+The wonder of what had happened was growing on them.
+
+K. stood beside Sidney, and looked down at her. Just at first it seemed
+as if he found nothing to say. Then:
+
+"There's just a chance, Sidney dear. Don't count too much on it."
+
+"I have got to count on it. If I don't, I shall die."
+
+If a shadow passed over his face, no one saw it.
+
+"I'll not ask you to go back to your room. If you will wait somewhere
+near, I'll see that you have immediate word."
+
+"I am going to the operating-room."
+
+"Not to the operating-room. Somewhere near."
+
+His steady voice controlled her hysteria. But she resented it. She was
+not herself, of course, what with strain and weariness.
+
+"I shall ask Dr. Edwardes."
+
+He was puzzled for a moment. Then he understood. After all, it was as
+well. Whether she knew him as Le Moyne or as Edwardes mattered very
+little, after all. The thing that really mattered was that he must try
+to save Wilson for her. If he failed--It ran through his mind that if he
+failed she might hate him the rest of her life--not for himself, but for
+his failure; that, whichever way things went, he must lose.
+
+"Dr. Edwardes says you are to stay away from the operation, but to
+remain near. He--he promises to call you if--things go wrong."
+
+She had to be content with that.
+
+Nothing about that night was real to Sidney. She sat in the
+anaesthetizing-room, and after a time she knew that she was not alone.
+There was somebody else. She realized dully that Carlotta was there,
+too, pacing up and down the little room. She was never sure, for
+instance, whether she imagined it, or whether Carlotta really stopped
+before her and surveyed her with burning eyes.
+
+"So you thought he was going to marry you!" said Carlotta--or the dream.
+"Well, you see he isn't."
+
+Sidney tried to answer, and failed--or that was the way the dream went.
+
+"If you had enough character, I'd think you did it. How do I know you
+didn't follow us, and shoot him as he left the room?"
+
+It must have been reality, after all; for Sidney's numbed mind grasped
+the essential fact here, and held on to it. He had been out with
+Carlotta. He had promised--sworn that this should not happen. It had
+happened. It surprised her. It seemed as if nothing more could hurt her.
+
+In the movement to and from the operating room, the door stood open for
+a moment. A tall figure--how much it looked like K.!--straightened and
+held out something in its hand.
+
+"The bullet!" said Carlotta in a whisper.
+
+Then more waiting, a stir of movement in the room beyond the closed
+door. Carlotta was standing, her face buried in her hands, against the
+door. Sidney suddenly felt sorry for her. She cared a great deal. It
+must be tragic to care like that! She herself was not caring much; she
+was too numb.
+
+Beyond, across the courtyard, was the stable. Before the day of the
+motor ambulances, horses had waited there for their summons, eager as
+fire horses, heads lifted to the gong. When Sidney saw the outline of
+the stable roof, she knew that it was dawn. The city still slept, but
+the torturing night was over. And in the gray dawn the staff, looking
+gray too, and elderly and weary, came out through the closed door and
+took their hushed way toward the elevator. They were talking among
+themselves. Sidney, straining her ears, gathered that they had seen a
+miracle, and that the wonder was still on them.
+
+Carlotta followed them out.
+
+Almost on their heels came K. He was in the white coat, and more and
+more he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held out
+something in his hand. Sidney's head was aching and confused.
+
+She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish. The dawn was
+morning now--horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and across
+the windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles sat on
+a clean towel.
+
+The tall man--or was it K.?--looked at her, and then reached up and
+turned off the electric light. Why, it was K., of course; and he was
+putting out the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light was
+out everything was gray. She could not see. She slid very quietly out of
+her chair, and lay at his feet in a dead faint.
+
+K. carried her to the elevator. He held her as he had held her that day
+at the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as one
+holds something infinitely precious. Not until he had placed her on her
+bed did she open her eyes. But she was conscious before that. She was
+so tired, and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing where
+one was going, or caring--
+
+The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney,
+lying among her pillows, looked up at K.
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"A little better. There's a chance, dear."
+
+"I have been so mixed up. All the time I was sitting waiting, I kept
+thinking that it was you who were operating! Will he really get well?"
+
+"It looks promising."
+
+"I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes."
+
+The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia. There was so much to talk
+about: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had been
+shot by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the great
+Edwardes; and--a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, and
+that thrilled the training-school to the core--that this very Edwardes,
+newly risen, as it were, and being a miracle himself as well as
+performing one, this very Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed and
+putting her down, had kissed her on her white forehead.
+
+The training-school doubted this. How could he know Sidney Page? And,
+after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupied
+at the time in seeing if her cap was straight. The school, therefore,
+accepted the miracle, but refused the kiss.
+
+The miracle was no miracle, of course. But something had happened to K.
+that savored of the marvelous. His faith in himself was coming back--not
+strongly, with a rush, but with all humility. He had been loath to
+take up the burden; but, now that he had it, he breathed a sort of
+inarticulate prayer to be able to carry it.
+
+And, since men have looked for signs since the beginning of time, he too
+asked for a sign. Not, of course, that he put it that way, or that he
+was making terms with Providence. It was like this: if Wilson got well,
+he'd keep on working. He'd feel that, perhaps, after all, this was
+meant. If Wilson died--Sidney held out her hand to him.
+
+"What should I do without you, K.?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"All you have to do is to want me."
+
+His voice was not too steady, and he took her pulse in a most
+businesslike way to distract her attention from it.
+
+"How very many things you know! You are quite professional about
+pulses."
+
+Even then he did not tell her. He was not sure, to be frank, that she'd
+be interested. Now, with Wilson as he was, was no time to obtrude his
+own story. There was time enough for that.
+
+"Will you drink some beef tea if I send it to you?"
+
+"I'm not hungry. I will, of course."
+
+"And--will you try to sleep?"
+
+"Sleep, while he--"
+
+"I promise to tell you if there is any change. I shall stay with him."
+
+"I'll try to sleep."
+
+But, as he rose from the chair beside her low bed, she put out her hand
+to him.
+
+"K."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"He was out with Carlotta. He promised, and he broke his promise."
+
+"There may have been reasons. Suppose we wait until he can explain."
+
+"How can he explain?" And, when he hesitated: "I bring all my troubles
+to you, as if you had none. Somehow, I can't go to Aunt Harriet, and of
+course mother--Carlotta cares a great deal for him. She said that I shot
+him. Does anyone really think that?"
+
+"Of course not. Please stop thinking."
+
+"But who did, K.? He had so many friends, and no enemies that I knew
+of."
+
+Her mind seemed to stagger about in a circle, making little excursions,
+but always coming back to the one thing.
+
+"Some drunken visitor to the road-house."
+
+He could have killed himself for the words the moment they were spoken.
+
+"They were at a road-house?"
+
+"It is not just to judge anyone before you hear the story."
+
+She stirred restlessly.
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Half-past six."
+
+"I must get up and go on duty."
+
+He was glad to be stern with her. He forbade her rising. When the nurse
+came in with the belated ammonia, she found K. making an arbitrary
+ruling, and Sidney looking up at him mutinously.
+
+"Miss Page is not to go on duty to-day. She is to stay in bed until
+further orders."
+
+"Very well, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+The confusion in Sidney's mind cleared away suddenly. K. was Dr.
+Edwardes! It was K. who had performed the miracle operation--K. who
+had dared and perhaps won! Dear K., with his steady eyes and his long
+surgeon's fingers! Then, because she seemed to see ahead as well as
+back into the past in that flash that comes to the drowning and to those
+recovering from shock, and because she knew that now the little house
+would no longer be home to K., she turned her face into her pillow and
+cried. Her world had fallen indeed. Her lover was not true and might
+be dying; her friend would go away to his own world, which was not the
+Street.
+
+K. left her at last and went back to Seventeen, where Dr. Ed still sat
+by the bed. Inaction was telling on him. If Max would only open
+his eyes, so he could tell him what had been in his mind all these
+years--his pride in him and all that.
+
+With a sort of belated desire to make up for where he had failed, he put
+the bag that had been Max's bete noir on the bedside table, and began
+to clear it of rubbish--odd bits of dirty cotton, the tubing from a long
+defunct stethoscope, glass from a broken bottle, a scrap of paper on
+which was a memorandum, in his illegible writing, to send Max a check
+for his graduating suit. When K. came in, he had the old dog-collar in
+his hand.
+
+"Belonged to an old collie of ours," he said heavily. "Milkman ran over
+him and killed him. Max chased the wagon and licked the driver with his
+own whip."
+
+His face worked.
+
+"Poor old Bobby Burns!" he said. "We'd raised him from a pup. Got him in
+a grape-basket."
+
+The sick man opened his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient did
+not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the
+gas office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy to
+reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence
+of the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the
+conviction that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.
+
+For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals
+keep their secrets well. And it is doubtful if the Street would
+have been greatly concerned even had it known. It had never heard of
+Edwardes, of the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation. Its medical
+knowledge comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner.
+When, as would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would
+be more concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of
+it. That was as it should be.
+
+But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood. If
+the boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable. Twenty people had
+seen him at Schwitter's and would know him again.
+
+To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.
+
+At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him. He had not been
+home all night. Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him
+that. "Mrs. Drummond was here," she said. "She is almost frantic. She
+says Joe has not been home all night. She says he looks up to you, and
+she thought if you could find him and would talk to him--"
+
+"Joe was with me last night. We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.
+Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry.
+I feel sure she will hear from him to-day. Something went wrong with his
+car, perhaps, after he left me."
+
+He bathed and shaved hurriedly. Katie brought his coffee to his room,
+and he drank it standing. He was working out a theory about the boy.
+Beyond Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, across
+the State. Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating up
+the miles all that night, or--K. would not formulate his fear of what
+might have happened, even to himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a
+little knot of people around her. The Street was getting the night's
+news.
+
+He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the
+country. He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day. He went
+to Schwitter's first. Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill was
+scrubbing the porch, and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass
+into a box. The dead lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on
+the hill came the staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
+
+"Where's Schwitter?"
+
+"At the barn with the missus. Got a boy back there."
+
+Bill grinned. He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch,
+shoved a chair on it.
+
+"Sit down. Well, how's the man who got his last night? Dead?"
+
+"No."
+
+"County detectives were here bright and early. After the lady's husband.
+I guess we lose our license over this."
+
+"What does Schwitter say?"
+
+"Oh, him!" Bill's tone was full of disgust. "He hopes we do. He hates
+the place. Only man I ever knew that hated money. That's what this house
+is--money."
+
+"Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?"
+
+A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtain
+before his eyes. But his reply came promptly:
+
+"Surest thing in the world. Close to him as you are to me. Dark man,
+about thirty, small mustache--"
+
+"Bill, you're lying, and I know it. Where is he?"
+
+The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
+
+"I don't know anything about him." He thrust his mop into the pail. K.
+rose.
+
+"Does Schwitter know?"
+
+"He doesn't know nothing. He's been out at the barn all night."
+
+The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the
+house. K. put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.
+
+"We've got to get him away from here, Bill."
+
+"Get who away?"
+
+"You know. The county men may come back to search the premises."
+
+"How do I know you aren't one of them?"
+
+"I guess you know I'm not. He's a friend of mine. As a matter of fact,
+I followed him here; but I was too late. Did he take the revolver away
+with him?"
+
+"I took it from him. It's under the bar."
+
+"Get it for me."
+
+In sheer relief, K.'s spirits rose. After all, it was a good world:
+Tillie with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe
+safe, and, without the revolver, secure from his own remorse. Other
+things there were, too--the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, the
+way she had turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, this
+last, but it was worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; it
+had stopped on the hillside. The men were drinking out of a bucket that
+flashed in the sun.
+
+There was one thing wrong. What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless
+a thing? K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
+
+From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne. He noted his
+tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his
+ears. Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job. After his survey he
+went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
+
+K. thrust it into his pocket.
+
+"Now," he said quietly, "where is he?"
+
+"In my room--top of the house."
+
+K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had sat
+waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down.
+And last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure.
+Surely the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery. None of it paid.
+No one got away with it.
+
+The room under the eaves was stifling. An unmade bed stood in a corner.
+From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and a
+cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.
+
+Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window. When the door
+swung open, he looked up. He showed no interest on seeing K., who had to
+stoop to enter the low room.
+
+"Hello, Joe."
+
+"I thought you were the police."
+
+"Not much. Open that window, Bill. This place is stifling."
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"I wish I'd killed him!"
+
+"Oh, no, you don't. You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I."
+
+"What will they do with me?"
+
+"Nothing until they find you. I came to talk about that. They'd better
+not find you."
+
+"Huh!"
+
+"It's easier than it sounds."
+
+K. sat down on the bed.
+
+"If I only had some money!" he said. "But never mind about that, Joe;
+I'll get some."
+
+Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room. As he closed the door
+behind him, K.'s voice took on a new tone: "Joe, why did you do it?"
+
+"You know."
+
+"You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know who was with him?"
+
+"Yes, and so do you. Don't go into that. I did it, and I'll stand by
+it."
+
+"Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?"
+
+"Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!" he sneered. "They
+came here and took a room. I met him coming out of it. I'd do it again
+if I had a chance, and do it better."
+
+"It was not Sidney."
+
+"Aw, chuck it!"
+
+"It's a fact. I got here not two minutes after you left. The girl was
+still there. It was some one else. Sidney was not out of the hospital
+last night. She attended a lecture, and then an operation."
+
+Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not
+been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
+
+"If he is that sort, he deserves what he got," said the boy grimly.
+
+And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spent
+alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time
+that he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees--his descent of the
+staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to
+walk back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be
+no mistake as to who had committed the crime.
+
+"I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself," he told K.
+"But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And--"
+
+After a pause: "Does she know who did it?"
+
+"Sidney? No."
+
+"Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow."
+
+"Possibly. That's not up to us, Joe. The thing we've got to do is to
+hush the thing up, and get you away."
+
+"I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money."
+
+K. rose. "I think I can get it."
+
+He turned in the doorway.
+
+"Sidney need never know who did it."
+
+"I'm not ashamed of it." But his face showed relief.
+
+There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve
+between men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K.
+The boy rose and followed him to the door.
+
+"Why don't you tell her the whole thing?--the whole filthy story?" he
+asked. "She'd never look at him again. You're crazy about her. I haven't
+got a chance. It would give you one."
+
+"I want her, God knows!" said K. "But not that way, boy."
+
+Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
+
+"Five hundred gross," the little man hastened to explain. "But you're
+right, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It's going hard
+with her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about. It's in the
+safe, in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank." He seemed
+to apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending
+an entire day's gross receipts on no security. "It's better to get him
+away, of course. It's good business. I have tried to have an orderly
+place. If they arrest him here--"
+
+His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walked
+down the Street, and eyed Its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.
+Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.
+It was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that
+night to pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to
+a railroad station. But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.
+
+He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message found
+him there. Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hard
+fight. The message from Schwitter was very brief:--
+
+"Something has happened, and Tillie wants you. I don't like to trouble
+you again, but she--wants you."
+
+K. was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and little
+food since the day before. But he got into the rented machine again--its
+rental was running up; he tried to forget it--and turned it toward
+Hillfoot. But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walked
+without ringing into Mrs. McKee's.
+
+Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state had
+altered the "mealing" house. The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rack
+in the hall. Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window one
+viewed the spiraea, still in need of spraying. Mrs. McKee herself was in
+the pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaves
+on each of an interminable succession of plates.
+
+K., who was privileged, walked back.
+
+"I've got a car at the door," he announced, "and there's nothing so
+extravagant as an empty seat in an automobile. Will you take a ride?"
+
+Mrs. McKee agreed. Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap the
+ideal headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.
+
+"If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap," she said.
+"Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one. If you'll take me in my
+toque--"
+
+K. said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety,
+having not the faintest idea what a toque was. He was not without other
+anxieties. What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that he
+expected? Good women could be most cruel. And Schwitter had been very
+vague. But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice had
+expressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not a
+grief.
+
+He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring them
+together. But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables,
+its whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper window
+behind which Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather. He
+had a masculine dislike for meddling, and yet--Mrs. McKee had suddenly
+seen the name in the wooden arch over the gate: "Schwitter's."
+
+"I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Tillie's not in the house. She's back in the barn."
+
+"In the barn!"
+
+"She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out. It's
+very comfortable and clean; it smells of hay. You'd be surprised how
+nice it is."
+
+"The like of her!" snorted Mrs. McKee. "She's late with her conscience,
+I'm thinking."
+
+"Last night," K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, "she
+had a child there. It--it's rather like very old times, isn't it? A
+man-child, Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course."
+
+"What do you want me to do?" Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce at
+the beginning, ended feebly.
+
+"I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had a
+new baby and needed a friend. Lie a little--" Mrs. McKee gasped. "Tell
+her the baby's pretty. Tell her you've been wanting to see her." His
+tone was suddenly stern. "Lie a little, for your soul's sake."
+
+She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch with
+the shameful name, and back to the barn. But there he had the tact to
+remain in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone.
+When, five minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn,
+her eyes were red.
+
+"Come in, Mr. K.," she said. "The wife's dead, poor thing. They're going
+to be married right away."
+
+The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels. K.
+entered the barn. At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head.
+The child was asleep at her breast.
+
+
+The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe's
+credit. On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at the
+bank with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University and
+Country Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, and
+various small obligations of Christine's.
+
+The immediate result of the money was good. He drank nothing for a week,
+went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat at
+home with Christine on her balcony in the evenings. With the knowledge
+that he could pay his debts, he postponed the day. He liked the feeling
+of a bank account in four figures.
+
+The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him there
+gratified him. He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous. On the third
+evening he was restless. It occurred to him that his wife was beginning
+to take his presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer.
+When he found that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was
+furious.
+
+Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half
+in it. She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for
+Palmer in the things he liked. They still took their dinners at the
+Lorenz house up the street. When she saw that the haphazard table
+service there irritated him, she coaxed her mother into getting a
+butler.
+
+The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly and
+in its heart, it was proud of him. With a half-dozen automobiles, and
+Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler,
+not to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on
+its commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of
+affectation had lain its charm.
+
+On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.
+He had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since
+the motor accident. To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few
+months had not included women.
+
+The girl had a strange fascination for him. Perhaps she typified the
+care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,
+fundamental. He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was
+shot. The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black
+dress had been enough to set his pulses racing. When he saw that she
+meant to pass him, he fell into step beside her.
+
+"I believe you were going to cut me!"
+
+"I was in a hurry."
+
+"Still in the store?"
+
+"Yes." And, after a second's hesitation: "I'm keeping straight, too."
+
+"How are you getting along?"
+
+"Pretty well. I've had my salary raised."
+
+"Do you have to walk as fast as this?"
+
+"I said I was in a hurry. Once a week I get off a little early. I--"
+
+He eyed her suspiciously.
+
+"Early! What for?"
+
+"I go to the hospital. The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+But a moment later he burst out irritably:--
+
+"That was an accident, Grace. The boy took the chance when he engaged
+to drive the car. I'm sorry, of course. I dream of the little
+devil sometimes, lying there. I'll tell you what I'll do," he added
+magnanimously. "I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have done
+something before this."
+
+"The boy's not strong enough yet. I don't think you can do anything for
+him, unless--"
+
+The monstrous injustice of the thing overcame her. Palmer and she
+walking about, and the boy lying on his hot bed! She choked.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He worries about his mother. If you could give her some money, it would
+help."
+
+"Money! Good Heavens--I owe everybody."
+
+"You owe him too, don't you? He'll never walk again."
+
+"I can't give them ten dollars. I don't see that I'm under any
+obligation, anyhow. I paid his board for two months in the hospital."
+
+When she did not acknowledge this generosity,--amounting to forty-eight
+dollars,--his irritation grew. Her silence was an accusation. Her manner
+galled him, into the bargain. She was too calm in his presence, too
+cold. Where she had once palpitated visibly under his warm gaze, she was
+now self-possessed and quiet. Where it had pleased his pride to think
+that he had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the other foot.
+
+At the entrance to a side street she stopped.
+
+"I turn off here."
+
+"May I come and see you sometime?"
+
+"No, please."
+
+"That's flat, is it?"
+
+"It is, Palmer."
+
+He swung around savagely and left her.
+
+The next day he drew the thousand dollars from the bank. A good many
+of his debts he wanted to pay in cash; there was no use putting checks
+through, with incriminating indorsements. Also, he liked the idea of
+carrying a roll of money around. The big fellows at the clubs always had
+a wad and peeled off bills like skin off an onion. He took a couple of
+drinks to celebrate his approaching immunity from debt.
+
+He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the
+hotels with the three men he had lunched with. Luck seemed to be with
+him. He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket.
+Money seemed to bring money! If he could carry the thousand around for a
+day or so, something pretty good might come of it.
+
+He had been drinking a little all afternoon. When the game was over, he
+bought drinks to celebrate his victory. The losers treated, too, to show
+they were no pikers. Palmer was in high spirits. He offered to put up
+the eighty and throw for it. The losers mentioned dinner and various
+engagements.
+
+Palmer did not want to go home. Christine would greet him with raised
+eyebrows. They would eat a stuffy Lorenz dinner, and in the evening
+Christine would sit in the lamplight and drive him mad with soft music.
+He wanted lights, noise, the smiles of women. Luck was with him, and he
+wanted to be happy.
+
+At nine o'clock that night he found Grace. She had moved to a cheap
+apartment which she shared with two other girls from the store. The
+others were out. It was his lucky day, surely.
+
+His drunkenness was of the mind, mostly. His muscles were well
+controlled. The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were
+slightly accentuated, his eyes open a trifle wider than usual. That
+and a slight paleness of the nostrils were the only evidences of his
+condition. But Grace knew the signs.
+
+"You can't come in."
+
+"Of course I'm coming in."
+
+She retreated before him, her eyes watchful. Men in his condition were
+apt to be as quick with a blow as with a caress. But, having gained his
+point, he was amiable.
+
+"Get your things on and come out. We can take in a roof-garden."
+
+"I've told you I'm not doing that sort of thing."
+
+He was ugly in a flash.
+
+"You've got somebody else on the string."
+
+"Honestly, no. There--there has never been anybody else, Palmer."
+
+He caught her suddenly and jerked her toward him.
+
+"You let me hear of anybody else, and I'll cut the guts out of him!"
+
+He held her for a second, his face black and fierce. Then, slowly and
+inevitably, he drew her into his arms. He was drunk, and she knew it.
+But, in the queer loyalty of her class, he was the only man she had
+cared for. She cared now. She took him for that moment, felt his hot
+kisses on her mouth, her throat, submitted while his rather brutal
+hands bruised her arms in fierce caresses. Then she put him from her
+resolutely.
+
+"Now you're going."
+
+"The hell I'm going!"
+
+But he was less steady than he had been. The heat of the little flat
+brought more blood to his head. He wavered as he stood just inside the
+door.
+
+"You must go back to your wife."
+
+"She doesn't want me. She's in love with a fellow at the house."
+
+"Palmer, hush!"
+
+"Lemme come in and sit down, won't you?"
+
+She let him pass her into the sitting-room. He dropped into a chair.
+
+"You've turned me down, and now Christine--she thinks I don't know. I'm
+no fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made her
+miserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don't
+kick about it."
+
+"You know that."
+
+She was watching him gravely. She had never seen him just like this.
+Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reed
+he was.
+
+"I got you in wrong. You were a good girl before I knew you. You're
+a good girl now. I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it. I only
+wanted to take you out for a good time. I've got money. Look here!" He
+drew out the roll of bills and showed it to her. Her eyes opened wide.
+She had never known him to have much money.
+
+"Lots more where that comes from."
+
+A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.
+
+She was instantly cunning.
+
+"Aren't you going to give me some of that?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I--I want some clothes."
+
+The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.
+
+"You lie."
+
+"I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld."
+
+He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp of
+it.
+
+"That's it," he complained. "Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw it
+all up to me!"
+
+"You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you."
+
+"If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!"
+
+But his eyes were wavering. She could see victory.
+
+"Take off enough for the evening."
+
+But he drew himself up.
+
+"I'm no piker," he said largely. "Whole hog or nothing. Take it."
+
+He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eighty
+dollars, in crushed and wrinkled notes.
+
+"It's my lucky day," he said thickly. "Plenty more where this came from.
+Do anything for you. Give it to the little devil. I--" He yawned. "God,
+this place is hot!"
+
+His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on a
+stool. She knew him--knew that he would sleep almost all night.
+She would have to make up something to tell the other girls; but no
+matter--she could attend to that later.
+
+She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before. It seemed
+smaller than that amount. Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, in
+pinning on her hat, to count the bills. It was all there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+K. spent all of the evening of that day with Wilson. He was not to go
+for Joe until eleven o'clock. The injured man's vitality was standing
+him in good stead. He had asked for Sidney and she was at his bedside.
+Dr. Ed had gone.
+
+"I'm going, Max. The office is full, they tell me," he said, bending
+over the bed. "I'll come in later, and if they'll make me a shakedown,
+I'll stay with you to-night."
+
+The answer was faint, broken but distinct. "Get some sleep...I've been a
+poor stick...try to do better--" His roving eyes fell on the dog collar
+on the stand. He smiled, "Good old Bob!" he said, and put his hand over
+Dr. Ed's, as it lay on the bed.
+
+K. found Sidney in the room, not sitting, but standing by the window.
+The sick man was dozing. One shaded light burned in a far corner. She
+turned slowly and met his eyes. It seemed to K. that she looked at
+him as if she had never really seen him before, and he was right.
+Readjustments are always difficult.
+
+Sidney was trying to reconcile the K. she had known so well with this
+new K., no longer obscure, although still shabby, whose height had
+suddenly become presence, whose quiet was the quiet of infinite power.
+
+She was suddenly shy of him, as he stood looking down at her. He saw the
+gleam of her engagement ring on her finger. It seemed almost defiant. As
+though she had meant by wearing it to emphasize her belief in her lover.
+
+They did not speak beyond their greeting, until he had gone over the
+record. Then:--
+
+"We can't talk here. I want to talk to you, K."
+
+He led the way into the corridor. It was very dim. Far away was the
+night nurse's desk, with its lamp, its annunciator, its pile of records.
+The passage floor reflected the light on glistening boards.
+
+"I have been thinking until I am almost crazy, K. And now I know how it
+happened. It was Joe."
+
+"The principal thing is, not how it happened, but that he is going to
+get well, Sidney."
+
+She stood looking down, twisting her ring around her finger.
+
+"Is Joe in any danger?"
+
+"We are going to get him away to-night. He wants to go to Cuba. He'll
+get off safely, I think."
+
+"WE are going to get him away! YOU are, you mean. You shoulder all our
+troubles, K., as if they were your own."
+
+"I?" He was genuinely surprised. "Oh, I see. You mean--but my part in
+getting Joe off is practically nothing. As a matter of fact, Schwitter
+has put up the money. My total capital in the world, after paying the
+taxicab to-day, is seven dollars."
+
+"The taxicab?"
+
+"By Jove, I was forgetting! Best news you ever heard of! Tillie married
+and has a baby--all in twenty-four hours! Boy--they named it Le Moyne.
+Squalled like a maniac when the water went on its head. I--I took Mrs.
+McKee out in a hired machine. That's what happened to my capital." He
+grinned sheepishly. "She said she would have to go in her toque. I had
+awful qualms. I thought it was a wrapper."
+
+"You, of course," she said. "You find Max and save him--don't look like
+that! You did, didn't you? And you get Joe away, borrowing money to send
+him. And as if that isn't enough, when you ought to have been getting
+some sleep, you are out taking a friend to Tillie, and being godfather
+to the baby."
+
+He looked uncomfortable, almost guilty.
+
+"I had a day off. I--"
+
+"When I look back and remember how all these months I've been talking
+about service, and you said nothing at all, and all the time you were
+living what I preached--I'm so ashamed, K."
+
+He would not allow that. It distressed him. She saw that, and tried to
+smile.
+
+"When does Joe go?"
+
+"To-night. I'm to take him across the country to the railroad. I was
+wondering--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I'd better explain first what happened, and why it happened. Then if
+you are willing to send him a line, I think it would help. He saw a girl
+in white in the car and followed in his own machine. He thought it was
+you, of course. He didn't like the idea of your going to Schwitter's.
+Carlotta was taken ill. And Schwitter and--and Wilson took her upstairs
+to a room."
+
+"Do you believe that, K.?"
+
+"I do. He saw Max coming out and misunderstood. He fired at him then."
+
+"He did it for me. I feel very guilty, K., as if it all comes back to
+me. I'll write to him, of course. Poor Joe!"
+
+He watched her go down the hall toward the night nurse's desk. He would
+have given everything just then for the right to call her back, to take
+her in his arms and comfort her. She seemed so alone. He himself had
+gone through loneliness and heartache, and the shadow was still on him.
+He waited until he saw her sit down at the desk and take up a pen. Then
+he went back into the quiet room.
+
+He stood by the bedside, looking down. Wilson was breathing quietly: his
+color was coming up, as he rallied from the shock. In K.'s mind now was
+just one thought--to bring him through for Sidney, and then to go away.
+He might follow Joe to Cuba. There were chances there. He could do
+sanitation work, or he might try the Canal.
+
+The Street would go on working out its own salvation. He would have
+to think of something for the Rosenfelds. And he was worried about
+Christine. But there again, perhaps it would be better if he went away.
+Christine's story would have to work itself out. His hands were tied.
+
+He was glad in a way that Sidney had asked no questions about him, had
+accepted his new identity so calmly. It had been overshadowed by the
+night tragedy. It would have pleased him if she had shown more interest,
+of course. But he understood. It was enough, he told himself, that he
+had helped her, that she counted on him. But more and more he knew in
+his heart that it was not enough. "I'd better get away from here," he
+told himself savagely.
+
+And having taken the first step toward flight, as happens in such cases,
+he was suddenly panicky with fear, fear that he would get out of hand,
+and take her in his arms, whether or no; a temptation to run from
+temptation, to cut everything and go with Joe that night. But there
+his sense of humor saved him. That would be a sight for the gods, two
+defeated lovers flying together under the soft September moon.
+
+Some one entered the room. He thought it was Sidney and turned with the
+light in his eyes that was only for her. It was Carlotta.
+
+She was not in uniform. She wore a dark skirt and white waist and her
+high heels tapped as she crossed the room. She came directly to him.
+
+"He is better, isn't he?"
+
+"He is rallying. Of course it will be a day or two before we are quite
+sure."
+
+She stood looking down at Wilson's quiet figure.
+
+"I guess you know I've been crazy about him," she said quietly. "Well,
+that's all over. He never really cared for me. I played his game and
+I--lost. I've been expelled from the school."
+
+Quite suddenly she dropped on her knees beside the bed, and put her
+cheek close to the sleeping man's hand. When after a moment she rose,
+she was controlled again, calm, very white.
+
+"Will you tell him, Dr. Edwardes, when he is conscious, that I came in
+and said good-bye?"
+
+"I will, of course. Do you want to leave any other message?"
+
+She hesitated, as if the thought tempted her. Then she shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+"What would be the use? He doesn't want any message from me."
+
+She turned toward the door. But K. could not let her go like that. Her
+face frightened him. It was too calm, too controlled. He followed her
+across the room.
+
+"What are your plans?"
+
+"I haven't any. I'm about through with my training, but I've lost my
+diploma."
+
+"I don't like to see you going away like this."
+
+She avoided his eyes, but his kindly tone did what neither the Head nor
+the Executive Committee had done that day. It shook her control.
+
+"What does it matter to you? You don't owe me anything."
+
+"Perhaps not. One way and another I've known you a long time."
+
+"You never knew anything very good."
+
+"I'll tell you where I live, and--"
+
+"I know where you live."
+
+"Will you come to see me there? We may be able to think of something."
+
+"What is there to think of? This story will follow me wherever I go!
+I've tried twice for a diploma and failed. What's the use?"
+
+But in the end he prevailed on her to promise not to leave the city
+until she had seen him again. It was not until she had gone, a straight
+figure with haunted eyes, that he reflected whimsically that once again
+he had defeated his own plans for flight.
+
+In the corridor outside the door Carlotta hesitated. Why not go back?
+Why not tell him? He was kind; he was going to do something for her.
+But the old instinct of self-preservation prevailed. She went on to her
+room.
+
+Sidney brought her letter to Joe back to K. She was flushed with the
+effort and with a new excitement.
+
+"This is the letter, K., and--I haven't been able to say what I wanted,
+exactly. You'll let him know, won't you, how I feel, and how I blame
+myself?"
+
+K. promised gravely.
+
+"And the most remarkable thing has happened. What a day this has been!
+Somebody has sent Johnny Rosenfeld a lot of money. The ward nurse wants
+you to come back."
+
+The ward had settled for the night. The well-ordered beds of the daytime
+were chaotic now, torn apart by tossing figures. The night was hot and
+an electric fan hummed in a far corner. Under its sporadic breezes, as
+it turned, the ward was trying to sleep.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was not asleep. An incredible thing had happened to
+him. A fortune lay under his pillow. He was sure it was there, for ever
+since it came his hot hand had clutched it.
+
+He was quite sure that somehow or other K. had had a hand in it. When he
+disclaimed it, the boy was bewildered.
+
+"It'll buy the old lady what she wants for the house, anyhow," he
+said. "But I hope nobody's took up a collection for me. I don't want no
+charity."
+
+"Maybe Mr. Howe sent it."
+
+"You can bet your last match he didn't."
+
+In some unknown way the news had reached the ward that Johnny's friend,
+Mr. Le Moyne, was a great surgeon. Johnny had rejected it scornfully.
+
+"He works in the gas office," he said, "I've seen him there. If he's a
+surgeon, what's he doing in the gas office. If he's a surgeon, what's he
+doing teaching me raffia-work? Why isn't he on his job?"
+
+But the story had seized on his imagination.
+
+"Say, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Yes, Jack."
+
+He called him "Jack." The boy liked it. It savored of man to man. After
+all, he was a man, or almost. Hadn't he driven a car? Didn't he have a
+state license?
+
+"They've got a queer story about you here in the ward."
+
+"Not scandal, I trust, Jack!"
+
+"They say that you're a surgeon; that you operated on Dr. Wilson and
+saved his life. They say that you're the king pin where you came from."
+He eyed K. wistfully. "I know it's a damn lie, but if it's true--"
+
+"I used to be a surgeon. As a matter of fact I operated on Dr. Wilson
+to-day. I--I am rather apologetic, Jack, because I didn't explain to
+you sooner. For--various reasons--I gave up that--that line of business.
+To-day they rather forced my hand."
+
+"Don't you think you could do something for me, sir?"
+
+When K. did not reply at once, he launched into an explanation.
+
+"I've been lying here a good while. I didn't say much because I knew I'd
+have to take a chance. Either I'd pull through or I wouldn't, and the
+odds were--well, I didn't say much. The old lady's had a lot of trouble.
+But now, with THIS under my pillow for her, I've got a right to ask.
+I'll take a chance, if you will."
+
+"It's only a chance, Jack."
+
+"I know that. But lie here and watch these soaks off the street. Old, a
+lot of them, and gettin' well to go out and starve, and--My God! Mr. Le
+Moyne, they can walk, and I can't."
+
+K. drew a long breath. He had started, and now he must go on. Faith in
+himself or no faith, he must go on. Life, that had loosed its hold on
+him for a time, had found him again.
+
+"I'll go over you carefully to-morrow, Jack. I'll tell you your chances
+honestly."
+
+"I have a thousand dollars. Whatever you charge--"
+
+"I'll take it out of my board bill in the new house!"
+
+At four o'clock that morning K. got back from seeing Joe off. The trip
+had been without accident.
+
+Over Sidney's letter Joe had shed a shamefaced tear or two. And during
+the night ride, with K. pushing the car to the utmost, he had felt that
+the boy, in keeping his hand in his pocket, had kept it on the letter.
+When the road was smooth and stretched ahead, a gray-white line into the
+night, he tried to talk a little courage into the boy's sick heart.
+
+"You'll see new people, new life," he said. "In a month from now you'll
+wonder why you ever hung around the Street. I have a feeling that you're
+going to make good down there."
+
+And once, when the time for parting was very near,--"No matter what
+happens, keep on believing in yourself. I lost my faith in myself once.
+It was pretty close to hell."
+
+Joe's response showed his entire self-engrossment.
+
+"If he dies, I'm a murderer."
+
+"He's not going to die," said K. stoutly.
+
+At four o'clock in the morning he left the car at the garage and walked
+around to the little house. He had had no sleep for forty-five hours;
+his eyes were sunken in his head; the skin over his temples looked drawn
+and white. His clothes were wrinkled; the soft hat he habitually wore
+was white with the dust of the road.
+
+As he opened the hall door, Christine stirred in the room beyond. She
+came out fully dressed.
+
+"K., are you sick?"
+
+"Rather tired. Why in the world aren't you in bed?"
+
+"Palmer has just come home in a terrible rage. He says he's been robbed
+of a thousand dollars."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Christine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He doesn't know, or says he doesn't. I'm glad of it. He seems
+thoroughly frightened. It may be a lesson."
+
+In the dim hall light he realized that her face was strained and set.
+She looked on the verge of hysteria.
+
+"Poor little woman," he said. "I'm sorry, Christine."
+
+The tender words broke down the last barrier of her self-control.
+
+"Oh, K.! Take me away. Take me away! I can't stand it any longer."
+
+She held her arms out to him, and because he was very tired and lonely,
+and because more than anything else in the world just then he needed a
+woman's arms, he drew her to him and held her close, his cheek to her
+hair.
+
+"Poor girl!" he said. "Poor Christine! Surely there must be some
+happiness for us somewhere."
+
+But the next moment he let her go and stepped back.
+
+"I'm sorry." Characteristically he took the blame. "I shouldn't have
+done that--You know how it is with me."
+
+"Will it always be Sidney?"
+
+"I'm afraid it will always be Sidney."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead. All of K.'s skill had not sufficed to save
+him. The operation had been a marvel, but the boy's long-sapped strength
+failed at the last.
+
+K., set of face, stayed with him to the end. The boy did not know he was
+going. He roused from the coma and smiled up at Le Moyne.
+
+"I've got a hunch that I can move my right foot," he said. "Look and
+see."
+
+K. lifted the light covering.
+
+"You're right, old man. It's moving."
+
+"Brake foot, clutch foot," said Johnny, and closed his eyes again.
+
+K. had forbidden the white screens, that outward symbol of death. Time
+enough for them later. So the ward had no suspicion, nor had the boy.
+
+The ward passed in review. It was Sunday, and from the chapel far below
+came the faint singing of a hymn. When Johnny spoke again he did not
+open his eyes.
+
+"You're some operator, Mr. Le Moyne. I'll put in a word for you whenever
+I get a chance."
+
+"Yes, put in a word for me," said K. huskily.
+
+He felt that Johnny would be a good mediator--that whatever he, K., had
+done of omission or commission, Johnny's voice before the Tribunal would
+count.
+
+The lame young violin-player came into the ward. She had cherished a
+secret and romantic affection for Max Wilson, and now he was in the
+hospital and ill. So she wore the sacrificial air of a young nun and
+played "The Holy City."
+
+Johnny was close on the edge of his long sleep by that time, and very
+comfortable.
+
+"Tell her nix on the sob stuff," he complained. "Ask her to play 'I'm
+twenty-one and she's eighteen.'"
+
+She was rather outraged, but on K.'s quick explanation she changed to
+the staccato air.
+
+"Ask her if she'll come a little nearer; I can't hear her."
+
+So she moved to the foot of the bed, and to the gay little tune Johnny
+began his long sleep. But first he asked K. a question: "Are you sure
+I'm going to walk, Mr. Le Moyne?"
+
+"I give you my solemn word," said K. huskily, "that you are going to be
+better than you have ever been in your life."
+
+It was K. who, seeing he would no longer notice, ordered the screens to
+be set around the bed, K. who drew the coverings smooth and folded the
+boy's hands over his breast.
+
+The violin-player stood by uncertainly.
+
+"How very young he is! Was it an accident?"
+
+"It was the result of a man's damnable folly," said K. grimly. "Somebody
+always pays."
+
+And so Johnny Rosenfeld paid.
+
+The immediate result of his death was that K., who had gained some of
+his faith in himself on seeing Wilson on the way to recovery, was beset
+by his old doubts. What right had he to arrogate to himself again powers
+of life and death? Over and over he told himself that there had been no
+carelessness here, that the boy would have died ultimately, that he
+had taken the only chance, that the boy himself had known the risk and
+begged for it.
+
+The old doubts came back.
+
+And now came a question that demanded immediate answer. Wilson would
+be out of commission for several months, probably. He was gaining, but
+slowly. And he wanted K. to take over his work.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded, half irritably. "The secret is out. Everybody
+knows who you are. You're not thinking about going back to that
+ridiculous gas office, are you?"
+
+"I had some thought of going to Cuba."
+
+"I'm damned if I understand you. You've done a marvelous thing; I lie
+here and listen to the staff singing your praises until I'm sick of your
+name! And now, because a boy who wouldn't have lived anyhow--"
+
+"That's not it," K. put in hastily. "I know all that. I guess I could do
+it and get away with it as well as the average. All that deters me--I've
+never told you, have I, why I gave up before?"
+
+Wilson was propped up in his bed. K. was walking restlessly about the
+room, as was his habit when troubled.
+
+"I've heard the gossip; that's all."
+
+"When you recognized me that night on the balcony, I told you I'd lost
+my faith in myself, and you said the whole affair had been gone over
+at the State Society. As a matter of fact, the Society knew of only two
+cases. There had been three."
+
+"Even at that--"
+
+"You know what I always felt about the profession, Max. We went into
+that more than once in Berlin. Either one's best or nothing. I had done
+pretty well. When I left Lorch and built my own hospital, I hadn't
+a doubt of myself. And because I was getting results I got a lot of
+advertising. Men began coming to the clinics. I found I was making
+enough out of the patients who could pay to add a few free wards. I want
+to tell you now, Wilson, that the opening of those free wards was the
+greatest self-indulgence I ever permitted myself. I'd seen so much
+careless attention given the poor--well, never mind that. It was almost
+three years ago that things began to go wrong. I lost a big case."
+
+"I know. All this doesn't influence me, Edwardes."
+
+"Wait a moment. We had a system in the operating-room as perfect as I
+could devise it. I never finished an operation without having my first
+assistant verify the clip and sponge count. But that first case died
+because a sponge had been left in the operating field. You know how
+those things go; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count,
+after reasonable caution. Then I lost another case in the same way--a
+free case.
+
+"As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was
+doing from four to six cases a day. After the second one I almost went
+crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go
+away."
+
+"There was another?"
+
+"Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I
+performed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room.
+He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing again. When I
+told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to
+say he had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was
+responsible. I knew--better."
+
+"It's incredible."
+
+"Exactly; but it's true. The last patient was a laborer. He left a
+family. I've sent them money from time to time. I used to sit and think
+about the children he left, and what would become of them. The ironic
+part of it was that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the
+time. Men were sending me cases from all over the country. It was either
+stay and keep on working, with that chance, or--quit. I quit." "But if
+you had stayed, and taken extra precautions--"
+
+"We'd taken every precaution we knew."
+
+Neither of the men spoke for a time. K. stood, his tall figure outlined
+against the window. Far off, in the children's ward, children were
+laughing; from near by a very young baby wailed a thin cry of protest
+against life; a bell rang constantly. K.'s mind was busy with the
+past--with the day he decided to give up and go away, with the months of
+wandering and homelessness, with the night he had come upon the Street
+and had seen Sidney on the doorstep of the little house.
+
+"That's the worst, is it?" Max Wilson demanded at last.
+
+"That's enough."
+
+"It's extremely significant. You had an enemy somewhere--on your
+staff, probably. This profession of ours is a big one, but you know its
+jealousies. Let a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack
+is after him." He laughed a little. "Mixed figure, but you know what I
+mean."
+
+K. shook his head. He had had that gift of the big man everywhere, in
+every profession, of securing the loyalty of his followers. He would
+have trusted every one of them with his life.
+
+"You're going to do it, of course."
+
+"Take up your work?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He stirred restlessly. To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand
+by as Wilson's best man when he was married--it turned him cold. But he
+did not give a decided negative. The sick man was flushed and growing
+fretful; it would not do to irritate him.
+
+"Give me another day on it," he said at last. And so the matter stood.
+
+Max's injury had been productive of good, in one way. It had brought the
+two brothers closer together. In the mornings Max was restless until
+Dr. Ed arrived. When he came, he brought books in the shabby bag--his
+beloved Burns, although he needed no book for that, the "Pickwick
+Papers," Renan's "Lives of the Disciples." Very often Max world doze
+off; at the cessation of Dr. Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir
+fretfully and demand more. But because he listened to everything without
+discrimination, the older man came to the conclusion that it was the
+companionship that counted. It pleased him vastly. It reminded him of
+Max's boyhood, when he had read to Max at night. For once in the last
+dozen years, he needed him.
+
+"Go on, Ed. What in blazes makes you stop every five minutes?" Max
+protested, one day.
+
+Dr. Ed, who had only stopped to bite off the end of a stogie to hold in
+his cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it.
+
+"Stop bullying. I'll read when I'm ready. Have you any idea what I'm
+reading?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Well, I haven't. For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages!"
+
+Max laughed, and suddenly put out his hand. Demonstrations of affection
+were so rare with him that for a moment Dr. Ed was puzzled. Then, rather
+sheepishly, he took it.
+
+"When I get out," Max said, "we'll have to go out to the White Springs
+again and have supper."
+
+That was all; but Ed understood.
+
+Morning and evening, Sidney went to Max's room. In the morning she only
+smiled at him from the doorway. In the evening she went to him after
+prayers. She was allowed an hour with him then.
+
+The shooting had been a closed book between them. At first, when he
+began to recover, he tried to talk to her about it. But she refused to
+listen. She was very gentle with him, but very firm.
+
+"I know how it happened, Max," she said--"about Joe's mistake and all
+that. The rest can wait until you are much better."
+
+If there had been any change in her manner to him, he would not
+have submitted so easily, probably. But she was as tender as ever,
+unfailingly patient, prompt to come to him and slow to leave. After a
+time he began to dread reopening the subject. She seemed so effectually
+to have closed it. Carlotta was gone. And, after all, what good could he
+do his cause by pleading it? The fact was there, and Sidney knew it.
+
+On the day when K. had told Max his reason for giving up his work, Max
+was allowed out of bed for the first time. It was a great day. A box of
+red roses came that day from the girl who had refused him a year or more
+ago. He viewed them with a carelessness that was half assumed.
+
+The news had traveled to the Street that he was to get up that day.
+Early that morning the doorkeeper had opened the door to a gentleman
+who did not speak, but who handed in a bunch of early chrysanthemums and
+proceeded to write, on a pad he drew from his pocket:--
+
+"From Mrs. McKee's family and guests, with their congratulations on your
+recovery, and their hope that they will see you again soon. If their
+ends are clipped every day and they are placed in ammonia water, they
+will last indefinitely." Sidney spent her hour with Max that evening as
+usual. His big chair had been drawn close to a window, and she found him
+there, looking out. She kissed him. But this time, instead of letting
+her draw away, he put out his arms and caught her to him.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"Very glad, indeed," she said soberly.
+
+"Then smile at me. You don't smile any more. You ought to smile; your
+mouth--"
+
+"I am almost always tired; that's all, Max."
+
+She eyed him bravely.
+
+"Aren't you going to let me make love to you at all? You get away beyond
+my reach."
+
+"I was looking for the paper to read to you."
+
+A sudden suspicion flamed in his eyes.
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"You don't like me to touch you any more. Come here where I can see
+you."
+
+The fear of agitating him brought her quickly. For a moment he was
+appeased.
+
+"That's more like it. How lovely you are, Sidney!" He lifted first one
+hand and then the other to his lips. "Are you ever going to forgive me?"
+
+"If you mean about Carlotta, I forgave that long ago."
+
+He was almost boyishly relieved. What a wonder she was! So lovely, and
+so sane. Many a woman would have held that over him for years--not that
+he had done anything really wrong on that nightmare excursion. But so
+many women are exigent about promises.
+
+"When are you going to marry me?"
+
+"We needn't discuss that to-night, Max."
+
+"I want you so very much. I don't want to wait, dear. Let me tell Ed
+that you will marry me soon. Then, when I go away, I'll take you with
+me."
+
+"Can't we talk things over when you are stronger?"
+
+Her tone caught his attention, and turned him a little white. He faced
+her to the window, so that the light fell full on her.
+
+"What things? What do you mean?"
+
+He had forced her hand. She had meant to wait; but, with his keen eyes
+on her, she could not dissemble.
+
+"I am going to make you very unhappy for a little while."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I've had a lot of time to think. If you had really wanted me, Max--"
+
+"My God, of course I want you!"
+
+"It isn't that I am angry. I am not even jealous. I was at first. It
+isn't that. It's hard to make you understand. I think you care for me--"
+
+"I love you! I swear I never loved any other woman as I love you."
+
+Suddenly he remembered that he had also sworn to put Carlotta out of his
+life. He knew that Sidney remembered, too; but she gave no sign.
+
+"Perhaps that's true. You might go on caring for me. Sometimes I think
+you would. But there would always be other women, Max. You're like that.
+Perhaps you can't help it."
+
+"If you loved me you could do anything with me." He was half sullen.
+
+By the way her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All
+his conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his
+entanglement with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise--that
+she loved him. The mere suspicion made him gasp.
+
+"But, good Heavens, Sidney, you do care for me, don't you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't, Max; not enough."
+
+She tried to explain, rather pitifully. After one look at his face, she
+spoke to the window.
+
+"I'm so wretched about it. I thought I cared. To me you were the best
+and greatest man that ever lived. I--when I said my prayers, I--But that
+doesn't matter. You were a sort of god to me. When the Lamb--that's one
+of the internes, you know--nicknamed you the 'Little Tin God,' I was
+angry. You could never be anything little to me, or do anything that
+wasn't big. Do you see?"
+
+He groaned under his breath.
+
+"No man could live up to that, Sidney."
+
+"No. I see that now. But that's the way I cared. Now I know that I
+didn't care for you, really, at all. I built up an idol and worshiped
+it. I always saw you through a sort of haze. You were operating, with
+everybody standing by, saying how wonderful it was. Or you were coming
+to the wards, and everything was excitement, getting ready for you. I
+blame myself terribly. But you see, don't you? It isn't that I think you
+are wicked. It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never
+knew you."
+
+When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself.
+
+"I'd known very few men," she said. "I came into the hospital, and for
+a time life seemed very terrible. There were wickednesses I had never
+heard of, and somebody always paying for them. I was always asking, Why?
+Why? Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out.
+You gave them their chance, don't you see? Until I knew about Carlotta,
+you always meant that to me. You were like K.--always helping."
+
+The room was very silent. In the nurses' parlor, a few feet down the
+corridor, the nurses were at prayers.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," read the Head, her voice
+calm with the quiet of twilight and the end of the day.
+
+"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
+still waters."
+
+The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were
+weary.
+
+"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"
+
+The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the
+shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He said to himself savagely
+that they would better have let him die. "You say you never loved me
+because you never knew me. I'm not a rotter, Sidney. Isn't it possible
+that the man you, cared about, who--who did his best by people and all
+that--is the real me?"
+
+She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the
+sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey
+his greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he
+sank back into his chair.
+
+"The man who did his best is quite real. You have always done the best
+in your work; you always will. But the other is a part of you too, Max.
+Even if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk."
+
+Under the window rang the sharp gong of a city patrol-wagon. It rumbled
+through the gates back to the courtyard, where its continued clamor
+summoned white-coated orderlies.
+
+An operating-room case, probably. Sidney, chin lifted, listened
+carefully. If it was a case for her, the elevator would go up to the
+operating-room. With a renewed sense of loss, Max saw that already she
+had put him out of her mind. The call to service was to her a call to
+battle. Her sensitive nostrils quivered; her young figure stood erect,
+alert.
+
+"It has gone up!"
+
+She took a step toward the door, hesitated, came back, and put a light
+hand on his shoulder.
+
+"I'm sorry, dear Max."
+
+She had kissed him lightly on the cheek before he knew what she intended
+to do. So passionless was the little caress that, perhaps more than
+anything else, it typified the change in their relation.
+
+When the door closed behind her, he saw that she had left her ring
+on the arm of his chair. He picked it up. It was still warm from
+her finger. He held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his
+successful young life he had never before felt the bitterness of
+failure. The very warmth of the little ring hurt.
+
+Why hadn't they let him die? He didn't want to live--he wouldn't live.
+Nobody cared for him! He would--
+
+His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that
+had come that morning. Even in the half light, they glowed with fiery
+color.
+
+The ring was in his right hand. With the left he settled his collar and
+soft silk tie.
+
+K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time. Katie brought word to
+him, where he was helping Harriet close her trunk,--she was on her way
+to Europe for the fall styles,--that he was wanted in the lower hall.
+
+"A lady!" she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution. "And
+a good thing for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg
+off you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to
+them from now on."
+
+So K. had put on his coat and, without so much as a glance in Harriet's
+mirror, had gone down the stairs. Carlotta was in the lower hall. She
+stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble
+had made in her. She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older
+than her age.
+
+"I came, you see, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+Now and then, when some one came to him for help, which was generally
+money, he used Christine's parlor, if she happened to be out. So now,
+finding the door ajar, and the room dark, he went in and turned on the
+light.
+
+"Come in here; we can talk better."
+
+She did not sit down at first; but, observing that her standing kept him
+on his feet, she sat finally. Evidently she found it hard to speak.
+
+"You were to come," K. encouraged her, "to see if we couldn't plan
+something for you. Now, I think I've got it."
+
+"If it's another hospital--and I don't want to stay here, in the city."
+
+"You like surgical work, don't you?"
+
+"I don't care for anything else."
+
+"Before we settle this, I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of.
+You know, of course, that I closed my hospital. I--a series of things
+happened, and I decided I was in the wrong business. That wouldn't be
+important, except for what it leads to. They are trying to persuade me
+to go back, and--I'm trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back.
+You see,"--his tone was determinedly cheerful, "my faith in myself has
+been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there isn't much left."
+
+"You had been very successful." She did not look up.
+
+"Well, I had and I hadn't. I'm not going to worry you about that. My
+offer is this: We'll just try to forget about--about Schwitter's and all
+the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating-room."
+
+"You sent me away once!"
+
+"Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?" He smiled at her
+encouragingly.
+
+"Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?"
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Don't you think you are taking a risk?"
+
+"Every one makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made
+mistakes since the world began. Most people live in glass houses, Miss
+Harrison. And don't make any mistake about this: people can always come
+back. No depth is too low. All they need is the willpower."
+
+He smiled down at her. She had come armed with confession. But the offer
+he made was too alluring. It meant reinstatement, another chance, when
+she had thought everything was over. After all, why should she damn
+herself? She would go back. She would work her finger-ends off for him.
+She would make it up to him in other ways. But she could not tell him
+and lose everything.
+
+"Come," he said. "Shall we go back and start over again?"
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence
+taking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school
+bell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly
+sharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet
+fashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went.
+
+An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised
+the baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach
+them himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne
+intended to go away.
+
+The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had
+gone, and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination
+of writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards
+was a hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up
+new curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.
+
+To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added
+its quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that
+were absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, and
+every Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of
+gas. They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next there
+was the news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the
+gas office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's
+hazarded!--and that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr.
+Max Wilson.
+
+The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
+sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement
+over the matter,--of K., not the sidewalks,--and then had accepted the
+new situation.
+
+But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned. What was
+the matter with things, anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which had
+promised so well,--awnings and palms and everything,--turning out badly.
+True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again. And
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing-days,
+and brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs dry-eyed and
+silent--even the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrill
+her. There was Tillie, too. But one did not speak of her. She was
+married now, of course; but the Street did not tolerate such a reversal
+of the usual processes as Tillie had indulged in. It censured Mrs. McKee
+severely for having been, so to speak, and accessory after the fact.
+
+The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible. If he had shown
+any "high and mightiness," as they called it, since the change in his
+estate, it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the
+real thing,--so that the newspapers give a column to his having been
+in the city almost two years,--and still goes about in the same shabby
+clothes, with the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstrates
+clearly, as the barytone put it, that "he's got no swelled head on him;
+that's sure."
+
+"Anybody can see by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's that he's
+been used to a car--likely a foreign one. All the swells have foreign
+cars." Still the barytone, who was almost as fond of conversation as
+of what he termed "vocal." "And another thing. Do you notice the way
+he takes Dr. Ed around? Has him at every consultation. The old boy's
+tickled to death."
+
+A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heard
+the barytone singing:--
+
+      "Home is the hunter, home from the hill,
+       And the sailor, home from sea."
+
+Home! Why, this WAS home. The Street seemed to stretch out its arms to
+him. The ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house.
+Tree and house were old; September had touched them. Christine sat
+sewing on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something
+on the new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when
+he had finished, and inspected his work. K. caught him up from behind,
+and, swinging him around--
+
+"Hey!" he said severely. "Don't you know better than to write all over
+the street? What'll I do to you? Give you to a policeman?"
+
+"Aw, lemme down, Mr. K."
+
+"You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more,
+the picnic's off."
+
+"Aw, Mr. K.!"
+
+"I mean it. Go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school."
+
+He put the boy down. There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as in
+his voice, when he dealt with children. All his severity did not conceal
+it. "Get along with you, Bill. Last bell's rung."
+
+As the boy ran off, K.'s eye fell on what he had written on the cement.
+At a certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as the
+Street "cancels" names. It is a part of his birthright. He does it as he
+whittles his school desk or tries to smoke the long dried fruit of the
+Indian cigar tree. So K. read in chalk an the smooth street:--
+
+     Max Wilson Marriage.      Sidney Page Love.
+
+[Note: the a, l, s, and n of "Max Wilson" are crossed through, as are
+the S, d, n, and a of "Sidney Page"]
+
+The childish scrawl stared up at him impudently, a sacred thing profaned
+by the day. K. stood and looked at it. The barytone was still singing;
+but now it was "I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen." It was a cheerful
+air, as should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to his
+long sleep. The light was gone from K.'s face again. After all, the
+Street meant for him not so much home as it meant Sidney. And now,
+before very long, that book of his life, like others, would have to be
+closed.
+
+He turned and went heavily into the little house.
+
+Christine called to him from her little balcony:--
+
+"I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come out?"
+
+K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyes
+looked down at her.
+
+"I see very little of you now," she complained. And, when he did not
+reply immediately: "Have you made any definite plans, K.?"
+
+"I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After
+that--"
+
+"You will go away?"
+
+"I think so. I am getting a good many letters, one way and another. I
+suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'd
+go back there--they want me. But it seems so futile, Christine, to leave
+as I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things were;
+and now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced, and
+to take up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do it
+than when I left!"
+
+"I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that."
+
+He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony.
+
+"But who?" he demanded. "Who would do such a thing? I tell you,
+Christine, it isn't possible."
+
+She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to the
+little house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or the
+heavy creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it.
+
+But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live.
+She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she must
+build on the shaky foundation of her marriage a house of life, with
+resignation serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always. That
+she knew. But with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and her
+love for Palmer was quite dead.
+
+"Sidney will be here this afternoon."
+
+"Good." His tone was non-committal.
+
+"Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney is not very happy?"
+
+He stopped in front of her.
+
+"She's had a great anxiety."
+
+"She has no anxiety now. Max is doing well."
+
+"Then what is it?"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, but I think I know. She's lost faith in Max, and
+she's not like me. I--I knew about Palmer before I married him. I got a
+letter. It's all rather hideous--I needn't go into it. I was afraid to
+back out; it was just before my wedding. But Sidney has more character
+than I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether
+she'll marry him."
+
+K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to
+the sun and to the smiles of the Street. Christine might be right, but
+that did not alter things for him.
+
+Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself; to Palmer, who was
+doing better just now; to K., who was going away--went back with an ache
+to the night K. had taken her in his arms and then put her away. How
+wrong things were! What a mess life was!
+
+"When you go away," she said at last, "I want you to remember this. I'm
+going to do my best, K. You have taught me all I know. All my life I'll
+have to overlook things; I know that. But, in his way, Palmer cares for
+me. He will always come back, and perhaps sometime--"
+
+Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of her she saw the years stretching
+out, marked, not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away,
+his remorseful returns.
+
+"Do a little more than forgetting," K. said. "Try to care for him,
+Christine. You did once. And that's your strongest weapon. It's always a
+woman's strongest weapon. And it wins in the end."
+
+"I shall try, K.," she answered obediently.
+
+But he turned away from the look in her eyes.
+
+Harriet was abroad. She had sent cards from Paris to her "trade." It was
+an innovation. The two or three people on the Street who received her
+engraved announcement that she was there, "buying new chic models
+for the autumn and winter--afternoon frocks, evening gowns, reception
+dresses, and wraps, from Poiret, Martial et Armand, and others," left
+the envelopes casually on the parlor table, as if communications from
+Paris were quite to be expected.
+
+So K. lunched alone, and ate little. After luncheon he fixed a broken
+ironing-stand for Katie, and in return she pressed a pair of trousers
+for him. He had it in mind to ask Sidney to go out with him in Max's
+car, and his most presentable suit was very shabby.
+
+"I'm thinking," said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up
+over her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door,
+"that these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. They're
+getting mighty thin."
+
+"I'll take a duster along in case of accident," he promised her; "and
+to-morrow I'll order a suit, Katie."
+
+"I'll believe it when I see it," said Katie from the stairs. "Some fool
+of a woman from the alley will come in to-night and tell you she can't
+pay her rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocket-book--as like
+as not to pay an installment on a piano. There's two new pianos in the
+alley since you came here."
+
+"I promise it, Katie."
+
+"Show it to me," said Katie laconically. "And don't go to picking up
+anything you drop!"
+
+Sidney came home at half-past two--came delicately flushed, as if she
+had hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.
+
+"Bless the child!" she said. "There's no need to ask how he is to-day.
+You're all one smile."
+
+The smile set just a trifle.
+
+"Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It's
+with Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep it
+off."
+
+"I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while."
+
+"Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is--is Mr. K.
+upstairs?"
+
+But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go
+up at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was
+there. She could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as she
+listened.
+
+Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeing
+something in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to her
+throat.
+
+"Sidney!"
+
+"Oh--hello, Chris."
+
+"Won't you come and sit with me?"
+
+"I haven't much time--that is, I want to speak to K."
+
+"You can see him when he comes down."
+
+Sidney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her, all at once,
+that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now. No doubt he was
+in and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was! She was
+unhappy, too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention was
+to be unhappy enough. Well, surely, in that case--
+
+"How is Max?"
+
+"Still better."
+
+Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful,
+Christine saw, to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony.
+Christine sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.
+
+"Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now."
+
+"I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris."
+
+Upstairs, K.'s door slammed. It was one of his failings that he always
+slammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.
+
+Sidney slid from the railing.
+
+"There he is now."
+
+Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a
+bigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing,
+and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from the
+Street as empty of heart as he had come to it.
+
+"Be very good to him, Sidney," she said unsteadily. "He cares so much."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+K. was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sidney as
+unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much
+wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude.
+
+"It was glamour, that was all, K.," said Sidney bravely.
+
+"But, perhaps," said K., "it's just because of that miserable incident
+with Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told
+me the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard,
+and--"
+
+Sidney was exasperated.
+
+"Do you want me to marry him, K.?"
+
+K. looked straight ahead.
+
+"I want you to be happy, dear."
+
+They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again. K. had
+ordered dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they both
+liked. But now that it was there, they were not eating. K. had placed
+his chair so that his profile was turned toward her. He had worn the
+duster religiously until nightfall, and then had discarded it. It hung
+limp and dejected on the back of his chair. Past K.'s profile Sidney
+could see the magnolia tree shaped like a heart.
+
+"It seems to me," said Sidney suddenly, "that you are kind to every one
+but me, K."
+
+He fairly stammered his astonishment:--
+
+"Why, what on earth have I done?"
+
+"You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you?"
+
+She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply out
+of sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went
+hastily to something else:
+
+"It is hard for me to realize that you--that you lived a life of your
+own, a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish you
+would tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when you
+go away,"--she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat--"I'll want
+to know how to think of you,--who your friends are,--all that."
+
+He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would be
+visualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its side
+street, as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just
+parted, her hands folded before her on the table.
+
+"I shall be working," he said at last. "So will you."
+
+"Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night. You can think of me as
+never forgetting you or the Street, working or playing."
+
+Playing! Of course he would not work all the time. And he was going back
+to his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls--
+
+He did his best then. He told her of the old family house, built by one
+of his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the
+case for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son then
+to the cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had wept
+when he decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, he
+thought he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions that
+had been the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, the
+choice room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames,
+and of his father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxed
+warm over it at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to
+remember. It brought back the other things that he wanted to forget.
+
+But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney. Side by side with the
+wonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house. What
+an exile it must have been for him! How hopelessly middle-class they
+must have seemed! How idiotic of her to think, for one moment, that she
+could ever belong in this new-old life of his!
+
+What traditions had she? None, of course, save to be honest and good
+and to do her best for the people around her. Her mother's people, the
+Kennedys went back a long way, but they had always been poor. A library
+full of paintings and books! She remembered the lamp with the blue-silk
+shade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister's
+portrait, and the cherry bookcase with the Encyclopaedia in it and
+"Beacon Lights of History." When K., trying his best to interest her and
+to conceal his own heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather's
+old carriage, she sat back in the shadow.
+
+"Fearful old thing," said K.,--"regular cabriolet. I can remember yet
+the family rows over it. But the old gentleman liked it--used to have
+it repainted every year. Strangers in the city used to turn around and
+stare at it--thought it was advertising something!"
+
+"When I was a child," said Sidney quietly, "and a carriage drove up and
+stopped on the Street, I always knew some one had died!"
+
+There was a strained note in her voice. K., whose ear was attuned to
+every note in her voice, looked at her quickly. "My great-grandfather,"
+said Sidney in the same tone, "sold chickens at market. He didn't do it
+himself; but the fact's there, isn't it?"
+
+K. was puzzled.
+
+"What about it?" he said.
+
+But Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on. This K. she had never
+known, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it--he
+must have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had
+traveled and knew all kinds of things: girls like the daughters of the
+Executive Committee who came in from their country places in summer
+with great armfuls of flowers, and hurried off, after consulting their
+jeweled watches, to luncheon or tea or tennis.
+
+"Go on," said Sidney dully. "Tell me about the women you have known,
+your friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you."
+
+K. was rather apologetic.
+
+"I've always been so busy," he confessed. "I know a lot, but I don't
+think they would interest you. They don't do anything, you know--they
+travel around and have a good time. They're rather nice to look at, some
+of them. But when you've said that you've said it all."
+
+Nice to look at! Of course they would be, with nothing else to think of
+in all the world but of how they looked.
+
+Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital,
+and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her face
+down on the bed.
+
+"Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?"
+
+He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed.
+And his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he
+thought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care as
+she had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of another
+woman, without a wrench.
+
+"Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting
+there? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll not
+talk if you'd like to be quiet." Being with K. had become an agony, now
+that she realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds,
+hers and K.'s, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separated
+by as wide a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase--for
+instance,--and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But she
+was not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it,
+every word a stab, if only she might sit beside K. a little longer,
+might feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. "I'd like to
+ride, if you don't mind."
+
+K. turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was remembering
+acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he
+had had to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and his
+arrival at last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of the
+stairs and Carlotta on her knees beside him.
+
+"K." "Yes?"
+
+"Was there anybody you cared about,--any girl,--when you left home?"
+
+"I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean."
+
+"You knew Max before, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes. You know that."
+
+"If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't you
+tell me?"
+
+"I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the mere
+fact of your caring for him--" That was shaky ground; he got off it
+quickly. "Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there?"
+
+"Not to-night, please."
+
+They were near the white house now. Schwitter's had closed up, indeed.
+The sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down,
+and in the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch. As
+if to cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself was
+watering the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.
+
+The car went by. Above the low hum of the engine they could hear
+Tillie's voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of
+love as she sang to the child.
+
+When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware that
+Sidney was crying. She sat with her head turned away, using her
+handkerchief stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road, and in a
+masterful fashion turned her shoulders about until she faced him.
+
+"Now, tell me about it," he said.
+
+"It's just silliness. I'm--I'm a little bit lonely."
+
+"Lonely!"
+
+"Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody--"
+
+"Aunt Harriet!"
+
+He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonely
+because the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more
+bewildered. And Joe! "And with you going away and never coming back--"
+
+"I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back when
+you graduate, and send you flowers."
+
+"I think," said Sidney, "that I'll become an army nurse."
+
+"I hope you won't do that."
+
+"You won't know, K. You'll be back with your old friends. You'll have
+forgotten the Street and all of us."
+
+"Do you really think that?"
+
+"Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won't
+know a T bandage from a figure eight!"
+
+"There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear."
+
+His voice was husky.
+
+"You are saying that to comfort me."
+
+"To comfort you! I--who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to
+think about it! Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you were
+sitting there on the steps--oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared a
+little!"
+
+Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his
+arms,--which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for
+him that way,--he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious
+appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.
+
+"I have been trying to make you say that all evening!" said Sidney. "I
+love you so much that--K., won't you take me in your arms?"
+
+Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him and
+muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up
+for long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her,
+as if to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her
+eyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her
+eyes; they showed him a new heaven and a new earth.
+
+"It was you always, K.," she confessed. "I just didn't realize it. But
+now, when you look back, don't you see it was?"
+
+He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as
+the stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.
+
+"I never had even a hope."
+
+"Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles,
+and you always helped."
+
+Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so
+happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.
+
+"I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one,
+and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person--one goes
+to in trouble."
+
+He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her
+hand. Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer
+that, since there must be troubles, she would, always come to him and he
+would always be able to help her.
+
+And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she became
+engaged to Max, and the lost feeling she had had. She did not feel the
+same at all now. She felt as if she had been wandering, and had come
+home to the arms that were about her. She would be married, and take the
+risk that all women took, with her eyes open. She would go through the
+valley of the shadow, as other women did; but K. would be with her.
+Nothing else mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she
+was safe. She would never wither for him.
+
+Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's
+fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby
+coat.
+
+"I shall love you all my life," she said shakily.
+
+His arms tightened about her.
+
+The little house was dark when they got back to it. The Street, which
+had heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising its
+windows for the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to
+keep them clean.
+
+In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone slept
+heavily, and made divers unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat,
+and so slept with a wet towel about it.
+
+Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with
+the aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.
+
+The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out. Then it drove
+away, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.
+
+Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited. How lovely it all was! How
+beautiful life was! If one did one's best by life, it did its best too.
+How steady K.'s eyes were! She saw the flicker of the match across the
+street, and knew what it meant. Once she would have thought that that
+was funny; now it seemed very touching to her.
+
+Katie had heard the car, and now she came heavily along the hall. "A
+woman left this for Mr. K.," she said. "If you think it's a begging
+letter, you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit to-morrow.
+Almost any moment he's likely to bust out."
+
+But it was not a begging letter. K. read it in the hall, with Sidney's
+shining eyes on him. It began abruptly:--
+
+"I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins. She is a medical
+missionary. Perhaps I can work things out there. It is a bad station on
+the West Coast. I am not going because I feel any call to the work, but
+because I do not know what else to do.
+
+"You were kind to me the other day. I believe, if I had told you then,
+you would still have been kind. I tried to tell you, but I was so
+terribly afraid.
+
+"If I caused death, I did not mean to. You will think that no excuse,
+but it is true. In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on Miss
+Page's medicine-tray, I did not care much what happened. But it was
+different with you.
+
+"You dismissed me, you remember. I had been careless about a sponge
+count. I made up my mind to get back at you. It seemed hopeless--you
+were so secure. For two or three days I tried to think of some way to
+hurt you. I almost gave up. Then I found the way.
+
+"You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in the
+operating-room? There were twelve to each package. When we counted them
+as we got them out, we counted by packages. On the night before I left,
+I went to the operating-room and added one sponge every here and there.
+Out of every dozen packets, perhaps, I fixed one that had thirteen. The
+next day I went away.
+
+"Then I was terrified. What if somebody died? I had meant to give you
+trouble, so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swear
+that was all. I was so frightened that I went down sick over it. When
+I got better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was being
+whispered about. I almost died of terror.
+
+"I tried to get back into the hospital one night. I went up the
+fire-escape, but the windows were locked. Then I left the city. I
+couldn't stand it. I was afraid to read a newspaper.
+
+"I am not going to sign this letter. You know who it is from. And I am
+not going to ask your forgiveness, or anything of that sort. I don't
+expect it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else, the other
+night. You said you'd lost your faith in yourself. This is to tell you
+that you need not. And you said something else--that any one can 'come
+back.' I wonder!"
+
+K. stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand.
+Just beyond on the doorstep was Sidney, waiting for him. His arms were
+still warm from the touch of her. Beyond lay the Street, and beyond that
+lay the world and a man's work to do. Work, and faith to do it, a good
+woman's hand in the dark, a Providence that made things right in the
+end.
+
+"Are you coming, K.?"
+
+"Coming," he said. And, when he was beside her, his long figure folded
+to the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hem
+of her soft white dress.
+
+Across the Street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and then
+lighted a match.
+
+"So K. is in love with Sidney Page, after all!" he had written. "She
+is a sweet girl, and he is every inch a man. But, to my mind, a certain
+lady--"
+
+Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match.
+
+Late September now on the Street, with Joe gone and his mother eyeing
+the postman with pitiful eagerness; with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavily
+about the setting-up of the new furniture; and with Johnny driving
+heavenly cars, brake and clutch legs well and Strong. Late September,
+with Max recovering and settling his tie for any pretty nurse who
+happened along, but listening eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in the
+hall; with Tillie rocking her baby on the porch at Schwitter's, and
+Carlotta staring westward over rolling seas; with Christine taking up
+her burden and Grace laying hers down; with Joe's tragic young eyes
+growing quiet with the peace of the tropics.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd," she reads. "I shall not want."..."Yea, though
+I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
+
+Sidney, on her knees in the little parlor, repeats the words with the
+others. K. has gone from the Street, and before long she will join him.
+With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayer
+to the others--that the touch of his arms about her may not make her
+forget the vow she has taken, of charity and its sister, service, of a
+cup of water to the thirsty, of open arms to a tired child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
+#17 in our series by Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: K
+
+Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9931]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 1, 2003]
+[Date last updated: January 2, 2006]
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK K ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Brannan
+
+
+
+
+K
+
+By Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient houses
+that seemed to meet in the distance.  The man found it infinitely inviting.
+It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but comfortable.  The
+thought of coming there to live pleased him.  Surely here would be
+peace--long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and
+forget.  It was an impression of home, really, that it gave.  The man did
+not know that, or care particularly.  He had been wandering about a
+long time--not in years, for he was less than thirty.  But it seemed a very
+long time.
+
+At the little house no one had seemed to think about references. He could
+have given one or two, of a sort.  He had gone to considerable trouble to
+get them; and now, not to have them asked for--
+
+There was a house across and a little way down the Street, with a card in
+the window that said: "Meals, twenty-five cents." Evidently the midday meal
+was over; men who looked like clerks and small shopkeepers were hurrying
+away.  The Nottingham curtains were pinned back, and just inside the window
+a throaty barytone was singing:
+
+     "Home is the hunter, home from the hill:
+      And the sailor, home from sea."
+
+Across the Street, the man smiled grimly--Home!
+
+For perhaps an hour Joe Drummond had been wandering up and down the Street.
+His straw hat was set on the back of his head, for the evening was warm;
+his slender shoulders, squared and resolute at eight, by nine had taken on
+a disconsolate droop.  Under a street lamp he consulted his watch, but even
+without that he knew what the hour was. Prayer meeting at the corner church
+was over; boys of his own age were ranging themselves along the curb,
+waiting for the girl of the moment.  When she came, a youth would appear
+miraculously beside her, and the world-old pairing off would have taken
+place.
+
+The Street emptied.  The boy wiped the warm band of his hat and slapped it
+on his head again. She was always treating him like this--keeping him
+hanging about, and then coming out, perfectly calm and certain that he
+would still be waiting.  By George, he'd fool her, for once: he'd go away,
+and let her worry.  She WOULD worry.  She hated to hurt anyone.  Ah!
+
+Across the Street, under an old ailanthus tree, was the house he watched, a
+small brick, with shallow wooden steps and--curious architecture of Middle
+West sixties--a wooden cellar door beside the steps.
+
+In some curious way it preserved an air of distinction among its more
+pretentious neighbors, much as a very old lady may now and then lend tone
+to a smart gathering.  On either side of it, the taller houses had an
+appearance of protection rather than of patronage.  It was a matter of
+self-respect, perhaps.  No windows on the Street were so spotlessly
+curtained, no doormat so accurately placed, no "yard" in the rear so tidy
+with morning-glory vines over the whitewashed fence.
+
+The June moon had risen, sending broken shafts of white light through the
+ailanthus to the house door.  When the girl came at last, she stepped out
+into a world of soft lights and wavering shadows, fragrant with tree
+blossoms not yet overpowering, hushed of its daylight sounds of playing
+children and moving traffic.
+
+The house had been warm.  Her brown hair lay moist on her forehead, her
+thin white dress was turned in at the throat.  She stood on the steps, the
+door closed behind her, and threw out her arms in a swift gesture to the
+cool air.  The moonlight clothed her as with a garment.  From across the
+Street the boy watched her with adoring, humble eyes.  All his courage was
+for those hours when he was not with her.
+
+"Hello, Joe."
+
+"Hello, Sidney."
+
+He crossed over, emerging out of the shadows into her enveloping radiance.
+His ardent young eyes worshiped her as he stood on the pavement.
+
+"I'm late.  I was taking out bastings for mother."
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+Sidney sat down on the doorstep, and the boy dropped at her feet.
+
+"I thought of going to prayer meeting, but mother was tired.  Was Christine
+there?"
+
+"Yes; Palmer Howe took her home."
+
+He was at his ease now.  He had discarded his hat, and lay back on his
+elbows, ostensibly to look at the moon.  Actually his brown eyes rested on
+the face of the girl above him.  He was very happy.  "He's crazy about
+Chris.  She's good-looking, but she's not my sort."
+
+"Pray, what IS your sort?"
+
+"You."
+
+She laughed softly.  "You're a goose, Joe!"
+
+She settled herself more comfortably on the doorstep and drew along breath.
+
+"How tired I am! Oh--I haven't told you.  We've taken a roomer!"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A roomer." She was half apologetic.  The Street did not approve of
+roomers.  "It will help with the rent.  It's my doing, really. Mother is
+scandalized."
+
+"A woman?"
+
+"A man."
+
+"What sort of man?"
+
+"How do I know?  He is coming tonight.  I'll tell you in a week."
+
+Joe was sitting bolt upright now, a little white.
+
+"Is he young?"
+
+"He's a good bit older than you, but that's not saying he's old."
+
+Joe was twenty-one, and sensitive of his youth.
+
+"He'll be crazy about you in two days."
+
+She broke into delighted laughter.
+
+"I'll not fall in love with him--you can be certain of that.  He is tall
+and very solemn.  His hair is quite gray over his ears."
+
+Joe cheered.
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"K. Le Moyne."
+
+"K.?"
+
+"That's what he said."
+
+Interest in the roomer died away.  The boy fell into the ecstasy of content
+that always came with Sidney's presence.  His inarticulate young soul was
+swelling with thoughts that he did not know how to put into words.  It was
+easy enough to plan conversations with Sidney when he was away from her.
+But, at her feet, with her soft skirts touching him as she moved, her eager
+face turned to him, he was miserably speechless.
+
+Unexpectedly, Sidney yawned.  He was outraged.
+
+"If you're sleepy--"
+
+"Don't be silly.  I love having you.  I sat up late last night, reading.  I
+wonder what you think of this: one of the characters in the book I was
+reading says that every man who--who cares for a woman leaves his mark on
+her!  I suppose she tries to become what he thinks she is, for the time
+anyhow, and is never just her old self again."
+
+She said "cares for" instead of "loves."  It is one of the traditions of
+youth to avoid the direct issue in life's greatest game.  Perhaps "love" is
+left to the fervent vocabulary of the lover.  Certainly, as if treading on
+dangerous ground, Sidney avoided it.
+
+"Every man!  How many men are supposed to care for a woman, anyhow?"
+
+"Well, there's the boy who--likes her when they're both young."
+
+A bit of innocent mischief this, but Joe straightened.
+
+"Then they both outgrow that foolishness.  After that there are usually two
+rivals, and she marries one of them--that's three. And--"
+
+"Why do they always outgrow that foolishness?"  His voice was unsteady.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  One's ideas change.  Anyhow, I'm only telling you what
+the book said."
+
+"It's a silly book."
+
+"I don't believe it's true," she confessed.  "When I got started I just
+read on.  I was curious."
+
+More eager than curious, had she only known. She was fairly vibrant with
+the zest of living.  Sitting on the steps of the little brick house, her
+busy mind was carrying her on to where, beyond the Street, with its dingy
+lamps and blossoming ailanthus, lay the world that was some day to lie to
+her hand.  Not ambition called her, but life.
+
+The boy was different.  Where her future lay visualized before her, heroic
+deeds, great ambitions, wide charity, he planned years with her, selfish,
+contented years.  As different as smug, satisfied summer from visionary,
+palpitating spring, he was for her--but she was for all the world.
+
+By shifting his position his lips came close to her bare young arm.  It
+tempted him.
+
+"Don't read that nonsense," he said, his eyes on the arm.  "And--I'll never
+outgrow my foolishness about you, Sidney."
+
+Then, because he could not help it, he bent over and kissed her arm.
+
+She was just eighteen, and Joe's devotion was very pleasant.  She thrilled
+to the touch of his lips on her flesh; but she drew her arm away.
+
+"Please--I don't like that sort of thing."
+
+"Why not?" His voice was husky.
+
+"It isn't right.  Besides, the neighbors are always looking out the
+windows."
+
+The drop from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors'
+curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her head
+and laughed.  He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment.  But he was
+very much in earnest.  He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw hat in
+his hands.
+
+"I guess you know how I feel.  Some of the fellows have crushes on girls
+and get over them.  I'm not like that.  Since the first day I saw you I've
+never looked at another girl.  Books can say what they like: there are
+people like that, and I'm one of them."
+
+There was a touch of dogged pathos in his voice. He was that sort, and
+Sidney knew it.  Fidelity and tenderness--those would be hers if she
+married him.  He would always be there when she wanted him, looking at her
+with loving eyes, a trifle wistful sometimes because of his lack of those
+very qualities he so admired in her--her wit, her resourcefulness, her
+humor.  But he would be there, not strong, perhaps, but always loyal.
+
+"I thought, perhaps," said Joe, growing red and white, and talking to the
+hat, "that some day, when we're older, you--you might be willing to marry
+me, Sid.  I'd be awfully good to you."
+
+It hurt her to say no.  Indeed, she could not bring herself to say it.  In
+all her short life she had never willfully inflicted a wound.  And because
+she was young, and did not realize that there is a short cruelty, like the
+surgeon's, that is mercy in the end, she temporized.
+
+"There is such a lot of time before we need think of such things! Can't we
+just go on the way we are?"
+
+"I'm not very happy the way we are."
+
+"Why, Joe!"
+
+"Well, I'm not"--doggedly.  "You're pretty and attractive.  When I see a
+fellow staring at you, and I'd like to smash his face for him, I haven't
+the right."
+
+"And a precious good thing for you that you haven't!" cried Sidney, rather
+shocked.
+
+There was silence for a moment between them.  Sidney, to tell the truth,
+was obsessed by a vision of Joe, young and hot-eyed, being haled to the
+police station by virtue of his betrothal responsibilities.  The boy was
+vacillating between relief at having spoken and a heaviness of spirit that
+came from Sidney's lack of enthusiastic response.
+
+"Well, what do you think about it?"
+
+"If you are asking me to give you permission to waylay and assault every
+man who dares to look at me--"
+
+"I guess this is all a joke to you."
+
+She leaned over and put a tender hand on his arm.
+
+"I don't want to hurt you; but, Joe, I don't want to be engaged yet.  I
+don't want to think about marrying.  There's such a lot to do in the world
+first.  There's such a lot to see and be."
+
+"Where?" he demanded bitterly.  "Here on this Street?  Do you want more
+time to pull bastings for your mother?  Or to slave for your Aunt Harriet?
+Or to run up and down stairs, carrying towels to roomers?  Marry me and let
+me take care of you."
+
+Once again her dangerous sense of humor threatened her.  He looked so
+boyish, sitting there with the moonlight on his bright hair, so inadequate
+to carry out his magnificent offer.  Two or three of the star blossoms from
+the tree had fallen all his head. She lifted them carefully away.
+
+"Let me take care of myself for a while.  I've never lived my own life.
+You know what I mean.  I'm not unhappy; but I want to do something.  And
+some day I shall,--not anything big; I know.  I can't do that,--but
+something useful.  Then, after years and years, if you still want me, I'll
+come back to you."
+
+"How soon?"
+
+"How can I know that now?  But it will be a long time."
+
+He drew a long breath and got up.  All the joy had gone out of the summer
+night for him, poor lad.  He glanced down the Street, where Palmer Howe had
+gone home happily with Sidney's friend Christine.  Palmer would always know
+how he stood with Christine. She would never talk about doing things, or
+being things.  Either she would marry Palmer or she would not.  But Sidney
+was not like that.  A fellow did not even caress her easily.  When he had
+only kissed her arm--He trembled a little at the memory.
+
+"I shall always want you," he said.  "Only--you will never come back."
+
+It had not occurred to either of them that this coming back, so tragically
+considered, was dependent on an entirely problematical going away.
+Nothing, that early summer night, seemed more unlikely than that Sidney
+would ever be free to live her own life.  The Street, stretching away to
+the north and to the south in two lines of houses that seemed to meet in
+the distance, hemmed her in.  She had been born in the little brick house,
+and, as she was of it, so it was of her.  Her hands had smoothed and
+painted the pine floors; her hands had put up the twine on which the
+morning-glories in the yard covered the fences; had, indeed, with what
+agonies of slacking lime and adding blueing, whitewashed the fence itself!
+
+"She's capable," Aunt Harriet had grumblingly admitted, watching from her
+sewing-machine Sidney's strong young arms at this humble spring task.
+
+"She's wonderful!" her mother had said, as she bent over her hand work.
+She was not strong enough to run the sewing-machine.
+
+So Joe Drummond stood on the pavement and saw his dream of taking Sidney in
+his arms fade into an indefinite futurity.
+
+"I'm not going to give you up," he said doggedly.  "When you come back,
+I'll be waiting."
+
+The shock being over, and things only postponed, he dramatized his grief a
+trifle, thrust his hands savagely into his pockets, and scowled down the
+Street.  In the line of his vision, his quick eye caught a tiny moving
+shadow, lost it, found it again.
+
+"Great Scott!  There goes Reginald!" he cried, and ran after the shadow.
+"Watch for the McKees' cat!"
+
+Sidney was running by that time; they were gaining.  Their quarry, a
+four-inch chipmunk, hesitated, gave a protesting squeak, and was caught in
+Sidney's hand.
+
+"You wretch!" she cried.  "You miserable little beast--with cats
+everywhere, and not a nut for miles!"
+
+"That reminds me,"--Joe put a hand into his pocket,--"I brought some
+chestnuts for him, and forgot them.  Here."
+
+Reginald's escape had rather knocked the tragedy out of the evening.  True,
+Sidney would not marry him for years, but she had practically promised to
+sometime.  And when one is twenty-one, and it is a summer night, and life
+stretches eternities ahead, what are a few years more or less?
+
+Sidney was holding the tiny squirrel in warm, protecting hands. She smiled
+up at the boy.
+
+"Good-night, Joe."
+
+"Good-night.  I say, Sidney, it's more than half an engagement. Won't you
+kiss me good-night?"
+
+She hesitated, flushed and palpitating.  Kisses were rare in the staid
+little household to which she belonged.
+
+"I--I think not."
+
+"Please!  I'm not very happy, and it will be something to remember."
+
+Perhaps, after all, Sidney's first kiss would have gone without her
+heart,--which was a thing she had determined would never happen,--gone out
+of sheer pity.  But a tall figure loomed out of the shadows and approached
+with quick strides.
+
+"The roomer!" cried Sidney, and backed away.
+
+"Damn the roomer!"
+
+Poor Joe, with the summer evening quite spoiled, with no caress to
+remember, and with a potential rival who possessed both the years and the
+inches he lacked, coming up the Street!
+
+The roomer advanced steadily.  When he reached the doorstep, Sidney was
+demurely seated and quite alone.  The roomer, who had walked fast, stopped
+and took off his hat.  He looked very warm. He carried a suitcase, which
+was as it should be.  The men of the Street always carried their own
+luggage, except the younger Wilson across the way.  His tastes were known
+to be luxurious.
+
+"Hot, isn't it?" Sidney inquired, after a formal greeting.  She indicated
+the place on the step just vacated by Joe.  "You'd better cool off out
+here.  The house is like an oven.  I think I should have warned you of that
+before you took the room.  These little houses with low roofs are fearfully
+hot."
+
+The new roomer hesitated.  The steps were very low, and he was tall.
+Besides, he did not care to establish any relations with the people in the
+house.  Long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and
+forget--these were the things he had come for.
+
+But Sidney had moved over and was smiling up at him.  He folded up
+awkwardly on the low step.  He seemed much too big for the house.  Sidney
+had a panicky thought of the little room upstairs.
+
+"I don't mind heat.  I--I suppose I don't think about it," said the roomer,
+rather surprised at himself.
+
+Reginald, having finished his chestnut, squeaked for another. The roomer
+started.
+
+"Just Reginald--my ground-squirrel."  Sidney was skinning a nut with her
+strong white teeth.  "That's another thing I should have told you.  I'm
+afraid you'll be sorry you took the room."
+
+The roomer smiled in the shadow.
+
+"I'm beginning to think that YOU are sorry."
+
+She was all anxiety to reassure him:--
+
+"It's because of Reginald.  He lives under my--under your bureau.  He's
+really not troublesome; but he's building a nest under the bureau, and if
+you don't know about him, it's rather unsettling to see a paper pattern
+from the sewing-room, or a piece of cloth, moving across the floor."
+
+Mr. Le Moyne thought it might be very interesting.  "Although, if there's
+nest-building going on, isn't it--er--possible that Reginald is a lady
+ground-squirrel?"
+
+Sidney was rather distressed, and, seeing this, he hastened to add that,
+for all he knew, all ground-squirrels built nests, regardless of sex.  As a
+matter of fact, it developed that he knew nothing whatever of
+ground-squirrels.  Sidney was relieved. She chatted gayly of the tiny
+creature--of his rescue in the woods from a crowd of little boys, of his
+restoration to health and spirits, and of her expectation, when he was
+quite strong, of taking him to the woods and freeing him.
+
+Le Moyne, listening attentively, began to be interested.  His quick mind
+had grasped the fact that it was the girl's bedroom he had taken.  Other
+things he had gathered that afternoon from the humming sewing-machine, from
+Sidney's businesslike way of renting the little room, from the glimpse of a
+woman in a sunny window, bent over a needle.  Genteel poverty was what it
+meant, and more--the constant drain of disheartened, middle-aged women on
+the youth and courage of the girl beside him.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who was living his own tragedy those days, what with poverty
+and other things, sat on the doorstep while Sidney talked, and swore a
+quiet oath to be no further weight on the girl's buoyant spirit.  And,
+since determining on a virtue is halfway to gaining it, his voice lost its
+perfunctory note.  He had no intention of letting the Street encroach on
+him.  He had built up a wall between himself and the rest of the world, and
+he would not scale it.  But he held no grudge against it.  Let others get
+what they could out of living.
+
+Sidney, suddenly practical, broke in on his thoughts:--
+
+"Where are you going to get your meals?"
+
+"I hadn't thought about it.  I can stop in somewhere on my way downtown.  I
+work in the gas office--I don't believe I told you. It's rather
+haphazard--not the gas office, but the eating. However, it's convenient."
+
+"It's very bad for you," said Sidney, with decision.  "It leads to slovenly
+habits, such as going without when you're in a hurry, and that sort of
+thing.  The only thing is to have some one expecting you at a certain
+time."
+
+"It sounds like marriage."  He was lazily amused.
+
+"It sounds like Mrs. McKee's boarding-house at the corner. Twenty-one meals
+for five dollars, and a ticket to punch. Tillie, the dining-room girl,
+punches for every meal you get.  If you miss any meals, your ticket is good
+until it is punched.  But Mrs. McKee doesn't like it if you miss."
+
+"Mrs. McKee for me," said Le Moyne.  "I daresay, if I know that--
+er--Tillie is waiting with the punch, I'll be fairly regular to my meals."
+
+It was growing late.  The Street, which mistrusted night air, even on a hot
+summer evening, was closing its windows.  Reginald, having eaten his fill,
+had cuddled in the warm hollow of Sidney's lap, and slept.  By shifting his
+position, the man was able to see the girl's face.  Very lovely it was, he
+thought.  Very pure, almost radiant--and young.  From the middle age of his
+almost thirty years, she was a child.  There had been a boy in the shadows
+when he came up the Street.  Of course there would be a boy--a nice,
+clear-eyed chap--
+
+Sidney was looking at the moon.  With that dreamer's part of her that she
+had inherited from her dead and gone father, she was quietly worshiping the
+night.  But her busy brain was working, too,--the practical brain that she
+had got from her mother's side.
+
+"What about your washing?" she inquired unexpectedly.
+
+K. Le Moyne, who had built a wall between himself and the world, had
+already married her to the youth of the shadows, and was feeling an odd
+sense of loss.
+
+"Washing?"
+
+"I suppose you've been sending things to the laundry, and--what do you do
+about your stockings?"
+
+"Buy cheap ones and throw 'em away when they're worn out."  There seemed to
+be no reserve with this surprising young person.
+
+"And buttons?"
+
+"Use safety-pins.  When they're closed one can button over them as well
+as--"
+
+"I think," said Sidney, "that it is quite time some one took a little care
+of you.  If you will give Katie, our maid, twenty-five cents a week, she'll
+do your washing and not tear your things to ribbons.  And I'll mend them."
+
+Sheer stupefaction was K. Le Moyne's.  After a moment:--
+
+"You're really rather wonderful, Miss Page.  Here am I, lodged, fed,
+washed, ironed, and mended for seven dollars and seventy-five cents a
+week!"
+
+"I hope," said Sidney severely, "that you'll put what you save in the
+bank."
+
+He was still somewhat dazed when he went up the narrow staircase to his
+swept and garnished room.  Never, in all of a life that had been active,
+--until recently,--had he been so conscious of friendliness and kindly
+interest.  He expanded under it.  Some of the tired lines left his face.
+Under the gas chandelier, he straightened and threw out his arms.  Then he
+reached down into his coat pocket and drew out a wide-awake and suspicious
+Reginald.
+
+"Good-night, Reggie!" he said.  "Good-night, old top!" He hardly recognized
+his own voice.  It was quite cheerful, although the little room was hot,
+and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling that the ceiling was
+close above.  He deposited Reginald carefully on the floor in front of the
+bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him, retreated to its nest.
+
+It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed.  Wrapped in a paper and
+securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
+underclothing, ragged and buttonless.  Not for worlds would he have had
+Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. "New underwear for yours
+tomorrow, K. Le Moyne," he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
+"New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name."
+
+He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and thinking
+hard.  "Kenneth, King, Kerr--" None of them appealed to him.  And, after
+all, what did it matter?  The old heaviness came over him.
+
+He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
+and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.
+
+Sidney did not sleep much that night.  She lay awake, gazing into the
+scented darkness, her arms under her head.  Love had come into her life at
+last.  A man--only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but what
+he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.
+
+In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms stealing
+through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life and love,
+and flung out warm young arms.  Joe would be thinking of her now, as she
+thought of him.  Or would he have gone to sleep, secure in her half
+promise?  Did he really love her?
+
+The desire to be loved!  There was coming to Sidney a time when love would
+mean, not receiving, but giving--the divine fire instead of the pale flame
+of youth.  At last she slept.
+
+A night breeze came through the windows and spread coolness through the
+little house.  The ailanthus tree waved in the moonlight and sent sprawling
+shadows over the wall of K. Le Moyne's bedroom.  In the yard the leaves of
+the morning-glory vines quivered as if under the touch of a friendly hand.
+
+K. Le Moyne slept diagonally in his bed, being very long.  In sleep the
+lines were smoothed out of his face.  He looked like a tired, overgrown
+boy.  And while he slept the ground-squirrel ravaged the pockets of his
+shabby coat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at the table.
+It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that Aunt Harriet
+lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney's father had
+borrowed her small patrimony and she was "boarding it out."  Eighteen years
+she had "boarded it out." Sidney had been born and grown to girlhood; the
+dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuable patents lost for lack
+of money to renew them--gone with his faith in himself destroyed, but with
+his faith in the world undiminished: for he left his wife and daughter
+without a dollar of life insurance.
+
+Harriet Kennedy had voiced her own view of the matter, the after the
+funeral, to one of the neighbors:--
+
+"He left no insurance.  Why should he bother?  He left me."
+
+To the little widow, her sister, she had been no less bitter, and more
+explicit.
+
+"It looks to me, Anna," she said, "as if by borrowing everything I had
+George had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life. I'll
+stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to live my own
+life.  It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a long time."
+
+The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidney was
+still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first year at the High
+School, prone to saunter home with three or four knickerbockered boys in
+her train, reading "The Duchess" stealthily, and begging for longer
+dresses.  She had given up her dolls, but she still made clothes for them
+out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room.  In the parlance of the Street,
+Harriet "sewed"--and sewed well.
+
+She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of the
+partnership had always been on Harriet.  To give her credit, she had not
+complained.  She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slipped by
+in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paper patterns.
+
+On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down to
+breakfast a little late.  Katie, the general housework girl, had tied a
+small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving breakfast.
+From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful singing.  Sidney
+was ironing napkins.  Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage of Harriet's
+tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper, dropped it.
+
+But Harriet did not sit down.  It was her custom to jerk her chair out and
+drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food.  Sidney, not
+hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Harriet."
+
+"Will you come in, please?"
+
+Katie took the iron from her.
+
+"You go.  She's all dressed up, and she doesn't want any coffee."
+
+So Sidney went in.  It was to her that Harriet made her speech:--
+
+"Sidney, when your father died, I promised to look after both you and your
+mother until you were able to take care of yourself. That was five years
+ago.  Of course, even before that I had helped to support you."
+
+"If you would only have your coffee, Harriet!"
+
+Mrs. Page sat with her hand on the handle of the old silver-plated
+coffee-pot.  Harriet ignored her.
+
+"You are a young woman now.  You have health and energy, and you have
+youth, which I haven't.  I'm past forty.  In the next twenty years, at the
+outside, I've got not only to support myself, but to save something to keep
+me after that, if I live.  I'll probably live to be ninety.  I don't want
+to live forever, but I've always played in hard luck."
+
+Sidney returned her gaze steadily.
+
+"I see.  Well, Aunt Harriet, you're quite right.  You've been a saint to
+us, but if you want to go away--"
+
+"Harriet!" wailed Mrs. Page, "you're not thinking--"
+
+"Please, mother."
+
+Harriet's eyes softened as she looked at the girl
+
+"We can manage," said Sidney quietly.  "We'll miss you, but it's time we
+learned to depend on ourselves."
+
+After that, in a torrent, came Harriet's declaration of independence.  And,
+mixed in with its pathetic jumble of recriminations, hostility to her
+sister's dead husband, and resentment for her lost years, came poor
+Harriet's hopes and ambitions, the tragic plea of a woman who must
+substitute for the optimism and energy of youth the grim determination of
+middle age.
+
+"I can do good work," she finished.  "I'm full of ideas, if I could get a
+chance to work them out.  But there's no chance here. There isn't a woman
+on the Street who knows real clothes when she sees them.  They don't even
+know how to wear their corsets.  They send me bundles of hideous stuff,
+with needles and shields and imitation silk for lining, and when I turn out
+something worth while out of the mess they think the dress is queer!"
+
+Mrs. Page could not get back of Harriet's revolt to its cause. To her,
+Harriet was not an artist pleading for her art; she was a sister and a
+bread-winner deserting her trust.
+
+"I'm sure," she said stiffly, "we paid you back every cent we borrowed.  If
+you stayed here after George died, it was because you offered to."
+
+Her chin worked.  She fumbled for the handkerchief at her belt. But Sidney
+went around the table and flung a young arm over her aunt's shoulders.
+
+"Why didn't you say all that a year ago?  We've been selfish, but we're not
+as bad as you think.  And if any one in this world is entitled to success
+you are.  Of course we'll manage."
+
+Harriet's iron repression almost gave way.  She covered her emotion with
+details:--
+
+"Mrs. Lorenz is going to let me make Christine some things, and if they're
+all right I may make her trousseau."
+
+"Trousseau--for Christine!"
+
+"She's not engaged, but her mother says it's only a matter of a short time.
+I'm going to take two rooms in the business part of town, and put a couch
+in the backroom to sleep on."
+
+Sidney's mind flew to Christine and her bright future, to a trousseau
+bought with the Lorenz money, to Christine settled down, a married woman,
+with Palmer Howe.  She came back with an effort.  Harriet had two
+triangular red spots in her sallow cheeks.
+
+"I can get a few good models--that's the only way to start.  And if you
+care to do hand work for me, Anna, I'll send it to you, and pay you the
+regular rates.  There isn't the call for it there used to be, but just a
+touch gives dash."
+
+ All of Mrs. Page's grievances had worked their way to the surface.  Sidney
+and Harriet had made her world, such as it was, and her world was in
+revolt.  She flung out her hands.
+
+"I suppose I must do something.  With you leaving, and Sidney renting her
+room and sleeping on a folding-bed in the sewing-room, everything seems
+upside down.  I never thought I should live to see strange men running in
+and out of this house and carrying latch-keys."
+
+This in reference to Le Moyne, whose tall figure had made a hurried exit
+some time before.
+
+Nothing could have symbolized Harriet's revolt more thoroughly than her
+going upstairs after a hurried breakfast, and putting on her hat and coat.
+She had heard of rooms, she said, and there was nothing urgent in the
+work-room.  Her eyes were brighter already as she went out.  Sidney,
+kissing her in the hall and wishing her luck, realized suddenly what a
+burden she and her mother must have been for the last few years.  She threw
+her head up proudly.  They would never be a burden again--never, as long as
+she had strength and health!
+
+By evening Mrs. Page had worked herself into a state bordering on hysteria.
+Harriet was out most of the day.  She came in at three o'clock, and Katie
+gave her a cup of tea.  At the news of her sister's condition, she merely
+shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"She'll not die, Katie," she said calmly.  "But see that Miss Sidney eats
+something, and if she is worried tell her I said to get Dr. Ed."
+
+Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoning of
+the Street's family doctor.  She was already dealing in larger figures.  A
+sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning.  Already she was
+learning that peace of mind is essential to successful endeavor.  Somewhere
+Harriet had read a quotation from a Persian poet; she could not remember
+it, but its sense had stayed with her: "What though we spill a few grains
+of corn, or drops of oil from the cruse?  These be the price of peace."
+
+So Harriet, having spilled oil from her cruse in the shape of Dr. Ed,
+departed blithely.  The recklessness of pure adventure was in her blood.
+She had taken rooms at a rental that she determinedly put out of her mind,
+and she was on her way to buy furniture.  No pirate, fitting out a ship for
+the highways of the sea, ever experienced more guilty and delightful
+excitement.
+
+The afternoon dragged away.  Dr. Ed was out "on a case" and might not be in
+until evening.  Sidney sat in the darkened room and waved a fan over her
+mother's rigid form.
+
+At half after five, Johnny Rosenfeld from the alley, who worked for a
+florist after school, brought a box of roses to Sidney, and departed
+grinning impishly.  He knew Joe, had seen him in the store.  Soon the alley
+knew that Sidney had received a dozen Killarney roses at three dollars and
+a half, and was probably engaged to Joe Drummond.
+
+"Dr. Ed," said Sidney, as he followed her down the stairs, "can you spare
+the time to talk to me a little while?"
+
+Perhaps the elder Wilson had a quick vision of the crowded office waiting
+across the Street; but his reply was prompt:
+
+"Any amount of time."
+
+Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused by the
+petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.
+
+"First of all," said Sidney, "did you mean what you said upstairs?"
+
+Dr. Ed thought quickly.
+
+"Of course; but what?"
+
+"You said I was a born nurse."
+
+The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed.  It did not always approve of him.  It
+said--which was perfectly true--that he had sacrificed himself to his
+brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon, Dr.
+Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroad he had saved
+and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the old buggy, while Max
+drove about in an automobile coupe.  Sidney, not at all of the stuff
+martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and, remembering all this,
+was ashamed of her rebellion.
+
+"I'm going into a hospital," said Sidney.
+
+Dr. Ed waited.  He liked to have all the symptoms before he made a
+diagnosis or ventured an opinion.  So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, and
+quite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.
+
+"It's fearfully hard work, of course," he commented, when she had finished.
+
+"So is anything worth while.  Look at the way you work!"
+
+Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.
+
+"You're too young."
+
+"I'll get older."
+
+"I don't think I like the idea," he said at last.  "It's splendid work for
+an older woman.  But it's life, child--life in the raw. As we get along in
+years we lose our illusions--some of them, not all, thank God.  But for
+you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things as they are, and
+not as we want them to be--it seems such an unnecessary sacrifice."
+
+"Don't you think," said Sidney bravely, "that you are a poor person to talk
+of sacrifice?  Haven't you always, all your life--"
+
+Dr. Ed colored to the roots of his straw-colored hair.
+
+"Certainly not," he said almost irritably.  "Max had genius; I
+had--ability.  That's different. One real success is better than two
+halves.  Not"--he smiled down at her--"not that I minimize my usefulness.
+Somebody has to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm a pretty
+good hack."
+
+"Very well," said Sidney.  "Then I shall be a hack, too.  Of course, I had
+thought of other things,--my father wanted me to go to college,--but I'm
+strong and willing.  And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; I
+shall have to support my mother."
+
+Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper.  The man in the
+parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders, her thin
+face, her undisguised middle age.
+
+"Yes," he said, when she was out of hearing.  "It's hard, but I dare say
+it's right enough, too.  Your aunt ought to have her chance.  Only--I wish
+it didn't have to be."
+
+Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She
+touched them tenderly, absently.  Life, which the day before had called her
+with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent hands.
+Life--in the raw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters.  When
+he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing with
+vigorous tugs under the bureau.  He rescued it, gently but firmly.
+
+"You and I, Reginald," he apostrophized the bureau, "will have to come to
+an understanding.  What I leave on the floor you may have, but what blows
+down is not to be touched."
+
+Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of
+spirit.  The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun
+was shining.  But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told
+himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having sought for
+peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it.  The trouble was,
+of course, that he came of fighting stock: soldiers and explorers, even a
+gentleman adventurer or two, had been his forefather.  He loathed peace
+with a deadly loathing.
+
+Having given up everything else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the love of
+woman.  That, of course, is figurative.  He had been too busy for women;
+and now he was too idle.  A small part of his brain added figures in the
+office of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and fifty cents
+per eight-hour working day. But the real K. Le Moyne that had dreamed
+dreams, had nothing to do with the figures, but sat somewhere in his head
+and mocked him as he worked at his task.
+
+"Time's going by, and here you are!" mocked the real person--who was, of
+course, not K. Le Moyne at all.  "You're the hell of a lot of use, aren't
+you?  Two and two are four and three are seven--take off the discount.
+That's right.  It's a man's work, isn't it?"
+
+"Somebody's got to do this sort of thing," protested the small part of his
+brain that earned the two-fifty per working day. "And it's a great
+anaesthetic.  He can't think when he's doing it. There's something
+practical about figures, and--rational."
+
+He dressed quickly, ascertaining that he had enough money to buy a
+five-dollar ticket at Mrs. McKee's; and, having given up the love of woman
+with other things, he was careful not to look about for Sidney on his way.
+
+He breakfasted at Mrs. McKee's, and was initiated into the mystery of the
+ticket punch.  The food was rather good, certainly plentiful; and even his
+squeamish morning appetite could find no fault with the self-respecting
+tidiness of the place.  Tillie proved to be neat and austere.  He fancied
+it would not be pleasant to be very late for one's meals--in fact, Sidney
+had hinted as much.  Some of the "mealers"--the Street's name for
+them--ventured on various small familiarities of speech with Tillie.  K. Le
+Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but reserved.  He was determined not
+to let the Street encroach on his wretchedness.  Because he had come to
+live there was no reason why it should adopt him. But he was very polite.
+When the deaf-and-dumb book agent wrote something on a pencil pad and
+pushed it toward him, he replied in kind.
+
+"We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family," was what was written
+on the pad.
+
+"Very happy, indeed, to be with you," wrote back Le Moyne--and realized
+with a sort of shock that he meant it.
+
+The kindly greeting had touched him.  The greeting and the breakfast
+cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
+
+"Don't you want a toothpick?" she asked, as he went out.
+
+In K.'s previous walk of life there had been no toothpicks; or, if there
+were any, they were kept, along with the family scandals, in a closet.  But
+nearly a year of buffeting about had taught him many things.  He took one,
+and placed it nonchalantly in his waistcoat pocket, as he had seen the
+others do.
+
+Tillie, her rush hour over, wandered back into the kitchen and poured
+herself a cup of coffee.  Mrs. McKee was reweighing the meat order.
+
+"Kind of a nice fellow," Tillie said, cup to lips--"the new man."
+
+"Week or meal?"
+
+"Week.  He'd be handsome if he wasn't so grouchy-looking.  Lit up some when
+Mr. Wagner sent him one of his love letters.  Rooms over at the Pages'."
+
+Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lam stew in a book.
+
+"When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me over,
+Tillie.  And where they'll put him, in that little house--he looked thin,
+what I saw of him.  Seven pounds and a quarter."  This last referred, not
+to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.
+
+"Thin as a fiddle-string."
+
+"Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough."  Then, rather ashamed of
+her unbusinesslike methods: "A thin mealer's a poor advertisement.  Do you
+suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?"
+
+Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld.  In such manner was most of the
+Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip start
+at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.
+
+"Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond," announced Tillie.  "He sent her a
+lot of pink roses yesterday."
+
+There was no malice in her flat statement, no envy.  Sidney and she, living
+in the world of the Street, occupied different spheres.  But the very
+lifelessness in her voice told how remotely such things touched her, and
+thus was tragic.  "Mealers" came and went--small clerks, petty tradesmen,
+husbands living alone in darkened houses during the summer hegira of wives.
+Various and catholic was Tillie's male acquaintance, but compounded of good
+fellowship only.  Once, years before, romance had paraded itself before her
+in the garb of a traveling nurseryman--had walked by and not come back.
+
+"And Miss Harriet's going into business for herself.  She's taken rooms
+downtown; she's going to be Madame Something or other."
+
+Now, at last, was Mrs. McKee's attention caught riveted.
+
+"For the love of mercy!  At her age!  It's downright selfish.  If she
+raises her prices she can't make my new foulard."
+
+Tillie sat at the table, her faded blue eyes fixed on the back yard, where
+her aunt, Mrs. Rosenfeld, was hanging out the week's wash of table linen.
+
+"I don't know as it's so selfish," she reflected.  "We've only got one
+life.  I guess a body's got the right to live it."
+
+Mrs. McKee eyed her suspiciously, but Tillie's face showed no emotion.
+
+"You don't ever hear of Schwitter, do you?"
+
+"No; I guess she's still living."
+
+Schwitter, the nurseryman, had proved to have a wife in an insane asylum.
+That was why Tillie's romance had only paraded itself before her and had
+gone by.
+
+"You got out of that lucky."
+
+Tillie rose and tied a gingham apron over her white one.
+
+"I guess so.  Only sometimes--"
+
+"I don't know as it would have been so wrong.  He ain't young, and I ain't.
+And we're not getting any younger.  He had nice manners; he'd have been
+good to me."
+
+Mrs. McKee's voice failed her.  For a moment she gasped like a fish.  Then:
+
+"And him a married man!"
+
+"Well, I'm not going to do it," Tillie soothed her.  "I get to thinking
+about it sometimes; that's all.  This new fellow made me think of him.
+He's got the same nice way about him."
+
+Aye, the new man had made her think of him, and June, and the lovers who
+lounged along the Street in the moonlit avenues toward the park and love;
+even Sidney's pink roses.  Change was in the very air of the Street that
+June morning.  It was in Tillie, making a last clutch at youth, and
+finding, in this pale flare of dying passion, courage to remember what she
+had schooled herself to forget; in Harriet asserting her right to live her
+life; in Sidney, planning with eager eyes a life of service which did not
+include Joe; in K. Le Moyne, who had built up a wall between himself and
+the world, and was seeing it demolished by a deaf-and-dumb book agent whose
+weapon was a pencil pad!
+
+And yet, for a week nothing happened: Joe came in the evenings and sat on
+the steps with Sidney, his honest heart, in his eyes. She could not bring
+herself at first to tell him about the hospital.  She put it off from day
+to day. Anna, no longer sulky, accepted wit the childlike faith Sidney's
+statement that "they'd get along; she had a splendid scheme," and took to
+helping Harriet in her preparations for leaving.  Tillie, afraid of her
+rebellious spirit, went to prayer meeting.  And K. Le Moyne, finding his
+little room hot in the evenings and not wishing to intrude on the two on
+the doorstep, took to reading his paper in the park, and after twilight to
+long, rapid walks out into the country.  The walks satisfied the craving of
+his active body for exercise, and tired him so he could sleep.  On one such
+occasion he met Mr. Wagner, and they carried on an animated conversation
+until it was too dark to see the pad.  Even then, it developed that Wagner
+could write in the dark; and he secured the last word in a long argument by
+doing this and striking a match for K. to read by.
+
+When K. was sure that the boy had gone, he would turn back toward the
+Street.  Some of the heaviness of his spirit always left him at sight of
+the little house.  Its kindly atmosphere seemed to reach out and envelop
+him.  Within was order and quiet, the fresh-down bed, the tidiness of his
+ordered garments.  There was even affection--Reginald, waiting on the
+fender for his supper, and regarding him with wary and bright-eyed
+friendliness.
+
+Life, that had seemed so simple, had grown very complicated for Sidney.
+There was her mother to break the news to, and Joe. Harriet would approve,
+she felt; but these others!  To assure Anna that she must manage alone for
+three years, in order to be happy and comfortable afterward--that was hard
+enough to tell Joe she was planning a future without him, to destroy the
+light in his blue eyes--that hurt.
+
+After all, Sidney told K. first.  One Friday evening, coming home late, as
+usual, he found her on the doorstep, and Joe gone. She moved over
+hospitably.  The moon had waxed and waned, and the Street was dark.  Even
+the ailanthus blossoms had ceased their snow-like dropping.  The colored
+man who drove Dr. Ed in the old buggy on his daily rounds had brought out
+the hose and sprinkled the street.  Within this zone of freshness, of wet
+asphalt and dripping gutters, Sidney sat, cool and silent.
+
+"Please sit down.  It is cool now.  My idea of luxury is to have the Street
+sprinkled on a hot night."
+
+K. disposed of his long legs on the steps.  He was trying to fit his own
+ideas of luxury to a garden hose and a city street.
+
+"I'm afraid you're working too hard."
+
+"I? I do a minimum of labor for a minimum of wage.
+
+"But you work at night, don't you?"
+
+K. was natively honest.  He hesitated.  Then:
+
+"No, Miss Page."
+
+"But You go out every evening!" Suddenly the truth burst on her.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said.  "I do believe--why, how silly of you!"
+
+K. was most uncomfortable.
+
+"Really, I like it," he protested.  "I hang over a desk all day, and in the
+evening I want to walk.  I ramble around the park and see lovers on
+benches--it's rather thrilling.  They sit on the same benches evening after
+evening. I know a lot of them by sight, and if they're not there I wonder
+if they have quarreled, or if they have finally got married and ended the
+romance.  You can see how exciting it is."
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney laughed.
+
+"How very nice you are!" she said--"and how absurd!  Why should their
+getting married end the romance?  And don't you know that, if you insist on
+walking the streets and parks at night because Joe Drummond is here, I
+shall have to tell him not to come?"
+
+This did not follow, to K.'s mind.  They had rather a heated argument over
+it, and became much better acquainted.
+
+"If I were engaged to him," Sidney ended, her cheeks very pink, "I--I might
+understand.  But, as I am not--"
+
+"Ah!" said K., a trifle unsteadily.  "So you are not?"
+
+Only a week--and love was one of the things she had had to give up, with
+others.  Not, of course, that he was in love with Sidney then.  But he had
+been desperately lonely, and, for all her practical clearheadedness, she
+was softly and appealingly feminine. By way of keeping his head, he talked
+suddenly and earnestly of Mrs. McKee, and food, and Tillie, and of Mr.
+Wagner and the pencil pad.
+
+"It's like a game," he said.  "We disagree on everything, especially
+Mexico.  If you ever tried to spell those Mexican names--"
+
+"Why did you think I was engaged?" she insisted.
+
+Now, in K.'s walk of life--that walk of life where there are no toothpicks,
+and no one would have believed that twenty-one meals could have been
+secured for five dollars with a ticket punch thrown in--young girls did not
+receive the attention of one young man to the exclusion of others unless
+they were engaged. But he could hardly say that.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Those things get in the air.  I am quite certain, for
+instance, that Reginald suspects it."
+
+"It's Johnny Rosenfeld," said Sidney, with decision.  "It's horrible, the
+way things get about.  Because Joe sent me a box of roses--As a matter of
+fact, I'm not engaged, or going to be, Mr. Le Moyne.  I'm going into a
+hospital to be a nurse."
+
+Le Moyne said nothing.  For just a moment he closed his eyes.  A man is in
+a rather a bad way when, every time he closes his eyes, he sees the same
+thing, especially if it is rather terrible. When it gets to a point where
+he lies awake at night and reads, for fear of closing them--
+
+"You're too young, aren't you?"
+
+"Dr. Ed--one of the Wilsons across the Street--is going to help me about
+that.  His brother Max is a big surgeon there.  I expect you've heard of
+him.  We're very proud of him in the Street."
+
+Lucky for K. Le Moyne that the moon no longer shone on the low gray
+doorstep, that Sidney's mind had traveled far away to shining floors and
+rows of white beds.  "Life--in the raw," Dr. Ed had said that other
+afternoon.  Closer to her than the hospital was life in the raw that night.
+
+So, even here, on this quiet street in this distant city, there was to be
+no peace.  Max Wilson just across the way!  It--it was ironic.  Was there
+no place where a man could lose himself?  He would have to move on again,
+of course.
+
+But that, it seemed, was just what he could not do.  For:
+
+"I want to ask you to do something, and I hope you'll be quite frank," said
+Sidney.
+
+"Anything that I can do--"
+
+"It's this.  If you are comfortable, and--and like the room and all that, I
+wish you'd stay."  She hurried on: "If I could feel that mother had a
+dependable person like you in the house, it would all be easier."
+
+Dependable!  That stung.
+
+"But--forgive my asking; I'm really interested--can your mother manage?
+You'll get practically no money during your training."
+
+"I've thought of that.  A friend of mine, Christine Lorenz, is going to be
+married.  Her people are wealthy, but she'll have nothing but what Palmer
+makes.  She'd like to have the parlor and the sitting room behind.  They
+wouldn't interfere with you at all," she added hastily. "Christine's father
+would build a little balcony at the side for them, a sort of porch, and
+they'd sit there in the evenings."
+
+Behind Sidney's carefully practical tone the man read appeal. Never before
+had he realized how narrow the girl's world had been.  The Street, with but
+one dimension, bounded it!  In her perplexity, she was appealing to him who
+was practically a stranger.
+
+And he knew then that he must do the thing she asked.  He, who had fled so
+long, could roam no more.  Here on the Street, with its menace just across,
+he must live, that she might work.  In his world, men had worked that women
+might live in certain places, certain ways.  This girl was going out to
+earn her living, and he would stay to make it possible.  But no hint of all
+this was in his voice.
+
+"I shall stay, of course," he said gravely.  "I--this is the nearest thing
+to home that I've known for a long time.  I want you to know that."
+
+So they moved their puppets about, Anna and Harriet, Christine and her
+husband-to-be, Dr. Ed, even Tillie and the Rosenfelds; shifted and placed
+them, and, planning, obeyed inevitable law.
+
+"Christine shall come, then," said Sidney forsooth, "and we will throw out
+a balcony."
+
+So they planned, calmly ignorant that poor Christine's story and Tillie's
+and Johnny Rosenfeld's and all the others' were already written among the
+things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.
+
+"You are very good to me," said Sidney.
+
+When she rose, K. Le Moyne sprang to his feet.
+
+Anna had noticed that he always rose when she entered his room,--with fresh
+towels on Katie's day out, for instance,--and she liked him for it.  Years
+ago, the men she had known had shown this courtesy to their women; but the
+Street regarded such things as affectation.
+
+"I wonder if you would do me another favor?  I'm afraid you'll take to
+avoiding me, if I keep on."
+
+"I don't think you need fear that."
+
+"This stupid story about Joe Drummond--I'm not saying I'll never marry him,
+but I'm certainly not engaged.  Now and then, when you are taking your
+evening walks, if you would ask me to walk with you--"
+
+K. looked rather dazed.
+
+"I can't imagine anything pleasanter; but I wish you'd explain just how--"
+
+Sidney smiled at him.  As he stood on the lowest step, their eyes were
+almost level.
+
+"If I walk with you, they'll know I'm not engaged to Joe," she said, with
+engaging directness.
+
+The house was quiet.  He waited in the lower hall until she had reached the
+top of the staircase.  For some curious reason, in the time to come, that
+was the way Sidney always remembered K. Le Moyne--standing in the little
+hall, one hand upstretched to shut off the gas overhead, and his eyes on
+hers above.
+
+"Good-night," said K. Le Moyne.  And all the things he had put out of his
+life were in his voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+On the morning after Sidney had invited K. Le Moyne to take her to walk,
+Max Wilson came down to breakfast rather late.  Dr. Ed had breakfasted an
+hour before, and had already attended, with much profanity on the part of
+the patient, to a boil on the back of Mr. Rosenfeld's neck.
+
+"Better change your laundry," cheerfully advised Dr. Ed, cutting a strip of
+adhesive plaster.  "Your neck's irritated from your white collars."
+
+Rosenfeld eyed him suspiciously, but, possessing a sense of humor also, he
+grinned.
+
+"It ain't my everyday things that bother me," he replied.  "It's my
+blankety-blank dress suit.  But if a man wants to be tony--"
+
+"Tony" was not of the Street, but of its environs.  Harriet was "tony"
+because she walked with her elbows in and her head up. Dr. Max was "tony"
+because he breakfasted late, and had a man come once a week and take away
+his clothes to be pressed.  He was "tony," too, because he had brought back
+from Europe narrow-shouldered English-cut clothes, when the Street was
+still padding its shoulders.  Even K. would have been classed with these
+others, for the stick that he carried on his walks, for the fact that his
+shabby gray coat was as unmistakably foreign in cut as Dr. Max's, had the
+neighborhood so much as known him by sight. But K., so far, had remained in
+humble obscurity, and, outside of Mrs. McKee's, was known only as the
+Pages' roomer.
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld buttoned up the blue flannel shirt which, with a pair of Dr.
+Ed's cast-off trousers, was his only wear; and fished in his pocket.
+
+"How much, Doc?"
+
+"Two dollars," said Dr. Ed briskly.
+
+"Holy cats!  For one jab of a knife!  My old woman works a day and a half
+for two dollars."
+
+"I guess it's worth two dollars to you to be able to sleep on your back."
+He was imperturbably straightening his small glass table.  He knew
+Rosenfeld.  "If you don't like my price, I'll lend you the knife the next
+time, and you can let your wife attend to you."
+
+Rosenfeld drew out a silver dollar, and followed it reluctantly with a limp
+and dejected dollar bill.
+
+"There are times," he said, "when, if you'd put me and the missus and a
+knife in the same room, you wouldn't have much left but the knife."
+
+Dr. Ed waited until he had made his stiff-necked exit.  Then he took the
+two dollars, and, putting the money into an envelope, indorsed it in his
+illegible hand.  He heard his brother's step on the stairs, and Dr. Ed
+made haste to put away the last vestiges of his little operation.
+
+Ed's lapses from surgical cleanliness were a sore trial to the younger man,
+fresh from the clinics of Europe.  In his downtown office, to which he
+would presently make his leisurely progress, he wore a white coat, and
+sterilized things of which Dr. Ed did not even know the names.
+
+So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny knife with a
+bit of cotton,--he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the edge,--thrust it
+hastily into his pocket.  He had cut boils without boiling anything for a
+good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise with the wisdom of the
+serpent and the general practitioner, and there was no use raising a
+discussion.
+
+Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one.  Now and then the way of the
+transgressor is disgustingly pleasant.  Max, who sat up until all hours of
+the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing bridge, wakened
+to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette between shoes, so to
+speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps been to bring into the
+world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened customarily to the dark
+hour of his day, when he dubbed himself failure and loathed the Street with
+a deadly loathing.
+
+So now Max brought his handsome self down the staircase and paused at the
+office door.
+
+"At it, already," he said.  "Or have you been to bed?"
+
+"It's after nine," protested Ed mildly.  "If I don't start early, I never
+get through."
+
+Max yawned.
+
+"Better come with me," he said.  "If things go on as they've been doing,
+I'll have to have an assistant.  I'd rather have you than anybody, of
+course."  He put his lithe surgeon's hand on his brother's shoulder.
+"Where would I be if it hadn't been for you? All the fellows know what
+you've done."
+
+In spite of himself, Ed winced.  It was one thing to work hard that there
+might be one success instead of two half successes. It was a different
+thing to advertise one's mediocrity to the world.  His sphere of the Street
+and the neighborhood was his own.  To give it all up and become his younger
+brother's assistant--even if it meant, as it would, better hours and more
+money--would be to submerge his identity.  He could not bring himself to
+it.
+
+"I guess I'll stay where I am," he said.  "They know me around here, and I
+know them.  By the way, will you leave this envelope at Mrs. McKee's?
+Maggie Rosenfeld is ironing there to-day.  It's for her."
+
+Max took the envelope absently.
+
+"You'll go on here to the end of your days, working for a pittance," he
+objected.  "Inside of ten years there'll be no general practitioners; then
+where will you be?"
+
+"I'll manage somehow," said his brother placidly.  "I guess there will
+always be a few that can pay my prices better than what you specialists
+ask."
+
+Max laughed with genuine amusement.
+
+"I dare say, if this is the way you let them pay your prices."
+
+He held out the envelope, and the older man colored.
+
+Very proud of Dr. Max was his brother, unselfishly proud, of his skill, of
+his handsome person, of his easy good manners; very humble, too, of his own
+knowledge and experience.  If he ever suspected any lack of finer fiber in
+Max, he put the thought away.  Probably he was too rigid himself.  Max was
+young, a hard worker.  He had a right to play hard.
+
+He prepared his black bag for the day's calls--stethoscope, thermometer,
+eye-cup, bandages, case of small vials, a lump of absorbent cotton in a not
+over-fresh towel; in the bottom, a heterogeneous collection of instruments,
+a roll of adhesive plaster, a bottle or two of sugar-milk tablets for the
+children, a dog collar that had belonged to a dead collie, and had put in
+the bag in some curious fashion and there remained.
+
+He prepared the bag a little nervously, while Max ate.  He felt that modern
+methods and the best usage might not have approved of the bag.  On his way
+out he paused at the dining-room door.
+
+"Are you going to the hospital?"
+
+"Operating at four--wish you could come in."
+
+"I'm afraid not, Max.  I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to you.
+She wants to enter the training-school."
+
+"Too young," said Max briefly.  "Why, she can't be over sixteen."
+
+"She's eighteen."
+
+"Well, even eighteen.  Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
+enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I haven't
+noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing.  There is no use
+filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the internes all
+stewed up."
+
+"Since when," asked Dr. Ed mildly, "have you found good looks in a girl a
+handicap?"
+
+In the end they compromised.  Max would see Sidney at his office. It would
+be better than having her run across the Street--would put things on the
+right footing.  For, if he did have her admitted, she would have to learn
+at once that he was no longer "Dr. Max"; that, as a matter of fact, he was
+now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without contradiction or
+argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at his elbow.
+
+Having given his promise, Max promptly forgot about it.  The Street did not
+interest him.  Christine and Sidney had been children when he went to
+Vienna, and since his return he had hardly noticed them.  Society, always
+kind to single men of good appearance and easy good manners, had taken him
+up.  He wore dinner or evening clothes five nights out of seven, and was
+supposed by his conservative old neighbors to be going the pace. The rumor
+had been fed by Mrs. Rosenfeld, who, starting out for her day's washing at
+six o'clock one morning, had found Dr. Max's car, lamps lighted, and engine
+going, drawn up before the house door, with its owner asleep at the wheel.
+The story traveled the length of the Street that day.
+
+"Him," said Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was occasionally flowery, "sittin' up as
+straight as this washboard, and his silk hat shinin' in the sun; but
+exceptin' the car, which was workin' hard and gettin' nowhere, the whole
+outfit in the arms of Morpheus."
+
+Mrs. Lorenz, whose day it was to have Mrs. Rosenfeld, and who was
+unfamiliar with mythology, gasped at the last word.
+
+"Mercy!" she said.  "Do you mean to say he's got that awful drug habit!"
+
+Down the clean steps went Dr. Max that morning, a big man, almost as tall
+as K. Le Moyne, eager of life, strong and a bit reckless, not fine,
+perhaps, but not evil.  He had the same zest of living as Sidney, but with
+this difference--the girl stood ready to give herself to life: he knew that
+life would come to him. All-dominating male was Dr. Max, that morning, as
+he drew on his gloves before stepping into his car.  It was after nine
+o'clock. K. Le Moyne had been an hour at his desk.  The McKee napkins lay
+ironed in orderly piles.
+
+Nevertheless, Dr. Max was suffering under a sense of defeat as he rode
+downtown.  The night before, he had proposed to a girl and had been
+rejected.  He was not in love with the girl,--she would have been a
+suitable wife, and a surgeon ought to be married; it gives people
+confidence,--but his pride was hurt. He recalled the exact words of the
+rejection.
+
+"You're too good-looking, Max," she had said, "and that's the truth. Now
+that operations are as popular as fancy dancing, and much less bother, half
+the women I know are crazy about their surgeons.  I'm too fond of my peace
+of mind."
+
+"But, good Heavens! haven't you any confidence in me?" he had demanded.
+
+"None whatever, Max dear."  She had looked at him with level, understanding
+eyes.
+
+He put the disagreeable recollection out of his mind as he parked his car
+and made his way to his office.  Here would be people who believed in him,
+from the middle-aged nurse in her prim uniform to the row of patients
+sitting stiffly around the walls of the waiting-room.  Dr. Max, pausing in
+the hall outside the door of his private office, drew a long breath.  This
+was the real thing--work and plenty of it, a chance to show the other men
+what he could do, a battle to win!  No humanitarian was he, but a fighter:
+each day he came to his office with the same battle lust.
+
+The office nurse had her back to him.  When she turned, he faced an
+agreeable surprise.  Instead of Miss Simpson, he faced a young and
+attractive girl, faintly familiar.
+
+"We tried to get you by telephone," she explained.  "I am from the
+hospital.  Miss Simpson's father died this morning, and she knew you would
+have to have some one.  I was just starting for my vacation, so they sent
+me."
+
+"Rather a poor substitute for a vacation," he commented.
+
+She was a very pretty girl.  He had seen her before in the hospital, but he
+had never really noticed how attractive she was. Rather stunning she was,
+he thought. The combination of yellow hair and dark eyes was unusual.  He
+remembered, just in time, to express regret at Miss Simpson's bereavement.
+
+"I am Miss Harrison," explained the substitute, and held out his long white
+coat.  The ceremony, purely perfunctory with Miss Simpson on duty, proved
+interesting, Miss Harrison, in spite of her high heels, being small and the
+young surgeon tall.  When he was finally in the coat, she was rather
+flushed and palpitating.
+
+"But I KNEW your name, of course," lied Dr. Max.  "And--I'm sorry about the
+vacation."
+
+After that came work.  Miss Harrison was nimble and alert, but the surgeon
+worked quickly and with few words, was impatient when she could not find
+the things he called for, even broke into restrained profanity now and
+then.  She went a little pale over her mistakes, but preserved her dignity
+and her wits.  Now and then he found her dark eyes fixed on him, with
+something inscrutable but pleasing in their depths.  The situation was:
+rather piquant. Consciously he was thinking only of what he was doing.
+Subconsciously his busy ego was finding solace after last night's rebuff.
+
+Once, during the cleaning up between cases, he dropped to a personality.
+He was drying his hands, while she placed freshly sterilized instruments on
+a glass table.
+
+"You are almost a foreign type, Miss Harrison.  Last year, in a London
+ballet, I saw a blonde Spanish girl who looked like you."
+
+"My mother was a Spaniard." She did not look up.
+
+Where Miss Simpson was in the habit of clumping through the morning in
+flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on the
+tiled floor.  With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was
+essentially feminine, almost insistent.  When he had time to notice it, it
+amused him that he did not find it annoying.
+
+Once, as she passed him a bistoury, he deliberately placed his fine hand
+over her fingers and smiled into her eyes.  It was play for him; it
+lightened the day's work.
+
+Sidney was in the waiting-room.  There had been no tedium in the morning's
+waiting.  Like all imaginative people, she had the gift of dramatizing
+herself.  She was seeing herself in white from head to foot, like this
+efficient young woman who came now and then to the waiting-room door; she
+was healing the sick and closing tired eyes; she was even imagining herself
+proposed to by an aged widower with grown children and quantities of money,
+one of her patients.
+
+She sat very demurely in the waiting-room with a magazine in her lap, and
+told her aged patient that she admired and respected him, but that she had
+given herself to the suffering poor.
+
+"Everything in the world that you want," begged the elderly gentleman.
+"You should see the world, child, and I will see it again through your
+eyes.  To Paris first for clothes and the opera, and then--"
+
+"But I do not love you," Sidney replied, mentally but steadily. "In all the
+world I love only one man.  He is--"
+
+She hesitated here.  It certainly was not Joe, or K. Le Moyne of the gas
+office.  It seem to her suddenly very sad that there was no one she loved.
+So many people went into hospitals because they had been disappointed in
+love.
+
+"Dr. Wilson will see you now."
+
+She followed Miss Harrison into the consulting room.  Dr. Max--not the
+gloved and hatted Dr. Max of the Street, but a new person, one she had
+never known--stood in his white office, tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired,
+competent, holding out his long, immaculate surgeon's hand, and smiling
+down at her.
+
+Men, like jewels, require a setting.  A clerk on a high stool, poring over
+a ledger, is not unimpressive, or a cook over her stove.  But place the
+cook on the stool, poring over the ledger! Dr. Max, who had lived all his
+life on the edge of Sidney's horizon, now, by the simple changing of her
+point of view, loomed large and magnificent.  Perhaps he knew it. Certainly
+he stood very erect.  Certainly, too, there was considerable manner in the
+way in which he asked Miss Harrison to go out and close the door behind
+her.
+
+Sidney's heart, considering what was happening to it, behaved very well.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Sidney," said Dr. Max, "here you are a young lady and
+I've never noticed it!"
+
+This, of course, was not what he had intended to say, being staff and all
+that.  But Sidney, visibly palpitant, was very pretty, much prettier than
+the Harrison girl, beating a tattoo with her heels in the next room.
+
+Dr. Max, belonging to the class of man who settles his tie every time he
+sees an attractive woman, thrust his hands into the pockets of his long
+white coat and surveyed her quizzically.
+
+"Did Dr. Ed tell you?"
+
+"Sit down.  He said something about the hospital.  How's your mother and
+Aunt Harriet?"
+
+"Very well--that is, mother's never quite well."  She was sitting forward
+on her chair, her wide young eyes on him.  "Is that--is your nurse from the
+hospital here?"
+
+"Yes.  But she's not my nurse.  She's a substitute."
+
+"The uniform is so pretty."  Poor Sidney! with all the things she had meant
+to say about a life of service, and that, although she was young, she was
+terribly in earnest.
+
+"It takes a lot of plugging before one gets the uniform.  Look here,
+Sidney; if you are going to the hospital because of the uniform, and with
+any idea of soothing fevered brows and all that nonsense--"
+
+She interrupted him, deeply flushed.  Indeed, no.  She wanted to work.  She
+was young and strong, and surely a pair of willing hands--that was absurd
+about the uniform.  She had no silly ideas.  There was so much to do in the
+world, and she wanted to help.  Some people could give money, but she
+couldn't.  She could only offer service.  And, partly through earnestness
+and partly through excitement, she ended in a sort of nervous sob, and,
+going to the window, stood with her back to him.
+
+He followed her, and, because they were old neighbors, she did not resent
+it when he put his hand on her shoulder.
+
+"I don't know--of course, if you feel like that about it," he said, "we'll
+see what can be done.  It's hard work, and a good many times it seems
+futile.  They die, you know, in spite of all we can do.  And there are many
+things that are worse than death--"
+
+His voice trailed off.  When he had started out in his profession, he had
+had some such ideal of service as this girl beside him.  For just a moment,
+as he stood there close to her, he saw things again with the eyes of his
+young faith: to relieve pain, to straighten the crooked, to hurt that he
+might heal,--not to show the other men what he could do,--that had been
+his early creed.  He sighed a little as he turned away.
+
+"I'll speak to the superintendent about you," he said.  "Perhaps you'd like
+me to show you around a little."
+
+"When?  To-day?"
+
+He had meant in a month, or a year.  It was quite a minute before he
+replied:--
+
+"Yes, to-day, if you say.  I'm operating at four.  How about three
+o'clock?"
+
+She held out both hands, and he took them, smiling.
+
+"You are the kindest person I ever met."
+
+"And--perhaps you'd better not say you are applying until we find out if
+there is a vacancy."
+
+"May I tell one person?"
+
+"Mother?"
+
+"No.  We--we have a roomer now.  He is very much interested.  I should like
+to tell him."
+
+He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
+
+"Much interested!  Is he in love with you?"
+
+"Mercy, no!"
+
+"I don't believe it.  I'm jealous.  You know, I've always been more than
+half in love with you myself!"
+
+Play for him--the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss
+Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how it
+was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
+
+"Then we'll say at three," she said calmly, and took an orderly and
+unflurried departure.
+
+But the little seed of tenderness had taken root.  Sidney, passing in the
+last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,--outgrowing Joe, had she only
+known it, as she had outgrown the Street,--had come that day into her first
+contact with a man of the world.  True, there was K. Le Moyne.  But K. was
+now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that she was
+leaving behind her.
+
+She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put it
+under his plate:--
+
+DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,--I am so excited I can hardly write.  Dr. Wilson, the
+surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon.  Wish me
+luck.                                       SIDNEY PAGE.
+
+K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft and
+the other "mealers" irritable with the heat, he ate little or no luncheon.
+Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again.  To his jealous
+eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital. Sidney, all vibrant
+eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and Wilson, sardonically
+smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself.  He drew a long breath,
+and thrust the note in his pocket.
+
+The little house across the way sat square in the sun.  The shades of his
+windows had been lowered against the heat.  K. Le Moyne made an impulsive
+movement toward it and checked himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le Moyne
+moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked.  In Sidney's lap lay a
+small pasteboard box, punched with many holes.  It was the day of releasing
+Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to the point of
+separation.  Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of the apertures
+and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red and white clover,
+the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
+
+"And so," said K. Le Moyne, "you liked it all?  It didn't startle you?"
+
+"Well, in one way, of course--you see, I didn't know it was quite like
+that: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, on
+top,--you know what I mean,--and the misery there just the same.  Have you
+ever gone through a hospital?"
+
+K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head.  For
+this excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pair of
+white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat.  Sidney had been divided
+between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street would deem him
+overdressed.
+
+At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch and the
+bit of blue heaven overhead.  He did not reply at once.
+
+"Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!" said Sidney to the pasteboard box.
+
+But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
+
+"I've been around hospitals a little.  I suppose now there is no question
+about your going?"
+
+"The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr. Wilson's
+would certainly be given a chance."
+
+"It is hard work, night and day."
+
+"Do you think I am afraid of work?"
+
+"And--Joe?"
+
+Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
+
+"He is very silly.  He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head."
+
+"Such as--"
+
+"Well, he HATES the hospital, of course.  As if, even if I meant to marry
+him, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready."
+
+"Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?"
+
+"I haven't promised to marry him."
+
+"But he thinks you mean to.  If you have quite made up your mind not to,
+better tell him, don't you think?  What--what are these idiotic notions?"
+
+Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the box.
+
+"You can see how stupid he is, and--and young.  For one thing, he's jealous
+of you!"
+
+"I see.  Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his
+suspicion is hardly flattering to me."
+
+He smiled up at her.
+
+"I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day.  He was furious.
+And that wasn't all."
+
+"No?"
+
+"He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson.  You see, the day we
+went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's for
+soda-water.  And, of course, Joe was there.  It was really dramatic."
+
+K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle of
+the Street.  A month ago he could have seen no situation in two people, a
+man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy lover on the
+next stool.  Now he could view things through Joe's tragic eyes.  And there
+as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably the conversation
+turned to the young surgeon.  Did they start with Reginald, with the
+condition of the morning-glory vines, with the proposition of taking up the
+quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the Street, they ended with the
+younger Wilson.
+
+Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her life,
+was still on herself.
+
+"Mother is plaintively resigned--and Aunt Harriet has been a trump.  She's
+going to keep her room.  It's really up to you."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"To your staying on.  Mother trusts you absolutely.  I hope you noticed
+that you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up to you
+the other night.  And she didn't object to this trip to-day.  Of course, as
+she said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at all wild."
+
+In spite of himself, K. was rather startled.  He felt old enough, God knew,
+but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit.  How old did this
+child think he was?
+
+"I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog, burglar-alarm,
+and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of custard.
+Lightning-conductor, too--your mother says she isn't afraid of storms if
+there is a man in the house.  I'll stay, of course."
+
+The thought of his age weighed on him.  He rose to his feet and threw back
+his fine shoulders.
+
+"Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be, whatever
+his name is--we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I ever hear of
+Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon--"
+
+She smiled up at him.  "You are looking very grand to-day.  But you have
+grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out."
+
+Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity of
+dress.  It put him on his mettle.
+
+"How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?"
+
+She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the doubt.
+
+"Not over forty, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm almost thirty.  It is middle age, of course, but it is not senility."
+
+She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
+
+"Perhaps we'd better not tell mother," she said.  "You don't mind being
+thought older?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she
+harked back to the grass stains.
+
+"I'm afraid you're not saving, as you promised.  Those are new clothes,
+aren't they?"
+
+"No, indeed.  Bought years ago in England--the coat in London, the
+trousers in Bath, on a motor tour.  Cost something like twelve shillings.
+Awfully cheap.  They wear them for cricket."
+
+That was a wrong move, of course.  Sidney must hear about England; and she
+marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there.  Poor Le
+Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here and there,
+clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
+
+"To think," said Sidney, "that you have really been across the ocean!  I
+never knew but one person who had been abroad.  It is Dr. Max Wilson."
+
+Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, was
+aroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
+
+"You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don't you?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You talk about him rather a lot."
+
+This was sheer recklessness, of course.  He expected fury, annihilation.
+He did not look up, but busied himself with the luncheon.  When the silence
+grew oppressive, he ventured to glance toward her.  She was leaning
+forward, her chin cupped in her palms, staring out over the valley that
+stretched at their feet.
+
+"Don't speak to me for a minute or two," she said.  "I'm thinking over what
+you have just said."
+
+Manlike, having raised the issue, K. would have given much to evade it.
+Not that he had owned himself in love with Sidney. Love was not for him.
+But into his loneliness and despair the girl had came like a ray of light.
+She typified that youth and hope that he had felt slipping away from him.
+Through her clear eyes he was beginning to see a new world.  Lose her he
+must, and that he knew; but not this way.
+
+Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions to
+both depth and fury.  He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, with
+this same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,
+while he snapped the shutter of a camera.  He had that picture somewhere
+now; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only one who
+had met life and vanquished it.
+
+"I've known him all my life," Sidney said at last.  "You're perfectly right
+about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him.  I'm being candid,
+because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank?  I admire
+him--you'd have to see him in the hospital, with every one deferring to him
+and all that, to understand.  And when you think of a manlike that, who
+holds life and death in his hands, of course you rather thrill.  I--I
+honestly believe that's all there is to it."
+
+"If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion."  He tried to
+smile; succeeded faintly.
+
+"Well, of course, there's this, too.  I know he'll never look at me.  I'll
+be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a
+probationer.  He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital at
+all."
+
+"I see.  Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would be
+different?"
+
+"If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me," said Sidney solemnly,
+"I'd go out of my head with joy."
+
+One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of living
+each day for itself.  Having no past and no future, each day was worth
+exactly what it brought.  He was to look back to this day with mingled
+feelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; the memory
+of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to herself,
+already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and, long, long
+after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and saved her by his
+steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward happening that closed
+the day.
+
+Sidney fell into the river.
+
+They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of a shamefaced
+tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K.  The little
+squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had darted into the
+grass.
+
+"Ungrateful little beast!" said Sidney, and dried her eyes.  "Do you
+suppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?"
+
+"He'll be all right," K. replied.  "The little beggar can take care of
+himself, if only--"
+
+"If only what?"
+
+"If only he isn't too friendly.  He's apt to crawl into the pockets of any
+one who happens around."
+
+She was alarmed at that.  To make up for his indiscretion, K. suggested a
+descent to the river.  She accepted eagerly, and he helped her down.  That
+was another memory that outlasted the day--her small warm hand in his; the
+time she slipped and he caught her; the pain in her eyes at one of his
+thoughtless remarks.
+
+"I'm going to be pretty lonely," he said, when she had paused in the
+descent and was taking a stone out of her low shoe. "Reginald gone, and you
+going!  I shall hate to come home at night."  And then, seeing her wince:
+"I've been whining all day. For Heaven's sake, don't look like that.  If
+there's one sort of man I detest more than another, it's a man who is sorry
+for himself.  Do you suppose your mother would object if we stayed, out
+here at the hotel for supper?  I've ordered a moon, orange-yellow and extra
+size."
+
+"I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted."
+
+"Then we'll stay."
+
+"It's fearfully extravagant."
+
+"I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital."
+
+So it was settled.  And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow.  For,
+having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,
+slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water.  K. happened to
+be looking in another direction.  So it occurred that at one moment, Sidney
+sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly pretty, and
+knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep in water, much too
+startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under the rather trying
+circumstances.  K. had not looked around.  The splash had been a gentle
+one.
+
+"If you will be good enough," said Sidney, with her chin well up, "to give
+me your hand or a pole or something--because if the river rises an inch I
+shall drown."
+
+To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and saw
+her.  He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up its
+slippery sides.  He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
+
+"Well!" said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefully balanced.
+
+"Are you cold?"
+
+"Not a bit.  But horribly unhappy.  I must look a sight."  Then,
+remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:--
+
+"Thank you for saving me."
+
+"There wasn't any danger, really, unless--unless the river had risen."
+
+And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first, perhaps,
+for months.  He shook with it, struggled at the sight of her injured face
+to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety by fixing his eyes on
+the river-bank.
+
+"When you have quite finished," said Sidney severely, "perhaps you will
+take me to the hotel.  I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed."
+
+He drew her cautiously to her feet.  Her wet skirts clung to her; her shoes
+were sodden and heavy.  She clung to him frantically, her eyes on the river
+below.  With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died.  He held her very
+carefully, very tenderly, as one holds something infinitely precious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital.  It was a Wilson day, the
+young surgeon having six cases.  One of the innovations Dr. Max had made
+was to change the hour for major operations from early morning to
+mid-afternoon.  He could do as well later in the day,--his nerves were
+steady, and uncounted numbers of cigarettes did not make his hand
+shake,--and he hated to get up early.
+
+The staff had fallen into the way of attending Wilson's operations.  His
+technique was good; but technique alone never gets a surgeon anywhere.
+Wilson was getting results.  Even the most jealous of that most jealous of
+professions, surgery, had to admit that he got results.
+
+Operations were over for the afternoon.  The last case had been wheeled out
+of the elevator.  The pit of the operating-room was in disorder--towels
+everywhere, tables of instruments, steaming sterilizers. Orderlies were
+going about, carrying out linens, emptying pans.  At a table two nurses
+were cleaning instruments and putting them away in their glass cases.
+Irrigators were being emptied, sponges recounted and checked off on written
+lists.
+
+In the midst of the confusion, Wilson stood giving last orders to the
+interne at his elbow.  As he talked he scoured his hands and arms with a
+small brush; bits of lather flew off on to the tiled floor.  His speech was
+incisive, vigorous.  At the hospital they said his nerves were iron; there
+was no let-down after the day's work. The internes worshiped and feared
+him.  He was just, but without mercy.  To be able to work like that, so
+certainly, with so sure a touch, and to look like a Greek god!  Wilson's
+only rival, a gynecologist named O'Hara, got results, too; but he sweated
+and swore through his operations, was not too careful as to asepsis, and
+looked like a gorilla.
+
+The day had been a hard one.  The operating room nurses were fagged.  Two
+or three probationers had been sent to help cleanup, and a senior nurse.
+Wilson's eyes caught the nurse's eyes as she passed him.
+
+"Here, too, Miss Harrison!" he said gayly.  "Have they set you on my
+trail?"
+
+With the eyes of the room on her, the girl answered primly:--
+
+"I'm to be in your office in the mornings, Dr. Wilson, and anywhere I am
+needed in the afternoons."
+
+"And your vacation?"
+
+"I shall take it when Miss Simpson comes back."
+
+Although he went on at once with his conversation with the interne, he
+still heard the click of her heels about the room. He had not lost the fact
+that she had flushed when he spoke to her. The mischief that was latent in
+him came to the surface. When he had rinsed his hands, he followed her,
+carrying the towel to where she stood talking to the superintendent of the
+training school.
+
+"Thanks very much, Miss Gregg," he said.  "Everything went off nicely."
+
+"I was sorry about that catgut.  We have no trouble with what we prepare
+ourselves.  But with so many operations--"
+
+He was in a magnanimous mood.  He smiled' at Miss Gregg, who was elderly
+and gray, but visibly his creature.
+
+"That's all right.  It's the first time, and of course it will be the
+last."
+
+"The sponge list, doctor."
+
+He glanced over it, noting accurately sponges prepared, used, turned in.
+But he missed no gesture of the girl who stood beside Miss Gregg.
+
+"All right." He returned the list.  "That was a mighty pretty probationer I
+brought you yesterday."
+
+Two small frowning lines appeared between Miss Harrison's dark brows.  He
+caught them, caught her somber eyes too, and was amused and rather
+stimulated.
+
+"She is very young."
+
+"Prefer 'em young," said Dr. Max.  "Willing to learn at that age. You'll
+have to watch her, though.  You'll have all the internes buzzing around,
+neglecting business."
+
+Miss Gregg rather fluttered.  She was divided between her disapproval of
+internes at all times and of young probationers generally, and her
+allegiance to the brilliant surgeon whose word was rapidly becoming law in
+the hospital.  When an emergency of the cleaning up called her away, doubt
+still in her eyes, Wilson was left alone with Miss Harrison.
+
+"Tired?" He adopted the gentle, almost tender tone that made most women
+his slaves.
+
+"A little.  It is warm."
+
+"What are you going to do this evening?  Any lectures?"
+
+"Lectures are over for the summer.  I shall go to prayers, and after that
+to the roof for air."
+
+There was a note of bitterness in her voice.  Under the eyes of the other
+nurses, she was carefully contained.  They might have been outlining the
+morning's work at his office.
+
+"The hand lotion, please."
+
+She brought it obediently and poured it into his cupped hands. The
+solutions of the operating-room played havoc with the skin: the surgeons,
+and especially Wilson, soaked their hands plentifully with a healing
+lotion.
+
+Over the bottle their eyes met again, and this time the girl smiled
+faintly.
+
+"Can't you take a little ride to-night and cool off?  I'll have the car
+wherever you say.  A ride and some supper--how does it sound?  You could
+get away at seven--"
+
+"Miss Gregg is coming!"
+
+With an impassive face, the girl took the bottle away.  The workers of the
+operating-room surged between them.  An interne presented an order-book;
+moppers had come in and waited to clean the tiled floor.  There seemed no
+chance for Wilson to speak to Miss Harrison again.
+
+But he was clever with the guile of the pursuing male.  Eyes of all on him,
+he turned at the door of the wardrobe-room, where he would exchange his
+white garments for street clothing, and spoke to her over the heads of a
+dozen nurses.
+
+"That patient's address that I had forgotten, Miss Harrison, is the corner
+of the Park and Ellington Avenue."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+She played the game well, was quite calm.  He admired her coolness.
+Certainly she was pretty, and certainly, too, she was interested in him.
+The hurt to his pride of a few nights before was healed.  He went whistling
+into the wardrobe-room.  As he turned he caught the interne's eye, and
+there passed between them a glance of complete comprehension. The interne
+grinned.
+
+The room was not empty.  His brother was there, listening to the comments
+of O'Hara, his friendly rival.
+
+"Good work, boy!" said O'Hara, and clapped a hairy hand on his shoulder.
+"That last case was a wonder.  I'm proud of you, and your brother here is
+indecently exalted.  It was the Edwardes method, wasn't it?  I saw it done
+at his clinic in New York."
+
+"Glad you liked it.  Yes.  Edwardes was a pal at mine in Berlin. A great
+surgeon, too, poor old chap!"
+
+"There aren't three men in the country with the nerve and the hand for it."
+
+O'Hara went out, glowing with his own magnanimity.  Deep in his heart was a
+gnawing of envy--not for himself, but for his work. These young fellows
+with no family ties, who could run over to Europe and bring back anything
+new that was worth while, they had it all over the older men.  Not that he
+would have changed things.  God forbid!
+
+Dr. Ed stood by and waited while his brother got into his street clothes.
+He was rather silent.  There were many times when he wished that their
+mother could have lived to see how he had carried out his promise to "make
+a man of Max."  This was one of them.  Not that he took any credit for
+Max's brilliant career--but he would have liked her to know that things
+were going well. He had a picture of her over his office desk.  Sometimes
+he wondered what she would think of his own untidy methods compared with
+Max's extravagant order--of the bag, for instance, with the dog's collar in
+it, and other things.  On these occasions he always determined to clear out
+the bag.
+
+"I guess I'll be getting along," he said.  "Will you be home to dinner?"
+
+"I think not.  I'll--I'm going to run out of town, and eat where it's
+cool."
+
+The Street was notoriously hot in summer.  When Dr. Max was newly home from
+Europe, and Dr. Ed was selling a painfully acquired bond or two to furnish
+the new offices downtown, the brothers had occasionally gone together, by
+way of the trolley, to the White Springs Hotel for supper.  Those had been
+gala days for the older man.  To hear names that he had read with awe, and
+mispronounced, most of his life, roll off Max's tongue--"Old Steinmetz" and
+"that ass of a Heydenreich"; to hear the medical and surgical gossip of the
+Continent, new drugs, new technique, the small heart-burnings of the
+clinics, student scandal--had brought into his drab days a touch of color.
+But that was over now.  Max had new friends, new social obligations; his
+time was taken up.  And pride would not allow the older brother to show
+how he missed the early days.
+
+Forty-two he was, and; what with sleepless nights and twenty years of
+hurried food, he looked fifty.  Fifty, then, to Max's thirty.
+
+"There's a roast of beef.  It's a pity to cook a roast for one."
+
+Wasteful, too, this cooking of food for two and only one to eat it.  A
+roast of beef meant a visit, in Dr. Ed's modest-paying clientele.  He still
+paid the expenses of the house on the Street.
+
+"Sorry, old man; I've made another arrangement."
+
+They left the hospital together.  Everywhere the younger man received the
+homage of success.  The elevator-man bowed and flung the doors open, with a
+smile; the pharmacy clerk, the doorkeeper, even the convalescent patient
+who was polishing the great brass doorplate, tendered their tribute.  Dr.
+Ed looked neither to right nor left.
+
+At the machine they separated.  But Dr. Ed stood for a moment with his hand
+on the car.
+
+"I was thinking, up there this afternoon," he said slowly, "that I'm not
+sure I want Sidney Page to become a nurse."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There's a good deal in life that a girl need not know--not, at least,
+until her husband tells her.  Sidney's been guarded, and it's bound to be a
+shock."
+
+"It's her own choice."
+
+"Exactly.  A child reaches out for the fire."
+
+The motor had started.  For the moment, at least, the younger Wilson had no
+interest in Sidney Page.
+
+"She'll manage all right.  Plenty of other girls have taken the training
+and come through without spoiling their zest for life."
+
+Already, as the car moved off, his mind was on his appointment for the
+evening.
+
+Sidney, after her involuntary bath in the river, had gone into temporary
+eclipse at the White Springs Hotel.  In the oven of the kitchen stove sat
+her two small white shoes, stuffed with paper so that they might dry in
+shape.  Back in a detached laundry, a sympathetic maid was ironing various
+soft white garments, and singing as she worked.
+
+Sidney sat in a rocking-chair in a hot bedroom.  She was carefully swathed
+in a sheet from neck to toes, except for her arms, and she was being as
+philosophic as possible.  After all, it was a good chance to think things
+over.  She had very little time to think, generally.
+
+She meant to give up Joe Drummond.  She didn't want to hurt him. Well,
+there was that to think over and a matter of probation dresses to be talked
+over later with her Aunt Harriet.  Also, there was a great deal of advice
+to K. Le Moyne, who was ridiculously extravagant, before trusting the house
+to him.  She folded her white arms and prepared to think over all these
+things.  As a matter of fact, she went mentally, like an arrow to its mark,
+to the younger Wilson--to his straight figure in its white coat, to his
+dark eyes and heavy hair, to the cleft in his chin when he smiled.
+
+"You know, I have always been more than half in love with you myself..."
+
+Some one tapped lightly at the door.  She was back again in the stuffy
+hotel room, clutching the sheet about her.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"It's Le Moyne.  Are you all right?"
+
+"Perfectly.  How stupid it must be for you!"
+
+"I'm doing very well.  The maid will soon be ready.  What shall I order for
+supper?"
+
+"Anything. I'm starving."
+
+Whatever visions K. Le Moyne may have had of a chill or of a feverish cold
+were dispelled by that.
+
+"The moon has arrived, as per specifications.  Shall we eat on the
+terrace?"
+
+"I have never eaten on a terrace in my life. I'd love it."
+
+"I think your shoes have shrunk."
+
+"Flatterer!" She laughed.  "Go away and order supper.  And I can see fresh
+lettuce.  Shall we have a salad?"
+
+K. Le Moyne assured her through the door that he would order a salad, and
+prepared to descend.
+
+But he stood for a moment in front of the closed door, for the mere sound
+of her moving, beyond it.  Things had gone very far with the Pages' roomer
+that day in the country; not so far as they were to go, but far enough to
+let him see on the brink of what misery he stood.
+
+He could not go away.  He had promised her to stay: he was needed.  He
+thought he could have endured seeing her marry Joe, had she cared for the
+boy.  That way, at least, lay safety for her.  The boy had fidelity and
+devotion written large over him. But this new complication--her romantic
+interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her, with what he
+knew of the man--made him quail.
+
+From the top of the narrow staircase to the foot, and he had lived a year's
+torment!  At the foot, however, he was startled out of his reverie.  Joe
+Drummond stood there waiting for him, his blue eyes recklessly alight.
+
+"You--you dog!" said Joe.
+
+There were people in the hotel parlor.  Le Moyne took the frenzied boy by
+the elbow and led him past the door to the empty porch.
+
+"Now," he said, "if you will keep your voice down, I'll listen to what you
+have to say."
+
+"You know what I've got to say."
+
+This failing to draw from K. Le Moyne anything but his steady glance, Joe
+jerked his arm free, and clenched his fist.
+
+"What did you bring her out here for?"
+
+"I do not know that I owe you any explanation, but I am willing to give you
+one.  I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic luncheon.
+Incidentally we brought the ground squirrel out and set him free."
+
+He was sorry for the boy.  Life not having been all beer and skittles to
+him, he knew that Joe was suffering, and was marvelously patient with him.
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"She had the misfortune to fall in the river.  She is upstairs." And,
+seeing the light of unbelief in Joe's eyes: "If you care to make a tour of
+investigation, you will find that I am entirely truthful.  In the laundry a
+maid--"
+
+"She is engaged to me"--doggedly.  "Everybody in the neighborhood knows it;
+and yet you bring her out here for a picnic!  It's--it's damned rotten
+treatment."
+
+His fist had unclenched.  Before K. Le Moyne's eyes his own fell. He felt
+suddenly young and futile; his just rage turned to blustering in his ears.
+
+"Now, be honest with yourself.  Is there really an engagement?"
+
+"Yes," doggedly.
+
+"Even in that case, isn't it rather arrogant to say that--that the young
+lady in question can accept no ordinary friendly attentions from another
+man?"
+
+Utter astonishment left Joe almost speechless.  The Street, of course,
+regarded an engagement as a setting aside of the affianced couple, an
+isolation of two, than which marriage itself was not more a solitude a
+deux.  After a moment:--
+
+"I don't know where you came from," he said, "but around here decent men
+cut out when a girl's engaged."
+
+"I see!"
+
+"What's more, what do we know about you?  Who are you, anyhow? I've looked
+you up.  Even at your office they don't know anything.  You may be all
+right, but how do I know it?  And, even if you are, renting a room in the
+Page house doesn't entitle you to interfere with the family.  You get her
+into trouble and I'll kill you!"
+
+It took courage, that speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches above
+him and growing a little white about the lips.
+
+"Are you going to say all these things to Sidney?"
+
+"Does she allow you to call her Sidney?"
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"I am.  And I am going to find out why you were upstairs just now."
+
+Perhaps never in his twenty-two years had young Drummond been so near a
+thrashing.  Fury that he was ashamed of shook Le Moyne. For very fear of
+himself, he thrust his hands in the pockets of his Norfolk coat.
+
+"Very well," he said.  "You go to her with just one of these ugly
+insinuations, and I'll take mighty good care that you are sorry for it.  I
+don't care to threaten.  You're younger than I am, and lighter.  But if you
+are going to behave like a bad child, you deserve a licking, and I'll give
+it to you."
+
+An overflow from the parlor poured out on the porch.  Le Moyne had got
+himself in hand somewhat.  He was still angry, but the look in Joe's eyes
+startled him.  He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
+
+"You're wrong, old man," he said.  "You're insulting the girl you care for
+by the things you are thinking.  And, if it's any comfort to you, I have no
+intention of interfering in any way. You can count me out.  It's between
+you and her." Joe picked his straw hat from a chair and stood turning it in
+his hands.
+
+"Even if you don't care for her, how do I know she isn't crazy about you?"
+
+"My word of honor, she isn't."
+
+"She sends you notes to McKees'."
+
+"Just to clear the air, I'll show it to you.  It's no breach of confidence.
+It's about the hospital."
+
+Into the breast pocket of his coat he dived and brought up a wallet.  The
+wallet had had a name on it in gilt letters that had been carefully scraped
+off.  But Joe did not wait to see the note.
+
+"Oh, damn the hospital!" he said--and went swiftly down the steps and into
+the gathering twilight of the June night.
+
+It was only when he reached the street-car, and sat huddled in a corner,
+that he remembered something.
+
+Only about the hospital--but Le Moyne had kept the note, treasured it!  Joe
+was not subtle, not even clever; but he was a lover, and he knew the ways
+of love.  The Pages' roomer was in love with Sidney whether he knew it or
+not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Carlotta Harrison pleaded a headache, and was excused from the
+operating-room and from prayers.
+
+"I'm sorry about the vacation," Miss Gregg said kindly, "but in a day or
+two I can let you off.  Go out now and get a little air."
+
+The girl managed to dissemble the triumph in her eyes.
+
+"Thank you," she said languidly, and turned away.  Then: "About the
+vacation, I am not in a hurry.  If Miss Simpson needs a few days to
+straighten things out, I can stay on with Dr. Wilson."
+
+Young women on the eve of a vacation were not usually so reasonable.  Miss
+Gregg was grateful.
+
+"She will probably need a week.  Thank you.  I wish more of the girls were
+as thoughtful, with the house full and operations all day and every day."
+
+Outside the door of the anaesthetizing-room Miss Harrison's languor
+vanished.  She sped along corridors and up the stairs, not waiting for the
+deliberate elevator.  Inside of her room, she closed and bolted the door,
+and, standing before her mirror, gazed long at her dark eyes and bright
+hair.  Then she proceeded briskly with her dressing.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was not a child.  Though she was only three years older
+than Sidney, her experience of life was as of three to Sidney's one.  The
+product of a curious marriage,--when Tommy Harrison of Harrison's
+Minstrels, touring Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of a
+Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,--she had certain qualities of both,
+a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse, complicated
+by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious bursts of temper,
+slow and smouldering vindictiveness.  A passionate creature, in reality,
+smothered under hereditary Massachusetts caution.
+
+She was well aware of the risks of the evening's adventure.  The only dread
+she had was of the discovery of her escapade by the hospital authorities.
+Lines were sharply drawn.  Nurses were forbidden more than the exchange of
+professional conversation with the staff.  In that world of her choosing,
+of hard work and little play, of service and self-denial and vigorous rules
+of conduct, discovery meant dismissal.
+
+She put on a soft black dress, open at the throat, and with a wide white
+collar and cuffs of some sheer material.  Her yellow hair was drawn high
+under her low black hat.  From her Spanish mother she had learned to please
+the man, not herself.  She guessed that Dr. Max would wish her to be
+inconspicuous, and she dressed accordingly.  Then, being a cautious person,
+she disarranged her bed slightly and thumped a hollow into her pillow.  The
+nurses' rooms were subject to inspection, and she had pleaded a headache.
+
+She was exactly on time.  Dr. Max, driving up to the corner five minutes
+late, found her there, quite matter-of-fact but exceedingly handsome, and
+acknowledged the evening's adventure much to his taste.
+
+"A little air first, and then supper--how's that?"
+
+"Air first, please.  I'm very tired."
+
+He turned the car toward the suburbs, and then, bending toward her, smiled
+into her eyes.
+
+"Well, this is life!"
+
+"I'm cool for the first time to-day."
+
+After that they spoke very little.  Even Wilson's superb nerves had felt
+the strain of the afternoon, and under the girl's dark eyes were purplish
+shadows.  She leaned back, weary but luxuriously content.
+
+"Not uneasy, are you?"
+
+"Not particularly.  I'm too comfortable.  But I hope we're not seen."
+
+"Even if we are, why not? You are going with me to a case.  I've driven
+Miss Simpson about a lot."
+
+It was almost eight when he turned the car into the drive of the White
+Springs Hotel.  The six-to-eight supper was almost over. One or two motor
+parties were preparing for the moonlight drive back to the city.  All
+around was virgin country, sweet with early summer odors of new-cut grass,
+of blossoming trees and warm earth.  On the grass terrace over the valley,
+where ran Sidney's unlucky river, was a magnolia full of creamy blossoms
+among waxed leaves.  Its silhouette against the sky was quaintly
+heart-shaped.
+
+Under her mask of languor, Carlotta's heart was beating wildly. What an
+adventure!  What a night!  Let him lose his head a little; she could keep
+hers.  If she were skillful and played things right, who could tell?  To
+marry him, to leave behind the drudgery of the hospital, to feel safe as
+she had not felt for years, that was a stroke to play for!
+
+The magnolia was just beside her.  She reached up and, breaking off one of
+the heavy-scented flowers, placed it in the bosom of her black dress.
+
+Sidney and K. Le Moyne were dining together.  The novelty of the experience
+had made her eyes shine like stars.  She saw only the magnolia tree shaped
+like a heart, the terrace edged with low shrubbery, and beyond the faint
+gleam that was the river.  For her the dish-washing clatter of the kitchen
+was stilled, the noises from the bar were lost in the ripple of the river;
+the scent of the grass killed the odor of stale beer that wafted out
+through the open windows.  The unshaded glare of the lights behind her in
+the house was eclipsed by the crescent edge of the rising moon.  Dinner was
+over.  Sidney was experiencing the rare treat of after-dinner coffee.
+
+Le Moyne, grave and contained, sat across from her.  To give so much
+pleasure, and so easily!  How young she was, and radiant! No wonder the boy
+was mad about her.  She fairly held out her arms to life.
+
+Ah, that was too bad!  Another table was being brought; they were not to be
+alone.  But, what roused him in violent resentment only appealed to
+Sidney's curiosity.  "Two places!" she commented. "Lovers, of course.  Or
+perhaps honeymooners."
+
+K. tried to fall into her mood.
+
+"A box of candy against a good cigar, they are a stolid married couple."
+
+"How shall we know?"
+
+"That's easy.  If they loll back and watch the kitchen door, I win.  If
+they lean forward, elbows on the table, and talk, you get the candy."
+
+Sidney, who had been leaning forward, talking eagerly over the table,
+suddenly straightened and flushed.
+
+Carlotta Harrison came out alone.  Although the tapping of her heels was
+dulled by the grass, although she had exchanged her cap for the black hat,
+Sidney knew her at once.  A sort of thrill ran over her.  It was the pretty
+nurse from Dr. Wilson's office.  Was it possible--but of course not!  The
+book of rules stated explicitly that such things were forbidden.
+
+"Don't turn around," she said swiftly.  "It is the Miss Harrison I told you
+about.  She is looking at us."
+
+Carlotta's eyes were blinded for a moment by the glare of the house lights.
+She dropped into her chair, with a flash of resentment at the proximity of
+the other table.  She languidly surveyed its two occupants.  Then she sat
+up, her eyes on Le Moyne's grave profile turned toward the valley.
+
+Lucky for her that Wilson had stopped in the bar, that Sidney's instinctive
+good manners forbade her staring, that only the edge of the summer moon
+shone through the trees.  She went white and clutched the edge of the
+table, with her eyes closed.  That gave her quick brain a chance.  It was
+madness, June madness.  She was always seeing him even in her dreams.  This
+man was older, much older.  She looked again.
+
+She had not been mistaken.  Here, and after all these months!  K. Le Moyne,
+quite unconscious of her presence, looked down into the valley.
+
+Wilson appeared on the wooden porch above the terrace, and stood, his eyes
+searching the half light for her.  If he came down to her, the man at the
+next table might turn, would see her--
+
+She rose and went swiftly back toward the hotel.  All the gayety was gone
+out of the evening for her, but she forced a lightness she did not feel:--
+
+"It is so dark and depressing out there--it makes me sad."
+
+"Surely you do not want to dine in the house?"
+
+"Do you mind?"
+
+"Just as you wish.  This is your evening."
+
+But he was not pleased.  The prospect of the glaring lights and soiled
+linen of the dining-room jarred on his aesthetic sense. He wanted a setting
+for himself, for the girl.  Environment was vital to him.  But when, in the
+full light of the moon, he saw the purplish shadows under her eyes, he
+forgot his resentment. She had had a hard day.  She was tired.  His easy
+sympathies were roused.  He leaned over and ran his and caressingly along
+her bare forearm.
+
+"Your wish is my law--to-night," he said softly.
+
+After all, the evening was a disappointment to him.  The spontaneity had
+gone out of it, for some reason.  The girl who had thrilled to his glance
+those two mornings in his office, whose somber eyes had met his fire for
+fire, across the operating-room, was not playing up.  She sat back in her
+chair, eating little, starting at every step.  Her eyes, which by every
+rule of the game should have been gazing into his, were fixed on the
+oilcloth-covered passage outside the door.
+
+"I think, after all, you are frightened!"
+
+"Terribly."
+
+"A little danger adds to the zest of things.  You know what Nietzsche says
+about that."
+
+"I am not fond of Nietzsche."  Then, with an effort: "What does he say?"
+
+"Two things are wanted by the true man--danger and play. Therefore he
+seeketh woman as the most dangerous of toys."
+
+"Women are dangerous only when you think of them as toys.  When a man finds
+that a woman can reason,--do anything but feel,--he regards her as a
+menace.  But the reasoning woman is really less dangerous than the other
+sort."
+
+This was more like the real thing.  To talk careful abstractions like this,
+with beneath each abstraction its concealed personal application, to talk
+of woman and look in her eyes, to discuss new philosophies with their
+freedoms, to discard old creeds and old moralities--that was his game.
+Wilson became content, interested again.  The girl was nimble-minded.  She
+challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to defend it.  With the
+conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and his companion must
+surely have gone, she gained ease.
+
+It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten
+o'clock.
+
+Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself.  He had had the
+rest he needed in congenial company.  The girl stimulated his interest.
+She was mental, but not too mental.  And he approved of his own attitude.
+He had been discreet.  Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But
+he felt confident that she would not talk.
+
+As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney was
+there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and looked up
+at her.  Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness.  Sidney was a mighty
+pretty girl.  The June night was in his blood.  He was sorry he had not
+kissed Carlotta good-night.  He rather thought, now he looked back, she had
+expected it.
+
+As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing in
+the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.
+
+Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.
+
+"That you, Joe?" he called.
+
+But the boy went on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine was
+to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K. in the
+house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.
+
+The balcony outside the parlor was already under way.  On the night before
+she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her mother until
+the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her "Daily Thoughts"
+reading.
+
+Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant angle.
+She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its
+morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the Wilson
+house across the Street.  She looked mostly at the Wilson house.
+
+K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room.  She could hear him tramping up and
+down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier pipe.
+
+All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up--except Joe.  She
+would have liked to get that clear, too.  She wanted him to know how she
+felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did not
+want to hurt him.  But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew now
+that she would never marry him.  She thought she would never marry; but, if
+she did, it would be a man doing a man's work in the world.  Her eyes
+turned wistfully to the house across the Street.
+
+K.'s lamp still burned overhead, but his restless tramping about had
+ceased.  He must be reading--he read a great deal.  She really ought to go
+to bed.  A neighborhood cat came stealthily across the Street, and stared
+up at the little balcony with green-glowing eyes.
+
+"Come on, Bill Taft," she said.  "Reginald is gone, so you are welcome.
+Come on."
+
+Joe Drummond, passing the house for the fourth time that evening, heard her
+voice, and hesitated uncertainly on the pavement.
+
+"That you, Sid?" he called softly.
+
+"Joe!  Come in."
+
+"It's late; I'd better get home."
+
+The misery in his voice hurt her.
+
+"I'll not keep you long.  I want to talk to you."
+
+He came slowly toward her.
+
+"Well?" he said hoarsely.
+
+"You're not very kind to me, Joe."
+
+"My God!" said poor Joe.  "Kind to you!  Isn't the kindest thing I can do
+to keep out of your way?"
+
+"Not if you are hating me all the time."
+
+"I don't hate you."
+
+"Then why haven't you been to see me?  If I have done anything--" Her voice
+was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
+
+"You haven't done anything but--show me where I get off."
+
+He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
+
+"If that's the way you feel about it--"
+
+"I'm not blaming you.  I was a fool to think you'd ever care about me.  I
+don't know that I feel so bad--about the thing. I've been around seeing
+some other girls, and I notice they're glad to see me, and treat me right,
+too."  There was boyish bravado in his voice.  "But what makes me sick is
+to have everyone saying you've jilted me."
+
+"Good gracious!  Why, Joe, I never promised."
+
+"Well, we look at it in different ways; that's all.  I took it for a
+promise."
+
+Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled.  He bent
+forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
+
+"I'm crazy about you, Sidney.  That's the truth.  I wish I could die!"
+
+The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and rubbed
+against the boy's quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked the
+morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney, facing for
+the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather frightened, in
+her chair.
+
+"You don't mean that!"
+
+"I mean it, all right.  If it wasn't for the folks, I'd jump in the river.
+I lied when I said I'd been to see other girls.  What do I want with other
+girls?  I want you!"
+
+"I'm not worth all that."
+
+"No girl's worth what I've been going through," he retorted bitterly.  "But
+that doesn't help any. I don't eat; I don't sleep--I'm afraid sometimes of
+the way I feel.  When I saw you at the White Springs with that roomer
+chap--"
+
+"Ah!  You were there!"
+
+"If I'd had a gun I'd have killed him.  I thought--"  So far, out of sheer
+pity, she had left her hand in his.  Now she drew it away.
+
+"This is wild, silly talk.  You'll be sorry to-morrow."
+
+"It's the truth," doggedly.
+
+But he made a clutch at his self-respect.  He was acting like a crazy boy,
+and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
+
+"When are you going to the hospital?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Is that Wilson's hospital?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Alas for his resolve!  The red haze of jealousy came again. "You'll be
+seeing him every day, I suppose."
+
+"I dare say.  I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and a
+hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors.  Joe, you're not
+rational."
+
+"No," he said heavily, "I'm not.  If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd
+rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk about
+Wilson."
+
+"It isn't necessary to malign my friends." He rose.
+
+"I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep
+Reginald.  He'd be something to remember you by."
+
+"One would think I was about to die!  I set Reginald free that day in the
+country.  I'm sorry, Joe.  You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?"
+
+"If I do, do you think you may change your mind?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the better."
+But his next words belied his intention.  "And Wilson had better lookout.
+I'll be watching.  If I see him playing any of his tricks around you--well,
+he'd better look out!"
+
+That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell.  He had reached the
+breaking-point.  He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out
+to the Street.  Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact
+that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
+
+Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled.  If this was love, she did not want
+it--this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride
+and threats.  Lovers in fiction were of two classes--the accepted ones, who
+loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in
+despair, but at least took themselves away.  The thought of a future with
+Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her.  She felt
+aggrieved, insulted.  She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously;
+and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its
+sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and set
+an imaginary dog after it.  Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she went in
+and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.
+
+Le Moyne's light was still going.  The rest of the household slept.  She
+paused outside the door.
+
+"Are you sleepy?"--very softly.
+
+There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down.  Then: "No,
+indeed."
+
+"I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow."
+
+"Just a minute."
+
+From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray coat.
+The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
+
+"I believe you had forgotten!"
+
+"I?  Certainly not.  I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a
+visitor."
+
+"Only Joe Drummond."
+
+He gazed down at her quizzically.
+
+"And--is Joe more reasonable?"
+
+"He will be.  He knows now that I--that I shall not marry him."
+
+"Poor chap!  He'll buck up, of course.  But it's a little hard just now."
+
+"I believe you think I should have married him."
+
+"I am only putting myself in his place and realizing--When do you leave?"
+
+"Just after breakfast."
+
+"I am going very early.  Perhaps--"
+
+He hesitated.  Then, hurriedly:--
+
+"I got a little present for you--nothing much, but your mother was quite
+willing.  In fact, we bought it together."
+
+He went back into his room, and returned with a small box.
+
+"With all sorts of good luck," he said, and placed it in her hands.
+
+"How dear of you!  And may I look now?"
+
+"I wish you would.  Because, if you would rather have something else--"
+
+She opened the box with excited fingers.  Ticking away on its satin bed was
+a small gold watch.
+
+"You'll need it, you see," he explained nervously, "It wasn't extravagant
+under the circumstances.  Your mother's watch, which you had intended to
+take, had no second-hand.  You'll need a second-hand to take pulses, you
+know."
+
+"A watch," said Sidney, eyes on it.  "A dear little watch, to pin on and
+not put in a pocket.  Why, you're the best person!"
+
+"I was afraid you might think it presumptuous," he said.  "I haven't any
+right, of course.  I thought of flowers--but they fade and what have you?
+You said that, you know, about Joe's roses.  And then, your mother said you
+wouldn't be offended--"
+
+"Don't apologize for making me so happy!" she cried.  "It's wonderful,
+really.  And the little hand is for pulses!  How many queer things you
+know!"
+
+After that she must pin it on, and slip in to stand before his mirror and
+inspect the result.  It gave Le Moyne a queer thrill to see her there in
+the room among his books and his pipes.  It make him a little sick, too, in
+view of to-morrow and the thousand-odd to-morrows when she would not be
+there.
+
+"I've kept you up shamefully,'" she said at last, "and you get up so early.
+I shall write you a note from the hospital, delivering a little lecture on
+extravagance--because how can I now, with this joy shining on me?  And
+about how to keep Katie in order about your socks, and all sorts of things.
+And--and now, good-night."
+
+She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping a little to pass
+under the low chandelier.
+
+"Good-night," said Sidney.
+
+"Good-bye--and God bless you."
+
+She went out, and he closed the door softly behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they
+were chaotic enough at first.  There were uniformed young women coming and
+going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets with
+orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets
+and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds.  There were
+brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with
+friendly, patronizing glances.  There were bandages and dressings, and
+great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths or
+deaths, as the case might be.  And over all brooded the mysterious authority
+of the superintendent of the training-school, dubbed the Head, for short.
+
+Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the off-duty intermission,
+Sidney labored at tasks which revolted her soul. She swept and dusted the
+wards, cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled bandages--did
+everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had come to do.
+
+At night she did not go home.  She sat on the edge of her narrow white bed
+and soaked her aching feet in hot water and witch hazel, and practiced
+taking pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.'s little watch.
+
+Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out clearly, to be waited
+for and cherished.  One was when, early in the afternoon, with the ward in
+spotless order, the shades drawn against the August sun, the tables covered
+with their red covers, and the only sound the drone of the bandage-machine
+as Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the door on his way to the
+surgical ward beyond, and gave her a cheery greeting.  At these times
+Sidney's heart beat almost in time with the ticking of the little watch.
+
+The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night
+nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys, having
+reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in their small
+parlor for prayers.  It was months before Sidney got over the exaltation of
+that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her healing and peace.
+In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work meant: charity and
+its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace.  Into the little parlor
+filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired hands.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd," read the Head out of her worn Bible; "I shall
+not want."
+
+And the nurses: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me
+beside the still waters."
+
+And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, "And I will dwell
+in the house of the Lord forever."  Now and then there was a death behind
+one of the white screens.  It caused little change in the routine of the
+ward.  A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by the
+others.  When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on the
+record, and the body was taken away.
+
+At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to
+death.  She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly.  Then she
+found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned.  These
+things must be, and the work must go on.  Their philosophy made them no
+less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the angels who
+keep the Great Record.
+
+On her first Sunday half-holiday she was free in the morning, and went to
+church with her mother, going back to the hospital after the service.  So
+it was two weeks before she saw Le Moyne again. Even then, it was only for
+a short time.  Christine and Palmer Howe came in to see her, and to inspect
+the balcony, now finished.
+
+But Sidney and Le Moyne had a few words together first.
+
+There was a change in Sidney.  Le Moyne was quick to see it.  She was a
+trifle subdued, with a puzzled look in her blue eyes.  Her mouth was
+tender, as always, but he thought it drooped.  There was a new atmosphere
+of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.
+
+They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk
+shade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been a gift
+from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister, so that
+only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above the reverend
+gentleman.
+
+K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the pipe
+in his teeth.
+
+"And how have things been going?" asked Sidney practically.
+
+"Your steward has little to report.  Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,
+has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have picked
+out a stunning design for the wedding dress.  I thought I'd ask you about
+the veil.  We're rather in a quandary.  Do you like this new fashion of
+draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--"
+
+Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.
+
+"There," she said--"I knew it!  This house is fatal!  They're making an old
+woman of you already."  Her tone was tragic.
+
+"Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the
+old way, with the bride's face covered."
+
+He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.
+
+"Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread.  It has more bread and
+fewer air-holes.  One cake of yeast--"
+
+Sidney sprang to her feet.
+
+"It's perfectly terrible!" she cried.  "Because you rent a room in this
+house is no reason why you should give up your personality and
+your--intelligence.  Not but that it's good for you.  But Katie has made
+bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and if Christine
+can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married.  Mother says
+you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the house before you go to
+bed.  I--I never meant you to adopt the family!"
+
+K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.
+
+"Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch," he said.  "And the groceryman
+has been sending short weight.  We've bought scales now, and weigh
+everything."
+
+"You are evading the question."
+
+"Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--for
+some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I lock up
+the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a suggestion to
+your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward."
+
+Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face.  He seemed older than
+she had recalled him: the hair over his ears was almost white.  And yet, he
+was just thirty.  That was Palmer Howe's age, and Palmer seemed like a boy.
+But he held himself more erect than he had in the first days of his
+occupancy of the second-floor front.
+
+"And now," he said cheerfully, "what about yourself?  You've lost a lot of
+illusions, of course, but perhaps you've gained ideals. That's a step."
+
+"Life," observed Sidney, with the wisdom of two weeks out in the world,
+"life is a terrible thing, K.  We think we've got it,  and--it's got us."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"When I think of how simple I used to think it all was!  One grew up and
+got married, and--and perhaps had children.  And when one got very old, one
+died.  Lately, I've been seeing that life really consists of
+exceptions--children who don't grow up, and grown-ups who die before they
+are old.  And"--this took an effort, but she looked at him squarely--"and
+people who have children, but are not married.  It all rather hurts."
+
+"All knowledge that is worth while hurts in the getting."
+
+Sidney got up and wandered around the room, touching its little familiar
+objects with tender hands.  K. watched her.  There was this curious element
+in his love for her, that when he was with her it took on the guise of
+friendship and deceived even himself. It was only in the lonely hours that
+it took on truth, became a hopeless yearning for the touch of her hand or a
+glance from her clear eyes.
+
+Sidney, having picked up the minister's picture, replaced it absently, so
+that Eve stood revealed in all her pre-apple innocence.
+
+"There is something else," she said absently.  "I cannot talk it over with
+mother.  There is a girl in the ward--"
+
+"A patient?"
+
+"Yes.  She is quite pretty.  She has had typhoid, but she is a little
+better.  She's--not a good person."
+
+"I see."
+
+"At first I couldn't bear to go near her.  I shivered when I had to
+straighten her bed.  I--I'm being very frank, but I've got to talk this out
+with someone.  I worried a lot about it, because, although at first I hated
+her, now I don't.  I rather like her."
+
+She looked at K. defiantly, but there was no disapproval in his eyes.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, this is the question.  She's getting better.  She'll be able to go
+out soon.  Don't you think something ought to be done to keep her
+from--going back?"
+
+There was a shadow in K.'s eyes now.  She was so young to face all this;
+and yet, since face it she must, how much better to have her do it
+squarely.
+
+"Does she want to change her mode of life?"
+
+"I don't know, of course.  There are some things one doesn't discuss.  She
+cares a great deal for some man.  The other day I propped her up in bed and
+gave her a newspaper, and after a while I found the paper on the floor, and
+she was crying.  The other patients avoid her, and it was some time before
+I noticed it. The next day she told me that the man was going to marry some
+one else.  'He wouldn't marry me, of course,' she said; 'but he might have
+told me.'"
+
+Le Moyne did his best, that afternoon in the little parlor, to provide
+Sidney with a philosophy to carry her through her training.  He told her
+that certain responsibilities were hers, but that she could not reform the
+world.  Broad charity, tenderness, and healing were her province.
+
+"Help them all you can," he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly
+didactic.  "Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest to
+the Almighty."
+
+Sidney was resigned, but not content.  Newly facing the evil of the world,
+she was a rampant reformer at once.  Only the arrival of Christine and her
+fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout.  He had time for a question
+between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress from the
+kitchen to the front door.
+
+"How about the surgeon, young Wilson?  Do you ever see him?"  His tone was
+carefully casual.
+
+"Almost every day.  He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me.  It
+makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the
+staff never even see the probationers."
+
+"And--the glamour persists?" He smiled down at her.
+
+"I think he is very wonderful," said Sidney valiantly.
+
+Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room.  Her
+voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide and
+showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her
+all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor.  K., who had
+met her before, retired into silence and a corner.  Young Howe smoked a
+cigarette in the hall.
+
+"You poor thing!" said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's.
+"Why, you're positively thin!  Palmer gives you a month to tire of it all;
+but I said--"
+
+"I take that back," Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. "There is
+the look of willing martyrdom in her face.  Where is Reginald?  I've
+brought some nuts for him."
+
+"Reginald is back in the woods again."
+
+"Now, look here," he said solemnly.  "When we arranged about these rooms,
+there were certain properties that went with them--the lady next door who
+plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and Reginald.  If
+you must take something to the woods, why not the minuet person?"
+
+Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively well
+dressed.  This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, with an
+English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture.  The Street
+said that he was "wild," and that to get into the Country Club set
+Christine was losing more than she was gaining.
+
+Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. just
+inside.
+
+"It's rather a queer way to live, of course," she said.  "But Palmer is a
+pauper, practically.  We are going to take our meals at home for a while.
+You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house--a
+car, for instance.  We'll need one for running out to the Country Club to
+dinner.  Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, it
+will be a cheap one.  And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it. He's
+crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing."
+
+K. had never known a married couple to take two rooms and go to the bride's
+mother's for meals in order to keep a car.  He looked faintly dazed.  Also,
+certain sophistries of his former world about a cheap chauffeur being
+costly in the end rose in his mind and were carefully suppressed.
+
+"You'll find a car a great comfort, I'm sure," he said politely.
+
+Christine considered K. rather distinguished.  She liked his graying hair
+and steady eyes, and insisted on considering his shabbiness a pose. She was
+conscious that she made a pretty picture in the French window, and preened
+herself like a bright bird.
+
+"You'll come out with us now and then, I hope."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Isn't it odd to think that we are going to be practically one family!"
+
+"Odd, but very pleasant."
+
+He caught the flash of Christine's smile, and smiled back. Christine was
+glad she had decided to take the rooms, glad that K. lived there.  This
+thing of marriage being the end of all things was absurd.  A married woman
+should have men friends; they kept her up.  She would take him to the
+Country Club.  The women would be mad to know him.  How clean-cut his
+profile was!
+
+Across the Street, the Rosenfeld boy had stopped by Dr. Wilson's car, and
+was eyeing it with the cool, appraising glance of the street boy whose sole
+knowledge of machinery has been acquired from the clothes-washer at home.
+Joe Drummond, eyes carefully ahead, went up the Street.  Tillie, at Mrs.
+McKee's, stood in the doorway and fanned herself with her apron.  Max
+Wilson came out of the house and got into his car.  For a minute, perhaps,
+all the actors, save Carlotta and Dr. Ed, were on the stage.  It was that
+bete noir of the playwright, an ensemble; K. Le Moyne and Sidney, Palmer
+Howe, Christine, Tillie, the younger Wilson, Joe, even young Rosenfeld, all
+within speaking distance, almost touching distance, gathered within and
+about the little house on a side street which K. at first grimly and now
+tenderly called "home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over, a
+small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee, made
+his way along the Street.  He moved with the air of one having a definite
+destination but a by no means definite reception.
+
+As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus and
+maple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street.  At the
+door of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped.  Owing to a slight change
+in the grade of the street, the McKee house had no stoop, but one flat
+doorstep.  Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement, and
+this the stranger did.  It gave him a curious appearance of being ready to
+cut and run if things were unfavorable.
+
+For a moment things were indeed unfavorable.  Mrs. McKee herself opened the
+door.  She recognized him at once, but no smile met the nervous one that
+formed itself on the stranger's face.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it?"
+
+"It's me, Mrs. McKee."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He made a conciliatory effort.
+
+"I was thinking, as I came along," he said, "that you and the neighbors had
+better get after these here caterpillars.  Look at them maples, now."
+
+"If you want to see Tillie, she's busy."
+
+"I only want to say how-d 'ye-do.  I'm just on my way through town."
+
+"I'll say it for you."
+
+A certain doggedness took the place of his tentative smile.
+
+"I'll say it to myself, I guess.  I don't want any unpleasantness, but I've
+come a good ways to see her and I'll hang around until I do."
+
+Mrs. McKee knew herself routed, and retreated to the kitchen.
+
+"You're wanted out front," she said.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Never mind.  Only, my advice to you is, don't be a fool."
+
+Tillie went suddenly pale.  The hands with which she tied a white apron
+over her gingham one were shaking.
+
+Her visitor had accepted the open door as permission to enter and was
+standing in the hall.
+
+He went rather white himself when he saw Tillie coming toward him down the
+hall.  He knew that for Tillie this visit would mean that he was free--and
+he was not free.  Sheer terror of his errand filled him.
+
+"Well, here I am, Tillie."
+
+"All dressed up and highly perfumed!" said poor Tillie, with the question
+in her eyes.  "You're quite a stranger, Mr. Schwitter."
+
+"I was passing through, and I just thought I'd call around and tell you--My
+God, Tillie, I'm glad to see you!"
+
+She made no reply, but opened the door into the cool and, shaded little
+parlor.  He followed her in and closed the door behind him.
+
+"I couldn't help it.  I know I promised."
+
+"Then she--?"
+
+"She's still living.  Playing with paper dolls--that's the latest."
+
+Tillie sat down suddenly on one of the stiff chairs.  Her lips were as
+white as her face.
+
+"I thought, when I saw you--"
+
+"I was afraid you'd think that."
+
+Neither spoke for a moment.  Tillie's hands twisted nervously in her lap.
+Mr. Schwitter's eyes were fixed on the window, which looked back on the
+McKee yard.
+
+"That spiraea back there's not looking very good.  If you'll save the cigar
+butts around here and put them in water, and spray it, you'll kill the
+lice."
+
+Tillie found speech at last.
+
+"I don't know why you come around bothering me," she said dully. "I've been
+getting along all right; now you come and upset everything."
+
+Mr. Schwitter rose and took a step toward her.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you why I came.  Look at me.  I ain't getting any younger,
+am I?  Time's going on, and I'm wanting you all the time.  And what am I
+getting?  What've I got out of life, anyhow? I'm lonely, Tillie!"
+
+"What's that got to do with me?"
+
+"You're lonely, too, ain't you?"
+
+"Me?  I haven't got time to be.  And, anyhow, there's always a crowd here."
+
+"You can be lonely in a crowd, and I guess--is there any one around here
+you like better than me?"
+
+"Oh, what's the use!" cried poor Tillie.  "We can talk our heads off and
+not get anywhere.  You've got a wife living, and, unless you intend to do
+away with her, I guess that's all there is to it."
+
+"Is that all, Tillie?  Haven't you got a right to be happy?"
+
+She was quick of wit, and she read his tone as well as his words.
+
+"You get out of here--and get out quick!"
+
+She had jumped to her feet; but he only looked at her with understanding
+eyes.
+
+"I know," he said.  "That's the way I thought of it at first. Maybe I've
+just got used to the idea, but it doesn't seem so bad to me now.  Here are
+you, drudging for other people when you ought to have a place all your
+own--and not gettin' younger any more than I am.  Here's both of us lonely.
+I'd be a good husband to you, Till--because, whatever it'd be in law, I'd
+be your husband before God."
+
+Tillie cowered against the door, her eyes on his.  Here before her,
+embodied in this man, stood all that she had wanted and never had.  He
+meant a home, tenderness, children, perhaps.  He turned away from the look
+in her eyes and stared out of the front window.
+
+"Them poplars out there ought to be taken away," he said heavily. "They're
+hell on sewers."
+
+Tillie found her voice at last:--
+
+"I couldn't do it, Mr. Schwitter.  I guess I'm a coward.  Maybe I'll be
+sorry."
+
+"Perhaps, if you got used to the idea--"
+
+"What's that to do with the right and wrong of it?"
+
+"Maybe I'm queer.  It don't seem like wrongdoing to me.  It seems to me
+that the Lord would make an exception of us if He knew the circumstances.
+Perhaps, after you get used to the idea--What I thought was like this.
+I've got a little farm about seven miles from the city limits, and the
+tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebody motors out from town
+and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper.  There ain't much in the nursery
+business anymore.  These landscape fellows buy their stuff direct, and the
+middleman's out.  I've got a good orchard, and there's a spring, so I could
+put running water in the house.  I'd be good to you, Tillie,--I swear it.
+It'd be just the same as marriage.  Nobody need know it."
+
+"You'd know it.  You wouldn't respect me."
+
+"Don't a man respect a woman that's got courage enough to give up
+everything for him?"
+
+Tillie was crying softly into her apron.  He put a work-hardened hand on
+her head.
+
+"It isn't as if I'd run around after women," he said.  "You're the only
+one, since Maggie--"  He drew a long breath.  "I'll give you time to think
+it over.  Suppose I stop in to-morrow morning. It doesn't commit you to
+anything to talk it over."
+
+There had been no passion in the interview, and there was none in the touch
+of his hand.  He was not young, and the tragic loneliness of approaching
+old age confronted him.  He was trying to solve his problem and Tillie's,
+and what he had found was no solution, but a compromise.
+
+"To-morrow morning, then," he said quietly, and went out the door.
+
+All that hot August morning Tillie worked in a daze.  Mrs. McKee watched
+her and said nothing.  She interpreted the girl's white face and set lips
+as the result of having had to dismiss Schwitter again, and looked for time
+to bring peace, as it had done before.
+
+Le Moyne came late to his midday meal.  For once, the mental anaesthesia
+of endless figures had failed him.  On his way home he had drawn his small
+savings from the bank, and mailed them, in cash and registered, to a back
+street in the slums of a distant city.  He had done this before, and always
+with a feeling of exaltation, as if, for a time at least, the burden he
+carried was lightened.  But to-day he experienced no compensatory relief.
+Life was dull and stale to him, effort ineffectual.  At thirty a man should
+look back with tenderness, forward with hope.  K. Le Moyne dared not look
+back, and had no desire to look ahead into empty years.
+
+Although he ate little, the dining-room was empty when he finished.
+Usually he had some cheerful banter for Tillie, to which she responded in
+kind.  But, what with the heat and with heaviness of spirit, he did not
+notice her depression until he rose.
+
+"Why, you're not sick, are you, Tillie?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no.  Low in my mind, I guess."
+
+"It's the heat.  It's fearful.  Look here.  If I send you two tickets to a
+roof garden where there's a variety show, can't you take a friend and go
+to-night?"
+
+"Thanks; I guess I'll not go out."
+
+Then, unexpectedly, she bent her head against a chair-back and fell to
+silent crying.  K. let her cry for a moment.  Then:--
+
+"Now--tell me about it."
+
+"I'm just worried; that's all."
+
+"Let's see if we can't fix up the worries.  Come, now, out with them!"
+
+"I'm a wicked woman, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Then I'm the person to tell it to.  I--I'm pretty much a lost soul
+myself."
+
+He put an arm over her shoulders and drew her up, facing him.
+
+"Suppose we go into the parlor and talk it out.  I'll bet things are not as
+bad as you imagine."
+
+But when, in the parlor that had seen Mr. Schwitter's strange proposal of
+the morning, Tillie poured out her story, K.'s face grew grave.
+
+"The wicked part is that I want to go with him," she finished. "I keep
+thinking about being out in the country, and him coming into supper, and
+everything nice for him and me cleaned up and waiting--O my God! I've
+always been a good woman until now."
+
+"I--I understand a great deal better than you think I do. You're not
+wicked.  The only thing is--"
+
+"Go on.  Hit me with it."
+
+"You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, it won't
+do her any harm.  It's only--if there are children."
+
+"I know.  I've thought of that.  But I'm so crazy for children!"
+
+"Exactly.  So you should be.  But when they come, and you cannot give them
+a name--don't you see?  I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that I--But
+no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong.  It's been tried before,
+Tillie, and it doesn't pan out."
+
+He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last.  She had
+acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised to talk to
+him again before making a decision one way or the other.  But against his
+abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in Tillie the
+hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were fighting against
+the strongest instinct of the race.  It was a losing battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The hot August days dragged on.  Merciless sunlight beat in through the
+slatted shutters of ward windows.  At night, from the roof to which the
+nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding roofs
+were seen to be covered with sleepers.  Children dozed precariously on the
+edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque postures of
+sleep.
+
+There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air.  Even the nurses,
+stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not at all.  Miss
+Dana, in Sidney's ward, went down with a low fever, and for a day or so
+Sidney and Miss Grange got along as best they could.  Sidney worked like
+two or more, performed marvels of bed-making, learned to give alcohol baths
+for fever with the maximum of result and the minimum of time, even made
+rounds with a member of the staff and came through creditably.
+
+Dr. Ed Wilson had sent a woman patient into the ward, and his visits were
+the breath of life to the girl.
+
+"How're they treating you?" he asked her, one day, abruptly.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Look at me squarely.  You're pretty and you're young.  Some of them will
+try to take it out of you.  That's human nature.  Has anyone tried it yet?"
+
+Sidney looked distressed.
+
+"Positively, no.  It's been hot, and of course it's troublesome to tell me
+everything.  I--I think they're all very kind."
+
+He reached out a square, competent hand, and put it over hers.
+
+"We miss you in the Street," he said.  "It's all sort of dead there since
+you left.  Joe Drummond doesn't moon up and down any more, for one thing.
+What was wrong between you and Joe, Sidney?"
+
+"I didn't want to marry him; that's all."
+
+"That's considerable.  The boy's taking it hard."
+
+Then, seeing her face:--
+
+"But you're right, of course.  Don't marry anyone unless you can't live
+without him.  That's been my motto, and here I am, still single."
+
+He went out and down the corridor.  He had known Sidney all his life.
+During the lonely times when Max was at college and in Europe, he had
+watched her grow from a child to a young girl.  He did not suspect for a
+moment that in that secret heart of hers he sat newly enthroned, in a glow
+of white light, as Max's brother; that the mere thought that he lived in
+Max's house (it was, of course Max's house to her), sat at Max's breakfast
+table, could see him whenever he wished, made the touch of his hand on hers
+a benediction and a caress.
+
+Sidney finished folding linen and went back to the ward.  It was Friday and
+a visiting day.  Almost every bed had its visitor beside it; but Sidney,
+running an eye over the ward, found the girl of whom she had spoken to Le
+Moyne quite alone.  She was propped up in bed, reading; but at each new
+step in the corridor hope would spring into her eyes and die again.
+
+"Want anything, Grace?"
+
+"Me?  I'm all right.  If these people would only get out and let me read in
+peace--Say, sit down and talk to me, won't you?  It beats the mischief the
+way your friends forget you when you're laid up in a place like this."
+
+"People can't always come at visiting hours.  Besides, it's hot."
+
+"A girl I knew was sick here last year, and it wasn't too hot for me to
+trot in twice a week with a bunch of flowers for her.  Do you think she's
+been here once?  She hasn't."
+
+Then, suddenly:--
+
+"You know that man I told you about the other day?"
+
+Sidney nodded.  The girl's anxious eyes were on her.
+
+"It was a shock to me, that's all.  I didn't want you to think I'd break my
+heart over any fellow.  All I meant was, I wished he'd let me know."
+
+Her eyes searched Sidney's.  They looked unnaturally large and somber in
+her face.  Her hair had been cut short, and her nightgown, open at the
+neck, showed her thin throat and prominent clavicles.
+
+"You're from the city, aren't you, Miss Page?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You told me the street, but I've forgotten it."
+
+Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under
+the girl's head.
+
+"The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your street."
+
+"Really!  Oh, I think I know.  A friend of mine is going to be married.
+Was the name Lorenz?"
+
+"The girl's name was Lorenz.  I--I don't remember the man's name."
+
+"She is going to marry a Mr. Howe," said Sidney briskly.  "Now, how do you
+feel?  More comfy?"
+
+"Fine!  I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?"
+
+"If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go."
+
+Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her
+reports.  On one record, which said at the top, "Grace Irving, age 19," and
+an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night nurse
+wrote:--
+
+"Did not sleep at all during night.  Face set and eyes staring, but
+complains of no pain.  Refused milk at eleven and three."
+
+Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next
+morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney a
+curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the
+thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president.  Sidney, who
+had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself by
+change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
+
+Once she ventured a protest:--
+
+"I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison.  If my method is wrong,
+show me what you want, and I'll do my best."
+
+"I am not responsible for what you have been taught.  And you will not
+speak back when you are spoken to."
+
+Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position in the
+ward.  She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none.  Small humiliations
+were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and often unnecessary
+tasks.  Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place, remonstrated with
+her senior.
+
+"I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer," she said,
+"but you are brutal, Miss Harrison."
+
+"She's stupid."
+
+"She's not at all stupid.  She's going to be one of the best nurses in the
+house."
+
+"Report me, then.  Tell the Head I'm abusing Dr. Wilson's pet probationer,
+that I don't always say 'please' when I ask her to change a bed or take a
+temperature."
+
+Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness.  She died not go to the Head,
+which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread
+through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous of
+the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson's protegee. Things were still highly
+unpleasant in the ward, but they grew much better when Sidney was off duty.
+She was asked to join a small class that was studying French at night.  As
+ignorant of the cause of her popularity as of the reason of her
+persecution, she went steadily on her way.
+
+And she was gaining every day.  Her mind was forming.  She was learning to
+think for herself.  For the first time, she was facing problems and
+demanding an answer.  Why must there be Grace Irvings in the world?  Why
+must the healthy babies of the obstetric ward go out to the slums and come
+back, in months or years, crippled for the great fight by the handicap of
+their environment, rickety, tuberculous, twisted?  Why need the huge mills
+feed the hospitals daily with injured men?
+
+And there were other things that she thought of.  Every night, on her knees
+in the nurses' parlor at prayers, she promised, if she were accepted as a
+nurse, to try never to become calloused, never to regard her patients as
+"cases," never to allow the cleanliness and routine of her ward to delay a
+cup of water to the thirsty, or her arms to a sick child.
+
+On the whole, the world was good, she found.  And, of all the good things
+in it, the best was service.  True, there were hot days and restless
+nights, weary feet, and now and then a heartache.  There was Miss Harrison,
+too.  But to offset these there was the sound of Dr. Max's step in the
+corridor, and his smiling nod from the door; there was a "God bless you"
+now and then for the comfort she gave; there were wonderful nights on the
+roof under the stars, until K.'s little watch warned her to bed.
+
+While Sidney watched the stars from her hospital roof, while all around her
+the slum children, on other roofs, fought for the very breath of life,
+others who knew and loved her watched the stars, too.  K. was having his
+own troubles in those days.  Late at night, when Anna and Harriet had
+retired, he sat on the balcony and thought of many things.  Anna Page was
+not well.  He had noticed that her lips were rather blue, and had called in
+Dr. Ed. It was valvular heart disease.  Anna was not to be told, or Sidney.
+It was Harriet's ruling.
+
+"Sidney can't help any," said Harriet, "and for Heaven's sake let her have
+her chance.  Anna may live for years.  You know her as well as I do.  If
+you tell her anything at all, she'll have Sidney here, waiting on her hand
+and foot."
+
+And Le Moyne, fearful of urging too much because his own heart was crying
+out to have the girl back, assented.
+
+Then, K. was anxious about Joe.  The boy did not seem to get over the thing
+the way he should.  Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit of
+wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country.  On one such
+night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with his head down.
+
+Joe had not wanted his company, had plainly sulked.  But Le Moyne had
+persisted.
+
+"I'll not talk," he said; "but, since we're going the same way, we might as
+well walk together."
+
+But after a time Joe had talked, after all.  It was not much at first--a
+feverish complaint about the heat, and that if there was trouble in Mexico
+he thought he'd go.
+
+"Wait until fall, if you're thinking of it," K. advised.  "This is tepid
+compared with what you'll get down there."
+
+"I've got to get away from here."
+
+K. nodded understandingly.  Since the scene at the White Springs Hotel,
+both knew that no explanation was necessary.
+
+"It isn't so much that I mind her turning me down," Joe said, after a
+silence.  "A girl can't marry all the men who want her.  But I don't like
+this hospital idea.  I don't understand it.  She didn't have to go.
+Sometimes"--he turned bloodshot eyes on Le Moyne--"I think she went because
+she was crazy about somebody there."
+
+"She went because she wanted to be useful."
+
+"She could be useful at home."
+
+For almost twenty minutes they tramped on without speech.  They had made a
+circle, and the lights of the city were close again. K. stopped and put a
+kindly hand on Joe's shoulder.
+
+"A man's got to stand up under a thing like this, you know.  I mean, it
+mustn't be a knockout.  Keeping busy is a darned good method."
+
+Joe shook himself free, but without resentment.  "I'll tell you what's
+eating me up," he exploded.  "It's Max Wilson.  Don't talk to me about her
+going to the hospital to be useful.  She's crazy about him, and he's as
+crooked as a dog's hind leg."
+
+"Perhaps.  But it's always up to the girl.  You know that."
+
+He felt immeasurably old beside Joe's boyish blustering--old and rather
+helpless.
+
+"I'm watching him.  Some of these days I'll get something on him. Then
+she'll know what to think of her hero!"
+
+"That's not quite square, is it?"
+
+"He's not square."
+
+Joe had left him then, wheeling abruptly off into the shadows. K. had gone
+home alone, rather uneasy.  There seemed to be mischief in the very air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Tillie was gone.
+
+Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet
+Kennedy.  On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored
+maid had announced a visitor.
+
+Harriet's business instinct had been good.  She had taken expensive rooms
+in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor store.
+Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on commission.
+
+Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of a
+new heaven and a new earth.  Here, at last, she found people speaking her
+own language.  She ventured a suggestion to a manufacturer, and found it
+greeted, not, after the manner of the Street, with scorn, but with approval
+and some surprise.
+
+"About once in ten years," said Mr. Arthurs, "we have a woman from out of
+town bring us a suggestion that is both novel and practical.  When we find
+people like that, we watch them.  They climb, madame,--climb."
+
+Harriet's climbing was not so rapid as to make her dizzy; but business was
+coming.  The first time she made a price of seventy-five dollars for an
+evening gown, she went out immediately after and took a drink of water.
+Her throat was parched.
+
+She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who can
+pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered good
+form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high they may
+be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales--no woman over thirty
+but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft lights.  And
+Harriet herself conformed to the picture.  She took a lesson from the New
+York modistes, and wore trailing black gowns.  She strapped her thin figure
+into the best corset she could get, and had her black hair marcelled and
+dressed high.  And, because she was a lady by birth and instinct, the
+result was not incongruous, but refined and rather impressive.
+
+She took her business home with her at night, lay awake scheming, and
+wakened at dawn to find fresh color combinations in the early sky.  She
+wakened early because she kept her head tied up in a towel, so that her
+hair need be done only three times a week. That and the corset were the
+penalties she paid.  Her high-heeled shoes were a torment, too; but in the
+work-room she kicked them off.
+
+To this new Harriet, then, came Tillie in her distress.  Tillie was rather
+overwhelmed at first.  The Street had always considered Harriet "proud."
+But Tillie's urgency was great, her methods direct.
+
+"Why, Tillie!" said Harriet.
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Will you sit down?"
+
+Tillie sat.  She was not daunted now.  While she worked at the fingers of
+her silk gloves, what Harriet took for nervousness was pure abstraction.
+
+"It's very nice of you to come to see me.  Do you like my rooms?"
+
+Tillie surveyed the rooms, and Harriet caught her first full view of her
+face.
+
+"Is there anything wrong?  Have you left Mrs. McKee?"
+
+"I think so.  I came to talk to you about it."
+
+It was Harriet's turn to be overwhelmed.
+
+"She's very fond of you.  If you have had any words--"
+
+"It's not that.  I'm just leaving.  I'd like to talk to you, if you don't
+mind."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Tillie hitched her chair closer.
+
+"I'm up against something, and I can't seem to make up my mind. Last night
+I said to myself, 'I've got to talk to some woman who's not married, like
+me, and not as young as she used to be. There's no use going to Mrs. McKee:
+she's a widow, and wouldn't understand.'"
+
+Harriet's voice was a trifle sharp as she replied.  She never lied about
+her age, but she preferred to forget it.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what you're getting at."
+
+"It ain't the sort of thing to come to too sudden.  But it's like this.
+You and I can pretend all we like, Miss Harriet; but we're not getting all
+out of life that the Lord meant us to have. You've got them wax figures
+instead of children, and I have mealers."
+
+A little spot of color came into Harriet's cheek.  But she was interested.
+Regardless of the corset, she bent forward.
+
+"Maybe that's true.  Go on."
+
+"I'm almost forty.  Ten years more at the most, and I'm through. I'm
+slowing up.  Can't get around the tables as I used to.  Why, yesterday I
+put sugar into Mr. Le Moyne's coffee--well, never mind about that.  Now
+I've got a chance to get a home, with a good man to look after me--I like
+him pretty well, and he thinks a lot of me."
+
+"Mercy sake, Tillie!  You are going to get married?"
+
+"No'm," said Tillie; "that's it."  And sat silent for a moment.
+
+The gray curtains with their pink cording swung gently in the open windows.
+From the work-room came the distant hum of a sewing-machine and the sound
+of voices.  Harriet sat with her hands in her lap and listened while Tillie
+poured out her story. The gates were down now.  She told it all,
+consistently and with unconscious pathos: her little room under the roof at
+Mrs. McKee's, and the house in the country; her loneliness, and the
+loneliness of the man; even the faint stirrings of potential motherhood,
+her empty arms, her advancing age--all this she knit into the fabric of her
+story and laid at Harriet's feet, as the ancients put their questions to
+their gods.
+
+Harriet was deeply moved.  Too much that Tillie poured out to her found an
+echo in her own breast.  What was this thing she was striving for but a
+substitute for the real things of life--love and tenderness, children, a
+home of her own?  Quite suddenly she loathed the gray carpet on the floor,
+the pink chairs, the shaded lamps.  Tillie was no longer the waitress at a
+cheap boarding-house.  She loomed large, potential, courageous, a woman who
+held life in her hands.
+
+"Why don't you go to Mrs. Rosenfeld?  She's your aunt, isn't she?"
+
+"She thinks any woman's a fool to take up with a man."
+
+"You're giving me a terrible responsibility, Tillie, if you're asking my
+advice."
+
+"No'm.  I'm asking what you'd do if it happened to you.  Suppose you had no
+people that cared anything about you, nobody to disgrace, and all your life
+nobody had really cared anything about you.  And then a chance like this
+came along.  What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know," said poor Harriet.  "It seems to me--I'm afraid I'd be
+tempted.  It does seem as if a woman had the right to be happy, even if--"
+
+Her own words frightened her.  It was as if some hidden self, and not she,
+had spoken.  She hastened to point out the other side of the matter, the
+insecurity of it, the disgrace.  Like K., she insisted that no right can be
+built out of a wrong.  Tillie sat and smoothed her gloves.  At last, when
+Harriet paused in sheer panic, the girl rose.
+
+"I know how you feel, and I don't want you to take the responsibility of
+advising me," she said quietly.  "I guess my mind was made up anyhow.  But
+before I did it I just wanted to be sure that a decent woman would think
+the way I do about it."
+
+And so, for a time, Tillie went out of the life of the Street as she went
+out of Harriet's handsome rooms, quietly, unobtrusively, with calm purpose
+in her eyes.
+
+There were other changes in the Street.  The Lorenz house was being painted
+for Christine's wedding.  Johnny Rosenfeld, not perhaps of the Street
+itself, but certainly pertaining to it, was learning to drive Palmer Howe's
+new car, in mingled agony and bliss.  He walked along the Street, not
+"right foot, left foot," but "brake foot, clutch foot," and took to calling
+off the vintage of passing cars. "So-and-So 1910," he would say, with
+contempt in his voice.  He spent more than he could afford on a large
+streamer, meant to be fastened across the rear of the automobile, which
+said, "Excuse our dust," and was inconsolable when Palmer refused to let
+him use it.
+
+K. had yielded to Anna's insistence, and was boarding as well as rooming at
+the Page house.  The Street, rather snobbish to its occasional floating
+population, was accepting and liking him.  It found him tender, infinitely
+human.  And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy into which he
+had drifted was teeming with life.  He busied himself with small things,
+and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair.  When he found
+himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball club, and sent down to
+everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of cash-boys from Linden and
+Hofburg's department store.
+
+The Rosenfelds adored him, with the single exception of the head of the
+family.  The elder Rosenfeld having been "sent up," it was K. who
+discovered that by having him consigned to the workhouse his family would
+receive from the county some sixty-five cents a day for his labor.  As this
+was exactly sixty-five cents a day more than he was worth to them free,
+Mrs. Rosenfeld voiced the pious hope that he be kept there forever.
+
+K. made no further attempt to avoid Max Wilson.  Some day they would meet
+face to face.  He hoped, when it happened, they two might be alone; that
+was all.  Even had he not been bound by his promise to Sidney, flight would
+have been foolish.  The world was a small place, and, one way and another,
+he had known many people.  Wherever he went, there would be the same
+chance.
+
+And he did not deceive himself.  Other things being equal,--the eddy and
+all that it meant--, he would not willingly take himself out of his small
+share of Sidney's life.
+
+She was never to know what she meant to him, of course.  He had scourged
+his heart until it no longer shone in his eyes when he looked at her.  But
+he was very human--not at all meek.  There were plenty of days when his
+philosophy lay in the dust and savage dogs of jealousy tore at it; more
+than one evening when he threw himself face downward on the bed and lay
+without moving for hours.  And of these periods of despair he was always
+heartily ashamed the next day.
+
+The meeting with Max Wilson took place early in September, and under better
+circumstances than he could have hoped for.
+
+Sidney had come home for her weekly visit, and her mother's condition had
+alarmed her for the first time.  When Le Moyne came home at six o'clock, he
+found her waiting for him in the hall.
+
+"I am just a little frightened, K.," she said.  "Do you think mother is
+looking quite well?"
+
+"She has felt the heat, of course.  The summer--I often think--"
+
+"Her lips are blue!"
+
+"It's probably nothing serious."
+
+"She says you've had Dr. Ed over to see her."
+
+She put her hands on his arm and looked up at him with appeal and something
+of terror in her face.
+
+Thus cornered, he had to acknowledge that Anna had been out of sorts.
+
+"I shall come home, of course.  It's tragic and absurd that I should be
+caring for other people, when my own mother--"
+
+She dropped her head on his arm, and he saw that she was crying.  If he
+made a gesture to draw her to him, she never knew it. After a moment she
+looked up.
+
+"I'm much braver than this in the hospital.  But when it's one's own!"
+
+K. was sorely tempted to tell her the truth and bring her back to the
+little house: to their old evenings together, to seeing the younger Wilson,
+not as the white god of the operating-room and the hospital, but as the
+dandy of the Street and the neighbor of her childhood--back even to Joe.
+
+But, with Anna's precarious health and Harriet's increasing engrossment in
+her business, he felt it more and more necessary that Sidney go on with her
+training.  A profession was a safeguard.  And there was another point: it
+had been decided that Anna was not to know her condition.  If she was not
+worried she might live for years.  There was no surer way to make her
+suspect it than by bringing Sidney home.
+
+Sidney sent Katie to ask Dr. Ed to come over after dinner.  With the sunset
+Anna seemed better.  She insisted on coming downstairs, and even sat with
+them on the balcony until the stars came out, talking of Christine's
+trousseau, and, rather fretfully, of what she would do without the parlors.
+
+"You shall have your own boudoir upstairs," said Sidney valiantly.  "Katie
+can carry your tray up there.  We are going to make the sewing-room into
+your private sitting-room, and I shall nail the machine-top down."
+
+This pleased her.  When K. insisted on carrying her upstairs, she went in a
+flutter.
+
+"He is so strong, Sidney!" she said, when he had placed her on her bed.
+"How can a clerk, bending over a ledger, be so muscular?  When I have
+callers, will it be all right for Katie to show them upstairs?"
+
+She dropped asleep before the doctor came; and when, at something after
+eight, the door of the Wilson house slammed and a figure crossed the
+street, it was not Ed at all, but the surgeon.
+
+Sidney had been talking rather more frankly than usual.  Lately there had
+been a reserve about her.  K., listening intently that night, read between
+words a story of small persecutions and jealousies.  But the girl minimized
+them, after her way.
+
+"It's always hard for probationers," she said.  "I often think Miss Harrison
+is trying my mettle."
+
+"Harrison!"
+
+"Carlotta Harrison.  And now that Miss Gregg has said she will accept me,
+it's really all over.  The other nurses are wonderful--so kind and so
+helpful.  I hope I shall look well in my cap."
+
+Carlotta Harrison was in Sidney's hospital!  A thousand contingencies
+flashed through his mind.  Sidney might grow to like her and bring her to
+the house.  Sidney might insist on the thing she always spoke of--that he
+visit the hospital; and he would meet her, face to face.  He could have
+depended on a man to keep his secret.  This girl with her somber eyes and
+her threat to pay him out for what had happened to her--she meant danger of
+a sort that no man could fight.
+
+"Soon," said Sidney, through the warm darkness, "I shall have a cap, and be
+always forgetting it and putting my hat on over it--the new ones always do.
+One of the girls slept in hers the other night!  They are tulle, you know,
+and quite stiff, and it was the most erratic-looking thing the next day!"
+
+It was then that the door across the street closed.  Sidney did not hear
+it, but K. bent forward.  There was a part of his brain always
+automatically on watch.
+
+"I shall get my operating-room training, too," she went on. "That is the
+real romance of the hospital.  A--a surgeon is a sort of hero in a
+hospital.  You wouldn't think that, would you? There was a lot of
+excitement to-day.  Even the probationers' table was talking about it.  Dr.
+Max Wilson did the Edwardes operation."
+
+The figure across the Street was lighting a cigarette.  Perhaps, after
+all--
+
+"Something tremendously difficult--I don't know what.  It's going into the
+medical journals.  A Dr. Edwardes invented it, or whatever they call it.
+They took a picture of the operating-room for the article.  The
+photographer had to put on operating clothes and wrap the camera in
+sterilized towels.  It was the most thrilling thing, they say--"
+
+Her voice died away as her eyes followed K.'s.  Max, cigarette in hand, was
+coming across, under the ailanthus tree.  He hesitated on the pavement, his
+eyes searching the shadowy balcony.
+
+"Sidney?"
+
+"Here!  Right back here!"
+
+There was vibrant gladness in her tone.  He came slowly toward them.
+
+"My brother is not at home, so I came over.  How select you are, with your
+balcony!"
+
+"Can you see the step?"
+
+"Coming, with bells on."
+
+K. had risen and pushed back his chair.  His mind was working quickly.
+Here in the darkness he could hold the situation for a moment.  If he could
+get Sidney into the house, the rest would not matter.  Luckily, the balcony
+was very dark.
+
+"Is any one ill?"
+
+"Mother is not well.  This is Mr. Le Moyne, and he knows who you are very
+well, indeed."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"I've heard a lot of Mr. Le Moyne.  Didn't the Street beat the Linburgs the
+other day?  And I believe the Rosenfelds are in receipt of sixty-five cents
+a day and considerable peace and quiet through you, Mr. Le Moyne.  You're
+the most popular man on the Street."
+
+"I've always heard that about YOU.  Sidney, if Dr. Wilson is here to see
+your mother--"
+
+"Going," said Sidney.  "And Dr. Wilson is a very great person, K., so be
+polite to him."
+
+Max had roused at the sound of Le Moyne's voice, not to suspicion, of
+course, but to memory.  Without any apparent reason, he was back in Berlin,
+tramping the country roads, and beside him--
+
+"Wonderful night!"
+
+"Great," he replied.  "The mind's a curious thing, isn't it.  In the
+instant since Miss Page went through that window I've been to Berlin and
+back!  Will you have a cigarette?"
+
+"Thanks; I have my pipe here."
+
+K. struck a match with his steady hands.  Now that the thing had come, he
+was glad to face it.  In the flare, his quiet profile glowed against the
+night.  Then he flung the match over the rail.
+
+"Perhaps my voice took you back to Berlin."
+
+Max stared; then he rose.  Blackness had descended on them again, except
+for the dull glow of K.'s old pipe.
+
+"For God's sake!"
+
+"Sh!  The neighbors next door have a bad habit of sitting just inside the
+curtains."
+
+"But--you!"
+
+"Sit down.  Sidney will be back in a moment.  I'll talk to you, if you'll
+sit still.  Can you hear me plainly?"
+
+After a moment--"Yes."
+
+"I've been here--in the city, I mean--for a year.  Name's Le Moyne.  Don't
+forget it--Le Moyne.  I've got a position in the gas office, clerical.  I
+get fifteen dollars a week.  I have reason to think I'm going to be moved
+up.  That will be twenty, maybe twenty-two."
+
+Wilson stirred, but he found no adequate words.  Only a part of what K.
+said got to him.  For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this man
+across from him--it was not believable!
+
+"It's not hard work, and it's safe.  If I make a mistake there's no life
+hanging on it.  Once I made a blunder, a month or two ago.  It was a big
+one.  It cost me three dollars out of my own pocket.  But--that's all it
+cost."
+
+Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was profoundly
+moved.
+
+"We thought you were dead.  There were all sorts of stories. When a year
+went by--the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were on
+it--we gave up.  I--in June we put up a tablet for you at the college.  I
+went down for the--for the services."
+
+"Let it stay," said K. quietly.  "I'm dead as far as the college goes,
+anyhow.  I'll never go back.  I'm Le Moyne now.  And, for Heaven's sake,
+don't be sorry for me.  I'm more contented than I've been for a long time."
+
+The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation.
+
+"But--when you had everything! Why, good Heavens, man, I did your operation
+to-day, and I've been blowing about it ever since."
+
+"I had everything for a while.  Then I lost the essential.  When that
+happened I gave up.  All a man in our profession has is a certain method,
+knowledge--call it what you like,--and faith in himself.  I lost my
+self-confidence; that's all.  Certain things happened; kept on happening.
+So I gave it up.  That's all.  It's not dramatic.  For about a year I was
+damned sorry for myself. I've stopped whining now."
+
+"If every surgeon gave up because he lost cases--I've just told you I did
+your operation to-day.  There was just a chance for the man, and I took my
+courage in my hands and tried it.  The poor devil's dead."
+
+K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe over the balcony rail.
+
+"That's not the same.  That's the chance he and you took. What happened to
+me was--different."
+
+Pipe in hand, he stood staring out at the ailanthus tree with its crown of
+stars.  Instead of the Street with its quiet houses, he saw the men he had
+known and worked with and taught, his friends who spoke his language, who
+had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bronze tablet set in a wall
+of the old college; he saw their earnest faces and grave eyes.  He heard--
+
+He heard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little room
+behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A few days after Wilson's recognition of K., two most exciting things
+happened to Sidney.  One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor
+at her wedding.  The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and given
+her cap.
+
+Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house had
+no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le Moyne:
+
+DEAR K.,--I am accepted, and IT is on my head at this minute.  I am as
+conscious of it as if it were a halo, and as if I had done something to
+deserve it, instead of just hoping that someday I shall.  I am writing this
+on the bureau, so that when I lift my eyes I may see It.  I am afraid just
+now I am thinking more of the cap than of what it means.  It IS becoming!
+
+Very soon I shall slip down and show it to the ward.  I have promised.  I
+shall go to the door when the night nurse is busy somewhere, and turn all
+around and let them see it, without saying a word.  They love a little
+excitement like that.
+
+You have been very good to me, dear K.  It is you who have made possible
+this happiness of mine to-night.  I am promising myself to be very good,
+and not so vain, and to love my enemies--, although I have none now.  Miss
+Harrison has just congratulated me most kindly, and I am sure poor Joe has
+both forgiven and forgotten.
+
+Off to my first lecture!
+
+SIDNEY.
+
+K. found the note on the hall table when he got home that night, and
+carried it upstairs to read.  Whatever faint hope he might have had that
+her youth would prevent her acceptance he knew now was over.  With the
+letter in his hand, he sat by his table and looked ahead into the empty
+years.  Not quite empty, of course. She would be coming home.
+
+But more and more the life of the hospital would engross her.  He surmised,
+too, very shrewdly, that, had he ever had a hope that she might come to
+care for him, his very presence in the little house militated against him.
+There was none of the illusion of separation; he was always there, like
+Katie.  When she opened the door, she called "Mother" from the hall.  If
+Anna did not answer, she called him, in much the same voice.
+
+He had built a wall of philosophy that had withstood even Wilson's
+recognition and protest.  But enduring philosophy comes only with time; and
+he was young.  Now and then all his defenses crumbled before a passion
+that, when he dared to face it, shook him by its very strength.  And that
+day all his stoicism went down before Sidney's letter.  Its very frankness
+and affection hurt--not that he did not want her affection; but he craved
+so much more.  He threw himself face down on the bed, with the paper
+crushed in his hand.
+
+Sidney's letter was not the only one he received that day.  When, in
+response to Katie's summons, he rose heavily and prepared for dinner, he
+found an unopened envelope on the table.  It was from Max Wilson:--
+
+DEAR LE MOYNE,--I have been going around in a sort of haze all day.  The
+fact that I only heard your voice and scarcely saw you last night has made
+the whole thing even more unreal.
+
+I have a feeling of delicacy about trying to see you again so soon.  I'm
+bound to respect your seclusion.  But there are some things that have got
+to be discussed.
+
+You said last night that things were "different" with you.  I know about
+that.  You'd had one or two unlucky accidents.  Do you know any man in our
+profession who has not?  And, for fear you think I do not know what I am
+talking about, the thing was threshed out at the State Society when the
+question of the tablet came up.  Old Barnes got up and said: "Gentlemen,
+all of us live more or less in glass houses.  Let him who is without guilt
+among us throw the first stone!"  By George!  You should have heard them!
+
+I didn't sleep last night.  I took my little car and drove around the
+country roads, and the farther I went the more outrageous your position
+became.  I'm not going to write any rot about the world needing men like
+you, although it's true enough.  But our profession does.  You working in a
+gas office, while old O'Hara bungles and hacks, and I struggle along on
+what I learned from you!
+
+It takes courage to step down from the pinnacle you stood on.  So it's not
+cowardice that has set you down here.  It's wrong conception.  And I've
+thought of two things.  The first, and best, is for you to go back.  No one
+has taken your place, because no one could do the work.  But if that's out
+of the question,--and only you know that, for only you know the facts,--the
+next best thing is this, and in all humility I make the suggestion.
+
+Take the State exams under your present name, and when you've got your
+certificate, come in with me.  This isn't magnanimity.  I'll be getting a
+damn sight more than I give.
+
+Think it over, old man.
+
+M.W.
+
+It is a curious fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about women
+is often the soul of honor to other men.  The younger Wilson, taking his
+pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an offer that
+meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, with his eyes open.
+
+K. was moved.  It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to make it
+as if he were asking a favor and not conferring one.  But the offer left
+him untempted.  He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself
+wanting.  No tablet on the college wall could change that.  And when, late
+that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to argument,
+the situation remained unchanged.  He realized its hopelessness when K.
+lapsed into whimsical humor.
+
+"I'm not absolutely useless where I am, you know, Max," he said. "I've
+raised three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped to
+plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just
+inside,--did you notice it?--and developed a boy pitcher with a ball that
+twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around a splint!"
+
+"If you're going to be humorous--"
+
+"My dear fellow," said K. quietly, "if I had no sense of humor, I should go
+upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance into
+eternity.  By the way, that's something I forgot!"
+
+"Eternity?" "No.  Among my other activities, I wired the parlor for
+electric light.  The bride-to-be expects some electroliers as wedding
+gifts, and--"
+
+Wilson rose and flung his cigarette into the grass.
+
+"I wish to God I understood you!" he said irritably.
+
+K. rose with him, and all the suppressed feeling of the interview was
+crowded into his last few words.
+
+"I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max," he said.  "I--you've helped a
+lot.  Don't worry about me.  I'm as well off as I deserve to be, and
+better.  Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position--left him, as
+it were, with a divided allegiance.  Sidney's frank infatuation for the
+young surgeon was growing.  He was quick to see it.  And where before he
+might have felt justified in going to the length of warning her, now his
+hands were tied.
+
+Max was interested in her.  K. could see that, too.  More than once he had
+taken Sidney back to the hospital in his car.  Le Moyne, handicapped at
+every turn, found himself facing two alternatives, one but little better
+than the other.  The affair might run a legitimate course, ending in
+marriage--a year of happiness for her, and then what marriage with Max, as
+he knew him, would inevitably mean: wanderings away, remorseful returns to
+her, infidelities, misery.  Or, it might be less serious but almost equally
+unhappy for her.  Max might throw caution to the winds, pursue her for a
+time,--K. had seen him do this,--and then, growing tired, change to some
+new attraction.  In either case, he could only wait and watch, eating his
+heart out during the long evenings when Anna read her "Daily Thoughts"
+upstairs and he sat alone with his pipe on the balcony.
+
+Sidney went on night duty shortly after her acceptance.  All of her orderly
+young life had been divided into two parts: day, when one played or worked,
+and night, when one slept.  Now she was compelled to a readjustment: one
+worked in the night and slept in the day.  Things seemed unnatural,
+chaotic.  At the end of her first night report Sidney added what she could
+remember of a little verse of Stevenson's.  She added it to the end of her
+general report, which was to the effect that everything had been quiet
+during the night except the neighborhood.
+
+     "And does it not seem hard to you,
+      When all the sky is clear and blue,
+      And I should like so much to play,
+      To have to go to bed by day?"
+
+The day assistant happened on the report, and was quite scandalized.
+
+"If the night nurses are to spend their time making up poetry," she said
+crossly, "we'd better change this hospital into a young ladies' seminary.
+If she wants to complain about the noise in the street, she should do so in
+proper form."
+
+"I don't think she made it up," said the Head, trying not to smile.  "I've
+heard something like it somewhere, and, what with the heat and the noise of
+traffic, I don't see how any of them get any sleep."
+
+But, because discipline must be observed, she wrote on the slip the
+assistant carried around: "Please submit night reports in prose."
+
+Sidney did not sleep much.  She tumbled into her low bed at nine o'clock in
+the morning, those days, with her splendid hair neatly braided down her
+back and her prayers said, and immediately her active young mind filled
+with images--Christine's wedding, Dr. Max passing the door of her old ward
+and she not there, Joe--even Tillie, whose story was now the sensation of
+the Street.  A few months before she would not have cared to think of
+Tillie. She would have retired her into the land of things-one-must-forget.
+But the Street's conventions were not holding Sidney's thoughts now.  She
+puzzled over Tillie a great deal, and over Grace and her kind.
+
+On her first night on duty, a girl had been brought in from the Avenue.
+She had taken a poison--nobody knew just what.  When the internes had tried
+to find out, she had only said: "What's the use?"
+
+And she had died.
+
+Sidney kept asking herself, "Why?" those mornings when she could not get to
+sleep.  People were kind--men were kind, really,--and yet, for some reason
+or other, those things had to be.  Why?
+
+After a time Sidney would doze fitfully.  But by three o'clock she was
+always up and dressing.  After a time the strain told on her.  Lack of
+sleep wrote hollows around her eyes and killed some of her bright color.
+Between three and four o'clock in the morning she was overwhelmed on duty
+by a perfect madness of sleep.  There was a penalty for sleeping on duty.
+The old night watchman had a way of slipping up on one nodding.  The night
+nurses wished they might fasten a bell on him!
+
+Luckily, at four came early-morning temperatures; that roused her.  And
+after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of dawn
+over the roofs.  Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward dawn,
+she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves were
+stretched taut as a string.
+
+Her station was in a small room close to her three wards.  But she sat very
+little, as a matter of fact.  Her responsibility was heavy on her; she made
+frequent rounds.  The late summer nights were fitful, feverish; the
+darkened wards stretched away like caverns from the dim light near the
+door.  And from out of these caverns came petulant voices, uneasy
+movements, the banging of a cup on a bedside, which was the signal of
+thirst.
+
+The older nurses saved themselves when they could.  To them, perhaps just a
+little weary with time and much service, the banging cup meant not so much
+thirst as annoyance.  They visited Sidney sometimes and cautioned her.
+
+"Don't jump like that, child; they're not parched, you know."
+
+"But if you have a fever and are thirsty--"
+
+"Thirsty nothing!  They get lonely.  All they want is to see somebody."
+
+"Then," Sidney would say, rising resolutely, "they are going to see me."
+
+Gradually the older girls saw that she would not save herself. They liked
+her very much, and they, too, had started in with willing feet and tender
+hands; but the thousand and one demands of their service had drained them
+dry.  They were efficient, cool-headed, quick-thinking machines, doing
+their best, of course, but differing from Sidney in that their service was
+of the mind, while hers was of the heart.  To them, pain was a thing to be
+recorded on a report; to Sidney, it was written on the tablets of her soul.
+
+Carlotta Harrison went on night duty at the same time--her last night
+service, as it was Sidney's first.  She accepted it stoically.  She had
+charge of the three wards on the floor just below Sidney, and of the ward
+into which all emergency cases were taken.  It was a difficult service,
+perhaps the most difficult in the house.  Scarcely a night went by without
+its patrol or ambulance case.  Ordinarily, the emergency ward had its own
+night nurse.  But the house was full to overflowing.  Belated vacations and
+illness had depleted the training-school.  Carlotta, given double duty,
+merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I've always had things pretty hard here," she commented briefly. "When I
+go out, I'll either be competent enough to run a whole hospital
+singlehanded, or I'll be carried out feet first."
+
+Sidney was glad to have her so near.  She knew her better than she knew the
+other nurses.  Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding her at
+a loss.  Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a soft hiss
+from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and, going out,
+would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap bending over the
+stair-rail.
+
+"I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you," she would say, "but So-and-So won't
+have a fever bath"; or, "I've a woman here who refuses her medicine."  Then
+would follow rapid questions and equally rapid answers.  Much as Carlotta
+disliked and feared the girl overhead, it never occurred to her to refuse
+her assistance. Perhaps the angels who keep the great record will put that
+to her credit.
+
+Sidney saw her first death shortly after she went on night duty. It was the
+most terrible experience of all her life; and yet, as death goes, it was
+quiet enough.  So gradual was it that Sidney, with K.'s little watch in
+hand, was not sure exactly when it happened.  The light was very dim behind
+the little screen.  One moment the sheet was quivering slightly under the
+struggle for breath, the next it was still.  That was all.  But to the girl
+it was catastrophe.  That life, so potential, so tremendous a thing, could
+end so ignominiously, that the long battle should terminate always in this
+capitulation--it seemed to her that she could not stand it.  Added to all
+her other new problems of living was this one of dying.
+
+She made mistakes, of course, which the kindly nurses forgot to
+report--basins left about, errors on her records.  She rinsed her
+thermometer in hot water one night, and startled an interne by sending him
+word that Mary McGuire's temperature was a hundred and ten degrees.  She
+let a delirious patient escape from the ward another night and go airily
+down the fire-escape before she discovered what had happened!  Then she
+distinguished herself by flying down the iron staircase and bringing the
+runaway back single-handed.
+
+For Christine's wedding the Street threw off its drab attire and assumed a
+wedding garment.  In the beginning it was incredulous about some of the
+details.
+
+"An awning from the house door to the curbstone, and a policeman!" reported
+Mrs. Rosenfeld, who was finding steady employment at the Lorenz house.
+"And another awning at the church, with a red carpet!"
+
+Mr. Rosenfeld had arrived home and was making up arrears of rest and
+recreation.
+
+"Huh!" he said.  "Suppose it don't rain.  What then?" His Jewish father
+spoke in him.
+
+"And another policeman at the church!" said Mrs. Rosenfeld triumphantly.
+
+"Why do they ask 'em if they don't trust 'em?"
+
+But the mention of the policemen had been unfortunate.  It recalled to him
+many things that were better forgotten.  He rose and scowled at his wife.
+
+"You tell Johnny something for me," he snarled.  "You tell him when he sees
+his father walking down street, and he sittin' up there alone on that
+automobile, I want him to stop and pick me up when I hail him.  Me walking,
+while my son swells around in a car!  And another thing."  He turned
+savagely at the door.  "You let me hear of him road-housin', and I'll kill
+him!"
+
+The wedding was to be at five o'clock.  This, in itself, defied all
+traditions of the Street, which was either married in the very early
+morning at the Catholic church or at eight o'clock in the evening at the
+Presbyterian.  There was something reckless about five o'clock.  The Street
+felt the dash of it.  It had a queer feeling that perhaps such a marriage
+was not quite legal.
+
+The question of what to wear became, for the men, an earnest one. Dr. Ed
+resurrected an old black frock-coat and had a "V" of black cambric set in
+the vest.  Mr. Jenkins, the grocer, rented a cutaway, and bought a new
+Panama to wear with it.  The deaf-and-dumb book agent who boarded at
+McKees', and who, by reason of his affliction, was calmly ignorant of the
+excitement around him, wore a borrowed dress-suit, and considered himself
+to the end of his days the only properly attired man in the church.
+
+The younger Wilson was to be one of the ushers.  When the newspapers came
+out with the published list and this was discovered, as well as that Sidney
+was the maid of honor, there was a distinct quiver through the hospital
+training-school.  A probationer was authorized to find out particulars.  It
+was the day of the wedding then, and Sidney, who had not been to bed at
+all, was sitting in a sunny window in the Dormitory Annex, drying her hair.
+
+The probationer was distinctly uneasy.
+
+"I--I just wonder," she said, "if you would let some of the girls come in
+to see you when you're dressed?"
+
+"Why, of course I will."
+
+"It's awfully thrilling, isn't it?  And--isn't Dr. Wilson going to be an
+usher?"
+
+Sidney colored.  "I believe so."
+
+"Are you going to walk down the aisle with him?"
+
+"I don't know.  They had a rehearsal last night, but of course I was not
+there.  I--I think I walk alone."
+
+The probationer had been instructed to find out other things; so she set to
+work with a fan at Sidney's hair.
+
+"You've known Dr. Wilson a long time, haven't you?"
+
+"Ages."
+
+"He's awfully good-looking, isn't he?"
+
+Sidney considered.  She was not ignorant of the methods of the school.  If
+this girl was pumping her--
+
+"I'll have to think that over," she said, with a glint of mischief in her
+eyes.  "When you know a person terribly well, you hardly know whether he's
+good-looking or not."
+
+"I suppose," said the probationer, running the long strands of Sidney's
+hair through her fingers, "that when you are at home you see him often."
+
+Sidney got off the window-sill, and, taking the probationer smilingly by
+the shoulders, faced her toward the door.
+
+"You go back to the girls," she said, "and tell them to come in and see me
+when I am dressed, and tell them this: I don't know whether I am to walk
+down the aisle with Dr. Wilson, but I hope I am.  I see him very often.  I
+like him very much.  I hope he likes me.  And I think he's handsome."
+
+She shoved the probationer out into the hall and locked the door behind
+her.
+
+That message in its entirety reached Carlotta Harrison.  Her smouldering
+eyes flamed.  The audacity of it startled her. Sidney must be very sure of
+herself.
+
+She, too, had not slept during the day.  When the probationer who had
+brought her the report had gone out, she lay in her long white night-gown,
+hands clasped under her head, and stared at the vault-like ceiling of her
+little room.
+
+She saw there Sidney in her white dress going down the aisle of the church;
+she saw the group around the altar; and, as surely as she lay there, she
+knew that Max Wilson's eyes would be, not on the bride, but on the girl who
+stood beside her.
+
+The curious thing was that Carlotta felt that she could stop the wedding if
+she wanted to.  She'd happened on a bit of information--many a wedding had
+been stopped for less.  It rather obsessed her to think of stopping the
+wedding, so that Sidney and Max would not walk down the aisle together.
+
+There came, at last, an hour before the wedding, a lull in the feverish
+activities of the previous month.  Everything was ready. In the Lorenz
+kitchen, piles of plates, negro waiters, ice-cream freezers, and Mrs.
+Rosenfeld stood in orderly array.  In the attic, in the center of a sheet,
+before a toilet-table which had been carried upstairs for her benefit, sat,
+on this her day of days, the bride.  All the second story had been prepared
+for guests and presents.
+
+Florists were still busy in the room below.  Bridesmaids were clustered on
+the little staircase, bending over at each new ring of the bell and calling
+reports to Christine through the closed door:--
+
+"Another wooden box, Christine.  It looks like more plates.  What will you
+ever do with them all?"
+
+"Good Heavens! Here's another of the neighbors who wants to see how you
+look.  Do say you can't have any visitors now."
+
+Christine sat alone in the center of her sheet.  The bridesmaids had been
+sternly forbidden to come into her room.
+
+"I haven't had a chance to think for a month," she said.  "And I've got
+some things I've got to think out."
+
+But, when Sidney came, she sent for her.  Sidney found her sitting on a
+stiff chair, in her wedding gown, with her veil spread out on a small
+stand.
+
+"Close the door," said Christine.  And, after Sidney had kissed her:--
+
+"I've a good mind not to do it."
+
+"You're tired and nervous, that's all."
+
+"I am, of course.  But that isn't what's wrong with me.  Throw that veil
+some place and sit down."
+
+Christine was undoubtedly rouged, a very delicate touch.  Sidney thought
+brides should be rather pale.  But under her eyes were lines that Sidney
+had never seen there before.
+
+"I'm not going to be foolish, Sidney.  I'll go through with it, of course.
+It would put mamma in her grave if I made a scene now."
+
+She suddenly turned on Sidney.
+
+"Palmer gave his bachelor dinner at the Country Club last night. They all
+drank more than they should.  Somebody called father up to-day and said
+that Palmer had emptied a bottle of wine into the piano.  He hasn't been
+here to-day."
+
+"He'll be along.  And as for the other--perhaps it wasn't Palmer who did
+it."
+
+"That's not it, Sidney.  I'm frightened."
+
+Three months before, perhaps, Sidney could not have comforted her; but
+three months had made a change in Sidney.  The complacent sophistries of
+her girlhood no longer answered for truth.  She put her arms around
+Christine's shoulders.
+
+"A man who drinks is a broken reed," said Christine.  "That's what I'm
+going to marry and lean on the rest of my life--a broken reed.  And that
+isn't all!"
+
+She got up quickly, and, trailing her long satin train across the floor,
+bolted the door.  Then from inside her corsage she brought out and held to
+Sidney a letter.  "Special delivery.  Read it."
+
+It was very short; Sidney read it at a glance:--
+
+Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 --- Avenue.
+
+Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney.  Now
+she knew.  Christine, more sophisticated, had always known.
+
+"You see," she said.  "That's what I'm up against."
+
+Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 --- Avenue was. The paper
+she held in her hand was hospital paper with the heading torn off.  The
+whole sordid story lay before her: Grace Irving, with her thin face and
+cropped hair, and the newspaper on the floor of the ward beside her!
+
+One of the bridesmaids thumped violently on the door outside.
+
+"Another electric lamp," she called excitedly through the door. "And Palmer
+is downstairs."
+
+"You see," Christine said drearily.  "I have received another electric
+lamp, and Palmer is downstairs!  I've got to go through with it, I suppose.
+The only difference between me and other brides is that I know what I'm
+getting.  Most of them do not."
+
+"You're going on with it?"
+
+"It's too late to do anything else.  I am not going to give this
+neighborhood anything to talk about."
+
+She picked up her veil and set the coronet on her head.  Sidney stood with
+the letter in her hands.  One of K.'s answers to her hot question had been
+this:--
+
+"There is no sense in looking back unless it helps us to look ahead.  What
+your little girl of the ward has been is not so important as what she is
+going to be."
+
+"Even granting this to be true," she said to Christine slowly,--"and it may
+only be malicious after all, Christine,--it's surely over and done with.
+It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now; it's his future with you,
+isn't it?"
+
+Christine had finally adjusted her veil.  A band of duchesse lace rose like
+a coronet from her soft hair, and from it, sweeping to the end of her
+train, fell fold after fold of soft tulle.  She arranged the coronet
+carefully with small pearl-topped pins. Then she rose and put her hands on
+Sidney's shoulders.
+
+"The simple truth is," she said quietly, "that I might hold Palmer if I
+cared--terribly.  I don't.  And I'm afraid he knows it.  It's my pride
+that's hurt, nothing else."
+
+And thus did Christine Lorenz go down to her wedding.
+
+Sidney stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in her
+new philosophy, she had learned many strange things.  One of them was this:
+that women like Grace Irving did not betray their lovers; that the code of
+the underworld was "death to the squealer"; that one played the game, and
+won or lost, and if he lost, took his medicine.  If not Grace, then who?
+Somebody else in the hospital who knew her story, of course.  But who?  And
+again--why?
+
+Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set fire
+to it with a match.  Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.
+
+The Street voted the wedding a great success.  The alley, however, was
+rather confused by certain things.  For instance, it regarded the awning as
+essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck in under
+the side when no one was looking.  Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely refused to
+take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she guessed she was
+able to walk up alone.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete chauffeur's
+outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the shield that was his State
+license pinned over his heart.
+
+The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to
+supper.  Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case
+only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well to
+trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit down to
+a cold snack when they got home?
+
+To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the
+wedding was Sidney--Sidney only.  He watched her first steps down the
+aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched the
+swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she passed him and went
+forward past the long rows of craning necks.  Afterward he could not
+remember the wedding party at all.  The service for him was Sidney, rather
+awed and very serious, beside the altar.  It was Sidney who came down the
+aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney with Max
+beside her!
+
+On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her new
+career.  The wedding gowns were successful.  They were more than that--they
+were triumphant.  Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes over the
+church, filled with potential brides.
+
+To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future of endless lace and
+chiffon, the joy of creation, triumph eclipsing triumph. But to Anna,
+watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish lips, was
+coming her hour.  Sitting back in the pew, with her hands folded over her
+prayer-book, she said a little prayer for her straight young daughter,
+facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.
+
+As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been standing
+at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He stumbled,
+rather, as if he could not see.
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+
+
+The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper Carlotta
+Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had selected for her
+vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of the city, and two or
+three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson had gone out to see her.
+He liked being with her.  She stimulated him.  For once that he could see
+Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice.
+
+She had kept the affair well in hand.  She was playing for high stakes.
+She knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing--that he
+would pay as little as possible.  But she knew, too, that, let him want a
+thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage.
+
+She was very skillful.  The very ardor in her face was in her favor.
+Behind her hot eyes lurked cold calculation.  She would put the thing
+through, and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening
+prayers, a thing or two.
+
+During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything more elaborate
+than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves
+rolled up to show her satiny arms.  There were no other boarders at the
+little farmhouse.  She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square
+yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully posed
+over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road.  She read Browning,
+Emerson, Swinburne.  Once he found her with a book that she hastily
+concealed.  He insisted on seeing it, and secured it.  It was a book on
+brain surgery.  Confronted with it, she blushed and dropped her eyes.
+
+His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as she
+had intended.
+
+"I feel such an idiot when I am with you," she said.  "I wanted to know a
+little more about the things you do."
+
+That put their relationship on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter he
+occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her responsive,
+intelligent.  His work, a sealed book to his women before, lay open to her.
+
+Now and then their professional discussions ended in something different.
+The two lines of their interest converged.
+
+"Gad!" he said one day.  "I look forward to these evenings.  I can talk
+shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the most
+intelligent woman I know--and one of the prettiest."
+
+He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible
+purpose of admiring the view.
+
+"As long as you talk shop," she said,  "I feel that there is nothing wrong
+in our being together; but when you say the other thing--"
+
+"Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?"
+
+"Under our circumstances, yes."
+
+He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.
+
+"The loveliest mouth in the world!" he said, and kissed her suddenly.
+
+She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.
+Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.
+
+No, she was not angry, she said.  It was only that he had set her thinking.
+When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and good-bye.  He only
+laughed.
+
+"Don't you trust me?" he said, leaning out to her.
+
+She raised her dark eyes.
+
+"It is not that.  I do not trust myself."
+
+After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.
+
+"Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the most
+dangerous of toys."  A spice of danger had entered into their relationship.
+It had become infinitely piquant.
+
+He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison had
+gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back.  That pleased
+him.  Evidently she was frightened.  Every man likes to think that he is a
+bit of a devil.  Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his car outside the
+whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the direction Carlotta had
+taken.
+
+She knew her man, of course.  He found her, face down, under a tree,
+looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental
+struggle.  She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a
+foot or two, with her hands out before her.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried.  "How dare you follow me!  I--I have got to have
+a little time alone.  I have got to think things out."
+
+He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was quite
+as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree and
+lighted a cigarette before he answered.
+
+"I was afraid of this," he said, playing up.  "You take it entirely too
+hard.  I am not really a villain, Carlotta."
+
+It was the first time he had used her name.
+
+"Sit down and let us talk things over."
+
+She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing to
+him with the somber eyes that were her great asset.
+
+"You can afford to be very calm," she said, "because this is only play to
+you; I know it.  I've known it all along.  I'm a good listener and
+not--unattractive.  But what is play for you is not necessarily play for
+me.  I am going away from here."
+
+For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why, the
+girl was white.  He didn't want to hurt her.  If she cried--he was at the
+mercy of any woman who cried.
+
+"Give up your training?"
+
+"What else can I do?  This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max."
+
+She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her in
+his arms.
+
+"Don't do that," he said.  "Please don't do that.  You make me feel like a
+scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness.  That's
+all.  I swear it."
+
+She lifted her head from his shoulder.
+
+"You mean you are happy with me?"
+
+"Very, very happy," said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.
+
+
+The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself.  She
+had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value.  But she
+had left out this important factor in the equation,--that factor which in
+every relationship between man and woman determines the equation,--the
+woman.
+
+Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She
+who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and the
+things thereof, found that it would not be put aside.  By the end of her
+short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love with the younger
+Wilson.
+
+They continued to meet, not as often as before, but once a week, perhaps.
+The meetings were full of danger now; and if for the girl they lost by this
+quality, they gained attraction for the man.  She was shrewd enough to
+realize her own situation.  The thing had gone wrong.  She cared, and he
+did not.  It was all a game now, not hers.
+
+All women are intuitive; women in love are dangerously so.  As well as she
+knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she realized
+that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the real thing for
+Sidney Page.  Suspicion became certainty after a talk they had over the
+supper table at a country road-house the day after Christine's wedding.
+
+"How was the wedding--tiresome?" she asked.
+
+"Thrilling!  There's always something thrilling to me in a man tying
+himself up for life to one woman.  It's--it's so reckless."
+
+Her eyes narrowed.  "That's not exactly the Law and the Prophets, is it?"
+
+"It's the truth.  To think of selecting out of all the world one woman, and
+electing to spend the rest of one's days with her! Although--"
+
+His eyes looked past Carlotta into distance.
+
+"Sidney Page was one of the bridesmaids," he said irrelevantly. "She was
+lovelier than the bride."
+
+"Pretty, but stupid," said Carlotta.  "I like her.  I've really tried to
+teach her things, but--you know--" She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+Dr. Max was learning wisdom.  If there was a twinkle in his eye, he veiled
+it discreetly.  But, once again in the machine, he bent over and put his
+cheek against hers.
+
+"You little cat!  You're jealous," he said exultantly.
+
+Nevertheless, although he might smile, the image of Sidney lay very close
+to his heart those autumn days.  And Carlotta knew it.
+
+Sidney came off night duty the middle of November.  The night duty had been
+a time of comparative peace to Carlotta.  There were no evenings when Dr.
+Max could bring Sidney back to the hospital in his car.
+
+Sidney's half-days at home were occasions for agonies of jealousy on
+Carlotta's part.  On such an occasion, a month after the wedding, she could
+not contain herself.  She pleaded her old excuse of headache, and took the
+trolley to a point near the end of the Street.  After twilight fell, she
+slowly walked the length of the Street.  Christine and Palmer had not
+returned from their wedding journey.  The November evening was not cold,
+and on the little balcony sat Sidney and Dr. Max.  K. was there, too, had
+she only known it, sitting back in the shadow and saying little, his steady
+eyes on Sidney's profile.
+
+But this Carlotta did not know.  She went on down the Street in a frenzy of
+jealous anger.
+
+After that two ideas ran concurrent in Carlotta's mind: one was to get
+Sidney out of the way, the other was to make Wilson propose to her.  In her
+heart she knew that on the first depended the second.
+
+A week later she made the same frantic excursion, but with a different
+result.  Sidney was not in sight, or Wilson.  But standing on the wooden
+doorstep of the little house was Le Moyne. The ailanthus trees were bare at
+that time, throwing gaunt arms upward to the November sky.  The
+street-lamp, which in the summer left the doorstep in the shadow, now shone
+through the branches and threw into strong relief Le Moyne's tall figure
+and set face. Carlotta saw him too late to retreat.  But he did not see
+her. She went on, startled, her busy brain scheming anew.  Another element
+had entered into her plotting.  It was the first time she had known that K.
+lived in the Page house.  It gave her a sense of uncertainty and deadly
+fear.
+
+She made her first friendly overture of many days to Sidney the following
+day.  They met in the locker-room in the basement where the street clothing
+for the ward patients was kept.  Here, rolled in bundles and ticketed, side
+by side lay the heterogeneous garments in which the patients had met
+accident or illness.  Rags and tidiness, filth and cleanliness, lay almost
+touching.
+
+Far away on the other side of the white-washed basement, men were unloading
+gleaming cans of milk.  Floods of sunlight came down the cellar-way,
+touching their white coats and turning the cans to silver.  Everywhere was
+the religion of the hospital, which is order.
+
+Sidney, harking back from recent slights to the staircase conversation of
+her night duty, smiled at Carlotta cheerfully.
+
+"A miracle is happening," she said.  "Grace Irving is going out to-day.
+When one remembers how ill she was and how we thought she could not live,
+it's rather a triumph, isn't it?"
+
+"Are those her clothes?"
+
+Sidney examined with some dismay the elaborate negligee garments in her
+hand.
+
+"She can't go out in those; I shall have to lend her something."  A little
+of the light died out of her face.  "She's had a hard fight, and she has
+won," she said.  "But when I think of what she's probably going back to--"
+
+Carlotta shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"It's all in the day's work," she observed indifferently.  "You can take
+them up into the kitchen and give them steady work paring potatoes, or put
+them in the laundry ironing.  In the end it's the same thing.  They all go
+back."
+
+She drew a package from the locker and looked at it ruefully.
+
+"Well, what do you know about this?  Here's a woman who came in in a
+nightgown and pair of slippers.  And now she wants to go out in half an
+hour!"
+
+She turned, on her way out of the locker-room, and shot a quick glance at
+Sidney.
+
+"I happened to be on your street the other night," she said. "You live
+across the street from Wilsons', don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought so; I had heard you speak of the house.  Your--your brother was
+standing on the steps."
+
+Sidney laughed.
+
+"I have no brother.  That's a roomer, a Mr. Le Moyne.  It isn't really
+right to call him a roomer; he's one of the family now."
+
+"Le Moyne!"
+
+He had even taken another name.  It had hit him hard, for sure.
+
+K.'s name had struck an always responsive chord in Sidney.  The two girls
+went toward the elevator together.  With a very little encouragement,
+Sidney talked of K.  She was pleased at Miss Harrison's friendly tone, glad
+that things were all right between them again.  At her floor, she put a
+timid hand on the girl's arm.
+
+"I was afraid I had offended you or displeased you," she said. "I'm so glad
+it isn't so."
+
+Carlotta shivered under her hand.
+
+Things were not going any too well with K.  True, he had received his
+promotion at the office, and with this present affluence of twenty-two
+dollars a week he was able to do several things.  Mrs. Rosenfeld now washed
+and ironed one day a week at the little house, so that Katie might have
+more time to look after Anna.  He had increased also the amount of money
+that he periodically sent East.
+
+So far, well enough.  The thing that rankled and filled him with a sense of
+failure was Max Wilson's attitude.  It was not unfriendly; it was, indeed,
+consistently respectful, almost reverential.  But he clearly considered Le
+Moyne's position absurd.
+
+There was no true comradeship between the two men; but there was beginning
+to be constant association, and lately a certain amount of friction.  They
+thought differently about almost everything.
+
+Wilson began to bring all his problems to Le Moyne.  There were long
+consultations in that small upper room.  Perhaps more than one man or woman
+who did not know of K.'s existence owed his life to him that fall.
+
+Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels.  Cases began to come in to him from
+the surrounding towns.  To his own daring was added a new and remarkable
+technique.  But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not content, was
+once again in touch with the work he loved.  There were times when, having
+thrashed a case out together and outlined the next day's work for Max, he
+would walk for hours into the night out over the hills, fighting his
+battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick of things again.  The
+thought of the gas office and its deadly round sickened him.
+
+It was on one of his long walks that K. found Tillie.
+
+It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to rain as
+it fell.  The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside paths
+thick with sodden leaves.  The dreariness of the countryside that Saturday
+afternoon suited his mood.  He had ridden to the end of the street-car
+line, and started his walk from there.  As was his custom, he wore no
+overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat.  Somewhere along the road he
+had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for human society,
+it trotted companionably at his heels.
+
+Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and stopped
+in for a glass of Scotch.  He was chilled through. The dog went in with
+him, and stood looking up into his face.  It was as if he submitted, but
+wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road ahead and the trails
+of rabbits over the fields.
+
+The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills.  Through the mist
+of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him.  The door
+was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet.
+To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth, and
+in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers.  To the left,
+the typical parlor of such places.  It might have been the parlor of the
+White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over
+everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish.  The house
+was aggressive with new paint--the sagging old floors shone with it, the
+doors gleamed.
+
+"Hello!" called K.
+
+There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer, the
+rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing uncertainly
+on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish, stripped off
+his sweater.
+
+"Not very busy here this afternoon!" he said to the unseen female on the
+staircase.  Then he saw her.  It was Tillie.  She put a hand against the
+doorframe to steady herself.  Tillie surely, but a new Tillie!  With her
+hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the
+throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller,
+infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her.  But she did not
+smile at him.  There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's
+expression, submissive, but questioning.
+
+"Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne."  And, when he held out his hand,
+smiling: "I just had to do it, Mr. K."
+
+"And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and--happy, Tillie."
+
+"I'm all right.  Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice.  He'll be back at
+five.  Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?"
+
+The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie.  The Street did not
+approve of "something else."
+
+"Scotch-and-soda," said Le Moyne.  "And shall I buy a ticket for you to
+punch?"
+
+But she only smiled faintly.  He was sorry he had made the blunder.
+Evidently the Street and all that pertained was a sore subject.
+
+So this was Tillie's new home!  It was for this that she had exchanged the
+virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's--for this wind-swept little
+house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon enlargements
+over the mantel.  One was Schwitter, evidently.  The other was the
+paper-doll wife.  K. wondered what curious instinct of self-abnegation had
+caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed.  Back of its position of
+honor he saw the girl's realization of her own situation.  On a wooden
+shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was another vase of dried flowers.
+
+Tillie brought the Scotch, already mixed, in a tall glass. K. would have
+preferred to mix it himself, but the Scotch was good.  He felt a new
+respect for Mr. Schwitter.
+
+"You gave me a turn at first," said Tillie.  "But I am right glad to see
+you, Mr. Le Moyne.  Now that the roads are bad, nobody comes very much.
+It's lonely."
+
+Until now, K. and Tillie, when they met, had met conversationally on the
+common ground of food.  They no longer had that, and between them both lay
+like a barrier their last conversation.
+
+"Are you happy, Tillie?" said K. suddenly.
+
+"I expected you'd ask me that.  I've been thinking what to say."
+
+Her reply set him watching her face.  More attractive it certainly was, but
+happy?  There was a wistfulness about Tillie's mouth that set him
+wondering.
+
+"Is he good to you?"
+
+"He's about the best man on earth.  He's never said a cross word to
+me--even at first, when I was panicky and scared at every sound."
+
+Le Moyne nodded understandingly.
+
+"I burned a lot of victuals when I first came, running off and hiding when
+I heard people around the place.  It used to seem to me that what I'd done
+was written on my face.  But he never said a  word."
+
+"That's over now?"
+
+"I don't run.  I am still frightened."
+
+"Then it has been worth while?"
+
+Tillie glanced up at the two pictures over the mantel.
+
+"Sometimes it is--when he comes in tired, and I've a chicken ready or some
+fried ham and eggs for his supper, and I see him begin to look rested.  He
+lights his pipe, and many an evening he helps me with the dishes.  He's
+happy; he's getting fat."
+
+"But you?" Le Moyne persisted.
+
+"I wouldn't go back to where I was, but I am not happy, Mr. Le Moyne.
+There's no use pretending.  I want a baby.  All along I've wanted a baby.
+He wants one.  This place is his, and he'd like a boy to come into it when
+he's gone.  But, my God! if I did have one; what would it be?"
+
+K.'s eyes followed hers to the picture and the everlastings underneath.
+
+"And she--there isn't any prospect of her--?"
+
+"No."
+
+There was no solution to Tillie's problem.  Le Moyne, standing on the
+hearth and looking down at her, realized that, after all, Tillie must work
+out her own salvation.  He could offer her no comfort.
+
+They talked far into the growing twilight of the afternoon. Tillie was
+hungry for news of the Street: must know of Christine's wedding, of
+Harriet, of Sidney in her hospital.  And when he had told her all, she sat
+silent, rolling her handkerchief in her fingers.  Then:--
+
+"Take the four of us," she said suddenly,--"Christine Lorenz and Sidney
+Page and Miss Harriet and me,--and which one would you have picked to go
+wrong like this?  I guess, from the looks of things, most folks would have
+thought it would be the Lorenz girl.  They'd have picked Harriet Kennedy
+for the hospital, and me for the dressmaking, and it would have been Sidney
+Page that got married and had an automobile.  Well, that's life."
+
+She looked up at K. shrewdly.
+
+"There were some people out here lately.  They didn't know me, and I heard
+them talking.  They said Sidney Page was going to marry Dr. Max Wilson."
+
+"Possibly.  I believe there is no engagement yet."
+
+He had finished with his glass.  Tillie rose to take it away.  As she stood
+before him she looked up into his face.
+
+"If you like her as well as I think you do, Mr. Le Moyne, you won't let him
+get her."
+
+"I am afraid that's not up to me, is it?  What would I do with a wife,
+Tillie?"
+
+"You'd be faithful to her.  That's more than he would be.  I guess, in the
+long run, that would count more than money."
+
+That was what K. took home with him after his encounter with Tillie.  He
+pondered it on his way back to the street-car, as he struggled against the
+wind.  The weather had changed. Wagon-tracks along the road were filled
+with water and had begun to freeze.  The rain had turned to a driving sleet
+that cut his face.  Halfway to the trolley line, the dog turned off into a
+by-road.  K. did not miss him.  The dog stared after him, one foot raised.
+Once again his eyes were like Tillie's, as she had waved good-bye from the
+porch.
+
+His head sunk on his breast, K. covered miles of road with his long,
+swinging pace, and fought his battle.  Was Tillie right, after all, and had
+he been wrong?  Why should he efface himself, if it meant Sidney's
+unhappiness? Why not accept Wilson's offer and start over again?  Then if
+things went well--the temptation was strong that stormy afternoon.  He put
+it from him at last, because of the conviction that whatever he did would
+make no change in Sidney's ultimate decision.  If she cared enough for
+Wilson, she would marry him.  He felt that she cared enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Palmer and Christine returned from their wedding trip the day K. discovered
+Tillie.  Anna Page made much of the arrival, insisted on dinner for them
+that night at the little house, must help Christine unpack her trunks and
+arrange her wedding gifts about the apartment.  She was brighter than she
+had been for days, more interested.  The wonders of the trousseau filled
+her with admiration and a sort of jealous envy for Sidney, who could have
+none of these things.  In a pathetic sort of way, she mothered  Christine
+in lieu of her own daughter.
+
+And it was her quick eye that discerned something wrong. Christine was not
+quite happy.  Under her excitement was an undercurrent of reserve.  Anna,
+rich in maternity if in nothing else, felt it, and in reply to some speech
+of Christine's that struck her as hard, not quite fitting, she gave her a
+gentle admonishing.
+
+"Married life takes a little adjusting, my dear," she said. "After we have
+lived to ourselves for a number of years, it is not easy to live for some
+one else."
+
+Christine straightened from the tea-table she was arranging.
+
+"That's true, of course.  But why should the woman do all the adjusting?"
+
+"Men are more set," said poor Anna, who had never been set in anything in
+her life.  "It is harder for them to give in.  And, of course, Palmer is
+older, and his habits--"
+
+"The less said about Palmer's habits the better," flashed Christine.  "I
+appear to have married a bunch of habits."
+
+She gave over her unpacking, and sat down listlessly by the fire, while
+Anna moved about, busy with the small activities that delighted her.
+
+Six weeks of Palmer's society in unlimited amounts had bored Christine to
+distraction.  She sat with folded hands and looked into a future that
+seemed to include nothing but Palmer: Palmer asleep with his mouth open;
+Palmer shaving before breakfast, and irritable until he had had his coffee;
+Palmer yawning over the newspaper.
+
+And there was a darker side to the picture than that.  There was a vision
+of Palmer slipping quietly into his room and falling into the heavy sleep,
+not of drunkenness perhaps, but of drink. That had happened twice.  She
+knew now that it would happen again and again, as long as he lived.
+Drinking leads to other things. The letter she had received on her wedding
+day was burned into her brain.  There would be that in the future too,
+probably.
+
+Christine was not without courage.  She was making a brave clutch at
+happiness.  But that afternoon of the first day at home she was terrified.
+She was glad when Anna went and left her alone by her fire.
+
+But when she heard a step in the hall, she opened the door herself.  She
+had determined to meet Palmer with a smile.  Tears brought nothing; she had
+learned that already.  Men liked smiling women and good cheer.  "Daughters
+of joy," they called girls like the one on the Avenue.  So she opened the
+door smiling.
+
+But it was K. in the hall.  She waited while, with his back to her, he
+shook himself like a great dog.  When he turned, she was watching him.
+
+"You!" said Le Moyne.  "Why, welcome home."
+
+He smiled down at her, his kindly eyes lighting.
+
+"It's good to be home and to see you again.  Won't you come in to my fire?"
+
+"I'm wet."
+
+"All the more reason why you should come," she cried gayly, and held the
+door wide.
+
+The little parlor was cheerful with fire and soft lamps, bright with silver
+vases full of flowers.  K. stepped inside and took a critical survey of the
+room.
+
+"Well!" he said.  "Between us we have made a pretty good job of this, I
+with the paper and the wiring, and you with your pretty furnishings and
+your pretty self."
+
+He glanced at her appreciatively.  Christine saw his approval, and was
+happier than she had been for weeks.  She put on the thousand little airs
+and graces that were a part of her--held her chin high, looked up at him
+with the little appealing glances that she had found were wasted on Palmer.
+She lighted the spirit-lamp to make tea, drew out the best chair for him,
+and patted a cushion with her well-cared-for hands.
+
+"A big chair for a big man!" she said.  "And see, here's a footstool."
+
+"I am ridiculously fond of being babied," said K., and quite basked in his
+new atmosphere of well-being.  This was better than his empty room
+upstairs, than tramping along country roads, than his own thoughts.
+
+"And now, how is everything?" asked Christine from across the fire.  "Do
+tell me all the scandal of the Street."
+
+"There has been no scandal since you went away," said K.  And, because each
+was glad not to be left to his own thoughts, they laughed at this bit of
+unconscious humor.
+
+"Seriously," said Le Moyne, "we have been very quiet.  I have had my salary
+raised and am now rejoicing in twenty-two dollars a week.  I am still not
+accustomed to it.  Just when I had all my ideas fixed for fifteen, I get
+twenty-two and have to reassemble them.  I am disgustingly rich."
+
+"It is very disagreeable when one's income becomes a burden," said
+Christine gravely.
+
+She was finding in Le Moyne something that she needed just then--a
+solidity, a sort of dependability, that had nothing to do with heaviness.
+She felt that here was a man she could trust, almost confide in.  She liked
+his long hands, his shabby but well-cut clothes, his fine profile with its
+strong chin.  She left off her little affectations,--a tribute to his own
+lack of them,--and sat back in her chair, watching the fire.
+
+When K. chose, he could talk well.  The Howes had been to Bermuda on their
+wedding trip.  He knew Bermuda; that gave them a common ground.  Christine
+relaxed under his steady voice.  As for K., he frankly enjoyed the little
+visit--drew himself at last with regret out of his chair.
+
+"You've been very nice to ask me in, Mrs. Howe," he said.  "I hope you will
+allow me to come again.  But, of course, you are going to be very gay."
+
+It seemed to Christine she would never be gay again.  She did not want him
+to go away.  The sound of his deep voice gave her a sense of security.  She
+liked the clasp of the hand he held out to her, when at last he made a move
+toward the door.
+
+"Tell Mr. Howe I am sorry he missed our little party," said Le Moyne.
+"And--thank you."
+
+"Will you come again?" asked Christine rather wistfully.
+
+"Just as often as you ask me."
+
+As he closed the door behind him, there was a new light in Christine's
+eyes.  Things were not right, but, after all, they were not hopeless.  One
+might still have friends, big and strong, steady of eye and voice.  When
+Palmer came home, the smile she gave him was not forced.
+
+The day's exertion had been bad for Anna.  Le Moyne found her on the couch
+in the transformed sewing-room, and gave her a quick glance of
+apprehension.  She was propped up high with pillows, with a bottle of
+aromatic ammonia beside her.
+
+"Just--short of breath," she panted.  "I--I must get down. Sidney--is
+coming home--to supper; and--the others--Palmer and--"
+
+That was as far as she got.  K., watch in hand, found her pulse thin,
+stringy, irregular.  He had been prepared for some such emergency, and he
+hurried into his room for amyl-nitrate.  When he came back she was almost
+unconscious.  There was no time even to call Katie.  He broke the capsule
+in a towel, and held it over her face.  After a time the spasm relaxed, but
+her condition remained alarming.
+
+Harriet, who had come home by that time, sat by the couch and held her
+sister's hand.  Only once in the next hour or so did she speak.  They had
+sent for Dr. Ed, but he had not come yet. Harriet was too wretched to
+notice the professional manner in which K. set to work over Anna.
+
+"I've been a very hard sister to her," she said.  "If you can pull her
+through, I'll try to make up for it."
+
+Christine sat on the stairs outside, frightened and helpless. They had sent
+for Sidney; but the little house had no telephone, and the message was slow
+in getting off.
+
+At six o'clock Dr. Ed came panting up the stairs and into the room.  K.
+stood back.
+
+"Well, this is sad, Harriet," said Dr. Ed.  "Why in the name of Heaven,
+when I wasn't around, didn't you get another doctor.  If she had had some
+amyl-nitrate--"
+
+"I gave her some nitrate of amyl," said K. quietly.  "There was really no
+time to send for anybody.  She almost went under at half-past five."
+
+Max had kept his word, and even Dr. Ed did not suspect K.'s secret.  He
+gave a quick glance at this tall young man who spoke so quietly of what he
+had done for the sick woman, and went on with his work.
+
+Sidney arrived a little after six, and from that moment the confusion in
+the sick-room was at an end.  She moved Christine from the stairs, where
+Katie on her numerous errands must crawl over her; set Harriet to warming
+her mother's bed and getting it ready; opened windows, brought order and
+quiet.  And then, with death in her eyes, she took up her position beside
+her mother. This was no time for weeping; that would come later.  Once she
+turned to K., standing watchfully beside her.
+
+"I think you have known this for a long time," she said.  And, when he did
+not answer: "Why did you let me stay away from her? It would have been such
+a little time!"
+
+"We were trying to do our best for both of you," he replied.
+
+Anna was unconscious and sinking fast.  One thought obsessed Sidney.  She
+repeated it over and over.  It came as a cry from the depths of the girl's
+new experience.
+
+"She has had so little of life," she said, over and over.  "So little!
+Just this Street.  She never knew anything else."
+
+And finally K. took it up.
+
+"After all, Sidney," he said, "the Street IS life: the world is only many
+streets.  She had a great deal.  She had love and content, and she had
+you."
+
+Anna died a little after midnight, a quiet passing, so that only Sidney and
+the two men knew when she went away.  It was Harriet who collapsed.  During
+all that long evening she had sat looking back over years of small
+unkindnesses.  The thorn of Anna's inefficiency had always rankled in her
+flesh.  She had been hard, uncompromising, thwarted.  And now it was
+forever too late.
+
+K. had watched Sidney carefully.  Once he thought she was fainting, and
+went to her.  But she shook her head.
+
+"I am all right.  Do you think you could get them all out of the room and
+let me have her alone for just a few minutes?"
+
+He cleared the room, and took up his vigil outside the door. And, as he
+stood there, he thought of what he had said to Sidney about the Street.  It
+was a world of its own.  Here in this very house were death and separation;
+Harriet's starved life; Christine and Palmer beginning a long and doubtful
+future together; himself, a failure, and an impostor.
+
+When he opened the door again, Sidney was standing by her mother's bed.  He
+went to her, and she turned and put her head against his shoulder like a
+tired child.
+
+"Take me away, K.," she said pitifully.
+
+And, with his arm around her, he led her out of the room.
+
+Outside of her small immediate circle Anna's death was hardly felt.  The
+little house went on much as before.  Harriet carried back to her business
+a heaviness of spirit that made it difficult to bear with the small
+irritations of her day.  Perhaps Anna's incapacity, which had always
+annoyed her, had been physical.  She must have had her trouble a longtime.
+She remembered other women of the Street who had crept through inefficient
+days, and had at last laid down their burdens and closed their mild eyes,
+to the lasting astonishment of their families.  What did they think about,
+these women, as they pottered about?  Did they resent the impatience that
+met their lagging movements, the indifference that would not see how they
+were failing?  Hot tears fell on Harriet's fashion-book as it lay on her
+knee.  Not only for Anna--for Anna's prototypes everywhere.
+
+On Sidney--and in less measure, of course, on K.--fell the real brunt of
+the disaster.  Sidney kept up well until after the funeral, but went down
+the next day with a low fever.
+
+"Overwork and grief," Dr. Ed said, and sternly forbade the hospital again
+until Christmas.  Morning and evening K. stopped at her door and inquired
+for her, and morning and evening came Sidney's reply:--
+
+"Much better.  I'll surely be up to-morrow!"
+
+But the days dragged on and she did not get about.
+
+Downstairs, Christine and Palmer had entered on the round of midwinter
+gayeties.  Palmer's "crowd" was a lively one.  There were dinners and
+dances, week-end excursions to country-houses. The Street grew accustomed
+to seeing automobiles stop before the little house at all hours of the
+night.  Johnny Rosenfeld, driving Palmer's car, took to falling asleep at
+the wheel in broad daylight, and voiced his discontent to his mother.
+
+"You never know where you are with them guys," he said briefly. "We start
+out for half an hour's run in the evening, and get home with the
+milk-wagons.  And the more some of them have had to drink, the more they
+want to drive the machine.  If I get a chance, I'm going to beat it while
+the wind's my way."
+
+But, talk as he might, in Johnny Rosenfeld's loyal heart there was no
+thought of desertion.  Palmer had given him a man's job, and he would stick
+by it, no matter what came.
+
+There were some things that Johnny Rosenfeld did not tell his mother.
+There were evenings when the Howe car was filled, not with Christine and
+her friends, but with women of a different world; evenings when the
+destination was not a country estate, but a road-house; evenings when
+Johnny Rosenfeld, ousted from the driver's seat by some drunken youth,
+would hold tight to the swinging car and say such fragments of prayers as
+he could remember.  Johnny Rosenfeld, who had started life with few
+illusions, was in danger of losing such as he had.
+
+One such night Christine put in, lying wakefully in her bed, while the
+clock on the mantel tolled hour after hour into the night.  Palmer did not
+come home at all.  He sent a note from the office in the morning:
+
+"I hope you are not worried, darling.  The car broke down near the Country
+Club last night, and there was nothing to do but to spend the night there.
+I would have sent you word, but I did not want to rouse you.  What do you
+say to the theater to-night and supper afterward?"
+
+Christine was learning.  She telephoned the Country Club that morning, and
+found that Palmer had not been there.  But, although she knew now that he
+was deceiving her, as he always had deceived her, as probably he always
+would, she hesitated to confront him with what she knew.  She shrank, as
+many a woman has shrunk before, from confronting him with his lie.
+
+But the second time it happened, she was roused.  It was almost Christmas
+then, and Sidney was well on the way to recovery, thinner and very white,
+but going slowly up and down the staircase on K.'s arm, and sitting with
+Harriet and K. at the dinner table.  She was begging to be back on duty for
+Christmas, and K. felt that he would have to give her up soon.
+
+At three o'clock one morning Sidney roused from a light sleep to hear a
+rapping on her door.
+
+"Is that you, Aunt Harriet?" she called.
+
+"It's Christine.  May I come in?"
+
+Sidney unlocked her door.  Christine slipped into the room.  She carried a
+candle, and before she spoke she looked at Sidney's watch on the bedside
+table.
+
+"I hoped my clock was wrong," she said.  "I am sorry to waken you, Sidney,
+but I don't know what to do."
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No.  Palmer has not come home."
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"After three o'clock."
+
+Sidney had lighted the gas and was throwing on her dressing-gown.
+
+"When he went out did he say--"
+
+"He said nothing.  We had been quarreling.  Sidney, I am going home in the
+morning."
+
+"You don't mean that, do you?"
+
+"Don't I look as if I mean it?  How much of this sort of thing is a woman
+supposed to endure?"
+
+"Perhaps he has been delayed.  These things always seem terrible in the
+middle of the night, but by morning--"
+
+Christine whirled on her.
+
+"This isn't the first time.  You remember the letter I got on my wedding
+day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's gone back to her."
+
+"Christine!  Oh, I am sure you're wrong.  He's devoted to you.  I don't
+believe it!"
+
+"Believe it or not," said Christine doggedly, "that's exactly what has
+happened.  I got something out of that little rat of a Rosenfeld boy, and
+the rest I know because I know Palmer.  He's out with her to-night."
+
+The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to make
+a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious.  But vice had
+remained for her a clear abstraction.  There were such people, and because
+one was in the world for service one cared for them.  Even the Saviour had
+been kind to the woman of the streets.
+
+But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world--that
+because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked.  Her young
+spirit rose in hot rebellion.
+
+"It isn't fair!" she cried.  "It makes me hate all the men in the world.
+Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!"
+
+Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room.  Mere companionship
+had soothed her.  She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than
+Sidney.
+
+"They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven," she said.  "There are decent
+men.  My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is another."
+
+At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home.  Christine met him in
+the lower hall.  He was rather pale, but entirely sober.  She confronted
+him in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.
+
+"I am sorry to be so late, Chris," he said.  "The fact is, I am all in.  I
+was driving the car out Seven Mile Run.  We blew out a tire and the thing
+turned over."
+
+Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits with
+his wedding day.  In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much in love
+with his wife.
+
+But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of marriage
+had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face value.  Grace
+had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed to be.  With
+Christine the veil was rent.  She knew him now--all his small indolences,
+his affectations, his weaknesses.  Later on, like other women since the
+world began, she would learn to dissemble, to affect to believe him what
+he was not.
+
+Grace had learned this lesson long ago.  It was the ABC of her knowledge.
+And so, back to Grace six weeks after his wedding day came Palmer Howe, not
+with a suggestion to renew the old relationship, but for comradeship.
+
+Christine sulked--he wanted good cheer; Christine was intolerant--he wanted
+tolerance; she disapproved of him and showed her disapproval--he wanted
+approval.  He wanted life to be comfortable and cheerful, without
+recriminations, a little work and much play, a drink when one was thirsty.
+Distorted though it was, and founded on a wrong basis, perhaps, deep in his
+heart Palmer's only longing was for happiness; but this happiness must be
+of an active sort--not content, which is passive, but enjoyment.
+
+"Come on out," he said.  "I've got a car now.  No taxi working its head off
+for us.  Just a little run over the country roads, eh?"
+
+It was the afternoon of the day before Christine's night visit to Sidney.
+The office had been closed, owing to a death, and Palmer was in possession
+of a holiday.
+
+"Come on," he coaxed.  "We'll go out to the Climbing Rose and have supper."
+
+"I don't want to go."
+
+"That's not true, Grace, and you know it."
+
+"You and I are through."
+
+"It's your doing, not mine.  The roads are frozen hard; an hour's run into
+the country will bring your color back."
+
+"Much you care about that.  Go and ride with your wife," said the girl, and
+flung away from him.
+
+The last few weeks had filled out her thin figure, but she still bore
+traces of her illness.  Her short hair was curled over her head.  She
+looked curiously boyish, almost sexless.
+
+Because she saw him wince when she mentioned Christine, her ill temper
+increased.  She showed her teeth.
+
+"You get out of here," she said suddenly.  "I didn't ask you to come back.
+I don't want you."
+
+"Good Heavens, Grace!  You always knew I would have to marry some day."
+
+"I was sick; I nearly died.  I didn't hear any reports of you hanging
+around the hospital to learn how I was getting along."
+
+He laughed rather sheepishly.
+
+"I had to be careful.  You know that as well as I do.  I know half the staff
+there.  Besides, one of--" He hesitated over his wife's name.  "A girl I
+know very well was in the training-school. There would have been the devil
+to pay if I'd as much as called up."
+
+"You never told me you were going to get married."
+
+Cornered, he slipped an arm around her.  But she shook him off.
+
+"I meant to tell you, honey; but you got sick.  Anyhow, I--I hated to tell
+you, honey."
+
+He had furnished the flat for her.  There was a comfortable feeling of
+coming home about going there again.  And, now that the worst minute of
+their meeting was over, he was visibly happier.  But Grace continued to
+stand eyeing him somberly.
+
+"I've got something to tell you," she said.  "Don't have a fit, and don't
+laugh.  If you do, I'll--I'll jump out of the window. I've got a place in a
+store.  I'm going to be straight, Palmer."
+
+"Good for you!"
+
+He meant it.  She was a nice girl and he was fond of her.  The other was a
+dog's life.  And he was not unselfish about it.  She could not belong to
+him.  He did not want her to belong to any one else.
+
+"One of the nurses in the hospital, a Miss Page, has got me something to do
+at Lipton and Homburg's.  I am going on for the January white sale.  If I
+make good they will keep me."
+
+He had put her aside without a qualm; and now he met her announcement with
+approval.  He meant to let her alone.  They would have a holiday together,
+and then they would say good-bye. And she had not fooled him.  She still
+cared.  He was getting off well, all things considered.  She might have
+raised a row.
+
+"Good work!" he said.  "You'll be a lot happier.  But that isn't any reason
+why we shouldn't be friends, is it?  Just friends; I mean that.  I would
+like to feel that I can stop in now and then and say how do you do."
+
+"I promised Miss Page."
+
+"Never mind Miss Page."
+
+The mention of Sidney's name brought up in his mind Christine as he had
+left her that morning.  He scowled.  Things were not going well at home.
+There was something wrong with Christine.  She used to be a good sport, but
+she had never been the same since the day of the wedding.  He thought her
+attitude toward him was one of suspicion.  It made him uncomfortable.  But
+any attempt on his part to fathom it only met with cold silence.  That had
+been her attitude that morning.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," he said.  "We won't go to any of the old
+places.  I've found a new roadhouse in the country that's respectable
+enough to suit anybody.  We'll go out to Schwitter's and get some dinner.
+I'll promise to get you back early.  How's that?"
+
+In the end she gave in.  And on the way out he lived up to the letter of
+their agreement.  The situation exhilarated him: Grace with her new air of
+virtue, her new aloofness; his comfortable car; Johnny Rosenfeld's discreet
+back and alert ears.
+
+The adventure had all the thrill of a new conquest in it.  He treated the
+girl with deference, did not insist when she refused a cigarette, felt
+glowingly virtuous and exultant at the same time.
+
+When the car drew up before the Schwitter place, he slipped a five-dollar
+bill into Johnny Rosenfeld's not over-clean hand.
+
+"I don't mind the ears," he said.  "Just watch your tongue, lad." And
+Johnny stalled his engine in sheer surprise.
+
+"There's just enough of the Jew in me," said Johnny, "to know how to talk a
+lot and say nothing, Mr. Howe."
+
+He crawled stiffly out of the car and prepared to crank it.
+
+"I'll just give her the 'once over' now and then," he said. "She'll freeze
+solid if I let her stand."
+
+Grace had gone up the narrow path to the house.  She had the gift of
+looking well in her clothes, and her small hat with its long quill and her
+motor-coat were chic and becoming.  She never overdressed, as Christine was
+inclined to do.
+
+Fortunately for Palmer, Tillie did not see him.  A heavy German maid waited
+at the table in the dining-room, while Tillie baked waffles in the kitchen.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld, going around the side path to the kitchen door with
+visions of hot coffee and a country supper for his frozen stomach, saw her
+through the window bending flushed over the stove, and hesitated.  Then,
+without a word, he tiptoed back to the car again, and, crawling into the
+tonneau, covered himself with rugs.  In his untutored mind were certain
+great qualities, and loyalty to his employer was one.  The five dollars in
+his pocket had nothing whatever to do with it.
+
+At eighteen he had developed a philosophy of four words.  It took the place
+of the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism.  It was: "Mind
+your own business."
+
+The discovery of Tillie's hiding-place interested but did not thrill him.
+Tillie was his cousin.  If she wanted to do the sort of thing she was
+doing, that was her affair.  Tillie and her middle-aged lover, Palmer Howe
+and Grace--the alley was not unfamiliar with such relationships.  It viewed
+them with tolerance until they were found out, when it raised its hands.
+
+True to his promise, Palmer wakened the sleeping boy before nine o'clock.
+Grace had eaten little and drunk nothing; but Howe was slightly stimulated.
+
+"Give her the 'once over,'" he told Johnny, "and then go back and crawl
+into the rugs again.  I'll drive in."
+
+Grace sat beside him.  Their progress was slow and rough over the country
+roads, but when they reached the State road Howe threw open the throttle.
+He drove well.  The liquor was in his blood. He took chances and got away
+with them, laughing at the girl's gasps of dismay.
+
+"Wait until I get beyond Simkinsville," he said, "and I'll let her out.
+You're going to travel tonight, honey."
+
+The girl sat beside him with her eyes fixed ahead.  He had been drinking,
+and the warmth of the liquor was in his voice.  She was determined on one
+thing.  She was going to make him live up to the letter of his promise to
+go away at the house door; and more and more she realized that it would be
+difficult.  His mood was reckless, masterful.  Instead of laughing when she
+drew back from a proffered caress, he turned surly.  Obstinate lines that
+she remembered appeared from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.  She
+was uneasy.
+
+Finally she hit on a plan to make him stop somewhere in her neighborhood
+and let her get out of the car.  She would not come back after that.
+
+There was another car going toward the city.  Now it passed them, and as
+often they passed it.  It became a contest of wits. Palmer's car lost on
+the hills, but gained on the long level stretches, which gleamed with a
+coating of thin ice.
+
+"I wish you'd let them get ahead, Palmer.  It's silly and it's reckless."
+
+"I told you we'd travel to-night."
+
+He turned a little glance at her.  What the deuce was the matter with
+women, anyhow?  Were none of them cheerful any more?  Here was Grace as
+sober as Christine.  He felt outraged, defrauded.
+
+His light car skidded and struck the big car heavily.  On a smooth road
+perhaps nothing more serious than broken mudguards would have been the
+result.  But on the ice the small car slewed around and slid over the edge
+of the bank.  At the bottom of the declivity it turned over.
+
+Grace was flung clear of the wreckage.  Howe freed himself and stood erect,
+with one arm hanging at his side.  There was no sound at all from the boy
+under the tonneau.
+
+The big car had stopped.  Down the bank plunged a heavy, gorilla-like
+figure, long arms pushing aside the frozen branches of trees.  When he
+reached the car, O'Hara found Grace sitting unhurt on the ground.  In the
+wreck of the car the lamps had not been extinguished, and by their light he
+made out Howe, swaying dizzily.
+
+"Anybody underneath?"
+
+"The chauffeur.  He's dead, I think.  He doesn't answer."
+
+The other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that time.
+With the aid of a jack, they got the car up.  Johnny Rosenfeld lay doubled
+on his face underneath.  When he came to and opened his eyes, Grace almost
+shrieked with relief.
+
+"I'm all right," said Johnny Rosenfeld.  And, when they offered him
+whiskey: "Away with the fire-water.  I am no drinker.  I--I--" A spasm of
+pain twisted his face.  "I guess I'll get up." With his arms he lifted
+himself to a sitting position, and fell back again.
+
+"God!" he said.  "I can't move my legs."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but
+valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a
+talk with K. the night before she left.
+
+Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order.  K. sat by the
+table and watched her as she moved about the room.
+
+The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and down
+the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch in the
+sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home for her
+tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to bear them in
+triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy in years.
+
+And now it was over.  He drew a long breath.
+
+"I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on," she said anxiously.  "Not
+that we don't want you--you know better than that."
+
+"There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to," he said
+simply.
+
+"I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to--to keep things
+together.  First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it is you."
+
+"Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it is I who
+am undeniably grateful to you?  This is home now.  I have lived around--in
+different places and in different ways.  I would rather be here than
+anywhere else in the world."
+
+But he did not look at her.  There was so much that was hopeless in his
+eyes that he did not want her to see.  She would be quite capable, he told
+himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she ever guessed.
+And he was afraid--afraid, since he wanted her so much--that he would be
+fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms.  So he looked
+away.
+
+Everything was ready for her return to the hospital.  She had been out that
+day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with folded hands; she
+had made her round of little visits on the Street; and now her suit-case,
+packed, was in the hall.
+
+"In one way, it will be a little better for you than if Christine and
+Palmer were not in the house.  You like Christine, don't you?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"She likes you, K.  She depends on you, too, especially since that night
+when you took care of Palmer's arm before we got Dr. Max.  I often think,
+K., what a good doctor you would have been. You knew so well what to do for
+mother."
+
+She broke off.  She still could not trust her voice about her mother.
+
+"Palmer's arm is going to be quite straight.  Dr. Ed is so proud of Max
+over it.  It was a bad fracture."
+
+He had been waiting for that.  Once at least, whenever they were together,
+she brought Max into the conversation.  She was quite unconscious of it.
+
+"You and Max are great friends.  I knew you would like him.  He is
+interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"Very," said K.
+
+To save his life, he could not put any warmth into his voice.  He would be
+fair.  It was not in human nature to expect more of him.
+
+"Those long talks you have, shut in your room--what in the world do you
+talk about?  Politics?"
+
+"Occasionally."
+
+She was a little jealous of those evenings, when she sat alone, or when
+Harriet, sitting with her, made sketches under the lamp to the
+accompaniment of a steady hum of masculine voices from across the hall.
+Not that she was ignored, of course.  Max came in always, before he went,
+and, leaning over the back of a chair, would inform her of the absolute
+blankness of life in the hospital without her.
+
+"I go every day because I must," he would assure her gayly; "but, I tell
+you, the snap is gone out of it.  When there was a chance that every cap
+was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling."  He had
+a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of the
+shoulders.  "Cui bono?" he said--which, being translated, means: "What the
+devil's the use!"
+
+And K. would stand in the doorway, quietly smoking, or go back to his room
+and lock away in his trunk the great German books on surgery with which he
+and Max had been working out a case.
+
+So K. sat by the dining-room table and listened to her talk of Max that
+last evening together.
+
+"I told Mrs. Rosenfeld to-day not to be too much discouraged about Johnny.
+I had seen Dr. Max do such wonderful things.  Now that you are such
+friends,"--she eyed him wistfully,--"perhaps some day you will come to one
+of his operations.  Even if you didn't understand exactly, I know it would
+thrill you.  And--I'd like you to see me in my uniform, K.  You never
+have."
+
+She grew a little sad as the evening went on.  She was going to miss K.
+very much.  While she was ill she had watched the clock for the time to
+listen for him.  She knew the way he slammed the front door.  Palmer never
+slammed the door.  She knew too that, just after a bang that threatened the
+very glass in the transom, K. would come to the foot of the stairs and
+call:--
+
+"Ahoy, there!"
+
+"Aye, aye," she would answer--which was, he assured her, the proper
+response.
+
+Whether he came up the stairs at once or took his way back to Katie had
+depended on whether his tribute for the day was fruit or sweetbreads.
+
+Now that was all over.  They were such good friends.  He would miss her,
+too; but he would have Harriet and Christine and--Max. Back in a circle to
+Max, of course.
+
+She insisted, that last evening, on sitting up with him until midnight
+ushered in Christmas Day.  Christine and Palmer were out; Harriet, having
+presented Sidney with a blouse that had been left over in the shop from the
+autumn's business, had yawned herself to bed.
+
+When the bells announced midnight, Sidney roused with a start. She realized
+that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes were fixed on her.  The
+little clock on the shelf took up the burden of the churches, and struck
+the hour in quick staccato notes.
+
+Sidney rose and went over to K., her black dress in soft folds about her.
+
+"He is born, K."
+
+"He is born, dear."
+
+She stooped and kissed his cheek lightly.
+
+Christmas Day dawned thick and white.  Sidney left the little house at six,
+with the street light still burning through a mist of falling snow.
+
+The hospital wards and corridors were still lighted when she went on duty
+at seven o'clock.  She had been assigned to the men's surgical ward, and went
+there at once.  She had not seen Carlotta Harrison since her mother's
+death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward.  For the second time
+in four months, the two girls were working side by side.
+
+Sidney's recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made her
+nervous.  But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.
+
+"We were all sorry to hear of your trouble," she said.  "I hope we shall
+get on nicely."
+
+Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing.  At the far end two cots had
+been placed.
+
+"The ward is heavy, isn't it?"
+
+"Very.  I've been almost mad at dressing hour.  There are three of us--you,
+myself, and a probationer."
+
+The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows.
+Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a business-like way to her
+records.
+
+"The probationer's name is Wardwell," she said.  "Perhaps you'd better help
+her with the breakfasts.  If there's any way to make a mistake, she makes
+it."
+
+It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.
+
+"You here in the ward, Johnny!" she said.
+
+Suffering had refined the boy's features.  His dark, heavily fringed eyes
+looked at her from a pale face.  But he smiled up at her cheerfully.
+
+"I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved.
+Why pay rent?"
+
+Sidney had not seen him since his accident.  She had wished to go, but K.
+had urged against it.  She was not strong, and she had already suffered
+much.  And now the work of the ward pressed hard.  She had only a moment.
+She stood beside him and stroked his hand.
+
+"I'm sorry, Johnny."
+
+He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estate of
+a private patient to the free ward.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Miss Sidney," he said.  "Mr. Howe is paying six dollars
+a week for me.  The difference between me and the other fellows around here
+is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don't."
+
+Before his determined cheerfulness Sidney choked.
+
+"Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some.  I wish you'd tell Mr. Howe
+to give ma the six dollars.  She'll be needing it. I'm no bloated
+aristocrat; I don't have to have a napkin."
+
+"Have they told you what the trouble is?"
+
+"Back's broke.  But don't let that worry you.  Dr. Max Wilson is going to
+operate on me.  I'll be doing the tango yet."
+
+Sidney's eyes shone.  Of course, Max could do it.  What a thing it was to
+be able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld's and make it life
+again!
+
+All sorts of men made up Sidney's world: the derelicts who wandered through
+the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; the unshaven men
+in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, if not of pain;
+Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, but filling no
+especial place in the world.  Towering over them all was the younger
+Wilson.  He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that the other men
+were not--to their weakness strength, courage, daring, power.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.
+
+"When I was a kid," he said, "and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Max a
+dude, I never thought I'd lie here watching that door to see him come in.
+You have had trouble, too.  Ain't it the hell of a world, anyhow?  It ain't
+much of a Christmas to you, either."
+
+Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up with
+tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as she
+might have been.  When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled up at
+her whimsically.
+
+"Run for your life.  The dam's burst!" he said.
+
+As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day.  The
+internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in their
+buttonholes, doing few dressings.  Over the upper floors, where the
+kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting
+turkeys.  Every ward had its vase of holly.  In the afternoon, services
+were held in the chapel downstairs.
+
+Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down elevators.
+Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet slippers.
+
+Gradually the chapel filled up.  Outside the wide doors of the corridor the
+wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle.  Behind them, dressed for the
+occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who drove the
+ambulance.
+
+On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in crisp
+caps and fresh uniforms.  On the other side had been reserved a place for
+the staff.  The internes stood back against the wall, ready to run out
+between rejoicings, as it were--for a cigarette or an ambulance call, as
+the case might be.
+
+Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.
+
+The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising
+above the rest.  Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glass
+windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her cap,
+always just a little awry.
+
+Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes
+straying toward her constantly.  How she stood out from the others!  What a
+zest for living and for happiness she had!
+
+The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:
+
+"Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy
+God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
+
+That was Sidney.  She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil of
+gladness.  And he--
+
+His brother was singing.  His deep bass voice, not always true, boomed out
+above the sound of the small organ.  Ed had been a good brother to him; he
+had been a good son.
+
+Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his
+mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the girl
+who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to Carlotta
+last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line of nurses.
+
+Ah, there she was.  As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted
+her head and glanced toward him.  Swift color flooded her face.
+
+The nurses sang:--
+
+     "O holy Child of Bethlehem!
+      Descend to us, we pray;
+      Cast out our sin, and enter in,
+      Be born in us to-day."
+
+The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
+heavy throat shook with earnestness.
+
+The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and weary
+with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.
+
+The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts.  K. sent her a
+silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.  But
+the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a great box of
+roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From a neighbor."
+
+Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
+afternoon.
+
+Services over, the nurses filed out.  Max was waiting for Sidney in the
+corridor.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" she said.  "You see!"--she glanced down to the rose she
+wore.  "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."
+
+"But they were for you!"
+
+"They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
+chance to enjoy them."
+
+Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her.  All the pretty
+speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died before
+her frank glance.
+
+There were many things he wanted to say to her.  He wanted to tell her that
+he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without her;
+that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy man to
+his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire politely
+whether she had had her Christmas dinner.
+
+Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.
+
+"What have I done, Max?  Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
+friends?"
+
+"Damn discipline!" said the pride of the staff.
+
+Carlotta was watching them from the chapel.  Something in her eyes roused
+the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.
+
+"My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,
+and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh.  Put on your things and come for a
+ride."
+
+He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he
+maliciously raised his voice a trifle.
+
+"Just a little run," he urged.  "Put on your warmest things."
+
+Sidney protested.  She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock; but
+she had promised to go home.
+
+"K. is alone."
+
+"K. can sit with Christine.  Ten to one, he's with her now."
+
+The temptation was very strong.  She had been working hard all day.  The
+heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine  and evergreen
+in the chapel; made her dizzy.  The fresh outdoors called her.  And,
+besides, if K. were with Christine--
+
+"It's forbidden, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe it is."  He smiled at her.
+
+"And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!"
+
+"One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and
+then."
+
+After all, the situation seemed absurd.  Here was her old friend and
+neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride.  The swift rebellion
+of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.
+
+"Very well; I'll go."
+
+Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and black
+despair.  She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive
+with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on her
+face and the snow about her.  The jerky motion of the little sleigh would
+throw them close together.  How well she knew it all!  He would touch
+Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes.  That was his method: to play
+at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the cloak
+dropped and the danger was there.
+
+The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went
+back to it.  On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair of
+woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief.  There were sprays of holly
+scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey and
+ice-cream.
+
+The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the ward.
+She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the instant
+composing of the restless ward to peace.
+
+She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas was a
+festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she played
+cheerful things.
+
+The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across from
+bed to bed.
+
+The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
+long, pointed nose.  She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
+the music.
+
+"Last Christmas," she said plaintively, "we went out into the country in a
+hay-wagon and had a real time.  I don't know what I am here for, anyhow.  I
+am a fool."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Carlotta.
+
+"Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's
+the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of
+what I sat down to to-day--!"
+
+She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital
+differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while
+Sidney's had been to care for her patients.
+
+Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip.  She had idly glued
+the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was scratching
+a skull and cross-bones on it.
+
+"I wonder if you have noticed something," she said, eyes on the label.
+
+"I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given," said
+Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the
+rounds of the ward.
+
+When she came back she was sulky.
+
+"I'm no gossip," she said, putting the tray on the table.  "If you won't
+see, you won't.  That Rosenfeld boy is crying."
+
+As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta paid
+no attention to this.
+
+"What won't I see?"
+
+It required a little urging now.  Miss Wardwell swelled with importance
+and let her superior ask her twice.  Then:--
+
+"Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page."
+
+A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.
+
+"They're old friends."
+
+"Piffle!  Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you
+wanted to take a bite out of her.  Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll
+never finish her training; she'll marry him.  I wish," concluded the
+probationer plaintively, "that some good-looking fellow like that would
+take a fancy to me.  I'd do him credit.  I am as ugly as a mud fence, but
+I've got style."
+
+She was right, probably.  She was long and sinuous, but she wore her lanky,
+ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy would have
+dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long jade earrings,
+and made her a fashion.
+
+Carlotta's lips were dry.  The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny
+Rosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.
+The ward echoed with it.  "I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen," hummed the
+ward under its breath.  Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.
+
+"Lord, how I'd like to dance!  If I ever get out of this charnel-house!"
+
+The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.
+This crude girl was right--right.  Carlotta knew it down to the depths of
+her tortured brain.  As inevitably as the night followed the day, she was
+losing her game.  She had lost already, unless--
+
+If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things.  She
+surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wide apart.  It
+was here that they met on common ground.
+
+The lame violin-player limped out of the ward; the shadows of the early
+winter twilight settled down.  At five o'clock Carlotta sent Miss Wardwell
+to first supper, to the surprise of that seldom surprised person.  The ward
+lay still or shuffled abut quietly.  Christmas was over, and there were no
+evening papers to look forward to.
+
+Carlotta gave the five-o'clock medicines.  Then she sat down at the table
+near the door, with the tray in front of her.  There are certain thoughts
+that are at first functions of the brain; after a long time the spinal cord
+takes them up and converts them into acts almost automatically.  Perhaps
+because for the last month she had done the thing so often in her mind, its
+actual performance was almost without conscious thought.
+
+Carlotta took a bottle from her medicine cupboard, and, writing a new label
+for it, pasted it over the old one.  Then she exchanged it for one of the
+same size on the medicine tray.
+
+In the dining-room, at the probationers' table, Miss Wardwell was talking.
+
+"Believe me," she said, "me for the country and the simple life after this.
+They think I'm only a probationer and don't see anything, but I've got eyes
+in my head.  Harrison is stark crazy over Dr. Wilson, and she thinks I
+don't see it.  But never mind; I paid, her up to-day for a few of the jolts
+she has given me."
+
+Throughout the dining-room busy and competent young women came and ate,
+hastily or leisurely as their opportunity was, and went on their way again.
+In their hands they held the keys, not always of life and death perhaps,
+but of ease from pain, of tenderness, of smooth pillows, and cups of water
+to thirsty lips. In their eyes, as in Sidney's, burned the light of
+service.
+
+But here and there one found women, like Carlotta and Miss Wardwell, who
+had mistaken their vocation, who railed against the monotony of the life,
+its limitations, its endless sacrifices. They showed it in their eyes.
+
+Fifty or so against two--fifty who looked out on the world with the
+fearless glance of those who have seen life to its depths, and, with the
+broad understanding of actual contact, still found it good.  Fifty who were
+learning or had learned not to draw aside their clean starched skirts from
+the drab of the streets. And the fifty, who found the very scum of the
+gutters not too filthy for tenderness and care, let Carlotta and, in lesser
+measure, the new probationer alone.  They could not have voiced their
+reasons.
+
+The supper-room was filled with their soft voices, the rustle of their
+skirts, the gleam of their stiff white caps.
+
+When Carlotta came in, she greeted none of them.  They did not like her,
+and she knew it.
+
+Before her, instead of the tidy supper-table, she was seeing the
+medicine-tray as she had left it.
+
+"I guess I've fixed her," she said to herself.
+
+Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day.  This was when the gay
+little sleigh had stopped in front of the house.
+
+Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment.  Christine's parlor was gay
+with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her tea-cups.
+
+K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had turned to see Sidney in
+the doorway, and leaped to his feet.
+
+"I can't come in," she cried.  "I am only here for a moment.  I am out
+sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson.  It's perfectly delightful."
+
+"Ask him in for a cup of tea," Christine called out.  "Here's Aunt Harriet
+and mother and even Palmer!"
+
+Christine had aged during the last weeks, but she was putting up a brave
+front.
+
+"I'll ask him."
+
+Sidney ran to the front door and called: "Will you come in for a cup of
+tea?"
+
+"Tea!  Good Heavens, no.  Hurry."
+
+As Sidney turned back into the house, she met Palmer.  He had come out in
+the hall, and had closed the door into the parlor behind him.  His arm was
+still in splints, and swung suspended in a gay silk sling.
+
+The sound of laughter came through the door faintly.
+
+"How is he to-day?" He meant Johnny, of course.  The boy's face was always
+with him.
+
+"Better in some ways, but of course--"
+
+"When are they going to operate?"
+
+"When he is a little stronger.  Why don't you come into see him?"
+
+"I can't.  That's the truth.  I can't face the poor youngster."
+
+"He doesn't seem to blame you; he says it's all in the game."
+
+"Sidney, does Christine know that I was not alone that night?"
+
+"If she guesses, it is not because of anything the boy has said. He has
+told nothing."
+
+Out of the firelight, away from the chatter and the laughter, Palmer's face
+showed worn and haggard.  He put his free hand on Sidney's shoulder.
+
+"I was thinking that perhaps if I went away--"
+
+"That would be cowardly, wouldn't it?"
+
+"If Christine would only say something and get it over with!  She doesn't
+sulk; I think she's really trying to be kind.  But she hates me, Sidney.
+She turns pale every time I touch her hand."
+
+All the light had died out of Sidney's face.  Life was terrible, after
+all--overwhelming.  One did wrong things, and other people suffered; or one
+was good, as her mother had been, and was left lonely, a widow, or like
+Aunt Harriet.  Life was a sham, too. Things were so different from what
+they seemed to be: Christine beyond the door, pouring tea and laughing with
+her heart in ashes; Palmer beside her, faultlessly dressed and wretched.
+The only one she thought really contented was K.  He seemed to move so
+calmly in his little orbit.  He was always so steady, so balanced.  If life
+held no heights for him, at least it held no depths.
+
+So Sidney thought, in her ignorance!
+
+"There's only one thing, Palmer," she said gravely.  "Johnny Rosenfeld is
+going to have his chance. If anybody in the world can save him, Max Wilson
+can."
+
+The light of that speech was in her eyes when she went out to the sleigh
+again.  K. followed her out and tucked the robes in carefully about her.
+
+"Warm enough?"
+
+"All right, thank you."
+
+"Don't go too far.  Is there any chance of having you home for supper?"
+
+"I think not.  I am to go on duty at six again."
+
+If there was a shadow in K.'s eyes, she did not see it.  He waved them off
+smilingly from the pavement, and went rather heavily back into the house.
+
+"Just how many men are in love with you, Sidney?" asked Max, as Peggy
+started up the Street.
+
+"No one that I know of, unless--"
+
+"Exactly.  Unless--"
+
+"What I meant," she said with dignity, "is that unless one counts very
+young men, and that isn't really love."
+
+"We'll leave out Joe Drummond and myself--for, of course, I am very young.
+Who is in love with you besides Le Moyne?  Any of the internes at the
+hospital?"
+
+"Me!  Le Moyne is not in love with me."
+
+There was such sincerity in her voice that Wilson was relieved.
+
+K., older than himself and more grave, had always had an odd attraction for
+women.  He had been frankly bored by them, but the fact had remained.  And
+Max more than suspected that now, at last, he had been caught.
+
+"Don't you really mean that you are in love with Le Moyne?"
+
+"Please don't be absurd.  I am not in love with anybody; I haven't time to
+be in love.  I have my profession now."
+
+"Bah!  A woman's real profession is love."
+
+Sidney differed from this hotly.  So warm did the argument become that they
+passed without seeing a middle-aged gentleman, short and rather heavy set,
+struggling through a snowdrift on foot, and carrying in his hand a
+dilapidated leather bag.
+
+Dr. Ed hailed them.  But the cutter slipped by and left him knee-deep,
+looking ruefully after them.
+
+"The young scamp!" he said.  "So that's where Peggy is!"
+
+Nevertheless, there was no anger in Dr. Ed's mind, only a vague and
+inarticulate regret.  These things that came so easily to Max, the
+affection of women, gay little irresponsibilities like the stealing of
+Peggy and the sleigh, had never been his.  If there was any faint
+resentment, it was at himself.  He had raised the boy wrong--he had taught
+him to be selfish.  Holding the bag high out of the drifts, he made his
+slow progress up the Street.
+
+At something after two o'clock that night, K. put down his pipe and
+listened.  He had not been able to sleep since midnight.  In his
+dressing-gown he had sat by the small fire, thinking.  The content of his
+first few months on the Street was rapidly giving way to unrest.  He who
+had meant to cut himself off from life found himself again in close touch
+with it; his eddy was deep with it.
+
+For the first time, he had begun to question the wisdom of what he had
+done.  Had it been cowardice, after all?  It had taken courage, God knew,
+to give up everything and come away.  In a way, it would have taken more
+courage to have stayed.  Had he been right or wrong?
+
+And there was a new element.  He had thought, at first, that he could fight
+down this love for Sidney.  But it was increasingly hard.  The innocent
+touch of her hand on his arm, the moment when he had held her in his arms
+after her mother's death, the thousand small contacts of her returns to the
+little house--all these set his blood on fire.  And it was fighting blood.
+
+Under his quiet exterior K. fought many conflicts those winter days--over
+his desk and ledger at the office, in his room alone, with Harriet planning
+fresh triumphs beyond the partition, even by Christine's fire, with
+Christine just across, sitting in silence and watching his grave profile
+and steady eyes.
+
+He had a little picture of Sidney--a snap-shot that he had taken himself.
+It showed Sidney minus a hand, which had been out of range when the camera
+had been snapped, and standing on a steep declivity which would have been
+quite a level had he held the camera straight.  Nevertheless it was Sidney,
+her hair blowing about her, eyes looking out, tender lips smiling.  When
+she was not at home, it sat on K.'s dresser, propped against his
+collar-box.  When she was in the house, it lay under the pin-cushion.
+
+Two o'clock in the morning, then, and K. in his dressing-gown, with the
+picture propped, not against the collar-box, but against his lamp, where he
+could see it.
+
+He sat forward in his chair, his hands folded around his knee, and looked
+at it.  He was trying to picture the Sidney of the photograph in his old
+life--trying to find a place for her.  But it was difficult.  There had
+been few women in his old life.  His mother had died many years before.
+There had been women who had cared for him, but he put them impatiently out
+of his mind.
+
+Then the bell rang.
+
+Christine was moving about below.  He could hear her quick steps. Almost
+before he had heaved his long legs out of the chair, she was tapping at his
+door outside.
+
+"It's Mrs. Rosenfeld.  She says she wants to see you."
+
+He went down the stairs.  Mrs. Rosenfeld was standing in the lower hall, a
+shawl about her shoulders.  Her face was white and drawn above it.
+
+"I've had word to go to the hospital," she said.  "I thought maybe you'd go
+with me.  It seems as if I can't stand it alone. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!"
+
+"Where's Palmer?" K. demanded of Christine.
+
+"He's not in yet."
+
+"Are you afraid to stay in the house alone?"
+
+"No; please go."
+
+He ran up the staircase to his room and flung on some clothing. In the
+lower hall, Mrs. Rosenfeld's sobs had become low moans; Christine stood
+helplessly over her.
+
+"I am terribly sorry," she said--"terribly sorry!  When I think whose fault
+all this is!"
+
+Mrs. Rosenfeld put out a work-hardened hand and caught Christine's fingers.
+
+"Never mind that," she said.  "You didn't do it.  I guess you and I
+understand each other.  Only pray God you never have a child."
+
+K. never forgot the scene in the small emergency ward to which Johnny had
+been taken.  Under the white lights his boyish figure looked strangely
+long.  There was a group around the bed--Max Wilson, two or three internes,
+the night nurse on duty, and the Head.
+
+Sitting just inside the door on a straight chair was Sidney--such a Sidney
+as he never had seen before, her face colorless, her eyes wide and
+unseeing, her hands clenched in her lap.  When he stood beside her, she did
+not move or look up.  The group around the bed had parted to admit Mrs.
+Rosenfeld, and closed again.  Only Sidney and K. remained by the door,
+isolated, alone.
+
+"You must not take it like that, dear.  It's sad, of course. But, after
+all, in that condition--"
+
+It was her first knowledge that he was there.  But she did not turn.
+
+"They say I poisoned him."  Her voice was dreary, inflectionless.
+
+"You--what?"
+
+"They say I gave him the wrong medicine; that he's dying; that I murdered
+him."  She shivered.
+
+K. touched her hands.  They were ice-cold.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"There is nothing to tell.  I came on duty at six o'clock and gave the
+medicines.  When the night nurse came on at seven, everything was all
+right.  The medicine-tray was just as it should be.  Johnny was asleep.  I
+went to say good-night to him and he--he was asleep.  I didn't give him
+anything but what was on the tray," she finished piteously.  "I looked at
+the label; I always look."
+
+By a shifting of the group around the bed, K.'s eyes looked for a moment
+directly into Carlotta's.  Just for a moment; then the crowd closed up
+again.  It was well for Carlotta that it did. She looked as if she had seen
+a ghost--closed her eyes, even reeled.
+
+"Miss Harrison is worn out," Dr. Wilson said brusquely.  "Get some one to
+take her place."
+
+But Carlotta rallied.  After all, the presence of this man in this room at
+such a time meant nothing.  He was Sidney's friend, that was all.
+
+But her nerve was shaken.  The thing had gone beyond her.  She had not
+meant to kill.  It was the boy's weakened condition that was turning her
+revenge into tragedy.
+
+"I am all right," she pleaded across the bed to the Head.  "Let me stay,
+please.  He's from my ward.  I--I am responsible."
+
+Wilson was at his wits' end.  He had done everything he knew without
+result.  The boy, rousing for an instant, would lapse again into stupor.
+With a healthy man they could have tried more vigorous measures--could have
+forced him to his feet and walked him about, could have beaten him with
+knotted towels dipped in ice-water.  But the wrecked body on the bed could
+stand no such heroic treatment.
+
+It was Le Moyne, after all, who saved Johnny Rosenfeld's life. For, when
+staff and nurses had exhausted all their resources, he stepped forward with
+a quiet word that brought the internes to their feet astonished.
+
+There was a new treatment for such cases--it had been tried abroad.  He
+looked at Max.
+
+Max had never heard of it.  He threw out his hands.
+
+"Try it, for Heaven's sake," he said.  "I'm all in."
+
+The apparatus was not in the house--must be extemporized, indeed, at last,
+of odds and ends from the operating-room.  K. did the work, his long
+fingers deft and skillful--while Mrs. Rosenfeld knelt by the bed with her
+face buried; while Sidney sat, dazed and bewildered, on her little chair
+inside the door; while night nurses tiptoed along the corridor, and the
+night watchman stared incredulous from outside the door.
+
+When the two great rectangles that were the emergency ward windows had
+turned from mirrors reflecting the room to gray rectangles in the morning
+light; Johnny Rosenfeld opened his eyes and spoke the first words that
+marked his return from the dark valley.
+
+"Gee, this is the life!" he said, and smiled into K.'s watchful face.
+
+When it was clear that the boy would live, K. rose stiffly from the bedside
+and went over to Sidney's chair.
+
+"He's all right now," he said--"as all right as he can be, poor lad!"
+
+"You did it--you! How strange that you should know such a thing. How am I
+to thank you?"
+
+The internes, talking among themselves, had wandered down to their
+dining-room for early coffee.  Wilson was giving a few last instructions as
+to the boy's care.  Quite unexpectedly, Sidney caught K.'s hand and held it
+to her lips.  The iron repression of the night, of months indeed, fell away
+before her simple caress.
+
+"My dear, my dear," he said huskily.  "Anything that I can do--for you--at
+any time--"
+
+It was after Sidney had crept like a broken thing to her room that Carlotta
+Harrison and K. came face to face.  Johnny was quite conscious by that
+time, a little blue around the lips, but valiantly cheerful.
+
+"More things can happen to a fellow than I ever knew there was!" he said to
+his mother, and submitted rather sheepishly to her tears and caresses.
+
+"You were always a good boy, Johnny," she said.  "Just you get well enough
+to come home.  I'll take care of you the rest of my life.  We will get you
+a wheel-chair when you can be about, and I can take you out in the park
+when I come from work."
+
+"I'll be passenger and you'll be chauffeur, ma."
+
+"Mr. Le Moyne is going to get your father sent up again.  With sixty-five
+cents a day and what I make, we'll get along."
+
+"You bet we will!"
+
+"Oh, Johnny, if I could see you coming in the door again and yelling
+'mother' and 'supper' in one breath!"
+
+The meeting between Carlotta and Le Moyne was very quiet.  She had been
+making a sort of subconscious impression on the retina of his mind during
+all the night.  It would be difficult to tell when he actually knew her.
+
+When the preparations for moving Johnny back to the big ward had been made,
+the other nurses left the room, and Carlotta and the boy were together.  K.
+stopped her on her way to the door.
+
+"Miss Harrison!"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+"I am not Dr. Edwardes here; my name is Le Moyne."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I have not seen you since you left St. John's."
+
+"No; I--I rested for a few months."
+
+"I suppose they do not know that you were--that you have had any previous
+hospital experience."
+
+"No.  Are you going to tell them?"
+
+"I shall not tell them, of course."
+
+And thus, by simple mutual consent, it was arranged that each should
+respect the other's confidence.
+
+Carlotta staggered to her room.  There had been a time, just before dawn,
+when she had had one of those swift revelations that sometimes come at the
+end of a long night.  She had seen herself as she was.  The boy was very
+low, hardly breathing.  Her past stretched behind her, a series of small
+revenges and passionate outbursts, swift yieldings, slow remorse.  She
+dared not look ahead.  She would have given every hope she had in the
+world, just then, for Sidney's stainless past.
+
+She hated herself with that deadliest loathing that comes of complete
+self-revelation.
+
+And she carried to her room the knowledge that the night's struggle had
+been in vain--that, although Johnny Rosenfeld would live, she had gained
+nothing by what he had suffered.  The whole night had shown her the
+hopelessness of any stratagem to win Wilson from his new allegiance.  She
+had surprised him in the hallway, watching Sidney's slender figure as she
+made her way up the stairs to her room.  Never, in all his past overtures
+to her, had she seen that look in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+To Harriet Kennedy, Sidney's sentence of thirty days' suspension came as a
+blow.  K. broke the news to her that evening before the time for Sidney's
+arrival.
+
+The little household was sharing in Harriet's prosperity.  Katie had a
+helper now, a little Austrian girl named Mimi.  And Harriet had established
+on the Street the innovation of after-dinner coffee.  It was over the
+after-dinner coffee that K. made his announcement.
+
+"What do you mean by saying she is coming home for thirty days? Is the
+child ill?"
+
+"Not ill, although she is not quite well.  The fact is, Harriet,"--for it
+was "Harriet" and "K." by this time,--"there has been a sort of
+semi-accident up at the hospital.  It hasn't resulted seriously, but--"
+
+Harriet put down the apostle-spoon in her hand and stared across at him.
+
+"Then she has been suspended?  What did she do?  I don't believe she did
+anything!"
+
+"There was a mistake about the medicine, and she was blamed; that's all."
+
+"She'd better come home and stay home," said Harriet shortly.  "I hope it
+doesn't get in the papers.  This dressmaking business is a funny sort of
+thing.  One word against you or any of your family, and the crowd's off
+somewhere else."
+
+"There's nothing against Sidney," K. reminded her.  "Nothing in the world.
+I saw the superintendent myself this afternoon.  It seems it's a mere
+matter of discipline.  Somebody made a mistake, and they cannot let such a
+thing go by.  But he believes, as I do, that it was not Sidney."
+
+However Harriet had hardened herself against the girl's arrival, all she
+had meant to say fled when she saw Sidney's circled eyes and pathetic
+mouth.
+
+"You child!" she said.  "You poor little girl!"  And took her corseted
+bosom.
+
+For the time at least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her.  All
+her brave vaunt of service faded before her disgrace.
+
+When Christine would have seen her, she kept her door locked and asked for
+just that one evening alone.  But after Harriet had retired, and Mimi, the
+Austrian, had crept out to the corner to mail a letter back to Gratz,
+Sidney unbolted her door and listened in the little upper hall.  Harriet,
+her head in a towel, her face carefully cold-creamed, had gone to bed; but
+K.'s light, as usual, was shining over the transom.  Sidney tiptoed to the
+door.
+
+"K.!"
+
+Almost immediately he opened the door.
+
+"May I come in and talk to you?"
+
+He turned and took a quick survey of the room.  The picture was against the
+collar-box.  But he took the risk and held the door wide.
+
+Sidney came in and sat down by the fire.  By being adroit he managed to
+slip the little picture over and under the box before she saw it.  It is
+doubtful if she would have realized its significance, had she seen it.
+
+"I've been thinking things over," she said.  "It seems to me I'd better not
+go back."
+
+He had left the door carefully open.  Men are always more conventional than
+women.
+
+"That would be foolish, wouldn't it, when you have done so well? And,
+besides, since you are not guilty, Sidney--"
+
+"I didn't do it!" she cried passionately.  "I know I didn't.  But I've lost
+faith in myself.  I can't keep on; that's all there is to it.  All last
+night, in the emergency ward, I felt it going. I clutched at it.  I kept
+saying to myself: 'You didn't do it, you didn't do it'; and all the time
+something inside of me was saying, 'Not now, perhaps; but sometime you
+may.'"
+
+Poor K., who had reasoned all this out for himself and had come to the same
+impasse!
+
+"To go on like this, feeling that one has life and death in one's hand, and
+then perhaps some day to make a mistake like that!" She looked up at him
+forlornly.  "I am just not brave enough, K."
+
+"Wouldn't it be braver to keep on?  Aren't you giving up very easily?"
+
+Her world was in pieces about her, and she felt alone in a wide and empty
+place.  And, because her nerves were drawn taut until they were ready to
+snap, Sidney turned on him shrewishly.
+
+"I think you are all afraid I will come back to stay.  Nobody really wants
+me anywhere--in all the world!  Not at the hospital, not here, not
+anyplace.  I am no use."
+
+"When you say that nobody wants you," said K., not very steadily, "I--I
+think you are making a mistake."
+
+"Who?" she demanded.  "Christine?  Aunt Harriet?  Katie?  The only person
+who ever really wanted me was my mother, and I went away and left her!"
+
+She scanned his face closely, and, reading there something she did not
+understand, she colored suddenly.
+
+"I believe you mean Joe Drummond."
+
+"No; I do not mean Joe Drummond."
+
+If he had found any encouragement in her face, he would have gone on
+recklessly; but her blank eyes warned him.
+
+"If you mean Max Wilson," said Sidney, "you are entirely wrong. He's not in
+love with me--not, that is, any more than he is in love with a dozen girls.
+He likes to be with me--oh, I know that; but that doesn't mean--anything
+else.  Anyhow, after this disgrace--"
+
+"There is no disgrace, child."
+
+"He'll think me careless, at the least.  And his ideals are so high, K."
+
+"You say he likes to be with you.  What about you?"
+
+Sidney had been sitting in a low chair by the fire.  She rose with a sudden
+passionate movement.  In the informality of the household, she, had visited
+K. in her dressing-gown and slippers; and now she stood before him, a
+tragic young figure, clutching the folds of her gown across her breast.
+
+"I worship him, K.," she said tragically.  "When I see him coming, I want
+to get down and let him walk on me.  I know his step in the hall.  I know
+the very way he rings for the elevator. When I see him in the
+operating-room, cool and calm while every one else is flustered and
+excited, he--he looks like a god."
+
+Then, half ashamed of her outburst, she turned her back to him and stood
+gazing at the small coal fire.  It was as well for K. that she did not see
+his face.  For that one moment the despair that was in him shone in his
+eyes.  He glanced around the shabby little room, at the sagging bed, the
+collar-box, the pincushion, the old marble-topped bureau under which
+Reginald had formerly made his nest, at his untidy table, littered with
+pipes and books, at the image in the mirror of his own tall figure, stooped
+and weary.
+
+"It's real, all this?" he asked after a pause.  "You're sure it's not
+just--glamour, Sidney?"
+
+"It's real--terribly real."  Her voice was muffled, and he knew then that
+she was crying.
+
+She was mightily ashamed of it.  Tears, of course, except in the privacy of
+one's closet, were not ethical on the Street.
+
+"Perhaps he cares very much, too."
+
+"Give me a handkerchief," said Sidney in a muffled tone, and the little
+scene was broken into while K. searched through a bureau drawer.  Then:
+
+"It's all over, anyhow, since this.  If he'd really cared he'd have come
+over to-night.  When one is in trouble one needs friends."
+
+Back in a circle she came inevitably to her suspension.  She would never go
+back, she said passionately.  She was innocent, had been falsely accused.
+If they could think such a thing about her, she didn't want to be in their
+old hospital.
+
+K. questioned her, alternately soothing and probing.
+
+"You are positive about it?"
+
+"Absolutely.  I have given him his medicines dozens of times."
+
+"You looked at the label?"
+
+"I swear I did, K."
+
+"Who else had access to the medicine closet?"
+
+"Carlotta Harrison carried the keys, of course.  I was off duty from four
+to six.  When Carlotta left the ward, the probationer would have them."
+
+"Have you reason to think that either one of these girls would wish you
+harm?"
+
+"None whatever," began Sidney vehemently; and then, checking
+herself,--"unless--but that's rather ridiculous."
+
+"What is ridiculous?"
+
+"I've sometimes thought that Carlotta--but I am sure she is perfectly fair
+with me.  Even if she--if she--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Even if she likes Dr. Wilson, I don't believe--Why, K., she wouldn't!  It
+would be murder."
+
+"Murder, of course," said K., "in intention, anyhow.  Of course she didn't
+do it.  I'm only trying to find out whose mistake it was."
+
+Soon after that she said good-night and went out.  She turned in the
+doorway and smiled tremulously back at him.
+
+"You have done me a lot of good.  You almost make me believe in myself."
+
+"That's because I believe in you."
+
+With a quick movement that was one of her charms, Sidney suddenly closed
+the door and slipped back into the room.  K., hearing the door close,
+thought she had gone, and dropped heavily into a chair.
+
+"My best friend in all the world!" said Sidney suddenly from behind him,
+and, bending over, she kissed him on the cheek.
+
+The next instant the door had closed behind her, and K. was left alone to
+such wretchedness and bliss as the evening had brought him.
+
+On toward morning, Harriet, who slept but restlessly in her towel, wakened
+to the glare of his light over the transom.
+
+"K.!" she called pettishly from her door.  "I wish you wouldn't go to sleep
+and let your light burn!"
+
+K., surmising the towel and cold cream, had the tact not to open his door.
+
+"I am not asleep, Harriet, and I am sorry about the light.  It's going out
+now."
+
+Before he extinguished the light, he walked over to the old dresser and
+surveyed himself in the glass.  Two nights without sleep and much anxiety
+had told on him.  He looked old, haggard; infinitely tired.  Mentally he
+compared himself with Wilson, flushed with success, erect, triumphant,
+almost insolent. Nothing had more certainly told him the hopelessness of
+his love for Sidney than her good-night kiss.  He was her brother, her
+friend.  He would never be her lover.  He drew a long breath and proceeded
+to undress in the dark.
+
+Joe Drummond came to see Sidney the next day.  She would have avoided him
+if she could, but Mimi had ushered him up to the sewing-room boudoir before
+she had time to escape.  She had not seen the boy for two months, and the
+change in him startled her. He was thinner, rather hectic, scrupulously
+well dressed.
+
+"Why, Joe!" she said, and then: "Won't you sit down?"
+
+He was still rather theatrical.  He dramatized himself, as he had that
+night the June before when he had asked Sidney to marry him. He stood just
+inside the doorway.  He offered no conventional greeting whatever; but,
+after surveying her briefly, her black gown, the lines around her eyes:--
+
+"You're not going back to that place, of course?"
+
+"I--I haven't decided."
+
+"Then somebody's got to decide for you.  The thing for you to do is to stay
+right here, Sidney.  People know you on the Street. Nobody here would ever
+accuse you of trying to murder anybody."
+
+In spite of herself, Sidney smiled a little.
+
+"Nobody thinks I tried to murder him.  It was a mistake about the
+medicines.  I didn't do it, Joe."
+
+His love was purely selfish, for he brushed aside her protest as if she had
+not spoken.
+
+"You give me the word and I'll go and get your things; I've got a car of my
+own now."
+
+"But, Joe, they have only done what they thought was right. Whoever made
+it, there was a mistake."
+
+He stared at her incredulously.
+
+"You don't mean that you are going to stand for this sort of thing?  Every
+time some fool makes a mistake, are they going to blame it on you?"
+
+"Please don't be theatrical.  Come in and sit down.  I can't talk to you if
+you explode like a rocket all the time."
+
+Her matter-of-fact tone had its effect.  He advanced into the room, but he
+still scorned a chair.
+
+"I guess you've been wondering why you haven't heard from me," he said.
+"I've seen you more than you've seen me."
+
+Sidney looked uneasy.  The idea of espionage is always repugnant, and to
+have a rejected lover always in the offing, as it were, was disconcerting.
+
+"I wish you would be just a little bit sensible, Joe.  It's so silly of
+you, really.  It's not because you care for me; it's really because you
+care for yourself."
+
+"You can't look at me and say that, Sid."
+
+He ran his finger around his collar--an old gesture; but the collar was
+very loose.  He was thin; his neck showed it.
+
+"I'm just eating my heart out for you, and that's the truth.  And it isn't
+only that.  Everywhere I go, people say, 'There's the fellow Sidney Page
+turned down when she went to the hospital.' I've got so I keep off the
+Street as much as I can."
+
+Sidney was half alarmed, half irritated.  This wild, excited boy was not
+the doggedly faithful youth she had always known.  It seemed to her that he
+was hardly sane--that underneath his quiet manner and carefully repressed
+voice there lurked something irrational, something she could not cope with.
+She looked up at him helplessly.
+
+"But what do you want me to do?  You--you almost frighten me. If you'd only
+sit down--"
+
+"I want you to come home.  I'm not asking anything else now.  I just want
+you to come back, so that things will be the way they used to be.  Now that
+they have turned you out--"
+
+"They've done nothing of the sort.  I've told you that."
+
+"You're going back?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Because you love the hospital, or because you love somebody connected with
+the hospital?"
+
+Sidney was thoroughly angry by this time, angry and reckless. She had come
+through so much that every nerve was crying in passionate protest.
+
+"If it will make you understand things any better," she cried, "I am going
+back for both reasons!"
+
+She was sorry the next moment.  But her words seemed, surprisingly enough,
+to steady him.  For the first time, he sat down.
+
+"Then, as far as I am concerned, it's all over, is it?"
+
+"Yes, Joe.  I told you that long ago."
+
+He seemed hardly to be listening.  His thoughts had ranged far ahead.
+Suddenly:--
+
+"You think Christine has her hands full with Palmer, don't you? Well, if
+you take Max Wilson, you're going to have more trouble than Christine ever
+dreamed of.  I can tell you some things about him now that will make you
+think twice."
+
+But Sidney had reached her limit.  She went over and flung open the door.
+
+"Every word that you say shows me how right I am in not marrying you, Joe,"
+she said.  "Real men do not say those things about each other under any
+circumstances.  You're behaving like a bad boy.  I don't want you to come
+back until you have grown up."
+
+He was very white, but he picked up his hat and went to the door.
+
+"I guess I AM crazy," he said.  "I've been wanting to go away, but mother
+raises such a fuss--I'll not annoy you any more."
+
+He reached in his pocket and, pulling out a small box, held it toward her.
+The lid was punched full of holes.
+
+"Reginald," he said solemnly.  "I've had him all winter.  Some boys caught
+him in the park, and I brought him home."
+
+He left her standing there speechless with surprise, with the box in her
+hand, and ran down the stairs and out into the Street.  At the foot of the
+steps he almost collided with Dr. Ed.
+
+"Back to see Sidney?" said Dr. Ed genially.  "That's fine, Joe. I'm glad
+you've made it up."
+
+The boy went blindly down the Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Winter relaxed its clutch slowly that year.  March was bitterly cold; even
+April found the roads still frozen and the hedgerows clustered with ice.
+But at mid-day there was spring in the air. In the courtyard of the
+hospital, convalescents sat on the benches and watched for robins.  The
+fountain, which had frozen out, was being repaired.  Here and there on ward
+window-sills tulips opened their gaudy petals to the sun.
+
+Harriet had gone abroad for a flying trip in March and came back laden with
+new ideas, model gowns, and fresh enthusiasm.  She carried out and planted
+flowers on her sister's grave, and went back to her work with a feeling of
+duty done.  A combination of crocuses and snow on the ground had given her
+an inspiration for a gown.  She drew it in pencil on an envelope on her way
+back in the street car.
+
+Grace Irving, having made good during the white sales, had been sent to the
+spring cottons.  She began to walk with her head higher.  The day she sold
+Sidney material for a simple white gown, she was very happy.  Once a
+customer brought her a bunch of primroses.  All day she kept them under the
+counter in a glass of water, and at evening she took them to Johnny
+Rosenfeld, still lying prone in the hospital.
+
+On Sidney, on K., and on Christine the winter had left its mark heavily.
+Christine, readjusting her life to new conditions, was graver, more
+thoughtful.  She was alone most of the time now. Under K.'s guidance, she
+had given up the "Duchess" and was reading real books.  She was thinking
+real thoughts, too, for the first time in her life.
+
+Sidney, as tender as ever, had lost a little of the radiance from her eyes;
+her voice had deepened.  Where she had been a pretty girl, she was now
+lovely.  She was back in the hospital again, this time in the children's
+ward.  K., going in one day to take Johnny Rosenfeld a basket of fruit, saw
+her there with a child in her arms, and a light in her eyes that he had
+never seen before. It hurt him, rather--things being as they were with him.
+When he came out he looked straight ahead.
+
+With the opening of spring the little house at Hillfoot took on fresh
+activities.  Tillie was house-cleaning with great thoroughness.  She
+scrubbed carpets, took down the clean curtains, and put them up again
+freshly starched.  It was as if she found in sheer activity and fatigue a
+remedy for her uneasiness.
+
+Business had not been very good.  The impeccable character of the little
+house had been against it.  True, Mr. Schwitter had a little bar and
+served the best liquors he could buy; but he discouraged rowdiness--had
+been known to refuse to sell to boys under twenty-one and to men who had
+already overindulged.  The word went about that Schwitter's was no place
+for a good time.  Even Tillie's chicken and waffles failed against this
+handicap.
+
+By the middle of April the house-cleaning was done.  One or two motor
+parties had come out, dined sedately and wined moderately, and had gone
+back to the city again.  The next two weeks saw the weather clear.  The
+roads dried up, robins filled the trees with their noisy spring songs, and
+still business continued dull.
+
+By the first day of May, Tillie's uneasiness had become certainty.  On that
+morning Mr. Schwitter, coming in from the early milking, found her sitting
+in the kitchen, her face buried in her apron.  He put down the milk-pails
+and, going over to her, put a hand on her head.
+
+"I guess there's no mistake, then?"
+
+"There's no mistake," said poor Tillie into her apron.
+
+He bent down and kissed the back of her neck.  Then, when she failed to
+brighten, he tiptoed around the kitchen, poured the milk into pans, and
+rinsed the buckets, working methodically in his heavy way.  The tea-kettle
+had boiled dry.  He filled that, too.  Then:--
+
+"Do you want to see a doctor?"
+
+"I'd better see somebody," she said, without looking up.  "And--don't
+think I'm blaming you.  I guess I don't really blame anybody.  As far as
+that goes, I've wanted a child right along. It isn't the trouble I am
+thinking of either."
+
+He nodded.  Words were unnecessary between them.  He made some tea clumsily
+and browned her a piece of toast.  When he had put them on one end of the
+kitchen table, he went over to her again.
+
+"I guess I'd ought to have thought of this before, but all I thought of was
+trying to get a little happiness out of life. And,"--he stroked her
+arm,--"as far as I am concerned, it's been worth while, Tillie.  No matter
+what I've had to do, I've always looked forward to coming back here to you
+in the evening. Maybe I don't say it enough, but I guess you know I feel it
+all right."
+
+Without looking up, she placed her hand over his.
+
+"I guess we started wrong," he went on.  "You can't build happiness on what
+isn't right.  You and I can manage well enough; but now that there's going
+to be another, it looks different, somehow."
+
+After that morning Tillie took up her burden stoically.  The hope of
+motherhood alternated with black fits of depression.  She sang at her work,
+to burst out into sudden tears.
+
+Other things were not going well.  Schwitter had given up his nursery
+business; but the motorists who came to Hillfoot did not come back.  When,
+at last, he took the horse and buggy and drove about the country for
+orders, he was too late.  Other nurserymen had been before him; shrubberies
+and orchards were already being set out.  The second payment on his
+mortgage would be due in July.  By the middle of May they were frankly up
+against it. Schwitter at last dared to put the situation into words.
+
+"We're not making good, Til," he said.  "And I guess you know the reason.
+We are too decent; that's what's the matter with us." There was no irony
+in his words.
+
+With all her sophistication, Tillie was vastly ignorant of life. He had to
+explain.
+
+"We'll have to keep a sort of hotel," he said lamely.  "Sell to everybody
+that comes along, and--if parties want to stay over-night--"
+
+Tillie's white face turned crimson.
+
+He attempted a compromise.  "If it's bad weather, and they're married--"
+
+"How are we to know if they are married or not?"
+
+He admired her very much for it.  He had always respected her. But the
+situation was not less acute.  There were two or three unfurnished rooms on
+the second floor.  He began to make tentative suggestions as to their
+furnishing.  Once he got a catalogue from an installment house, and tried
+to hide it from her.  Tillie's eyes blazed.  She burned it in the kitchen
+stove.
+
+Schwitter himself was ashamed; but the idea obsessed him.  Other people
+fattened on the frailties of human nature.  Two miles away, on the other
+road, was a public house that had netted the owner ten thousand dollars
+profit the year before.  They bought their beer from the same concern.  He
+was not as young as he had been; there was the expense of keeping his
+wife--he had never allowed her to go into the charity ward at the asylum.
+Now that there was going to be a child, there would be three people
+dependent upon him.  He was past fifty, and not robust.
+
+One night, after Tillie was asleep, he slipped noiselessly into his clothes
+and out to the barn, where he hitched up the horse with nervous fingers.
+
+Tillie never learned of that midnight excursion to the "Climbing Rose," two
+miles away.  Lights blazed in every window; a dozen automobiles were parked
+before the barn.  Somebody was playing a piano.  From the bar came the
+jingle of glasses and loud, cheerful conversation.
+
+When Schwitter turned the horse's head back toward Hillfoot, his mind was
+made up.  He would furnish the upper rooms; he would bring a barkeeper from
+town--these people wanted mixed drinks; he could get a second-hand piano
+somewhere.
+
+Tillie's rebellion was instant and complete.  When she found him
+determined, she made the compromise that her condition necessitated.  She
+could not leave him, but she would not stay in the rehabilitated little
+house.  When, a week after Schwitter's visit to the "Climbing Rose," an
+installment van arrived from town with the new furniture, Tillie moved out
+to what had been the harness-room of the old barn and there established
+herself.
+
+"I am not leaving you," she told him.  "I don't even know that I am blaming
+you.  But I am not going to have anything to do with it, and that's flat."
+
+So it happened that K., making a spring pilgrimage to see Tillie, stopped
+astounded in the road.  The weather was warm, and he carried his Norfolk
+coat over his arm.  The little house was bustling; a dozen automobiles were
+parked in the barnyard.  The bar was crowded, and a barkeeper in a white
+coat was mixing drinks with the casual indifference of his kind.  There
+were tables under the trees on the lawn, and a new sign on the gate.
+
+Even Schwitter bore a new look of prosperity.  Over his schooner of beer
+K. gathered something of the story.
+
+"I'm not proud of it, Mr. Le Moyne.  I've come to do a good many things the
+last year or so that I never thought I would do.  But one thing leads to
+another.  First I took Tillie away from her good position, and after that
+nothing went right.  Then there were things coming on"--he looked at K.
+anxiously--"that meant more expense.  I would be glad if you wouldn't say
+anything about it at Mrs. McKee's."
+
+"I'll not speak of it, of course."
+
+It was then, when K. asked for Tillie, that Mr. Schwitter's unhappiness
+became more apparent.
+
+"She wouldn't stand for it," he said.  "She moved out the day I furnished
+the rooms upstairs and got the piano."
+
+"Do you mean she has gone?"
+
+"As far as the barn.  She wouldn't stay in the house.  I--I'll take you out
+there, if you would like to see her."
+
+K. shrewdly surmised that Tillie would prefer to see him alone, under the
+circumstances.
+
+"I guess I can find her," he said, and rose from the little table.
+
+"If you--if you can say anything to help me out, sir, I'd appreciate it.
+Of course, she understands how I am driven. But--especially if you would
+tell her that the Street doesn't know--"
+
+"I'll do all I can," K. promised, and followed the path to the barn.
+
+Tillie received him with a certain dignity.  The little harness-room was
+very comfortable.  A white iron bed in a corner, a flat table with a mirror
+above it, a rocking-chair, and a sewing-machine furnished the room.
+
+"I wouldn't stand for it," she said simply; "so here I am.  Come in, Mr. Le
+Moyne."
+
+There being but one chair, she sat on the bed.  The room was littered with
+small garments in the making.  She made no attempt to conceal them; rather,
+she pointed to them with pride.
+
+"I am making them myself.  I have a lot of time these days.  He's got a
+hired girl at the house.  It was hard enough to sew at first, with me
+making two right sleeves almost every time." Then, seeing his kindly eye on
+her: "Well, it's happened, Mr. Le Moyne.  What am I going to do?  What am I
+going to be?"
+
+"You're going to be a very good mother, Tillie."
+
+She was manifestly in need of cheering.  K., who also needed cheering that
+spring day, found his consolation in seeing her brighten under the small
+gossip of the Street.  The deaf-and-dumb book agent had taken on life
+insurance as a side issue, and was doing well; the grocery store at the
+corner was going to be torn down, and over the new store there were to be
+apartments; Reginald had been miraculously returned, and was building a new
+nest under his bureau; Harriet Kennedy had been to Paris, and had brought
+home six French words and a new figure.
+
+Outside the open door the big barn loomed cool and shadowy, full of empty
+spaces where later the hay would be stored; anxious mother hens led their
+broods about; underneath in the horse stable the restless horses pawed in
+their stalls.  From where he sat, Le Moyne could see only the round breasts
+of the two hills, the fresh green of the orchard the cows in a meadow
+beyond.
+
+Tillie followed his eyes.
+
+"I like it here," she confessed.  "I've had more time to think since I
+moved out than I ever had in my life before.  Them hills help.  When the
+noise is worst down at the house, I look at the hills there and--"
+
+There were great thoughts in her mind--that the hills meant God, and that
+in His good time perhaps it would all come right.  But she was
+inarticulate.  "The hills help a lot," she repeated.
+
+K. rose.  Tillie's work-basket lay near him.  He picked up one of the
+little garments.  In his big hands it looked small, absurd.
+
+"I--I want to tell you something, Tillie.  Don't count on it too much; but
+Mrs. Schwitter has been failing rapidly for the last month or two."
+
+Tillie caught his arm.
+
+"You've seen her?"
+
+"I was interested.  I wanted to see things work out right for you."
+
+All the color had faded from Tillie's face.
+
+"You're very good to me, Mr. Le Moyne," she said.  "I don't wish the poor
+soul any harm, but--oh, my God! if she's going, let it be before the next
+four months are over."
+
+K. had fallen into the habit, after his long walks, of dropping into
+Christine's little parlor for a chat before he went upstairs.  Those early
+spring days found Harriet Kennedy busy late in the evenings, and, save for
+Christine and K., the house was practically deserted.
+
+The breach between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was too
+proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her.  On those
+occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so
+discontented that he drove her almost to distraction.  Although she was
+convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with him the
+night of the accident, she did not trust him.  Not that girl, perhaps,
+but there were others.  There would always be others.
+
+Into Christine's little parlor, then, K. turned, the evening after he had
+seen Tillie.  She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall stood
+open.
+
+"Come in," she said, as he hesitated in the doorway.
+
+"I am frightfully dusty."
+
+"There's a brush in the drawer of the hat-rack--although I don't really
+mind how you look."
+
+The little room always cheered K.  Its warmth and light appealed to his
+aesthetic sense; after the bareness of his bedroom, it spelled luxury.  And
+perhaps, to be entirely frank, there was more than physical comfort and
+satisfaction in the evenings he spent in Christine's firelit parlor.  He
+was entirely masculine, and her evident pleasure in his society gratified
+him.  He had fallen into a way of thinking of himself as a sort of older
+brother to all the world because he was a sort of older brother to Sidney.
+The evenings with her did something to reinstate him in his own
+self-esteem.  It was subtle, psychological, but also it was very human.
+
+"Come and sit down," said Christine.  "Here's a chair, and here are
+cigarettes and there are matches.  Now!"
+
+But, for once, K. declined the chair.  He stood in front of the fireplace
+and looked down at her, his head bent slightly to one side.
+
+"I wonder if you would like to do a very kind thing," he said unexpectedly.
+
+"Make you coffee?"
+
+"Something much more trouble and not so pleasant."
+
+Christine glanced up at him.  When she was with him, when his steady eyes
+looked down at her, small affectations fell away. She was more genuine with
+K. than with anyone else, even herself.
+
+"Tell me what it is, or shall I promise first?"
+
+"I want you to promise just one thing: to keep a secret."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+Christine was not over-intelligent, perhaps, but she was shrewd. That Le
+Moyne's past held a secret she had felt from the beginning.  She sat up
+with eager curiosity.
+
+"No, not mine.  Is it a promise?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I've found Tillie, Christine.  I want you to go out to see her."
+
+Christine's red lips parted.  The Street did not go out to see women in
+Tillie's situation.
+
+"But, K.!" she protested.
+
+"She needs another woman just now.  She's going to have a child, Christine;
+and she has had no one to talk to but her hus--but Mr. Schwitter and
+myself.  She is depressed and not very well."
+
+"But what shall I say to her?  I'd really rather not go, K. Not," she
+hastened to set herself right in his eyes--"not that I feel any
+unwillingness to see her.  I know you understand that. But--what in the
+world shall I say to her?"
+
+"Say what your own kind heart prompts."
+
+It had been rather a long time since Christine had been accused of having a
+kind heart.  Not that she was unkind, but in all her self-centered young
+life there had been little call on her sympathies.  Her eyes clouded.
+
+"I wish I were as good as you think I am."
+
+There was a little silence between them.  Then Le Moyne spoke briskly:--
+
+"I'll tell you how to get there; perhaps I would better write it."
+
+He moved over to Christine's small writing-table and, seating himself,
+proceeded to write out the directions for reaching Hillfoot.
+
+Behind him, Christine had taken his place on the hearth-rug and stood
+watching his head in the light of the desk-lamp.  "What a strong, quiet
+face it is," she thought.  Why did she get the impression of such a
+tremendous reserve power in this man who was a clerk, and a clerk only?
+Behind him she made a quick, unconscious gesture of appeal, both hands out
+for an instant. She dropped them guiltily as K. rose with the paper in his
+hand.
+
+"I've drawn a sort of map of the roads," he began.  "You see, this--"
+
+Christine was looking, not at the paper, but up at him.
+
+"I wonder if you know, K.," she said, "what a lucky woman the woman will be
+who marries you?"
+
+He laughed good-humoredly.
+
+"I wonder how long I could hypnotize her into thinking that."
+
+He was still holding out the paper.
+
+"I've had time to do a little thinking lately," she said, without
+bitterness.  "Palmer is away so much now.  I've been looking back,
+wondering if I ever thought that about him.  I don't believe I ever did.  I
+wonder--"
+
+She checked herself abruptly and took the paper from his hand.
+
+"I'll go to see Tillie, of course," she consented.  "It is like you to have
+found her."
+
+She sat down.  Although she picked up the book that she had been reading
+with the evident intention of discussing it, her thoughts were still on
+Tillie, on Palmer, on herself.  After a moment:--
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you how terribly mixed up things are? Take this
+Street, for instance.  Can you think of anybody on it that--that things
+have gone entirely right with?"
+
+"It's a little world of its own, of course," said K., "and it has plenty of
+contact points with life.  But wherever one finds people, many or few, one
+finds all the elements that make up life--joy and sorrow, birth and death,
+and even tragedy.  That's rather trite, isn't it?"
+
+Christine was still pursuing her thoughts.
+
+"Men are different," she said.  "To a certain extent they make their own
+fates.  But when you think of the women on the Street,--Tillie, Harriet
+Kennedy, Sidney Page, myself, even Mrs. Rosenfeld back in the
+alley,--somebody else moulds things for us, and all we can do is to sit
+back and suffer.  I am beginning to think the world is a terrible place, K.
+Why do people so often marry the wrong people?  Why can't a man care for
+one woman and only one all his life?  Why--why is it all so complicated?"
+
+"There are men who care for only one woman all their lives."
+
+"You're that sort, aren't you?"
+
+"I don't want to put myself on any pinnacle.  If I cared enough for a woman
+to marry her, I'd hope to--But we are being very tragic, Christine."
+
+"I feel tragic.  There's going to be another mistake, K., unless you stop
+it."
+
+He tried to leaven the conversation with a little fun.
+
+"If you're going to ask me to interfere between Mrs. McKee and the
+deaf-and-dumb book and insurance agent, I shall do nothing of the sort.
+She can both speak and hear enough for both of them."
+
+"I mean Sidney and Max Wilson.  He's mad about her, K.; and, because she's
+the sort she is, he'll probably be mad about her all his life, even if he
+marries her.  But he'll not be true to her; I know the type now."
+
+K. leaned back with a flicker of pain in his eyes.
+
+"What can I do about it?"
+
+Astute as he was, he did not suspect that Christine was using this method
+to fathom his feeling for Sidney.  Perhaps she hardly knew it herself.
+
+"You might marry her yourself, K."
+
+But he had himself in hand by this time, and she learned nothing from
+either his voice or his eyes.
+
+"On twenty dollars a week?  And without so much as asking her consent?"  He
+dropped his light tone.  "I'm not in a position to marry anybody.  Even if
+Sidney cared for me, which she doesn't, of course--"
+
+"Then you don't intend to interfere?  You're going to let the Street see
+another failure?"
+
+"I think you can understand," said K. rather wearily, "that if I cared
+less, Christine, it would be easier to interfere."
+
+After all, Christine had known this, or surmised it, for weeks. But it hurt
+like a fresh stab in an old wound.  It was K. who spoke again after a
+pause:--
+
+"The deadly hard thing, of course, is to sit by and see things happening
+that one--that one would naturally try to prevent."
+
+"I don't believe that you have always been of those who only stand and
+wait," said Christine.  "Sometime, K., when you know me better and like me
+better, I want you to tell me about it, will you?"
+
+"There's very little to tell.  I held a trust.  When I discovered that I
+was unfit to hold that trust any longer, I quit.  That's all."
+
+His tone of finality closed the discussion.  But Christine's eyes were on
+him often that evening, puzzled, rather sad.
+
+They talked of books, of music--Christine played well in a dashing way.  K.
+had brought her soft, tender little things, and had stood over her until
+her noisy touch became gentle.  She played for him a little, while he sat
+back in the big chair with his hand screening his eyes.
+
+When, at last, he rose and picked up his cap; it was nine o'clock.
+
+"I've taken your whole evening," he said remorsefully.  "Why don't you tell
+me I am a nuisance and send me off?"
+
+Christine was still at the piano, her hands on the keys.  She spoke without
+looking at him:--
+
+"You're never a nuisance, K., and--"
+
+"You'll go out to see Tillie, won't you?"
+
+"Yes.  But I'll not go under false pretenses.  I am going quite frankly
+because you want me to."
+
+Something in her tone caught his attention.
+
+"I forgot to tell you," she went on.  "Father has given Palmer five
+thousand dollars.  He's going to buy a share in a business."
+
+"That's fine."
+
+"Possibly.  I don't believe much in Palmer's business ventures."
+
+Her flat tone still held him.  Underneath it he divined strain and
+repression.
+
+"I hate to go and leave you alone," he said at last from the door.  "Have
+you any idea when Palmer will be back?"
+
+"Not the slightest.  K., will you come here a moment?  Stand behind me; I
+don't want to see you, and I want to tell you something."
+
+He did as she bade him, rather puzzled.
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"I think I am a fool for saying this.  Perhaps I am spoiling the only
+chance I have to get any happiness out of life.  But I have got to say it.
+It's stronger than I am.  I was terribly unhappy, K., and then you came
+into my life, and I--now I listen for your step in the hall.  I can't be a
+hypocrite any longer, K."
+
+When he stood behind her, silent and not moving, she turned slowly about
+and faced him.  He towered there in the little room, grave eyes on hers.
+
+"It's a long time since I have had a woman friend, Christine," he said
+soberly.  "Your friendship has meant a good deal.  In a good many ways, I'd
+not care to look ahead if it were not for you.  I value our friendship so
+much that I--"
+
+"That you don't want me to spoil it," she finished for him.  "I know you
+don't care for me, K., not the way I--But I wanted you to know.  It doesn't
+hurt a good man to know such a thing.  And it--isn't going to stop your
+coming here, is it?"
+
+"Of course not," said K. heartily.  "But to-morrow, when we are both
+clear-headed, we will talk this over.  You are mistaken about this thing,
+Christine; I am sure of that.  Things have not been going well, and just
+because I am always around, and all that sort of thing, you think things
+that aren't really so.  I'm only a reaction, Christine."
+
+He tried to make her smile up at him.  But just then she could not smile.
+
+If she had cried, things might have been different for every one; for
+perhaps K. would have taken her in his arms.  He was heart-hungry enough,
+those days, for anything.  And perhaps, too, being intuitive, Christine
+felt this.  But she had no mind to force him into a situation against his
+will.
+
+"It is because you are good," she said, and held out her hand.
+"Good-night."
+
+Le Moyne took it and bent over and kissed it lightly.  There was in the
+kiss all that he could not say of respect, of affection and understanding.
+
+"Good-night, Christine," he said, and went into the hall and upstairs.
+
+The lamp was not lighted in his room, but the street light glowed through
+the windows.  Once again the waving fronds of the ailanthus tree flung
+ghostly shadows on the walls.  There was a faint sweet odor of blossoms, so
+soon to become rank and heavy.
+
+Over the floor in a wild zigzag darted a strip of white paper which
+disappeared under the bureau.  Reginald was building another nest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room late in the spring as the result of a
+conversation between the younger Wilson and the Head.
+
+"When are you going to put my protegee into the operating-room?" asked
+Wilson, meeting Miss Gregg in a corridor one bright, spring afternoon.
+
+"That usually comes in the second year, Dr. Wilson."
+
+He smiled down at her.  "That isn't a rule, is it?"
+
+"Not exactly.  Miss Page is very young, and of course there are other girls
+who have not yet had the experience.  But, if you make the request--"
+
+"I am going to have some good cases soon.  I'll not make a request, of
+course; but, if you see fit, it would be good training for Miss Page."
+
+Miss Gregg went on, knowing perfectly that at his next operation Dr. Wilson
+would expect Sidney Page in the operating-room.  The other doctors were not
+so exigent.  She would have liked to have all the staff old and settled,
+like Dr. O'Hara or the older Wilson.  These young men came in and tore
+things up.
+
+She sighed as she went on.  There were so many things to go wrong.  The
+butter had been bad--she must speak to the matron. The sterilizer in the
+operating-room was out of order--that meant a quarrel with the chief
+engineer.  Requisitions were too heavy--that meant going around to the
+wards and suggesting to the head nurses that lead pencils and bandages and
+adhesive plaster and safety-pins cost money.
+
+It was particularly inconvenient to move Sidney just then. Carlotta
+Harrison was off duty, ill.  She had been ailing for a month, and now she
+was down with a temperature.  As the Head went toward Sidney's ward, her
+busy mind was playing her nurses in their wards like pieces on a
+checkerboard.
+
+Sidney went into the operating-room that afternoon.  For her blue uniform,
+kerchief, and cap she exchanged the hideous operating-room garb: long,
+straight white gown with short sleeves and mob-cap, gray-white from many
+sterilizations.  But the ugly costume seemed to emphasize her beauty, as
+the habit of a nun often brings out the placid saintliness of her face.
+
+The relationship between Sidney and Max had reached that point that occurs
+in all relationships between men and women: when things must either go
+forward or go back, but cannot remain as they are.  The condition had
+existed for the last three months. It exasperated the man.
+
+As a matter of fact, Wilson could not go ahead.  The situation with
+Carlotta had become tense, irritating.  He felt that she stood ready to
+block any move he made.  He would not go back, and he dared not go forward.
+
+If Sidney was puzzled, she kept it bravely to herself.  In her little room
+at night, with the door carefully locked, she tried to think things out.
+There were a few treasures that she looked over regularly: a dried flower
+from the Christmas roses; a label that he had pasted playfully on the back
+of her hand one day after the rush of surgical dressings was over and which
+said "Rx, Take once and forever."
+
+There was another piece of paper over which Sidney spent much time.  It was
+a page torn out of an order book, and it read: "Sigsbee may have light
+diet; Rosenfeld massage."  Underneath was written, very small:
+
+     "You are the most beautiful person in the world."
+
+Two reasons had prompted Wilson to request to have Sidney in the
+operating-room.  He wanted her with him, and he wanted her to see him at
+work: the age-old instinct of the male to have his woman see him at his
+best.
+
+He was in high spirits that first day of Sidney's operating-room
+experience.  For the time at least, Carlotta was out of the way. Her somber
+eyes no longer watched him.  Once he looked up from his work and glanced at
+Sidney where she stood at strained attention.
+
+"Feeling faint?" he said.
+
+She colored under the eyes that were turned on her.
+
+"No, Dr. Wilson."
+
+"A great many of them faint on the first day.  We sometimes have them lying
+all over the floor."
+
+He challenged Miss Gregg with his eyes, and she reproved him with a shake
+of her head, as she might a bad boy.
+
+One way and another, he managed to turn the attention of the operating-room
+to Sidney several times.  It suited his whim, and it did more than that: it
+gave him a chance to speak to her in his teasing way.
+
+Sidney came through the operation as if she had been through fire--taut as
+a string, rather pale, but undaunted.  But when the last case had been
+taken out, Max dropped his bantering manner. The internes were looking over
+instruments; the nurses were busy on the hundred and one tasks of clearing
+up; so he had a chance for a word with her alone.
+
+"I am proud of you, Sidney; you came through it like a soldier."
+
+"You made it very hard for me."
+
+A nurse was coming toward him; he had only a moment.
+
+"I shall leave a note in the mail-box," he said quickly, and proceeded with
+the scrubbing of his hands which signified the end of the day's work.
+
+The operations had lasted until late in the afternoon.  The night nurses
+had taken up their stations; prayers were over.  The internes were gathered
+in the smoking-room, threshing over the day's work, as was their custom.
+When Sidney was free, she went to the office for the note.  It was very
+brief:--
+
+I have something I want to say to you, dear.  I think you know what it is.
+I never see you alone at home any more.  If you can get off for an hour,
+won't you take the trolley to the end of Division Street?  I'll be there
+with the car at eight-thirty, and I promise to have you back by ten
+o'clock.
+
+MAX.
+
+The office was empty.  No one saw her as she stood by the mail-box.  The
+ticking of the office clock, the heavy rumble of a dray outside, the roll
+of the ambulance as it went out through the gateway, and in her hand the
+realization of what she had never confessed as a hope, even to herself!
+He, the great one, was going to stoop to her.  It had been in his eyes that
+afternoon; it was there, in his letter, now.
+
+It was eight by the office clock.  To get out of her uniform and into
+street clothing, fifteen minutes; on the trolley, another fifteen.  She
+would need to hurry.
+
+But she did not meet him, after all.  Miss Wardwell met her in the upper
+hall.
+
+"Did you get my message?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"What message?"
+
+"Miss Harrison wants to see you.  She has been moved to a private room."
+
+Sidney glanced at K.'s little watch.
+
+"Must she see me to-night?"
+
+"She has been waiting for hours--ever since you went to the
+operating-room."
+
+Sidney sighed, but she went to Carlotta at once.  The girl's condition was
+puzzling the staff.  There was talk of "T.R."--which is hospital for
+"typhoid restrictions." But T.R. has apathy, generally, and Carlotta was
+not apathetic.  Sidney found her tossing restlessly on her high white bed,
+and put her cool hand over Carlotta's hot one.
+
+"Did you send for me?"
+
+"Hours ago."  Then, seeing her operating-room uniform: "You've been THERE,
+have you?"
+
+"Is there anything I can do, Carlotta?"
+
+Excitement had dyed Sidney's cheeks with color and made her eyes luminous.
+The girl in the bed eyed her, and then abruptly drew her hand away.
+
+"Were you going out?"
+
+"Yes; but not right away."
+
+"I'll not keep you if you have an engagement."
+
+"The engagement will have to wait.  I'm sorry you're ill.  If you would
+like me to stay with you tonight--"
+
+Carlotta shook her head on her pillow.
+
+"Mercy, no!" she said irritably.  "I'm only worn out.  I need a rest.  Are
+you going home to-night?"
+
+"No," Sidney admitted, and flushed.
+
+Nothing escaped Carlotta's eyes--the younger girl's radiance, her
+confusion, even her operating room uniform and what it signified.  How she
+hated her, with her youth and freshness, her wide eyes, her soft red lips!
+And this engagement--she had the uncanny divination of fury.
+
+"I was going to ask you to do something for me," she said shortly; "but
+I've changed my mind about it.  Go on and keep your engagement."
+
+To end the interview, she turned over and lay with her face to the wall.
+Sidney stood waiting uncertainly.  All her training had been to ignore the
+irritability of the sick, and Carlotta was very ill; she could see that.
+
+"Just remember that I am ready to do anything I can, Carlotta," she said.
+"Nothing will--will be a trouble."
+
+She waited a moment, but, receiving no acknowledgement of her offer, she
+turned slowly and went toward the door.
+
+"Sidney!"
+
+She went back to the bed.
+
+"Yes.  Don't sit up, Carlotta.  What is it?"
+
+"I'm frightened!"
+
+"You're feverish and nervous.  There's nothing to be frightened about."
+
+"If it's typhoid, I'm gone."
+
+"That's childish.  Of course you're not gone, or anything like it.
+Besides, it's probably not typhoid."
+
+"I'm afraid to sleep.  I doze for a little, and when I waken there are
+people in the room.  They stand around the bed and talk about me."
+
+Sidney's precious minutes were flying; but Carlotta had gone into a
+paroxysm of terror, holding to Sidney's hand and begging not to be left
+alone.
+
+"I'm too young to die," she would whimper.  And in the next breath: "I want
+to die--I don't want to live!"
+
+The hands of the little watch pointed to eight-thirty when at last she lay
+quiet, with closed eyes.  Sidney, tiptoeing to the door, was brought up
+short by her name again, this time in a more normal voice:--
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Perhaps you are right and I'm going to get over this."
+
+"Certainly you are.  Your nerves are playing tricks with you to-night."
+
+"I'll tell you now why I sent for you."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"If--if I get very bad,--you know what I mean,--will you promise to do
+exactly what I tell you?"
+
+"I promise, absolutely."
+
+"My trunk key is in my pocket-book.  There is a letter in the tray--just a
+name, no address on it.  Promise to see that it is not delivered; that it
+is destroyed without being read."
+
+Sidney promised promptly; and, because it was too late now for her meeting
+with Wilson, for the next hour she devoted herself to making Carlotta
+comfortable.  So long as she was busy, a sort of exaltation of service
+upheld her.  But when at last the night assistant came to sit with the sick
+girl, and Sidney was free, all the life faded from her face.  He had waited
+for her and she had not come.  Would he understand?  Would he ask her to
+meet him again?  Perhaps, after all, his question had not been what she had
+thought.
+
+She went miserably to bed.  K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow.  Her
+stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her mirror.
+Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the city--taxicabs,
+stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging home at midnight, a
+city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates to the hospital's
+always open door.  When she could not sleep, she got up and padded to the
+window in bare feet.  The light from a passing machine showed a youthful
+figure that looked like Joe Drummond.
+
+Life, that had always seemed so simple, was growing very complicated for
+Sidney: Joe and K., Palmer and Christine, Johnny Rosenfeld,
+Carlotta--either lonely or tragic, all of them, or both.  Life in the raw.
+
+Toward morning Carlotta wakened.  The night assistant was still there.  It
+had been a quiet night and she was asleep in her chair.  To save her cap
+she had taken it off, and early streaks of silver showed in her hair.
+
+Carlotta roused her ruthlessly.
+
+"I want something from my trunk," she said.
+
+The assistant wakened reluctantly, and looked at her watch. Almost morning.
+She yawned and pinned on her cap.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," she protested.  "You don't want me to go to the
+trunk-room at this hour!"
+
+"I can go myself," said Carlotta, and put her feet out of bed.
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+"A letter on the top tray.  If I wait my temperature will go up and I can't
+think."
+
+"Shall I mail it for you?"
+
+"Bring it here," said Carlotta shortly.  "I want to destroy it."
+
+The young woman went without haste, to show that a night assistant may do
+such things out of friendship, but not because she must.  She stopped at
+the desk where the night nurse in charge of the rooms on that floor was
+filling out records.
+
+"Give me twelve private patients to look after instead of one nurse like
+Carlotta Harrison!" she complained.  "I've got to go to the trunk-room for
+her at this hour, and it next door to the mortuary!"
+
+As the first rays of the summer sun came through the window, shadowing the
+fire-escape like a lattice on the wall of the little gray-walled room,
+Carlotta sat up in her bed and lighted the candle on the stand.  The night
+assistant, who dreamed sometimes of fire, stood nervously by.
+
+"Why don't you let me do it?" she asked irritably.
+
+Carlotta did not reply at once.  The candle was in her hand, and she was
+staring at the letter.
+
+"Because I want to do it myself," she said at last, and thrust the envelope
+into the flame.  It burned slowly, at first a thin blue flame tipped with
+yellow, then, eating its way with a small fine crackling, a widening,
+destroying blaze that left behind it black ash and destruction.  The acrid
+odor of burning filled the room.  Not until it was consumed, and the black
+ash fell into the saucer of the candlestick, did Carlotta speak again.
+Then:--
+
+"If every fool of a woman who wrote a letter burnt it, there would be less
+trouble in the world," she said, and lay back among her pillows.
+
+The assistant said nothing.  She was sleepy and irritated, and she had
+crushed her best cap by letting the lid of Carlotta's trunk fall on her.
+She went out of the room with disapproval in every line of her back.
+
+"She burned it," she informed the night nurse at her desk.  "A letter to a
+man--one of her suitors, I suppose.  The name was K. Le Moyne."
+
+The deepening and broadening of Sidney's character had been very noticeable
+in the last few months.  She had gained in decision without becoming hard;
+had learned to see things as they are, not through the rose mist of early
+girlhood; and, far from being daunted, had developed a philosophy that had
+for its basis God in His heaven and all well with the world.
+
+But her new theory of acceptance did not comprehend everything. She was in
+a state of wild revolt, for instance, as to Johnny Rosenfeld, and more
+remotely but not less deeply concerned over Grace Irving.  Soon she was to
+learn of Tillie's predicament, and to take up the cudgels valiantly for
+her.
+
+But her revolt was to be for herself too.  On the day after her failure to
+keep her appointment with Wilson she had her half-holiday.  No word had
+come from him, and when, after a restless night, she went to her new
+station in the operating-room, it was to learn that he had been called out
+of the city in consultation and would not operate that day.  O'Hara would
+take advantage of the free afternoon to run in some odds and ends of cases.
+
+The operating-room made gauze that morning, and small packets of tampons:
+absorbent cotton covered with sterilized gauze, and fastened
+together--twelve, by careful count, in each bundle.
+
+Miss Grange, who had been kind to Sidney in her probation months, taught
+her the method.
+
+"Used instead of sponges," she explained.  "If you noticed yesterday, they
+were counted before and after each operation. One of these missing is worse
+than a bank clerk out a dollar at the end of the day.  There's no closing
+up until it's found!"
+
+Sidney eyed the small packet before her anxiously.
+
+"What a hideous responsibility!" she said.
+
+From that time on she handled the small gauze sponges almost reverently.
+
+The operating-room--all glass, white enamel, and shining
+nickel-plate--first frightened, then thrilled her.  It was as if, having
+loved a great actor, she now trod the enchanted boards on which he achieved
+his triumphs.  She was glad that it was her afternoon off, and that she
+would not see some lesser star--O'Hara, to wit--usurping his place.
+
+But Max had not sent her any word.  That hurt.  He must have known that she
+had been delayed.
+
+The operating-room was a hive of industry, and tongues kept pace with
+fingers.  The hospital was a world, like the Street.  The nurses had come
+from many places, and, like cloistered nuns, seemed to have left the other
+world behind.  A new President of the country was less real than a new
+interne.  The country might wash its soiled linen in public; what was that
+compared with enough sheets and towels for the wards?  Big buildings were
+going up in the city.  Ah! but the hospital took cognizance of that,
+gathering as it did a toll from each new story added.  What news of the
+world came in through the great doors was translated at once into hospital
+terms.  What the city forgot the hospital remembered.  It took up life
+where the town left it at its gates, and carried it on or saw it ended, as
+the case might be.  So these young women knew the ending of many stories,
+the beginning of some; but of none did they know both the first and last,
+the beginning and the end.
+
+By many small kindnesses Sidney had made herself popular.  And there was
+more to it than that.  She never shirked.  The other girls had the respect
+for her of one honest worker for another. The episode that had caused her
+suspension seemed entirely forgotten.  They showed her carefully what she
+was to do; and, because she must know the "why" of everything, they
+explained as best they could.
+
+It was while she was standing by the great sterilizer that she heard,
+through an open door, part of a conversation that sent her through the day
+with her world in revolt.
+
+The talkers were putting the anaesthetizing-room in readiness for the
+afternoon.  Sidney, waiting for the time to open the sterilizer, was busy,
+for the first time in her hurried morning, with her own thoughts.  Because
+she was very human, there was a little exultation in her mind.  What would
+these girls say when they learned of how things stood between her and their
+hero--that, out of all his world of society and clubs and beautiful women,
+he was going to choose her?
+
+Not shameful, this: the honest pride of a woman in being chosen from many.
+
+The voices were very clear.
+
+"Typhoid! Of course not.  She's eating her heart out."
+
+"Do you think he has really broken with her?"
+
+"Probably not.  She knows it's coming; that's all."
+
+"Sometimes I have wondered--"
+
+"So have others.  She oughtn't to be here, of course.  But among so many
+there is bound to be one now and then who--who isn't quite--"
+
+She hesitated, at a loss for a word.
+
+"Did you--did you ever think over that trouble with Miss Page about the
+medicines?  That would have been easy, and like her."
+
+"She hates Miss Page, of course, but I hardly think--If that's true, it was
+nearly murder."
+
+There were two voices, a young one, full of soft southern inflections, and
+an older voice, a trifle hard, as from disillusion.
+
+They were working as they talked.  Sidney could hear the clatter of bottles
+on the tray, the scraping of a moved table.
+
+"He was crazy about her last fall."
+
+"Miss Page?"  (The younger voice, with a thrill in it.)
+
+"Carlotta.  Of course this is confidential."
+
+"Surely."
+
+"I saw her with him in his car one evening.  And on her vacation last
+summer--"
+
+The voices dropped to a whisper.  Sidney, standing cold and white by the
+sterilizer, put out a hand to steady herself.  So that was it!  No wonder
+Carlotta had hated her.  And those whispering voices!  What were they
+saying?  How hateful life was, and men and women.  Must there always be
+something hideous in the background?  Until now she had only seen life.
+Now she felt its hot breath on her cheek.
+
+She was steady enough in a moment, cool and calm, moving about her work
+with ice-cold hands and slightly narrowed eyes.  To a sort of physical
+nausea was succeeding anger, a blind fury of injured pride.  He had been in
+love with Carlotta and had tired of her.  He was bringing her his
+warmed-over emotions.  She remembered the bitterness of her month's exile,
+and its probable cause.  Max had stood by her then.  Well he might, if he
+suspected the truth.
+
+For just a moment she had an illuminating flash of Wilson as he really was,
+selfish and self-indulgent, just a trifle too carefully dressed, daring as
+to eye and speech, with a carefully calculated daring, frankly
+pleasure-loving.  She put her hands over her eyes.
+
+The voices in the next room had risen above their whisper.
+
+"Genius has privileges, of course," said the older voice.  "He is a very
+great surgeon.  To-morrow he is to do the Edwardes operation again.  I am
+glad I am to see him do it."
+
+Sidney still held her hands over her eyes.  He WAS a great surgeon: in his
+hands he held the keys of life and death.  And perhaps he had never cared
+for Carlotta: she might have thrown herself at him.  He was a man, at the
+mercy of any scheming woman.
+
+She tried to summon his image to her aid.  But a curious thing happened.
+She could not visualize him.  Instead, there came, clear and distinct, a
+picture of K. Le Moyne in the hall of the little house, reaching one of his
+long arms to the chandelier over his head and looking up at her as she
+stood on the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!"
+
+"I--I know that. I am asking you something else, Max."
+
+"I have never been in love with her."
+
+His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they were
+sitting in the shade, on the grass.  It was the Sunday afternoon after
+Sidney's experience in the operating-room.
+
+"You took her out, Max, didn't you?"
+
+"A few times, yes.  She seemed to have no friends.  I was sorry for her."
+
+"That was all?"
+
+"Absolutely.  Good Heavens, you've put me through a catechism in the last
+ten minutes!"
+
+"If my father were living, or even mother, I--one of them would have done
+this for me, Max. I'm sorry I had to.  I've been very wretched for several
+days."
+
+It was the first encouragement she had given him.  There was no coquetry
+about her aloofness.  It was only that her faith in him had had a shock and
+was slow of reviving.
+
+"You are very, very lovely, Sidney. I wonder if you have any idea what you
+mean to me?"
+
+"You meant a great deal to me, too," she said frankly, "until a few days
+ago.  I thought you were the greatest man I had ever known, and the best.
+And then--I think I'd better tell you what I overheard. I didn't try to
+hear. It just happened that way."
+
+He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly and
+with a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself.
+Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for
+self-protection.  But Carlotta was different.  Damn the girl, anyhow!  She
+had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had never
+pretended anything else.
+
+There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished.  Then:
+
+"You are not a child any longer, Sidney.  You have learned a great deal in
+this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man has
+small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the woman he wants
+to marry.  When he finds her, the others are all off--there's nothing to
+them.  It's the real thing then, instead of the sham."
+
+"Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet--"
+
+"Palmer is a cad."
+
+"I don't want you to think I'm making terms.  I'm not.  But if this thing
+went on, and I found out afterward that you--that there was anyone else, it
+would kill me."
+
+"Then you care, after all!"
+
+There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which
+he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping.  He stood up
+and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet.  "You love me, dear."
+
+"I'm afraid I do, Max."
+
+"Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me," he said, and took her in
+his arms.
+
+He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to him
+again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
+
+"I love you, love you!" he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the
+warm hollow of her neck.
+
+Sidney glowed under his caresses--was rather startled at his passion, a
+little ashamed.
+
+"Tell me you love me a little bit.  Say it."
+
+"I love you," said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.
+
+But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with his
+lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in the back
+of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while she had given him
+her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It made her
+passive, prevented her complete surrender.
+
+And after a time he resented it.  "You are only letting me love you," he
+complained.  "I don't believe you care, after all."
+
+He freed her, took a step back from her.
+
+"I am afraid I am jealous," she said simply. "I keep thinking of--of
+Carlotta."
+
+"Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?"
+
+"Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so."
+
+But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyes on
+her.  The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busy insect
+life.  A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a white farmhouse
+with its barn and outbuildings.  In a small room in the barn a woman sat;
+and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she read her Bible.
+
+"--and that after this there will be only one woman for me," finished Max,
+and dropped his hand.  He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.
+
+At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyed the
+road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in a darkened
+room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.
+
+"I guess I'll go and get my coat on, Bill," said the little man heavily.
+"They're starting to come now.  I see a machine about a mile down the
+road."
+
+Sidney broke the news of her engagement to K. herself, the evening of the
+same day.  The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at the
+door.  Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed, and
+Christine's rooms were empty. She found Katie on the back porch, mountains
+of Sunday newspapers piled around her.
+
+"I'd about give you up," said Katie. "I was thinking, rather than see your
+ice-cream that's left from dinner melt and go to waste, I'd take it around
+to the Rosenfelds."
+
+"Please take it to them.  I'd really rather they had it."
+
+She stood in front of Katie, drawing off her gloves.
+
+"Aunt Harriet's asleep. Is--is Mr. Le Moyne around?"
+
+"You're gettin' prettier every day, Miss Sidney.  Is that the blue suit
+Miss Harriet said she made for you?  It's right stylish.  I'd like to see
+the back."
+
+Sidney obediently turned, and Katie admired.
+
+"When I think how things have turned out!" she reflected.  "You in a
+hospital, doing God knows what for all sorts of people, and Miss Harriet
+making a suit like that and asking a hundred dollars for it, and that tony
+that a person doesn't dare to speak to her when she's in the dining-room.
+And your poor ma...well, it's all in a lifetime!  No; Mr. K.'s not here.
+He and Mrs. Howe are gallivanting around together."
+
+"Katie!"
+
+"Well, that's what I call it. I'm not blind. Don't I hear her dressing up
+about four o'clock every afternoon, and, when she's all ready, sittin' in
+the parlor with the door open, and a book on her knee, as if she'd been
+reading all afternoon?  If he doesn't stop, she's at the foot of the
+stairs, calling up to him. 'K.,' she says, 'K., I'm waiting to ask you
+something!' or, 'K., wouldn't you like a cup of tea?'  She's always feedin'
+him tea and cake, so that when he comes to table he won't eat honest
+victuals."
+
+Sidney had paused with one glove half off.  Katie's tone carried
+conviction.  Was life making another of its queer errors, and were
+Christine and K. in love with each other?  K. had always been HER friend,
+HER confidant. To give him up to Christine--she shook herself impatiently.
+What had come over her?  Why not be glad that he had some sort of
+companionship?
+
+She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took off her
+hat.  She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened to her.  She did
+not belong to herself any more.  It gave her an odd, lost feeling.  She was
+going to be married--not very soon, but ultimately.  A year ago her half
+promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance.  She was loved, and she
+had thrilled to it.
+
+But this was different.  Marriage, that had been but a vision then, loomed
+large, almost menacing.  She had learned the law of compensation: that for
+every joy one pays in suffering.  Women who married went down into the
+valley of death for their children.  One must love and be loved very
+tenderly to pay for that.  The scale must balance.
+
+And there were other things.  Women grew old, and age was not always
+lovely.  This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of
+child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxed
+bodies, came to her.  That was a part of the price.
+
+Harriet was stirring, across the hall.  Sidney could hear her moving about
+with flat, inelastic steps.
+
+That was the alternative.  One married, happily or not as the case might
+be, and took the risk.  Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a
+little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,
+flat-chested, thin-voiced.  One blossomed and withered, then, or one
+shriveled up without having flowered.  All at once it seemed very terrible
+to her.  She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable hand that had
+closed about her.
+
+Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying as
+if her heart would break.  She scolded her roundly.
+
+"You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner.  Your
+measurements for that suit showed it.  I have never approved of this
+hospital training, and after last January--"
+
+She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with weeping,
+told her of her engagement.
+
+"But I don't understand.  If you care for him and he has asked you to marry
+him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"
+
+"I do care.  I don't know why I cried.  It just came over me, all at once,
+that I--It was just foolishness.  I am very happy, Aunt Harriet."
+
+Harriet thought she understood.  The girl needed her mother, and she,
+Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute.  She patted
+Sidney's moist hand.
+
+"I guess I understand," she said.  "I'll attend to your wedding things,
+Sidney.  We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be outdone."
+And, as an afterthought: "I hope Max Wilson will settle down now.  He's
+been none too steady."
+
+K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmer had the
+car out--had, indeed, not been home since the morning of the previous day.
+He played golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday at the Country Club, and
+invariably spent the night there.  So K. and Christine walked from the end
+of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'s keen direction finding
+bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden field flowers, a dozen wonders of the
+country that Christine had never dreamed of.
+
+The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine, with
+the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note.  In her endeavor to
+cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong, she fell into
+the error of pretending that everything was right.
+
+Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently,
+while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of the hay-barn
+and watched automobiles turning in from the road.  When Christine rose to
+leave, she confessed her failure frankly.
+
+"I've meant well, Tillie," she said.  "I'm afraid I've said exactly what I
+shouldn't.  I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, two wonderful
+pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband--that is, Mr.
+Schwitter--cares for you,--you admit that,--and you are going to have a
+child."
+
+Tillie's pale eyes filled.
+
+"I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe," she said simply. "Now I'm not.
+When I look in that glass at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd give a
+good bit to be back on the Street again."
+
+She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead of him
+out of the barn.
+
+"I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne."  She lowered her voice.
+"Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter says he's
+drinking a little.  He don't like him loafing around here: he sent him home
+last Sunday.  What's come over the boy?"
+
+"I'll talk to him."
+
+"The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. I thought
+maybe Sidney Page could do something with him."
+
+"I think he'd not like her to know.  I'll do what I can."
+
+K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.
+
+Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than once K.
+found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him.  Poor Christine was only
+trying to fit him into the world she knew--a world whose men were strong
+but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not to visiting
+unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, and yet how gentle!
+It gave her a choking feeling in her throat.  She took advantage of a steep
+bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingers on his shabby gray
+sleeve.
+
+It was late when they got home.  Sidney was sitting on the low step,
+waiting for them.
+
+Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a case that
+evening, and promising an early return.  In the little hall he had drawn
+her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on the forehead
+and on each of her white eyelids.
+
+"Little wife-to-be!" he had said, and was rather ashamed of his own
+emotion.  From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had waved his
+hand to her.
+
+Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K. folded
+up his long length on the step below Sidney.
+
+"Well, dear ministering angel," he said, "how goes the world?"
+
+"Things have been happening, K."
+
+He sat erect and looked at her.  Perhaps because she had a woman's instinct
+for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps--more likely,
+indeed--because she divined that the announcement would not be entirely
+agreeable, she delayed it, played with it.
+
+"I have gone into the operating-room."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+"The costume is ugly.  I look hideous in it."
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.
+
+"Is that all the news?"
+
+"There is something else, K."
+
+It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.
+Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment, he
+spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.
+
+"I think I know what it is, Sidney."
+
+"You expected it, didn't you?"
+
+"I--it's not an entire surprise."
+
+"Aren't you going to wish me happiness?"
+
+"If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would have everything
+in the world."
+
+His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.
+
+"Am I--are we going to lose you soon?"
+
+"I shall finish my training. I made that a condition."
+
+Then, in a burst of confidence:--
+
+"I know so little, K., and he knows so much!  I am going to read and study,
+so that he can talk to me about his work.  That's what marriage ought to
+be, a sort of partnership.  Don't you think so?"
+
+K. nodded.  His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future.
+Instead, he was looking back--back to those days when he had hoped sometime
+to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved work that was no
+longer his.  And, finding it agonizing, as indeed all thought was that
+summer night, he dwelt for a moment on that evening, a year before, when in
+the same June moonlight, he had come up the Street and had seen Sidney
+where she was now, with the tree shadows playing over her.
+
+Even that first evening he had been jealous.
+
+It had been Joe then.  Now it was another and older man, daring,
+intelligent, unscrupulous.  And this time he had lost her absolutely, lost
+her without a struggle to keep her.  His only struggle had been with
+himself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure.
+
+"Do you know," said Sidney suddenly, "that it is almost a year since that
+night you came up the Street, and I was here on the steps?"
+
+"That's a fact, isn't it!"  He managed to get some surprise into his voice.
+
+"How Joe objected to your coming!  Poor Joe!"
+
+"Do you ever see him?"
+
+"Hardly ever now.  I think he hates me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--well, you know, K.  Why do men always hate a woman who just
+happens not to love them?"
+
+"I don't believe they do. It would be much better for them if they could.
+As a matter of fact, there are poor devils who go through life trying to do
+that very thing, and failing."
+
+Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across.  It was Dr. Ed's evening
+office hour, and through the open window she could see a line of people
+waiting their turn.  They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, until the
+opening of the back office door promoted them all one chair toward the
+consulting-room.
+
+"I shall be just across the Street," she said at last.  "Nearer than I am
+at the hospital."
+
+"You will be much farther away.  You will be married."
+
+"But we will still be friends, K.?"
+
+Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled.  She was often puzzled with him.
+
+"Of course."
+
+But, after another silence, he astounded her.  She had fallen into the way
+of thinking of him as always belonging to the house, even, in a sense,
+belonging to her.  And now--
+
+"Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of going away?"
+
+"K.!"
+
+"My dear child, you do not need a roomer here any more.  I have always
+received infinitely more than I have paid for, even in the small services I
+have been able to render.  Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous.  You are away,
+and some day you are going to be married.  Don't you see--I am not needed?"
+
+"That does not mean you are not wanted."
+
+"I shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can see you"--he
+changed this hastily--"so that we can still meet and talk things over.  Old
+friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to be turned on when
+needed, like a tap."
+
+"Where will you go?"
+
+"The Rosenfelds are rather in straits.  I thought of helping them to get a
+small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely a matter
+of furniture.  If they could furnish it even plainly, it could be done.
+I--haven't saved anything."
+
+"Do you ever think of yourself?" she cried.  "Have you always gone through
+life helping people, K.?  Save anything!  I should think not!  You spend it
+all on others."  She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder.  "It will
+not be home without you, K."
+
+To save him, he could not have spoken just then.  A riot of rebellion
+surged up in him, that he must let this best thing in his life go out of
+it.  To go empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his very arms
+ached to hold her!  And she was so near--just above, with her hand on his
+shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, he could have
+brushed her hair.
+
+"You have not wished me happiness, K.  Do you remember, when I was going to
+the hospital and you gave me the little watch--do you remember what you
+said?"
+
+"Yes"--huskily.
+
+"Will you say it again?"
+
+"But that was good-bye."
+
+"Isn't this, in a way?  You are going to leave us, and I--say it, K."
+
+"Good-bye, dear, and--God bless you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year.
+Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that it
+was best.  Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would have finished
+her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled to the ending
+of their relationship.
+
+He intended to end that.  He had meant every word of what he had sworn to
+Sidney.  He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly--as far as he could be
+unselfish.  The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney's sake.
+The hospital did not approve of engagements between nurses and the staff.
+It was disorganizing, bad for discipline.
+
+Sidney was very happy all that summer.  She glowed with pride when her
+lover put through a difficult piece of work; flushed and palpitated when
+she heard his praises sung; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, when he
+was in the house.  She wore his ring on a fine chain around her neck, and
+grew prettier every day.
+
+Once or twice, however, when she was at home, away from the glamour, her
+early fears obsessed her.  Would he always love her? He was so handsome and
+so gifted, and there were women who were mad about him.  That was the
+gossip of the hospital.  Suppose she married him and he tired of her?  In
+her humility she thought that perhaps only her youth, and such charm as she
+had that belonged to youth, held him.  And before her, always, she saw the
+tragic women of the wards.
+
+K. had postponed his leaving until fall.  Sidney had been insistent, and
+Harriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way.  "If you insist on
+being an idiot and adopting the Rosenfeld family," she said, "wait until
+September.  The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall."
+
+So K. waited for "the season," and ate his heart out for Sidney in the
+interval.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down.  K. was
+his most frequent visitor.  As a matter of fact, he was watching the boy
+closely, at Max Wilson's request.
+
+"Tell me when I'm to do it," said Wilson, "and when the time comes, for
+God's sake, stand by me.  Come to the operation.  He's got so much
+confidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail."
+
+So K. came on visiting days, and, by special dispensation, on Saturday
+afternoons.  He was teaching the boy basket-making.  Not that he knew
+anything about it himself; but, by means of a blind teacher, he kept just
+one lesson ahead.  The ward was intensely interested.  It found something
+absurd and rather touching in this tall, serious young man with the
+surprisingly deft fingers, tying raffia knots.
+
+The first basket went, by Johnny's request, to Sidney Page.
+
+"I want her to have it," he said. "She got corns on her fingers from
+rubbing me when I came in first; and, besides--"
+
+"Yes?" said K.  He was tying a most complicated knot, and could not look
+up.
+
+"I know something," said Johnny. "I'm not going to get in wrong by talking,
+but I know something.  You give her the basket."
+
+K. looked up then, and surprised Johnny's secret in his face.
+
+"Ah!" he said.
+
+"If I'd squealed she'd have finished me for good.  They've got me, you
+know.  I'm not running in 2.40 these days."
+
+"I'll not tell, or make it uncomfortable for you.  What do you know?"
+
+Johnny looked around.  The ward was in the somnolence of mid-afternoon.
+The nearest patient, a man in a wheel-chair, was snoring heavily.
+
+"It was the dark-eyed one that changed the medicine on me," he said.  "The
+one with the heels that were always tapping around, waking me up.  She did
+it; I saw her."
+
+After all, it was only what K. had suspected before.  But a sense of
+impending danger to Sidney obsessed him.  If Carlotta would do that, what
+would she do when she learned of the engagement?  And he had known her
+before.  He believed she was totally unscrupulous.  The odd coincidence of
+their paths crossing again troubled him.
+
+Carlotta Harrison was well again, and back on duty.  Luckily for Sidney,
+her three months' service in the operating-room kept them apart.  For
+Carlotta was now not merely jealous.  She found herself neglected, ignored.
+It ate her like a fever.
+
+But she did not yet suspect an engagement.  It had been her theory that
+Wilson would not marry easily--that, in a sense, he would have to be
+coerced into marriage.  Some clever woman would marry him some day, and no
+one would be more astonished than himself.  She thought merely that Sidney
+was playing a game like her own, with different weapons.  So she planned
+her battle, ignorant that she had lost already.
+
+Her method was simple enough.  She stopped sulking, met Max with smiles,
+made no overtures toward a renewal of their relations. At first this
+annoyed him.  Later it piqued him.  To desert a woman was justifiable,
+under certain circumstances.  But to desert a woman, and have her
+apparently not even know it, was against the rules of the game.
+
+During a surgical dressing in a private room, one day, he allowed his
+fingers to touch hers, as on that day a year before when she had taken Miss
+Simpson's place in his office.  He was rewarded by the same slow,
+smouldering glance that had caught his attention before.  So she was only
+acting indifference!
+
+Then Carlotta made her second move.  A new interne had come into the house,
+and was going through the process of learning that from a senior at the
+medical school to a half-baked junior interne is a long step back.  He had
+to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, the patronizing
+instructions of nurses as to rules.
+
+Carlotta alone treated him with deference.  His uneasy rounds in Carlotta's
+precinct took on the state and form of staff visitations.  She flattered,
+cajoled, looked up to him.
+
+After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting more
+attention than himself: that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere in the
+offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her with worship.
+Her indifference had only piqued him.  The enthroning of a successor galled
+him.  Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily--was subject to frequent
+"bawling out," as he termed it, in the operating-room as he assisted the
+anaesthetist.  He took his troubles to Carlotta, who soothed him in the
+corridor--in plain sight of her quarry, of course--by putting a sympathetic
+hand on his sleeve.
+
+Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech.
+
+"For the love of Heaven, Carlotta," he said impatiently, "stop making love
+to that wretched boy.  He wriggles like a worm if you look at him."
+
+"I like him.  He is thoroughly genuine.  I respect him, and--he respects
+me."
+
+"It's rather a silly game, you know."
+
+"What game?"
+
+"Do you think I don't understand?"
+
+"Perhaps you do.  I--I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But I've
+been down-hearted.  He cheers me up."
+
+Her attraction for him was almost gone--not quite.  He felt rather sorry
+for her.
+
+"I'm sorry.  Then you are not angry with me?"
+
+"Angry?  No."  She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was not acting.
+"I knew it would end, of course.  I have lost a--a lover.  I expected that.
+But I wanted to keep a friend."
+
+It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend?  He had
+treated her cruelly, hideously.  If she still desired his friendship, there
+was no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it.  And Carlotta was very careful.
+Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes.  She told him
+of her worries.  Her training was almost over.  She had a chance to take up
+institutional work.  She abhorred the thought of private duty. What would
+he advise?
+
+The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place to talk.
+
+"Come to the office and we'll talk it over."
+
+"I don't like to go there; Miss Simpson is suspicious."
+
+The institution she spoke of was in another city.  It occurred to Wilson
+that if she took it the affair would have reached a graceful and legitimate
+end.
+
+Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was not
+unpleasant.  It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it was
+owing to her.  He had treated her badly.
+
+Sidney would be at a lecture that night.  The evening loomed temptingly
+free.
+
+"Suppose you meet me at the old corner," he said carelessly, eyes on the
+Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was glaring
+ferociously.  "We'll run out into the country and talk things over."
+
+She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.
+
+"What's the use of going back to that?  It's over, isn't it?"
+
+Her objection made him determined.  When at last she had yielded, and he
+made his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that he had
+won a victory.
+
+K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him.  He had been
+sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement.  At five
+o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside on
+the pavement.
+
+"Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times.  I thought I'd come
+around."
+
+K. looked at his watch.
+
+"What do you say to a walk?"
+
+"Not out in the country.  I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go about
+town for a half-hour or so."
+
+Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to.  But here again
+Joe met him more than halfway.
+
+"Well, go on," he said, when they found themselves in the park; "I don't
+suppose you were paying a call."
+
+"No."
+
+"I guess I know what you are going to say."
+
+"I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that.  Ordinarily, if a man
+insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone."
+
+"Why make an exception of me?"
+
+"One reason is that I happen to like you.  The other reason is that,
+whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are
+putting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else."
+
+"She is responsible, isn't she?"
+
+"Not in the least.  How old are you, Joe?"
+
+"Twenty-three, almost."
+
+"Exactly.  You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a
+disappointment to me.  It's more than that to Sidney."
+
+"Much she cares!  She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?"
+
+"There is no announcement of any engagement."
+
+"She is, and you know it.  Well, she'll be happy--not!  If I'd go to her
+to-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again." The idea,
+thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him.  He returned to it again
+and again.  Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy's
+statement had any basis in fact.  His single determination was to save
+Sidney from any pain.
+
+When Joe suddenly announced his inclination to go out into the country
+after all, he suspected a ruse to get rid of him, and insisted on going
+along.  Joe consented grudgingly.
+
+"Car's at Bailey's garage," he said sullenly.  "I don't know when I'll get
+back."
+
+"That won't matter." K.'s tone was cheerful.  "I'm not sleeping, anyhow."
+
+That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the car running
+smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat.  Then:--
+
+"So you've got it too!" he said.  "We're a fine pair of fools. We'd both be
+better off if I sent the car over a bank."
+
+He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to time
+sternly.
+
+They had supper at the White Springs Hotel--not on the terrace, but in the
+little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first meal together.
+K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with bad grace.
+
+But the meal cheered and steadied him.  K. found him more amenable to
+reason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave the
+city.
+
+"I'm stuck here," he said. "I'm the only one, and mother yells blue murder
+when I talk about it.  I want to go to Cuba.  My uncle owns a farm down
+there."
+
+"Perhaps I can talk your mother over.  I've been there."
+
+Joe was all interest.  His dilated pupils became more normal, his restless
+hands grew quiet.  K.'s even voice, the picture he drew of life on the
+island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-week dullness, seemed
+to quiet the boy's tortured nerves.  He was nearer to peace than he had
+been for many days.  But he smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from
+another.
+
+At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car.  He paused for a moment,
+rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.
+
+"I'm feeling a lot better," he said. "I haven't got the band around my
+head.  You talk to mother."
+
+That was the last K. saw of Joe Drummond until the next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care--not in black this time, but in
+white.  She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her head,
+and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge.  She intended to be gay,
+cheerful.  The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory.  He
+expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy.  That was the secret
+of the charm some women had for men.  They went to such women to forget
+their troubles.  She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when the late
+dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a faintly
+perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her voice that was
+only half assumed.
+
+"It's very late," he complained. "Surely you are not going to be back at
+ten."
+
+"I have special permission to be out late."
+
+"Good!"  And then, recollecting their new situation: "We have a lot to talk
+over.  It will take time."
+
+At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
+car.  Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside of
+the road.  The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe that
+the white figure in the car was not Sidney.  He went rather white, and
+stepped out of the zone of light.  The influence of Le Moyne was still on
+him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing.  But his hands
+shook as he filled the radiator.
+
+When Wilson's car had gone on, he went automatically about his preparations
+for the return trip--lifted a seat cushion to investigate his own store of
+gasolene, replacing carefully the revolver he always carried under the seat
+and packed in waste to prevent its accidental discharge, lighted his lamps,
+examined a loose brake-band.
+
+His coolness gratified him.  He had been an ass: Le Moyne was right.  He'd
+get away--to Cuba if he could--and start over again.  He would forget the
+Street and let it forget him.
+
+The men in the garage were talking.
+
+"To Schwitter's, of course," one of them grumbled.  "We might as well go
+out of business."
+
+"There's no money in running a straight place.  Schwitter and half a dozen
+others are getting rich."
+
+"That was Wilson, the surgeon in town.  He cut off my brother-in-law's
+leg--charged him as much as if he had grown a new one for him.  He used to
+come here.  Now he goes to Schwitter's, like the rest.  Pretty girl he had
+with him.  You can bet on Wilson."
+
+So Max Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of
+garage talk!  The smiles of the men were evil.  Joe's hands grew cold, his
+head hot.  A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights.
+He knew Schwitter's, and he knew Wilson.
+
+He flung himself into his car and threw the throttle open.  The car jerked,
+stalled.
+
+"You can't start like that, son," one of the men remonstrated. "You let 'er
+in too fast."
+
+"You go to hell!" Joe snarled, and made a second ineffectual effort.
+
+Thus adjured, the men offered neither further advice nor assistance.  The
+minutes went by in useless cranking--fifteen. The red mist grew heavier.
+Every lamp was a danger signal.  But when K., growing uneasy, came out into
+the yard, the engine had started at last.  He was in time to see Joe run
+his car into the road and turn it viciously toward Schwitter's.
+
+Carlotta's nearness was having its calculated effect on Max Wilson.  His
+spirits rose as the engine, marking perfect time, carried them along the
+quiet roads.
+
+Partly it was reaction--relief that she should be so reasonable, so
+complaisant--and a sort of holiday spirit after the day's hard work.  Oddly
+enough, and not so irrational as may appear, Sidney formed a part of the
+evening's happiness--that she loved him; that, back in the lecture-room,
+eyes and even mind on the lecturer, her heart was with him.
+
+So, with Sidney the basis of his happiness, he made the most of his
+evening's freedom.  He sang a little in his clear tenor--even, once when
+they had slowed down at a crossing, bent over audaciously and kissed
+Carlotta's hand in the full glare of a passing train.
+
+"How reckless of you!"
+
+"I like to be reckless," he replied.
+
+His boyishness annoyed Carlotta.  She did not want the situation to get out
+of hand.  Moreover, what was so real for her was only too plainly a lark
+for him.  She began to doubt her power.
+
+The hopelessness of her situation was dawning on her.  Even when the touch
+of her beside him and the solitude of the country roads got in his blood,
+and he bent toward her, she found no encouragement in his words:--"I am mad
+about you to-night."
+
+She took her courage in her hands:--"Then why give me up for some one
+else?"
+
+"That's--different."
+
+"Why is it different?  I am a woman.  I--I love you, Max.  No one else will
+ever care as I do."
+
+"You are in love with the Lamb!"
+
+"That was a trick.  I'm sorry, Max.  I don't care for anyone else in the
+world.  If you let me go I'll want to die."
+
+Then, as he was silent:--
+
+"If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life.  I swear it.  There
+will be nobody else, ever."
+
+The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday
+afternoon under the trees, on this very road!  Swift shame overtook him,
+that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in ignorance
+of how things really stood between them.
+
+"I'm sorry, Carlotta.  It's impossible.  I'm engaged to marry some one
+else."
+
+"Sidney Page?"--almost a whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was ashamed at the way she took the news.  If she had stormed or wept,
+he would have known what to do.  But she sat still, not speaking.
+
+"You must have expected it, sooner or later."
+
+Still she made no reply.  He thought she might faint, and looked at her
+anxiously.  Her profile, indistinct beside him, looked white and drawn.
+But Carlotta was not fainting.  She was making a desperate plan. If their
+escapade became known, it would end things between Sidney and him.  She was
+sure of that.  She needed time to think it out.  It must become known
+without any apparent move on her part.  If, for instance, she became ill,
+and was away from the hospital all night, that might answer.  The thing
+would be investigated, and who knew--
+
+The car turned in at Schwitter's road and drew up before the house.  The
+narrow porch was filled with small tables, above which hung rows of
+electric lights enclosed in Japanese paper lanterns.  Midweek, which had
+found the White Springs Hotel almost deserted, saw Schwitter's crowded
+tables set out under the trees.  Seeing the crowd, Wilson drove directly to
+the yard and parked his machine.
+
+"No need of running any risk," he explained to the still figure beside him.
+"We can walk back and take a table under the trees, away from those
+infernal lanterns."
+
+She reeled a little as he helped her out.
+
+"Not sick, are you?"
+
+"I'm dizzy.  I'm all right."
+
+She looked white.  He felt a stab of pity for her.  She leaned rather
+heavily on him as they walked toward the house.  The faint perfume that had
+almost intoxicated him, earlier, vaguely irritated him now.
+
+At the rear of the house she shook off his arm and preceded him around the
+building.  She chose the end of the porch as the place in which to drop,
+and went down like a stone, falling back.
+
+There was a moderate excitement.  The visitors at Schwitter's were too much
+engrossed with themselves to be much interested. She opened her eyes almost
+as soon as she fell--to forestall any tests; she was shrewd enough to know
+that Wilson would detect her malingering very quickly--and begged to be
+taken into the house.  "I feel very ill," she said, and her white face bore
+her out.
+
+Schwitter and Bill carried her in and up the stairs to one of the newly
+furnished rooms.  The little man was twittering with anxiety.  He had a
+horror of knockout drops and the police.  They laid her on the bed, her hat
+beside her; and Wilson, stripping down the long sleeve of her glove, felt
+her pulse.
+
+"There's a doctor in the next town," said Schwitter.  "I was going to send
+for him, anyhow--my wife's not very well."
+
+"I'm a doctor."
+
+"Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Nothing serious."
+
+He closed the door behind the relieved figure of the landlord, and, going
+back to Carlotta, stood looking down at her.
+
+"What did you mean by doing that?"
+
+"Doing what?"
+
+"You were no more faint than I am."
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+"I don't remember.  Everything went black.  The lanterns--"
+
+He crossed the room deliberately and went out, closing the door behind him.
+He saw at once where he stood--in what danger.  If she insisted that she
+was ill and unable to go back, there would be a fuss.  The story would come
+out.  Everything would be gone. Schwitter's, of all places!
+
+At the foot of the stairs, Schwitter pulled himself together. After all,
+the girl was only ill.  There was nothing for the police.  He looked at his
+watch.  The doctor ought to be here by this time.  It was sooner than they
+had expected.  Even the nurse had not come.  Tillie was alone, out in the
+harness-room.  He looked through the crowded rooms, at the overflowing
+porch with its travesty of pleasure, and he hated the whole thing with a
+desperate hatred.
+
+Another car.  Would they never stop coming!  But perhaps it was the doctor.
+A young man edged his way into the hall and confronted him.
+
+"Two people just arrived here.  A man and a woman--in white. Where are
+they?"
+
+It was trouble then, after all!
+
+"Upstairs--first bedroom to the right."  His teeth chattered. Surely, as a
+man sowed he reaped.
+
+Joe went up the staircase.  At the top, on the landing, he confronted
+Wilson.  He fired at him without a word--saw him fling up his arms and fall
+back, striking first the wall, then the floor.
+
+The buzz of conversation on the porch suddenly ceased.  Joe put his
+revolver in his pocket and went quietly down the stairs.  The crowd parted
+to let him through.
+
+Carlotta, crouched in her room, listening, not daring to open the door,
+heard the sound of a car as it swung out into the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late
+operation at the hospital.  Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture
+notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the
+insistent summons to the operating-room.  She dressed again with flying
+fingers.  These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.
+There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force
+strength, life itself, into failing bodies.  Her sensitive nostrils
+dilated, her brain worked like a machine.
+
+That night she received well-deserved praise.  When the Lamb, telephoning
+hysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staff
+surgeon was called.  His keen eyes watched Sidney--felt her capacity, her
+fiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what was in
+his mind.
+
+"Don't wear yourself out, girl," he said gravely.  "We need people like
+you.  It was good work to-night--fine work.  I wish we had more like you."
+
+By midnight the work was done, and the nurse in charge sent Sidney to bed.
+
+It was the Lamb who received the message about Wilson; and because he was
+not very keen at the best, and because the news was so startling, he
+refused to credit his ears.
+
+"Who is this at the 'phone?"
+
+"That doesn't matter.  Le Moyne's my name.  Get the message to Dr. Ed
+Wilson at once.  We are starting to the city."
+
+"Tell me again.  I mustn't make a mess of this."
+
+"Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, has been shot," came slowly and distinctly.  "Get
+the staff there and have a room ready.  Get the operating-room ready, too."
+
+The Lamb wakened then, and roused the house.  He was incoherent, rather, so
+that Dr. Ed got the impression that it was Le Moyne who had been shot, and
+only learned the truth when he got to the hospital.
+
+"Where is he?" he demanded.  He liked K., and his heart was sore within
+him.
+
+"Not in yet, sir.  A Mr. Le Moyne is bringing him.  Staff's in the
+executive committee room, sir."
+
+"But--who has been shot?  I thought you said--"
+
+The Lamb turned pale at that, and braced himself.
+
+"I'm sorry--I thought you understood.  I believe it's not--not serious.
+It's Dr. Max, sir."
+
+Dr. Ed, who was heavy and not very young, sat down on an office chair.  Out
+of sheer habit he had brought the bag.  He put it down on the floor beside
+him, and moistened his lips.
+
+"Is he living?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir.  I gathered that Mr. Le Moyne did not think it serious."
+
+He lied, and Dr. Ed knew he lied.
+
+The Lamb stood by the door, and Dr. Ed sat and waited.  The office clock
+said half after three.  Outside the windows, the night world went
+by--taxi-cabs full of roisterers, women who walked stealthily close to the
+buildings, a truck carrying steel, so heavy that it shook the hospital as
+it rumbled by.
+
+Dr. Ed sat and waited.  The bag with the dog-collar in it was on the floor.
+He thought of many things, but mostly of the promise he had made his
+mother.  And, having forgotten the injured man's shortcomings, he was
+remembering his good qualities--his cheerfulness, his courage, his
+achievements.  He remembered the day Max had done the Edwardes operation,
+and how proud he had been of him.  He figured out how old he was--not
+thirty-one yet, and already, perhaps--There he stopped thinking.  Cold
+beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
+
+"I think I hear them now, sir," said the Lamb, and stood back respectfully
+to let him pass out of the door.
+
+Carlotta stayed in the room during the consultation.  No one seemed to
+wonder why she was there, or to pay any attention to her.  The staff was
+stricken.  They moved back to make room for Dr. Ed beside the bed, and then
+closed in again.
+
+Carlotta waited, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
+Surely they would operate; they wouldn't let him die like that!
+
+When she saw the phalanx break up, and realized that they would not
+operate, she went mad.  She stood against the door, and accused them of
+cowardice--taunted them.
+
+"Do you think he would let any of you die like that?" she cried. "Die like
+a hurt dog, and none of you to lift a hand?"
+
+It was Pfeiffer who drew her out of the room and tried to talk reason and
+sanity to her.
+
+"It's hopeless," he said.  "If there was a chance, we'd operate, and you
+know it."
+
+The staff went hopelessly down the stairs to the smoking-room, and smoked.
+It was all they could do.  The night assistant sent coffee down to them,
+and they drank it.  Dr. Ed stayed in his brother's room, and said to his
+mother, under his breath, that he'd tried to do his best by Max, and that
+from now on it would be up to her.
+
+K. had brought the injured man in.  The country doctor had come, too,
+finding Tillie's trial not imminent.  On the way in he had taken it for
+granted that K. was a medical man like himself, and had placed his
+hypodermic case at his disposal.
+
+When he missed him,--in the smoking-room, that was,--he asked for him.
+
+"I don't see the chap who came in with us," he said.  "Clever fellow.  Like
+to know his name."
+
+The staff did not know.
+
+K. sat alone on a bench in the hall.  He wondered who would tell Sidney; he
+hoped they would be very gentle with her.  He sat in the shadow, waiting.
+He did not want to go home and leave her to what she might have to face.
+There was a chance she would ask for him.  He wanted to be near, in that
+case.
+
+He sat in the shadow, on the bench.  The night watchman went by twice and
+stared at him.  At last he asked K. to mind the door until he got some
+coffee.
+
+"One of the staff's been hurt," he explained.  "If I don't get some coffee
+now, I won't get any."
+
+K. promised to watch the door.
+
+A desperate thing had occurred to Carlotta.  Somehow, she had not thought
+of it before.  Now she wondered how she could have failed to think of it.
+If only she could find him and he would do it! She would go down on her
+knees--would tell him everything, if only he would consent.
+
+When she found him on his bench, however, she passed him by.  She had a
+terrible fear that he might go away if she put the thing to him first.  He
+clung hard to his new identity.
+
+So first she went to the staff and confronted them.  They were men of
+courage, only declining to undertake what they considered hopeless work.
+The one man among them who might have done the thing with any chance of
+success lay stricken.  Not one among them but would have given of his
+best--only his best was not good enough.
+
+"It would be the Edwardes operation, wouldn't it?" demanded Carlotta.
+
+The staff was bewildered.  There were no rules to cover such conduct on the
+part of a nurse.  One of them--Pfeiffer again, by chance--replied rather
+heavily:--
+
+"If any, it would be the Edwardes operation."
+
+"Would Dr. Edwardes himself be able to do anything?"
+
+This was going a little far.
+
+"Possibly.  One chance in a thousand, perhaps.  But Edwardes is dead.  How
+did this thing happen, Miss Harrison?"
+
+She ignored his question.  Her face was ghastly, save for the trace of
+rouge; her eyes were red-rimmed.
+
+"Dr. Edwardes is sitting on a bench in the hall outside!" she announced.
+
+Her voice rang out.  K. heard her and raised his head.  His attitude was
+weary, resigned.  The thing had come, then!  He was to take up the old
+burden.  The girl had told.
+
+Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney.  Max was still unconscious.  Ed remembered
+about her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man's
+estate and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered that Max
+was very fond of Sidney.  He had hoped that Sidney would take him and do
+for him what he, Ed, had failed to do.
+
+So Sidney was summoned.
+
+She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a little
+weary.  But her courage was indomitable.  She forced her shoes on her tired
+feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.
+
+The night watchman was in the hall.  He was fond of Sidney; she always
+smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the
+nurses, her voice was always amiable.  So she found him in the hall,
+holding a cup of tepid coffee.  He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty
+too--but he had divined Sidney's romance.
+
+"Coffee!  For me?"  She was astonished.
+
+"Drink it.  You haven't had much sleep."
+
+She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.
+
+"There is something wrong, daddy."
+
+That was his name, among the nurses.  He had had another name, but it was
+lost in the mists of years.
+
+"Get it down."
+
+So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. But
+daddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.
+
+"Can you stand a piece of bad news?"
+
+Strangely, her first thought was of K.
+
+"There has been an accident.  Dr. Wilson--"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Dr. Max--has been hurt.  It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to know
+it."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Downstairs, in Seventeen."
+
+So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, with his
+untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straight figure
+on the bed.  When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms around her.
+His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything.  She hardly
+listened to what he said.  The fact was all that concerned her--that her
+lover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand, so
+far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.
+
+The why would come later.  Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's arms
+about her, and wait.
+
+"If they would only do something!" Sidney's voice sounded strange to her
+ears.
+
+"There is nothing to do."
+
+But that, it seemed, was wrong.  For suddenly Sidney's small world, which
+had always sedately revolved in one direction, began to move the other way.
+
+The door opened, and the staff came in.  But where before they had moved
+heavily, with drooped heads, now they came quickly, as men with a purpose.
+There was a tall man in a white coat with them.  He ordered them about like
+children, and they hastened to do his will.  At first Sidney only knew that
+now, at last, they were going to do something--the tall man was going to do
+something.  He stood with his back to Sidney, and gave orders.
+
+The heaviness of inactivity lifted.  The room buzzed.  The nurses stood by,
+while the staff did nurses' work.  The senior surgical interne, essaying
+assistance, was shoved aside by the senior surgical consultant, and stood
+by, aggrieved.
+
+It was the Lamb, after all, who brought the news to Sidney.  The new
+activity had caught Dr. Ed, and she was alone now, her face buried against
+the back of a chair.
+
+"There'll be something doing now, Miss Page," he offered.
+
+"What are they going to do?"
+
+"Going after the bullet.  Do you know who's going to do it?"
+
+His voice echoed the subdued excitement of the room--excitement and new
+hope.
+
+"Did you ever hear of Edwardes, the surgeon?--the Edwardes operation, you
+know.  Well, he's here.  It sounds like a miracle. They found him sitting
+on a bench in the hall downstairs."
+
+Sidney raised her head, but she could not see the miraculously found
+Edwardes.  She could see the familiar faces of the staff, and that other
+face on the pillow, and--she gave a little cry. There was K.!  How like him
+to be there, to be wherever anyone was in trouble!  Tears came to her
+eyes--the first tears she had shed.
+
+As if her eyes had called him, he looked up and saw her.  He came toward
+her at once.  The staff stood back to let him pass, and gazed after him.
+The wonder of what had happened was growing on them.
+
+K. stood beside Sidney, and looked down at her.  Just at first it seemed as
+if he found nothing to say.  Then:
+
+"There's just a chance, Sidney dear.  Don't count too much on it."
+
+"I have got to count on it. If I don't, I shall die."
+
+If a shadow passed over his face, no one saw it.
+
+"I'll not ask you to go back to your room.  If you will wait somewhere
+near, I'll see that you have immediate word."
+
+"I am going to the operating-room."
+
+"Not to the operating-room.  Somewhere near."
+
+His steady voice controlled her hysteria.  But she resented it. She was not
+herself, of course, what with strain and weariness.
+
+"I shall ask Dr. Edwardes."
+
+He was puzzled for a moment.  Then he understood.  After all, it was as
+well.  Whether she knew him as Le Moyne or as Edwardes mattered very
+little, after all.  The thing that really mattered was that he must try to
+save Wilson for her.  If he failed--It ran through his mind that if he
+failed she might hate him the rest of her life--not for himself, but for
+his failure; that, whichever way things went, he must lose.
+
+"Dr. Edwardes says you are to stay away from the operation, but to remain
+near.  He--he promises to call you if--things go wrong."
+
+She had to be content with that.
+
+Nothing about that night was real to Sidney.  She sat in the
+anaesthetizing-room, and after a time she knew that she was not alone.
+There was somebody else.  She realized dully that Carlotta was there, too,
+pacing up and down the little room.  She was never sure, for instance,
+whether she imagined it, or whether Carlotta really stopped before her and
+surveyed her with burning eyes.
+
+"So you thought he was going to marry you!" said Carlotta--or the dream.
+"Well, you see he isn't."
+
+Sidney tried to answer, and failed--or that was the way the dream went.
+
+"If you had enough character, I'd think you did it.  How do I know you
+didn't follow us, and shoot him as he left the room?"
+
+It must have been reality, after all; for Sidney's numbed mind grasped the
+essential fact here, and held on to it.  He had been out with Carlotta.  He
+had promised--sworn that this should not happen.  It had happened.  It
+surprised her.  It seemed as if nothing more could hurt her.
+
+In the movement to and from the operating room, the door stood open for a
+moment.  A tall figure--how much it looked like K.!--straightened and held
+out something in its hand.
+
+"The bullet!" said Carlotta in a whisper.
+
+Then more waiting, a stir of movement in the room beyond the closed door.
+Carlotta was standing, her face buried in her hands, against the door.
+Sidney suddenly felt sorry for her. She cared a great deal.  It must be
+tragic to care like that! She herself was not caring much; she was too
+numb.
+
+Beyond, across the courtyard, was the stable.  Before the day of the motor
+ambulances, horses had waited there for their summons, eager as fire
+horses, heads lifted to the gong.  When Sidney saw the outline of the
+stable roof, she knew that it was dawn.  The city still slept, but the
+torturing night was over.  And in the gray dawn the staff, looking gray
+too, and elderly and weary, came out through the closed door and took their
+hushed way toward the elevator.  They were talking among themselves.
+Sidney, straining her ears, gathered that they had seen a miracle, and that
+the wonder was still on them.
+
+Carlotta followed them out.
+
+Almost on their heels came K.  He was in the white coat, and more and more
+he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held out
+something in his hand.  Sidney's head was aching and confused.
+
+She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish.  The dawn was
+morning now--horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and across the
+windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles sat on a
+clean towel.
+
+The tall man--or was it K.?--looked at her, and then reached up and turned
+off the electric light.  Why, it was K., of course; and he was putting out
+the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light was out everything
+was gray.  She could not see. She slid very quietly out of her chair, and
+lay at his feet in a dead faint.
+
+K. carried her to the elevator.  He held her as he had held her that day at
+the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as one holds
+something infinitely precious.  Not until he had placed her on her bed did
+she open her eyes.  But she was conscious before that.  She was so tired,
+and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing where one was
+going, or caring--
+
+The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney, lying
+among her pillows, looked up at K.
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"A little better.  There's a chance, dear."
+
+"I have been so mixed up.  All the time I was sitting waiting, I kept
+thinking that it was you who were operating!  Will he really get well?"
+
+"It looks promising."
+
+"I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes."
+
+The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia.  There was so much to talk
+about: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had been shot
+by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the great Edwardes;
+and--a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, and that thrilled
+the training-school to the core--that this very Edwardes, newly risen, as
+it were, and being a miracle himself as well as performing one, this very
+Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed and putting her down, had kissed her
+on her white forehead.
+
+The training-school doubted this.  How could he know Sidney Page? And,
+after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupied at the
+time in seeing if her cap was straight.  The school, therefore, accepted
+the miracle, but refused the kiss.
+
+The miracle was no miracle, of course.  But something had happened to K.
+that savored of the marvelous.  His faith in himself was coming back--not
+strongly, with a rush, but with all humility.  He had been loath to take up
+the burden; but, now that he had it, he breathed a sort of inarticulate
+prayer to be able to carry it.
+
+And, since men have looked for signs since the beginning of time, he too
+asked for a sign.  Not, of course, that he put it that way, or that he was
+making terms with Providence.  It was like this: if Wilson got well, he'd
+keep on working.  He'd feel that, perhaps, after all, this was meant.  If
+Wilson died--Sidney held out her hand to him.
+
+"What should I do without you, K.?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"All you have to do is to want me."
+
+His voice was not too steady, and he took her pulse in a most businesslike
+way to distract her attention from it.
+
+"How very many things you know!  You are quite professional about pulses."
+
+Even then he did not tell her.  He was not sure, to be frank, that she'd be
+interested.  Now, with Wilson as he was, was no time to obtrude his own
+story.  There was time enough for that.
+
+"Will you drink some beef tea if I send it to you?"
+
+"I'm not hungry. I will, of course."
+
+"And--will you try to sleep?"
+
+"Sleep, while he--"
+
+"I promise to tell you if there is any change.  I shall stay with him."
+
+"I'll try to sleep."
+
+But, as he rose from the chair beside her low bed, she put out her hand to
+him.
+
+"K."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"He was out with Carlotta.  He promised, and he broke his promise."
+
+"There may have been reasons.  Suppose we wait until he can explain."
+
+"How can he explain?"  And, when he hesitated: "I bring all my troubles to
+you, as if you had none.  Somehow, I can't go to Aunt Harriet, and of
+course mother--Carlotta cares a great deal for him.  She said that I shot
+him.  Does anyone really think that?"
+
+"Of course not.  Please stop thinking."
+
+"But who did, K.?  He had so many friends, and no enemies that I knew of."
+
+Her mind seemed to stagger about in a circle, making little excursions, but
+always coming back to the one thing.
+
+"Some drunken visitor to the road-house."
+
+He could have killed himself for the words the moment they were spoken.
+
+"They were at a road-house?"
+
+"It is not just to judge anyone before you hear the story."
+
+She stirred restlessly.
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Half-past six."
+
+"I must get up and go on duty."
+
+He was glad to be stern with her.  He forbade her rising.  When the nurse
+came in with the belated ammonia, she found K. making an arbitrary ruling,
+and Sidney looking up at him mutinously.
+
+"Miss Page is not to go on duty to-day.  She is to stay in bed until
+further orders."
+
+"Very well, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+The confusion in Sidney's mind cleared away suddenly.  K. was Dr. Edwardes!
+It was K. who had performed the miracle operation--K. who had dared and
+perhaps won!  Dear K., with his steady eyes and his long surgeon's fingers!
+Then, because she seemed to see ahead as well as back into the past in that
+flash that comes to the drowning and to those recovering from shock, and
+because she knew that now the little house would no longer be home to K.,
+she turned her face into her pillow and cried.  Her world had fallen
+indeed.  Her lover was not true and might be dying; her friend would go
+away to his own world, which was not the Street.
+
+K. left her at last and went back to Seventeen, where Dr. Ed still sat by
+the bed.  Inaction was telling on him.  If Max would only open his eyes, so
+he could tell him what had been in his mind all these years--his pride in
+him and all that.
+
+With a sort of belated desire to make up for where he had failed, he put
+the bag that had been Max's bete noir on the bedside table, and began to
+clear it of rubbish--odd bits of dirty cotton, the tubing from a long
+defunct stethoscope, glass from a broken bottle, a scrap of paper on which
+was a memorandum, in his illegible writing, to send Max a check for his
+graduating suit. When K. came in, he had the old dog-collar in his hand.
+
+"Belonged to an old collie of ours," he said heavily.  "Milkman ran over
+him and killed him.  Max chased the wagon and licked the driver with his
+own whip."
+
+His face worked.
+
+"Poor old Bobby Burns!" he said.  "We'd raised him from a pup. Got him in a
+grape-basket."
+
+The sick man opened his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him.  His patient did
+not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the gas
+office and got a day off.  The sordid little tragedy was easy to
+reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence of
+the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the conviction that
+he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.
+
+For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals keep
+their secrets well.  And it is doubtful if the Street would have been
+greatly concerned even had it known.  It had never heard of Edwardes, of
+the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation.  Its medical knowledge
+comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner.  When, as
+would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would be more
+concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of it.  That
+was as it should be.
+
+But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood.  If the
+boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable.  Twenty people had seen him
+at Schwitter's and would know him again.
+
+To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.
+
+At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him.  He had not been home
+all night.  Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him that.
+"Mrs. Drummond was here," she said.  "She is almost frantic.  She says Joe
+has not been home all night.  She says he looks up to you, and she thought
+if you could find him and would talk to him--"
+
+"Joe was with me last night.  We had supper at the White Springs Hotel.
+Tell Mrs. Drummond he was in good spirits, and that she's not to worry.  I
+feel sure she will hear from him to-day. Something went wrong with his car,
+perhaps, after he left me."
+
+He bathed and shaved hurriedly.  Katie brought his coffee to his room, and
+he drank it standing.  He was working out a theory about the boy.  Beyond
+Schwitter's the highroad stretched, broad and inviting, across the State.
+Either he would have gone that way, his little car eating up the miles all
+that night, or--K. would not formulate his fear of what might have
+happened, even to himself.
+
+As he went down the Street, he saw Mrs. McKee in her doorway, with a little
+knot of people around her.  The Street was getting the night's news.
+
+He rented a car at a local garage, and drove himself out into the country.
+He was not minded to have any eyes on him that day.  He went to Schwitter's
+first.  Schwitter himself was not in sight. Bill was scrubbing the porch,
+and a farmhand was gathering bottles from the grass into a box.  The dead
+lanterns swung in the morning air, and from back on the hill came the
+staccato sounds of a reaping-machine.
+
+"Where's Schwitter?"
+
+"At the barn with the missus.  Got a boy back there."
+
+Bill grinned.  He recognized K., and, mopping dry a part of the porch,
+shoved a chair on it.
+
+"Sit down.  Well, how's the man who got his last night?  Dead?"
+
+"No."
+
+"County detectives were here bright and early.  After the lady's husband.
+I guess we lose our license over this."
+
+"What does Schwitter say?"
+
+"Oh, him!"  Bill's tone was full of disgust.  "He hopes we do. He hates the
+place.  Only man I ever knew that hated money. That's what this house
+is--money."
+
+"Bill, did you see the man who fired that shot last night?"
+
+A sort of haze came over Bill's face, as if he had dropped a curtain before
+his eyes.  But his reply came promptly:
+
+"Surest thing in the world.  Close to him as you are to me. Dark man, about
+thirty, small mustache--"
+
+"Bill, you're lying, and I know it.  Where is he?"
+
+The barkeeper kept his head, but his color changed.
+
+"I don't know anything about him."  He thrust his mop into the pail.  K.
+rose.
+
+"Does Schwitter know?"
+
+"He doesn't know nothing.  He's been out at the barn all night."
+
+The farmhand had filled his box and disappeared around the corner of the
+house.  K. put his hand on Bill's shirt-sleeved arm.
+
+"We've got to get him away from here, Bill."
+
+"Get who away?"
+
+"You know.  The county men may come back to search the premises."
+
+"How do I know you aren't one of them?"
+
+"I guess you know I'm not.  He's a friend of mine.  As a matter of fact, I
+followed him here; but I was too late.  Did he take the revolver away with
+him?"
+
+"I took it from him.  It's under the bar."
+
+"Get it for me."
+
+In sheer relief, K.'s spirits rose.  After all, it was a good world: Tillie
+with her baby in her arms; Wilson conscious and rallying; Joe safe, and,
+without the revolver, secure from his own remorse.  Other things there
+were, too--the feel of Sidney's inert body in his arms, the way she had
+turned to him in trouble. It was not what he wanted, this last, but it was
+worth while. The reaping-machine was in sight now; it had stopped on the
+hillside.  The men were drinking out of a bucket that flashed in the sun.
+
+There was one thing wrong.  What had come over Wilson, to do so reckless a
+thing?  K., who was a one-woman man, could not explain it.
+
+From inside the bar Bill took a careful survey of Le Moyne.  He noted his
+tall figure and shabby suit, the slight stoop, the hair graying over his
+ears.  Barkeepers know men: that's a part of the job.  After his survey he
+went behind the bar and got the revolver from under an overturned pail.
+
+K. thrust it into his pocket.
+
+"Now," he said quietly, "where is he?"
+
+"In my room--top of the house."
+
+K. followed Bill up the stairs. He remembered the day when he had sat
+waiting in the parlor, and had heard Tillie's slow step coming down.  And
+last night he himself had carried down Wilson's unconscious figure.  Surely
+the wages of sin were wretchedness and misery.  None of it paid.  No one
+got away with it.
+
+The room under the eaves was stifling.  An unmade bed stood in a corner.
+From nails in the rafters hung Bill's holiday wardrobe. A tin cup and a
+cracked pitcher of spring water stood on the window-sill.
+
+Joe was sitting in the corner farthest from the window.  When the door
+swung open, he looked up.  He showed no interest on seeing K., who had to
+stoop to enter the low room.
+
+"Hello, Joe."
+
+"I thought you were the police."
+
+"Not much.  Open that window, Bill.  This place is stifling."
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"I wish I'd killed him!"
+
+"Oh, no, you don't.  You're damned glad you didn't, and so am I."
+
+"What will they do with me?"
+
+"Nothing until they find you.  I came to talk about that.  They'd better
+not find you."
+
+"Huh!"
+
+"It's easier than it sounds."
+
+K. sat down on the bed.
+
+"If I only had some money!" he said.  "But never mind about that, Joe; I'll
+get some."
+
+Loud calls from below took Bill out of the room.  As he closed the door
+behind him, K.'s voice took on a new tone: "Joe, why did you do it?"
+
+"You know."
+
+"You saw him with somebody at the White Springs, and followed them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know who was with him?"
+
+"Yes, and so do you.  Don't go into that.  I did it, and I'll stand by it."
+
+"Has it occurred to you that you made a mistake?"
+
+"Go and tell that to somebody who'll believe you!" he sneered. "They came
+here and took a room.  I met him coming out of it. I'd do it again if I had
+a chance, and do it better."
+
+"It was not Sidney."
+
+"Aw, chuck it!"
+
+"It's a fact.  I got here not two minutes after you left.  The girl was
+still there.  It was some one else.  Sidney was not out of the hospital
+last night.  She attended a lecture, and then an operation."
+
+Joe listened.  It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not
+been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.
+
+"If he is that sort, he deserves what he got," said the boy grimly.
+
+And K. had no reply.  But Joe was glad to talk.  The hours he had spent
+alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time that
+he shuddered to remember.  K. got it by degrees--his descent of the
+staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to walk
+back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be no
+mistake as to who had committed the crime.
+
+"I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself," he told K.  "But
+the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket.  And--"
+
+After a pause: "Does she know who did it?"
+
+"Sidney?  No."
+
+"Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow."
+
+"Possibly.  That's not up to us, Joe.  The thing we've got to do is to hush
+the thing up, and get you away."
+
+"I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money."
+
+K. rose.  "I think I can get it."
+
+He turned in the doorway.
+
+"Sidney need never know who did it."
+
+"I'm not ashamed of it."  But his face showed relief.
+
+There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve between
+men.  That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K.  The boy
+rose and followed him to the door.
+
+"Why don't you tell her the whole thing?--the whole filthy story?" he
+asked.  "She'd never look at him again.  You're crazy about her. I haven't
+got a chance.  It would give you one."
+
+"I want her, God knows!" said K. "But not that way, boy."
+
+Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.
+
+"Five hundred gross," the little man hastened to explain.  "But you're
+right, Mr. Le Moyne.  And I guess it would please HER. It's going hard with
+her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about.  It's in the safe,
+in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank."  He seemed to
+apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending an entire
+day's gross receipts on no security.  "It's better to get him away, of
+course.  It's good business.  I have tried to have an orderly place.  If
+they arrest him here--"
+
+His voice trailed off.  He had come a far way from the day he had walked
+down the Street, and eyed Its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.  Now
+he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.  It
+was arranged that K. should go back to town, returning late that night to
+pick up Joe at a lonely point on the road, and to drive him to a railroad
+station.  But, as it happened, he went back that afternoon.
+
+He had told Schwitter he would be at the hospital, and the message found
+him there.  Wilson was holding his own, conscious now and making a hard
+fight.  The message from Schwitter was very brief:--
+
+"Something has happened, and Tillie wants you.  I don't like to trouble you
+again, but she--wants you."
+
+K. was rather gray of face by that time, having had no sleep and little
+food since the day before.  But he got into the rented machine again--its
+rental was running up; he tried to forget it--and turned it toward
+Hillfoot.  But first of all he drove back to the Street, and walked without
+ringing into Mrs. McKee's.
+
+Neither a year's time nor Mrs. McKee's approaching change of state had
+altered the "mealing" house.  The ticket-punch still lay on the hat-rack in
+the hall.  Through the rusty screen of the back parlor window one viewed
+the spiraea, still in need of spraying.  Mrs. McKee herself was in the
+pantry, placing one slice of tomato and three small lettuce leaves on each
+of an interminable succession of plates.
+
+K., who was privileged, walked back.
+
+"I've got a car at the door," he announced, "and there's nothing so
+extravagant as an empty seat in an automobile.  Will you take a ride?"
+
+Mrs. McKee agreed.  Being of the class who believe a boudoir cap the ideal
+headdress for a motor-car, she apologized for having none.
+
+"If I'd known you were coming I would have borrowed a cap," she said.
+"Miss Tripp, third floor front, has a nice one.  If you'll take me in my
+toque--"
+
+K. said he'd take her in her toque, and waited with some anxiety, having
+not the faintest idea what a toque was.  He was not without other
+anxieties.  What if the sight of Tillie's baby did not do all that he
+expected?  Good women could be most cruel. And Schwitter had been very
+vague.  But here K. was more sure of himself: the little man's voice had
+expressed as exactly as words the sense of a bereavement that was not a
+grief.
+
+He was counting on Mrs. McKee's old fondness for the girl to bring them
+together.  But, as they neared the house with its lanterns and tables, its
+whitewashed stones outlining the drive, its small upper window behind which
+Joe was waiting for night, his heart failed him, rather.  He had a
+masculine dislike for meddling, and yet--Mrs. McKee had suddenly seen the
+name in the wooden arch over the gate: "Schwitter's."
+
+"I'm not going in there, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Tillie's not in the house. She's back in the barn."
+
+"In the barn!"
+
+"She didn't approve of all that went on there, so she moved out. It's very
+comfortable and clean; it smells of hay.  You'd be surprised how nice it
+is."
+
+"The like of her!" snorted Mrs. McKee.  "She's late with her conscience,
+I'm thinking."
+
+"Last night," K. remarked, hands on the wheel, but car stopped, "she had a
+child there. It--it's rather like very old times, isn't it?  A man-child,
+Mrs. McKee, not in a manger, of course."
+
+"What do you want me to do?"  Mrs. McKee's tone, which had been fierce at
+the beginning, ended feebly.
+
+"I want you to go in and visit her, as you would any woman who'd had a new
+baby and needed a friend.  Lie a little--" Mrs. McKee gasped.  "Tell her
+the baby's pretty.  Tell her you've been wanting to see her."  His tone was
+suddenly stern.  "Lie a little, for your soul's sake."
+
+She wavered, and while she wavered he drove her in under the arch with the
+shameful name, and back to the barn.  But there he had the tact to remain
+in the car, and Mrs. McKee's peace with Tillie was made alone.  When, five
+minutes later, she beckoned him from the door of the barn, her eyes were
+red.
+
+"Come in, Mr. K.," she said.  "The wife's dead, poor thing. They're going
+to be married right away."
+
+The clergyman was coming along the path with Schwitter at his heels.  K.
+entered the barn.  At the door to Tillie's room he uncovered his head.  The
+child was asleep at her breast.
+
+
+The five thousand dollar check from Mr. Lorenz had saved Palmer Howe's
+credit.  On the strength of the deposit, he borrowed a thousand at the bank
+with which he meant to pay his bills, arrears at the University and Country
+Clubs, a hundred dollars lost throwing aces with poker dice, and various
+small obligations of Christine's.
+
+The immediate result of the money was good.  He drank nothing for a week,
+went into the details of the new venture with Christine's father, sat at
+home with Christine on her balcony in the evenings.  With the knowledge
+that he could pay his debts, he postponed the day.  He liked the feeling of
+a bank account in four figures.
+
+The first evening or two Christine's pleasure in having him there gratified
+him.  He felt kind, magnanimous, almost virtuous.  On the third evening he
+was restless.  It occurred to him that his wife was beginning to take his
+presence as a matter of course. He wanted cold bottled beer.  When he found
+that the ice was out and the beer warm and flat, he was furious.
+
+Christine had been making a fight, although her heart was only half in it.
+She was resolutely good-humored, ignored the past, dressed for Palmer in
+the things he liked.  They still took their dinners at the Lorenz house up
+the street. When she saw that the haphazard table service there irritated
+him, she coaxed her mother into getting a butler.
+
+The Street sniffed at the butler behind his stately back. Secretly and in
+its heart, it was proud of him.  With a half-dozen automobiles, and
+Christine Howe putting on low neck in the evenings, and now a butler, not
+to mention Harriet Kennedy's Mimi, it ceased to pride itself on its
+commonplaceness, ignorant of the fact that in its very lack of affectation
+had lain its charm.
+
+On the night that Joe shot Max Wilson, Palmer was noticeably restless.  He
+had seen Grace Irving that day for the first time but once since the motor
+accident.  To do him justice, his dissipation of the past few months had
+not included women.
+
+The girl had a strange fascination for him.  Perhaps she typified the
+care-free days before his marriage; perhaps the attraction was deeper,
+fundamental.  He met her in the street the day before Max Wilson was shot.
+The sight of her walking sedately along in her shop-girl's black dress had
+been enough to set his pulses racing.  When he saw that she meant to pass
+him, he fell into step beside her.
+
+"I believe you were going to cut me!"
+
+"I was in a hurry."
+
+"Still in the store?"
+
+"Yes."  And, after a second's hesitation: "I'm keeping straight, too."
+
+"How are you getting along?"
+
+"Pretty well.  I've had my salary raised."
+
+"Do you have to walk as fast as this?"
+
+"I said I was in a hurry.  Once a week I get off a little early. I--"
+
+He eyed her suspiciously.
+
+"Early! What for?"
+
+"I go to the hospital.  The Rosenfeld boy is still there, you know."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+But a moment later he burst out irritably:--
+
+"That was an accident, Grace.  The boy took the chance when he engaged to
+drive the car.  I'm sorry, of course.  I dream of the little devil
+sometimes, lying there.  I'll tell you what I'll do," he added
+magnanimously.  "I'll stop in and talk to Wilson. He ought to have done
+something before this."
+
+"The boy's not strong enough yet.  I don't think you can do anything for
+him, unless--"
+
+The monstrous injustice of the thing overcame her.  Palmer and she walking
+about, and the boy lying on his hot bed!  She choked.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He worries about his mother. If you could give her some money, it would
+help."
+
+"Money!  Good Heavens--I owe everybody."
+
+"You owe him too, don't you?  He'll never walk again."
+
+"I can't give them ten dollars.  I don't see that I'm under any obligation,
+anyhow.  I paid his board for two months in the hospital."
+
+When she did not acknowledge this generosity,--amounting to forty-eight
+dollars,--his irritation grew.  Her silence was an accusation.  Her manner
+galled him, into the bargain.  She was too calm in his presence, too cold.
+Where she had once palpitated visibly under his warm gaze, she was now
+self-possessed and quiet.  Where it had pleased his pride to think that he
+had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the other foot.
+
+At the entrance to a side street she stopped.
+
+"I turn off here."
+
+"May I come and see you sometime?"
+
+"No, please."
+
+"That's flat, is it?"
+
+"It is, Palmer."
+
+He swung around savagely and left her.
+
+The next day he drew the thousand dollars from the bank.  A good many of
+his debts he wanted to pay in cash; there was no use putting checks
+through, with incriminating indorsements.  Also, he liked the idea of
+carrying a roll of money around.  The big fellows at the clubs always had a
+wad and peeled off bills like skin off an onion.  He took a couple of
+drinks to celebrate his approaching immunity from debt.
+
+He played auction bridge that afternoon in a private room at one of the
+hotels with the three men he had lunched with.  Luck seemed to be with him.
+He won eighty dollars, and thrust it loose in his trousers pocket.  Money
+seemed to bring money!  If he could carry the thousand around for a day or
+so, something pretty good might come of it.
+
+He had been drinking a little all afternoon.  When the game was over, he
+bought drinks to celebrate his victory.  The losers treated, too, to show
+they were no pikers.  Palmer was in high spirits.  He offered to put up the
+eighty and throw for it.  The losers mentioned dinner and various
+engagements.
+
+Palmer did not want to go home.  Christine would greet him with raised
+eyebrows.  They would eat a stuffy Lorenz dinner, and in the evening
+Christine would sit in the lamplight and drive him mad with soft music.  He
+wanted lights, noise, the smiles of women.  Luck was with him, and he
+wanted to be happy.
+
+At nine o'clock that night he found Grace.  She had moved to a cheap
+apartment which she shared with two other girls from the store.  The others
+were out.  It was his lucky day, surely.
+
+His drunkenness was of the mind, mostly.  His muscles were well controlled.
+The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were slightly
+accentuated, his eyes open a trifle wider than usual.  That and a slight
+paleness of the nostrils were the only evidences of his condition.  But
+Grace knew the signs.
+
+"You can't come in."
+
+"Of course I'm coming in."
+
+She retreated before him, her eyes watchful.  Men in his condition were apt
+to be as quick with a blow as with a caress. But, having gained his point,
+he was amiable.
+
+"Get your things on and come out.  We can take in a roof-garden."
+
+"I've told you I'm not doing that sort of thing."
+
+He was ugly in a flash.
+
+"You've got somebody else on the string."
+
+"Honestly, no.  There--there has never been anybody else, Palmer."
+
+He caught her suddenly and jerked her toward him.
+
+"You let me hear of anybody else, and I'll cut the guts out of him!"
+
+He held her for a second, his face black and fierce.  Then, slowly and
+inevitably, he drew her into his arms.  He was drunk, and she knew it.
+But, in the queer loyalty of her class, he was the only man she had cared
+for.  She cared now.  She took him for that moment, felt his hot kisses on
+her mouth, her throat, submitted while his rather brutal hands bruised her
+arms in fierce caresses.  Then she put him from her resolutely.
+
+"Now you're going."
+
+"The hell I'm going!"
+
+But he was less steady than he had been.  The heat of the little flat
+brought more blood to his head.  He wavered as he stood just inside the
+door.
+
+"You must go back to your wife."
+
+"She doesn't want me.  She's in love with a fellow at the house."
+
+"Palmer, hush!"
+
+"Lemme come in and sit down, won't you?"
+
+She let him pass her into the sitting-room.  He dropped into a chair.
+
+"You've turned me down, and now Christine--she thinks I don't know.  I'm no
+fool; I see a lot of things.  I'm no good.  I know that I've made her
+miserable.  But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don't kick
+about it."
+
+"You know that."
+
+She was watching him gravely.  She had never seen him just like this.
+Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reed he
+was.
+
+"I got you in wrong.  You were a good girl before I knew you. You're a good
+girl now.  I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it.  I only wanted to
+take you out for a good time.  I've got money.  Look here!" He drew out the
+roll of bills and showed it to her.  Her eyes opened wide.  She had never
+known him to have much money.
+
+"Lots more where that comes from."
+
+A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.
+
+She was instantly cunning.
+
+"Aren't you going to give me some of that?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I--I want some clothes."
+
+The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.
+
+"You lie."
+
+"I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld."
+
+He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp of it.
+
+"That's it," he complained.  "Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw it
+all up to me!"
+
+"You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you."
+
+"If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!"
+
+But his eyes were wavering.  She could see victory.
+
+"Take off enough for the evening."
+
+But he drew himself up.
+
+"I'm no piker," he said largely.  "Whole hog or nothing.  Take it."
+
+He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eighty dollars,
+in crushed and wrinkled notes.
+
+"It's my lucky day," he said thickly.  "Plenty more where this came from.
+Do anything for you.  Give it to the little devil. I--"  He yawned.  "God,
+this place is hot!"
+
+His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on a stool.
+She knew him--knew that he would sleep almost all night.  She would have to
+make up something to tell the other girls; but no matter--she could attend
+to that later.
+
+She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before.  It seemed
+smaller than that amount.  Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, in
+pinning on her hat, to count the bills.  It was all there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+K. spent all of the evening of that day with Wilson.  He was not to go for
+Joe until eleven o'clock.  The injured man's vitality was standing him in
+good stead.  He had asked for Sidney and she was at his bedside.  Dr. Ed
+had gone.
+
+"I'm going, Max.  The office is full, they tell me," he said, bending over
+the bed.  "I'll come in later, and if they'll make me a shakedown, I'll
+stay with you to-night."
+
+The answer was faint, broken but distinct.  "Get some sleep...I've been a
+poor stick...try to do better--"  His roving eyes fell on the dog collar on
+the stand.  He smiled, "Good old Bob!" he said, and put his hand over Dr.
+Ed's, as it lay on the bed.
+
+K. found Sidney in the room, not sitting, but standing by the window.  The
+sick man was dozing.  One shaded light burned in a far corner.  She turned
+slowly and met his eyes.  It seemed to K. that she looked at him as if she
+had never really seen him before, and he was right.  Readjustments are
+always difficult.
+
+Sidney was trying to reconcile the K. she had known so well with this new
+K., no longer obscure, although still shabby, whose height had suddenly
+become presence, whose quiet was the quiet of infinite power.
+
+She was suddenly shy of him, as he stood looking down at her.  He saw the
+gleam of her engagement ring on her finger.  It seemed almost defiant.  As
+though she had meant by wearing it to emphasize her belief in her lover.
+
+They did not speak beyond their greeting,  until he had gone over the
+record.  Then:--
+
+"We can't talk here. I want to talk to you, K."
+
+He led the way into the corridor. It was very dim.  Far away was the night
+nurse's desk, with its lamp, its annunciator, its pile of records.  The
+passage floor reflected the light on glistening boards.
+
+"I have been thinking until I am almost crazy, K.  And now I know how it
+happened.  It was Joe."
+
+"The principal thing is, not how it happened, but that he is going to get
+well, Sidney."
+
+She stood looking down, twisting her ring around her finger.
+
+"Is Joe in any danger?"
+
+"We are going to get him away to-night.  He wants to go to Cuba. He'll get
+off safely, I think."
+
+"WE are going to get him away!  YOU are, you mean.  You shoulder all our
+troubles, K., as if they were your own."
+
+"I?"  He was genuinely surprised.  "Oh, I see.  You mean--but my part in
+getting Joe off is practically nothing.  As a matter of fact, Schwitter
+has put up the money.  My total capital in the world, after paying the
+taxicab to-day, is seven dollars."
+
+"The taxicab?"
+
+"By Jove, I was forgetting!  Best news you ever heard of!  Tillie married
+and has a baby--all in twenty-four hours!  Boy--they named it Le Moyne.
+Squalled like a maniac when the water went on its head.  I--I took Mrs.
+McKee out in a hired machine.  That's what happened to my capital."  He
+grinned sheepishly.  "She said she would have to go in her toque.  I had
+awful qualms.  I thought it was a wrapper."
+
+"You, of course," she said.  "You find Max and save him--don't look like
+that!  You did, didn't you?  And you get Joe away, borrowing money to send
+him.  And as if that isn't enough, when you ought to have been getting some
+sleep, you are out taking a friend to Tillie, and being godfather to the
+baby."
+
+He looked uncomfortable, almost guilty.
+
+"I had a day off.  I--"
+
+"When I look back and remember how all these months I've been talking about
+service, and you said nothing at all, and all the time you were living what
+I preached--I'm so ashamed, K."
+
+He would not allow that.  It distressed him.  She saw that, and tried to
+smile.
+
+"When does Joe go?"
+
+"To-night.  I'm to take him across the country to the railroad.  I was
+wondering--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I'd better explain first what happened, and why it happened. Then if you
+are willing to send him a line, I think it would help.  He saw a girl in
+white in the car and followed in his own machine.  He thought it was you,
+of course.  He didn't like the idea of your going to Schwitter's.  Carlotta
+was taken ill.  And Schwitter and--and Wilson took her upstairs to a
+room."
+
+"Do you believe that, K.?"
+
+"I do.  He saw Max coming out and misunderstood.  He fired at him then."
+
+"He did it for me.  I feel very guilty, K., as if it all comes back to me.
+I'll write to him, of course.  Poor Joe!"
+
+He watched her go down the hall toward the night nurse's desk. He would
+have given everything just then for the right to call her back, to take her
+in his arms and comfort her.  She seemed so alone.  He himself had gone
+through loneliness and heartache, and the shadow was still on him.  He
+waited until he saw her sit down at the desk and take up a pen.  Then he
+went back into the quiet room.
+
+He stood by the bedside, looking down.  Wilson was breathing quietly: his
+color was coming up, as he rallied from the shock. In K.'s mind now was
+just one thought--to bring him through for Sidney, and then to go away.  He
+might follow Joe to Cuba.  There were chances there.  He could do
+sanitation work, or he might try the Canal.
+
+The Street would go on working out its own salvation.  He would have to
+think of something for the Rosenfelds.  And he was worried about Christine.
+But there again, perhaps it would be better if he went away.  Christine's
+story would have to work itself out.  His hands were tied.
+
+He was glad in a way that Sidney had asked no questions about him, had
+accepted his new identity so calmly.  It had been overshadowed by the night
+tragedy.  It would have pleased him if she had shown more interest, of
+course.  But he understood.  It was enough, he told himself, that he had
+helped her, that she counted on him.  But more and more he knew in his
+heart that it was not enough.  "I'd better get away from here," he told
+himself savagely.
+
+And having taken the first step toward flight, as happens in such cases, he
+was suddenly panicky with fear, fear that he would get out of hand, and
+take her in his arms, whether or no; a temptation to run from temptation,
+to cut everything and go with Joe that night.  But there his sense of humor
+saved him.  That would be a sight for the gods, two defeated lovers flying
+together under the soft September moon.
+
+Some one entered the room.  He thought it was Sidney and turned with the
+light in his eyes that was only for her.  It was Carlotta.
+
+She was not in uniform.  She wore a dark skirt and white waist and her high
+heels tapped as she crossed the room.  She came directly to him.
+
+"He is better, isn't he?"
+
+"He is rallying.  Of course it will be a day or two before we are quite
+sure."
+
+She stood looking down at Wilson's quiet figure.
+
+"I guess you know I've been crazy about him," she said quietly. "Well,
+that's all over.  He never really cared for me.  I played his game and
+I--lost.  I've been expelled from the school."
+
+Quite suddenly she dropped on her knees beside the bed, and put her cheek
+close to the sleeping man's hand.  When after a moment she rose, she was
+controlled again, calm, very white.
+
+"Will you tell him, Dr. Edwardes, when he is conscious, that I came in and
+said good-bye?"
+
+"I will, of course.  Do you want to leave any other message?"
+
+She hesitated, as if the thought tempted her.  Then she shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+"What would be the use?  He doesn't want any message from me."
+
+She turned toward the door.  But K. could not let her go like that.  Her
+face frightened him.  It was too calm, too controlled. He followed her
+across the room.
+
+"What are your plans?"
+
+"I haven't any.  I'm about through with my training, but I've lost my
+diploma."
+
+"I don't like to see you going away like this."
+
+She avoided his eyes, but his kindly tone did what neither the Head nor the
+Executive Committee had done that day.  It shook her control.
+
+"What does it matter to you?  You don't owe me anything."
+
+"Perhaps not. One way and another I've known you a long time."
+
+"You never knew anything very good."
+
+"I'll tell you where I live, and--"
+
+"I know where you live."
+
+"Will you come to see me there?  We may be able to think of something."
+
+"What is there to think of?  This story will follow me wherever I go!  I've
+tried twice for a diploma and failed.  What's the use?"
+
+But in the end he prevailed on her to promise not to leave the city until
+she had seen him again.  It was not until she had gone, a straight figure
+with haunted eyes, that he reflected whimsically that once again he had
+defeated his own plans for flight.
+
+In the corridor outside the door Carlotta hesitated.  Why not go back?  Why
+not tell him?  He was kind; he was going to do something for her.  But the
+old instinct of self-preservation prevailed.  She went on to her room.
+
+Sidney brought her letter to Joe back to K.  She was flushed with the
+effort and with a new excitement.
+
+"This is the letter, K., and--I haven't been able to say what I wanted,
+exactly. You'll let him know, won't you, how I feel, and how I blame
+myself?"
+
+K. promised gravely.
+
+"And the most remarkable thing has happened.  What a day this has been!
+Somebody has sent Johnny Rosenfeld a lot of money.  The ward nurse wants
+you to come back."
+
+The ward had settled for the night.  The well-ordered beds of the daytime
+were chaotic now, torn apart by tossing figures.  The night was hot and an
+electric fan hummed in a far corner.  Under its sporadic breezes, as it
+turned, the ward was trying to sleep.
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was not asleep.  An incredible thing had happened to him.
+A fortune lay under his pillow.  He was sure it was there, for ever since
+it came his hot hand had clutched it.
+
+He was quite sure that somehow or other K. had had a hand in it. When he
+disclaimed it, the boy was bewildered.
+
+"It'll buy the old lady what she wants for the house, anyhow," he said.
+"But I hope nobody's took up a collection for me.  I don't want no
+charity."
+
+"Maybe Mr. Howe sent it."
+
+"You can bet your last match he didn't."
+
+In some unknown way the news had reached the ward that Johnny's friend, Mr.
+Le Moyne, was a great surgeon.  Johnny had rejected it scornfully.
+
+"He works in the gas office," he said, "I've seen him there.  If he's a
+surgeon, what's he doing in the gas office.  If he's a surgeon, what's he
+doing teaching me raffia-work?  Why isn't he on his job?"
+
+But the story had seized on his imagination.
+
+"Say, Mr. Le Moyne."
+
+"Yes, Jack."
+
+He called him "Jack."  The boy liked it.  It savored of man to man.  After
+all, he was a man, or almost. Hadn't he driven a car? Didn't he have a
+state license?
+
+"They've got a queer story about you here in the ward."
+
+"Not scandal, I trust, Jack!"
+
+"They say that you're a surgeon; that you operated on Dr. Wilson and saved
+his life.  They say that you're the king pin where you came from."  He eyed
+K. wistfully.  "I know it's a damn lie, but if it's true--"
+
+"I used to be a surgeon.  As a matter of fact I operated on Dr. Wilson
+to-day.  I--I am rather apologetic, Jack, because I didn't explain to you
+sooner. For--various reasons--I gave up that--that line of business.
+To-day they rather forced my hand."
+
+"Don't you think you could do something for me, sir?"
+
+When K. did not reply at once, he launched into an explanation.
+
+"I've been lying here a good while.  I didn't say much because I knew I'd
+have to take a chance.  Either I'd pull through or I wouldn't, and the odds
+were--well, I didn't say much.  The old lady's had a lot of trouble.  But
+now, with THIS under my pillow for her, I've got a right to ask.  I'll take
+a chance, if you will."
+
+"It's only a chance, Jack."
+
+"I know that. But lie here and watch these soaks off the street. Old, a lot
+of them, and gettin' well to go out and starve, and--My God!  Mr. Le Moyne,
+they can walk, and I can't."
+
+K. drew a long breath.  He had started, and now he must go on. Faith in
+himself or no faith, he must go on.  Life, that had loosed its hold on him
+for a time, had found him again.
+
+"I'll go over you carefully to-morrow, Jack.  I'll tell you your chances
+honestly."
+
+"I have a thousand dollars.  Whatever you charge--"
+
+"I'll take it out of my board bill in the new house!"
+
+At four o'clock that morning K. got back from seeing Joe off. The trip had
+been without accident.
+
+Over Sidney's letter Joe had shed a shamefaced tear or two.  And during the
+night ride, with K. pushing the car to the utmost, he had felt that the
+boy, in keeping his hand in his pocket, had kept it on the letter.  When
+the road was smooth and stretched ahead, a gray-white line into the night,
+he tried to talk a little courage into the boy's sick heart.
+
+"You'll see new people, new life," he said.  "In a month from now you'll
+wonder why you ever hung around the Street.  I have a feeling that you're
+going to make good down there."
+
+And once, when the time for parting was very near,--"No matter what
+happens, keep on believing in yourself.  I lost my faith in myself once.
+It was pretty close to hell."
+
+Joe's response showed his entire self-engrossment.
+
+"If he dies, I'm a murderer."
+
+"He's not going to die," said K. stoutly.
+
+At four o'clock in the morning he left the car at the garage and walked
+around to the little house.  He had had no sleep for forty-five hours; his
+eyes were sunken in his head; the skin over his temples looked drawn and
+white.  His clothes were wrinkled; the soft hat he habitually wore was
+white with the dust of the road.
+
+As he opened the hall door, Christine stirred in the room beyond. She came
+out fully dressed.
+
+"K., are you sick?"
+
+"Rather tired.  Why in the world aren't you in bed?"
+
+"Palmer has just come home in a terrible rage.  He says he's been robbed of
+a thousand dollars."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Christine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He doesn't know, or says he doesn't.  I'm glad of it.  He seems thoroughly
+frightened.  It may be a lesson."
+
+In the dim hall light he realized that her face was strained and set.  She
+looked on the verge of hysteria.
+
+"Poor little woman," he said.  "I'm sorry, Christine."
+
+The tender words broke down the last barrier of her self-control.
+
+"Oh, K.!  Take me away.  Take me away!  I can't stand it any longer."
+
+She held her arms out to him, and because he was very tired and lonely, and
+because more than anything else in the world just then he needed a woman's
+arms, he drew her to him and held her close, his cheek to her hair.
+
+"Poor girl!" he said. "Poor Christine!  Surely there must be some happiness
+for us somewhere."
+
+But the next moment he let her go and stepped back.
+
+"I'm sorry."  Characteristically he took the blame.  "I shouldn't have done
+that--You know how it is with me."
+
+"Will it always be Sidney?"
+
+"I'm afraid it will always be Sidney."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead.  All of K.'s skill had not sufficed to save him.
+The operation had been a marvel, but the boy's long-sapped strength failed
+at the last.
+
+K., set of face, stayed with him to the end.  The boy did not know he was
+going.  He roused from the coma and smiled up at Le Moyne.
+
+"I've got a hunch that I can move my right foot," he said.  "Look and see."
+
+K. lifted the light covering.
+
+"You're right, old man.  It's moving."
+
+"Brake foot, clutch foot," said Johnny, and closed his eyes again.
+
+K. had forbidden the white screens, that outward symbol of death. Time
+enough for them later.  So the ward had no suspicion, nor had the boy.
+
+The ward passed in review.  It was Sunday, and from the chapel far below
+came the faint singing of a hymn.  When Johnny spoke again he did not open
+his eyes.
+
+"You're some operator, Mr. Le Moyne. I'll put in a word for you whenever I
+get a chance."
+
+"Yes, put in a word for me," said K. huskily.
+
+He felt that Johnny would be a good mediator--that whatever he, K., had
+done of omission or commission, Johnny's voice before the Tribunal would
+count.
+
+The lame young violin-player came into the ward.  She had cherished a
+secret and romantic affection for Max Wilson, and now he was in the
+hospital and ill.  So she wore the sacrificial air of a young nun and
+played "The Holy City."
+
+Johnny was close on the edge of his long sleep by that time, and very
+comfortable.
+
+"Tell her nix on the sob stuff," he complained.  "Ask her to play 'I'm
+twenty-one and she's eighteen.'"
+
+She was rather outraged, but on K.'s quick explanation she changed to the
+staccato air.
+
+"Ask her if she'll come a little nearer; I can't hear her."
+
+So she moved to the foot of the bed, and to the gay little tune Johnny
+began his long sleep.  But first he asked K. a question: "Are you sure I'm
+going to walk, Mr. Le Moyne?"
+
+"I give you my solemn word," said K. huskily, "that you are going to be
+better than you have ever been in your life."
+
+It was K. who, seeing he would no longer notice, ordered the screens to be
+set around the bed, K. who drew the coverings smooth and folded the boy's
+hands over his breast.
+
+The violin-player stood by uncertainly.
+
+"How very young he is!  Was it an accident?"
+
+"It was the result of a man's damnable folly," said K. grimly. "Somebody
+always pays."
+
+And so Johnny Rosenfeld paid.
+
+The immediate result of his death was that K., who had gained some of his
+faith in himself on seeing Wilson on the way to recovery, was beset by his
+old doubts.  What right had he to arrogate to himself again powers of life
+and death?  Over and over he told himself that there had been no
+carelessness here, that the boy would have died ultimately, that he had
+taken the only chance, that the boy himself had known the risk and begged
+for it.
+
+The old doubts came back.
+
+And now came a question that demanded immediate answer.  Wilson would be
+out of commission for several months, probably.  He was gaining, but
+slowly.  And he wanted K. to take over his work.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded, half irritably.  "The secret is out. Everybody
+knows who you are.  You're not thinking about going back to that ridiculous
+gas office, are you?"
+
+"I had some thought of going to Cuba."
+
+"I'm damned if I understand you.  You've done a marvelous thing; I lie here
+and listen to the staff singing your praises until I'm sick of your name!
+And now, because a boy who wouldn't have lived anyhow--"
+
+"That's not it," K. put in hastily.  "I know all that.  I guess I could do
+it and get away with it as well as the average.  All that deters me--I've
+never told you, have I, why I gave up before?"
+
+Wilson was propped up in his bed. K. was walking restlessly about the room,
+as was his habit when troubled.
+
+"I've heard the gossip; that's all."
+
+"When you recognized me that night on the balcony, I told you I'd lost my
+faith in myself, and you said the whole affair had been gone over at the
+State Society.  As a matter of fact, the Society knew of only two cases.
+There had been three."
+
+"Even at that--"
+
+"You know what I always felt about the profession, Max.  We went into that
+more than once in Berlin.  Either one's best or nothing.  I had done pretty
+well.  When I left Lorch and built my own hospital, I hadn't a doubt of
+myself.  And because I was getting results I got a lot of advertising.  Men
+began coming to the clinics.  I found I was making enough out of the
+patients who could pay to add a few free wards.  I want to tell you now,
+Wilson, that the opening of those free wards was the greatest
+self-indulgence I ever permitted myself.  I'd seen so much careless
+attention given the poor--well, never mind that.  It was almost three years
+ago that things began to go wrong.  I lost a big case."
+
+"I know.  All this doesn't influence me, Edwardes."
+
+"Wait a moment.  We had a system in the operating-room as perfect as I
+could devise it.  I never finished an operation without having my first
+assistant verify the clip and sponge count.  But that first case died
+because a sponge had been left in the operating field.  You know how those
+things go; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count, after
+reasonable caution. Then I lost another case in the same way--a free case.
+
+"As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was doing
+from four to six cases a day.  After the second one I almost went crazy.  I
+made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go away."
+
+"There was another?"
+
+"Not for several months.  When the last case died, a free case again, I
+performed my own autopsy.  I allowed only my first assistant in the room.
+He was almost as frenzied as I was.  It was the same thing again.  When I
+told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to say he
+had closed the incision.  He tried to make me think he was responsible. I
+knew--better."
+
+"It's incredible."
+
+"Exactly; but it's true.  The last patient was a laborer.  He left a
+family.  I've sent them money from time to time.  I used to sit and think
+about the children he left, and what would become of them.  The ironic part
+of it was that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the time.  Men
+were sending me cases from all over the country.  It was either stay and
+keep on working, with that chance, or--quit.  I quit." "But if you had
+stayed, and taken extra precautions--"
+
+"We'd taken every precaution we knew."
+
+Neither of the men spoke for a time.  K. stood, his tall figure outlined
+against the window.  Far off, in the children's ward, children were
+laughing; from near by a very young baby wailed a thin cry of protest
+against life; a bell rang constantly.  K.'s mind was busy with the
+past--with the day he decided to give up and go away, with the months of
+wandering and homelessness, with the night he had come upon the Street and
+had seen Sidney on the doorstep of the little house.
+
+"That's the worst, is it?" Max Wilson demanded at last.
+
+"That's enough."
+
+"It's extremely significant.  You had an enemy somewhere--on your staff,
+probably.  This profession of ours is a big one, but you know its
+jealousies.  Let a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack is
+after him."  He laughed a little.  "Mixed figure, but you know what I
+mean."
+
+K. shook his head.  He had had that gift of the big man everywhere, in
+every profession, of securing the loyalty of his followers.  He would have
+trusted every one of them with his life.
+
+"You're going to do it, of course."
+
+"Take up your work?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He stirred restlessly.  To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand by
+as Wilson's best man when he was married--it turned him cold. But he did
+not give a decided negative.  The sick man was flushed and growing fretful;
+it would not do to irritate him.
+
+"Give me another day on it," he said at last.  And so the matter stood.
+
+Max's injury had been productive of good, in one way.  It had brought the
+two brothers closer together.  In the mornings Max was restless until Dr.
+Ed arrived.  When he came, he brought books in the shabby bag--his beloved
+Burns, although he needed no book for that, the "Pickwick Papers," Renan's
+"Lives of the Disciples."  Very often Max world doze off; at the cessation
+of Dr. Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir fretfully and demand
+more.  But because he listened to everything without discrimination, the
+older man came to the conclusion that it was the companionship that
+counted.  It pleased him vastly.  It reminded him of Max's boyhood, when he
+had read to Max at night. For once in the last dozen years, he needed him.
+
+"Go on, Ed.  What in blazes makes you stop every five minutes?" Max
+protested, one day.
+
+Dr. Ed, who had only stopped to bite off the end of a stogie to hold in his
+cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it.
+
+"Stop bullying.  I'll read when I'm ready.  Have you any idea what I'm
+reading?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Well, I haven't.  For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages!"
+
+Max laughed, and suddenly put out his hand.  Demonstrations of affection
+were so rare with him that for a moment Dr. Ed was puzzled.  Then, rather
+sheepishly, he took it.
+
+"When I get out," Max said, "we'll have to go out to the White Springs
+again and have supper."
+
+That was all; but Ed understood.
+
+Morning and evening, Sidney went to Max's room.  In the morning she only
+smiled at him from the doorway.  In the evening she went to him after
+prayers.  She was allowed an hour with him then.
+
+The shooting had been a closed book between them.  At first, when he began
+to recover, he tried to talk to her about it.  But she refused to listen.
+She was very gentle with him, but very firm.
+
+"I know how it happened, Max," she said--"about Joe's mistake and all that.
+The rest can wait until you are much better."
+
+If there had been any change in her manner to him, he would not have
+submitted so easily, probably.  But she was as tender as ever, unfailingly
+patient, prompt to come to him and slow to leave.  After a time he began to
+dread reopening the subject. She seemed so effectually to have closed it.
+Carlotta was gone. And, after all, what good could he do his cause by
+pleading it? The fact was there, and Sidney knew it.
+
+On the day when K. had told Max his reason for giving up his work, Max was
+allowed out of bed for the first time.  It was a great day.  A box of red
+roses came that day from the girl who had refused him a year or more ago.
+He viewed them with a carelessness that was half assumed.
+
+The news had traveled to the Street that he was to get up that day.  Early
+that morning the doorkeeper had opened the door to a gentleman who did not
+speak, but who handed in a bunch of early chrysanthemums and proceeded to
+write, on a pad he drew from his pocket:--
+
+"From Mrs. McKee's family and guests, with their congratulations on your
+recovery, and their hope that they will see you again soon.  If their ends
+are clipped every day and they are placed in ammonia water, they will last
+indefinitely." Sidney spent her hour with Max that evening as usual.  His
+big chair had been drawn close to a window, and she found him there,
+looking out. She kissed him.  But this time, instead of letting her draw
+away, he put out his arms and caught her to him.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"Very glad, indeed," she said soberly.
+
+"Then smile at me.  You don't smile any more.  You ought to smile; your
+mouth--"
+
+"I am almost always tired; that's all, Max."
+
+She eyed him bravely.
+
+"Aren't you going to let me make love to you at all?  You get away beyond
+my reach."
+
+"I was looking for the paper to read to you."
+
+A sudden suspicion flamed in his eyes.
+
+"Sidney."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"You don't like me to touch you any more.  Come here where I can see you."
+
+The fear of agitating him brought her quickly.  For a moment he was
+appeased.
+
+"That's more like it.  How lovely you are, Sidney!"  He lifted first one
+hand and then the other to his lips.  "Are you ever going to forgive me?"
+
+"If you mean about Carlotta, I forgave that long ago."
+
+He was almost boyishly relieved.  What a wonder she was!  So lovely, and so
+sane.  Many a woman would have held that over him for years--not that he
+had done anything really wrong on that nightmare excursion. But so many
+women are exigent about promises.
+
+"When are you going to marry me?"
+
+"We needn't discuss that to-night, Max."
+
+"I want you so very much.  I don't want to wait, dear.  Let me tell Ed that
+you will marry me soon.  Then, when I go away, I'll take you with me."
+
+"Can't we talk things over when you are stronger?"
+
+Her tone caught his attention, and turned him a little white.  He faced her
+to the window, so that the light fell full on her.
+
+"What things?  What do you mean?"
+
+He had forced her hand.  She had meant to wait; but, with his keen eyes on
+her, she could not dissemble.
+
+"I am going to make you very unhappy for a little while."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I've had a lot of time to think.  If you had really wanted me, Max--"
+
+"My God, of course I want you!"
+
+"It isn't that I am angry.  I am not even jealous.  I was at first.  It
+isn't that.  It's hard to make you understand.  I think you care for me--"
+
+"I love you!  I swear I never loved any other woman as I love you."
+
+Suddenly he remembered that he had also sworn to put Carlotta out of his
+life.  He knew that Sidney remembered, too; but she gave no sign.
+
+"Perhaps that's true.  You might go on caring for me.  Sometimes I think
+you would.  But there would always be other women, Max. You're like that.
+Perhaps you can't help it."
+
+"If you loved me you could do anything with me."  He was half sullen.
+
+By the way her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire.  All his
+conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his entanglement
+with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise--that she loved him.
+The mere suspicion made him gasp.
+
+"But, good Heavens, Sidney, you do care for me, don't you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't, Max; not enough."
+
+She tried to explain, rather pitifully.  After one look at his face, she
+spoke to the window.
+
+"I'm so wretched about it.  I thought I cared.  To me you were the best and
+greatest man that ever lived.  I--when I said my prayers, I--But that
+doesn't matter.  You were a sort of god to me.  When the Lamb--that's one
+of the internes, you know--nicknamed you the 'Little Tin God,' I was angry.
+You could never be anything little to me, or do anything that wasn't big.
+Do you see?"
+
+He groaned under his breath.
+
+"No man could live up to that, Sidney."
+
+"No.  I see that now.  But that's the way I cared.  Now I know that I
+didn't care for you, really, at all. I built up an idol and worshiped it. I
+always saw you through a sort of haze.  You were operating, with everybody
+standing by, saying how wonderful it was.  Or you were coming to the wards,
+and everything was excitement, getting ready for you.  I blame myself
+terribly.  But you see, don't you?  It isn't that I think you are wicked.
+It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never knew you."
+
+When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself.
+
+"I'd known very few men," she said.  "I came into the hospital, and for a
+time life seemed very terrible.  There were wickednesses I had never heard
+of, and somebody always paying for them.  I was always asking, Why?  Why?
+Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out.  You gave
+them their chance, don't you see?  Until I knew about Carlotta, you always
+meant that to me.  You were like K.--always helping."
+
+The room was very silent.  In the nurses' parlor, a few feet down the
+corridor, the nurses were at prayers.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," read the Head, her voice calm
+with the quiet of twilight and the end of the day.
+
+"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still
+waters."
+
+The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were weary.
+
+"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"
+
+The man in the chair stirred.  He had come through the valley of the
+shadow, and for what?  He was very bitter.  He said to himself savagely
+that they would better have let him die. "You say you never loved me
+because you never knew me.  I'm not a rotter, Sidney.  Isn't it possible
+that the man you, cared about, who--who did his best by people and all
+that--is the real me?"
+
+She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the
+sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey his
+greatness.  Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he sank
+back into his chair.
+
+"The man who did his best is quite real.  You have always done the best in
+your work; you always will.  But the other is a part of you too, Max.  Even
+if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk."
+
+Under the window rang the sharp gong of a city patrol-wagon.  It rumbled
+through the gates back to the courtyard, where its continued clamor
+summoned white-coated orderlies.
+
+An operating-room case, probably.  Sidney, chin lifted, listened carefully.
+If it was a case for her, the elevator would go up to the operating-room.
+With a renewed sense of loss, Max saw that already she had put him out of
+her mind.  The call to service was to her a call to battle.  Her sensitive
+nostrils quivered; her young figure stood erect, alert.
+
+"It has gone up!"
+
+She took a step toward the door, hesitated, came back, and put a light hand
+on his shoulder.
+
+"I'm sorry, dear Max."
+
+She had kissed him lightly on the cheek before he knew what she intended to
+do.  So passionless was the little caress that, perhaps more than anything
+else, it typified the change in their relation.
+
+When the door closed behind her, he saw that she had left her ring on the
+arm of his chair.  He picked it up. It was still warm from her finger.  He
+held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his successful young life
+he had never before felt the bitterness of failure.  The very warmth of the
+little ring hurt.
+
+Why hadn't they let him die?  He didn't want to live--he wouldn't live.
+Nobody cared for him!  He would--
+
+His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that had
+come that morning.  Even in the half light, they glowed with fiery color.
+
+The ring was in his right hand.  With the left he settled his collar and
+soft silk tie.
+
+K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time.  Katie brought word to him,
+where he was helping Harriet close her trunk,--she was on her way to Europe
+for the fall styles,--that he was wanted in the lower hall.
+
+"A lady!" she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution.  "And a
+good thing for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg off
+you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to them
+from now on."
+
+So K. had put on his coat and, without so much as a glance in Harriet's
+mirror, had gone down the stairs.  Carlotta was in the lower hall.  She
+stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble had
+made in her.  She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older than her
+age.
+
+"I came, you see, Dr. Edwardes."
+
+Now and then, when some one came to him for help, which was generally
+money, he used Christine's parlor, if she happened to be out. So now,
+finding the door ajar, and the room dark, he went in and turned on the
+light.
+
+"Come in here; we can talk better."
+
+She did not sit down at first; but, observing that her standing kept him on
+his feet, she sat finally.  Evidently she found it hard to speak.
+
+"You were to come," K. encouraged her, "to see if we couldn't plan
+something for you.  Now, I think I've got it."
+
+"If it's another hospital--and I don't want to stay here, in the city."
+
+"You like surgical work, don't you?"
+
+"I don't care for anything else."
+
+"Before we settle this, I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of. You know,
+of course, that I closed my hospital.  I--a series of things happened, and
+I decided I was in the wrong business.  That wouldn't be important, except
+for what it leads to.  They are trying to persuade me to go back, and--I'm
+trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back.  You see,"--his tone was
+determinedly cheerful, "my faith in myself has been pretty nearly gone.
+When one loses that, there isn't much left."
+
+"You had been very successful."  She did not look up.
+
+"Well, I had and I hadn't.  I'm not going to worry you about that.  My
+offer is this: We'll just try to forget about--about Schwitter's and all
+the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating-room."
+
+"You sent me away once!"
+
+"Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?" He smiled at her
+encouragingly.
+
+"Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?"
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Don't you think you are taking a risk?"
+
+"Every one makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made mistakes
+since the world began.  Most people live in glass houses, Miss Harrison.
+And don't make any mistake about this: people can always come back.  No
+depth is too low.  All they need is the willpower."
+
+He smiled down at her.  She had come armed with confession.  But the offer
+he made was too alluring.  It meant reinstatement, another chance, when she
+had thought everything was over.  After all, why should she damn herself?
+She would go back.  She would work her finger-ends off for him.  She would
+make it up to him in other ways.  But she could not tell him and lose
+everything.
+
+"Come," he said.  "Shall we go back and start over again?"
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence taking
+up the burden of the year.  At eight-thirty and at one the school bell
+called the children.  Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly sharpened
+pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet fashion, a tail of
+unwilling brothers as they went.
+
+An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised the
+baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach them
+himself this year.  A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne intended to
+go away.
+
+The Street had been furiously busy for a month.  The cobblestones had gone,
+and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt.  The fascination of writing
+on it with chalk still obsessed the children.  Every few yards was a
+hop-scotch diagram.  Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up new
+curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.
+
+To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added its
+quota.  One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that were
+absolutely ridiculous.  (What with no baking all last month, and every
+Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of gas.
+They could come and take their old meter out!)  And the next there was the
+news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the gas
+office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's hazarded!--and
+that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr. Max Wilson.
+
+The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
+sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement
+over the matter,--of K., not the sidewalks,--and then had accepted the new
+situation.
+
+But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned.  What was the
+matter with things, anyhow?  Here was Christine's marriage, which had
+promised so well,--awnings and palms and everything,--turning out badly.
+True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again.  And
+Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing-days, and
+brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs dry-eyed and silent--even
+the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrill her. There was
+Tillie, too.  But one did not speak of her.  She was married now, of
+course; but the Street did not tolerate such a reversal of the usual
+processes as Tillie had indulged in.  It censured Mrs. McKee severely for
+having been, so to speak, and accessory after the fact.
+
+The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible.  If he had shown any
+"high and mightiness," as they called it, since the change in his estate,
+it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the real
+thing,--so that the newspapers give a column to his having been in the city
+almost two years,--and still goes about in the same shabby clothes, with
+the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstrates clearly, as the
+barytone put it, that "he's got no swelled head on him; that's sure."
+
+"Anybody can see by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's that he's
+been used to a car--likely a foreign one.  All the swells have foreign
+cars."  Still the barytone, who was almost as fond of conversation as of
+what he termed "vocal."  "And another thing.  Do you notice the way he
+takes Dr. Ed around?  Has him at every consultation.  The old boy's tickled
+to death."
+
+A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heard
+the barytone singing:--
+
+      "Home is the hunter, home from the hill,
+       And the sailor, home from sea."
+
+Home!  Why, this WAS home.  The Street seemed to stretch out its arms to
+him.  The ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house.
+Tree and house were old; September had touched them.  Christine sat sewing
+on the balcony.  A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something on the
+new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when he had
+finished, and inspected his work.  K. caught him up from behind, and,
+swinging him around--
+
+"Hey!" he said severely. "Don't you know better than to write all over the
+street?  What'll I do to you?  Give you to a policeman?"
+
+"Aw, lemme down, Mr. K."
+
+"You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more, the
+picnic's off."
+
+"Aw, Mr. K.!"
+
+"I mean it.  Go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school."
+
+He put the boy down.  There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as in
+his voice, when he dealt with children.  All his severity did not conceal
+it. "Get along with you, Bill.  Last bell's rung."
+
+As the boy ran off, K.'s eye fell on what he had written on the cement.  At
+a certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as the
+Street "cancels" names.  It is a part of his birthright.  He does it as he
+whittles his school desk or tries to smoke the long dried fruit of the
+Indian cigar tree. So K. read in chalk an the smooth street:--
+
+     Max Wilson Marriage.      Sidney Page Love.
+
+[Note: the a, l, s, and n of "Max Wilson" are crossed through, as are the
+S, d, n, and a of "Sidney Page"]
+
+The childish scrawl stared up at him impudently, a sacred thing profaned by
+the day.  K. stood and looked at it.  The barytone was still singing; but
+now it was "I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen."  It was a cheerful air, as
+should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to his long sleep.
+The light was gone from K.'s face again.   After all, the Street meant for
+him not so much home as it meant Sidney.  And now, before very long, that
+book of his life, like others, would have to be closed.
+
+He turned and went heavily into the little house.
+
+Christine called to him from her little balcony:--
+
+"I thought I heard your step outside.  Have you time to come out?"
+
+K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window.  His steady eyes
+looked down at her.
+
+"I see very little of you now," she complained.  And, when he did not reply
+immediately: "Have you made any definite plans, K.?"
+
+"I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After that--"
+
+"You will go away?"
+
+"I think so.  I am getting a good many letters, one way and another.  I
+suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay.  My old place is closed.  I'd
+go back there--they want me.  But it seems so futile, Christine, to leave
+as I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things were; and
+now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced, and to take
+up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do it than when
+I left!"
+
+"I went to see Max yesterday.  You know what he thinks about all that."
+
+He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony.
+
+"But who?" he demanded.  "Who would do such a thing?  I tell you,
+Christine, it isn't possible."
+
+She did not pursue the subject.  Her thoughts had flown ahead to the little
+house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or the heavy
+creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it.
+
+But perhaps it would be better if he went.  She had her own life to live.
+She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she must build
+on the shaky foundation of her marriage a house of life, with resignation
+serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always.  That she knew.  But
+with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and her love for Palmer
+was quite dead.
+
+"Sidney will be here this afternoon."
+
+"Good." His tone was non-committal.
+
+"Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney is not very happy?"
+
+He stopped in front of her.
+
+"She's had a great anxiety."
+
+"She has no anxiety now.  Max is doing well."
+
+"Then what is it?"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, but I think I know.  She's lost faith in Max, and
+she's not like me.  I--I knew about Palmer before I married him.  I got a
+letter.  It's all rather hideous--I needn't go into it.  I was afraid to
+back out; it was just before my wedding.  But Sidney has more character
+than I have.  Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether she'll
+marry him."
+
+K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to the
+sun and to the smiles of the Street.  Christine might be right, but that
+did not alter things for him.
+
+Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself; to Palmer, who was
+doing better just now; to K., who was going away--went back with an ache to
+the night K. had taken her in his arms and then put her away.  How wrong
+things were!  What a mess life was!
+
+"When you go away," she said at last, "I want you to remember this.  I'm
+going to do my best, K.  You have taught me all I know.  All my life I'll
+have to overlook things; I know that. But, in his way, Palmer cares for me.
+He will always come back, and perhaps sometime--"
+
+Her voice trailed off.  Far ahead of her she saw the years stretching out,
+marked, not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away, his
+remorseful returns.
+
+"Do a little more than forgetting," K. said.  "Try to care for him,
+Christine.  You did once.  And that's your strongest weapon. It's always a
+woman's strongest weapon.  And it wins in the end."
+
+"I shall try, K.," she answered obediently.
+
+But he turned away from the look in her eyes.
+
+Harriet was abroad.  She had sent cards from Paris to her "trade."  It was
+an innovation.  The two or three people on the Street who received her
+engraved announcement that she was there, "buying new chic models for the
+autumn and winter--afternoon frocks, evening gowns, reception dresses, and
+wraps, from Poiret, Martial et Armand, and others," left the envelopes
+casually on the parlor table, as if communications from Paris were quite to
+be expected.
+
+So K. lunched alone, and ate little.  After luncheon he fixed a broken
+ironing-stand for Katie, and in return she pressed a pair of trousers for
+him.  He had it in mind to ask Sidney to go out with him in Max's car, and
+his most presentable suit was very shabby.
+
+"I'm thinking," said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up over
+her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door, "that
+these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K.  They're getting
+mighty thin."
+
+"I'll take a duster along in case of accident," he promised her; "and
+to-morrow I'll order a suit, Katie."
+
+"I'll believe it when I see it," said Katie from the stairs. "Some fool of
+a woman from the alley will come in to-night and tell you she can't pay her
+rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocket-book--as like as not to
+pay an installment on a piano.  There's two new pianos in the alley since
+you came here."
+
+"I promise it, Katie."
+
+"Show it to me," said Katie laconically.  "And don't go to picking up
+anything you drop!"
+
+Sidney came home at half-past two--came delicately flushed, as if she had
+hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.
+
+"Bless the child!" she said.  "There's no need to ask how he is to-day.
+You're all one smile."
+
+The smile set just a trifle.
+
+"Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It's with
+Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly.  Please go out and sweep it off."
+
+"I'm about crazy with their old chalk.  I'll do it after a while."
+
+"Please do it now.  I don't want anyone to see it.  Is--is Mr. K.
+upstairs?"
+
+But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go up
+at once.  She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was there.  She
+could hear him moving about.  Her lips parted slightly as she listened.
+
+Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeing
+something in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to her
+throat.
+
+"Sidney!"
+
+"Oh--hello, Chris."
+
+"Won't you come and sit with me?"
+
+"I haven't much time--that is, I want to speak to K."
+
+"You can see him when he comes down."
+
+Sidney came slowly through the parlor.  It occurred to her, all at once,
+that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now.  No doubt he was in
+and out of the house often.  And how pretty Christine was!  She was
+unhappy, too.  All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention was to
+be unhappy enough.  Well, surely, in that case--
+
+"How is Max?"
+
+"Still better."
+
+Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful, Christine
+saw, to face the staircase.  There was silence on the balcony.  Christine
+sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.
+
+"Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now."
+
+"I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris."
+
+Upstairs, K.'s door slammed.  It was one of his failings that he always
+slammed doors.  Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.
+
+Sidney slid from the railing.
+
+"There he is now."
+
+Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a
+bigger moment than the one that followed.  She could have said nothing,
+and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from the
+Street as empty of heart as he had come to it.
+
+"Be very good to him, Sidney," she said unsteadily.  "He cares so much."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+K. was being very dense.  For so long had he considered Sidney as
+unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much
+wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude.
+
+"It was glamour, that was all, K.," said Sidney bravely.
+
+"But, perhaps," said K., "it's just because of that miserable incident with
+Carlotta.  That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told me the
+story.  It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard, and--"
+
+Sidney was exasperated.
+
+"Do you want me to marry him, K.?"
+
+K. looked straight ahead.
+
+"I want you to be happy, dear."
+
+They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again.  K. had ordered
+dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they both liked.  But
+now that it was there, they were not eating.  K. had placed his chair so
+that his profile was turned toward her.  He had worn the duster religiously
+until nightfall, and then had discarded it.  It hung limp and dejected on
+the back of his chair.  Past K.'s profile Sidney could see the magnolia
+tree shaped like a heart.
+
+"It seems to me," said Sidney suddenly, "that you are kind to every one but
+me, K."
+
+He fairly stammered his astonishment:--
+
+"Why, what on earth have I done?"
+
+"You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you?"
+
+She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply out of
+sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went
+hastily to something else:
+
+"It is hard for me to realize that you--that you lived a life of your own,
+a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish you would
+tell me something about yourself.  If we're to be friends when you go
+away,"--she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat--"I'll want to
+know how to think of you,--who your friends are,--all that."
+
+He made an effort.  He was thinking, of course, that he would be
+visualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its side street,
+as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just parted, her
+hands folded before her on the table.
+
+"I shall be working," he said at last.  "So will you."
+
+"Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night.  You can think of me as never
+forgetting you or the Street, working or playing."
+
+Playing!  Of course he would not work all the time.  And he was going back
+to his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls--
+
+He did his best then.  He told her of the old family house, built by one of
+his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the case
+for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son then to the
+cause that he made his own.  He told of old servants who had wept when he
+decided to close the house and go away.  When she fell silent, he thought
+he was interesting her.  He told her the family traditions that had been
+the fairy tales of his childhood.  He described the library, the choice
+room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames, and of his
+father's collection of books.  Because it was home, he waxed warm over it
+at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to remember.  It brought
+back the other things that he wanted to forget.
+
+But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney.  Side by side with the
+wonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house.  What
+an exile it must have been for him!  How hopelessly middle-class they must
+have seemed!  How idiotic of her to think, for one moment, that she could
+ever belong in this new-old life of his!
+
+What traditions had she?  None, of course, save to be honest and good and
+to do her best for the people around her.  Her mother's people, the
+Kennedys went back a long way, but they had always been poor.  A library
+full of paintings and books!  She remembered the lamp with the blue-silk
+shade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister's portrait,
+and the cherry bookcase with the Encyclopaedia in it and "Beacon Lights of
+History."  When K., trying his best to interest her and to conceal his own
+heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather's old carriage, she sat
+back in the shadow.
+
+"Fearful old thing," said K.,--"regular cabriolet.  I can remember yet the
+family rows over it.  But the old gentleman liked it--used to have it
+repainted every year.  Strangers in the city used to turn around and stare
+at it--thought it was advertising something!"
+
+"When I was a child," said Sidney quietly, "and a carriage drove up and
+stopped on the Street, I always knew some one had died!"
+
+There was a strained note in her voice.  K., whose ear was attuned to every
+note in her voice, looked at her quickly. "My great-grandfather," said
+Sidney in the same tone, "sold chickens at market.  He didn't do it
+himself; but the fact's there, isn't it?"
+
+K. was puzzled.
+
+"What about it?" he said.
+
+But Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on.  This K. she had never
+known, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it--he must
+have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had traveled
+and knew all kinds of things: girls like the daughters of the Executive
+Committee who came in from their country places in summer with great
+armfuls of flowers, and hurried off, after consulting their jeweled
+watches, to luncheon or tea or tennis.
+
+"Go on," said Sidney dully.  "Tell me about the women you have known, your
+friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you."
+
+K. was rather apologetic.
+
+"I've always been so busy," he confessed.  "I know a lot, but I don't think
+they would interest you.  They don't do anything, you know--they travel
+around and have a good time.  They're rather nice to look at, some of them.
+But when you've said that you've said it all."
+
+Nice to look at!  Of course they would be, with nothing else to think of in
+all the world but of how they looked.
+
+Suddenly Sidney felt very tired.  She wanted to go back to the hospital,
+and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her face down
+on the bed.
+
+"Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?"
+
+He did mind.  He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed.  And
+his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he
+thought.  She was grieving about Max.  After all, a girl couldn't care as
+she had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of another
+woman, without a wrench.
+
+"Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting there?
+In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two.  I'll not talk if
+you'd like to be quiet." Being with K. had become an agony, now that she
+realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds, hers and
+K.'s, had only touched for a time.  Soon they would be separated by as wide
+a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase--for instance,--and a
+book-lined library hung with family portraits.  But she was not disposed to
+skimp as to agony.  She would go through with it, every word a stab, if
+only she might sit beside K. a little longer, might feel the touch of his
+old gray coat against her arm. "I'd like to ride, if you don't mind."
+
+K. turned the automobile toward the country roads.  He was remembering
+acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he had had
+to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and his arrival at
+last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of the stairs and
+Carlotta on her knees beside him.
+
+"K." "Yes?"
+
+"Was there anybody you cared about,--any girl,--when you left home?"
+
+"I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean."
+
+"You knew Max before, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes.  You know that."
+
+"If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't you tell
+me?"
+
+"I couldn't do that, could I?  Anyhow--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I thought everything would be all right.  It seemed to me that the mere
+fact of your caring for him--"  That was shaky ground; he got off it
+quickly. "Schwitter has closed up.  Do you want to stop there?"
+
+"Not to-night, please."
+
+They were near the white house now.  Schwitter's had closed up, indeed.
+The sign over the entrance was gone.  The lanterns had been taken down, and
+in the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch.  As if to
+cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself was watering
+the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.
+
+The car went by.  Above the low hum of the engine they could hear Tillie's
+voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of love as she
+sang to the child.
+
+When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware that Sidney
+was crying.  She sat with her head turned away, using her handkerchief
+stealthily.  He drew the car up beside the road, and in a masterful fashion
+turned her shoulders about until she faced him.
+
+"Now, tell me about it," he said.
+
+"It's just silliness.  I'm--I'm a little bit lonely."
+
+"Lonely!"
+
+"Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody--"
+
+"Aunt Harriet!"
+
+He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonely because the
+cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more bewildered.  And
+Joe! "And with you going away and never coming back--"
+
+"I'll come back, of course.  How's this?  I'll promise to come back when
+you graduate, and send you flowers."
+
+"I think," said Sidney, "that I'll become an army nurse."
+
+"I hope you won't do that."
+
+"You won't know, K.  You'll be back with your old friends. You'll have
+forgotten the Street and all of us."
+
+"Do you really think that?"
+
+"Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won't
+know a T bandage from a figure eight!"
+
+"There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear."
+
+His voice was husky.
+
+"You are saying that to comfort me."
+
+"To comfort you!  I--who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to
+think about it!  Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you were
+sitting there on the steps--oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared a
+little!"
+
+Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his
+arms,--which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for him
+that way,--he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious appearance
+of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.
+
+"I have been trying to make you say that all evening!" said Sidney.  "I
+love you so much that--K., won't you take me in your arms?"
+
+Take her in his arms!  He almost crushed her.  He held her to him and
+muttered incoherencies until she gasped.  It was as if he must make up for
+long arrears of hopelessness.  He held her off a bit to look at her, as if
+to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her eyes to
+corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her eyes; they
+showed him a new heaven and a new earth.
+
+"It was you always, K.," she confessed.  "I just didn't realize it.  But
+now, when you look back, don't you see it was?"
+
+He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as the
+stars, and he did not see it.  He shook his head.
+
+"I never had even a hope."
+
+"Not when I came to you with everything?  I brought you all my troubles,
+and you always helped."
+
+Her eyes filled.  She bent down and kissed one of his hands.  He was so
+happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.
+
+"I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one, and
+will be the right one forever and ever.  It is the person--one goes to in
+trouble."
+
+He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her
+hand.  Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer
+that, since there must be troubles, she would, always come to him and he
+would always be able to help her.
+
+And Sidney, too, fell silent.  She was recalling the day she became engaged
+to Max, and the lost feeling she had had.  She did not feel the same at all
+now.  She felt as if she had been wandering, and had come home to the arms
+that were about her. She would be married, and take the risk that all women
+took, with her eyes open.  She would go through the valley of the shadow,
+as other women did; but K. would be with her.  Nothing else mattered.
+Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she was safe.  She would never
+wither for him.
+
+Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's
+fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby coat.
+
+"I shall love you all my life," she said shakily.
+
+His arms tightened about her.
+
+The little house was dark when they got back to it.  The Street, which had
+heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising its windows for
+the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to keep them
+clean.
+
+In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone slept heavily,
+and made divers unvocal sounds.  He was hardening his throat, and so slept
+with a wet towel about it.
+
+Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with the
+aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.
+
+The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out.  Then it drove
+away, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.
+
+Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited.  How lovely it all was! How
+beautiful life was!  If one did one's best by life, it did its best too.
+How steady K.'s eyes were!  She saw the flicker of the match across the
+street, and knew what it meant.  Once she would have thought that that was
+funny; now it seemed very touching to her.
+
+Katie had heard the car, and now she came heavily along the hall.  "A woman
+left this for Mr. K.," she said.  "If you think it's a begging letter,
+you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit to-morrow.  Almost any
+moment he's likely to bust out."
+
+But it was not a begging letter.  K. read it in the hall, with Sidney's
+shining eyes on him.  It began abruptly:--
+
+"I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins.  She is a medical missionary.
+Perhaps I can work things out there.  It is a bad station on the West
+Coast.  I am not going because I feel any call to the work, but because I
+do not know what else to do.
+
+"You were kind to me the other day.  I believe, if I had told you then, you
+would still have been kind.  I tried to tell you, but I was so terribly
+afraid.
+
+"If I caused death, I did not mean to.  You will think that no excuse, but
+it is true.  In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on Miss Page's
+medicine-tray, I did not care much what happened.  But it was different
+with you.
+
+"You dismissed me, you remember.  I had been careless about a sponge count.
+I made up my mind to get back at you.  It seemed hopeless--you were so
+secure.  For two or three days I tried to think of some way to hurt you.  I
+almost gave up.  Then I found the way.
+
+"You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in the
+operating-room?  There were twelve to each package.  When we counted them
+as we got them out, we counted by packages.  On the night before I left, I
+went to the operating-room and added one sponge every here and there.  Out
+of every dozen packets, perhaps, I fixed one that had thirteen.  The next
+day I went away.
+
+"Then I was terrified.  What if somebody died?  I had meant to give you
+trouble, so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swear that
+was all.  I was so frightened that I went down sick over it.  When I got
+better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was being whispered
+about.  I almost died of terror.
+
+"I tried to get back into the hospital one night.  I went up the
+fire-escape, but the windows were locked.  Then I left the city. I couldn't
+stand it.  I was afraid to read a newspaper.
+
+"I am not going to sign this letter.  You know who it is from. And I am not
+going to ask your forgiveness, or anything of that sort.  I don't expect
+it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else, the other night.  You
+said you'd lost your faith in yourself.  This is to tell you that you need
+not.  And you said something else--that any one can 'come back.'  I
+wonder!"
+
+K. stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand.  Just
+beyond on the doorstep was Sidney, waiting for him. His arms were still
+warm from the touch of her.  Beyond lay the Street, and beyond that lay the
+world and a man's work to do. Work, and faith to do it, a good woman's hand
+in the dark, a Providence that made things right in the end.
+
+"Are you coming, K.?"
+
+"Coming," he said.  And, when he was beside her, his long figure folded to
+the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hem of her
+soft white dress.
+
+Across the Street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and then lighted
+a match.
+
+"So K. is in love with Sidney Page, after all!" he had written. "She is a
+sweet girl, and he is every inch a man.  But, to my mind, a certain lady--"
+
+Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match.
+
+Late September now on the Street, with Joe gone and his mother eyeing the
+postman with pitiful eagerness; with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavily about
+the setting-up of the new furniture; and with Johnny driving heavenly cars,
+brake and clutch legs well and Strong.  Late September, with Max recovering
+and settling his tie for any pretty nurse who happened along, but listening
+eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in the hall; with Tillie rocking her baby
+on the porch at Schwitter's, and Carlotta staring westward over rolling
+seas; with Christine taking up her burden and Grace laying hers down; with
+Joe's tragic young eyes growing quiet with the peace of the tropics.
+
+"The Lord is my shepherd," she reads.  "I shall not want."..."Yea, though I
+walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
+
+Sidney, on her knees in the little parlor, repeats the words with the
+others.  K. has gone from the Street, and before long she will join him.
+With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayer to
+the others--that the touch of his arms about her may not make her forget
+the vow she has taken, of charity and its sister, service, of a cup of
+water to the thirsty, of open arms to a tired child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK K ***
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