“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—”