"Do you consider he"s very ill?" asked Roger.
She looked at him earnestly and shook her head.
"Why, no, Mr. Clifford, since you ask me, I can honestly say that it seems to both the night-nurse and me an unusually light case of typhoid--about the lightest I"ve ever nursed, I should say. It certainly _is_ typhoid, yet he has never run as high a temperature as one expects."
"Considering his age, that"s lucky, isn"t it?"
"Yes, of course, oh, yes!"
He thought she seemed a little puzzled.
"Has the doctor"s treatment of the case anything to do with it, do you think?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"No, there isn"t much one can do in typhoid, it"s mainly a question of what not to do. I only hesitated because we--the other nurse and I--both think it a little odd that Sir Charles, who"s an old man, should have such a mild case, when the type that"s going around is rather severe."
"Oh, I see. Well, I suppose there"s no accounting for these things, is there?"
"No, and in any case we can"t complain, can we?"
He liked her laugh and the frank way she looked at him. Her eyes were as clear as a sunny pool that mirrored brown leaves. He liked, too, the freshness of her skin, and her rather square white teeth, with a tiny s.p.a.ce separating the middle two. They made her look so honest.
It was a friendly, fearless face, yet there was sensitiveness about it, evident from the way the colour mounted into the cheeks at the closeness of his scrutiny.
"Where do you come from?" he asked suddenly.
"Manitoba," was the prompt reply, "the western part."
"Oh--the plains?"
"Yes, but I"m astonished at your knowing."
"Do I look so ignorant?"
"Everyone over here is ignorant about American geography. I never expect them to know anything. When I mentioned Manitoba to one man, he said at once, "Oh, yes, Central America!""
Roger laughed.
"I shouldn"t like to be cross-examined myself, but I know a little about Canada. I think, too, that you have the look of the plains."
"What sort of look is that?"
He hesitated, and his eyes twinkled.
"An extremely nice look."
They both laughed at this.
"To be definite, it is a certain breadth across here"--he indicated the cheek-bones--"and then your eyes, the way they are set, and a sort of shining brightness about them. I should think you are very far-sighted. Are you?"
"Well, do you know, I am. I grew up in a country where one could see for miles and miles. When I first went into hospital training, my eyes began to trouble me. The doctors said it was only because I wasn"t used to looking at objects at close range."
"You ought to be out of doors. Why, may I ask, did you take up nursing?"
She shrugged her shoulders and flashed a frank smile at him.
"I had to do something--there were such crowds of us at home. And I haven"t any talents."
"It strikes me as remarkably plucky."
"Why?" she demanded promptly. "Thousands of girls are doing the same thing every day."
"I suppose they are, but that"s quite another thing.
"I fail to see it," she retorted with an ironical sparkle in her eye.
"You wouldn"t, of course, and I can"t altogether explain. But perhaps when I"ve had time to think it over..."
Again they laughed. It was the sort of stupid little conversation to which enormous point is given solely by mutual attraction. However slight and evanescent that affinity may be, it yet hints at the possibility of other things, surrounding the most trivial remarks with a kind of roseate glow.
In this instance the glow lasted during what might have been an awkward interval, while the two stood looking at each other with nothing to say. Esther was the first to return to a matter-of-fact world.
"I mustn"t stay here talking. I have things to do for my patient."
"I"m glad he"s got you to look after him," said Roger impulsively. "It can"t be so bad to be..."
But she did not wait to hear more. With a quizzical smile over her shoulder she vanished into the bedroom, leaving him to descend the stairs whistling, conscious of an agreeable warmth he did not seek to a.n.a.lyse.
Esther also felt oddly elated, but she did not neglect to enter very softly, in case her patient should be dozing. Her hand still on the door-k.n.o.b, she peered cautiously around the edge of the screen.
Someone was in the room, she felt it instinctively even before she discovered who it was. A woman"s figure was bending over the table at the other side of the room, her back turned, and something eager and tense in her att.i.tude. It was Lady Clifford. But what was she doing?
Of, of course! She was examining the chart.
CHAPTER XI
Why should Lady Clifford show so much curiosity about a technical thing like a medical chart? She was told several times a day exactly how her husband was progressing. She seemed to Esther like an importunate child, probing to know the future, which no one could foresee.
As this thought crossed her mind, a quick movement on the part of the figure opposite caused her to halt on the brink of making her presence known. She saw Lady Clifford straighten up and come towards her with a cautious step to the foot of the bed. She saw her lean forward, without touching the foot-board, and gaze with frowning intentness at the ill man"s face. His eyes were still closed, he had perhaps fallen asleep; but if he had suddenly chanced to look up Esther thought that his wife"s expression would have given him rather a shock. For the moment her beauty was quite altered. With her lip caught between her teeth and her eyes narrowed with a sort of avid, calculating sharpness, she appeared a different person. It was curious how anxiety could change one"s appearance.
Suddenly Esther woke up to the fact that Lady Clifford did not realise she was being watched. What an embarra.s.sing thought! Esther had never willingly spied on anyone in her life. Yet spying was surely too harsh a name for it. Eager to atone for her involuntary fault, she removed her hand from the door-k.n.o.b, meaning to enter boldly. It was too late.
At this exact moment the eyes of the watcher by the bed lifted and met hers. Instantly a new expression flashed into them, for the moment they seemed more yellow than grey.
"I did not hear you come in," she murmured with that trace of accent which lent charm to her speech.