Quin, lying in the last bed in the ward, alternated between rapture and despair as he watched the progress of the visitor. Would she recognize him? Would she speak to him if she did, when he looked like that? Perhaps if he turned his face to the wall and pretended to be asleep she would pa.s.s him by. But he did not want her to pa.s.s him by. This might be the only chance he would ever have to see her again!
Back in his fringe of consciousness he was frantically groping for the name the Captain had mentioned: Barnet? Barret? Bartlett? That was it!
And with the recovery of the name Quin"s mind did another somersault.
Bartlett? Where had he heard that name? Eleanor Bartlett? Some nonsense about "Solomon"s baby." Why, Rose Martel, of course.
Then all thought deserted him, for the world suddenly shrank to five feet two of femininity, and he heard a gay, impersonal voice saying:
"May I put a cake of chocolate on your table?"
For the life of him, he could not answer. He only lay there with his mouth open, looking at her, while she straightened the contents of her basket. One more moment and she would be gone. Quin staked all on a chance shot.
"Thank you, Miss Eleanor Bartlett," he said, with that ridiculous blush that was so out of keeping with his audacity.
She looked at him in amazement; then her face broke into a smile of recognition.
"Well, bless my soul, if it isn"t Sergeant Slim! What are you doing here?"
"Same thing I been doing for six months," said Quin sheepishly; "counting the planks in the ceiling."
"But I thought you had got well. Oh, I hope it wasn"t the dancing----"
"Lord, no," said Quin, keeping his hand over his bristly chin. "I"m husky, all right. Only they"ve got so used to seeing me laying around that they can"t bear to let me go."
"Do you have to lie flat on your back like that, with no pillow or anything?"
"It ain"t so bad, except at mess-time."
"And you can"t even sit up to eat?"
"Not supposed to."
Miss Bartlett eyed him compa.s.sionately.
"I am coming out twice a week now--Mondays and Fridays--and I"m going to bring you something nice every time I come. How long will you be here?"
"Three weeks," said Quin--adding, with a funny twist of his lip, "three weeks and three days."
"Oh! Were you the boy on the porch? How funny I didn"t recognize you! I"m going to ask Captain Phipps to let you off those extra days."
"No, you mustn"t." Quin objected earnestly; "I"ll take what"s coming to me. Besides," he added, "one of those days might be a Monday or a Friday!"
This seemed to amuse her, for she smiled as she wrote his name and bed number in a small notebook, with the added entry: "Oyster soup, cigarettes, and a razor."
Just as she was leaving, she remembered something and turned back.
"How did you know my name?" she asked with lively curiosity.
"Didn"t the Captain call it on the porch?"
"Did he? But not my first name. How on earth _did_ you know that?"
"Perhaps I guessed it," Quin said, looking mysterious. And just then a nurse came along and thrust the thermometer back in his mouth, and the conversation was abruptly ended.
Of course the calendar must have been right about the three weeks that followed; there probably were seven days in each week and twenty-four hours in each day. But Quin wasn"t sure about it. He knew beyond doubt that there were three Mondays and four Fridays and one wholly gratuitous and never-to-be-forgotten Sunday when Miss Bartlett brought his dinner from town, and insisted upon cutting his chicken for him and feeding him custard with a spoon. The rest of the days were lost in abstract time, during which Quin had his hair cut and his face shaved, and did bead-work.
Until now he had st.u.r.dily refused to be inveigled into occupational therapy. Those guys that were done for could learn to knit, he said, and to make silly little mats, and weave things on a loom. If he couldn"t do a man"s work he"d be darned if he was going to do a woman"s. But now all was changed. He announced his intention of making the cla.s.siest bead chain that had ever been achieved in 2 C. He insisted upon the instructor getting him the most expensive beads in the market, regardless of size or color.
Now, for Quin, with his big hands and lack of dexterity, to have worked with beads under the most favorable conditions would have been difficult, but to master the art lying flat on his back was a _tour de force_. He p.r.i.c.ked his fingers and broke his thread; he upset the beads on the floor, on the bed, in his tray; he took out and put in with infinite patience, "each bead a thought, each thought a prayer."
"Don"t you think you had better give it up?" asked the instructor, in despair, after the fourth lesson.
"You don"t know me," said Quin, setting his jaw. "You been trying to get me into this for two weeks--now you"ve got to see me through."
It did not take long for the other patients to discover Quin"s state of mind.
"How about your heart disease, Graham?" they inquired daily; "think it"s going to be chronic?"
But Quin had little time for them. The distinction he had enjoyed as the champion poker-player in 2 C. began to wane as his popularity with the new ward visitor increased.
"I like your nerve!--keeping her up there at your bed all the time,"
complained Michaelis.
"She"s an old friend of mine," Quin threw off nonchalantly.
"Aw, what you tryin" to put over on us?" scoffed Mike. "Where"d you ever git to know a girl like that?"
"Well, I know her all right," said Quin.
The little mystery about Miss Bartlett"s first name had been a fruitful topic of conversation between a couple whose topics were necessarily limited. She had teased Quin to tell her how he knew, and also how he knew she wanted to go on the stage; and Quin had teased back; and at last it had resolved itself into a pretty contest of wits.
This served to keep her beside him often as long as four minutes. Then he would gain an additional two minutes by showing her what progress he had made with his chain, and consulting her preference for an American flag or a Red Cross worked in the medallion.
When every other means of detaining her had been exhausted, he sometimes resorted to strategy. Const.i.tutionally he was opposed to duplicity; he was built on certain square lines that disqualified him for many a comfortable round hole in life. But under the stress of present circ.u.mstances he persuaded himself that the end justified the means.
Ignoring the fact that he was as devoid of relations as a tree is of leaves in December, he developed a sudden sense of obligation to an imaginary cousin whom he added, without legal authority, to the population of Peru, Indiana. By means of Miss Bartlett"s white hand he frequently informed her that she was not to worry about him, because he was "doing splendid," and that a hospital "wasn"t so worse when you get used to it." And while he dictated words of a.s.surance to his "Cousin Sue"
his eyes feasted upon a dainty profile with long brown lashes that swept a peach-blow cheek. Once he became so demoralized by this too pleasing prospect that he said "tell him" instead of "tell her," and the lashes lifted in instant inquiry.
"I mean--er--her husband," Quin gasped.
"But you had me direct the other letters to Miss Sue Brown."
"Yes, I know," said Quin, with an embarra.s.sment that might have been attributed to skeletons in family closets; "but, you see--she--er--she took back her own name."
The one cloud that darkened Quin"s horizon these days was Captain Phipps.
His visits to the ward always coincided with Miss Bartlett"s, and he seemed to take a spiteful pleasure in keeping the men at attention while he engaged her in intimate conversation. He was an extremely fastidious, well groomed young man, with an insolent hauteur and a certain lordly air of possession that proclaimed him a conqueror of the s.e.x. Quin regarded him with growing disfavor.
When the three weeks were almost over, Quin was allowed to sit up, and even to walk on the porch. Miss Bartlett found him there one day when she arrived.
"Aha!" she cried, "I"ve found you out, Sergeant Slim! You are Ca.s.s Martel"s hero, and that"s where you heard about me and found out my first name."