"Nothing, thank you. You did it all an hour ago, and left me more comfortable than I expected to be just yet. I"m not sure whether it was the dressing or the visit that did me the most good."
"You"re a mighty satisfactory sort of patient. That good clean blood of yours is telling already in your recovery from shock. It tells in another way, too."
"What"s that?"
"Sheer pluck."
King"s eyelids fell. It meant much to him to stand well in the estimation of this man, himself distinguished for the cool daring of his work, his endurance of the hard drudgery of his profession as well as the brilliant performance on occasion. "I"m glad you think so--Red Pepper Burns," King answered daringly. Then, as the other laughed, he added: "Do you know what would make me the most docile patient you could ask?"
"Docile doesn"t seem just the word for you--but I"d be glad to know, in case of emergency."
"Let me call you that--the name your best friends have for you. It"s a bully name. I know I"m ten years younger--but--"
"Good lack! Jordan King, call me anything you like! I"ll appreciate it."
"You"ve no idea how long I"ve wanted to do it--Red," vowed the younger man, with the flush again creeping into his cheek.
"Why didn"t you long ago?" Burns demanded. "Surely dignity"s no characteristic of mine. If Anne Linton can call me "Red Head" on no acquaintance at all--"
"She didn"t do that!" King looked a little as if he had received a blow.
"Only when she was off her head, of course. She took me for a wildcat once, poor child. No, no--when she was sane she addressed me very properly. She"s back on the old decorous ground now. Made me a beautiful little speech this morning, informing me that I had to stop calling her "little girl," for she was twenty-four years old. As she looks about fifteen at the present, and a starved little beggar at that, I found it a bit difficult to begin on "Miss Linton," particularly as I have been addressing her as "Little Anne" all the time."
"Starved?" King seemed to have paused at this significant word.
"Oh, we"ll soon fill her out again. She"s really not half so thin as she might be under the old-style treatment. It strikes me you have a good deal of interest in my patients, Jord. Shall I describe the rest of them for you?"
Burns looked mischievous, but King did not seem at all disturbed.
"Naturally I am interested in a girl you made me bring to the hospital myself. And at present--well--a fellow feeling, you know. I see how it is myself now. I didn"t then."
"True enough. Well, I"ll bring you daily bulletins from Miss Anne. And when she"s strong enough I"ll break the news to her of your proximity.
Doubtless your respective nurses will spend their time carrying flowers back and forth from one of you to the other."
"More than likely," King admitted. "Anything to fill in the time. I"m sorry I can"t take her out in my car when she"s ready. I"ve been thinking, Doctor--Red," he went on hastily, "that there"s got to be some way for Aleck to drive that car in the future. I"m going to work out a scheme while I lie here."
"Work out anything. I"ll prophesy right now that as soon as you get fairly comfortable you"ll think out more stuff while you"re lying on your back than you ever did in a given period of time before. It won"t be lost time at all; it"ll be time gained. And when you do get back on your legs--no, don"t ask me when that"ll be, I can"t tell nor any other fellow--but when you do get back you"ll make things fly as they never did before--and that"s going some."
"You _are_ a great bluffer, but I admit that I like the sound of it,"
was King"s parting speech as he watched Burns depart.
On account of this latest interview he was able to bear up the better under the immediately following visit of his mother, an aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced but sad-eyed lady, who could not yet be reconciled to that which had happened to her son, and who visited him twice daily to bring hampers of fruit, food, and flowers, in quant.i.ty sufficient to sustain half the patients in a near-by ward. She invariably shed a few quiet tears over him which she tried vainly to conceal, addressed him in a mournful tone, and in spite of his efforts to cheer her managed to leave behind her after each visit an atmosphere of depression which it took him some time and strength to overcome.
"Poor mother, she can"t help it," philosophized her son. "What stumps me, though, is why one who takes life so hard should outlive a man like my father, who was all that is brave and cheerful. Perhaps it took it out of him to be always playing the game boldly against her fears. But even so--give me the bluffers, like Red Pepper--and like Mrs. Red.
Jove! but she"s a lovely woman. No wonder he adores her. So do I--with his leave. And so does Anne Linton, I should imagine. Poor little girl--what does she look like, I wonder?"
If he could have seen her at that moment, holding Susquehanna against her hollow young cheek, the glowing flower making the white face a pitiful contrast, he would have been even more touched than he could have imagined. Also--he would have felt that his wager concerning Susquehanna was likely to be lost. It is not conducive to the life of a rose to be loved and caressed as this one was being. But since it was the first of her flowers that Anne Linton had been able to take note of and enjoy, it might have been considered a life--and a wager--well lost.
CHAPTER VI
HEAVY LOCAL MAILS
Anne Linton lifted her head ever so little from the allowed incline of her pillow in the Good Samaritan Hospital. She peered anxiously at the tray being borne toward her by Selina Arden, most scrupulously conscientious of all trained nurses, and never more rigidly exact than when the early diet of patients in convalescence was concerned.
"Is that all?" murmured Anne in a tone of anguish.
"All!" replied Miss Arden firmly. But she smiled, showing her perfect white teeth--and showing also her sympathy by the tone in which she added: "Poor child!"
"Shall I never, never, never," asked the patient, hungrily surveying the tray at close range, "have enough just to dull these pangs a little? Not enough to satisfy me, of course, but just enough to take the edge off?"
"Very soon now," replied Miss Arden cheerily, "you shall have a pretty good-sized portion of beefsteak, juicy and tender, and you shall eat it all up--"
"And leave not a wrack behind," moaned Anne Linton, closing her eyes.
"But you are wrong, Miss Arden--I shall not eat it, I shall _gulp_ it--the way a dog does. I always wondered why a dog has no manners about eating. I know now. He is so hungry his eyes eat it first, so his mouth has no chance. Well, I"m certainly thankful for the food on this tray.
It"s awfully good--what there is of it."
She consumed it, making the process as lingering as was consistent with the ravaging appet.i.te which was a real torture. When the last mouthful had vanished she set her eyes upon the clock--the little travelling clock which was Miss Arden"s and which had ticked busily and cheerfully through all those days of illness when Anne"s eyes had never once lifted to notice the pa.s.sage of time.
"I was so long about it," said the girl gleefully, "that now it"s only two hours and forty minutes to the next refreshment station. I expect I can keep on living till then if I use all my will power."
"And here"s something to make you forget how long two hours and forty minutes are."
Miss Arden went to the door and, returning, laid suddenly in Anne"s arms a great, fragrant ma.s.s of white bloom, at the smell and touch of which she gave a half-smothered cry of rapture, and buried her face in the midst of it. "White lilacs--oh, white lilacs! The dears--the loves! Oh, where _did_ they come from?"
"There"s a note that came with them," admitted Miss Arden presently, when she had let the question go unanswered for some time, while Anne, seeming to forget that she had asked it, smelled and smelled of the cool white and green branches as if she could never have enough of them. Into her eyes had leaped a strange look, as if some memory were connected with these outdoor flowers which made them different for her from the hothouse blooms, or even from the daffodils and tulips that had alternated with the roses which had come often since her convalescence began.
Anne reached up an eager hand for the note, a look of surprise on her face. Miss Arden, looking back at her, noted how each day was helping to remove the pallor and wanness from that face. At the moment, under the caress of the lilacs and the surprise of the impending note, it was showing once more a decided touch of its former beauty. Also she was wearing a little invalid"s wrap of lace and pink silk, given her by Mrs.
Burns, and this helped the effect.
Anne unfolded the note. Miss Arden went away with the empty tray, and remained away some time. Miss Arden, as has been said before, was a most remarkable nurse.
The note read thus:
The Next Corridor, 10:30 A.M.
DEAR MISS LINTON:
The time has come, it seems to me, for two patients who have nothing to do but while away the hours for a bit longer, to help each other out. What do you say? I suppose you don"t know that I"ve been lying flat on my back now for a fortnight, getting over a rather bad spill from my car. I"m pretty comfortable now, thank you, so don"t waste a particle of sympathy; but the hours must certainly drag for you as they do for me, and my idea is that we ought to establish some sort of system of intercommunication. I have an awfully obliging nurse, and a young man with a fiddle here besides, and I"d like to send you a short musicale when you feel up to it. Are you fond of music? I have a notion you are. Franz will come and play for you whenever you say. But besides that I"d awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able to write. I"ll answer it, you know--and then you"ll answer that, perhaps--and so the hours will go by. I know this is a rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circ.u.mstances do alter cases, you know, and if our circ.u.mstances can"t alter our cases, then it"s no good being laid up!
Hearty congratulations on that raging appet.i.te. You see Doctor Burns is good enough to keep me informed as to how you come on. You certainly seem to be coming on now. Please keep it up.
I shouldn"t dare ask you to write to me if the Doctor hadn"t said you could--if you wouldn"t do it enough to tire you.
So--I"m hoping.
Yours, under the same roof,