Very conscientiously the Senior Surgeon began to search for a fleck of dust on his other cuff.
"Why my--my dear girl," he persisted. "It"s absurd! It"s outrageous! Why people would--would hoot at us! Why they"d think--!"
"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.
"Why, my dear girl," sweated the Senior Surgeon. "Even though you and I understand perfectly well the purely formal, business-like conditions of our marriage, we must at least for sheer decency"s sake keep up a certain semblance of marital conventionality--before the world! Why, if we were married at noon the first day of June--as you suggest,--and I should go right off alone as usual--on my Canadian trip--and you should come back alone to the house--why, people would think--would think that I didn"t care anything about you!"
"But you don"t," said the White Linen Nurse serenely.
"Why, they"d think," choked the Senior Surgeon. "They"d think you were trying your--darndest--to get rid of me!"
"I am," said the White Linen Nurse complacently.
With a muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n the Senior Surgeon jumped to his feet and stood glaring down at her.
Quite ingenuously the White Linen Nurse met and parried the glare.
"A gentleman--and a red-haired kiddie--and a great walloping house--all at once! It"s too much!" she confided genially. "Thank you just the same, but I"d rather take them gradually. First of all, sir, you see, I"ve got to teach the little kiddie to like me! And then there"s a green-tiled paper with floppity sea gulls on it--that I want to try for the bath-room! And--and--" Ecstatically she clapped her hands together.
"Oh, sir! There are such loads and loads of experiments I want to try while you are off on your spree!"
"S--h--h!" cried the Senior Surgeon. His face was suddenly blanched,--his mouth, twitching like the mouth of one stricken with almost insupportable pain. "For G.o.d"s sake, Miss Malgregor!" he pleaded, "can"t you call it my--Canadian trip?"
Wider and wider the White Linen Nurse opened her big blue eyes at him.
"But it is a "spree," sir!" she attested resolutely. "And my father says--" Still resolutely her young mouth curved to its original a.s.sertion, but from under her heavy-shadowing eyelashes a little blue smile crept softly out. "When my father"s got a lame trotting horse, sir, that he"s trying to shuck off his hands," she faltered, "he doesn"t ever go round mournful-like with his head hanging--telling folks about his wonderful trotter that"s just "the littlest, teeniest, tiniest bit--lame." Oh no! What father does is to call up every one he knows within twenty miles and tell "em, "Say Tom,--Bill,--Harry,"--or whatever his name is--"what in the deuce do you suppose I"ve got over here in my barn? A lame horse--that wants to trot! Lamer than the deuce, you know!
But can do a mile in 2.40."" Faintly the little blue smile quickened again in the White Linen Nurse"s eyes. "And the barn will be full of men in half an hour!" she said. "Somehow n.o.body wants a trotter that"s lame!
But almost anybody seems willing to risk a lame horse--that"s plucky enough to trot!"
"What"s the "lame trotting horse" got to do with--me?" snarled the Senior Surgeon incisively.
Darkly the White Linen Nurse"s lashes fringed down across her cheeks.
"Nothing much," she said, "Only--"
"Only what?" demanded the Senior Surgeon. A little more roughly than he realized he stooped down and took the White Linen Nurse by her shoulders, and jerked her sharply round to the light. "Only _what?_" he insisted peremptorily.
Almost plaintively she lifted her eyes to his. "Only--my father says,"
she confided obediently, "my father says if you"ve got a worse foot--for Heaven"s sake put it forward--and get it over with!
"So--I"ve _got_ to call it a "spree"!" smiled the White Linen Nurse.
""Cause when I think of marrying a--_surgeon_--that goes off and gets drunk every June--it--it scares me almost to my death! But--" Abruptly the red smile faded from her lips, the blue smile from her eyes.
"But--when I think of marrying a--June drunk--that"s got the grit to pull up absolutely straight as a die and be a _surgeon_--all the other "leven months in the year--" Dartingly she bent down and kissed the Senior Surgeon"s astonished wrist. "Oh, then I think you"re perfectly _grand_!" she sobbed.
Awkwardly the Senior Surgeon pulled away and began to pace the floor.
"You"re a--good little girl, Rae Malgregor," he mumbled huskily. "A good little girl. I truly believe you"re the kind that will--see me through."
Poignantly in his eyes humiliation overwhelmed the mist. Perversely in its turn resentment overtook the humiliation. "But I won"t be married in June!" he rea.s.serted bombastically. "I won"t! I won"t! I won"t! I tell you I positively refuse to have a lot of d.a.m.n fools speculating about my private affairs! Wondering why I didn"t take you! Wondering why I didn"t stay home with you! I tell you I won"t! I simply won"t!"
"Yes, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse.
With a real gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon stopped his eternal pacing of the floor.
"Bully for you!" he said. "You mean then we"ll be married some time in July after I get back from my--trip?"
"Oh, no, sir," stammered the White Linen Nurse.
"But Great Heavens!" shouted the Senior Surgeon.
"Yes, sir," the White Linen Nurse began all over again. Dreamily planning out her wedding gown, her lips without the slightest conscious effort on her part were already curving into shape for her alternate "No, sir."
"You"re an idiot!" snapped the Senior Surgeon.
A little reproachfully the White Linen Nurse came frowning out of her reverie. "Would it do just as well for traveling, do you think?" she asked, with real concern.
"Eh? What?" said the Senior Surgeon.
"I mean--does j.a.pan spot?" queried the White Linen Nurse. "Would it spot a serge, I mean?"
"Oh, h.e.l.l with j.a.pan!" jerked the Senior Surgeon.
"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.
Now perhaps you will understand just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon and the White Linen Nurse _were_ married on the first day of June, and just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon went off alone as usual on his Canadian trip, and just exactly how it happened that the White Linen Nurse came home alone to the Senior Surgeon"s great, gloomy house, to find her brand new step-daughter still screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. Everything now is perfectly comfortably explained except the turquoise-colored stockings.
n.o.body could explain the turquoise-colored stockings!
But even a little child could explain the ensuing June! Oh, June was perfectly wonderful that year! Bud, blossom, bird-song, breeze,--rioting headlong through the Land. Warm days sweet and lush as a green-house vapor! Crisp nights faintly metallic like the scent of stars!
Hurdy-gurdies romping tunefully on every street-corner! Even the Ash-Man flushing frankly pink across his dusty cheek-bones!
Like two fairies who had sublet a giant"s cave the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl turned themselves loose upon the Senior Surgeon"s gloomy old house.
It certainly was a gloomy old house, but handsome withal,--square and brown and substantial, and most generously gardened within high brick walls. Except for dusting the lilac bushes with the hose, and weeding a few rusty leaves out of the privet hedge, and tacking up three or four scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house?
Oh ye G.o.ds! All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly from the back door to the barn, sweating workmen scuttled back and forth till nary a guilty piece of black walnut furniture had escaped.
All day long from morning till night,--but most particularly from ceilings to floors, sweltering workmen scurried up and down step-ladders stripping dingy papers from dingier plasterings.
When the White Linen Nurse wasn"t busy renovating the big house--or the little step-daughter, she was writing to the Senior Surgeon. She wrote twice.
"Dear Dr. Faber," the first letter said.
DEAR DR. FABER,
How do you do? Thank you very much, for saying you didn"t care what in thunder I did to the house. It looks _sweet_. I"ve put white fluttery muslin curtains most everywhere. And you"ve got a new solid-gold-looking bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pink was wrong for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out. And now that"s settled for all time.
I am very, very, very, very busy. Something strange and new happens every day. Yesterday it was three ladies and a plumber. One of the ladies was just selling soap, but I didn"t buy any. It was horrid soap.
The other two were calling ladies,--a silk one and a velvet one. The silk one tried to be nasty to me. Right to my face she told me I was more of a lady than she had dared to hope. And I told her I was sorry for that as you"d had one "lady" and it didn"t work. Was that all right?
But the other lady was nice. And I took her out in the kitchen with me while I was painting the woodwork, and right there in her white kid gloves she laughed and showed me how to mix the paint pearl gray. _She_ was nice. It was your sister-in-law.
I like being married, Dr. Faber. I like it lots better than I thought I would. It"s fun being the biggest person in the house. Respectfully yours, RAE MALGREGOR,--AS WAS.