"Are you perfectly sure?" insisted the Senior Surgeon.
The pink in the White Linen Nurse"s profiled cheek deepened a little.
"Perfectly sure, sir!" attested the carmine lips.
Like the crack of a pistol the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory paper cutter in two.
"All right then!" he said. "Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don"t take your eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own mind, here and now, that it was best for you--as well as for me--that you should come away with me now--for this week,--not as my guest as I had planned,--but as my wife,--even if you were not quite ready for it in your heart,--even if you were not yet remotely ready for it,--would you come because I told you to come?"
Heavily under her white, white eyelids, heavily under her black, black lashes, the girl"s eyes struggled up to meet his own.
"Yes, sir," whispered the White Linen Nurse.
Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk, and stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of words seemed either necessary or dignified to him.
"Go and pack your suit-case quickly then!" he ordered. "I want to get away from here within half an hour!"
But before the girl had half crossed the room he called to her suddenly, his whole bearing and manner miraculously changed, and his face in that moment as haggard as if a whole lifetime"s struggle was packed into it.
"Rae Malgregor," he drawled mockingly. "This thing shall be--barter way through to the end,--with the credit always on your side of the account.
In exchange for the gift--of yourself--your--wonderful self--and the trust that goes with it, I will give you,--G.o.d help me,--the ugliest thing in my life. And G.o.d knows I have broken faith with myself once or twice but--never have I broken my word to another! From now on,--in token of your trust in me,--for whatever the bitter gift is worth to you,--as long as you stay with me,--my Junes shall be yours--to do with--as you please!"
"What, sir?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "_What_, sir?"
Softly, almost stealthily, she was half way back across the room to him, when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of appeal and defiance.
"All the same, sir!" she cried pa.s.sionately, "all the same, sir,--the place is too hard for the small pay I get! Oh, I will do what I promised!" she attested with increasing pa.s.sion. "I will never leave you! And I will mother your little girl! And I will servant your big house! And I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you whatever you wish! And I will never flinch from any hardship you impose on me--nor whine over any pain,--on and on and on--all my days--all my years--till I drop in my tracks again and--die--as you say "still smiling"! All the same!" she reiterated wildly, "the place is too hard!
It always was too hard! It always will be too hard--for such small pay!"
"For such small pay?" gasped the Senior Surgeon.
Around his heart a horrid clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to rehea.r.s.e themselves.
"You mean, Miss Malgregor," he said a bit brokenly. "You mean--that I--haven"t been generous enough with you?"
"Yes, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse.
All the storm and pa.s.sion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, flushing pink-white, pink-white, pink-white, before the Senior Surgeon"s scathing stare. One step, two steps, three, she advanced towards him.
"Oh, I mean, sir," she whispered, "oh, I mean, sir,--that I"m just an ordinary, ignorant country girl and you--are further above me than the moon from the sea! I couldn"t expect you to--love me, sir! I couldn"t even dream of your loving me! _But I do think you might like me just a little bit with your heart!_"
"What?" flushed the Senior Surgeon. "_What?_"
Whacketty-bang against the window pane sounded the Little Crippled Girl"s knuckled fists! Darkly against the window pane squashed the Little Crippled Girl"s staring face.
"Father!" screamed the shrill voice. "Father! There"s a white lady here with two black ladies washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?"
With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door.
Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse"s ear made just a whisper, not a kiss.
"G.o.d bless you!--_hurry!_" he said. "And let"s get out of here before any telephone message catches me!"
Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza, and greeted his sister-in-law.
"h.e.l.lo, Agnes!" he said.
"h.e.l.lo, yourself!" smiled his sister-in-law.
"How"s everything?" he enquired politely.
"How"s everything with you?" parried his sister-in-law.
Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general situation. The Senior Surgeon"s sister-in-law was always studying something. Last year it was archaeology,--the year before, basketry,--this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like that,--next year again it might be book-binding.
"So you and your pink and white shepherdess are going off on a little trip together?" she queried banteringly. "The girl"s a darling, Lendicott! I haven"t had as much sport in a long time as I had that afternoon last June when I came in my best calling-clothes and--helped her paint the kitchen woodwork! And I had come prepared to be a bit nasty, Lendicott! In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well "fess up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty!"
"She seems to have a way," smiled the Senior Surgeon, "she seems to have a way of disarming people"s unpleasant intentions."
A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the Senior Surgeon"s. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature just about as cheer fully, and just about as effectually, as one open fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless one often achieved much comfort by keeping close to "Aunt Agnes"s" humorous mouth, for Aunt Agnes knew a thing or two,--Aunt Agnes did,--and the things that she made a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable.
"Why, Lendicott Faber," she rallied him now. "Why, you"re as nervous as a school-boy! Why, I believe--I believe that you"re going courting!"
More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White Linen Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge wedding-suit with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on down the path to his car and his chauffeur leaving the two women temporarily alone.
When he returned to the piazza the Woman-of-the-World and the Girl-not-at-all-of-the-World were bidding each other a really affectionate good-by, and the woman"s face looked suddenly just a little bit old but the girl"s cheeks were most inordinately blooming.
In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him.
"Good-by, Lendicott, old man!" she said. "And good luck to you!" A little slyly out of her shrewd gray eyes, she glanced up sideways at him. "You"ve got the devil"s own temper, Lendicott dear," she teased, "and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth you"ve run a-muck more than once in your life,--but there"s one thing I will say for you,--though it prove you a dear Stupid: you never were over-quick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with you!"
"To what woman do you particularly refer?" mocked the Senior Surgeon impatiently.
Quite brazenly to her own heart which never yet apparently had stirred the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent banter.
"Maybe I refer to--myself," she laughed, "and maybe to the only--other lady present!"
"Oh!" gasped the White Linen Nurse.
"You do me much honor, Agnes," bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse"s quickly averted face.
A little oddly for an instant the older woman"s glance hung on his.
"More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber!" she said, and kept right on smiling.
"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen Nurse.
Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with the Little Crippled Girl.
"Your father and I are--going away," she pleaded. "Won"t you--please--kiss us good-by?"