Victor threw out his left hand in rage. It came into contact with something in the air, something light and hollow, which fell crashing to the floor, and a faint, gasping, indrawn breath from the sleeper on the bed followed it. For an instant all was silent; then Mrs. Joyce cried out:
"She has returned! Your mother has returned! Don"t strike a light. Wait a moment." She moved forward a little. "May I touch her?" she asked.
Victor thought she was speaking to him, but before he could reply the invisible one whispered: "_Yes. Approach slowly._"
Mrs. Joyce laid her hand on the sleeper"s brow. "She"s warmer, Victor!
She"s breathing! She has certainly come back to us."
"_Approach_," whispered the voice in Victor"s ear.
He moved forward now, in awe and wonder, and stood beside the bed.
Slowly the room lightened, and out of the darkness the pallid face of his mother developed like the shadowy figures on a photographic plate.
She was lying just as before, save for one hand, which Mrs. Joyce had taken. He laid his own vital, magnetic palm upon her arm, and finding it still cold and pulseless, called out:
"Mother, do you hear me? It is Victor."
Her fingers moved slightly in response, and this minute sign of life melted his heart. He fell upon his knees beside her bed, weeping with grat.i.tude and joy.
VIII
VICTOR REPAIRS HIS MOTHER"S ALTAR
In consenting to the removal of his mother to Mrs. Joyce"s home Victor had no intention of receding from his position. On the contrary, he considered it merely a temporary measure--for the night, or at most for a few days. He entered the car, thinking only of her wishes, and when he watched her sink to sleep in her s.p.a.cious and luxurious bed under Mrs.
Joyce"s generous roof he couldn"t but feel relieved at the thought that she was safe and on the way back to health. It was only when he left her and went to his own splendid chamber that his nervousness returned.
Every day, every hour plunged him deeper into debt to these strangers; and the fact that they were treating him like a young duke was all the more disturbing. He fancied Carew saying of him, as he had said of another, "Oh, he"s merely one of Mrs. Joyce"s pensioners," and the thought caused him to burn with impatience.
Nevertheless he slept, and in the morning he forgot his perplexities in the joy of taking his breakfast with Leonora. He admired her now so intensely that his own weakness, irresolution, and inactivity seemed supine. He was impatient to be doing something. His hands and his brain seemed empty. With no games, no tasks, he was disordered, lost.
They were alone at the table, these young people, and naturally fell to discussing Mrs. Ollnee"s marvelous return to life. This led him to speak of his own plans. "My course at Winona fitted me for nothing," he acknowledged, bitterly. "I should have gone in for something like mechanical engineering, but I didn"t. I had some fool notion of being a lawyer, and mother, I can see now, was all for having me a preacher of her faith. So here I am, helpless as a blind kitten."
It was proof of his essential charm that Leonora not only endured his renewed harping on this harsh string, but encouraged him to continue. "I know you chafe," she said. "I had that feeling till I began my course in cooking, and just to a.s.sure myself that I am not entirely useless and helpless in the world, I"m now going in for a training as a nurse."
"A nurse!" he exclaimed. "Oh, that explains something."
"What does it explain?"
"I wondered how you could be so calm and so efficient yesterday."
She seemed pleased. "Was I calm and efficient? Well, that"s one result of my study. I can at least keep my head when anything goes wrong."
"I don"t think I like your being a trained nurse," he said.
She smiled. "Don"t you? Why not?"
"You"re too fine for that," he answered, slowly. "You were made to command, not to serve. You should be the queen of some castle."
His frankly expressed admiration did not embarra.s.s her. She accepted his words as if they came from a boy. "Castles are said to be draughty and dreadfully hard to keep in order, and besides, a queen"s retainers are always getting sick, or killed, or something, so I think I"ll keep on with my training as a nurse."
"But there must be a whole lot of unpleasant, nasty drudgery about it."
"Sickness isn"t nice, I"ll admit, but there is no place in the world where care and sympathy mean so much."
"You don"t intend to go out and nurse among strangers?"
"I may."
"I bet you don"t--not for long. Some fellow will come along and say "No more of that," and then you"ll stay home."
"What sort of fiction do you read?" she asked, with the air of an older sister.
"The truthful sort. Your nursing is nothing but a fad."
"What a wise old gray-beard you are!"
He was nettled. "You need not take that superior tone with me. I"m two years older than you are."
"And ten years wiser, I suppose you would declare if you dared."
"I didn"t say that."
"No; your tone was enough. I admit you know a great deal more about baseball than I do."
He winced. "That was a side-winder, all right. If I knew as much about the carpenter"s trade or the sale of dry goods as I do about "the national game" I"d stand a chance of earning my board."
"Why not join the league?" she suggested. "They pay good wages, I believe."
He took this seriously. "I thought of that, but even if I could get into a league team, which is hardly probable, it wouldn"t lead anywhere. You see, I"m getting up an ambition. I want to be rich and powerful."
"Football players have always been my adoration," she responded, heartily. "You"d look splendid in harness. Why don"t you go in for that?"
"You may laugh at me now," he replied, bluntly. "But give me ten years--"
"Mercy, I"ll be too old to admire even a football captain by that time."
"You"ll be only thirty-one."
She sobered a little. "Men have the advantage. You will be young at thirty-three, and I"ll be--well, a matron. No, I"m afraid I can"t wait that long. I must find my admirable short-stop or half-back, whichever he is to be, long before that."
He changed his tone and appealed to her seriously. "Really now, what can I do? So long as this persecution of my mother keeps up I"m in for a share of it. I can"t run away, for I promised I wouldn"t. So I remain, like a turkey with a string to his leg, walking round and round my little stake. What would you do in my place? Come now, be good and tell me."
She responded to his appeal. "Don"t be impatient. That"s the first thing. Be resigned to this luxury for a few days. The Voices will tell you what to do. They may be planning a surprise for you."
"All I ask of them is to quit the job and let me plan things for myself," he slowly protested.