CHAPTER V
Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's laplay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day ofreleasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself tothe point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one ofthe apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, redand white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
"And so," said K. Le Moyne, "you liked it all? It didn't startle you?"
"Well, in one way, of course--you see, I didn't know it was quite likethat: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, ontop,--you know what I mean,--and the misery there just the same. Haveyou ever gone through a hospital?"
K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head. Forthis excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pairof white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat. Sidney had beendivided between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street woulddeem him overdressed.
At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch andthe bit of blue heaven overhead. He did not reply at once.
"Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!" said Sidney to the pasteboardbox.
But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
"I've been around hospitals a little. I suppose now there is no questionabout your going?"
"The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr.Wilson's would certainly be given a chance."
"It is hard work, night and day."
"Do you think I am afraid of work?"
"And--Joe?"
Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
"He is very silly. He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head."
"Such as--"
"Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marryhim, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready."
"Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?"
"I haven't promised to marry him."
"But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to,better tell him, don't you think? What--what are these idiotic notions?"
Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in thebox.
"You can see how stupid he is, and--and young. For one thing, he'sjealous of you!"
"I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward hissuspicion is hardly flattering to me."
He smiled up at her.
"I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He wasfurious. And that wasn't all."
"No?"
"He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the daywe went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's forsoda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic."
K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angleof the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in twopeople, a man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boylover on the next stool. Now he could view things through Joe's tragiceyes. And there as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitablythe conversation turned to the young surgeon. Did they start withReginald, with the condition of the morning-glory vines, with theproposition of taking up the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing theStreet, they ended with the younger Wilson.
Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in herlife, was still on herself.
"Mother is plaintively resigned--and Aunt Harriet has been a trump.She's going to keep her room. It's really up to you."
"To me?"
"To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticedthat you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent upto you the other night. And she didn't object to this trip to-day. Ofcourse, as she said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at allwild."
In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, Godknew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How olddid this child think he was?
"I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog,burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish ofcustard. Lightning-conductor, too--your mother says she isn't afraid ofstorms if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course."
The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threwback his fine shoulders.
"Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be,whatever his name is--we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if Iever hear of Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon--"
She smiled up at him. "You are looking very grand to-day. But you havegrass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out."
Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolityof dress. It put him on his mettle.
"How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?"
She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of thedoubt.
"Not over forty, I'm sure."
"I'm almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is notsenility."
She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
"Perhaps we'd better not tell mother," she said. "You don't mind beingthought older?"
"Not at all."
Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for sheharked back to the grass stains.
"I'm afraid you're not saving, as you promised. Those are new clothes,aren't they?"
"No, indeed. Bought years ago in England--the coat in London, thetrousers in Bath, on a motor tour. Cost something like twelve shillings.Awfully cheap. They wear them for cricket."
That was a wrong move, of course. Sidney must hear about England; andshe marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there.Poor Le Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here andthere, clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
"To think," said Sidney, "that you have really been across the ocean! Inever knew but one person who had been abroad. It is Dr. Max Wilson."
Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, wasaroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
"You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You talk about him rather a lot."
This was sheer recklessness, of course. He expected fury, annihilation.He did not look up, but busied himself with the luncheon. When thesilence grew oppressive, he ventured to glance toward her. She wasleaning forward, her chin cupped in her palms, staring out over thevalley that stretched at their feet.
"Don't speak to me for a minute or two," she said. "I'm thinking overwhat you have just said."
Manlike, having raised the issue, K. would have given much to evade it.Not that he had owned himself in love with Sidney. Love was not forhim. But into his loneliness and despair the girl had came like a ray oflight. She typified that youth and hope that he had felt slipping awayfrom him. Through her clear eyes he was beginning to see a new world.Lose her he must, and that he knew; but not this way.
Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions toboth depth and fury. He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, withthis same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,while he snapped the shutter of a camera. He had that picture somewherenow; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only onewho had met life and vanquished it.
"I've known him all my life," Sidney said at last. "You're perfectlyright about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him. I'm beingcandid, because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank?I admire him--you'd have to see him in the hospital, with every onedeferring to him and all that, to understand. And when you think ofa manlike that, who holds life and death in his hands, of course yourather thrill. I--I honestly believe that's all there is to it."
"If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion." He tried tosmile; succeeded faintly.
"Well, of
course, there's this, too. I know he'll never look at me.I'll be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only aprobationer. He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital atall."
"I see. Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would bedifferent?"
"If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me," said Sidney solemnly,"I'd go out of my head with joy."
One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of livingeach day for itself. Having no past and no future, each day was worthexactly what it brought. He was to look back to this day with mingledfeelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; thememory of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown toherself, already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and,long, long after, when he had gone down to the depths with her andsaved her by his steady hand, with something of mirth for the untowardhappening that closed the day.
Sidney fell into the river.
They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of ashamefaced tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K. Thelittle squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had dartedinto the grass.
"Ungrateful little beast!" said Sidney, and dried her eyes. "Do yousuppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?"
"He'll be all right," K. replied. "The little beggar can take care ofhimself, if only--"
"If only what?"
"If only he isn't too friendly. He's apt to crawl into the pockets ofany one who happens around."
She was alarmed at that. To make up for his indiscretion, K. suggested adescent to the river. She accepted eagerly, and he helped her down. Thatwas another memory that outlasted the day--her small warm hand in his;the time she slipped and he caught her; the pain in her eyes at one ofhis thoughtless remarks.
"I'm going to be pretty lonely," he said, when she had paused in thedescent and was taking a stone out of her low shoe. "Reginald gone, andyou going! I shall hate to come home at night." And then, seeing herwince: "I've been whining all day. For Heaven's sake, don't look likethat. If there's one sort of man I detest more than another, it's a manwho is sorry for himself. Do you suppose your mother would object ifwe stayed, out here at the hotel for supper? I've ordered a moon,orange-yellow and extra size."
"I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted."
"Then we'll stay."
"It's fearfully extravagant."
"I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital."
So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow. For,having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water. K. happenedto be looking in another direction. So it occurred that at one moment,Sidney sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancinglypretty, and knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep inwater, much too startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under therather trying circumstances. K. had not looked around. The splash hadbeen a gentle one.
"If you will be good enough," said Sidney, with her chin well up, "togive me your hand or a pole or something--because if the river rises aninch I shall drown."
To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and sawher. He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up itsslippery sides. He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
"Well!" said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefullybalanced.
"Are you cold?"
"Not a bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then,remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:--
"Thank you for saving me."
"There wasn't any danger, really, unless--unless the river had risen."
And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first,perhaps, for months. He shook with it, struggled at the sight of herinjured face to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety byfixing his eyes on the river-bank.
"When you have quite finished," said Sidney severely, "perhaps you willtake me to the hotel. I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed."
He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet skirts clung to her; hershoes were sodden and heavy. She clung to him frantically, her eyes onthe river below. With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died.He held her very carefully, very tenderly, as one holds somethinginfinitely precious.
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