K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXIII

  The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year.Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself thatit was best. Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would havefinished her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled tothe ending of their relationship.

  He intended to end that. He had meant every word of what he had sworn toSidney. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly--as far as he couldbe unselfish. The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney'ssake. The hospital did not approve of engagements between nurses and thestaff. It was disorganizing, bad for discipline.

  Sidney was very happy all that summer. She glowed with pride when herlover put through a difficult piece of work; flushed and palpitated whenshe heard his praises sung; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, whenhe was in the house. She wore his ring on a fine chain around her neck,and grew prettier every day.

  Once or twice, however, when she was at home, away from the glamour, herearly fears obsessed her. Would he always love her? He was so handsomeand so gifted, and there were women who were mad about him. That was thegossip of the hospital. Suppose she married him and he tired of her? Inher humility she thought that perhaps only her youth, and such charm asshe had that belonged to youth, held him. And before her, always, shesaw the tragic women of the wards.

  K. had postponed his leaving until fall. Sidney had been insistent, andHarriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way. "If you insiston being an idiot and adopting the Rosenfeld family," she said, "waituntil September. The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall."

  So K. waited for "the season," and ate his heart out for Sidney in theinterval.

  Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down. K.was his most frequent visitor. As a matter of fact, he was watching theboy closely, at Max Wilson's request.

  "Tell me when I'm to do it," said Wilson, "and when the time comes,for God's sake, stand by me. Come to the operation. He's got so muchconfidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail."

  So K. came on visiting days, and, by special dispensation, on Saturdayafternoons. He was teaching the boy basket-making. Not that he knewanything about it himself; but, by means of a blind teacher, he keptjust one lesson ahead. The ward was intensely interested. It foundsomething absurd and rather touching in this tall, serious young manwith the surprisingly deft fingers, tying raffia knots.

  The first basket went, by Johnny's request, to Sidney Page.

  "I want her to have it," he said. "She got corns on her fingers fromrubbing me when I came in first; and, besides--"

  "Yes?" said K. He was tying a most complicated knot, and could not lookup.

  "I know something," said Johnny. "I'm not going to get in wrong bytalking, but I know something. You give her the basket."

  K. looked up then, and surprised Johnny's secret in his face.

  "Ah!" he said.

  "If I'd squealed she'd have finished me for good. They've got me, youknow. I'm not running in 2.40 these days."

  "I'll not tell, or make it uncomfortable for you. What do you know?"

  Johnny looked around. The ward was in the somnolence of mid-afternoon.The nearest patient, a man in a wheel-chair, was snoring heavily.

  "It was the dark-eyed one that changed the medicine on me," he said."The one with the heels that were always tapping around, waking me up.She did it; I saw her."

  After all, it was only what K. had suspected before. But a sense ofimpending danger to Sidney obsessed him. If Carlotta would do that, whatwould she do when she learned of the engagement? And he had known herbefore. He believed she was totally unscrupulous. The odd coincidence oftheir paths crossing again troubled him.

  Carlotta Harrison was well again, and back on duty. Luckily for Sidney,her three months' service in the operating-room kept them apart. ForCarlotta was now not merely jealous. She found herself neglected,ignored. It ate her like a fever.

  But she did not yet suspect an engagement. It had been her theory thatWilson would not marry easily--that, in a sense, he would have to becoerced into marriage. Some clever woman would marry him some day, andno one would be more astonished than himself. She thought merely thatSidney was playing a game like her own, with different weapons. So sheplanned her battle, ignorant that she had lost already.

  Her method was simple enough. She stopped sulking, met Max with smiles,made no overtures toward a renewal of their relations. At first thisannoyed him. Later it piqued him. To desert a woman was justifiable,under certain circumstances. But to desert a woman, and have herapparently not even know it, was against the rules of the game.

  During a surgical dressing in a private room, one day, he allowed hisfingers to touch hers, as on that day a year before when she had takenMiss Simpson's place in his office. He was rewarded by the same slow,smouldering glance that had caught his attention before. So she was onlyacting indifference!

  Then Carlotta made her second move. A new interne had come into thehouse, and was going through the process of learning that from a seniorat the medical school to a half-baked junior interne is a long stepback. He had to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, thepatronizing instructions of nurses as to rules.

  Carlotta alone treated him with deference. His uneasy rounds inCarlotta's precinct took on the state and form of staff visitations. Sheflattered, cajoled, looked up to him.

  After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting moreattention than himself: that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere inthe offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her withworship. Her indifference had only piqued him. The enthroning of asuccessor galled him. Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily--wassubject to frequent "bawling out," as he termed it, in theoperating-room as he assisted the anaesthetist. He took his troubles toCarlotta, who soothed him in the corridor--in plain sight of her quarry,of course--by putting a sympathetic hand on his sleeve.

  Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech.

  "For the love of Heaven, Carlotta," he said impatiently, "stop makinglove to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you look at him."

  "I like him. He is thoroughly genuine. I respect him, and--he respectsme."

  "It's rather a silly game, you know."

  "What game?"

  "Do you think I don't understand?"

  "Perhaps you do. I--I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But I'vebeen down-hearted. He cheers me up."

  Her attraction for him was almost gone--not quite. He felt rather sorryfor her.

  "I'm sorry. Then you are not angry with me?"

  "Angry? No." She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was notacting. "I knew it would end, of course. I have lost a--a lover. Iexpected that. But I wanted to keep a friend."

  It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend? Hehad treated her cruelly, hideously. If she still desired his friendship,there was no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it. And Carlotta was verycareful. Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes.She told him of her worries. Her training was almost over. She hada chance to take up institutional work. She abhorred the thought ofprivate duty. What would he advise?

  The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place totalk.

  "Come to the office and we'll talk it over."

  "I don't like to go there; Miss Simpson is suspicious."

  The institution she spoke of was in another city. It occurred toWilson that if she took it the affair would have reached a graceful andlegitimate end.

  Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was notunpleasant. It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it wasowing to her. He had treated her badly.

  Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptinglyfree.

  "Suppose you meet me at the old corner," he said carelessly, eyes onthe Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and wasglaring ferociously. "We
'll run out into the country and talk thingsover."

  She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.

  "What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?"

  Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and hemade his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that hehad won a victory.

  K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. He had beensleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement. At fiveo'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outsideon the pavement.

  "Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'dcome around."

  K. looked at his watch.

  "What do you say to a walk?"

  "Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go abouttown for a half-hour or so."

  Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to. But hereagain Joe met him more than halfway.

  "Well, go on," he said, when they found themselves in the park; "I don'tsuppose you were paying a call."

  "No."

  "I guess I know what you are going to say."

  "I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a maninsists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone."

  "Why make an exception of me?"

  "One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that,whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and areputting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else."

  "She is responsible, isn't she?"

  "Not in the least. How old are you, Joe?"

  "Twenty-three, almost."

  "Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's adisappointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney."

  "Much she cares! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?"

  "There is no announcement of any engagement."

  "She is, and you know it. Well, she'll be happy--not! If I'd go to herto-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again." The idea,thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him. He returned to itagain and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy'sstatement had any basis in fact. His single determination was to saveSidney from any pain.

  When Joe suddenly announced his inclination to go out into the countryafter all, he suspected a ruse to get rid of him, and insisted on goingalong. Joe consented grudgingly.

  "Car's at Bailey's garage," he said sullenly. "I don't know when I'llget back."

  "That won't matter." K.'s tone was cheerful. "I'm not sleeping, anyhow."

  That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the carrunning smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat. Then:--

  "So you've got it too!" he said. "We're a fine pair of fools. We'd bothbe better off if I sent the car over a bank."

  He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to timesternly.

  They had supper at the White Springs Hotel--not on the terrace, but inthe little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first mealtogether. K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with badgrace.

  But the meal cheered and steadied him. K. found him more amenable toreason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave thecity.

  "I'm stuck here," he said. "I'm the only one, and mother yells bluemurder when I talk about it. I want to go to Cuba. My uncle owns a farmdown there."

  "Perhaps I can talk your mother over. I've been there."

  Joe was all interest. His dilated pupils became more normal, hisrestless hands grew quiet. K.'s even voice, the picture he drew oflife on the island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-weekdullness, seemed to quiet the boy's tortured nerves. He was nearerto peace than he had been for many days. But he smoked incessantly,lighting one cigarette from another.

  At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car. He paused for a moment,rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.

  "I'm feeling a lot better," he said. "I haven't got the band around myhead. You talk to mother."

  That was the last K. saw of Joe Drummond until the next day.