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Page 41
The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from
any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants--and, as such,
entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could
procure--shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not
even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the
Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the
doorstep and told him.
"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said
dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave
everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. It's horrible!"
The Staff Man, who had finished up a hard day with a hospital supper
of steak and fried potatoes, sat down on the doorstep and fished out
a digestive tablet from his surgical bag.
"It's pretty sad, little girl," he said, over the pill. He had known
the Nurse for some time, having, in fact, brought her--according to
report at the time--in a predecessor of the very bag at his feet,
and he had the fatherly manner that belongs by right to the man who
has first thumped one between the shoulder-blades to make one
breathe, and who had remarked on this occasion to some one beyond
the door: "A girl, and fat as butter!"
The Nurse tiptoed in and found Billy Grant apparently asleep.
Actually he had only closed his eyes, hoping to lure one of the
monkeys within clutching distance. So the Nurse came out again, with
the symptom record.
"Delirious, with two r's," said the Staff Doctor, glancing over his
spectacles. "He must have been pretty bad."
"Not wild; he--he wanted me to marry him!"
She smiled, showing a most alluring dimple in one cheek.
"I see! Well, that's not necessarily delirium. H'm--pulse,
respiration--look at that temperature! Yes, it's pretty sad--away
from home, too, poor lad!"
"You---- Isn't there any hope, doctor?"
"None at all--at least, I've never had 'em get well."
Now the Nurse should, by all the ethics of hospital practice, have
walked behind the Staff Doctor, listening reverentially to what he
said, not speaking until she was spoken to, and carrying in one hand
an order blank on which said august personage would presently
inscribe certain cabalistic characters, to be deciphered later by
the pharmacy clerk with a strong light and much blasphemy, and in
the other hand a clean towel. The clean towel does not enter into
the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage
to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be
unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's
chest--which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner;
but every one knows that story.
Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in
the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a
hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff
Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly.
"What's this?" demanded the Staff Doctor sternly and, putting his
arm round her: "Don't you know that Junior Nurses are not supposed
to weep over the Staff?" And, getting no answer but a choke: "We
can't have you used up like this; I'll make them relieve you. When
did you sleep?"
"I don't want to be relieved," said the Nurse, very muffled.
"No-nobody else would know wh-what he wanted. I just--I just can't
bear to see him--to see him----"
The Staff Doctor picked up the clean towel, which belonged on the
Nurse's left arm, and dried her eyes for her; then he sighed.
"None of us likes to see it, girl," he said. "I'm an old man, and
I've never got used to it. What do they send you to eat?"
"The food's all right," she said rather drearily. "I'm not
hungry--that's all. How long do you think----"
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