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Page 49
"Don't be absurd!"
"Is it so absurd--under the circumstances?"
"You can sleep quite well if you only try."
She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then she
hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room.
"If I do," she said rather breathlessly, "will you go to sleep? And
will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?"
"But my arms----"
"Over your head!"
He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in the
darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed--the tip of
his nose!
IV
She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neither
of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant
thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring
him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured
by the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He
was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have---- He
borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself.
Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of
his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of
better treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair over
his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done
with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again.
That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was
troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day
before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his
chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.
The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day,
enlightened her.
"He has pulled through--God and you alone know how," he said. "But
as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for
liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years----
Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of
pepsin?"
The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff
Doctor swallowed and grimaced.
"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly--for, the stress being
over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled
to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage.
"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has
been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but
steady. "He is not to have it?"
"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair
again, but while he's here--by-the-way, you'll have to watch the
orderly. He'll bribe him."
"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman."
"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk
too; but he's a drinker--a habitual drinker."
The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a
chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face
buried in his hands.
"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said.
He's right, you know."
"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help."
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