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Page 76
"Here, old sport," she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It's
Easter."
Such munificence appalled the ward.
Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al.
The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him
curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the
doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm.
"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there," he said. But Rosie pulled him
in and presented him to the Nurse.
Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the open
window, had taken to staring at the ceiling again.
When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she had
moaned and put her fingers in her ears.
"Well, I found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a time
locating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky
figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and
just now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him.
"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you," she said,
and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do the
talking."
Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and the
mystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen her
last, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure and
accusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision went
through the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look of
black hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and he
was looking at Claribel--a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying now
with closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek.
The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hat
awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on the
edge of the stiff chair.
"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease.
She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutch
at her throat, as if she were smothering.
"How did you--how did you know I was here?"
"Saw it in the paper, in the society column." She winced at that,
and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "How
are you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood of
reproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief.
"I've been pretty bad; I'm better."
"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The Maginnis
Social Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall."
The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is as
old as the ages, although she did not know it--why this tragedy of
hers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly on
her breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand.
He picked it up and ran it through his fingers.
"Hasn't hurt your looks any," he said awkwardly. "You're looking
pretty good."
With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers.
"Don't," she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she had
written her problem.
"How's the--how's the kid?"--after a moment.
"I don't know--or care."
There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither did
he know or care.
"What are you goin' to do with it?"
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