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Page 35
When Leaver was comfortable again,--comfortable as far as an evenly
beating heart and a return of blood to the parts which needed it could
make him,--Burns spoke to him once more.
"We won't talk about this any more to-day, Jack," he said. "You've had
enough for now, and I have what I needed,--the facts to work upon. Just
let me say this much. I'm not discouraged by anything I've heard to-day.
I'll not try any bluffs or jollyings with you, because I know they
wouldn't work, but I do say this, honestly: I'm not discouraged. And I'm
interested--interested to the bottom of my heart. I'm going to put the
best there is in me into this problem. I never tackled anything in my
life that appealed to me more powerfully. If that's any comfort just now,
I offer it. If you were my brother I couldn't be more anxious to pull you
out of this ditch. Now, trust me, and try to go to sleep."
Leaver did not look up at the kind, almost boyishly tender face above
him, but he pressed the hand which grasped his own, and Burns saw a tear
creep out from under the closed lids of the eyes under which the black
shadows lay so deeply. The well man took himself away from the sick one
as quickly as he could after that,--he couldn't bear the sight of that
tear! It was more eloquent of Leaver's weakness than all his difficult
words.
When he met Miss Mathewson, an hour afterward, in the hall, on her way
back to her patient, he delayed her.
"I want you to do more than nurse this case, Amy," he said, fixing her
with a certain steady look of his with which he always gave commands.
"I want you to put all your powers, as a woman, into it. Forget that you
are nursing Dr. Leaver, try to think of him as a friend. You can make one
of him, if you try, for you have in you qualities which will appeal to
him--if you will let him see them. You have hardly let even me see
them,"--he smiled as he said it,--"but my eyes have been opened at last.
I'm inclined to believe that you can do more for our patient than even my
wife or I,--if you will. Suppose,"--he spoke with a touch of the
dangerously persuasive manner he could assume when he willed, and which
most people found it hard to resist,--"you just let yourself go, and
try--deliberately try--to make Dr. Leaver like you!"
She coloured furiously under the suggestion. "Dr. Burns! Do you realize
what you're saying?"
"Quite thoroughly. I'm asking you not to hesitate to make of yourself a
woman of interest and charm for him, for the sake of taking him out of
himself. Isn't that a perfectly legitimate part for a nurse to play when
that happens to be the medicine needed? You have those powers,--how
better could you use them? Suppose you are able, through your effect of
sweetness and light, to minister to a mind diseased;--isn't that quite as
worthy an occupation as counting out drops of aconite, or applying
mustard plasters?"
Amy Mathewson shook her head. "Do you realize, Dr. Burns, that a man
like--your guest--is so far beyond me in mind and--tastes--in every way,
that I could never--interest him in the way you speak of--even if I were
willing to try?"
She spoke with difficulty. As Burns studied her downbent face, the
profile his wife had brought out by her skill at hair-dressing showing
like a fine cameo against the dark background of the wall, he was
thinking that unless Leaver were blind he must find her rather satisfying
to the eye, at least. He answered her with confidence.
"He's a man of education, it's true. But what are you? Come,--haven't I
found all sorts of evidences, about my office, that you are a woman of
education? It doesn't matter whether you got that education in a college
or from the books I know you have read,--you have it. I'll trust your
ability to discuss six out of a dozen subjects Leaver may bring up--or,
if you can't discuss them all, you can do what is better--let him
instruct you. Don't tell me you can't handle those cards every
fascinating woman understands so well. If there's anything a man likes to
do it's to teach an interested woman the things she cleverly professes
she wants to know--and the best of it is that no matter how often you
play that game on us we're always caught by it. Leaver will be caught by
it, just as if he hadn't had it tried on him a thousand times. And while
he's playing it with you, he'll forget himself, which is the first step
on the road I want him to travel."
She looked up. "Do you mean that I am to keep on attending him after he
is able to leave his room? Is he going to stay with you after that? He
told me only to-day that he intends to go as soon as he is able to
travel."
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