"My Supreme Moment--drink to it if you're a friend of mine!"
"Frien' of yours? Frien' of yours! Why, Doc, I'd die fer you. But that's
all same Ogollalah Sioux 'bout your S'preme Moment! Many of 'em, Doc,
many of 'em, and here's t'you!"
They drained their glasses together.
"Always liked you, Doc. H'nest t'God, from the first minute I laid eyes
on you." Mr. Terriberry reached for her fan dangling from the end of its
chain and began to fan her with tender solicitude.
"Come on, let's have another drink; I don't cut loose often." Her eyes
and voice were reckless.
"Me and you don't want to go out of here with our ropes draggin',"
protested Mr. Terriberry in feeble hesitation. "Let's go out on the
porch fer a minute an' look at the meller moon."
"Meller moon _nothin_'! Come on, don't be a piker." She was ladling
punch into each of their glasses.
"Ah-h-h! Ain't that great cough mixture!" Mr. Terriberry rolled his eyes
in ecstasy as he once more saw the bottom of his glass. "Doc, 'bout one
more and me and you couldn't hit the groun' with our hats." Mr.
Terriberry speared a bit of pineapple with the long nail of his
forefinger and added ambiguously: "M'bet you."
"Aw, g'long! Food for infants, this--wish I had a barrel of it."
"Doc, you got a nawful capac'ty." Mr. Terriberry looked at her in
languishing admiration. "That's why I like you. Honest t'God I hate to
see a lady go under the table firs' shot out o' the box. Now my
wife,"--suddenly remembering the existence of that lady Mr. Terriberry
tiptoed to the door and endeavored to locate her--"my wife," he
continued in a confidential whisper, "can't take two drinks t'hout
showing it. Doc,"--Mr. Terriberry's chin quivered as the pathos of the
fact swept over him--"Doc, Merta's no sport." Mr. Terriberry buried his
face in his highly perfumed handkerchief as he confessed his wife's
shortcomings.
"Aw, dry up! Take another and forget it," replied his unsympathetic
confidante crossly.
Mr. Terriberry looked up in quick cheerfulness.
"Le's do, Doc. Do you know I hate water--just plain water. If it'll rot
your boots what'll it do to your stummick!"
A man breathless from haste appeared in the doorway of the anteroom.
"Dr. Harpe----"
"What is it?" She did not turn around.
"A case came in at the hospital--feller shot, down the street."
"Where's Lamb?" she demanded irritably.
"Out of town."
"Thunder!" She stamped her foot impatiently. "Who is it?" she scowled.
"Billy Duncan. He's bleedin' bad, Doc." There was a note of entreaty in
his voice.
"All right," she answered shortly, "I'll be down."
"Frien' of yours?" inquired Terriberry.
"Friend? No. One of those damned hoboes on the Ditch. Looks like he
might have taken some other night than this."
"Don't blame you 'tall, Doc. I gotta get to work and fin' Merta. If you
see Merta----" Mr. Terriberry suddenly realized that he was talking to
himself.
As Dr. Harpe made her way to the cloak-room she was conscious that it
was well she was leaving. The lights were blurring rapidly, the dancers
in the ballroom were unrecognizable and indistinct, she was sensible,
too, of the increasing thickness of her tongue. Yet more than ever she
wanted to laugh hysterically, to scream, to boast before them all of the
things she had done and of those she meant to do. Yes, decidedly, it was
time she was leaving, her saner self told her.
She fumbled among the wraps in the cloak-room until she found her own,
then, steadying herself by running her fingertips along the wall, she
slipped from the hotel without being observed.
"Made a good getaway that time," she muttered.
Her lips felt stiff and dry and she moistened them frequently as she
stumbled across the hummocks of sagebrush growing on the vacant lots
between the hospital and the hotel. She fell, and cursed aloud as she
felt the sting of cacti spines in her palm. She sat where she fell and
tried to extract them by the light of the moon. Then she arose and
stumbled on.
"God! I'm drunk--jus' plain drunk," she said thickly, and was glad that
there would be no one but Nell Beecroft about.
Nell was safe. She had long since attended to that. They shared too many
secrets in common for Nell to squeal. Nell was not easily shocked. She
laughed foolishly at the thought of Nell being shocked and wondered what
could do it.
Her contract with Symes called for a graduate nurse--Dr. Harpe
snorted--a graduate nurse for hoboes! Nell was cheaper, and even if her
reputation was more than doubtful she was big and husky--and they
understood each other. The right woman in the right place, and with Lamb
helped form a trio that stood for harmony and self-protection.
"Graduate nurse for hoboes!" She muttered it scornfully again. "Not on
your tintype!"
She fell against the kitchen door and it opened with her weight.
"Hullo, Nell!" She blinked foolishly in the glare of the light.
The woman looked at her in silence.
"Hullo, I say!" The cloak slipped from her bare shoulders and she lunged
toward a chair.
The flush on her face had faded and her color was ghastly, a grayish
white, the pallor of an anaemic; the many short hairs on her forehead
and temples hung straight in her eyes, the filmy flounce of her gown was
torn and trailing, while a scraggly bunch of Russian thistle clung to
the chiffon ruffles of her silk drop-skirt.
The woman stood in the centre of the kitchen with her arms akimbo--a
huge raw-boned creature of a rough, frontier type.
She spoke at last.
"Well, you're a sight!"
"Been celebratin', Nell," she chuckled gleefully, "been celebratin' my
S'preme Moment."
"You'd better git in there and fix that feller's arm or we'll be
celebratin' a funeral," the woman answered curtly. "He's bleedin' like a
stuck pig."
"That's what he is--good joke, Nell. Where'd it happen?" She seated
herself in a chair and slid until her head rested on the back, her
sprawling legs outstretched.
"Gun fight at the dance hall. Look here," she took her roughly by the
arm, "I tell you he's bad off. You gotta git in there and do somethin'."
"Shut up! Lemme be!" She pulled loose from the nurse's grasp, but arose,
nevertheless, and staggered down the long hallway into the room where
the new patient lay moaning softly upon the narrow iron cot.
"Hullo, Bill Duncan!"