"Let me see," said the doctor. "I think she must be twelve."
A slight sound that might have been a sob escaped from Lita, and the
doctor was so moved with compassion that he patted her on the head.
Then the door of Room 11 opened and his professional duties called him
away.
A moment later he came out, bearing Aurelia away to the operating room,
and Lita went into Room 11 to wait. He promised as he passed to come
and tell her as soon as it was over.
She felt perfectly calm now as she sat grasping his handkerchief in her
hand. It was fine and embroidered in two letters--L. D. She ran over
the L names and found she liked nearly all of them--Lawrence, Lionel,
Leopold--not so good, though Leo was all right--Lewis--oh, of course,
it was Lewis! She said the word aloud.
How still the house was! Now they were probably giving Aurelia the
anæsthetic; now--
There was no use speculating about what D stood for. He thought she was
twelve, did he? She put her hand up to where his had rested on the top
of her head. She could not begin to make hers cover the same area. He
must have a large hand. Well, that was all right; he was a large man.
She could see his face before her, smooth as to skin and rather jutty
as to outline of brows and jaw, and his heavy, thick, short, black
hair, almost like an Indian's in texture. And she had thought that she
preferred blond men. L. D.--Lita D.... She wondered if she ought to go
immediately and hunt up those photographs of Aurelia's. What a time it
would make if they should be found before she got there! How long would
this take--an hour? Would he really come back himself, or would he send
that light-hearted, gray-haired nurse who looked like Marie Antoinette?
If he patted her on the head he might even--Lawrence--Leonard--
Suddenly he was in the room again, smelling horribly of disinfectants.
"It's all right--all over," he said. He began to pluck ineffectually at
the back buttons of his white robe. "Help me, there's a good child," he
said, stooping so that she could reach.
She undid the buttons, the garment slipped to the floor, and he stood
revealed as a normal young man in his shirt and dark blue serge
trousers. He began rolling down his shirt sleeves, talking as he did so.
"Your friend has good nerve--brave and calm. Your sister? No? What's
your name?"
"Hazlitt."
Too kind to smile at this infantile assumption of importance, his eyes
did laugh a little, but he said, "I meant your first name."
"Lita. What's yours?"
"Luke-- Well, Lita, I'm going to write to Effie about you. Wait! Where
are you off to in such a hurry?"
She could not tell him that she was going to destroy the patient's
compromising correspondence.
She said mysteriously, "I must go. You've been so kind. Good-by." For
one tense moment she thought he was going to kiss her.
Evidently there is such a thing as thought transference, for as she
drew back she heard him saying, "No, certainly not. I should not dream
of kissing a lady of your mature years."
"You never kiss ladies of mature years?" murmured Lita in the manner of
a six-year child.
"Well, I know how Effie feels on the subject. She boxed the ears of
our local congressman for a salute which he offered merely as a vote
getter. It was a terrible shock to him."
"You have a shock coming to _you_," she answered gently, and left the
room.
She had a shock of her own on entering her bedroom, for Miss Jones, the
house mistress, was already busy with Aurelia's bureau drawers. Had she
or had she not lifted the top of the shoe box? It was necessary to act
quickly; but fortunately Miss Jones was young and pleasant and easy to
get round. If it had been Miss Barton-- The school often commented with
a sort of wondering irritation on the fact that in dealing with girls
Miss Barton was not absolutely an idiot.
"Halloo, Jonesy dear," said Lita with a soft friendliness which in
pupils is somewhat like the bearing of gifts by Greeks. "She's all
right. The operation's over, the doctor told me."
Miss Jones was winding pink ribbon on a card, and answered, "Oh,
isn't he wonderful? Of all the great men I ever met Doctor Burroughs
inspires--"
"It wasn't Doctor Burroughs. It was the other one, his
assistant--what's his name? It begins with a D."
But Miss Jones didn't know anything about the assistant, and drew
Lita's attention from a subject tolerably absorbing by asking if she
knew where Aurelia kept her bedroom slippers.
"Look here, Jonesy," said Lita. "Who is that queer-looking man--like a
tramp--on the piazza downstairs?"
"I'll run down and see," said Miss Jones.
She was small, but there was something about her manner which would
have made anything but a mythical tramp tremble.
When she had gone Lita opened the shoe box and found five large
photographs of Eugene Valentine lying on top of the shoes: one in the
aviator's uniform of his new play; one in his coronation robes in
his last success, The King is Bored; and the other three just Eugene
Valentine, with the light shining on the ridges of his wavy light hair.
He was an awfully good-looking man, Lita thought--if you liked blonds.
She laid the photographs under the paper in the bureau drawer Miss
Jones had finished tidying. The draft of the letter had slipped down
among the shoes, and Lita had only time to thrust it into the pocket of
the coat she was wearing before Miss Jones was back again, saying that
the tramp must have gone away.
Supper that evening was exciting. The great Doctor Burroughs had driven
magnificently back to town in his car before Aurelia was fairly out
of the anæsthetic; but he had left his assistant behind him--a clever
young fellow. Miss Barton murmured she hoped he was tactful, discreet;
one had to be careful in a school--parents, you know. Doctor Burroughs
assured her she need give herself no concern; Doctor Dacer was quite
safe--minded his own business--no trouble with the nurses or anything
like that--just the sort of young man to leave in a girls' school. Even
the wisest may be betrayed into sweeping statements when in a hurry to
get away to Sunday dinner.
Lita, as chairman of the self-government committee, sat at the head of
one of the senior tables--a conspicuous position. The girls were all in
their places before Miss Barton came in with the tactful and discreet
young fellow. It was the school's first view of him, and Lita could
hear the comments of her peers rising about her:
"Looks a little like Doug."
"Isn't Aurelia the lucky stiff?"
"What are the symptoms of appendicitis? I feel them coming on."
She tried not to look at Miss Barton's table, and when she did she
met his eye. He nodded and smiled with open friendliness; and bending
toward Miss Jones, with his eyes still on hers, asked quite obviously
for details about his little friend. Lita saw the smile fade from
his face as he received them. Then a quite different smile flickered
across his face; the smile of a man who says to himself, "To have even
mentioned kissing the chairman of the self-government committee!"
As they were all moving out of the dining room again, Miss Barton
called Lita to her.
"You will be glad to know," she said, "that Doctor Dacer says Aurelia
will be up within two weeks--no complications--no danger. This is Lita
Hazlitt, Doctor Dacer, Aurelia's best friend."
The doctor showed some of his advertised caution by merely bowing, but
Lita answered, "Oh, yes, Doctor Dacer was so kind this afternoon." And
looking up at him she asked, "Have you written to Effie yet?"
"Not yet," he returned politely; but below the level of the teacher's
eyes a clenched fist made a distinctly menacing gesture in Lita's
direction, and the corner of Lita's mouth, which occasionally created a
dimple, just trembled. The doctor turned to Miss Barton, and it would
be hard to imagine anything more professional than his manner as he
said, "My patient seems to be very dependent on Miss Hazlitt. She was
just asking for her. I think it would be a good idea if Miss Hazlitt
could be in and out of the infirmary a good deal during the next few
days."
"Of course, of course," said Miss Barton, who, though trained to
distrust girls, was not trained to distrust doctors. "Aurelia is so
alone, poor child." And lowering her voice as she moved away, with the
doctor bending politely so as not to miss a syllable, Lita could hear a
murmur:
"These terrible divorces! Do you know that over twenty of my girls--"
Lita found herself excused from sacred reading that evening so that she
might sit with her friend.
Yet oddly enough, when she reached the infirmary the white-haired nurse
seemed surprised to see her, and said that the doctor had given the
patient something to make her sleep before he had gone to supper, and
that she ought not to wake until morning--at least they hoped not.
But at that moment Dacer came out of another room, where he had
evidently been smoking a pipe, and said, "Oh, well, stick round a
little. She might wake up."
The nurse gave him a sharp look; and then, being really discreet and
tactful, retired into Room 11 and shut the door. Lita and the doctor
were left facing each other in the hall.
"Let's go out," he said, "where I can smoke. It's a good sort of
evening--with a moon."
"Mercy!" answered Lita. "How do you think a girls' school is run? I
couldn't do that."
"I thought the chairman of the self-government committee could do
anything."
"On the contrary, she has to be particularly careful, and not go about
exposing herself to being patted on the head."
"She was lucky worse than that didn't happen, masquerading as an
infant." And then, without the slightest pause, but with a complete
change of tone, Lita heard him saying: "No, I'm sorry; but I think it
would be better not tonight.... Ah, Miss Barton, I was just saying to
Miss Hazlitt that as the patient had fallen asleep it would be better
not to disturb her again tonight."
"Of course," said Miss Barton, who, it appeared, was coming upstairs
behind Lita's back. "I think if you ran back to the study, Lita, you'd
get in for the end of the reading."
And as she turned obediently away she heard Miss Barton suggesting that
if Doctor Dacer found the infirmary dull, the sitting room in her
cottage was at his service. No, Doctor Dacer had a good deal of work
to do. Lita smiled to herself. He had not seemed so busy a few minutes
before.
She had never been in love--never even deeply interested before. She
had looked with surprise and envy on her classmates; not only Aurelia,
with her devouring passion for Valentine; but Carrie Waldron, the
senior president, who worshiped a dark-eyed motion-picture actor; and
Doris Payne, who loved a great violinist to whom she never expected
to speak. The authorities were terribly down on this sort of thing;
but Lita, who knew more about it than the authorities, was not sure.
Would Carrie be studying Spanish at odd moments so as to know more
about her idol's great bull-fighter part--would Doris work so hard at
her music--would Aurelia be learning Romeo and Juliet by heart as she
did her hair in the morning--Romeo was a part Valentine was always
contemplating--if it were not for love? More, would Miss Barton's
course in English constitutional history be so interesting if Miss
Barton did not feel--as the school had discovered--a romantic passion
for Oliver Cromwell? Certainly not!
Her mother thought these excitements vulgar. She said if girls must be
silly, why not be silly about people in their own class of life? But
Lita explained that the boys they knew were not so thrilling. Had her
mother, she asked, never bought the picture of an actor? "Never!" said
her mother with conviction; but Aunt Minnie, who happened to be there,
said, "Nonsense, Alita! You had a picture of Sothern as the Prisoner
of Zenda." Mrs. Hazlitt said that she hadn't, and that was entirely
different anyhow.
The only result of the conversation was that Mrs. Hazlitt began to
suspect Lita of some such ill-bred passion--most unjustly. The whole
subject had had merely a theoretical interest for Lita. She was too
practical to be fired by these intangible heroes--dream, dead or
dramatic.
But now, even that first Sunday, as she stepped out of the infirmary
into the bare March moonlight, she found that real life could hold the
same thrill for her that dreams did for these others.
"And that," she said to herself, "is where I have the best of it."