"My inherent common sense."
"Your inherent self-conceit, you'd better say," the doctor retorted
curtly. "What's more, you lay awake to read them? Three quarters of the
night? Yes? I thought so. Next time, though, I'll trouble you to let
your signs alone. You've got to learn their alphabet straight, before
you go to work to get much meaning out of them. Anyway, they are my
care, not yours." Then, as the pulse steadied down a little, the doctor
spoke more gently. "Boy, what is it that you need to know?"
Under the strong, heedful fingers, the pulse gave one great leap,
stopped, then fell to pounding madly. Meanwhile, there came a
tightening of Opdyke's lips. Then he said, with a voice devoid of any
intonation,--
"Doctor, I think it has come to where I need to know the outcome of all
this."
"Reed boy, I thought so." The doctor's hand, leaving the wrist, came to
rest upon the nearer shoulder with a grip which was like a benediction.
"It has been a fearful time of waiting. I wish I could tell you what
the end will be; but--Reed, I can't."
"You mean you won't," Opdyke corrected him a little sharply.
But Doctor Keltridge forgave the sharpness, as his eyes rested on the
drawn, white face.
"I mean I can't," he iterated. "Reed, that's the damned cruelty of the
whole position, for you and for us who care for you. It would have been
any amount easier to have accepted things at their worst, months ago,
than to keep on in this grilling indecision, fearing everything and yet
hanging on to every vestige of hope for something better. Don't think I
haven't been realizing that, my boy, ever since they brought you in and
tucked you up in that infernal bed. It wouldn't have been one half so
hard for you, then, or since, if you'd known that you'd step down and
out of it at any given time, or even that you were there to stay for
ever. It's the uncertainty that kills. And that--"
"Well?" Reed asked him steadily.
"Is just as great as ever."
"You mean?"
The doctor straightened in his chair, stiffening himself to administer
the bitter draught.
"That the dozen best surgeons in the country never could agree on it,
whether you will come out of this thing, or not. All we can do is to
grip our courage, and leave the matter--"
"On the knees of Allah?" Reed asked a little bitterly.
The doctor's reply was grave.
"Yes, Reed. Upon the knees of Allah and within the hands of modern
science. They are bound to work together, in a case like this."
The grip upon Reed's shoulder tightened for a minute. Then it fell
away, and again the supple fingers shut upon Reed's wrist.
"It's no especial use to preach to you about keeping up your courage,
Reed. You're bound to do that, being you. I only wish I could have
given you a squarer answer to your question; but--I can't. Now, about
the surgeons: you'd like to have them come up again?"
Reed shook his head, and the gesture was a weary one.
"No use, doctor. I believe you--now. I had thought you were putting me
off, out of a mistaken sense of friendship, and that I'd be able to
worm the facts of the case from them. However, now you admit that the
present uncertainty is the worst thing of all, I'm ready to take your
word--only--it hurts! All night, I've been bracing myself to take it,
and now nobody knows when it will come, or how." For a little while, he
lay quite still; and the doctor sat still beside him, waiting. At last,
Reed looked up with a forced alertness. "How is Olive?" he inquired,
quite in his ordinary tone.
Instantly the doctor's face changed, lost its look of waiting strain,
grew frankly worried.
"Reed, I wish I knew," he said.
"Is she ill?" Opdyke's voice sharpened.
"No; she's all right, only something has upset her. Didn't she come
here, yesterday? No? I thought she was in here, every day; and maybe
that--" The doctor checked himself abruptly.
A ghost of a smile flitted across Reed's face, although the hair still
lay damp upon his temples.
"That we had been fighting, doctor?" he inquired. "Your fatherly fears
misled you. I haven't seen her for two days."
"Queer!" It was evident that Doctor Keltridge, as he rose, was thinking
things out loud. "She was all right at breakfast, jolly as you please.
Then she went out on some errands. I was out for luncheon, and so
missed her. When she came down to dinner, she hadn't any appetite and
was very feverish. What's more, if it had been anybody but Olive, I'd
have vowed she'd cried her eyes out, all the afternoon."
"And this morning?" Reed's accent showed that he was profoundly
worried. Tears, indeed, were out of all harmony with his experience of
Olive Keltridge.
The doctor's reply came crisply.
"Apparently, she'd cried them in again." Then once more he bent above
the couch where Opdyke lay. "Hang on to the tail of every sort of hope,
Reed," he bade him cheerily. "It's not an especially amusing
occupation; but it is about the only thing for us to do at present.
I'll look in on you, in the morning, to make sure how you slept. By the
way," he tossed the last words back across the threshold; "as long as
you haven't much else upon your hands, I think I'll order Olive to come
down here, and let you cheer her up a little." And, before Reed could
answer, he was gone.