One wonders what would happen to our admirable muddle of a world, if
even a minority of its inhabitants were suddenly to embrace
consistency. It would, presumably, be a world still, but so changed
that its best friends would not know it. It is because every-body,
everywhere and at all times, acts as they could not logically be
expected to act, that our dear familiar chaos of you-never-can-tell
continues to entertain us.
Had Desire possessed consistency, this quality so jewel-like in its
rarity, she would have realized that, having voluntarily stepped aside
from woman's natural destiny, she should also have ceased to trouble
herself with those feminine doubts and hopes which are peculiar to it.
She would have known that the position of secretary to a professional
man does not logically include heart-burnings and questionings
concerning that gentleman's love affairs, past or present. She would
have refused to consider Mary. She would have been quite happy in the
position she had deliberately made for herself.
Much as we would like to present Desire in this thoroughly sensible
light, we fear that her action on the morning following her visit to
the invalid Miss Martin would not bear us out in so doing. For on that
morning, with all facts of the situation freshly in her mind, she went
down-town to Dr. Rogers' office for no other purpose than to see and
talk to Dr. Rogers' yellow-haired nurse.
"When I see her and hear her," said Desire to her-self, "I shall know.
And it will be so comfortable to know." Never a word, mind you, about
the inconsistency of being uncomfortable through not knowing.
No attempt at reminding herself that knowledge was none of her
business. No arguing out of the matter at all. Merely the following of
a blind impulse to find Mary if Mary were to be found.
This impulse, which was wholly foreign to her natural habit of mind,
she justified to herself under the guise of "natural curiosity." All
she had to do was to make the call seem sufficiently casual and to time
her arrival at the doctor's office at an hour when he could not
possibly be in it. As a newcomer, such a mistake would seem quite
plausible and could be passed over easily with "How stupid of me! I
should have known." After that the nurse would probably invite her to
wait. And, even if she did not, the mere exchange of question and
answer would probably be sufficiently revealing.
This small program proceeded exactly as planned and Desire, in her most
becoming frock, learned of the absence of Dr. Rogers with exactly the
right degree of impatience and regret.
"Please come in," said Dr. Rogers' nurse in somewhat drawling accents.
"Doctor may be back any minute." Being a nurse she always predicted the
doctor's arrival no matter how certain she might be that he would not
arrive.
Desire hesitated, glanced quite naturally at her watch and decided to
wait. "If you are sure the doctor won't be long--?" The nurse was sure
that he wouldn't be long.
Here her interest in the caller seemed to cease and she became very
much occupied with a business-like addressing of envelopes at a desk in
the corner.
Desire looked around the cool and pleasant room. It was not like her
idea of a doctor's office, save perhaps for a faint clean smell of
drugs. There were comfortable chairs, flowers in a window-box, a table
with a book or two and some magazines. Through a half-open door, an
inner office showed--all very different from the picture her memory
showed her of the musty, cumbered room in which her father had received
his dwindling patients. As a child she had hated that room, hated the
hideous charts of "people with their skins off," the ponderous books
with their horrific and highly colored plates, the "patients' chair"
with its clinging odor of plush and ether, the untidy desk, the dust on
everything!
But she had not come to Dr. Rogers' office to indulge in memory. She
had come to see the lady who was so busily addressing envelopes and,
after a decent interval of polite abstraction, she devoted herself
cautiously to this purpose.
Nurse Watkins, before Desire's entrance, had not been addressing
envelopes. She had been reading. Her book lay open upon the window-sill
and Desire, having good eyes, could read its title upside down. It was
not a title which she knew, nor, if titles tell anything, did it belong
to a book which invited knowing. Desire felt almost certain that it was
not a book which Mary would care to read. Still, one never could tell.
The professor had said nothing whatever about Mary's literary taste.
Desire's eyes strayed, vaguely, from the book to its owner. Only Miss
Watkins' profile was visible but it was a profile well worth attention.
People who cannot choose their literature are often quite successful
with their caps. Miss Watkins' cap was just right. And her hair was
certainly yellow. Desire frowned.
Miss Watkins, looking up, caught the frown.
"Doctor really can't be long now," she drawled sympathetically. Desire
felt that the sympathy, like the assurance, was professional--an
afterglow, perhaps of sympathy which had existed once, before life had
overdrawn its account. She felt, also, that Miss Watkins' nose was
decidedly good. It was straight, with the nicest little blunt point;
and her eyes were blue--not misty blue, like the hills, but a passable
blue for all that. Her expression was cold and eminently superior.
("Frightfully nursey" was what Desire called it to herself.) Her voice
was thin. (Desire was glad of that.)
"Doctor must have been kept somewhere," said the nurse pursuing her
formula. "Won't you sit near the window? There's a breeze."
"Thank you." Desire moved to the window. "You must find it very
peaceful here--after nursing overseas."
Nurse Watkins tapped her full upper lip with her pen. "Yes," she said.
"It's very dull." Desire smiled. Her spirits had been rising ever since
her entrance and she was now quite cheerful. Pretty as Miss Mary
Watkins undoubtedly was, there was a some-thing--could it be possible
that she chewed gum? No, of course she could not chew gum. And yet
there was an impression of gum somewhere--an insinuating certainty that
she might chew gum on a dark night when no one was looking. Desire
heaved a little sigh of satisfaction and, leaning out, appeared to
occupy herself with the passers-by.
"Aren't Bainbridge streets wonderful?" she said.
Nurse Watkins' mouth took on a discontented droop. "The streets are all
right," she said, "only they don't go anywhere."
Desire laughed. "Are you as bored as that?" she asked.
"Worse. I wouldn't stay here a minute if it weren't--I mean, if I
hadn't been advised to rest up a bit."
Desire looked at her watch, and rose. Now that her curiosity had been
amply satisfied, she began to realize that curiosity is an undignified
thing. And also that she had not been the only person present to give
way to it.
The somewhat drawling tones of Miss Watkins' voice were not at all in
keeping with the activity of her wide-awake blue eyes. A sense of this
nurse's speculation as to her presence there flicked Desire with little
whips of irritation. It is one thing to observe and quite another to
render oneself observable. She felt the blood flow hotly to her cheek.
Why had she come? How could she have so far forgotten her natural
reserve, her instinctive dislike of intrusion? Desire saw plainly that
she had allowed a regrettable sentiment to trick her into a ridiculous
situation. Satisfied curiosity is usually ashamed of itself.
And how absurd to have fancied for a moment that this blond prettiness
could be Mary!
"I am afraid I cannot wait longer," she murmured with polite regret.
"If there is any message--"
"None, I think. Thank you so much."
With the departure of her caller, Miss Watkins' manner underwent a
remarkable change. Professional coolness deserted her. She stamped her
foot and, from the safe concealment of the window curtain, she watched
Desire's unhurried progress down the street with eyes in which the blue
grew clouded and opaque. They brightened again as she noticed Professor
Spence passing on the opposite side of the street, and became quite
snappy with interest as she saw him pause as if to call to his wife,
then, after a swift and hesitating glance at the door from which she
had emerged, pass on without attracting her attention.
As a bit of pure pantomime, these expressions of feeling on Miss
Watkins' part might be misleading with-out the added comment of a
letter which she wrote that night.
"I'm going to cut it, Flossy old girl," wrote Miss Watkins. "If you
know of anything near you that would suit me, pass it on. I think I'm
about due to get out of here. You know why I've stayed so long. At
first, I thought if we were together enough he might get to care.
People say I'm not bad for the eyes. And I don't use peroxide. Well,
I've made myself useful--he'll miss me anyway!
"It's kind of hard to give up. But I don't believe it's a bit of use.
I've noticed a difference in him ever since he came back from that
western trip. He doesn't seem to see me anymore. And there's something
else, a look in his eyes and a line along his mouth that were never
there before. I knew something had happened. And now I know what it
was. Another girl, of course.
"And this girl is married!
"You might think this would make things hopeful for me. But it doesn't.
Doctor's just the kind that would go on loving her if she had a
thousand husbands. So here's where I hook it. No use wasting myself,
honey. Maybe I'll get over it. They say everyone does.
"Funny thing--she's just the kind I'd think he'd go dippy over, dark
and still, with a lovely, wide mouth and skin like lilies. She is
young, younger than I am. But, believe me, she isn't a kid. Those eyes
of hers have seen things. They're the kind of eyes that I'd go wild
over if I were a man. So I'm not blaming Doctor. He can't help it.
"She came into the office today, just like an ordinary patient. But I
knew right off that she'd come for some-thing. Don't know yet what she
came for. She doesn't give herself away, that one! Didn't seem to look
around, didn't ask questions and only stayed a few minutes. Do you
suppose she could have come to see me? Because, if she did--Well, that
shows where her interest is.
"Another odd thing--as she went out, I saw her husband. (I'll tell you,
in strict confidence, that her husband is Professor Spence. They are
well known people here. He used to be a sort of recluse. A queer chap.
Deep as a judge.) Well, I saw him pass, on the opposite side of the
road. He saw her and was just going to call, when it seemed to strike
him where she had come from. I couldn't see very well across the road,
but he looked as if someone had hit him. And he went on without saying
a word. Now that looked queer to me.
"Don't write and say that I'm only guessing at things. I may be
mistaken, of course, but I know I'm not. And I'm not a Pharisee (or
whoever it was that threw stones). If she cares for Doctor, I suppose
she can't help it. Some people think her husband handsome but I don't.
He's too thin and he has the oddest little smile. It slips out and
slips in like a mouse. When Dr. John smiles, he smiles all over.
"Well, I'll wait a week or so to make sure. Although I'm sure now. If I
ever see Doctor look at her, I'll know. You see, I know how he'd look
if he looked that way. I've kept hoping--but I guess I'd better take my
ticket, Yours,
"MARY."
This letter satisfactorily explains the loss, some weeks later, of Dr.
Rogers' capable nurse--a matter which he, himself, could never
understand.