"My girl," said Travers a week later, "how shall it be? May I tell every
one how madly happy I am? May I take you to that little shrine a mile up
the mountain yonder and make you--mine--and then show them all _why_ I
am so happy? Or----"
"Yes. Or----" Priscilla lay quite contentedly in his arms, her eyes on
the shining outlines of The Ghost.
"And that means, my sweet?"
"That we should keep this blessed secret just a little longer--to
ourselves. I feel as if I could not bear to have it explained, defended,
or justified, and all that must follow, my very dear man, when the play
is over and we return to--to school. I shall be glad and ready to do all
this a little later on; proud to have you do it for me, and--we'll face
the music. It is going to be music, dear, I am sure of that. But some
very stern questions will be asked by that sweet mother of yours, and she
shall have her answer. Then Doctor Ledyard, with all the prayer gone from
his eyes, will call me up for judgment and demand to know what right a
nurse, even a white nurse, had to lay hands upon a young physician who
was on the road to glory! It will be hard to answer him; but never mind!"
"And then, dear lady of mystery, what then?"
"Why, then I'm going to beckon to you and we'll dance----"
"Dance, my darling?"
"Yes, dance away and away to a holy place I know, and then I'm going to
tell you the whole story of Priscilla----"
But at that moment Margaret Moffatt came upon the scene. The miracle of
love had transfigured the girl. She looked, as Travers had said to
Priscilla, like the All Woman: large, fine, and noble, with unashamed
surrender in her splendid eyes.
"And that is what she is!" Priscilla had replied, "the All Woman. I could
die for her, live for her, do anything for her. For me, she is the first,
the one woman, in all the world."
"Young devotee, could you, would you, give your--love up for her?"
Travers had asked, and then Priscilla spoke words that Travers remembered
long afterward.
"I could not give my love up for--that is--I, myself; just as the dance
is--just as my soul is--but I could; yes, I know I could give up--my
happiness for her, if by so doing I could spare her one shadow. Her
glorious nature could reach where mine never could."
"Yours reaches to me, little girl."
"But hers--oh! my dear man, hers reaches to--the world. If you knew her
as I know her!"
But Margaret was whimsical and witchy as she came upon the two in the
small arbour by the lake.
"Folks," she said, "let us keep our nice little surprises to ourselves
for a while, like miserly creatures. My dear old daddy-boy is fretting
and fussing about me, 'dreading the issue,' as he told Doctor Ledyard,
and behold--I'm going to do exactly what my daddykins desires! And you,
Doctor Richard Travers, you are wanted by your lady mother. Here's a
telegram. The girl in the office always tells what is in a telegram, to
spare shock. And Cilla, my shining-headed chum, you and I are going to
scamper about a bit before we go home. I'd be a miserable defaulter,
indeed, if I did not give you your share of this experience. Oh! I know
you've snatched bits that in no wise were included in the program, but
we're all grafters. I want to play fair. Will you flit over the continent
with me and Mousey, dear little--pal?"
And three days later they began their trip, while Travers returned to
Helen. It was a charming trip the girls made, but their hearts were
elsewhere.
In October they were in New York again, and the inevitable happened.
Margaret was returned to her world, and, for the moment, was absorbed.
Priscilla lost sight of her, though she heard constantly from her by
telephone or delicately worded notes.
A sad occurrence kept Richard Travers abroad. Helen contracted fever and
for weeks lay between life and death. Doctor Ledyard waited until the
danger was past, and then left the two together in Paris, while Helen
recovered, with Travers to watch and care for her.
The letters that came to Priscilla were all that kept her eyes shining
and her heart singing.
"I shall go on as usual," she wrote to Richard. "When you come, then
we'll make the wonderful announcement. I see now that we have no right to
our secret alone; but with the ocean between us, it is best."
During those months Priscilla learned to know Helen Travers through
Travers's letters. Woman-like, she read between the lines and caught a
glimpse of Helen's nobility and simple sweetness. Her loved ones were so
sacred to her that no personal demands could ever cause her to raise
objections. Once she was sure that they she worshipped wanted anything
for their true happiness, her energies were bent to that end.
"And she will love you, my girl; will learn to depend upon you as I do.
As for Doctor Ledyard, when he is cornered, he is the best soul that ever
drew breath, and mother can bully him into anything."
It was in February that Priscilla was called up by Doctor Hapgood, a man
of high repute.
"Are you on duty?"
"No, sir."
"Any immediate engagement?"
"None until March."
"I would like to have you take a case of mine that requires tact as well
as efficiency. Can you take it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Report then at 60 West Eighty-first Street this afternoon, at four."
Priscilla found herself promptly at four o'clock in the waiting-room of a
palatial bachelor apartment, and there Doctor Hapgood joined her.
"Before we go upstairs," he said, drawing his chair close to Priscilla's
and lowering his voice, "I wish to say to you what, doubtless, there is
no real need of saying. I simply emphasize the necessity. The young man
who requires your services is Clyde Huntter. This means nothing to you,
but it does to many others. He is supposed to be in--Bermuda. You
understand?"
"Yes, Doctor Hapgood."
"The case is a particularly tragic one, such an one as you may encounter
later on in your career. It demands all your sympathy, encouragement, and
patience. Mr. Huntter is as fine a man, as upright a one, as I know, his
ideals and--and present life are above reproach. He is paying a bitter
debt for youthful and ignorant folly. I believed this impossible, but so
it is. I am thankful to say, however, that he has every reason to hope
that the future, after this, is secure. I have chosen you to care for
him, because I know your ability; have heard of your powers of reticence
and cheerfulness. I depend upon you absolutely."
"Thank you, Doctor Hapgood."
Priscilla's face had gone deadly white, but never having heard Huntter's
name before, she was impersonal in her feeling.
"I will do my best."
The days following were days of strain and torture to Priscilla. Her
patient was a man who appealed to her strongly, pathetically. There were
hours when his gloom and depression would almost drag her along to the
depths into which he sank; then again he would beg her to pardon him for
his brutal thoughtlessness.
"Sit there, Miss Glynn," he said one day. "The sunshine is rather
niggardly, but when it rests on your hair--it lasts longer."
"Oh, my poor hair!"
"Poor? It looks like a gold mine." Then: "I wish you would read to me.
No; nothing recent or superficial. Something from the old, cast-iron
writers who knew how to use thumb screws and rack. There's something
wholesome in them; something you buck up against. They make you writhe
and groan, but they leave you with the thought that--you've lived through
something."
Again, another day, after a bad night:
"I think you'd better go into the next room, Miss Glynn, and take a nap.
I'd feel less brutally selfish if I could see your eyes calmer. Besides,
being shut away here from all I'm dying to have makes an idiot of me. If
you stay any longer, looking at me with those queer eyes of yours, I may
break down and tell you all about it, just for the dangerous joy of
easing my own soul by dumping a load on yours. Good God! Miss Glynn,
such women as you should not be nurses; it isn't fair. I'd give--let me
see--well, I'd give six months of my life--since Hapgood says I stand a
fair chance for ninety years--to talk to you, man to woman, and get your
point of view--about something. There are moments, after a bad night,
when I think you women haven't had all they say you should have had. We
men have been too blindly sure we could play your game as well as our
own. Run now! If you stay another minute I'll regret it, and so will
you."
"Shall I shake your pillow before I go, Mr. Huntter?"
"Yes. Thank you. You manage to shake more whim-whams out of the creases
than you know."
He stayed her by a wistful, longing, and half-boyish smile.
"Say," he said, "you see you didn't run quick enough, and now I'm going
to ask you something. You must have seen a good deal of women as well
as men in your calling."
"Yes, I have."
"Seen them with their masks off?"
"Yes."
"What does love count for in the big hours of life? Does it stand
everything, anything?"
Priscilla felt her throat contract. She longed to say something that
would reach Huntter without arousing his suspicions.
"No; love--at least, woman's love, doesn't stand everything--always."
"What doesn't it stand? The essence, I mean."
"It doesn't stand unfair play! Women understand fair play and for
it would die. They may not say much, but--they never forgive
being--tricked."
"Oh! of course. How graphic you are, Miss Glynn. You sound as if we
were discussing a game of--of tennis or bridge. Gentlemen do not trick
ladies." He frowned a bit.
"Don't they, Mr. Huntter?"
"Certainly not! What I meant was this: You seem, for a trained woman,
very human and--and--well, what shall I say?--observing and rather
a--thoroughbred. If _you_ loved, now, loved really, is there anything you
would not forgive a man? That is, if his love for you was the biggest
thing in his life?"
Priscilla stood quite still and looked at the pale, handsome face on the
pillow.
"My love--yes; my love could and would forgive anything, if it related
only to--to--the man I loved and--me!"
The frown deepened on Huntter's face; he turned uneasily.
"After all," he muttered, "a man and woman see things so differently.
There is no use!"
"I wonder--if things would not seem plainer if they saw them--together?"
But Priscilla saw she had gone too far. The whimsical mood in Huntter had
passed. He was himself again, and she was his nurse--his nurse who knew
too much! More fretfully than he had ever spoken to her, he said:
"I wish to be alone, Miss Glynn."
Priscilla passed out, leaving the door between the rooms ajar, and lay
down upon the couch.
To Doctor Hapgood she was a machine merely; an easy-running one, a
dependable one, but none the less a machine. To Huntter, shut away from
society, gregarious, friendly, and kindly, she had meant much more. Her
recent experience abroad, with all the exquisite touches of human
interest and uplift, had left her peculiarly sensitive to her present
environment.
She liked the man in the room next her. There was much that was noble and
fine about him, but he was a type that had never entered her life before,
and often, by his kindliest word and gesture, drew her attention to a
yawning space between them. She was at her ease, perfectly so, when near
him, but she knew it was because of the distance that separated them.
Still, she was confronted by a certain grim fact, and that ugly knowledge
held him and her together. By some strange process of reason she wanted
him to live up to the best in him. There were two markedly different
sides of his nature; she trembled before one; before the other she gave
homage as she did to Travers, to John Boswell, and Master Farwell.
The day before, Huntter had had a long talk with Doctor Hapgood while she
was off duty. That conversation had doubtlessly caused the bad night; she
wondered about it now. It had evidently upset Huntter a good deal.
Then Priscilla, losing consciousness gradually, thought of Travers, of
Margaret Moffatt, who believed her to be out of the city. She smiled
happily as she relived her blessed memories of good men and women. They
justified and sanctified life, love, and happiness, and they made it
possible for her, poor, struggling, little white nurse as she was, with
all her professional knowledge, to trust and sympathize, and faithfully
serve.
She must have slept deeply, for it took her a full moment to realize that
some one in the next room was talking and--saying things!
"No, she's asleep, Huntter. She looks worn out. We must get a night
nurse. Well, I have only this to say: God knows I pity you, but my duty
compels me to say that--you should not marry! The chances are about even;
but--you shouldn't take the risk."
A groan brought Priscilla to her feet, alert and quivering. Like a sudden
and blinding shock she understood, what seemed to her, a whole life
history. She stumbled to the door and faced Dr. Hapgood, hat in hand,
keen-eyed, but detached.
"You slept--heavily?"
"Yes, Doctor Hapgood."
"I am going to send a night nurse to relieve you. When did you say your
next engagement began?"
"March fifth."
"Well, you will need a week to recuperate. Make your plans accordingly.
Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Did he suspect? Did he warn her? But his next words were kindness alone.
"There should have been two nurses all along. One forgets your youth in
your efficiency. Good morning."
When Priscilla stood beside Huntter again his wan face, close-shut eyes,
and grim mouth almost frightened her.
"I want to sleep," he said briefly. "Draw down the shades."
The night nurse became a staple joke between her and Huntter.
"Lord!" he exclaimed one day as Priscilla entered; "you're like the
morning: clear, fresh, and hopeful. Do you know, that to escape the
nightmare that haunts my chamber after you go, I have to play sleep even
if I'm dying with thirst or blue devils? She's religious! Think of a
nurse with religion that she feels compelled to share with a sick man!
I'm going to get up to-day, Miss Glynn. I've bullied Hapgood into giving
permission, and I've done him one better. I'm going to have a visitor!
I'm back from Bermuda, you know. After you've fixed me up--isn't it a
glorious day?--open the windows, and--I've ordered a lot of flowers.
Put them in those brass bowls. My visitor is a lady. She likes yellow
roses. By the way, Miss Glynn, Doctor Hapgood tells me that you've been
in--Bermuda, too? Thorough old disciplinarian he! You must have been
lonely. And you leave me next week? I want to thank you. I shall thank
you ceremoniously every time you enter after this. You've been--a good
nurse and a--good friend. I couldn't say more, now could I?"
"No, Mr. Huntter. And you've been--a very brave man! I know you will
always be that, and make light of it. I rather like the half-joking way
you do your kindest things. Here are the flowers! Oh, what beauties!"
Priscilla turned from helping Huntter and began arranging the glorious
mass of roses in the brass bowls.
"What time is it, Miss Glynn?"
"Eleven o'clock."
"And my friend is due at eleven-thirty. She will be here on the minute.
I feel like a boy, Miss Glynn. One gets the doldrums being alone and
convalescing. How the grim devils catch and hold you while they try to
distort life! I must have been a sad trial to you, but I'm myself again.
Tell me, honest true, Miss Glynn, just how have I come out in your
estimation? A man is no hero to his valet. What is he to his trained
nurse?"
"You have been very patient and considerate." Priscilla's back was turned
to Huntter; her face was quivering.
"Negative virtues! Had I been a brute you would have gone. I might have
had the night nurse for twenty-four hours. I dared not run the risk of
letting you go."
"I've come out pretty well in _your_ estimation? That's a feather in my
nice, white cap," she said.
"I wonder why I care what you think of me?"
"I do not know, Mr. Huntter, except that we all care for the good opinion
of those who wish us well."
"You wish me well?"
"With all my heart."
"I'd like"--Huntter turned his face toward the window and the glorious
winter day--"I'd like to be worthy of every well-wisher. I feel quite the
good boy this morning. I've been--well, I've been rather up against it, I
fear, and a trial to you, for all that you say to the contrary; but I am
going to make amends to you--and the world! Now, when my friend comes,
you won't mind if I ask you to leave us alone for a few moments? I can
call you when I need you."
"Yes, Mr. Huntter."
"The lady is--you may have guessed--my fiancée. I have important things
to say to her, and----"
Priscilla's heart beat madly. She felt she was near a deeper tragedy than
any that had ever entered her life. And just then, as the clock struck
the half hour, came a tap on the door:
"Come!" cried Huntter, in a tone of joy; "Come!" And in burst Margaret
Moffatt!
She did not notice the rigid figure by the bowl of flowers; her radiant
face was fixed upon Huntter, and she ran toward him with outstretched
arms.
"My beloved!" she whispered. "Oh! my dear, my dear! How ill you have
been! They did not tell me. I shall never forgive them. When did you
get back from Bermuda?"
Priscilla slipped from the room and closed the door noiselessly behind
her, but not before she had seen Margaret Moffatt sink into Huntter's
arms; not before she heard the sigh of perfect content that escaped her.
Alone in the anteroom, the hideous truth flayed Priscilla into suffering
and clear vision.
"What shall I do?" she moaned, clasping her hands and swaying back and
forth. All the burden and responsibility of the world seemed cast upon
her. Then reason asserted itself.
"He will tell her! He is telling her now! Killing her love--killing her!
Oh, my God!"
Then she shrank from the thought that she would, in a few moments, have
to face her friend! How could she, when she remembered that holy night of
confession in the little Swiss village? Again she moaned, "Oh! my God!"
But she was spared that scene. Moments, though they seemed ages, passed,
and then Huntter called:
"Miss Glynn!"
She hardly recognized his voice. It was--triumphant, thrilling. It rang
boldly, commandingly. When she entered, Huntter was alone. Gone was the
guest; gone the mass of golden roses. Huntter turned a face glowing and
confident to her.
"Just because you are you, Miss Glynn, and because I'm the happiest man
in New York, I want you to congratulate me. That was Miss Moffatt. She
and I are to marry--in the spring."
"Did you--mention my name to her?"
Priscilla's haggard face at last attracted the man.
"No. I was inhumanly selfish. You must forgive me. I meant to tell her of
your faithful care; I meant to have you meet her. I forgot."
"Never mention--me to her! She is my--one friend in all the world; my one
woman friend."
They faced each other blankly, fiercely. Then:
"Good Lord, Miss Glynn!" and Huntter--laughed!