"What shall I get you?"
The mind was almost gone; but still he held fast to the edge of it,
as he murmured,--
"Some bully beef."
The nurse turned away. Her lips were smiling; but her eyes clouded,
as the babbling began once more.
Twenty-four hours later, she was greeted by a white-faced,
clear-headed trooper.
"Good-morning, nurse," he said coolly. "You see I am better."
"Much better, Mr. Weldon," she assented cordially. He looked
puzzled. "I thought we fellows in hospital had no names, nothing but
numbers," he answered.
"It depends. When one meets an old friend, the number isn't quite
the right name for him."
Turning slightly, he stared up at her with the impassive curiosity
of a man just coming back from The Unknown. Then he shook his head.
"I am afraid--" he began slowly.
With a quick gesture, she took off her crisp white cap, uncovering a
heavy pile of ink-black hair. "There!" she said, with a smile. "Does
that make me look more natural, Mr. Weldon? I am Alice Mellen, Cooee
Dent's cousin."
Instantly he put out his hand, sunburned still, but curiously thin.
The smile on his lips was the boyish, frank smile which Alice had
seen and liked, that afternoon in the garden at home.
"What good angel brings you here?" he asked eagerly.
"No angel; merely the lady who rules over the household of Mars. I
am glad to find you again, even if the Johannesburg hospital isn't a
good place for a man. But you mustn't talk now. Later, we can make
up for lost time."
Impetuously his fingers shut on a fold of her apron. Then his native
instincts and his years of training asserted themselves, and he let
go once more. Nevertheless, his eyes were appealing.
"Don't go."
"But I must," she answered, her hands busy with her cap.
Her tone showed that, like himself, she too had learned the meaning
of an order. He yielded to its quiet firmness.
"If you must. But, before you go, tell me this: have I been off my
head?"
She nodded in assent.
He frowned.
"Sorry," he said briefly. "Please answer me honestly. Have I mumbled
things and made a blasted fool of myself?"
It was still two days before he was allowed to talk to his own
satisfaction. Then, one afternoon in her rest hour, Alice Mellen let
him have his way and, seated by his cot, she answered tersely to a
raking fire of terse questions.
"How long have I been here?"
"Just a week."
"How did I get here?"
"Hospital train from Krugersdorp."
"What for?"
"You had a touch of fever. We could treat you better here." Her
replies were man-like in their brevity.
"Fever? I thought it was a Mauser bullet."
"It was. Your leg was not so bad; but the long ride and the exposure
to the storm--"
He interrupted her.
"What do you know about my ride?" he asked.
Her answer showed that the woman was not lost in the nurse.
"Everybody knows of your ride. Even in these days of plucky deeds,
we are proud of you."
He shook his head, though the color came into his cheeks, brown
beneath their pallor.
"It was nothing. I did my duty."
"So Kruger Bobs has informed us."
"Kruger Bobs? Is he here?"
This time, she laughed outright.
"I should say he was. For a week, he has been sitting exactly in the
path of the doctors, waiting for news. Twice he has been ordered
off; but he merely hitches over to the other end of the steps and
refuses to budge farther. We discovered him, the first night you
were here, by having the bead surgeon fall headlong over him, as he
went down the steps. Kruger Bobs doesn't show up well, on a dark
night."
Weldon clasped his hands at the back of his head.
"If I thought you were using American slang, Miss Mellen, I should
contradict you," he answered, with a touch of his old humor. "I can
remember at least one dark night when Kruger Bobs made an excellent
showing."
She nodded.
"We have bad a few Americans here before, Mr. Weldon. I think I
understand."
"How long have you been here?" he asked, after a pause.
"Ten weeks."
"And you like it?"
"Why else should I be here?"
"From a sense of duty."
"Is that what brought you out?"
"No. My coming was inevitable. It seemed a part of me that I
couldn't help."
"But you wished to come?" she queried.
"Of course. But that was only a Dart of it. I have wished to do
things before, and have done them. This was quite different. It all
seemed a part of Fate, and I walked through it, like a puppet with
somebody else's hand pulling the strings." He paused and shook his
head. "It is no use. I can't make you understand it. I acted freely
and did just what I chose; but yet, all the time, I felt as if it
had all been arranged for me, whole generations ago."
Thoughtfully she bent forward, straightened the coverings above his
wounded leg; then sat up again. Then she shook her head a little
regretfully.
"No," she said. "I am afraid I don't understand. Perhaps it is
because I am selfish; but I usually feel as if I made my plans,
regardless of Fate."
"What about our meeting here?" he asked quizzically.
She answered in the same tone.
"Wait until we see what comes out of it. Fate, if one believes in
such a thing, only works in an endless chain."
"And the broken links?"
"According to your notion, there should be none," she retorted.
"Fate ought to be a better workman than that."
"Than what?"
"Than spoiling her work as she goes along. If there's any chain at
all, it should be endless and durable. But a man with a Mauser hole
in his leg and a fever in his head has no business to be talking of
Fate. Let's talk about Ethel, instead."
He settled himself back comfortably.
"Perhaps it amounts to the same thing, in the long run."
"Perhaps. I don't see how, though. Anyway, Ethel wouldn't be pleased
with the notion. She is absolutely independent, and generally
arranges things according to her own sweet will."
"Where is she now?"
"In Cape Town," Alice answered, quite unaware of her own lack of
truth.
"And well?"
"Gloriously. In fact, as far as I can learn, Cooee always is well.
Just now she is having a wonderfully gay time. Since Lord Roberts
went back to England, Cape Town has been full of people, resting
there before sailing for home."
"Resting?"
"Haven't they earned the right?" she questioned, in swift challenge
to the quiet scorn in his tone.
"Even if the battles are over, the fighting isn't," he answered
tersely. "The glory doesn't lie entirely in the pulverizing the Boer
army; there's a little left for the men who are sweeping up the
pieces."
Her trained eye saw the rising color in his face. Swiftly she
changed the subject.
"Glory for all, enough and to spare," she replied. "But, as I say,
Cape Town is crowded with officers, lying up for repairs, and Ethel
is queen bee among them. It's not only for herself; it is what you
would call Fate. She happens to be the only girl of her set who is
just out from London; she had met a good many of them there, and now
she is holding a veritable salon. She even has one sacred teacup,
set up on a high shelf ever since the day that Baden-Powell used
it."
Weldon smiled.
"Miss Dent is a hero-worshipper," he commented.
"So are we all, in certain directions. Moreover, most women like
their heroes to have a little personality. One can't make one's
admiration stick to a blank wall of impersonal perfection."
Weldon's mind moved swiftly backwards to two blue, black-fringed
eyes glowing out from a dust-streaked face.
"No," he assented; "but neither can one ever really be chums with
his hero. Or, even if he can, he doesn't care to try the
experiment."
Alice glanced at her watch, rose, then lingered.
"I am not so sure of that," she replied thoughtfully. "I want the
pedestal of my hero to be a low one; and Cooee declares that she
wishes no pedestal at all. If her hero is worthy of the name, he
must bear inspection even from above. The worst flaw of all might
lurk in the very crown of his head."
Half an hour later, she came back again.
"Mr. Weldon, do you feel strong enough to see Kruger Bobs for
exactly five minutes?" she asked.
The gray eyes lighted.
"For ten times five," he answered eagerly.
Kruger Bobs shuffled in upon the heels of an orderly. Under his
bristly hair, his face was a study of mingled emotions which
culminated in his mouth. A grin of pure happiness had drawn up the
upper lip; at sight of his prostrate master, the lower one was
rolling outward in a sudden wave of pure pity. Beside the cot, he
halted and stood looking down at Weldon with eyes which, for the
moment, transformed his lazy, jolly, simian face into a species of
nobility. Lying back on his pillow, Weldon waited for him to speak,
waited with an odd, restless beating of the heart for which he was
wholly at a loss to account.
The pause between them lengthened. At last Kruger Bobs drew his
mangy brown felt hat across his eyes.
"I's here, Boss," he said simply.
However, it was enough.
The next morning found Weldon sitting up. A clean-cut hole through
the flesh of a man who has lived a clean-cut life is swift in
healing. Now that his fever had left him, his superb vitality was
asserting itself once more, and he rallied quickly. Meanwhile, it
was good to be able to sit up and eat his breakfast like a civilized
being. Weldon had all the detestation of the average healthy being
for invalid ways. Moreover, he longed to be up and doing. With his
growing strength, the orderly, noiseless routine of the hospital
came upon his nerves. One of the nurses always walked on the points
of her toes; and he was conscious of a wild longing to throw a
pillow at her, as she went diddling to and fro past him, a dozen
times a day. The doctor, a man of iron nerve and velvet hand, was a
daily delight to him. And there was always Alice, frank, friendly
and altogether enjoyable. During the past three days, their liking
had grown apace. Absolutely feminine, yet with the healthy
impersonality of a growing boy, Alice Mellen was a born comrade, and
Weldon enjoyed her just as, in her place, he would have enjoyed
Carew.
She came down the ward, that morning, and paused beside his chair.
"You look like your old self at last," she said, as she held out her
hand in congratulation.
"I might echo your words," he answered, while he looked up into her
eyes, shining with merriment and with something that yet seemed to
him closely akin to annoyance. "Granted the apron, you might be
pouring tea at home."
"Not tea; but malted milk, in these latter days," she said,
laughing. "But I am about to retire from your case. May I introduce
your new nurse, Mr. Weldon?"
His reluctant assent was changed to eager greeting. Light, swift
steps came down the room; a tall figure stopped at his side in the
full glare of a sunshiny window which all at once seemed focussing
its light upon waving strands and heaped-up coils of vivid yellow
hair.
"Cooee!" Then, too late, he bethought himself of his manners and
tried to bite the word off short.
Linking her arm in that of her cousin, the girl stood looking down
at him with merry, mocking blue eyes.
"Invalids are supposed to have privileges denied to well men," she
answered demurely. "It might perhaps be Cooee here, to-day; but it
will have to be Miss Dent, to-morrow, when you are back in the field
again. After all, it is hardly worth while to make the change,
Trooper Weldon."