good. Dey’s nuttin’ but a fake extry.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Constance, crestfallenly. “It took me the whole
afternoon to find it, but I did think it was what you wanted.”
“I was sceptical of your being able to get even an approach to newsboy
literature, Miss Durant,” said Dr. Armstrong, “and so squandered the
large sum of a dime myself. I think this is the genuine article, isn’t
it?” he asked, as he handed
to the boy a pamphlet labelled _Old Sleuth on the Trail_.
“Dat’s de real t’ing,” jubilantly acceded Swot. “Say, oin’t de women
doisies for havin’ bases stole off ’em? Didn’t Ise give youse de warm
tip to let de doc git it?”
“You should thank him for saving you from my stupid blunder,” answered
the girl, artfully avoiding all possibility of personal obligation.
“Would you like me to read it to you now?”
“Wouldn’t Ise, just!”
Still ignoring Dr. Armstrong, Constance took the seat at the bedside,
and opening the book, launched into the wildest sea of blood-letting
and crime. Yet thrillingly as it began, she was not oblivious to the
fact that for some minutes the doctor stood watching her, and she was
quite conscious of when he finally moved away, noiselessly as he went.
Once he was gone, she was
more at her ease; yet clearly her conscience troubled her a little, for
in her carriage she again gave expression to some thought by remarking
aloud, “It was rude, of course, but if he will behave so, it really
isn’t my fault.”
[Illustration: “Constance took the seat at the bedside”]
The gory tale, in true serial style, was “continued” the next and
succeeding mornings, to the enthralment of the listener and the
amusement of the reader, the latter finding in her occupation as well a
convenient reason for avoiding or putting a limit to the doctor’s
undisguised endeavours to share, if not, indeed, to monopolise, her
attention. Even serials, however, have an end, and on the morning of
the sixth reading the impossibly shrewd detective successfully put out
of existence, or safely incarcerated each one of the numerous
scoundrels who had hitherto triumphed over the law, and Constance
closed the book.
“Hully gee!” sighed Swot, contentedly.
“Say, dat Old Sleut, he’s up to de limit, oin’t he? It don’t matter wot
dey does, he works it so’s de hull push comes his way, don’t he?”
“He certainly was very far-seeing,” Constance conceded; “but what a
pity it is that he—that he wasn’t in some finer calling.”
“Finer wot?”
“How much nobler it would have been if, instead of taking life, he had
been saving it—like Dr. Armstrong, for instance,” she added, to bring
her idea within the comprehension of the boy.
“Ah, dat’s de talk for religious mugs an’ goils,” contemptuously
exclaimed the waif, “but it guv’s me de sore ear. It don’t go wid me,
not one little bit.”
“Aren’t you grateful to Dr. Armstrong for all he’s done for you?”
“Bet youse life,” assented Swot; “but Ise oin’t goin’ to be no doctor,
nah! Ise goin’ to git on de force, dat’s de racket Ise outer. Say, will
youse read me anudder of dem stories?”
“Gladly, if I can find the right kind this time.”
The boy raised his head to look about the ward. “Hey, doc,” called his
cracked treble.
“Hush, don’t!” protested the girl.
“W’y not?”
Before she could frame a reason, the doctor was at the bedside. “What
is it?” he asked.
“Say, wese got tru wid dis story, an’ Miss Constance says she’ll read
me anudder, but dey’ll set de goime up on her, sure, she bein’ a goil;
so will youse buy de real t’ing?”
“That I will.”
“Dat’s hunky.” Then he appealed to Constance. “Say, will youse pay for
it?” he requested.
“And why should she?” inquired Dr. Armstrong.
“’Cause she’s got de dough, an Ise heard de nurse loidies talkin’ ’bout
youse, an’ dey said dat youse wuz poor.”
It was the doctor’s turn to colour, and flush he did.
“Swot and I will both be very grateful, Dr. Armstrong, if you will get
us another of the Old Sleuth books,” spoke up Miss Durant, hastily.
“Won’t youse guv ’im de price?” reiterated the urchin.
“Then we’ll expect it to-morrow morning,” went on the girl; and for the
first time in days she held out her hand to Dr. Armstrong, “And thank
you in advance for your kindness. Good-morning.”
“Rats!” she heard, as she walked away. “I didn’t tink she’d do de grand
sneak like dat, doc, jus’ ’cause I tried to touch her for de cash.”
Constance slowed one step, then resumed her former pace. “He surely— Of
course he’ll understand why I hurried away,” she murmured.
Blind as he might be, Dr. Armstrong was not blind to the geniality of
Miss Durant’s greeting the next morning, or the warmth of her thanks
for the cheap-looking dime novel. She chatted pleasantly with him some
moments before beginning on the new tale; and even when she at last
opened the book, there was a subtle difference in the way she did it
that made it include instead of exclude him from a share in the
reading. And this was equally true of the succeeding days.
The new doings of Old Sleuth did not achieve the success that the
previous ones had. The invalid suddenly developed both restlessness and
inattention, with such a tendency to frequent interruptions as to make
reading well-nigh impossible.
“Really, Swot,” Constance was driven
to threaten one morning, when he had broken in on the narrative for the
seventh time with questions which proved that he was giving no heed to
the book, “unless you lie quieter, and don’t interrupt so often, I
shall not go on reading.”
“Dat goes,” acceded the little fellow; yet before she had so much as
finished a page he asked, “Say, did youse ever play craps?”
“No,” she answered, with a touch of severity.
“It’s a jim dandy goime, Ise tells youse. Like me to learn youse?”
“No,” replied the girl, as she closed the book.
“Goils never oin’t no good,” remarked Swot, discontentedly.
Really irritated, Miss Durant rose and adjusted her boa. “Swot,” she
said, “you are the most ungrateful boy I ever knew, and I’m not merely
not going to read any more to-day, but I have a good
mind not to come to-morrow, just to punish you.”
“Ah, chase youseself!” was the response. “Youse can’t pass dat gold
brick on me, well, I guess!”
“What are you talking about?” indignantly asked Constance.
“Tink Ise oin’t onter youse curves? Tink Ise don’t hear wot de nurse
loidies says? Gee! Ise know w’y youse so fond of comin’ here.”
“Why do I come here?” asked Constance, in a voice full of warning.
The tone was wasted on the boy.
“’Cause youse dead gone on de doc.”
“I am sorry you don’t know better than to talk like that, Swot,” said
the girl, quietly, “because I wanted to be good to you, and now you
have put an end to my being able to be. You will have to get some one
else to read to you after this. Good-bye.” She passed her hand kindly
over his forehead, and
turned to find that Dr. Armstrong was standing close behind her, and
must have overheard more or less of what had been said. Without a word,
and looking straight before her, Constance walked away.
Once out of the hospital, her conscience was not altogether easy; and
though she kept away the next day, she sent her footman with the usual
gift of fruits and other edibles; and this she did again on the morning
following.
“Of course he didn’t mean to be so atrociously impertinent,” she
sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel
way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. “But I can’t, in
self-respect, go to him any more.”
These explanations were confided to her double in the mirror, as she
eyed the effect of a new gown, donned for a dinner; and while she still
studied the
eminently satisfactory total, she was interrupted by a knock at the
door, and her maid brought her a card the footman handed in.
Constance took it, looked astonished, then frowned slightly, and
finally glanced again in the mirror. Without a word, she took her
gloves and fan from the maid, and descended to the drawing-room.
“Good-evening, Dr. Armstrong,” she said, coolly.
“I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss Durant,” awkwardly and
hurriedly began the doctor, “because nothing else would satisfy Swot
McGarrigle. I trust you will understand that I—He—he is to undergo an
operation, and—well, I told him it was impossible, but he still begged
me so to ask you, that I hadn’t the heart to refuse him.”
[Illustration: “‘I have come here—I have intruded on you, Miss
Durant,’ hurriedly began the doctor”]
“An operation!” cried Constance.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s really nothing serious. He—Perhaps you may have
noticed how restless and miserable he has been lately. It is due, we
have decided, to one of the nerves of the leg having been lacerated,
and so I am going to remove it, to end the suffering, which is now
pretty keen.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed the girl, regretfully. “I didn’t dream of
it, and so was hard on him, and said I wouldn’t come any more.”
“He has missed your visits very much, Miss Durant, and we found it very
hard to comfort him each morning, when only your servant came.”
“Has he really? I thought they were nothing to him.”
“If you knew that class better, you would appreciate that they are
really grateful and warm-hearted, but they fear to show their feelings,
and, besides, could not express them, even if they had the
words, which they don’t. But if you could hear the little chap sing
your praises to the nurses and to me, you would not think him
heartless. ‘My loidy’ is his favourite description of you.”
“He wants to see me?” questioned the girl, eagerly.
“Yes. Like most of the poorer class, Miss Durant,” explained the
doctor, “he has a great dread of the knife. To make him less frantic, I
promised that I would come to you with his wish; and though I would not
for a moment have you present at the actual operation, if you could
yield so far as to come to him for a few minutes, and assure him that
we are going to do it for his own good, I think it will make him more
submissive.”
“When do you want me?” asked Miss Durant.
“It is—I am to operate as soon as I can get back to the hospital, Miss
Durant.
It has been regrettably postponed as it is.”
The girl stood hesitating for a moment. “But what am I to do about my
dinner?”
Dr. Armstrong’s eyes travelled over her from head to foot, taking in
the charming gown of satin and lace, the strings of pearls about her
exquisite throat and wrists, and all the other details which made up
such a beautiful picture. “I forgot,” he said, quietly, “that society
duties now take precedence over all others.” Then, with an instant
change of manner, he went on: “You do yourself an injustice, I think,
Miss Durant, in even questioning what you are going to do. You know you
are coming to the boy.”
For the briefest instant the girl returned his intent look, trying to
fathom what enabled him to speak with such absolute surety; then she
said, “Let us
lose no time,” as she turned back into the hall and hurried out of the
front door, not even attending to the doctor’s protest about her going
without a wrap; and she only said to him at the carriage door, “You
will drive with me, of course, Dr. Armstrong?” Then to the footman,
“Tell Murdock, the hospital, Maxwell, but you are to go at once to Mrs.
Purdy, and say I shall be prevented from coming to her to-night by a
call that was not to be disregarded,”
“It was madness of you, Miss Durant, to come out without a cloak, and I
insist on your wearing this,” said the doctor, the moment the carriage
had started, as he removed his own overcoat.
“Oh, I forgot—but I mustn’t take it from you, Dr. Armstrong.”
“Have no thought of me. I am twice as warmly clad as you, and am better
protected than usual.”
Despite her protest he placed it about
Constance’s shoulders and buttoned it up. “You know,” he said, “the
society girl with her bare throat and arms is at once the marvel and
the despair of us doctors, for every dinner or ball ought to have its
death-list from pneumonia; but it never—”
“Will it be a very painful operation?” asked the girl.
“Not at all; and the anaesthetic prevents consciousness. If Swot were a
little older, I should not have had to trouble you. It is a curious
fact that boys, as a rule, face operations more bravely than any other
class of patient we have.”
“I wonder why that is?” queried Constance.
“It is due to the same ambition which makes cigarette-smokers of them—a
desire to be thought manly.”
Once the carriage reached the hospital, Constance followed the doctor
up the
stairs and through the corridor. “Let me relieve you of the coat, Miss
Durant,” he advised, and took it from her and passed it over to one of
the orderlies. Then, opening a door, he made way for her to enter.
[Illustration: “The two were quickly seated on the floot”]
Constance passed into a medium-sized room, which a first glance showed
her to be completely lined with marble; but there her investigations
ceased, for her eyes rested on the glass table upon which lay the
little fellow, while beside him stood a young doctor and a nurse. At
the sound of her footsteps the boy turned his head till he caught sight
of her, when, after an instant’s stare, he surprised the girl by hiding
his eyes and beginning to cry.
“Ise knowed all along youse wuz goin’ to kill me,” he sobbed.
“Why, Swot,” cried Constance, going to his side. “Nobody is going to
kill you.”
The hands were removed from the eyes, and still full of tears, they
blinkingly stared a moment at the girl.
“Hully gee! Is dat youse?” he ejaculated. “Ise tought youse wuz de
angel come for me.”
“You may go many years in society, Miss Durant, without winning another
compliment so genuine,” remarked Dr. Armstrong, smiling. “Nor is it
surprising that he was misled,” he added.
Constance smiled in return as she answered, “And it only proves how the
value of a compliment is not in its truthfulness, but in its being
truth to the one who speaks it.”
“Say, youse won’t let dem do nuttin’ bad to me, will youse?” implored
the boy.
“They are only going to help you, Swot,” the girl assured him, as she
took his hand.
“Den w’y do dey want to put me to sleep for?”
“To spare you suffering,”
“Dis oin’t no knock-out drops, or dat sorter goime? Honest?”
“No. I won’t let them do you any harm.”
“Will youse watch dem all de time dey’s doin’ tings to me?”
“Yes. And if you’ll be quiet and take it nicely, I’ll bring you a
present to-morrow.”
“Dat’s grand! Wot’ll youse guv me? Say, don’t do dat,” he protested, as
the nurse applied the sponge and cone to his face.
“Lie still, Swot,” said Constance, soothingly, “and tell me what you
would best like me to give you. Shall it be a box of building-blocks—or
some soldiers—or a fire-engine—or—”
“Nah. Ise don’t want nuttin’ but one ting—an’ dat’s—wot wuz Ise
tinkin’—Ise forgits wot it wuz—lemme see—Wot’s de matter? Wheer is
youse all?—” The little frame relaxed and lay quiet.
“That is all you can do for us, Miss Durant,” said Dr. Armstrong.
“May I not stay, as I promised him I would?” begged Constance.
“Can you bear the sight of blood?”
“I don’t know—but see—I’ll turn my back.” Suiting the action to the
word, the girl faced so that, still holding Swot’s hand, she was
looking away from the injured leg.
A succession of low-spoken orders to his assistants was the doctor’s
way of telling her that he left her to do as she chose, She stood
quietly for a few minutes, but presently her desire to know the
progress of the operation, and her anxiety over the outcome, proved too
strong for her, and she turned her head to take a furtive glance. She
did not
look away again, but with a strange mixture of fascination and
squeamishness, she watched as the bleeding was stanched with sponges,
each artery tied, and each muscle drawn aside, until finally the nerve
was reached and removed; and she could not but feel both wonder and
admiration as she noted how Dr. Armstrong’s hands, at other times
seemingly so much in his way, now did their work so skilfully and
rapidly. Not till the operation was over, and the resulting wound was
being sprayed with antiseptics, did the girl realize how cold and faint
she felt, or how she was trembling. Dropping the hand of the boy, she
caught at the operating-table, and then the room turned black.
“It’s really nothing,” she asserted. “I only felt dizzy for an instant.
Why! Where am I?”
“You fainted away, Miss Durant, and we brought you here,” explained the
nurse, once again applying the salts. The woman rose and went to the
door. “She is conscious now, Dr. Armstrong.”
As the doctor entered Constance tried to rise, but a motion of his hand
checked her. “Sit still a little yet, Miss Durant,” he ordered
peremptorily. From a cupboard he produced a plate of crackers and a
glass of milk, and brought them to her.
“I really don’t want anything,” declared the girl.
“You are to eat something at once,” insisted Dr. Armstrong, in a very
domineering manner.
He held the glass to her lips, and Constance, after a look at his face,
took a swallow of the milk, and then a piece of cracker he broke off.
“How silly of me to behave so,” she said, as she munched.
“The folly was mine in letting you
stay in the room when you had had no dinner. That was enough to knock
up any one,” answered the doctor. “Here.” Once again the glass was held
to her lips, and once again, after a look at his face, Constance drank,
and then accepted a second bit of cracker from his fingers.
“Do you keep these especially for faint-minded women?” she asked,
trying to make a joke of the incident.
“This is my particular sanctum, Miss Durant; and as I have a
reprehensible habit of night-work, I keep them as a kind of sleeping
potion.”
Constance glanced about the room with more interest, and as she noticed
the simplicity and the bareness, Swot’s remark concerning the doctor’s
poverty came back to her. Only many books and innumerable glass
bottles, a microscope, and other still more mysterious instruments,
seemed to save it from the
tenement-house, if not, indeed, the prison, aspect.
“Are you wondering how it is possible for any one to live in such a
way?” asked the doctor, as his eyes followed hers about the room.
“If you will have my thought,” answered Constance, “it was that I am in
the cave of the modern hermit, who, instead of seeking solitude,
because of the sins of mankind, seeks it that he may do them good.”
“We have each had a compliment to-night,” replied Dr. Armstrong, his
face lighting up.
The look in his eyes brought something into the girl’s thoughts, and
with a slight effort she rose. “I think I am well enough now to relieve
you of my intrusion,” she said.
“You will not be allowed to leave the hermit’s cell till you have
finished the cracker and the milk,” affirmed the man.
“I only regret that I can’t keep up the character by offering you
locusts and wild honey.”
“At least don’t think it necessary to stay here with me,” said Miss
Durant, as she dutifully began to eat and drink again. “If—oh—the
operation—How is Swot?”
“Back in the ward, though not yet conscious.”
“And the operation?”
“Absolutely successful.”
“Despite my interruption?”
“Another marvel to us M.D.’s is the way so sensitive a thing as a woman
will hold herself in hand by sheer nerve force when it is necessary.
You did not faint till the operation was completed.”
“Now may I go?” asked the girl, with a touch of archness, as she held
up the glass and the plate, both empty.
“Yes, if you will let me share your carriage. Having led you into this
predicament,
the least I feel I can do is to see you safely out of it.”
“Now the hermit is metamorphosing himself into a knight,” laughed
Constance, merrily, “with a distressed damsel on his hands. I really
need not put you to the trouble, but I shall be glad if you will take
me home.”
Once again the doctor put his overcoat about her, and they descended
the stairs and entered the brougham.
“Tell me the purpose of all those instruments I saw in your room,” she
asked as they started.
“They are principally for the investigation of bacteria. Not being
ambitious to spend my life doctoring whooping-cough and indigestion, I
am striving to make a scientist of myself.”
“Then that is why you prefer hospital work?”
“No. I happen to have been born
with my own living to make in the world, and when I had worked my way
through the medical school, I only too gladly became ‘Interne’ here,
not because it is what I wish to do, but because I need the salary.”
“Yet it seems such a noble work.”
“Don’t think I depreciate it, but what I am doing is only remedial What
I hope to do is to prevent.”
“How is it possible?”
“For four years my every free hour has been given to studying what is
now called tuberculosis, and my dream is to demonstrate that it is in
fact the parent disease—a breaking down—disintegration—of the bodily
substance—the tissue, or cell—and to give to the world a specific.”
“How splendid!” exclaimed Constance. “And you believe you can?”
“Every day makes me more sure that both demonstration and specific are
possible
—but it is unlikely that I shall be the one to do it.”
“I do not see why?”
“Because there are many others studying the disease who are free from
the necessity of supporting themselves, and so can give far more time
and money to the investigation than is possible for me. Even the
scientist must be rich in these days, Miss Durant, if he is to win the
great prizes.”
“Won’t you tell me something about yourself?” requested Constance,
impulsively.
“There really is nothing worth while yet. I was left an orphan young,
in the care of an uncle who was able to do no better for me than to get
me a place in a drug-store. By doing the night-work it was possible to
take the course at the medical college; and as I made a good record,
this position was offered to me.”
“It—you could make it interesting if you tried.”
“I’m afraid I am not a realist, Miss Durant. I dream of a future that
shall be famous by the misery and death I save the world from, but my
past is absolutely eventless.”
As he ended, the carriage drew up at the house, and the doctor helped
her out.
“You will take Dr. Armstrong back to the hospital, Murdock,” she
ordered.
“Thank you, but I really prefer a walk before going to _my_ social
intimates, the bacilli,” answered the doctor, as he went up the steps
with her. Then, after he had rung the bell, he held out his hand and
said: “Miss Durant, I need scarcely say, after what I have just told
you, that my social training has been slight—so slight that I was quite
unaware that the old adage, ‘Even a cat may look at a king,’ was no
longer a fact until I overheard
what was said the other day. My last wish is to keep you from coming to
the hospital, and in expressing my regret at having been the cause of
embarrassment to you, I wish to add a pledge that henceforth, if you
will resume your visits, you and Swot shall be free from my intrusion.
Good-night,” he ended, as he started down the steps.
“But I never—really I have no right to exclude—nor do I wish—”
protested the girl; and then, as the servant opened the front door,
even this halting attempt at an explanation ceased. She echoed a
“Good-night,” adding, “and thank you for all your kindness,” and very
much startled and disturbed the footman, as she passed into the
hallway, by audibly remarking, “Idiot!”
She went upstairs slowly, as if thinking, and once in her room, seated
herself at her desk and commenced a note. Before she had written a page
she tore the
paper in two and began anew. Twice she repeated this proceeding; then
rose in evident irritation, and, walking to her fire, stood looking
down into the flame. “I’ll think out what I had better do when I’m not
so tired,” she finally remarked, as she rang for her maid. But once in
bed, her thoughts, or the previous strain, kept her long hours awake;
and when at last she dropped into unconsciousness her slumber was made
miserable by dreams mixing in utter confusion operating-room and
dinner, guests and microbes—dreams in which she was alternately
striving to explain something to Dr. Armstrong, who could not be
brought to understand, or to conceal something he was determined to
discover. Finally she found herself stretched on the dinner-table, the
doctor, knife in hand, standing over her, with the avowed intention of
opening her heart to learn some secret, and it was her helpless
protests
and struggles which brought consciousness to her—to discover that she
had slept far into the morning.