Part 3

"Tell an old one," said the boy. "Any old story," he added with a grim smile under the crisscross bandages of the stiff face.

"Tell about the little red hen," piped a voice from the next bed.

"No--about billy-goat," from across the room.

"Tell about the old lady that runned away," came shrilling close at hand.

Aunt Jane put her hands over her ears. "I can't hear anything," she announced.

Their faces grew still and alert till she should move her hands a tiny crack and they could shout again: "Billy-goat!" "The little red hen!" "The lady that runned away!"

Jimmie Sullivan, half leaning against her, looked at them reproachfully. "She can't tell nuthin' while you make such a racket!" he said.

"She likes it!--She likes it!--_She_ don't care!" They returned.

Aunt Jane looked at them and smiled. She took down her hands.

"Let me see--" She glanced from one bed to the other. "I am going to let Edna choose.... She can whisper it to me." She went to a bed across the room, Jimmie Sullivan's frame-leg clanking happily beside her, and bent to the pillow.

The girl lifted a thin arm and threw it about Aunt Jane's neck to draw her close.

Aunt Jane listened and lifted her head and smiled. "All right," she announced.

The room was so still you could hear a pin drop. A nurse passing the lower end of the ward, with a dish in her hand, paused and looked down the quiet room. Every eye was fastened expectantly on the motherly figure moving serenely about.... It crossed to the side of the room and adjusted the skylight shade and brought a big rocker and placed it in the middle of the room under the skylight and put a low chair for Jimmie Sullivan, and another beside it for the child that was limping slowly across to her.... A girl in a wheeled chair propelled herself swiftly down the ward and came to a stop as close to the big rocker as she could get.

Aunt Jane glanced slowly about the ward--at the expectant faces looking at her from every bed.

"Now, the rest of you stay where you are!" she said severely.

They laughed and adjusted themselves, and then they were quiet again, watching her intently.

She sat down in the big chair and rocked a little.

"Let me see--" She sat smiling thoughtfully; the smile ran along the pillows--waiting.

"Once when I was a little girl----"

The pillows nestled a little and sighed happily and settled down; and Aunt Jane's voice went on with the tale and the nurse at the end of the ward passed out with her dish. The door swung to behind her.

The great sunny room was left to happiness and to Aunt Jane and to the children and: "Once when I was a little girl."

XI

In Suite A, Herman Medfield had eaten the last of his breakfast. It might almost be said that, sitting in the window with the paper spread before him and the sun shining in, he had enjoyed his breakfast.... It was a long time since Herman Medfield had eaten a complete breakfast served in the ordinary way. The road to the House of Mercy was strewn with a vast wreckage of fads and hopes and breakfast foods. There were long vegetarian streaks that excluded milk and eggs; and gusts of Fletcherizing--chewing wind hopefully and patiently; and there were wide negative deserts--forbidden fruits--no starches-and-sweets together, no sweets-and-acids, no potato-and-meat, no proteids-and-carbons. A long, weary, hopeless watching and coaxing of gastric juices, and infinite patience and cunning toward the vagaries of indigestion. He had "rolled the stomach gently," and he had lain with "a pillow under his back and head down." He had become a finical, peripatetic amphitheatre of constant, cautious experiment and investigation. And it had brought him at last to Suite A and the sunny window.

And now in a breath, it seemed, in the Berkeley House of Mercy Aunt Jane's touch had broken the habit of years. He felt like a very small boy, who has been taken up and set down gently in his chair--and told to eat his breakfast and keep still.

He had thrown caution to the winds and had eaten like a hungry human being. He had drunk great swallows of the delicious brown coffee--with cream and sugar in it--without a thought of diluted gastric juice, or secretions, or fads, or fermentations.... He felt almost well as he ate the last of his toast and read his paper and basked in the sunny quiet. And behind it all was a sense of security and protection; no telephone could get at him, no clicking of the tape could reach his ear and set his tired brain to work.

So he had finished his breakfast and read his paper and had been almost happy.

But now he had read the paper through three times, gleaning last scanty bits of news; he had opened the elaborate writing-desk across the room and investigated the neat assortment of pens and blotters and paper and ink--each sheet with its neatly stamped heading of the House of Mercy; and he was feeling a little bored.

He stood looking down at the desk and fingering the keys in his pocket. Then he went over and stood by the window and looked out, and turned away and paced the room once or twice, fingering absently at the keys in his pocket. He wondered whether perhaps his breakfast had not been a little heavy, after all--two eggs for a man who had been dieting!

And all the time his restless fingers--whether thrust deep in the pockets of his black velvet coat, or twisting a little as he walked, or jingling the keys--were rolling imaginary cigarettes and reaching toward a swiftly struck match--and the fragrant in-drawn breath of smoke.

It had not occurred to him when Dr. Carmon had told him that he would probably have to undergo an operation and that he must have him at the House of Mercy for a few days to watch the case--it had not occurred to Herman Medfield that he would be a prisoner in the House of Mercy.

He stepped impatiently to the window and looked out again and shrugged his shoulders.... It was all very well to have an operation--very likely he did need something of the sort.... But this coming beforehand and being shut up by himself--while his machinery was going, full tilt--all this fuss was ridiculous!... Down in the yard a maid was hanging out clothes; he watched her strong arms lift the wet sheets and swing them to the line; the wind blew her hair a little.... It was more than likely it was largely for effect--this having him come beforehand and shutting him up like a prisoner in a cell, and taking away his tobacco--it was more than likely that it was all for effect. Herman Medfield knew most things that could be known about advertising and about the value of advertising methods.... It might very well be a good card for the hospital and for Dr. Carmon to have him there, and to get the advertising that would come from having it known. The reporters were sure to get hold of it.... It flitted across his mind that there might be an interview.... It was years since Herman Medfield had granted an interview. But even a reporter would relieve the monotony a little. He glanced at his watch and felt a little cheered at the thought of the reporter.

Then something occurred to him. He wondered whether the efficient Person, who seemed to have charge of the Berkeley House of Mercy, would _allow_ him to see a reporter!... He had eaten his breakfast--and, on the whole, he felt better for it--the eggs seemed to be taking care of themselves after all.... He foresaw that for the next three or four weeks he was not going to do what he chose, but what the Person thought best for him. Then his sense of humor came to the rescue. He recalled the cap strings--and smiled.

It would not be such bad sport, matching one's wits against the cap strings.... But there was still the morning to get through!

He wandered across and stopped again by the elaborate writing-desk and looked at it. He might write to some one. He sat down and drew a sheet of paper toward him and looked at the neatly cut inscription across the top--"The Berkeley House of Mercy"--his prison cell, he thought grimly. His fingers reached out for a half-smoked cigar--and drew back and smoothed the paper thoughtfully and took up the pen and dipped it in the ink and waited.

He would write to Julian. He had not written to Julian in his own handwriting--not since the boy was a pupil at Exeter--that was ten years ago.... He was his own secretary those days.

He wrote: "My dear Julian." Then he waited. He was seeing Julian as he used to look when he was at Exeter; he had been such a fresh, clear-faced boy; he had been proud of him--and Julian's mother.... The millionaire was living over those first days of life together--the time when Julian was born--he had not thought of it for years--all her pretty ways in the house--and the garden he had made for her, and her coming to meet him when he came from the office at night.... And then the days when she had seemed to fade like a flower and they had carried her out of the house--and there had been no one but the boy to come running to meet him when he came home-- But the boy had hurt him and he had sent him away ... and the loneliness since.... The empty house at night, and the great void spaces of life that opened on every side. He had thrown gold into them--and he had reached out for more gold--great heaped-up masses of gold and bonds and thrifty investments; and the gold had mounted higher every year--till it seemed to shut him off from every one.... No one came to him now except for money--or about money. Even Julian hardly wrote except to ask for a check or to acknowledge one. And he only knew the boy's address through his bankers.... It was somewhere on the Riviera, the last time. He dipped the pen again in the ink.

There was a knock at the door and he turned. It was Miss Canfield, the nurse who had been assigned him. She carried a long, light box. She held it out.

"Some flowers for you."

He reached up his hand, half pleased. He had not expected any one would send flowers to him.

She undid the wrapper and handed him the box.... On the top lay a card edged in black. He put on his eye-glasses and took it up.

"Mrs. Cawein----"

His face fell a little. She was his partner's wife--his late partner's widow, that is--she had a right to send flowers to him, of course--if she chose.

He set the box down on the desk and took up his pen. The nurse brought a large vase and placed it beside him and arranged the flowers. They were huge yellow roses, with long stems and crisp leaves--a kind of salmon-pink yellow. Herman Medfield glanced at them grudgingly. It seemed to him they were a singularly displeasing color. He had not supposed there were any roses of that shade of yellow! He grew roses himself, and he knew something about them. He shrugged his shoulder a little toward them and took up the pen.

"Put them somewhere else," he said irritably.

A little clear color flushed up in her face. "Would you like them on the table?" she asked.

"Yes--please."

She removed the vase and placed it on the table across the room and went out.

He stared at the heading on the paper: "My dear Julian." After all, what was there he could say to the boy? He could tell him he was in a hospital. But that might seem weak--as if he wanted sympathy--because he was down.... Herman Medfield never asked for sympathy; his heart was especially hard toward men who did. They were always the devils who were down and out--that asked for sympathy--and hoped to get some of his money to waste--as they had wasted their own. He would give hundreds to a man who stood up to him--when he would not give a dollar to the one that whined.

He dipped the pen again and wrote rapidly--a mere note, telling the boy that he was away from home for a while--under the doctor's orders, nothing serious, nothing to worry any one; he should be around again in a few days. He signed it grimly and hunted up the banker's address and directed and sealed it.... That was done! He pushed the letter from him. He was tired. He wanted a cigar.

There was a quick knock at the door. Dr. Carmon had finished his operation and made his round of visits in the hospital and he was doing Suite A.

Herman Medfield greeted him with relief. "Come in," he said. "Come in and sit down.... I am sorry I cannot offer you a cigar," he added with a little humorous sigh.

The doctor sat down. "Hard work, is it?"

XII

He drew his chair in front of Herman Medfield, leaning forward a little, with his elbows on his knees.

"Find it hard, do you?" he asked pleasantly.

"I've known easier things," replied Herman Medfield dryly.

The doctor regarded him without comment. He reached out a hand to his pulse and took out his watch and sat with bent head a minute. Then he slipped the watch back into his pocket and stood up.

"I'd like to put you on that couch a few minutes," he said. "That's right--over there." He rolled up the window-shades and moved the couch nearer to the window. Herman Medfield lay down, half grudgingly.

"Now, if you will relax and breathe easily--" The doctor's face had grown absorbed. He seemed not to see Herman Medfield, but something that might have been an abstraction--the essence, or spirit, of Medfield. And while he gazed at this Medfield abstraction, Dr. Carmon's hands were busy. They thumped the liver and sounded the heart and pounded the back of Herman Medfield with quick, absorbed movements that left no depth unsounded.

"Um-m!" he said at last.

And then--"Ah!"

He straightened his back and beamed down on Herman Medfield from behind the spectacles.

"All right--am I?" asked Medfield.

"You'll be all right--in three or four days," responded Dr. Carmon, with his round, successful diagnosis smile.

"You won't have to operate?" Medfield's face lighted.

"Operate--? Oh--! Yes--I shall operate." The doctor spoke absently. It was the tone of one to whom it could never occur not to operate. "I shall operate. It's fine!"

"Better than you thought?" asked Medfield hopefully.

The doctor's absent-minded gaze broke. He smiled. "Worse! Much worse than I thought. You could not live three months--as you are."

Herman Medfield sat up.

Dr. Carmon surveyed him proudly. "And in three months you'll be a new man--made over--top to toe!"

"When do you operate?" asked Medfield a little dryly.

"Um--this is Wednesday? Yes--about Friday, then." He got up. "There is something I want you to do meantime." He rang for the nurse and called for a roll of bandage.

When she brought it, he asked her to send Aunt Jane to Suite A.

"Do you know where she is?" he asked.

"In the Children's Ward, I think," said Miss Canfield.

"Very well. Ask her to come. I want her to have special charge of this brace for me."

He turned back to the window. "Now, if I may have you here. I want to take measurements, please."

The man stood straight as a tailor's dummy while the surgeon's hands flitted over and around him. The tall figure outlined against the window had a singular grace and charm; and the short, square one moving jerkily around it, taking measurements and jotting down figures had an added absurdity from the contrast.... Now, Dr. Carmon was on his hands and knees on the floor; and now, stretching tiptoe to pass a tape-measure over the tall, thin shoulders of the aristocratic figure.

It was thus that Aunt Jane saw the two men as she opened the door. She stood for a moment in the doorway. Then she closed the door and came in.

But between the opening of the door and the closing it, she had seen for the first time Dr. Carmon as he really was--a homely and grotesque and brusque little man. It added, perhaps, a touch of severity to the expression of the round face and its crisp cap strings.

He looked up quickly from his thumb that marked a place on the tape-measure, and glanced from one to the other.

"You know Mr. Medfield?" he said.

"I met Mr. Medfield when he came--yesterday," said Aunt Jane safely.

"Yes, we have become acquainted," rejoined Herman Medfield, with a little polite gesture of the hand.

Aunt Jane's face was non-committal.

Dr. Carmon turned to it. "I want a brace made--for temporary use. Here are the measurements. Be sure to give it plenty of room here--and here." He drew a few lines and jotted down the figures and handed the paper to her.

She received it in silence.

The millionaire stood at his ease, smiling at her. He did not look like a man condemned to die in three months. His eye was keen and there was a little line of firmness under the smile of his lips.

"I want to see my lawyer," he said. "I will go to my office in the morning. There are things to arrange."

Dr. Carmon paused abruptly. "I thought you attended to all that before you came." His tone was brusque. "I told you----"

"I did not understand," said the millionaire quietly. "I did not think you knew." He looked at him.

"Well--of course--if you have to--" Dr. Carmon's gaze was reluctant and his brow puckered itself.... Standing beside the millionaire and looking up at him with the puckered forehead, he may have seemed an awkward and fussy and ineffectual little man.

"He can't go!" It was Aunt Jane's voice, prompt and decisive--and the two men turned and looked at her.

"He can't go," she repeated calmly. "He's got to have this on." She motioned to the paper she held in her hand. "He's got to have it on right away and go to bed."

"But--" said Herman Medfield.

"You can't go to bed and go to an office, too," replied Aunt Jane firmly.

The millionaire looked at her. His glance travelled to Dr. Carmon's face. There was the merest hint of a twinkle behind the round professional glasses, and Herman Medfield regarded it.

"Do I understand that this is _your_ order?" he asked politely.

"It's better for you--not--to wait," admitted Dr. Carmon slowly.

"You mean I'm taking chances?"

"Yes."

The millionaire's glance fell. "Very well. I shall do as you say, of course." He moved a little away and sat down.

Aunt Jane's glance followed him--the look in it changed subtly. Something that had been in it up in the Children's Ward came back.

"You can have your lawyer here," she said almost kindly. "We've got plenty of pens and paper and ink. And you can tell him all you want to without going to any office, I guess. Now I'll go get this made for you; and you be ready to have it on when I come back."

She opened the door and went out.

The two men looked at each other like two boys--and smiled. Both boys had had mothers. Herman Medfield's mother had worn a cap, an aristocratic affair of ribbons and lace that had little relation to the clear-starched whiteness of Aunt Jane's muslin strings; Dr. Carmon's mother had never known what it was to cover her smooth-parted hair under a cap--she had been a hard-working woman and far removed from Mrs. Oliver Medfield's way of life. But the two men, as they watched Aunt Jane disappear, had a sudden common sense of motherly protection and wisdom; and they smiled across to each other in almost shamefaced understanding.

"It really _is_ better not to wait--" said the doctor, half apologetically: "It _might_ be all right. But we're taking chances enough as it is--without that."

The professional look had come back to his face. He was looking absently before him at something unseen.

XIII

It was the sixth day, and Edith Dalton was doing well--the wound was doing well. As for the woman, she lay with indifferent eyes looking at the white wall of her room and waiting recovery. The only time that the look in the eyes changed was when Aunt Jane appeared in the doorway for a moment, or sat by her bed. Then it would deepen to a question and flicker toward hope.

"Doing well?" Aunt Jane would say. "They give you good things to eat, don't they?"

The woman smiled faintly. "Yes."

"That's right. Eat and sleep. And hope don't hurt--a little of it."

"Aunt Jane?" The voice had a sharp note. The invalid was resting against the pillows that had been raised on the bed.

"Yes?" Aunt Jane turned back.

"Hasn't he been to see me--once--my husband?" There was a shamed, half-imperious note in the words.

Aunt Jane sat down comfortably by the bed and looked at her. Then she shook her head chidingly.... "I've never seen a sick person yet that wasn't unreasonable," she said.

The woman's face relaxed. "I know," she said apologetically, "but when one is sick the days are long."

"You told me, that was four-five days ago," said Aunt Jane, "that you didn't want to see him or hear his name mentioned. At least, that's what I understood."

The woman was not looking at her.

"So when he's been here, time and again--three times a day, some days--I've told him you couldn't see anybody--not even your husband.... I thought that was what you wanted."

"Yes," said the woman faintly.

Aunt Jane nodded. "And now you're acting hurt and keeping yourself from getting well."

The woman flushed a little. "I don't think I am."

"Yes, you are," said Aunt Jane comfortably. "Of course it don't make any real difference. You'll get well sometime.... Only it seems foolish. Well, I must be going on my rounds. Keep up good courage." She stood up and moved toward the door.

"Aunt Jane."

"Yes."

"You haven't time to stop a few minutes?"

"Why, yes. I've got plenty of time, if you want me. There's two operations this morning, but everything's ready."

"Two operations?" The woman's lips grew white.

"One's a man with five children. Got to lose his leg.... His wife's plucky. She's gone right to work earning money. But she's coming this morning to be with him for the operation. She says he'll stand it better. I guess she's right. They seem pretty close together.... That's the only thing I really envy in this world," said Aunt Jane slowly, ... "having a husband that loves you and cares." She sat quietly watching the locust leaves outside the window. They shimmered in the light.

The woman raised a hand. "You don't understand," she said.

"Like enough not," said Aunt Jane. "It's hard work understanding other folks' feelings. I don't more'n half understand mine.... I suppose you were kind of disappointed in him...?

"I don't know--" The words faltered.

"They be, mostly."

"Is every one unhappily married?" the voice flashed at her.

"Well, I didn't say just that. But most of 'em find it different from what they expected--men being men.... Women are women, too. I'll have to go now. It's time for the man, and she'll be waiting in the parlor. I told her to wait there." She rose slowly. "You don't want to see him, if he should happen to come to-day?"

"No." The lips trembled a little and closed over the word.

"All right," said Aunt Jane soothingly. "Take plenty of time to get well. He can wait. He's a good kind to wait, I can see that." She had drifted out.

The woman's eyes followed her eagerly with a question in them. She put up her hands to cover them. "Yes," she said softly, "he can wait."

As Aunt Jane opened the waiting-room door the man sprang to his feet. He was radiant with a look of courage, and his eyes glowed as he came toward her.

She shook her head, smiling a little. Then she turned to a young woman waiting by the door. She was strong and fresh and a look of purpose gleamed in her face. Aunt Jane looked at her approvingly. "Go down to Room 20, Mrs. Patton, on the left-hand side. I've told Dr. Carmon you're to be there. It's all right."

As the young woman left the room she turned to him again.

"Won't she see me?" he asked.

"Have patience three or four days more," she said slowly. "She'll be wanting to see you before long now."

"How do you know?" He reached out a hand.

"I don't know, but I seem to feel it in my bones. She's most well.... She's well all through."

And she left him standing there, a glad light in his eyes, while she went down the corridor to the man waiting in Room 20.

XIV