The White Linen Nurse Part 21

And as for the White Linen Nurse herself,--what with chilling and rechilling melons,--and broiling and unbroiling steaks,--and making and remaking coffee,--and hunting frantically for a different-sized water gla.s.s,--or a prettier colored plate, there was no time for anything except an occasional hurried surrept.i.tious nibble half way between the stove and the table.

Yet in all that raucous early morning hour together neither man nor girl suffered towards the other the slightest personal sense of contrition or resentment, for each mind was trained equally fairly,--whether reacting on its own case or another's--to differentiate pretty readily between mean nerves and a--mean spirit.

Only once in fact across the intervening chasm of crankiness did the Senior Surgeon hurl a smile that was even remotely self-conscious or conciliatory. Glancing up suddenly from a particularly sharp and disagreeable speech, he noted the White Linen Nurse's red lips mumbling softly one to the other.

"Are you specially--religious,--Miss Malgregor?" he grinned quite abruptly.

"No, not specially, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. "Why, sir?"

"Oh, it 's only--" grinned the Senior Surgeon dourly, "it's only that every time I'm especially ugly to you, I see your lips moving as though in 'silent prayer' as they call it--and I was just wondering--if there was any special formula you used with me--that kept you so--everlastingly--d.a.m.ned serene. Is there?"

"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.

"What is it?" demanded the Senior Surgeon quite bluntly.

"Do I have to tell?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. A little tremulously in her hand the empty cup she was carrying rattled against its saucer.

"Do I have to tell?" she repeated pleadingly.

A delirious little thrill of power went fluttering through the Senior Surgeon's heart.

"Yes, you have to tell me!" he announced quite seriously.

In absolute submission to his demand, though with very palpable reluctance, the White Linen Nurse came forward to the table, put down the cup and saucer, and began to finger a trifle nervously at the cloth.

"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean any harm, sir," she stammered. "But all I say is,--honest and truly all I say is,--'Bah! He's nothing but a man--nothing but a man--nothing but a man!' over and over and over,--just that, sir!"

Uproariously the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his feet.

"I guess after all I'll have to let the little kid call you--'Peach'--one day a week!" he acknowledged jocosely.

With infinite seriousness then he tossed back his great splendid head,--shook himself free apparently from all unhappy memories,--and started for his work-room,--a great gorgeously vital, extraordinarily talented, gray-haired _boy_ l.u.s.ting joyously for his own work and play again--after a month's distressing illness!

From the edge of the hall he turned round and made a really boyish grimace at her.

"Now if I only had the horns or the cloven hoof--that you think I have,"

he called, "what an easy time I'd make of it, raking over all the letters and ads. that are stacked up on my desk!"

"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.

Only once did he come back into the kitchen or dining-room for anything.

It was at seven o'clock. And the White Linen Nurse was still was.h.i.+ng dishes.

As radiant as a gray-haired G.o.d he towered up in the doorway. The boyish rejuvenation in him was even more startling than before.

"I'm feeling so much like a fighting c.o.c.k this morning," he said, "I think I'll tackle that paper on surgical diseases of the pancreas that I have to read at Baltimore next month!" A little startlingly the gray lines furrowed into his cheeks again. "For Heaven's sake--see that I'm not disturbed by anything!" he admonished her warningly.

It must have been almost eight o'clock when the ear-splitting scream from upstairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken into the hall.

"Oh, Peach! Peach!" yelled the Little Girl's frenzied voice. "Come quick and see--what Fat Father's doing _now_--out on the piazza!"

Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hung himself, she tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the "morning after"?

But staunchly and rea.s.suringly from the further end of the _piazza_ the Senior Surgeon's broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily and in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing of the piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty bird cages.

Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy releasing the last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched with ink and behind his left ear a fountain pen dallied daringly.

At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse's step the Senior Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance.

"Well, now, I imagine," he said, "well, now, I imagine I've really made you--mad!"

"No, not mad, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, sir,--but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. "Savage cats will get them!"

"It's a choice of their lives--or mine!" said the Senior Surgeon tersely.

"Yes, sir," droned the White Linen Nurse.

Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her. "For Heaven's sake--do you think--canary birds are more valuable than I am?" he demanded stentoriously.

Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great, sad, round tear rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse's flushed cheek.

"N--o,--not more valuable," conceded the White Linen Nurse. "But more--c-cunning."

Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon's hair a flush of real contrition spread hotly.

"Why--Rae!" he stammered. "Why, what a beast I am! Why--! Why!" In sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate excuse,--some adequate explanation. "Why, I'm sure I didn't mean to make you feel badly," he persisted. "Only I've lived alone so long that I suppose I've just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing if I wanted it and--throwing it away if I didn't! And canary birds, now?

Well--really--" he began to glower all over again. "Oh, thunder!" he finished abruptly, "I guess I'll go on down to the hospital where I belong!"

A little wistfully the White Linen Nurse stepped forward. "The hospital?" she said. "Oh,--the hospital? Do you think that perhaps you could come home a little bit earlier than usual--to-night--and--and help me catch--just one of the canaries?"

"What?" gasped the Senior Surgeon. Incredulously with a very inky finger he pointed at his own breast. "What? I?" he demanded. "I? Come home--early--from the hospital to help--you--catch a canary?"

Disgustedly without further comment he turned and stalked back again into the house.

The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later.

Watching his exit down the long gravel path the Little Crippled Girl commented audibly on the matter.

"Peach! Peach!" called the Little Crippled Girl. "What makes Fat Father walk so--surprised?"

People at the hospital also commented upon him.

"Gee!" giggled the new nurses. "We bet he 's a Tartar! But isn't his hair cute? And say--" gossiped the new nurses, "is it really true that that Malgregor girl was pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and he wouldn't let her out till she'd promised to marry him? Isn't it _awful?_ Isn't it _romantic_?"

"Why! Dr. Faber 's back!" fluttered the senior nurses. "Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he beautiful? But, oh, say," they worried, "what do you suppose Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare talk _things_ to him,--just plain every-day _things_,--hats, and going to the theater, and what to have for breakfast?--breakfast?" they gasped. "Why, yes, of course!" they reasoned more sanely. "Steak? Eggs?

Even oatmeal? Why, people had to eat--no matter how wonderful they were!

But evenings?" they speculated more darkly. "But evenings?" In the whole range of human experience--was it even so much as remotely imaginable that--evenings--the Senior Surgeon and--Rae Malgregor--sat in the hammock and held hands? "Oh, Gee!" blanched the senior nurses.

"Good-morning, Dr. Faber!" greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from behind her austere office desk.

"Good-morning, Miss Hartzen!" said the Senior Surgeon.