Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ The Nurse was sleeping now in her own room across, with the doors open between. The slightest movement and she was up, tiptoeing in, with her hair in a long braid down her back and her wrapper sleeves falling away loosely from her white, young arms. So, aching with inaction, Billy Grant lay still until the silence across indicated that she was sleeping.
Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping first one leg, then the other, over the side. ”

“ Billy Grant debated. The Nurse was turning at the gate.
"No," he said. "As it is, Jenks. Bring it here."
Jenks brought the bottle and a glass, but the glass was motioned away. Billy Grant took the bottle in his hand and looked at it with a curious expression. Then he went over and put it in the upper bureau drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. Jenks watched him, bewildered.
"Just a little experiment, Jenks," said Billy Grant.
Jenks understood then and stopped smiling.
"I wouldn't, Mr. Grant," he said; "it will only make you lose confidence in yourself when it doesn't work out." ”

“ He took a step toward her, but still he did not touch her.
"If there is no one else," he said, "and if I tell you that you have made me a man again——"
"Gracious! Your eggs will be cold." She made a motion toward the egg-cup, but Billy Grant caught her hand.
"Damn the eggs!" he said. "Why don't you look at me?"
Something sweet and luminous and most unprofessional shone in the little Nurse's eyes, and the line of her pulse on a chart would have looked like a seismic disturbance. ”

“ There were purple hollows of anxiety and sleeplessness under her eyes.
"The perfect nurse," the head of the training school was fond of saying, "is more or less of a machine. Too much sympathy is a handicap to her work and an embarrassment to her patient. A perfect, silent, reliable, fearless, emotionless machine!"
Poor Junior Nurse!
Now Billy Grant, lying there listening to something out of Isaiah, should have been repenting his hard-living, hard-drinking young life; should have been forgiving the Lindley Grants—which story does not belong here ”

“ Nothing mattered except the Lindley Grants. The Nurse took his temperature and went out into the hall to read the thermometer, so he might not watch her face. Then, having recorded it under the nightlight, she came back into the room.
"Why don't you put on something comfortable?" demanded Billy Grant querulously. He was so comfortable himself and she was so stiffly starched, so relentless of collar and cap.
"I am comfortable."
"Where's that wrapper thing you've been wearing at night?" The Nurse rather flushed at this. "Why don't you lie down on the cot and take a nap? I don't need anything." ”

“ The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants—and, as such, entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could procure—shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not even putting up a good fight! Even the Nurse felt this, and when the Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the doorstep and told him.
"He doesn't care whether he gets well or not," she said dispiritedly. "All he seems to think about is to die and to leave everything he owns so his relatives won't get it. ”

“ It was not a great hospital, but it loomed large and terrible that night. The ambulance came out into the courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying a surgical bag. He looked over at her and waved his hand. "Big railroad wreck!" he called cheerfully. "Got 'em coming in bunches." He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the dusk, with the gong beating madly. Billy Grant, who had lapsed into a doze, opened his eyes.
"What—about it?" he asked. "You're not—married already—are you?" ”

“ The Nurse was just behind him, with an order book in one hand and a clean towel over her arm.
Billy Grant, from his bed, gave the turban a high sign of greeting.
"Allah—is—great!" he gasped cheerfully. "Well, doctor—I guess it's all—over but—the shouting."
II
Some time after midnight Billy Grant roused out of a stupor. He was quite rational; in fact, he thought he would get out of bed. But his feet would not move. This was absurd! One's feet must move if one wills them to! However, he could not stir either of them. Otherwise he was beautifully comfortable. ”

“ Satisfied now that he had fooled the Lindley Grants out of their very shoebuttons, Billy Grant was asleep—asleep with the thermometer under his arm and with his chest rising and falling peacefully.
The minister looked across at the Nurse, who was still holding the thermometer in place. She had buried her face in the white counterpane.
"You are a good woman, sister," he said softly. "The boy is happier, and you are none the worse. ”

“ He's wanting it now. He has been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but steady. "He is not to have it?"
"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair again, but while he's here—by-the-way, you'll have to watch the orderly. He'll bribe him."
"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman."
"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk too; but he's a drinker—a habitual drinker."
The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face buried in his hands. ”

“ The clean towel does not enter into the story, but for the curious be it said that were said personage to desire to listen to the patient's heart, the towel would be unfolded and spread, without creases, over the patient's chest—which reminds me of the Irishman and the weary practitioner; but every one knows that story.
Now that is what the Nurse should have done; instead of which, in the darkened passageway, being very tired and exhausted and under a hideous strain, she suddenly slipped her arm through the Staff Doctor's and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. ”

“ He wanted her near, but he did not put a hand on her. In the strain of those few days the strange, grey dawn seemed to have faded into its own mists. Only once, when she had brought his breakfast tray and was arranging the dishes for him—against his protest, for he disliked being waited on—he reached over and touched a plain band ring she wore. She coloured.
"My mother's," she said; "her wedding ring."
Their eyes met across the tray, but he only said, after a moment: "Eggs like a rock, of course! Couldn't we get 'em raw and boil them over here?" ”

“ But Billy Grant was still alive, sleeping naturally, and the thermometer, having been in place forty minutes, registered a hundred and three.
At eight o'clock the interne, hurrying over in fresh ducks, with a laudable desire to make the rounds before the Staff began to drop in, found Billy Grant very still and with his eyes closed, and the Nurse standing beside the bed, pale and tremulous.
"Why didn't you let me know?" he demanded, aggrieved. "I ought to have been called. I told you——"
"He isn't dead," said the Nurse breathlessly. "He—I think he is better." ”

“ The fact was, Billy Grant had a real reason for hating the Lindley Grants. When a fellow like that has all the Van Kleek money and a hereditary thirst, he is bound to drink. The Lindley Grants did not understand this and made themselves obnoxious by calling him "Poor Billy!" ”

“ But Jenks was not coming. Billy Grant rose to his full height and looked down at her—a new Billy Grant, the one who had got drunk at a club and given a ring to a cabman having died that grey morning some weeks before.
"I love you—love you—love you!" he said, and took her in his arms.
Now the Head Nurse was interviewing an applicant; and, as the H.N. took a constitutional each morning in the courtyard and believed in losing no time, she was holding the interview as she walked.
"I think I would make a good nurse," said the applicant, a trifle breathless, the h.n. being a brisk walker. ”

“ And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would waken to the craving again and fight all day.
"I'm afraid I'm about killing her," he said to the Staff Doctor one day; "but it's my chance to make a man of myself—now or never." ”

“ Neither of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured by the orderly's shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have—— He borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself.
Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of better treatment. ”