30 chapters
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30 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient houses that seemed to meet in the distance. The man found it infinitely inviting. It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but comfortable. The thought of coming there to live pleased him. Surely here would be peace—long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and forget. It was an impression of home, really, that it gave. The man did not know that, or care particularly. He had been wandering about a long
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at the table. It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that Aunt Harriet lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney's father had borrowed her small patrimony and she was “boarding it out.” Eighteen years she had “boarded it out.” Sidney had been born and grown to girlhood; the dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuable patents lost for lack of money to renew them—gone with his faith in himself de
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters. When he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing with vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly. “You and I, Reginald,” he apostrophized the bureau, “will have to come to an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what blows down is not to be touched.” Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of spirit. The morning sun had always call
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
On the morning after Sidney had invited K. Le Moyne to take her to walk, Max Wilson came down to breakfast rather late. Dr. Ed had breakfasted an hour before, and had already attended, with much profanity on the part of the patient, to a boil on the back of Mr. Rosenfeld's neck. “Better change your laundry,” cheerfully advised Dr. Ed, cutting a strip of adhesive plaster. “Your neck's irritated from your white collars.” Rosenfeld eyed him suspiciously, but, possessing a sense of humor also, he gr
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap lay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of releasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to the point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of the apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red and white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland. “And so,” said K. Le Moyne, “you liked it all? It didn't startle you?” “Well, in
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital. It was a Wilson day, the young surgeon having six cases. One of the innovations Dr. Max had made was to change the hour for major operations from early morning to mid-afternoon. He could do as well later in the day,—his nerves were steady, and uncounted numbers of cigarettes did not make his hand shake,—and he hated to get up early. The staff had fallen into the way of attending Wilson's operations. His technique was good; but technique alone never
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Carlotta Harrison pleaded a headache, and was excused from the operating-room and from prayers. “I'm sorry about the vacation,” Miss Gregg said kindly, “but in a day or two I can let you off. Go out now and get a little air.” The girl managed to dissemble the triumph in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said languidly, and turned away. Then: “About the vacation, I am not in a hurry. If Miss Simpson needs a few days to straighten things out, I can stay on with Dr. Wilson.” Young women on the eve of a va
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K. in the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother. The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night before she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her mother until the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her “Daily Thoughts” reading. Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleas
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital, although they were chaotic enough at first. There were uniformed young women coming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were bandages and dressin
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over, a small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee, made his way along the Street. He moved with the air of one having a definite destination but a by no means definite reception. As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus and maple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street. At the door of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped. Owing to a slight change in the grade
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The hot August days dragged on. Merciless sunlight beat in through the slatted shutters of ward windows. At night, from the roof to which the nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding roofs were seen to be covered with sleepers. Children dozed precariously on the edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque postures of sleep. There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air. Even the nurses, stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Tillie was gone. Oddly enough, the last person to see her before she left was Harriet Kennedy. On the third day after Mr. Schwitter's visit, Harriet's colored maid had announced a visitor. Harriet's business instinct had been good. She had taken expensive rooms in a good location, and furnished them with the assistance of a decor store. Then she arranged with a New York house to sell her models on commission. Her short excursion to New York had marked for Harriet the beginning of a new heaven an
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
A few days after Wilson's recognition of K., two most exciting things happened to Sidney. One was that Christine asked her to be maid of honor at her wedding. The other was more wonderful. She was accepted, and given her cap. Because she could not get home that night, and because the little house had no telephone, she wrote the news to her mother and sent a note to Le Moyne: DEAR K.,—I am accepted, and IT is on my head at this minute. I am as conscious of it as if it were a halo, and as if I had
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had selected for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of the city, and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson had gone out to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him. For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice. She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes. She knew quite well the ki
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Palmer and Christine returned from their wedding trip the day K. discovered Tillie. Anna Page made much of the arrival, insisted on dinner for them that night at the little house, must help Christine unpack her trunks and arrange her wedding gifts about the apartment. She was brighter than she had been for days, more interested. The wonders of the trousseau filled her with admiration and a sort of jealous envy for Sidney, who could have none of these things. In a pathetic sort of way, she mother
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits with his wedding day. In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much in love with his wife. But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of marriage had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face value. Grace had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed to be. With Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now—all his small indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on, li
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a talk with K. the night before she left. Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by the table and watched her as she moved about the room. The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and down the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch in the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day. This was when the gay little sleigh had stopped in front of the house. Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment. Christine's parlor was gay with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her tea-cups. K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had turned to see Sidney in the doorway, and leaped to his feet. “I can't come in,” she cried. “I am only here for a moment. I am out sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson. It's perfectly deli
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
To Harriet Kennedy, Sidney's sentence of thirty days' suspension came as a blow. K. broke the news to her that evening before the time for Sidney's arrival. The little household was sharing in Harriet's prosperity. Katie had a helper now, a little Austrian girl named Mimi. And Harriet had established on the Street the innovation of after-dinner coffee. It was over the after-dinner coffee that K. made his announcement. “What do you mean by saying she is coming home for thirty days? Is the child i
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Winter relaxed its clutch slowly that year. March was bitterly cold; even April found the roads still frozen and the hedgerows clustered with ice. But at mid-day there was spring in the air. In the courtyard of the hospital, convalescents sat on the benches and watched for robins. The fountain, which had frozen out, was being repaired. Here and there on ward window-sills tulips opened their gaudy petals to the sun. Harriet had gone abroad for a flying trip in March and came back laden with new i
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Sidney went into the operating-room late in the spring as the result of a conversation between the younger Wilson and the Head. “When are you going to put my protegee into the operating-room?” asked Wilson, meeting Miss Gregg in a corridor one bright, spring afternoon. “That usually comes in the second year, Dr. Wilson.” He smiled down at her. “That isn't a rule, is it?” “Not exactly. Miss Page is very young, and of course there are other girls who have not yet had the experience. But, if you ma
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
“My God, Sidney, I'm asking you to marry me!” “I—I know that. I am asking you something else, Max.” “I have never been in love with her.” His voice was sulky. He had drawn the car close to a bank, and they were sitting in the shade, on the grass. It was the Sunday afternoon after Sidney's experience in the operating-room. “You took her out, Max, didn't you?” “A few times, yes. She seemed to have no friends. I was sorry for her.” “That was all?” “Absolutely. Good Heavens, you've put me through a
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
The announcement of Sidney's engagement was not to be made for a year. Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that it was best. Many things could happen in a year. Carlotta would have finished her training, and by that time would probably be reconciled to the ending of their relationship. He intended to end that. He had meant every word of what he had sworn to Sidney. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly—as far as he could be unselfish. The secret was to be carefu
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care—not in black this time, but in white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her head, and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to be gay, cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory. He expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the secret of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to forget their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when th
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a late operation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecture notes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received the insistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flying fingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood. There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could force strength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrils dilated, her
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient did not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the gas office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy to reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence of the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the conviction that he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched. For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals keep their secre
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
K. spent all of the evening of that day with Wilson. He was not to go for Joe until eleven o'clock. The injured man's vitality was standing him in good stead. He had asked for Sidney and she was at his bedside. Dr. Ed had gone. “I'm going, Max. The office is full, they tell me,” he said, bending over the bed. “I'll come in later, and if they'll make me a shakedown, I'll stay with you to-night.” The answer was faint, broken but distinct. “Get some sleep...I've been a poor stick...try to do better
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
Johnny Rosenfeld was dead. All of K.'s skill had not sufficed to save him. The operation had been a marvel, but the boy's long-sapped strength failed at the last. K., set of face, stayed with him to the end. The boy did not know he was going. He roused from the coma and smiled up at Le Moyne. “I've got a hunch that I can move my right foot,” he said. “Look and see.” K. lifted the light covering. “You're right, old man. It's moving.” “Brake foot, clutch foot,” said Johnny, and closed his eyes aga
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence taking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school bell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly sharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet fashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went. An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised the baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach them himself this year. A story
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
K. was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sidney as unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude. “It was glamour, that was all, K.,” said Sidney bravely. “But, perhaps,” said K., “it's just because of that miserable incident with Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told me the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard, and—” Sidney was exasperated. “Do you want me
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