K Part 35

Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up with tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as she might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled up at her whimsically.

"Run for your life. The dam's burst!" he said.

As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. The internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in their b.u.t.tonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where the kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting turkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, services were held in the chapel downstairs.

Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down elevators. Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet slippers.

Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor the wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for the occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who drove the ambulance.

On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in crisp caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved a place for the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready to run out between rejoicings, as it were--for a cigarette or an ambulance call, as the case might be.

Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.

The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising above the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-gla.s.s windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her cap, always just a little awry.

Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes straying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! What a zest for living and for happiness she had!

The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:

"Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore G.o.d, even thy G.o.d, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

That was Sidney. She was good, and she had been anointed with the oil of gladness. And he--

His brother was singing. His deep ba.s.s voice, not always true, boomed out above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to him; he had been a good son.

Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the girl who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to Carlotta last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line of nurses.

Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted her head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.

The nurses sang:--

"O holy Child of Bethlehem!

Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us to-day."

The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's heavy throat shook with earnestness.

The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and weary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.

The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her a silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.

But the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a great box of roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From a neighbor."

Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that afternoon.

Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the corridor.

"Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.

"Merry Christmas!" she said. "You see!"--she glanced down to the rose she wore. "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."

"But they were for you!"

"They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a chance to enjoy them."

Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circ.u.mstances died before her frank glance.

There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without her; that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy man to his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire politely whether she had had her Christmas dinner.

Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.

"What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good friends?"

"d.a.m.n discipline!" said the pride of the staff.

Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes roused the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.

"My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning, and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for a ride."

He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he maliciously raised his voice a trifle.

"Just a little run," he urged. "Put on your warmest things."

Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock; but she had promised to go home.

"K. is alone."

"K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now."

The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. The heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreen in the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And, besides, if K. were with Christine--

"It's forbidden, isn't it?"

"I believe it is." He smiled at her.

"And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!"

"One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and then."

After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend and neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellion of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.

"Very well; I'll go."

Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and black despair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on her face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleigh would throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He would touch Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method: to play at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the cloak dropped and the danger was there.

The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went back to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair of woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays of holly scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey and ice-cream.

The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the ward. She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the instant composing of the restless ward to peace.

She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas was a festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she played cheerful things.