When the preparations for moving Johnny back to the
big ward had been made, the other nurses left the
room, and Carlotta and the boy were together.
K. stopped her on her way to the door.
“Miss Harrison!”
“Yes, Dr. Edwardes.”
“I am not Dr. Edwardes here; my name is Le Moyne.”
“Ah!”
“I have not seen you since you left St. John’s.”
“No; I—I rested for a few months.”
“I suppose they do not know that you were—that
you have had any previous hospital experience.”
“No. Are you going to tell them?”
“I shall not tell them, of course.”
And thus, by simple mutual consent, it was arranged
that each should respect the other’s confidence.
Carlotta staggered to her room. There had been
a time, just before dawn, when she had had one of
those swift revelations that sometimes come at the
end of a long night. She had seen herself as
she was. The boy was very low, hardly breathing.
Her past stretched behind her, a series of small
revenges and passionate outbursts, swift yieldings,
slow remorse. She dared not look ahead.
She would have given every hope she had in the world,
just then, for Sidney’s stainless past.
She hated herself with that deadliest loathing that
comes of complete self-revelation.
And she carried to her room the knowledge that the
night’s struggle had been in vain—that,
although Johnny Rosenfeld would live, she had gained
nothing by what he had suffered. The whole night
had shown her the hopelessness of any stratagem to
win Wilson from his new allegiance. She had
surprised him in the hallway, watching Sidney’s
slender figure as she made her way up the stairs to
her room. Never, in all his past overtures to
her, had she seen that look in his eyes.
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 ill?”
“Not ill, although she is not quite well.
The fact is, Harriet,”—for it was
“Harriet” and “K.” by this
time,—“there has been a sort of semi-accident
up at the hospital. It hasn’t resulted
seriously, but—”
Harriet put down the apostle-spoon in her hand and
stared across at him.
“Then she has been suspended? What did
she do? I don’t believe she did anything!”
“There was a mistake about the medicine, and
she was blamed; that’s all.”
“She’d better come home and stay home,”
said Harriet shortly. “I hope it doesn’t
get in the papers. This dressmaking business
is a funny sort of thing. One word against you
or any of your family, and the crowd’s off somewhere
else.”
