“Come in here; we can talk better.”
She did not sit down at first; but, observing that
her standing kept him on his feet, she sat finally.
Evidently she found it hard to speak.
“You were to come,” K. encouraged her,
“to see if we couldn’t plan something
for you. Now, I think I’ve got it.”
“If it’s another hospital—and
I don’t want to stay here, in the city.”
“You like surgical work, don’t you?”
“I don’t care for anything else.”
“Before we settle this, I’d better tell
you what I’m thinking of. You know, of
course, that I closed my hospital. I—a
series of things happened, and I decided I was in
the wrong business. That wouldn’t be important,
except for what it leads to. They are trying
to persuade me to go back, and—I’m
trying to persuade myself that I’m fit to go
back. You see,”—his tone was
determinedly cheerful, “my faith in myself has
been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that,
there isn’t much left.”
“You had been very successful.”
She did not look up.
“Well, I had and I hadn’t. I’m
not going to worry you about that. My offer
is this: We’ll just try to forget about—about
Schwitter’s and all the rest, and if I go back
I’ll take you on in the operating-room.”
“You sent me away once!”
“Well, I can ask you to come back, can’t
I?” He smiled at her encouragingly.
“Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson
and myself?”
“I understand.”
“Don’t you think you are taking a risk?”
“Every one makes mistakes now and then, and
loving women have made mistakes since the world began.
Most people live in glass houses, Miss Harrison.
And don’t make any mistake about this: people
can always come back. No depth is too low.
All they need is the willpower.”
He smiled down at her. She had come armed with
confession. But the offer he made was too alluring.
It meant reinstatement, another chance, when she
had thought everything was over. After all, why
should she damn herself? She would go back.
She would work her finger-ends off for him.
She would make it up to him in other ways. But
she could not tell him and lose everything.
“Come,” he said. “Shall we
go back and start over again?”
He held out his hand.
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 was going about that Mr. Le
Moyne intended to go away.
