“I should hate to have anything ordered and
wasted.”
“Then we’ll stay.”
“It’s fearfully extravagant.”
“I’ll be thrifty as to moons while you
are in the hospital.”
So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney
had to stay, anyhow. For, having perched herself
out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid, slowly
but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water.
K. happened to be looking in another direction.
So it occurred that at one moment, Sidney sat on
a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly
pretty, and knowing it, and the next she was standing
neck deep in water, much too startled to scream, and
trying to be dignified under the rather trying circumstances.
K. had not looked around. The splash had been
a gentle one.
“If you will be good enough,” said Sidney,
with her chin well up, “to give me your hand
or a pole or something—because if the river
rises an inch I shall drown.”
To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when
he turned and saw her. He went out on the sugar-loaf
rock, and lifted her bodily up its slippery sides.
He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.
“Well!” said Sidney, when they were both
on the rock, carefully balanced.
“Are you cold?”
“Not a bit. But horribly unhappy.
I must look a sight.” Then, remembering
her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:—
“Thank you for saving me.”
“There wasn’t any danger, really, unless—unless
the river had risen.”
And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter,
the first, perhaps, for months. He shook with
it, struggled at the sight of her injured face to
restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety
by fixing his eyes on the river-bank.
“When you have quite finished,” said Sidney
severely, “perhaps you will take me to the hotel.
I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed.”
He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet
skirts clung to her; her shoes were sodden and heavy.
She clung to him frantically, her eyes on the river
below. With the touch of her hands the man’s
mirth died. He held her very carefully, very
tenderly, as one holds something infinitely precious.
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 gets a surgeon anywhere. Wilson was
getting results. Even the most jealous of that
most jealous of professions, surgery, had to admit
that he got results.
