It was then that the Nurse walked to the table and recorded “Delirious” in the symptom column.  And, though she was a Smith College girl and had taken a something or other in mathematics, she spelled it just then with two r’s.

Billy Grant was not in love with the Nurse.  She was a part of his illness, like the narrow brass bed and the yellow painted walls, and the thermometer under his arm, and the medicines.  There were even times—­when his fever subsided for a degree or two, after a cold sponge, and the muddled condition of mind returned—­when she seemed to have more heads than even a nurse requires.  So sentiment did not enter into the matter at all; it was revenge.

“You—­promised,” he said again; but the Nurse only smiled indulgently and rearranged the bottles on the stand in neat rows.

Jenks, the orderly, carried her supper to the isolation pavilion at six o’clock—­cold ham, potato salad, egg custard and tea.  Also, he brought her an evening paper.  But the Nurse was not hungry.  She went into the bathroom, washed her eyes with cold water, put on a clean collar, against the impending visit of the Staff Doctor, and then stood at the window, looking across at the hospital and feeling very lonely and responsible.  It was not a great hospital, but it loomed large and terrible that night.  The ambulance came out into the courtyard, and an interne, in white ducks, came out to it, carrying a surgical bag.  He looked over at her and waved his hand.  “Big railroad wreck!” he called cheerfully.  “Got ’em coming in bunches.”  He crawled into the ambulance, where the driver, trained to many internes, gave him time to light a cigarette; then out into the dusk, with the gong beating madly.  Billy Grant, who had lapsed into a doze, opened his eyes.

“What—­about it?” he asked.  “You’re not—­married already—­are you?”

“Please try to rest.  Perhaps if I get your beef juice——­”

“Oh, damn—­the beef juice!” whispered Billy Grant, and shut his eyes again—­but not to sleep.  He was planning how to get his way, and finally, out of a curious and fantastic medley of thoughts, he evolved something.  The doctor, of course!  These women had to do what the doctor ordered.  He would see the doctor!—­upon which, with a precision quite amazing, all the green monkeys on the footboard of the bed put their thumbs to their noses at him.

The situation was unusual; for here was young Grant, far enough from any one who knew he was one of the Van Kleek Grants—­and, as such, entitled to all the nurses and doctors that money could procure—­shut away in the isolation pavilion of a hospital, and not even putting up a good fight!  Even the Nurse felt this, and when the Staff Man came across the courtyard that night she met him on the doorstep and told him.

“He doesn’t care whether he gets well or not,” she said dispiritedly.  “All he seems to think about is to die and to leave everything he owns so his relatives won’t get it.  It’s horrible!”