But not once did the collie relax his vigil. His master had come back to him. And Macduff was not minded to risk losing him again by stirring away from his room.
Vail stooped now and patted the disconsolate head. To the nurse he suggested:
“As soon as Mr. Creede wakes up, let Macduff go in and see him, won’t you? He loves the dog, and I know him well enough to be sure it won’t hurt him to have his old chum lie at his bedside instead of out here.”
“Dogs carry germs,” sniffed the nurse in strong disapproval.
“They carry friendliness, too,” he reminded her, “and companionship in loneliness. And they carry comfort and loyalty and fun. We know they carry those. We are still in doubt about the germs. Let him in there when Mr. Creede wakes. If it were I, I’d rather have my chum-dog come to my bedside when I’m sick than any human I know—except one. And that reminds me—Dr. Lawton would like you to notify Miss Lane as soon as Mr. Creede is wide awake. The doctor says Creede has been asking for her and that it’ll do him good to see her.”
Vail moved wearily away. He felt all at once tired and old, and he realized for the first time that life is immeasurably bigger than are the people who must live it.
The world seemed to him gray and profitless. The future stretched away before him, dreary and barren as a rainy sea.
For these be the universal symptoms that go with real or imaginary obstacles in the love race, especially when the racer is well under thirty and is in love for the first time.
Two hours later as Thaxton sat alone in his study laboriously trying to occupy himself in the monthly expense accounts he heard the nurse go to Doris’s room.
He heard (and thrilled to) the girl’s light footfall as she followed the white-gowned guardian along the upper hallway and into the sick room. He heard the door close behind her. Its impact seemed to crush the very heart of him.