“At least let me dress the wound properly—if we may use your sister’s room for that purpose?”
“Certainly,” Rosamond said quickly, silencing the protest she saw coming. “You must submit Mr. Wood—er—Mills. You know the way, doctor?”
She opened the door, at the right of the music room, where the stairs began their windings to the upper stories. The patient, supported by the doctor, and still protesting about his appointment elsewhere the next morning, mounted slowly. Rosamond waited to gather up her bowl, linen and sponges; then she closed the door behind her and ran up the stairs, to render aid in the bandaging, if necessary.
CHAPTER XXII
The room to which the wounded gentleman was conducted, was at the back of the house looking toward the peak of the hill and over a corner of the orchard. Ordinary sounds from the road and the front of the house did not reach it.
Dr. Wells, washed, treated, and dressed the scratch, amid dissertations and reminiscences, while Rosamond assisted in the capacity of surgical nurse, and the patient stifled yawns and mirth and the desire to embrace the beautiful nurse; all three being blissfully unaware that there were anxious guests in the living room.
Mrs. Witherby, bearing all the marks of ‘half-asleep,’ sat in the big chair, looking about from door to door with barely suppressed excitement. Corinne stood near her, with gaping mouth and eyes, and a restless alarm that kept her standing, first on one foot, then on the other. Mrs. Witherby punched a cushion at her back, and said in a gusty whisper:
“I suppose we’d better sit down and wait till the nurse comes.”
“Has she a nurse?” Corinne whispered back.