“But her face—her face,” cried Joy, “was her face cut? Tell us——”
“Her face—yes. It was cut rather badly. But it’s been sewed up now, and with some novacain she will have an easy night.”
“But will she—will the cuts heal? Cuts do heal, don’t they?” Joy implored.
“Oh, certainly, cuts heal. Of course, there’ll be a nasty scar pretty much over the whole of her face——”
She blinked her eyes at the white-coated doctor who could say such unthinkable things with brisk, unchanged readiness. “Félicie’s face scarred. She was—she was the loveliest thing you ever saw. The loveliest thing you ever saw.”
“I would suggest,” said the doctor, “that you both go home and get a little sleep. Everything will be better in the morning. Perhaps you can even see her then.”
“See her!” Hal Jennings echoed.
Joy looked at his face. Pity, of course—but strongest, the recoil of horror.
Later, she could not force her troubled brain to sleep. Félicie of the unforgettable loveliness—with her face puckered into scars—How would a love that had been sorely tried already receive this hideousness? And how—how to tell Madame Durant. . . .
When the yellow rays of a spotless morning scoured clean by yesterday’s rainfall embraced her room, she rose and whipped up her flagging nerves with a cold sponge. Before the world-conquering exhilaration of the plunge could wear off, she poured a concise account of the accident into the ear-trumpet, minimizing it to such an extent that Madame Durant demanded why they hadn’t brought Félicie straight home.