And, his head bowed, he kissed the lips.
It was then that the nurse returned, armed with an official looking interne. Miss Durant was to remain absolutely undisturbed, which was certainly not her condition at present. . . . To-morrow she would be better able to receive—strenuous callers. . . .
Joy and Greg left in a silence which lasted until they reached out-of-doors. Then Greg spoke: “I’ll go in town and get settled somewhere, then I’ll come back and camp around the place. They’ve got to let me see her again to-day.”
“But do you think they will, when they said——”
“She’s got to hear me! There she is thinking—thinking a few little cuts will make any difference to me——”
“It’s—it’s more than few little cuts, Greg.”
“Well—what if it is? She’s the girl I love. How could she think that I would—that I could—stop caring for her—because she is the victim of a hideous accident?”
Joy became conscious that she was looking at a very wonderful thing. A man in the world she had been learning to view so cynically—a man who was not made of such slim elements that he could cease to love. . . . And so she made her discovery. A man does not love a girl for what is in her. He loves her for and with what is in him. What could be greater honour than to have the love of a man such as he?
He took her to the door of Félicie’s apartment, and she went in to reassure Madame Durant with tales of how much Félicie had been able to talk and how comfortable, comparatively, she was. It approached the time to start in town for her lesson, and she gathered up her music from the little upright, with loving hands. All passes; Art alone endures.
Then suddenly Joy cried: “No—No!” in such a rending voice that some faint echo penetrated even to Madame Durant, who made her way into the living-room in time to see Joy throw her music violently from her. It scattered over the room, in a chaos of sheets, a wilderness of notes.