Therefore: "Listen, Mac," he pleaded one day. "Bring me some clothes and let me take a walk. I need the exercise."
"Not yet, Kim," she denied him gently, but with her entrancing smile in full evidence. "But pretty quick, when that leg looks a little less like a Chinese puzzle, you and nursie go bye-bye."
"Beautiful, but dumb!" the Lensman growled. "Can't you and those cockeyed croakers realize that I'll never get any strength back if you keep me in bed all the rest of my life? And don't talk baby talk at me, either. I'm well enough at least so that you can wipe that professional smile off your pan and cut that soothing bedside manner of yours."
"Very well—I think so, too!" she snapped, patience at long last gone. "Somebody should tell you the truth. I always supposed that Lensmen had to have brains, but you've acted like a spoiled brat ever since you've been here. First you wanted to eat yourself sick, and now you want to get up, with bones half knit and burns half healed, and undo everything that has been done for you. Why don't you snap out of it and act your age for a change?"
"I never did think nurses had much sense, and now I know they haven't." Kinnison eyed her with intense disfavor, not at all convinced. "I'm not talking about going back to work. I mean a little gentle exercise, and I know what I need."
"You'd be surprised at what you don't know." And the nurse walked out, chin in air. In five minutes, however, she was back, her radiant smile again flashing.
"Sorry, Kim, I shouldn't have blasted off that way, I know that you're bound to back-fire and to have brain storms. I would, too, if I were——"
"Cancel it, Mac," he began, awkwardly. "I don't know why I have to be such a mutt as to be crabbing at you all the time."
"QX, Lensman," she replied, entirely serene now. "I do. You are not the type to stay in bed without it griping you; but when a man has been ground up into such hamburger as you are, he has to stay in bed whether he likes it or not, and no matter how much he pops off about it. Roll over here, now, and I'll give you an alcohol rub. But it won't be long now, really—pretty soon we'll have you out in a wheel chair——"
Thus it went for weeks. Kinnison knew his behavior was atrocious, abominable; but he simply could not help it. Every so often the accumulated pressure of his bitterness and anxiety would blow off; and, like a jungle tiger with a toothache, he would bite and claw anything or anybody within reach.