’Tisn’t that, sister,” said he. “It’s the operation itself. I’m frightened of that.”
“But there’s nothing to fear, my boy,” said she. “You’ll go to sleep, nothing more than that, and when you wake you’ll be tucked up again, and as comfortable as possible.”
Somehow those frightened eyes, the white young face, the thin hands smote her with a new and acute compassion, a thing that touched her emotions, not her reasonable self. Often and often she had felt so sorry for these men who had faced peril so gallantly, and pain so bravely, but their peril and pain had never yet penetrated her like this. The boy had been so good, too, uncomplainingly bearing so much. She had a special feeling for him, for the grim matron had relaxed into a joke the other day, as they stood together by his bed, and declared that Jaye was in love with her, an opinion with which the man in the next bed, when appealed to, cordially agreed.
“So you mustn’t be afraid, Jaye,” she said. “You have borne pain so well all these days, and very soon now you will be free from it, and be getting quite strong again.”
He struggled with his reticent shyness a moment.
“I shouldn’t mind if you’d come with me, sister,” he said, “and be there while they’re doing it.”
Helen had never been present at any operation: it was not part of her duties, and the idea of it horrified her. Then she remembered that it would be perfectly possible for her to go with him to the operating-room, and remain there until he was under the anæsthetic. Then she would leave him, and return when he was back in bed again, before he had come round. She would not like going into the operating-room, and seeing the anæsthetic administered; even that would be horrible, but she did not hesitate in her answer.
“Why, of course I will,” she said, “if it would give you any comfort, Jaye. I will go and tell the surgeon I am coming with you.”
The boy’s face brightened.
“Thank you very much, sister,” he said. “I shan’t mind now.”