“We’re the ornamental part,” Margaret would say brightly. “We do the reading and the singing and the amusing.”
Arabella was a born nurse, so both the patients said. There was something peculiarly soothing in the soft touch of her hands and in the low tones of her voice. She was happy in it, too. Her eyes almost lost their wistful look sometimes, so absorbed would she be in her self-appointed task.
As for Margaret—Margaret was a born nurse, too, and both the patients said that; though one of the patients, it is true, complained sometimes that she did not give him half a chance to know it. Margaret certainly did not divide her time evenly. Any one could see that. No one, however—not even Frank Spencer himself—could really question the propriety of her devoting herself more exclusively to young McGinnis, the man she had promised to marry.
Margaret was particularly bright and cheerful these days; but to a close observer there was something a little forced about it. No one seemed to notice it, however, except McGinnis. He watched her sometimes with somber eyes; but even he said nothing—until the day before he was to leave the Mill House. Then he spoke.
“Margaret,” he began gently, “there is something I want to say to you. I am going to be quite frank with you, and I want you to be so with me. Will you?”
“Why, of—of course,” faltered Margaret, nervously, her eyes carefully avoiding his steady gaze. Then, hopefully: “But, Bobby, really I don’t think you should talk to-day; not—not about anything that—that needs that tone of voice. Let’s—let’s read something!”
Bobby shook his head decidedly.
“No. I’m quite strong enough to talk to-day. In fact, I’ve wanted to say this for some time, but I’ve waited until to-day so I could say it. Margaret, you—you don’t love me any longer.”
“Oh—Bobby! Why, Bobby!” There was dismayed distress in Margaret’s voice. When one has for some weeks been trying to lash one’s self into a certain state of mind and heart for the express sake of some other one, it is distressing to have that other one so abruptly and so positively show that one’s labor has been worse than useless.
“You do not, Margaret—you know that you do not.”