“I’m going to drive the car all day,” she announced, emphatically.
“That’s fine,” he said again. At last she was interested. Of course, she couldn’t resist the children—she was such a feminine bit of creation.
“And I know you’re going to say you have
some state council or something on to-night,” she rattled along; then dropping her voice appealingly, “I know I’m an awful nuisance, that I’m just hindering you all the time, but I do want you to-night. Was it anything important?”
“Why, I wanted to see the boy who works at McGill’s. I was wondering if we could get him into the clinic to-morrow.”
“Oh, I’m sure we could. I’ll get Mother to speak for him. I’m so glad it was nothing urgent. I’ll expect you, then. You’ll hurry?”
Billy didn’t exactly hurry. He walked up and down the office a few times, looking more like swearing than his friends would have thought possible. Then he remembered the confession, “I know I’m just hindering your work all the time.” Now, when she was beginning to be interested, to even try to help, he was losing his temper over having a plan of his own upset. He got ready to go—which took some time—and on the way out he called at the store. They told him the boy had gone.
When Billy drove his ambulance out to the Burns farm the next morning and carried a little blanket-wrapped patient into the house, he found Ruth already there. She was bending over a cot, evidently trying to restore courage to a brave little fellow who was having a hard struggle to keep the corners of his mouth from going down. The child said something at last
and her head went down beside him on the pillow. There was an unsteady little gurgle of a laugh, so low and deep and comrady that it made him shiver a little. He had heard the little sob catch at the end of it and he was aware that it meant a good deal. When she looked up and saw him she colored warmly, then came straight to meet him in her frank, friendly way; but he thought she left him very soon to go back to her work. He would have liked to stay and watch her putting the children to bed. There was something so strong and easy in the way she lifted them; something so clever and steady in her supple hands—you could almost feel the touch in watching them; something so close and reassuring in the way she held the nervous ones. But his presence seemed to embarrass her, so he went away.
He didn’t see her again until evening. He had finished his part of the day’s programme, and had helped the doctor to pack away in the long, deep-purring Evison car the patients who required the easiest riding. He had never known Marjorie to be so adorable. She was unnecessarily solicitous for the comfort of the children, and she took orders from the doctor with a demure seriousness that was most becoming. When he tucked the rugs about her as she started off with her last convoy, she leaned down and whispered, “We’re expecting you for dinner.