The nurse watched him go with a steely expression in her sharp green-blue eyes. Next she walked to a calender and marked on it the probable day when she might expect a response to the letter she had written Mrs. Widdemere.
Then she went upstairs and found her patient tossing restlessly. After all, she decided it might be better for her to follow the doctor’s orders. She would not have long to wait for orders from one higher in authority.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DOCTOR TAKES A HAND.
Doctor Wainridge had done a little thinking on his own part and he arrived at the Widdemere home early the next morning. Finding that the boy was in a listless state, from which he had been aroused only by his interest in his new friend, the physician, after dismissing the nurse, sat down by the bed-side and took the thin hand in his own.
“Robert, lad,” he began in a low voice that could not possibly be overheard by an intentional or unintentional eavesdropper, “I hear that you have made the acquaintance of that little gypsy lady who is staying next door.” The boy looked up with almost startled inquiry. He had not supposed that their meeting had been observed. Then a hard expression shadowed his eyes. “Huh, I might have known that sly cat would pry around. I suppose she told you.”
The good-natured doctor wanted to laugh aloud. He quite agreed with the boy’s description of the nurse, but, of course, it would not be ethical to permit the patient to know this and so he said, assuming an expression of professional interest merely: “Miss Squeers mentioned it to me, Robert, and of course, in her capacity as nurse, she feels, in the absence of your mother, that she should try, if possible, to influence you against a friendship that your mother might not wish you to make.”
The boy’s eyes flashed and he drew himself to a sitting posture. “Doctor Wainridge,” he said vehemently, “how can I ever get well if I am kept a prisoner with a jailor whom I hate, hate, hate! Can’t you dismiss Miss Squeers from my case and just look after me yourself. Gee whiz, Doctor Wainridge, aren’t there servants enough around this place to make me some broth and give me a bath.”
The doctor glanced at the closed door and put his fingers on his lips as a suggestion that the boy speak in a lower voice. “I cannot dismiss Miss Squeers,” he said, “because in your mother’s cable to me she asked that she be called, but, of course, as you know, a doctor’s orders must be carried out, and so I now order, that, until your mother dismisses me, you are to see as much of the little gypsy girl as possible, if you find her companionship amusing. You are merely children and as such need young companionship.” Then, after feeling the lad’s pulse and taking his temperature, he said loud and cheerily, “Well, Robert Widdemere, you feel pretty well I judge. Fever’s all gone and you look rested.”
“There wasn’t anything the matter with me yesterday only I was mad, mad clear through.” The boy cast a vindictive glance at the closed door on the other side of which they could both visualize a wrathful nurse, trying, if possible, to hear the conference she had been barred from. Then the boy confessed. “It was this way, Doctor Wainridge, that nice girl, Lady Red Bird, the one next door, told me that she would come back to the hedge yesterday afternoon to ask how I was getting on, and that nurse must have heard, for she took me driving and kept me away until I was so angry that it wore me all out, and I had a fever. Now, what worries me is, will Lady Red Bird ever come back again? It isn’t a bit likely that she will. Girls have too much pride to chase after a fellow, if he isn’t there when he says he will be. She’ll think I’m a cad. I just know she won’t come again, and I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.”
“Neither would I blame her, Robert,” the doctor agreed. “Now, laddie, listen to me. If you will rest all this morning and eat a good lunch and not be wrathful at your nurse whatever she may say or do, I’ll come over this afternoon and take you to call on your new friend. I’ve been planning for ever so long to drop in and see Miss Dahlia. I’ve been their family physician more years than I like to remember. Well, sonny, how does, that plan strike you.”