It was so arranged that Ruth went on duty after breakfast and remained until noon. The afternoon was her own; but from eight until midnight she sat beside the patient. At no time did she feel bodily or mental fatigue. Frequently she would doze in her chair; but the slightest movement on the bed aroused her.
At luncheon, on the third day, a thick-set man with a blue jaw smiled across his table at her. She recognized him as the man who had blundered into the wrong room.
"How is the patient?" he asked.
"He will live," answered Ruth.
"That's fine," said O'Higgins. "I suppose he'll be on his feet any day now."
"No. It will take at least three weeks."
"Well, so long as he gets on his feet in the end. You're a friend of the young man?"
"If you mean did I know him before he became ill, no."
"Ah." O'Higgins revolved this information about, but no angle emitted light. Basically a kindly man but made cynical and derisive by sordid contacts, O'Higgins had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as unselfishness. The man or woman who did something for nothing always excited his suspicions; they were playing some kind of a game. "You mean you were just sorry for him?"
"As I would be for any human being in pain."