Graham and Dana King carried Isobel to an empty classroom where she quickly regained consciousness. Her first sensation was a deep thankfulness that the play was over and that she could tell about her injured knee. Jerry had already done so, a little conscience-smitten, and Uncle Johnny had rushed away for a doctor. Isobel looked at her crumpled rose-pink skirts with something akin to loathing and clung tightly to her mother's hand. Graham, in a voice that sounded far off, was assuring her that he could carry her out to the car without hurting her the least bit! And Dana King was asking, at regular intervals, and in an anxious voice, if she felt better. Oh, it was nice to have them all care—it made the pain easier——
...She liked the funny bright lights swimming all around her and the quick steps and the hushed voices.... Mrs. Hicks' little round eyes blinking at her ... the feel of the soft sheets and the doctor's cold touch on her poor, swollen knee ... the swinging things before her eyes and the far-off hum of voices that were really very close and the tiny star of light over the blur in the other end of the room ... the million stars ... the slippery taste of the medicine someone gave her ... and always mother's fingers tight, tight about her own....
"This is very serious," came in a small voice that couldn't be the doctor's because he spoke with a deep boom ... then she went to sleep....
CHAPTER XXII
JERRY WINS HER WAY
Poor, pretty Hermia—trying days followed her little hour of triumph. While the whole school buzzed over the gorgeousness of her costume, over the satin and silver-heeled slippers, over her prettiness and how she had really acted just as well as Ethel Barrymore, she lay very still on her white bed and let one doctor after another "do things" to her poor knee. There were consultations and X-ray photographs, and all through it old Doctor Bowerman, who had dosed her through mumps and measles, kept saying, at every opportunity, with a maddening wag of his bald head: "If you only hadn't been such a little fool as to walk on it!" Finally, after what seemed to Isobel a great deal of needless fuss, the verdict was given—in an impressive now-you'll-do-as-I-tell-you manner; she had torn the muscles and ligaments of her knee; some had stretched, little nerves had been injured; she must lie very quietly in bed for a few weeks and then—perhaps——
"I know what he means," Isobel had cried afterwards, in a passion of fear; "he means he can tell then whether I will ever be able to—to dance again or not!" The thought was so terrible that her mother had difficulty soothing her.
"If you do what he tells you now you'll be dancing again in less than no time," reassured Uncle Johnny. "Dr. Bowerman wants to frighten you so that you will be careful."
The first week or so of the enforced quiet passed very pleasantly; mother had engaged a cheery-faced nurse who proved to be excellent company; every afternoon some of the girls ran in on their way home from school with exciting bits of school gossip and the whispered inquiry—of which Isobel never wearied—how had it felt to faint straight into Dana King's arms? Uncle Johnny brought jolly gifts, flowers, books, puzzles; Gyp tirelessly carried messages to Amy Mathers and Cora Stanton and back again.