So, even though her father refused to discuss the subject Virginia took up the matter of furnishing the room with great enthusiasm. She sought advice from many persons but particularly from Joe Curtis, who was deemed, through sad experience, capable of expressing the desires of injured motorcyclists, and Miss Knight, who by long service had learned those things which were not good for them.
After prolonged discussion, Virginia and Joe decided that the room should be papered in an old fashioned design with a background of egg-shell blue. The windows were to be curtained with a fine net having a filet edge, and the furniture was to be of massive mahogany. Pictures portraying sporting scenes believed suitable by Joe and of gentle landscapes considered appropriate by the girl were to adorn the walls in equal number. A harmonizing smoking set was added, and the floor was to be strewn with Oriental rugs. Thus furnished, it was confidently argued, the room would be restful and agreeable to the most discriminating of motorcyclists.
When this plan was presented with pride to Miss Knight, she addressed the pair in a sarcastic manner, “Did you by chance have in mind the furnishing of a bridal suite? Haven’t you forgotten a breakfast room and a pipe organ?”
Reduced to a fitting condition of humbleness they sat at her feet, so to speak, as she discoursed. “The room set aside is bright and cheery. Its walls, windows and floor need no treatment. Put in a double enameled bedstead–a brass one if you like. Have an enameled dresser and a plain rocker and chairs of similar type. You may have a plain wardrobe and an enameled medicine table, too. That’s all.” She smiled at them. “I have conceded a lot, too.”
“You have beautiful taste, Miss Knight. Don’t you think so, Joe?” remarked Virginia with great solemnity.
The motorcyclist nodded a vigorous agreement.
Thus encouraged the nurse became didactic. “The furnishing of a room for the sick,” she lectured, “is not a matter of taste. It is a question of cleanliness. Give me a clean place with plenty of fresh air and sunshine–nothing else counts.” Before such simplicity the pretentious plans faded, and in the end the wisdom of the nurse prevailed.
When Virginia left the ward that day it had grown extremely warm. “Hotter than fiddlers in Tophet,” Miss Knight called it.
“Where are those poor babies?” Virginia asked, as from a distant part of the building came the petulant sound of infants protesting in the only way they could against the high temperature.
“They are in the Free Dispensary,–the cases which are brought in from the outside. They would wring your heart,” the nurse answered.