“Why should you laugh about him? Poor fellow, he suffers so.”
“Yes, I suppose he does, but his appearance does not draw sympathy. They’ve dressed him up in pink pajamas. He’s a great big fellow and his eyes–”
“Are black,” announced Virginia with great assurance.
“Yes, but how on earth did you know it?”
“He looked up at me,” Virginia confessed soberly.
“Looked up at you? Please tell me when? While you were holding his hand?”
“No.” The girl spoke with great gentleness, as if in a dream she reënacted the scene she described. “His head was lying in my lap and suddenly he opened his eyes and looked up at me for a moment–and closed them.”
The nurse choked with suppressed laughter. “I thought,” she rippled, “that it was a collision of vehicles, not of hearts.”
“How very silly,” thought Virginia, and regarding the nurse coldly, she said aloud, “I’ll go now. I am sorry to have been so much trouble to you.”
Unmoved by the change in the mood of the visitor, the nurse accompanied her to the door. “You’ll be coming back to see your patient?” she suggested.