A look of disappointment came into her face. She ate in silence, the gayety of the morning swept away by his refusal.
When breakfast was over, she followed him into the living room where he sank into a chair and devoted himself to his paper. Thinking deeply, she paused by the center table. Very quietly, she opened a drawer and took from it the book which had belonged to her mother. She caressed the little volume gently for a moment, a great tenderness in her eyes. Then she replaced it. Determination had driven disappointment from her face and there was a faint reflection of his obstinacy in her jaw when she went over and confronted her father. “Daddy,” she commenced, very softly. “All your life you have been helping people–thinking of others. In your thoughtfulness for my health you wish to keep me away from the hospital. But, don’t you see, I was to blame for that accident. It is my duty to help that man, if I can. I must go.”
Obadiah glanced over his paper at Virginia as she began to speak. Realizing that her words savored of rank rebellion, he reddened and glared at the sheet before him as if it contained a warning of the presence in his household of a serpent pledged to destroy its peace. “What–what–what’s this?” he spluttered.
“I can’t allow your love to make a coward of me–turn me from my duty, Daddy.”
Obadiah blinked as he considered this mutiny. Judgment and experience warned him to control himself. Unpleasant differences in the past had not always resulted as he could have wished. There had been times when he had been forced not only to sue Virginia for peace but likewise to make abject overtures to that firmest of allies, Serena.
Obadiah thought rapidly. Outside of moral suasion, modern opinion recognizes but few methods for the influencing of eighteen year old female insurgents. If Obadiah argued, he would get mad. In his dilemma, he surrendered, but not with good grace. “Well,” he yielded sulkily, “if you feel that way about it, have it your own way.” Scowling darkly, he flung his paper from him and departed for his office with asperity.
From the porch Virginia waved him a last good bye. “Poor Daddy. He is so afraid that I will get sick,” she thought, pensively, as she watched the disappearing car. But in a moment her good spirits returned and she hurried into the kitchen. Serena was forced to lay aside her work until the chicken was daintily arranged in a basket with other delicacies added by the old negress in reparation, possibly, for her weakness in yielding to Ike a small portion of the invalid’s fare.
Later that morning Virginia arrived at the hospital. Following the directions given her, she found herself standing in the doorway of a long room on the second floor. On each side of a center aisle ran a row of white bedsteads. The walls, painted a dull buff, were pierced by many windows and the linoleum in the aisle and the hard wood floor were waxed and polished until they shone. In this place, cleanliness, fresh air, and sunshine reigned.
The beds were filled with pajama clad men. To the embarrassed young girl it was as if she had blundered into a man’s bedroom, and impulsively she turned to flee.
A cheery voice arrested her, and the nurse whom she had met in the reception room on the previous day greeted her. “I told you that I would meet you here.” She smiled with a frank cordiality which instantly dissipated the visitor’s embarrassment.