We waited one night more, to be certain, and then I 'phoned the doctor.
"Hurray!" he yelled, so I nearly dropped the receiver. "Bully for you! Keep out for a week and then move in—with a light. Drop the light in another week. Then I'll send 'em all off to Beachmount." This was their Long Island place.
Well, it all worked out perfectly. She gained nine pounds in three weeks, and I don't know when I've been so pleased. The old people came up to see her, and I spent most of my time convincing them that it was no case for tiaras and sunbursts, as I never wore them. Mrs. Elton really looked almost human. She cried so that I finally had to take a little string of pearls. They were small, but all matched, and she said I could wear them under my blouse and I could always sell them. You'd have thought that I'd cured the girl, when, as I told them, the thing had just run its natural course, and her youth and good sense and the outdoor life had done the rest.
Of course, there was no more use for me, and I went right off on a big operation case—a very interesting one, indeed. I promised to come to the wedding, if I possibly could; she told me she would be married just as soon as Mr. Ferrau wished, she felt she'd made him go through so much in the last four months. And it seemed that he had felt the strain more than they thought, for her mother told me that just as Anne recovered, he seemed to give way and got very nervous and had gone off on a yacht with some of his college friends to the south somewhere. I was rather surprised not to see him at the house, and so was Miss Anne, I thought; but he sent the loveliest flowers every day and telegrams, and of course they were working on the trousseau and pretty busy, anyway.
I couldn't get to the wedding, after all, for my patient was taken to Lakewood and simply refused to let me off, which was rather mean of her, for I could have run up for the afternoon as well as not. But that's what you have to expect, if you go into nursing, and you get used to it.
Mrs. Elton called me up once at the hotel, to see if I couldn't get away (they were going to send the car for me if I could), and I asked if Mr. Ferrau was all right again.
"Really, Miss Jessop," said she—and I could just see how she must have looked, from her voice—"really, my dear, I am terribly, terribly worried about Louis. He looks frightfully, so pale and nervous and run down. And he simply won't see a doctor, and when I earnestly begged him to consult Dr. Stanchon, he flew out at me—he really flew out!"
"What can it be?" said I. "What does Miss Elton think?"
"Why, how can she know, my dear?" says the old lady. "Only he assures her that it will be all right once they're married, and begs her so not to put it off, that she won't, though I don't entirely approve, myself. Really, you'd scarcely know Louis, Miss Jessop."
It did seem too bad, but then, those things will happen, and I just thought to myself that probably there was more to that southern trip than the old lady knew, and let it go at that. The doctor says that all the nurses have dime-novel imaginations—but where do we get them, I'd like to know, if not from what we see and hear? The Lord knows we don't have to invent things.