"Where is she?" I asked. "Where can I get her?"
I was told where she might be found, and, changing my slippers for shoes, and putting on my coat and hat, I came down ready to go out. At the door of the room where they had taken the girl I stopped. She was now quite conscious, and with no pillow under her head she was staring up at the ceiling. Blood was no longer on her lips, but a curious smile was on them. It must have been this gasping, faintly scornful smile that startled me. It seemed mocking what had been done too late.
"I am going for Miss White." I looked at Mr. Guard. "She is at the
Bostrows'. The doctor—"
As I spoke he came in, a big man, careless in dress and caustic in speech, but a man to be trusted. I slipped out and in a few minutes had found Martha White, and quickly we walked back to Scarborough Square.
"It's well you came when you did." She bent her head to keep the swirling snowflakes from her face. Martha is fat and short and rapid walking is difficult. "I was just about to leave for the other end of town to see a typhoid case of Miss Wyatt's. She's young and gets frightened easily, and I promised I'd come some time to-day, though it's out of my district. Who is this girl I'm going to see?"
"I don't know. I heard Mr. Guard and Mrs. Mundy call her Lillie
Pierce. They seemed to know her. I never saw her before."
"Never heard of her." Miss White, who had been district nursing for fourteen years, made effort to recall the name. "She had a hemorrhage, you say?"
She did not wait for an answer, but went up the steps ahead of me, and envy filled me as I followed her into the room where she was to find her patient. Professionally Miss White was one person, socially another. Off duty she was slow and shy and consciously awkward. In the sick-room she was transformed. Quiet, cool, steady, alert, she knew what to do and how to do it. With a word to the others, her coat and hat were off and she was standing by the bed, and again I was humiliated that I knew how to do so little, was of so little worth.
Between the doctor and herself was some talk. Directions were given and statements made, and then the doctor came to the door where I was standing. For a half-moment he looked me over, his near-sighted eyes almost closing in their squint.
"I knew your father. A very unusual man." He held out his hand. "You're like him, got his expression, and, I'm told, the same disregard of what people think. That"—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder—"is a side of life you've never seen before. It's a side men make and women permit. Good morning." Before I could answer he was gone.