“I guess I should have gone to the wall in spite of my grit,” he said slowly, as Brookes folded and handed him the check. “I haven’t five dollars in my pocket this minute, and as there wasn’t a ghost of a show in sight for me to practice my profession, I was starting out to apply for a job as motorman on a street car, or something of that sort.”
“Let me know how you get on,” said Brookes, as he waited for the I. O. U. that Greenaway was scribbling. “I’ll be on the Island for a year, I suppose, unless I find, as Fielding says, that I am actually rusting.”
“But why do you go there, Brookes?” asked his friend, rather anxiously. “With your money, what is to hinder your going straight into practice?”
Reginald Brookes did not answer the question immediately; he appeared to be a little embarrassed.
“I’ll tell you, Fred!” he blurted out finally, “but don’t give me away, old man, or the boys will say I lack ambition; but the fact is I’m in love—desperately in love, and it is with a sweet little nurse who is ‘on probation’ in Charity.”
“I see,” said Greenaway, with a smile of amusement. “And you can’t bear the idea of having the East River roll between you! Well, I don’t know that I blame you, doc, for after all, what’s the good of money if you can’t be independent!”
“It is just this way,” said Brookes, seriously, as the two friends started slowly up Fifty-ninth street. “She is a beautiful girl, a country lass, and fresh as a daisy. I’m sure I don’t know how she can endure that place, but she is determined to stay there and take care of those poor wretches, and some way I thought she would be happier if I went over and helped her.”
“Oh, how generous we are!” said Greenaway, laughing. “You mean you knew you would be happier on Blackwell’s Island with her than you would on Fifth avenue with any other woman.”
“I see you know how it is,” said young Brookes, with a grin of sympathy. “You are in love yourself, old boy, or you couldn’t speak so feelingly.”
“I admit it,” said Greenaway, a sad look crossing his face. “I’m in love all right, but that is all the good it will ever do me.”