“No, you have done nothing except save my life. It is not kind of you under the circumstances to announce you consider it unimportant. Some day when I am able to rejoin my regiment perhaps I may be able to prove your work worth while. Thanks to you, perhaps I shall again serve France as I have never served her before! The enemy has taken from me everything else, my mother, my sister, my little brother and my home. I made up my mind that they should not hold me a prisoner whatever might befall me. If I had to give up my life I meant to die in the open.”
Then more excited and exhausted than either he or Sally had appreciated, the soldier lay down again, closing his eyes.
It was a part of Sally’s recent training which made her continue sitting quietly beside him for the next few moments without speaking or moving.
In the interval she studied the soldier’s face.
For the first time he was appearing to her as a man. Up until now he had simply been a human being who must be cared for, allowed to suffer as little as possible and at last be restored to health.
In considering him at present Sally did not particularly admire his appearance. She thought his nose was rather too large and his lips too thin and in spite of Jean’s devotion, his services as a barber left a good deal to be desired.
“Your arm is nearly well, still I think I should like to bandage it once more before I go,” Sally suggested. “You do not realize it, of course, but I have learned a great deal about nursing since I began to look after you. I don’t like sick people, else I suppose I could become a Red Cross nurse after more training if I wished. But I don’t think I should like the work.”
As Sally talked she was accomplishing her task, certainly with a good deal more skill than she had shown several weeks before.
However, her patient was not conscious of the fact. At present he was not thinking of his wound but of his nurse.
There was something about her so deliciously frank and ingenuous. At least she seemed ingenuous to him, although it was difficult always to be sure concerning Sally.