She nodded.
"And you came straight here to have it attended to, instead of going to a doctor."
"You wept when you saw my mangled digit. Remember, Nan? Strange how that scene persists in my memory! You were so sweetly sympathetic I was quite ashamed of myself."
"That's because you always were the sweetest boy in the world and I was only the garbage-man's daughter," she whispered. "There's a ridiculous song about the garbage-man's daughter. I heard it once, in vaudeville—in San Francisco."
"If I come over some evening soon, will you sing for me, Nan?"
"I never sing any more, Don."
"Nobody but you can ever sing 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginy' for me."
"Then I shall sing it, Don."
"Thank you, Nan."
She completed the anointing of his battle-scarred knuckles with iodine, and, for a moment, she held his hand, examining critically an old ragged white scar on the index-finger of his right hand. And quite suddenly, to his profound amazement, she bent her head and swiftly implanted upon that old scar a kiss so light, so humble, so benignant, so pregnant of adoration and gratitude that he stood before her confused and inquiring.