Miriam and Keble were at pains to conceal from each other their consternation at the situation created by Louise’s prompt retirement into quarantine. Aunt Denise, the most straight-laced person at Hillside, was probably the only person in the neighborhood who took Louise’s step as matter of course. Keble was proud of his wife’s medical talent; it emphasized her womanliness, and it was the essentially feminine qualities in Louise which he had unflaggingly admired. Yet he was tormented by the thought of her self-imposed duties, and if he had had to choose a patient for her he would probably have chosen anyone rather than Dare. He was also angry at her unconditional veto on a trained nurse from Harristown.
To Louise the fitness of her conduct was a matter of so little consequence that it did not enter her head. In the beginning she saw that she would have a trying case on her hands. Although her presence had a soothing effect on Dare, his unfamiliarity with illness made him a difficult patient, and Louise had to adopt drastic methods, a cross between bullying and ridiculing him into obedience. Her greatest difficulty came in changing his wrappings, an operation which had to be performed with the least possible variation in temperature. Dare obstructed the task by struggling to free himself, and by trying to prevent her from bathing him with her lotions.
In one access of delirium he sat up, glared at her with unrecognized fury, and shouted, “Get to hell out of this room, before I break in your skull!”
Whereupon she walked straight to the bed, pinned his shoulders to the pillow, and retorted, “Don’t you say another word till I tell you to; if you order me out I may go, and if I do there’ll be no one to give you a drink. Now lie still.”
She held his eyes until she saw a return of lucidity. He collapsed, and said feebly, “Have I been bad? I can’t have you overhearing me if I ramble.”
She had overheard many illuminating scraps of confession. “Listen, Mr. Dare dear,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “If you’re going to get well soon, you must be perfectly quiet. The rambling doesn’t matter, but try to fix it in your mind that you mustn’t be rough. You’re so terribly strong!”
“What’s the use of getting well?” he moaned.
A few moments later his good intentions were consumed in the heat of new hallucinations. “Is that Claudia?” he shouted. “Oh God, it must be a thousand in the shade.”
Sometimes he hummed a few bars of a lively melody, in appallingly unmusical tones. With a remorse that closed her ears to the grotesqueness of the performance Louise recognized the tune of their dance.
In a few days the ranch settled down to the new order. Miriam and Keble made daily visits to the boat-slip, the doctor came as often as he could arrange the long trip, sometimes remaining overnight, and Mrs. Brown, her mind on the nights when Mrs. Eveley had sat and held Annie’s hand, cooked tempting dishes and brought them to the window. She also took turns at sitting outside Dare’s window while Louise lay down in the tiny sitting room of the cabin. Twice during the doctor’s visits Louise had gone for a short gallop, but gave up the practise on learning that Dare had asked for her during her absence.