“Oh, no,” he answered. “I’ve wished I could be of some real service, but there’s so little a fellow can do. Now that you’re here, I have a feeling that everything is going to be all right.”
The hand drew itself away in search of a handkerchief and the cab came to a stop. Margaret dried her eyes, put back her hair and fixed her hat. Then she turned to John with a smile that was quite like those he remembered.
“I feel better,” she said. “I was tired, after all, and—all the way I feared that something dreadful would happen before I got here. I shan’t be so silly again. Do we get out here?”
The next week, in spite of Phillip’s excellent constitution and the best of care he received, was an anxious one. Margaret spent day after day at the bedside and sometimes shared a night’s watching with the professional nurse. Chester, very miserable for his share in the catastrophe, came twice daily to the door and went away comforted or alarmed, according to the news he received. And every morning a brougham stopped outside the Class of ’79 gate and a liveried footman presented Mrs. Kingsford’s compliments and begged to know Mr. Ryerson’s condition.
Betty, sorrowful, fearful, sat at home and waited. That was all Betty could do, and it was the hardest. She became a very white-faced and hollow-eyed Betty, who ate almost nothing, and who alarmed Mr. and Mrs. Kingsford until, in desperation, they threatened to send her South. But ere the threat could be put into execution the footman returned from Cambridge one morning with the news that the crisis was over and that, unless a relapse occurred, the patient would recover. That day Betty ate four fried oysters at luncheon, and there was no more talk of exile.
Two days later John and David called for Margaret at three o’clock in the afternoon and bullied her into taking a walk. David went under protest, and John, while insisting, really didn’t want him. But he thought that perhaps Margaret would prefer having a third. It was a marvelously warm afternoon, and they went up to Elmwood and back. David stayed awake the entire time and excelled himself as a conversationalist. After that the walks were daily events when the weather allowed. David didn’t always go, but it is not known that either John or Margaret felt the lack of his presence. March was very kind that year and gave day after day of spring skies and swelling buds. Phillip’s recovery, slow as it was, filled Margaret with a great peace and contentment, while John was almost irresponsibly happy. They talked of every subject under the blue sky save one—the one nearest John’s heart. He was careful to speak no word of his love, even though, as it sometimes seemed, everything conspired to compel him. Margaret was very kind, very gentle, and John might have been excused had he read something of encouragement in her bearing toward him. But he didn’t. It did not for a moment occur to him that absence might have worked in his favour. Margaret had declared at Elaine that she had no love for him, that she was assured she never could have, and he knew better than to think that three months of separation had made any difference in her sentiments. He had her promise, he consoled himself, and there was lots of time yet. If his plans turned out the way he expected them to the autumn might tell another tale. So he kept his love out of sight deep down in his heart, where it constantly rumbled like a dangerous volcano and threatened to erupt, and was evenly, calmly kind and thoughtful of her comfort and pleasure. And Margaret wondered and began to doubt.
There are several ways in which to take a census of one’s friends. One way is to die; but that has its drawbacks. Another way is to be very ill and recover. Phillip was trying the latter method, and his census was growing surprisingly long. Fellows who shouted greetings to him across the Yard or nodded smilingly in class came and left cards with sincere little scrawls on the backs. After the tide had set firmly in his favour, flowers and fruit and strange delicacies came at every hour. David had sincere faith in the strength-restoring properties of a certain brand of calf’s-foot jelly that was obtainable only at one high-class grocery in New York, and had a case of it delivered at Thayer. The Kingsfords sent flowers every day. Guy Bassett made a specialty of mandarin oranges, and Chester searched the Boston markets from end to end before he found grapes that entirely satisfied his fastidious taste.
I don’t want to throw the least discredit on the motives that prompted some of these offerings; I only mention, as having possibly some bearing on the proceedings, that men had a habit in those days of asking each other, “Have you seen Phil Ryerson’s sister? Man, she’s a perfect peach!”
And very often the reply was: “No; is that so? That reminds me; I was going to leave my card on the poor duffer. Guess I’ll drop around there this afternoon.”