Gently she laid her hand on the lean, brown one resting on the coverlet; the boy opened his eyes. “It’s going to be fine to have a soldier for a patient; I expect you know how to obey orders. You are our first, and we’re going to make your getting well just the happiest time in all your life, the little mother and I.”
The boy made no response. He looked at his mother as if he understood, and then with a groan of utter misery he turned away his head and closed his eyes again. “Ah-h-h!” thought Sheila, and a little later she drew the mother into the corridor beyond earshot.
“There’s something ailing him besides wounds. What is it?”
“Clarisse.” The promptness of the answer brought considerable relief to the nurse. It was easy to deal with the things one knew; it was the hidden things, tucked away in the corners of the subconscious mind or the super-sensitive soul, that never saw the light of open confession, that were the baffling obstacles to nursing. Sheila never dreaded what she knew.
“Well, what’s the matter with Clarisse?” she asked, cheerfully.
The little mother hesitated. Evidently it was hard to put it into words. “They’re engaged, she and Phil, and Phil doesn’t want to see her, shrinks from the very thought of it. That’s what’s keeping him from getting better, I think. She’s very young and oh, so pretty. They were both young when Phil went away—but Phil—” She stopped and passed a fluttering hand across her forehead; her lips quivered the barest bit. “Phil has come back so old. That’s what war does for our boys; in just a few months it turns them into old men, the serious ones—and their eyes are older than any living person’s I ever saw.”
“And Clarisse is still young. I think I understand.”
“That’s why I brought him here. In the city there would have been no reason for her not coming to the hospital, but she couldn’t come here unless we sent for her—could she?” Again the fluttering hand groped as if to untangle the complexity of thoughts and feelings in the poor confused head. “I write her letters. I make them just as pleasant as I can. I don’t want to hurt her; she’s so young.”
Sheila nodded. “Does he love her?” That was the most important, for to Sheila love was the key that could spring the lock of every barrier.
“He did, and I think she loves him—I think—”