Drake made some show of dissent; but Polly, with her most voluptuous look upward, said it would be perfectly charming, and Glory was in raptures.
The girls, by their own choice, went home without escort by the Hammersmith omnibus. They sat on opposite sides and hardly talked at all. Polly was humming idly. “Sigh no more, ladies.”
Glory was in a trance. A great, bright, beautiful world had that night swum into her view, and all her heart was yearning for it with vague and blind aspirations. It might be a world of dreams, but it seemed more real than reality, and when the omnibus passed the corner of Piccadilly Circus she forgot to look at the women who were crowding the pavement.
The omnibus drew up for them at the door of the hospital, and they took long breaths as they went up the steps.
In the corridor to the surgical ward they came upon John Storm. His head was down and his step was long and measured, and he seemed to be trying to pass them in his grave silence; but Glory stopped and spoke, while Polly went on to her cubicle.
“You here so late?” she said.
He looked steadily into her face and answered, “I was sent for—some one was dying.”
“Was it little Johnnie?”
“Yes.”
There was not a tear now, not a quiver of an eyelid.