"I think I would. It won't do any good to go—"
But the Doctor went. He still hoped, optimistically, that Hilda might be induced to see the error of her ways.
She received him in the blue room, where the General's precious porcelain was set forth in cabinets. It was a choice little room which had been used by Mrs. Drake for the reception of special guests. Hilda was in her uniform, but without her cap. It was as if in doffing her cap, she struck her first note of independence against the Doctor's rule.
He began professionally. "Doctor Bryer telephoned this morning that his attendance of the case had been only during my absence. That he did not care to keep it unless I definitely intended to withdraw. I told him to go ahead. I told him also that you were a good nurse. I had to whitewash my conscience a bit to say it, Hilda—"
Her head went up. "I am a good nurse. But I am more than a nurse, I am a woman. Oh, I know you are blaming me for what you think I have done. But if you stood under a tree and a great ripe peach hung just out of your reach, could you be blamed for shaking the tree? Well, I shook the tree."
She was very handsome as she gave her defense with flashing eyes.
"The General asked me to marry him, and that's more than you would ever have done. You liked to think that I was half in love with you. You liked to pretend that you were half in love with me. But would you ever have offered me ease and rest from hard work? Would you ever have thought that I might some day be your daughter's equal in your home? Oh, I have wanted good times. I used to sit night after night alone in the office while you and Jean went out and did the things I was dying to do. I wanted to go to dances and to the theater and to supper with a gay crowd. But you never seemed to think of it. I am young and I want pretty clothes—yet you thought I was satisfied to have you come home and say a few careless pleasant words, and to tease me a little. That was all you ever did for me—all you ever wanted.
"But the General wants more than that. He wants me here in the big house, to be his wife, and to meet his friends. He had a man come up the other day with a lot of rings, and he bought me this." She showed the great diamonds flashing on her third finger. "I have always wanted a ring like this, and now I can have as many as I want. Do you blame me for shaking the tree?"
He sat, listening, spellbound to her sophistry. But was it sophistry? Wasn't some of it true? He saw her for the first time as a woman wanting things like other women.
She swept out her hand to include the contents of the little room. "I have always longed for a place like this. I don't know a thing about china. But I know that all that stuff in the cabinet cost a fortune. And it's a pretty room, and some day when I am the General's wife, I'll ask you here to take tea with me, and I'll wear a silver gown like your daughter wears, and I think you'll be surprised to see that I can do it well."