She leaned to him. “Kiss me. Kiss me—quickly.”
The voices were quite close now.
“Mother,” she called, “here I am.” She laughed. “But I guess you know I wouldn’t run away. Mother, this is Mr.—ah—Brown, and we have been discussing—doctors. Mr. Brown has an uncle in exactly my condition. Hopelessly paralyzed.”
She said it calmly. The world reeled. His brain was numb. She was being wheeled away by the nurse. A wheeled chair—God!
“Good-night,” she called.
A cripple. He had kissed her. Horrible! He made for the bar.
In her room while the nurse was making her ready for bed, the mother said, “How strange you look, dear. And how—how beautiful.”
She flung her arms wide in an intoxication of triumph. “Mother,” she half sobbed, “all my life to now I’ve been just—just a thing. A cripple. Now—now—I am a woman.”
“Oh, God!” she cried, her eyes starry. “Life is good—good. For now—now I have—a Memory.”