Nancy, the picture of resigned despair, gazed at Tom. He felt slightly hysterical himself.
"What are we to do?" she asked helplessly. As they were nearly fifty feet apart, the pitch of her voice was necessarily above that used in ordinary conversation and gave to her words considerable melodramatic force. A fresh shout of laughter descending from the stairs made the situation none the easier.
Nancy was, indeed, thoroughly upset. What was to become of her independent life if this failed? How else could she express herself? Was it to collapse at the very start, before she could even approach her dreams for the future? To have it end ridiculously, to have her become a laughing stock, would be too cruel. No, she would fight for her liberty.
"Why, the thing to do is to go on," replied Tom. Had those words been said at Marengo or Poitiers or Persepolis, they might today be learned by school children. They were of the stuff that wins lost causes. They stem defeat as effectively as fresh battalions.
"Fellow workers," Nancy began again, and this time there was only respectful silence, "I have come to you today to tell you a little something about the machines which are forever your property, which were given to you by your Maker and which it is your sacred duty to keep in as good condition as possible. I mean your own bodies." She paused, and Tom nodded encouragement from the other room. "It has become my pleasant duty to come to you and tell you how you may keep these God-given machines. You are to regard me, in other words, as your friend and sister." The lecturer was here threatened by a dry, pippy, cough and the whole course was imperilled. However, she drove fiercely on.
"At the outset you should have a brief working knowledge of such things as your heart and lungs, your pancreas, liver, big and little intestines and their juices; and I shall, accordingly, give you a brief idea of the various systems, beginning today with the circulatory and respiratory. Next time I shall hope to cover the digestive and excretory tracts, and I shall close with two talks on personal hygiene." This ended the preliminary matter, and the lecturer proceeded with the body of her talk in a somewhat more mechanical style. The respiratory system was dismissed in six minutes, although, in some curious way, Mr. Sprig had strung the same material out to half an hour.
Before beginning upon the circulatory system, however, she sprang a surprise. "For your convenience," she explained, "I shall draw a diagram of the heart and its valves, and with your assistance I shall explain its action." After a little wrestling with the diagram, which would curl, she managed to pin it to the wall. She then proceeded, in red crayon, to draw a fully equipped heart. She finished with audible relief and, turning triumphantly—greeted Miss Balch and her brother Leofwin.
"Dear me, I am afraid we are intruding," said Miss Balch, looking around with ingenuous charm.
Henry, having heard the bell which the social workers had been too absorbed to hear, appeared at the door and relieved the situation temporarily. Leofwin, however, whose eye was naturally caught by the pictorial, was gazing at the circulatory system on the wall. "What on earth is that?" he asked, with more curiosity than was perhaps excusable. "It looks for all the world like some sort of impressionistic valentine."
Nancy, for one reckless moment, was tempted to say that it was, but temperate judgment prevailed. After all, why need she be ashamed of what they were doing?