"Only a faint," said Dr. Blake; "the day's hot and she's not accustomed to train travel, I suppose. Is she—does she belong to your party?"
The girl spoke for the first time in his hearing. Even before he seized the meaning of her speech, he noted with a thrill the manner of it. Such a physique as this should go with the high, silvery tone of a flute; so one always imagines it. This girl spoke in the voice of a violin—soft, deep, deliciously resonant. In his mind flashed a picture for which he was a long time accounting—last winter's ballet of the New York Hippodrome. Afterward, he found the key to that train of thought. It, had been a ballet of light, shimmering colors, until suddenly a troop of birds in royal purple had slashed their way down the center of the stage. They brought the same glorified thrill of contrast as this soft but strong contralto voice proceeding from that delicate blondness.
"Oh, no!" she said, "I never saw her before. She was swaying as I came down the aisle, and I caught her. She's—she's awake." The old woman had stirred again.
"Get my bag from seat 12, parlor-car," said Dr. Blake to the porter. "Tell them outside that it is a simple fainting-spell and we shall need no assistance." Now his charity patient had recovered voice; she was moaning and whimpering. The girl, obeying again Dr. Blake's unspoken thought, took a quick step toward the door. He understood without further word from her.
"All right," he said; "she may want to discuss symptoms. You're on the way to the dining-car aren't you? I'll be along in five minutes, and I'll let you know how she is. Tell them outside that it is nothing serious and have the porter stand by—please." That last word of politeness came out on an afterthought—he had been addressing her in the capacity of a trained nurse. He recognized this with confusion, and he apologized by a smile which illuminated his rather heavy, dark face. She answered with the ghost of a smile—it moved her eyes rather than her mouth—and the door closed.
After five minutes of perfunctory examination and courteous attention to symptoms, he tore himself away from his patient upon the pretext that she needed quiet. He wasted three more golden minutes in assuring his fellow passengers that it was nothing. He escaped to the dining car, to find that the delay had favored him. Her honey-colored back hair gleamed from one of the narrow tables to left of the aisle. The unconsidered man opposite her had just laid a bill on the waiter's check, and dipped his hands in the fingerbowl. Dr. Blake invented a short colloquy with the conductor and slipped up just as the waiter returned with the change. He bent over the girl.
"I have to report," said he, "that the patient is doing nicely; doctor and nurse are both discharged!"
She returned a grave smile and answered conventionally, "I am very glad."
At that precise moment, the man across the table, as though recognizing friendship or familiarity between these two, pocketed his change and rose. Feeling that he was doing the thing awkwardly, that he would give a year for a light word to cover up his boldness, Dr. Blake took the seat. He looked slowly up as he settled himself, and he could feel the heat of a blush on his temples. He perceived—and for a moment it did not reassure him—that she on her part neither blushed nor bristled. Her skin kept its transparent whiteness, and her eyes looked into his with intent gravity. Indeed, he felt through her whole attitude the perfect frankness of good breeding—a frankness which discouraged familiarity while accepting with human simplicity an accidental contact of the highway. She was the better gentleman of the two. His renewed confusion set him to talking fast.
"If it weren't that you failed to come in with any superfluous advice, I should say that you had been a nurse—you seem to have the instinct. You take hold, somehow, and make no fuss."