LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN

d.i.c.k, having la grippe, and doing his bewildered best to get pneumonia and gastritis by creeping out of bed when his temperature was highest, and indulging in untrammelled orgies of food and drink and exposure to draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself physically very miserable indeed. His mind had been out of joint for weeks. He reached the phase presently of refusing all nourishment and spiritual consolation, indiscriminately, and finding himself unbenefited by these heroic methods, decided in his own mind that all was over with him.

He knew nothing about sickness, having led a charmed life in that respect since the measles period, and the persistent misery in his interior, attacking lung and liver impartially,--to say nothing of the top of his head and the back of his neck, and as his weakness increased, his cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation, and the calves of his legs which set up an ache like that of a recalcitrant tooth,--persuaded him that such suffering as his must be a certain indication of the approaching end. He had dismissed his doctor after the first visit, and denying himself to visitors, found himself alone and apparently in a desperate condition, with no one to minister to him but paid dependents. It was then that the loss of Nancy began to a.s.sume spectral proportions. He had been so long accustomed to think of himself as the strong silent lover, equipped with the patience and understanding that would outlast all the vagaries of Nancy's adventurous tendencies, that it was difficult to readjust himself to a new conception of her as a woman that another and even less worthy man had so nearly won,--under his nose.

He had never thought much of his money until it began to acquire the virtue of an alkahest in his mind, an universal solvent that would trans.m.u.te all the baser metals in Nancy's life and the lives of the people in whom Nancy was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts would mean very little to her, but he had dreamed, when she was ready, of working out with her some practicable and gracious scheme of beneficence. There was one power she coveted that he could put in her hands,--one way that he could befriend and relieve her even before she conceded him that prerogative. When he learned that she had a fortune of her own his hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay disconsolate among the ruins. His creeping physical disability seemed significant of the cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and desires. From having secretly and in some terror arrived at the conclusion that death was imminent, he began to look upon such a solution of his misery with some favor.

It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature of the d.i.c.k she had known that confronted Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who had his illness heavily on her mind, she forced her way unannounced into the curious Georgian living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.

He had been stretched in an att.i.tude of abandon on the couch when she opened the oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in a spasm of rage and alarm when he discovered that he had a visitor.

"Go away," he said, "I am not able to see anybody. There's a mistake.

I gave strict orders that n.o.body at all was to be admitted."

"I know, d.i.c.k," Nancy said gently, "don't blame your faithful servitors. I thought I should have to use a gun on them, but I explained to them that you must be looked after."

"I don't want to be looked after. I'm all right, thank you. Are you alone?"

"No, Hitty's outside. Betty simply insisted on my bringing her,--I don't know why, but she said you'd be kinder to me if I did. I don't think you're very kind."

A flicker of a smile crossed d.i.c.k's face, which seemed to say that if anything could bring back a momentary relish of existence the mention of Betty's name would be that thing. Nancy saw the expression and misinterpreted it.

"I don't want to see anybody," d.i.c.k repeated firmly. "Will you be good enough to go away and leave me to my misery?"

"No, I won't," Nancy said, "I never left anybody to their misery yet, and I'm not going to begin on you. Of course, if you'd rather see Betty, I'll send for her. She seems to know a good deal about your habits and customs. You look like a monk in that bathrobe. I'm glad you're not a fat man, d.i.c.k. It's so very hard to calculate just how much to cut down on starches and sweets without injury to the health.

What are you feeding up on?"

"You know very well that I'm not feeding up on anything, but if you think you can come around here, and dope out one of your darned health menus for me, and sit around watching me eat it, you are jolly well mistaken. I wish you'd go home, Nancy. I don't like you to-day. I don't like myself or anybody in this whole universe. I'm not fit for human society--don't you see I'm not?"

"You're awful cross, dear."

"Don't call me dear. I'm not Sheila or one of your sick waitresses, you know."

"Sheila's back."

"Is she?"

"Don't you care?"

"Oh, I suppose so."

"She loves you."

"She's unique."

"You told me once there were other girls, d.i.c.k."

"They're all over it by now."

"d.i.c.k, can't I do something for you?"

"Yes, leave me alone."

"I've never seen you like this before."

"No, thank G.o.d."

"I didn't know you were ever anything but sort of smug and superior."

"Grand description."

"You ought to be in bed, dear--I didn't mean to call you dear, it slipped out, d.i.c.ky,--and taking nourishment every hour or so. What does the doctor say?"

"Nothing, he's given me up as a bad job."

"Given you up?"

"Yes, there's nothing he can do for me."

"Why, d.i.c.k, my dear, what is it?"

"Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don't know."

"What are you taking, d.i.c.k?"

"I tell you I can't take anything," he said, misunderstanding her. "It makes me sick to eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a lot worse for it."

"When did you try last?"

"Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the name of sense makes a woman shed tears at a simple statement like that? I'm not in shape to stand this. Once and for all, Nancy, will you get out and leave me? I tell you I never wanted to see you less in my life. I'll write you a letter and apologize if you'll only go, now."

"Oh, I'll go," Nancy said. "I couldn't really believe that you wanted me to,--that's all."

She started for the door--but d.i.c.k, weakened by lack of food, tortured beyond his endurance by the sudden a.s.sault on his nerves made by Nancy's appearance, gave way to his relief at her going an instant too soon. Like a small boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered his face with his arm.

Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking his head on her breast.

"Dear," she said, "you do want me. We want each other. You love me, d.i.c.ky, and I am going to love you--if you'll only let me look after you and nurse you back to health again."

"I don't want to be nursed," d.i.c.k blubbered, his head buried in her bosom, "I want to look out for you, and take care of you, and--and now look at me. You'll never love me after this, Nancy."

"Yes, I shall, dear," Nancy said. "I've always loved you somehow.

It'll--it'll be the saving of me, d.i.c.k."

"Well, then I do want to be nursed. I--I haven't cried before since I had the measles, Nancy."

"I'm glad you cried, now, then," Nancy said.