Obadiah released himself from his daughter's embrace and the blossoms dropped in a glowing ma.s.s upon the table. "Eat your breakfast and stop this foolishness," he told her.

"I'll eat anything you'll give me, Daddy dear. I am as hungry as a bear." She glanced at the clock. "It's late. I must hurry to get over to the hospital."

"What for?" he asked in apparent surprise.

"To see the man who was hurt yesterday. I spoke to you about it."

"Yes, but upon reflection I think it inadvisable. You might catch some disease in a place like that. You must think of yourself."

A look of disappointment came into her face. She ate in silence, the gayety of the morning swept away by his refusal.

When breakfast was over, she followed him into the living room where he sank into a chair and devoted himself to his paper. Thinking deeply, she paused by the center table. Very quietly, she opened a drawer and took from it the book which had belonged to her mother. She caressed the little volume gently for a moment, a great tenderness in her eyes.

Then she replaced it. Determination had driven disappointment from her face and there was a faint reflection of his obstinacy in her jaw when she went over and confronted her father. "Daddy," she commenced, very softly. "All your life you have been helping people--thinking of others. In your thoughtfulness for my health you wish to keep me away from the hospital. But, don't you see, I was to blame for that accident.

It is my duty to help that man, if I can. I must go."

Obadiah glanced over his paper at Virginia as she began to speak.

Realizing that her words savored of rank rebellion, he reddened and glared at the sheet before him as if it contained a warning of the presence in his household of a serpent pledged to destroy its peace.

"What--what--what's this?" he spluttered.

"I can't allow your love to make a coward of me--turn me from my duty, Daddy."

Obadiah blinked as he considered this mutiny. Judgment and experience warned him to control himself. Unpleasant differences in the past had not always resulted as he could have wished. There had been times when he had been forced not only to sue Virginia for peace but likewise to make abject overtures to that firmest of allies, Serena.

Obadiah thought rapidly. Outside of moral suasion, modern opinion recognizes but few methods for the influencing of eighteen year old female insurgents. If Obadiah argued, he would get mad. In his dilemma, he surrendered, but not with good grace. "Well," he yielded sulkily, "if you feel that way about it, have it your own way." Scowling darkly, he flung his paper from him and departed for his office with asperity.

From the porch Virginia waved him a last good bye. "Poor Daddy. He is so afraid that I will get sick," she thought, pensively, as she watched the disappearing car. But in a moment her good spirits returned and she hurried into the kitchen. Serena was forced to lay aside her work until the chicken was daintily arranged in a basket with other delicacies added by the old negress in reparation, possibly, for her weakness in yielding to Ike a small portion of the invalid's fare.

Later that morning Virginia arrived at the hospital. Following the directions given her, she found herself standing in the doorway of a long room on the second floor. On each side of a center aisle ran a row of white bedsteads. The walls, painted a dull buff, were pierced by many windows and the linoleum in the aisle and the hard wood floor were waxed and polished until they shone. In this place, cleanliness, fresh air, and sunshine reigned.

The beds were filled with pajama clad men. To the embarra.s.sed young girl it was as if she had blundered into a man's bedroom, and impulsively she turned to flee.

A cheery voice arrested her, and the nurse whom she had met in the reception room on the previous day greeted her. "I told you that I would meet you here." She smiled with a frank cordiality which instantly dissipated the visitor's embarra.s.sment.

Virginia knew now that she liked this young woman, even though she was a great tease, so she answered the smile with one of equal friendliness and told her, "It is nice to find someone I know"; but instantly she referred to the cause for her visit. "How is he?"

"I think that we have his fever under control," laughed the nurse.

"Now she is beginning to tease," thought Virginia. "I won't notice it."

The nurse went on. "He is really getting along fine. If I were you I shouldn't give a moment's worry to that young man's health. Don't trouble to plan your remarks to him, either. He won't listen to them. He does most of the talking."

The walk down the aisle between those beds, each with its pair of masculine optics, was a trial for the girl. It seemed miles. At last, safely by this gauntlet of inquisitive male glances, she found herself looking down into those same black eyes which had looked into hers for a second out on Forest Avenue. Then they were dazed with pain, now they were filled with friendly inquiry.

The nurse, Miss Knight, was direct and explicit. "Joe," she announced, "this is the young lady who says that she put you here."

Joe accepted this surprising remark as a matter of amus.e.m.e.nt which increased as the nurse went on.

"Now she comes to soften the hard blows with tender words and kind attentions."

Virginia blushed furiously. She thought Miss Knight's manner towards men distinctly common.

A deep voice came from the bed. "I am very glad to meet you and be able to thank you for what I have been told you did for me, Miss Dale. That accident was my hard luck." He put his whole soul into his smile of welcome and the girl knew that she liked it.

Having endeavored to relieve his guest's embarra.s.sment, he turned upon Miss Knight, the greatly delighted cause of it, and adapted his manner and speech to her case. "Say, sister, blow. Blow while the breeze will toss you away. I haven't noticed any invitations for you to sit in on this peace conference."

The nurse flared at his words, although his smile had tempered them.

Drawing herself up, she made answer with great dignity.

"You don't need to urge me not to hang around while your wounds are being dressed with soothing lotions. It's not necessary to hit me with an automobile to get me out of the way," she exclaimed with great sarcasm, and flounced away.

"The gloom of night departs," he chuckled, and, turning dancing eyes upon his visitor, continued softly, "and now comes dawn."

Virginia flushed again. "For all that you know, it may be stormy,"

she retorted, astonished at her own glib tongue. The merry banter of the patient and nurse had surprised her. She had been taught that this sort of thing was vulgar. Yet, somehow, it didn't seem so dreadful.

She suspected that she rather liked it and was troubled by this symptom of innate depravity. Now she became aware that those black eyes were studying her, and mischief gleamed in their depths.

"Our meeting was very sudden yesterday," he laughed. "I didn't have a chance to give you my card. My name is Joseph Tolliver Curtis.

Those who--" he hesitated and then went on--"are my friends, call me Joe." Happiness radiated from him. He was so good humored that it was contagious.

The visitor beamed upon the patient. "My name is Virginia Dale," she explained.

"I know it," he admitted, and then, with the manner of intense personal interest, he demanded, "Do your friends--your intimate friends--by any chance call you 'Virge'?"

"I should say not." The girl's eyes flashed as she retorted, "They would hear from me."

"By letter," he inquired, "or telephone?" In a moment he continued, "I have it. You will sing to them just as you are going to sing to me."

"Sing to you?"

"Of course you are going to sing to me. Every one who visits a hospital should sing. It was found wonderfully soothing to the patients in the big army hospitals during the war. After they had listened to the performers they were more contented to endure their suffering."

"They would have died on the spot if I'd sung," she answered.

They both laughed in the exuberance of their youth at their own nonsense until his injured ribs stopped him and she became very serious.

"I came, today--" her manner was almost shy--"to tell you how sorry I am for that accident. It makes me unhappy to think of you suffering here through my fault."

"How can you blame yourself? You had nothing at all to do with it," he declared with great earnestness.

"I told our chauffeur to hurry," she explained, and then with finality, "if he hadn't, there would have been no collision."

Again his injured ribs subdued his laughter. "If everybody had stayed off the street, I wouldn't have been hurt. That's your argument." He studied her face for a moment and then resumed. "Listen, I am going to tell you a secret. Promise never to tell."

"Honest," she agreed.

"I was running away over the speed limit. I must have been going forty miles an hour."

Virginia became the custodian of his secret with great calmness and solemnly confessed, "We were running over the speed limit, too. Ike usually does. He knows that I enjoy going fast. The speed limit in this town is away too low, I think."