Part 6 (1/2)

He did not look like a statue now. His cheeks were burning with evident pain, and his yellow-brown eyes, wide-open, and dilated to darkness, stared straight out. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and his head moved restlessly from side to side. Every nerve and muscle, she could see, was taut.

”They're all dead,” he muttered. ”Father and Mother and Louise--and I--only I'm not dead enough to bury. Oh, G.o.d, I wish I was!”

That wasn't delirium; it was something more like heart-break. Phyllis moved closer to him, and dropped one of her sleep-warm hands on his cold, clenched one.

”Oh, poor boy!” she said. ”I'm so sorry--so sorry!” She closed her hands tight over both his.

Some of her strong young vitality must have pa.s.sed between them and helped him, for almost immediately his tenseness relaxed a little, and he looked at her.

”You--you're not a nurse,” he said. ”They go around--like--like a--vault----”

She had caught his attention! That was a good deal, she felt. She forgot everything about him, except that he was some one to be comforted, and her charge. She sat down on the bed by him, still holding tight to his hands.

”No, indeed,” she said, bending nearer him, her long loose hair falling forward about her resolutely-smiling young face. ”Don't you remember seeing me? I never was a nurse.”

”What--are you?” he asked feebly.

”I'm--why, the children call me the Liberry Teacher,” she answered. It occurred to her that it would be better to talk on brightly at random than to risk speaking of his mother to him, as she must if she reminded him of their marriage. ”I spend my days in a bas.e.m.e.nt, making bad little boys get so interested in the Higher Culture that they'll forget to shoot c.r.a.p and smash windows.”

One of the things which had aided Phyllis to rise from desk-a.s.sistant to one of the Children's Room librarians was a very sweet and carrying voice--a voice which arrested even a child's attention, and held his interest. It held Allan now; merely the sound of it, seemingly.

”Go on--talking,” he murmured. Phyllis smiled and obeyed.

”Sometimes the Higher Culture doesn't work,” she said. ”Yesterday one of my imps got hold of a volume of Shaw, and in half an hour his aunt marched in on me and threatened I don't know what to a library that 'taught chilren to disrespect their lawful guardeens.'”

”I remember now,” said Allan. ”You are the girl in the blue dress. The girl mother had me marry. I remember.”

”Yes,” said Phyllis soothingly, and a little apologetically. ”I know.

But that--oh, please, it needn't make a bit of difference. It was only so I could see that you were looked after properly, you know. I'll never be in the way, unless you want me to do something for you.”

”I don't mind,” he said listlessly, as he had before.... ”_Oh, this dreadful darkness, and mother dead in it somewhere!_”

”Wallis,” called Phyllis swiftly, ”turn up the lights!”

The man slipped the close green silk shades from the electric bulbs.

Allan shrank as if he had been hurt.

”I can't stand the glare,” he cried.

”Yes, you can for a moment,” she said firmly. ”It's better than the ghastly green glow.”

It was probably the first time Allan Harrington had been contradicted since his accident. He said nothing more for a minute, and Phyllis directed Wallis to bring a sheet of pink tissue paper from her suit-case, where she remembered it lay in the folds of some new muslin thing. Under her direction still, he wrapped the globes in it and secured it with string.

”There!” she told Allan triumphantly when Wallis was done. ”See, there is no glare now; only a pretty rose-colored glow. Better than the green, isn't it?”

Allan looked at her again. ”You are--kind,” he said. ”Mother said--you would be kind. Oh, mother--mother!” He tried uselessly to lift one arm to cover his convulsed face, and could only turn his head a little aside.

”You can go, Wallis,” said Phyllis softly, with her lips only. ”Be in the next room.” The man stole out and shut the door softly. Phyllis herself rose and went toward the window, and busied herself in braiding up her hair. There was almost silence in the room for a few minutes.

”Thank--you,” said Allan brokenly. ”Will you--come back, please?”