Part 17 (1/2)
She looked to right, to left, and all around her in a panic.
Could she have dropped it into the stream in her hurry? And had the stream carried it down the fall?
She drew on one stocking and shoe, and catching up the other shoe in her hand, crept down to explore. The stream leapt out of sight through a screen of hazels. Parting these, she peered through them, to judge the distance between her and the pool and see if any track led down to it. A something flashed in her eyes, and she drew back.
Then, peering forward again, she let a faint cry escape her.
On the pebbly bank beside the pool stood a man--Dr. Hansombody--in regimentals. In one hand he held a razor (this it was that had flashed so brightly in the sunlight), in the other her lost stocking.
Apparently he had been shaving, kneeling beside the pool and using it for a mirror; for one half of his face was yet lathered, and his haversack lay open on the stones by the water's edge beside his shako and a tin cup under which he had lit a small spirit-lamp; and doubtless, while he knelt, the stream had swept Miss Marty's stocking down to him. He was studying it in bewilderment; which changed to glad surprise as he caught sight of her, aloft between the hazels.
”Hallo!” he challenged. ”A happy month to you!”
”Oh, please!” Miss Marty covered her face.
”I'll spread it out to dry on the stones here.”
”Please give it back to me. Yes, please, I beg of you!”
”I don't see the sense of that,” answered the Doctor. ”You can't possibly wear it until it's dry, you know.”
”But I'd _rather_.”
”Are you anch.o.r.ed up there? Very well; then I'll bring it up to you in a minute or so. But just wait a little; for you wouldn't ask me to come with half my face unshaven, would you?”
”I can go back. . . . No, I can't. The bank is too slippery. . . .
But I can look the other way,” added Miss Marty, heroically.
”I really don't see why you should,” answered the Doctor, as he resumed his kneeling posture. ”Now, to my mind,” he went on in the intervals of finis.h.i.+ng his toilet, ”there's no harm in it, and, speaking as a man, it gives one a pleasant sociable feeling.”
”I--have often wondered how it was done,” confessed Miss Marty.
”It looks horribly dangerous.”
”The fact is,” said the Doctor, wiping his blade, ”I cannot endure to feel unshaven, even when campaigning.”
He restored the razor to his haversack, blew out the spirit-lamp, emptied the tin cup on the stones, packed up, resumed his shako, and stood erect.
”My stocking, please!” Miss Marty pleaded.
”It is by no means dry yet,” he answered, stooping and examining it.
”Let me help you down, that you may see for yourself.”
”Oh, I _couldn't_!”
”Meaning your foot and ankle? Believe me you have no cause to be ashamed of _them_, Miss Marty,” the Doctor a.s.sured her gallantly, climbing the slope and extending an arm for her to lean upon.
”Those people--across the water,” she protested, with a slight blush and a nod in the direction of the shouting, which for some minutes had been growing louder.
”Our brave fellows--if, as I imagine, the uproar proceeds from them-- are pardonably flushed with their victory. They are certainly incapable, at this distance, of the nice observation with which your modesty credits them. Good Lord!--now you mention it--what a racket!
I sincerely trust they will not arouse Sir Felix, whose temper-- _experto crede_--is seldom at its best in the small hours. There, if you will lean your weight on me and advance your foot--the uncovered one--to this ledge--Nay, now!”
”But it hurts,” said Miss Marty, wincing, with a catch of her breath.