Part 19 (1/2)

He broke off suddenly, awkward from shyness and genuine feeling. He looked up, however, to meet a glance so rea.s.suring that he felt at once at ease.

”It is time that it ceased to be strange,” she returned. ”We must try before you go to make you more accustomed to being looked after a little.”

He returned her kind look with a grateful smile.

”You are too generous,” he said. ”I must not trespa.s.s on your good-nature. I think that I could manage to get back to Boston to-day if the trains are running.”

”The trains are running, but that is no reason why you should think of running too. We mean to mend you before we let you go.”

”But”--

”There is no 'but' about it,” Mrs. Morison declared, speaking more seriously. ”Berenice and I have settled it, and we are accustomed to having our own way. You are selfish to wish that we should be left with all the obligation on our shoulders.”

”Obligation?” repeated he. ”How on earth is there any obligation but mine?”

”Do you think that there is no obligation in owing to you Bee's life?”

He stared at her in complete confusion. He made a vain effort to recall clearly what had happened in the car. He remembered the crash, the din, the pain, the horrible clutch on his arm, the choking reek of the smoke, his frantic fear for Berenice, but all these things seemed blurred in his mind like a landscape obscured by a night-fog. Only one memory stood out clear and sharp; that was the joy of holding Berenice clasped in his arms, and of thinking that they would die together. He felt the blood mount in his cheek at the thought, and he hastened to speak, lest his hostess should divine what was in his mind.

”Why do you say that?” he asked. ”It was not I that saved her. I was not even conscious when she was taken out.”

Mrs. Morison smiled, and touched lightly with the tip of her finger the bandaged arm which lay on the outside of the coverlid.

”We won't dispute about it,” said she. ”The proof is here. Let it go, if you like; but we shall remember.”

”But,” protested Maurice, ”it wouldn't be honest for me to let you think that I did anything for Miss Morison. I should have been only too glad to help her, but I couldn't. I wish what you think could have been true; but since it isn't, I can't let you think it is.”

Mrs. Morison let the matter drop, but her kind old eyes were brighter than ever. She contented herself with saying that at least he was to remain with them, and need not try to escape; then she led the talk to more indifferent matters. Her hand, worn and thin, the blue veins relieved under the delicate skin, lay on the white coverlid like a beautiful carving of ivory. As Maurice looked at it, it brought into his mind the hand of his mother, as in her last days, when he sat by her bedside, it had rested in the same fas.h.i.+on. The tears sprang in his eyes at the memory, half-blinding him. As he tried to brush them away unseen he caught the sympathetic look of his hostess, and its sweetness overpowered him still more. Meeting his glance, she leaned forward tenderly, taking his fingers in her own.

”What is it?” asked she softly.

”Your hand,” he answered simply. ”It looked so like my mother's.”

”Poor boy,” she murmured.

He returned the pressure of her clasp, and then the masculine dislike for effusiveness a.s.serted itself.

”I'm afraid I'm weaker than I thought,” he said shamefacedly. ”I'm almost hysterical.”

She glanced at him shrewdly, and smiling, rose.

”For all that,” she returned, ”you are to get up. Dr. Murray says that it will be better, and you would get hopelessly tired of bed before to-morrow morning. I'll send you something in the way of clothing, and we'll let you play invalid in a dressing-gown to-day. If Mehitabel can help you, you've only to ring. I dare say that you can do something with one hand.”

”One never knows until he tries,” Wynne answered.

Maurice wished to ask for a barber, but could not pluck up courage.

When he was alone he gazed ruefully into the mirror at his stoutly sprouting black beard, which so little understood the exigencies of the situation that it persisted in growing as vigorously as ever.

”If I stay here a couple of days without shaving,” he mused, ”I shall simply be hideous. Well, my vanity very likely needs a lesson. What did Mrs. Morison mean by my saving Miss Morison's life? I certainly could not have said so when I was unconscious. It must be from something she herself has said. If I could only remember what did happen after the car went over!”

His bath and toilet were difficult and unsatisfactory enough. The linen with which he was provided, however, smelled sweetly of lavender, and the odor seemed to bear him away into a pleasant reverie, in which he was chiefly conscious of the pleasure of being near--of being near, he a.s.sured himself, so delightful and sympathetic an old lady as Mrs.