Part 31 (1/2)

The conversation then wandered off to Eleanor, and Quin listened with vague misgivings to accounts of her good times--yachting parties, tennis tournaments, rock teas, sh.o.r.e dinners--all of which suggested to him an appallingly unfamiliar world.

”I tell you who was up there for a week,” said Mr. Ranny. ”Harold Phipps.

You remember meeting him at our apartment last spring?”

”What's he doing there?” Quin demanded with such vehemence that they both laughed.

”Probably making life miserable for Mother Bartlett,” said Mrs. Ranny. ”I can't imagine how she ever consented to have him come, or how he ever had the nerve to go, after the way they've treated him.”

”Harold's not concerned with the feelings of the family,” said Mr. Ranny; ”he is after Nell.”

But Mrs. Ranny scorned the idea. ”He looks upon her as a perfect child,”

she insisted; ”besides, he's too lazy and conceited to be in love with anybody but himself.”

”That may be, but Nell's got him going all right.”

Then the conversation veered back to the Martels, with the result that an hour later Quin was on his way home bearing a gracefully worded note from Mrs. Ranny inviting the children to spend the following week at Valley Mead. But, in spite of the success of his mission, he sat with a box of fresh eggs in his lap and a huge bunch of flowers in his hand, his hat rammed over his eyes, staring gloomily out of the car window into the starless night.

Since Eleanor's departure he had had no word from her, and the news that filtered through Valley Mead was more disconcerting than the silence. The thought of her dancing, sailing, and motoring with Harold Phipps filled him with a frenzy of jealousy. He grew bitter at the thought of her flitting heedlessly from one luxurious pleasure to another, while Ca.s.s lay in that stifling city, fighting for his life and lacking even the necessities for his comfort.

Every week since her departure he had written her, even though the letters grew shorter and blunter as his duties increased. Up until now, however, he, like every one else, had tried to s.h.i.+eld Eleanor from anything ugly and sordid. He had tried to make light of the situation and rea.s.sure her as to results; but he was determined to do it no longer. It wasn't right, he told himself angrily, for anybody to go through life blinded to all the misery and suffering and poverty in the world. He was going to write her to-night and tell her the whole story and spare her nothing.

But he did not write. When he reached home Ca.s.s had had a turn for the worse, and there were ice-baths to prepare and other duties to perform that left him no time for himself.

The next day Edwin and Myrna were sent out to the Randolph Bartletts', and Rose and Quin cleared the decks for the hard fight ahead. Fan Loomis came in to help nurse in the day-time, and Quin was on duty through the long, suffocating August nights.

At the end of the week Ca.s.s's condition was so serious that the Bartletts insisted on keeping the children at the farm. Myrna had proved a cheery, helpful little companion, and Edwin, while more difficult to handle, was picking up flesh and color, and was learning to run the car.

Ca.s.s's fever dragged on, going down one day only to rise higher the next.

Seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks pa.s.sed, and still no improvement.

Quin, trying to keep up his work at the factory on two or three hours'

sleep out of the twenty-four, grew thin and haggard, and coughed more than at any time since he had left the hospital. During the long night vigils he made sporadic efforts to keep up his university work, but he made little headway.

”Go on to bed, Quin,” Rose whispered one night, when she found him asleep with his head against the bed-post. ”You'll be giving out next, and G.o.d knows what I'll do then.”

”Not me!” he declared, suppressing a yawn. ”You're the one that's done in. Why don't you stay down?”

”I can't,” she murmured, kneeling anxiously beside the unconscious patient. ”He looks worse to me to-night. Do you believe we can pull him through?”

She had on a faded pink kimono over her thin night-gown, and her heavy hair was plaited down her back. There were no chestnut puffs over her ears or pink spots on her cheeks, and her lips looked strange without their penciled cupid's bow. But to Quin there was something in her drawn white face and anxious, tender eyes that was more appealing. In their long siege together he had found a staunch dependence and a power of sacrifice in the girl that touched him deeply.

”I don't know, Rose,” he admitted, reaching over and smoothing her hair; ”but we'll do our darnedest.”

At the touch of his hand she reached up and impulsively drew it down to her cheek, holding it there with her trembling lips against its hard palm.

The night was intensely hot and still. That afternoon they had moved Ca.s.s into Rose's room in the hope of getting more air from the western exposure; but only the hot smell of the asphalt and the stifling odor of car smoke came through the curtainless window. The gas-jet, turned very low, threw distorted shadows on the bureau with its medley of toilet articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across the window-sill.