“One thing I think you ought to know is I happen to be a little clumsy. Know what I mean?”
Having travelled widely Emmet had been asked questions in languages he did not understand and often been able to answer by signs—but this time he was stumped. “I’m sorry” did not seem to have the right ring, nor did “What a pity!” The quandary was avoided by the appearance of young Carlos Davis in the doorway with the Trainor girl beside him. Davis was a Dakota small-town boy, with none of the affectations ascribed to him—it was no fault of his that he had been born with a small gift of mimicry and an extraordinary personal beauty.
Emmet stood up.
“Greetings!” said Davis. “It happened I ran into the Doc and I wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do.”
“That’s very kind—”
“I just want you to know I’m at your service, and that I’ll leave my private phone number with your… your…” His eyes contemplated the Trainor girl with visible appreciation— “your secretary. It’s not in the book, but she’s got it.” He paused. “I mean she’s got the number. Then I’ll go along—one of these broadcasts! Cripes!”
He did a short melancholy headshake, bade farewell in a wave-salute vaguely reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth, and departed with what developed, as he reached the hall, into a series of long athletes’ leaps.
Emmet looked at Miss Trainor.
“I don’t see your lips moving,” he said, “and there goes the maiden’s prayer.”
“I tried to keep him out,” she answered coolly. “It was physically impossible. Is there anything special you want from me at this moment?”
“Yes. Sit down and I’ll give you an idea of what the job will be.”
She reminded him of a girl for whom he had suffered deeply at the age of seven; he kept wanting to ask her if she could possibly be the girl, with a different age and name.
“I’ve written a sort of scientific book. There’s some copies in a package in the kitchen. It’s being published tomorrow and nobody’s going to read it.” He looked at her suddenly, “Do you get all flustered about the genesis of tidal waves? I mean, would you buy a book about that?”
“Well…” A pause “…under certain circumstances I would.”
“Diplomat, eh?”
“Frankly I wouldn’t if I thought I had a chance for an autographed copy.”
“Diplomat,” he grunted. “I should have said ‘Ambassador.’ Anyhow this book will disappear into the geographic sections of several hundred libraries. Meanwhile I’ve got a hunch for an adventure book and I’ve taken thousands of notes—will you see if there’s a briefcase in the hall?”
“Mr. Mop—” began his nurse in a tone of disapproval but Emmet said:
“Just a minute, Miss Hapgood.” When the Trainor girl brought in the briefcase he continued: “The stuff checked with a red crayon ought to be typed up so I can take a look at it.”
“Very well.”
“Are you from somewhere near Boston?” he asked.
“Why—yes. I guess I still talk like it.”
“I was born in New Hampshire.”
They looked at each other, both at ease, their minds far away across the republic.
Perhaps Miss Hapgood misinterpreted their expressions, for she firmly interrupted the conversation.
“Mr. Moppet—I have these instructions and we want to begin the treatment before anything.”
She threw a glance at the door and the Trainor girl, realizing that she stood for “anything”, picked up the briefcase and withdrew.
“First we’ll get to bed,” said Miss Hapgood.
In spite of the wording of this sentence, Emmet’s thoughts could have been printed in The Youth’s Companion as he followed her toward the stairs.
“I’m not going to try to help you Mr. Mop—because of this clumsiness—but the doctor would like you to walk up slowly, clasping the bannister rail like this.”
Emmet once on the stairs did not look around but he was conscious of a sudden screech of wood followed by a short deprecatory laugh.
“They build these things so jerry in California, don’t they,” she tittered. “Not like in the East.”
“Are you from the East?” he asked from the top of the stairs.
“Oh, yes. Born and raised in Idaho.”
He sat down on the side of the bed and untied a shoe, annoyed that his sickness didn’t make him feel sicker.
“All diseases ought to be sudden,” he said aloud, “like the bubonic plague.”
“I’ve never taken bubonic plague cases,” said Miss Hapgood smugly.
Emmet looked up.
“Never taken—”
He decided to go on with his shoes but now she was on her knees, converting the laces expertly into a cat’s cradle.
“I can take care of the trousers myself,” he said quickly. “Pajamas are in my suitcase—I’m not quite unpacked.”
After a search Miss Hapgood handed him a full dress shirt and a pair of corduroy slacks—luckily Emmet caught the glint of the studs before the shirt was entirely on.
When he was finally in bed with two pills down him and a thermometer in his mouth Miss Hapgood spoke from the mirror—where she stood drawing his comb through her neatly matted hair.
“You have nice things,” she suggested. “I’ve worked in homes lately where I wouldn’t spit on the things they had. But I asked Dr. Cardiff to find me a case with a real gentleman—because I’m a lady.”
Emmet sat up in bed, taking out the thermometer.
“Say—I didn’t intend to go to bed until after Miss Elsa Halliday called.”
“I gave you two sleeping pills, Mr. Mop.”
He swung his legs out of bed.
“Couldn’t you give me an emetic—or something to get rid of the pills?”
“We can’t bring on a convulsion in a heart case.”
“Well, I’ll sleep for a while,” Emmet decided desperately. “Miss Halliday probably won’t be here for a couple of hours.”
“You can’t sleep in that position.”
“I always go to sleep on my elbow.”
She collapsed him with the most adroit movement she had made during their acquaintance.
II
When he awoke again it was into another morning that even as he opened his eyes seemed vaguely threatening. It was still May, and the gardens of the Davis estate had erupted almost overnight into a wild rash of roses, which threw a tangle of sweet contagion up over his porch and across the window screen; but he felt a reaction from the impotent acquiescence of the day before.
He rang twice—a signal arranged with the secretary. As she appeared he hunched up on his pillow—then he followed her infectious glance toward the window.
“Lot of them, aren’t there?”
“I’d just let them grow right into this room,” the Trainor girl suggested.
“Did Miss Halliday come yesterday?” he asked eagerly.
“Yes, but you were asleep. She sent flowers this morning.”
“What kind?”
“American Beauties.”
“What are these on the porch?”
“Talismans—with a few Cecile Brunners.”
“Well, the most important thing is to see that I’m awake when Miss Halliday comes. Apparently I’m getting sick man’s psychology in a rush—I feel as if there’s a conspiracy between the doctor and nurse to keep me sort of frozen up.”
She opened the screen window, pinched off a rose, and tossed it to the pillow beside him.
“There’s something you can trust,” she said; then briskly, “You have mail downstairs. Some men like to start a day with the mail—but Mr. Rachoff always liked to get through his planned work even before his newspaper.”
Emmet, conceiving a faint hostility toward Mr. Rachoff, weighed the possibilities.
“Well, I wish you could find out when she’s coming without appearing too anxious. About the work—well, I don’t feel like anything till I know what this doctor’s planned. Give me that nurse’s pad, will you?”
“I’ll ring for Miss Hapgood. She’s at breakfast.”
“Oh no,” he said firmly.
He was half out of bed when Miss Trainor yielded. In possession of the chart Emmet read steadily for several minutes; then he was out of bed in earnest, reaching for his dressing gown with one hand and ringing three times for the nurse. There were words also—words that he merely hoped Miss Trainor didn’t understand.
“Read it yourself! I lie on my right side three hours—then I ask the nurse to turn me gently to the left! These are instructions for an undertaker, only Cardiff forgot the embalming fluid! Get him on the phone!”
It was from the moment that the Trainor girl handed Emmet the chart that the complexion of the case changed. Later she confessed that she could have seized it and darted from the room but this suggested the possibility of a chase, perhaps the greater of the two evils.
An hour later he was in the living room saying to Dr. Cardiff, “I looked at that chart, and I just can’t live like that six months.”
“I’ve heard that before,” said Dr. Cardiff scathingly. “Dozens of men say: ‘If you think I’m going to stay in this —— bed you must be crazy!’ And a few days later when they get scared they’re meek as—”
“I can’t stare at the ceiling all day—and there’s those soapy baths in bed and the bedpan and the mush diet—why, you’d have a nut on your hands!”
“Since you insisted on reading the chart, Mr. Monsen, you should have read it all. There’s provision for the nurse reading to you—and half an hour in the morning when you can see your mail, sign checks and all that. Personally I think you’re lucky to be sick out here in this beautiful—”
“So do I,” Emmet broke in, “but that’s beside the point. I can’t do it—I ran away from home when I was twelve and beat my way to Texas—”
The doctor arose.
“You’re not twelve now. You’re a grown man.” He slipped off Emmet’s dressing gown. “Now, sir—”
He adjusted a blood-pressure apparatus to his arm and its clock sighed down depressingly. Dr. Cardiff looked at the gauge and unwound the flap; then
