Love Stories | Page 5

(a)
Twenty-two wheeled back to the parlour, where old Mr. Simond's cane
leaned against a table, and, while engaging that gentleman in
conversation, possessed himself of the cane. (b) Wheeled back to the
elevator. (c) Drew cane from beneath blanket. (d) Unhooked sign with

cane and concealed both under blanket. (e) Worked his way back along
the forbidden territory, past I and J until he came to H ward.
Jane Brown was in H ward.
She was alone, and looking very professional. There is nothing quite so
professional as a new nurse. She had, indeed, reached a point where, if
she took a pulse three times, she got somewhat similar results. There
had been a time when they had run something like this: 56--80--120----
Jane Brown was taking pulses. It was a visiting day, and all the beds
had fresh white spreads, tucked in neatly at the foot. In the exact middle
of the centre table with its red cloth, was a vase of yellow tulips. The
sun came in and turned them to golden flame.
Jane Brown was on duty alone and taking pulses with one eye while
she watched the visitors with the other. She did the watching better
than she did the pulses. For instance, she was distinctly aware that
Stanislas Krzykolski's wife, in the bed next the end, had just slid a
half-dozen greasy cakes, sprinkled with sugar, under his pillow. She
knew, however, that not only grease but love was in those cakes, and
she did not intend to confiscate them until after Mrs. Krzykolski had
gone.
More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers,
walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with a
rouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hung
over the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, not only
the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass basins, the fireplace
fender, and the Probationer's hair.
Twenty-two sat unnoticed in the doorway. A young girl, very lame,
with a mandolin, had just entered the ward. In the little stir of her
arrival, Twenty-two had time to see that Jane Brown was worth even all
the trouble he had taken, and more. Really, to see Jane Brown properly,
she should have always been seen in the sun. She was that sort.
The lame girl sat down in the centre of the ward, and the buzz died

away. She was not pretty, and she was very nervous. Twenty-two
frowned a trifle.
"Poor devils," he said to himself. But Jane Brown put away her
hunting-case watch, and the lame girl swept the ward with soft eyes
that had in them a pity that was almost a benediction.
Then she sang. Her voice was like her eyes, very sweet and rather
frightened, but tender. And suddenly something a little hard and selfish
in Twenty-two began to be horribly ashamed of itself. And, for no
earthly reason in the world, he began to feel like a cumberer of the
earth. Before she had finished the first song, he was thinking that
perhaps when he was getting about again, he might run over to France
for a few months in the ambulance service. A fellow really ought to do
his bit.
At just about that point Jane Brown turned and saw him. And although
he had run all these risks to get to her, and even then had an extremely
cold tin sign lying on his knee under the blanket, at first she did not
know him. The shock of this was almost too much for him. In all sorts
of places people were glad to see him, especially women. He was
astonished, but it was good for him.
She recognised him almost immediately, however, and flushed a little,
because she knew he had no business there. She was awfully bound up
with rules.
"I came back on purpose to see you," said Twenty-two, when at last the
lame girl had limped away. "Because, that day I came in and you
looked after me, you know, I--must have talked a lot of nonsense."
"Morphia makes some people talk," she said. It was said in an exact
copy of the ward nurse's voice, a frightfully professional and
impersonal tone.
"But," said Twenty-two, stirring uneasily, "I said a lot that wasn't true.
You may have forgotten, but I haven't. Now that about a girl named
Mabel, for instance----"

He stirred again, because, after all, what did it matter what he had said?
She was gazing over the ward. She was not interested in him. She had
almost forgotten him. And as he stirred Mr. Simond's cane fell out. It
was immediately followed by the tin sign, which only gradually
subsided, face up, on the bare floor, in a slowly diminishing series