"K. is alone."
"K. can sit with Christine. Ten to one, he's with her now."
The temptation was very strong. She had been working hard all day. The
heavy odor of the hospital, mingled with the scent of pine and evergreen
in the chapel; made her dizzy. The fresh outdoors called her. And,
besides, if K. were with Christine-"It's forbidden, isn't it?"
"I believe it is." He smiled at her.
"And yet, you continue to tempt me and expect me to yield!"
"One of the most delightful things about temptation is yielding now and
then."
After all, the situation seemed absurd. Here was her old friend and
neighbor asking to take her out for a daylight ride. The swift rebellion
of youth against authority surged up in Sidney.
"Very well; I'll go."
Carlotta had gone by that time--gone with hate in her heart and black
despair. She knew very well what the issue would be. Sidney would drive
with him, and he would tell her how lovely she looked with the air on her
face and the snow about her. The jerky motion of the little sleigh would
throw them close together. How well she knew it all! He would touch
Sidney's hand daringly and smile in her eyes. That was his method: to play
at love-making like an audacious boy, until quite suddenly the cloak
dropped and the danger was there.
The Christmas excitement had not died out in the ward when Carlotta went
back to it. On each bedside table was an orange, and beside it a pair of
woolen gloves and a folded white handkerchief. There were sprays of holly
scattered about, too, and the after-dinner content of roast turkey and
ice-cream.
The lame girl who played the violin limped down the corridor into the ward.
She was greeted with silence, that truest tribute, and with the instant
composing of the restless ward to peace.
She was pretty in a young, pathetic way, and because to her Christmas was a
festival and meant hope and the promise of the young Lord, she played
cheerful things.
The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across from
bed to bed.
The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
the music.
"Last Christmas," she said plaintively, "we went out into the country in a
hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for, anyhow. I
am a fool."