K

"If you mean Max Wilson," said Sidney, "you are entirely wrong. He's not in

love with me--not, that is, any more than he is in love with a dozen girls.

He likes to be with me--oh, I know that; but that doesn't mean--anything

else. Anyhow, after this disgrace--"

"There is no disgrace, child."

"He'll think me careless, at the least. And his ideals are so high, K."

"You say he likes to be with you. What about you?"

Sidney had been sitting in a low chair by the fire. She rose with a sudden

passionate movement. In the informality of the household, she, had visited

K. in her dressing-gown and slippers; and now she stood before him, a

tragic young figure, clutching the folds of her gown across her breast.

"I worship him, K.," she said tragically. "When I see him coming, I want

to get down and let him walk on me. I know his step in the hall. I know

the very way he rings for the elevator. When I see him in the

operating-room, cool and calm while every one else is flustered and

excited, he--he looks like a god."

Then, half ashamed of her outburst, she turned her back to him and stood

gazing at the small coal fire. It was as well for K. that she did not see

his face. For that one moment the despair that was in him shone in his

eyes. He glanced around the shabby little room, at the sagging bed, the

collar-box, the pincushion, the old marble-topped bureau under which

Reginald had formerly made his nest, at his untidy table, littered with

pipes and books, at the image in the mirror of his own tall figure, stooped

and weary.

"It's real, all this?" he asked after a pause. "You're sure it's not

just--glamour, Sidney?"

"It's real--terribly real." Her voice was muffled, and he knew then that

she was crying.

She was mightily ashamed of it. Tears, of course, except in the privacy of

one's closet, were not ethical on the Street.

"Perhaps he cares very much, too."

"Give me a handkerchief," said Sidney in a muffled tone, and the little

scene was broken into while K. searched through a bureau drawer. Then: "It's all over, anyhow, since this. If he'd really cared he'd have come

over to-night. When one is in trouble one needs friends."

Back in a circle she came inevitably to her suspension. She would never go

back, she said passionately. She was innocent, had been falsely accused.

If they could think such a thing about her, she didn't want to be in their

old hospital.