Carlotta followed them out.
Almost on their heels came K. He was in the white coat, and more and more
he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held out
something in his hand. Sidney's head was aching and confused.
She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish. The dawn was
morning now--horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and across the
windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles sat on a
clean towel.
The tall man--or was it K.?--looked at her, and then reached up and turned
off the electric light. Why, it was K., of course; and he was putting out
the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light was out everything
was gray. She could not see. She slid very quietly out of her chair, and
lay at his feet in a dead faint.
K. carried her to the elevator. He held her as he had held her that day at
the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as one holds
something infinitely precious. Not until he had placed her on her bed did
she open her eyes. But she was conscious before that. She was so tired,
and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing where one was
going, or caring-The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney, lying
among her pillows, looked up at K.
"How is he?"
"A little better. There's a chance, dear."
"I have been so mixed up. All the time I was sitting waiting, I kept
thinking that it was you who were operating! Will he really get well?"
"It looks promising."
"I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes."
The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia. There was so much to talk
about: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had been shot
by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the great Edwardes;
and--a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, and that thrilled
the training-school to the core--that this very Edwardes, newly risen, as
it were, and being a miracle himself as well as performing one, this very
Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed and putting her down, had kissed her
on her white forehead.
The training-school doubted this. How could he know Sidney Page? And,
after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupied at the
time in seeing if her cap was straight. The school, therefore, accepted
the miracle, but refused the kiss.