"Help them all you can," he finished, feeling inadequate and hopelessly
didactic. "Cure them; send them out with a smile; and--leave the rest to
the Almighty."
Sidney was resigned, but not content. Newly facing the evil of the world,
she was a rampant reformer at once. Only the arrival of Christine and her
fiance saved his philosophy from complete rout. He had time for a question
between the ring of the bell and Katie's deliberate progress from the
kitchen to the front door.
"How about the surgeon, young Wilson? Do you ever see him?" His tone was
carefully casual.
"Almost every day. He stops at the door of the ward and speaks to me. It
makes me quite distinguished, for a probationer. Usually, you know, the
staff never even see the probationers."
"And--the glamour persists?" He smiled down at her.
"I think he is very wonderful," said Sidney valiantly.
Christine Lorenz, while not large, seemed to fill the little room. Her
voice, which was frequent and penetrating, her smile, which was wide and
showed very white teeth that were a trifle large for beauty, her
all-embracing good nature, dominated the entire lower floor. K., who had
met her before, retired into silence and a corner. Young Howe smoked a
cigarette in the hall.
"You poor thing!" said Christine, and put her cheek against Sidney's.
"Why, you're positively thin! Palmer gives you a month to tire of it all;
but I said--"
"I take that back," Palmer spoke indolently from the corridor. "There is
the look of willing martyrdom in her face. Where is Reginald? I've
brought some nuts for him."
"Reginald is back in the woods again."
"Now, look here," he said solemnly. "When we arranged about these rooms,
there were certain properties that went with them--the lady next door who
plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and Reginald. If
you must take something to the woods, why not the minuet person?"
Howe was a good-looking man, thin, smooth-shaven, aggressively well
dressed. This Sunday afternoon, in a cutaway coat and high hat, with an
English malacca stick, he was just a little out of the picture. The Street
said that he was "wild," and that to get into the Country Club set
Christine was losing more than she was gaining.
Christine had stepped out on the balcony, and was speaking to K. just
inside.
"It's rather a queer way to live, of course," she said. "But Palmer is a
pauper, practically. We are going to take our meals at home for a while.
You see, certain things that we want we can't have if we take a house--a
car, for instance. We'll need one for running out to the Country Club to
dinner. Of course, unless father gives me one for a wedding present, it
will be a cheap one. And we're getting the Rosenfeld boy to drive it. He's
crazy about machinery, and he'll come for practically nothing."