So now Pierre fought down his suspicions and his fears. He had not
recognized Prosper. The man who had come in out of the white night,
four years ago, had worn his cap low over his eyes, his collar turned
up about his face, and, even at that, Pierre, in his drunken stupor,
had not been able to see him very clearly. This Prosper Gael who had
stood behind the footlights, this Prosper Gael at whom Joan, from some
unknown cause, had sprung like a woman maddened by injury, was a
person entirely strange to Pierre. But Pierre hated him. The man had
done Joan some insufferable mischief, which at the last had driven her
beside herself. Pierre put up a hand, pressing it against his eyes. He
wanted to shut out the picture of that struggling girl with her torn
dress and the double scar across her shoulder. If it hadn't been for
the scar he would never have known her--his Joan, his gentle, silent
Joan! What had they been doing to her to change her so? No, not they.
He. He had changed her. He had branded her and driven her out. It was
his fault. He must try to find her again, to find the old Joan--if she
should live. The doctor had said that she was desperately ill. O God!
What was keeping him so long? Why didn't he come?
The arrival of the trained nurse distracted Pierre for a few moments.
She went past him in her gray cloak, very quiet and earnest, and the
elevator lifted her out of sight.
"Were you in the theater to-night?" asked the girl at the desk, seeing
that he was temporarily aware of her again.
"Yes, ma'am."
She was puzzled by his appearance and the fashion of his speech. He
must be a gentleman, she thought, for his bearing was gentle and
assured and unself-conscious, but he wore his clothes differently and
spoke differently from other gentlemen. That "Yes, ma'am," especially
disturbed her. Then she remembered a novel she had read and her mind
jumped to a conclusion. She leaned forward.
"Say, aren't you from the West?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You weren't ever a cowboy, were you?"
Pierre smiled. "Yes, ma'am. I was raised in a cow-camp. I was a cowboy
till about seven years ago when I took to ranchin'."
"Where was that?"
"Out in Wyoming."
"And you've come straight from there to New York?" She pronounced it
"Noo Yoik."
"No, ma'am. I've been in Alasky for two years now. I've been in a
lumber-camp."