“Yes, doctor.”
“That’s all,” said Kildare, and went on into Nancy’s room.
“Johnny?” she asked.
“You’re a mind reader,” said Kildare. “You can see in the dark, so you don’t need eyes; but you’re going to have them anyway.”
She sat up in the bed with an exclamation.
“What have you found?” she asked.
“I’ve found,” said Kildare, “that when you sit up like that and smile you’re a lovely girl to look at, Nancy.”
“Ah, I like that!” she said. “If there were only more nonsense like that in you, Johnny!…”
“Well, what?”
“You could make more people happy. Particularly…”
“Particularly who?”
“What is it you found out?”
“That I’m going to have to knock you out for three days.”
“Ah?” she said indifferently, sinking back in the bed once more. “What’s going to happen to me while I’m asleep?”
“Some rather painful applications to the eyes…When you wake up, there’ll still be a bandage across those eyes…Nancy, you didn’t believe me when I told you that there was no brain tumour?”
“No, Johnny.”
“Will you believe me if, when I take the bandage off your eyes, you see?”
“Johnny, I know that you’re not simply encouraging me. You mean what you say this time?”
He had to close his eyes to shut out the sight of her. Still with his eyes closed, he said: “I mean it! You’re going to see! Full vision in both eyes.”
She put her hands up over her face. “I’m going to try to believe,” she said.
“I don’t care whether you believe or not,” said Kildare. “Set yourself against it, and you’ll have all the more pleasure when those bandages are taken off. Surprise is one of the first elements in real pleasure, isn’t it?…I’m going to give you an injection that will knock you galley-west. Shall I put the bandage over your eyes before or after you go to sleep?”
“After,” she said. “I don’t want you to sit there looking at me when I’m wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy. I’m terribly vain, Johnny, and I’m sentimental about you besides.”
He prepared her arm and gave the barbital injection.
“You’re going to sleep fast,” he said. “If you have any talking to do, do it now.”
“I want Nora here when I wake up.”
“She has a lot of wrong ideas.”
“I know. But I love her, and she loves me.”
“I’ll have her here when you wake up.”
“Thank you…Johnny, when you talked to me about the hell that you were going through, it was all made up, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a word of truth in it?”
“There was more than a word of truth in it. I was in a different sort of hell. That was all.”
“I knew that there was something. Are you happy now, Johnny? Is all the sorrow gone from you?”
“You’re the patient, not I.”
“I wish you could tell me about it. You can’t be sure that I wouldn’t be able to help.”
“I’ll tell you about it when you’re on your feet, able to look me in the eye, and happy.”
“Happy? Do you think that I can ever be happy again?”
“Leave that to me too,” said Kildare.
“I almost think I could,” said the girl. She yawned. “Johnny,” she murmured, “you’re the only friend in the world. Nobody else—nobody knows—how—to be—a friend…”
She was asleep. Kildare went into the next room, where Messenger stood up at once and passed him a cheque.
He said to Messenger: “What’s this?”
“A small retainer, doctor,” said Messenger.
“Interns can’t accept fees,” explained Kildare. “There was a reward offered for the finding of Nancy,” argued Messenger.
“Finding her was merely a part of my medical duty in the case,” said Kildare.
“I’ve learned a little about what has happened to you in this hospital,” said Messenger, “and what you gave up in order to take the case of Nancy. If you didn’t expect to get some financial return, will you tell me what induced you to make the change?”
“It’s one of those things that don’t stand talking.”
“If you can’t take this cheque, will you throw the thing away?…Give it to the next beggar on the street—but don’t ask me to take it back.”
Kildare crumpled the cheque blindly in the palm of his hand. He forgot it.
“How long will it take you to bring Nora here?” he asked.
“She’s in town. I can have her here in half an hour.”
“Please send for her then. Tell her that Nancy is going to have her sight restored.”
Messenger left in haste for Nora; when Mary Lamont hurried into the room a moment later, she found Kildare sitting at the centre table bowed over a book in which there was a complicated chart of the eye in colours. He was lost in the study of it.
She said breathlessly: “Doctor Gillespie has sent for your father.”
“Don’t bother me,” said Kildare.
“Your father is with him now,” said Mary Lamont. “With who?” said Kildare.
“With Doctor Gillespie.”
“I’m busy,” said Kildare. “Who is with Dr. Gillespie?”
“Dr. Stephen Kildare,” said Mary Lamont.
“Doctors ought to stay away from Gillespie,” said Kildare. “He has enough to do handling the laymen.”
“Did you understand the name I gave you, doctor?”
“Damn the names. I don’t care about the tags. Get Herron for me. Mary, wait a minute. Here’s a cheque or something from Messenger. The fool won’t understand that interns can’t take money. Give it where the giving will do the most good. Or—wait a minute—keep it yourself.”
He bowed his head over the book again.
“The other doctors will be in this room within an hour, doctor,” she said, shaking her head helplessly as she stared at him. “And Mr. Charles Herron…”
“What about him? I want Herron!” said Kildare.
“He’s waiting to see you now,” said the girl.
“Bring him here!” snapped Kildare.
He was walking up and down the room when Herron came in. The big man had about the face a bruised and battered look that made him seem older and sterner. He came to Kildare, took his hand, and made an instant apology.
“The last time I spoke with you, I misunderstood your position, Doctor Kildare,” he said, “and my treatment of you…”
“That’s finished and done with,” said Kildare. “Let’s not waste time on it. I’m only glad you didn’t break me in two and throw the pieces away. I could see that was what you wanted to do…Herron, I haven’t time to be polite and indirect. There was a time when you loved Nancy Messenger. She put you through a bad time and your temper wore out. When you told her she never was to see you again, you meant it.”
“I was hurt, and I acted like a child. That was all.”
“Herron, do you mean to say that you weren’t speaking your real mind? Does she still mean something to you?”
“More than I dreamed she did before.”
“I’m going to need your help. Can I use you?”
“Use me? God knows you can!”
“Then stand by,” said Kildare. “I’ll tell you your lines when the time comes.”
Mary Lamont took the twenty-thousand-dollar cheque down to Gillespie. When she went into the outer office she heard him saying: “They all agreed?”
“Yes, doctor,” the gentle voice of old Dr. Stephen Kildare was answering.
“All agreed that it was heart?”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Why, damn my soul, Kildare,” said Gillespie, “the fact of the matter is that you have a mortal illness, but it isn’t your heart at all. There hasn’t been a coronary occlusion. There’s only been an attack of indigestion…Don’t spend as much time over your wife’s cooking—and take some sodium bicarbonate now and then.”