"I am a drag on you.I'm going to take a place in a store."He affected an indignation so artistic that it ought to have been convincing."I'm ashamed of you!" he cried."I see you're losing your nerve."This was ingenious, but it did not succeed."You can't deceive me any longer," was her steady answer."Tell me honest--couldn't you have got something to do long ago, if it hadn't been for trying to do something for me?""Sure," replied he, too canny to deny the obvious."But what has that to do with it? If I'd had a living offer, I'd have taken it.But at my age a man doesn't dare take certain kinds of places.It'd settle him for life.And I'm playing for a really big stake and I'll win.When I get what I want for you, we'll make as much money a month as I could make a year.Trust me, my dear."It was plausible; and her "loss of nerve" was visibly aggravating his condition--the twitching of hands and face, the terrifying brightness of his eyes, of the color in the deep hollows under his cheek bones.But she felt that she must persist."How much money have we got?" she asked.
"Oh--a great deal enough."
"You must play square with me," said she."I'm not a baby, but a woman--and your partner.""Don't worry me, child.We'll talk about it tomorrow.""How much? You've no right to hide things from me.You--hurt me.""Eleven dollars and eighty cents--when this bill for supper's paid and the waitress tipped.""I'll try for a place in a store," said she.
"Don't talk that way or think that way," cried he angrily.
"There's where so many people fail in life.They don't stick to their game.I wish to God I'd had sense enough to break straight for Chicago or New York.But it's too late now.What I lack is nerve--nerve to do the big, bold things my brains show me I ought."His distress was so obvious that she let the subject drop.That night she lay awake as she had fallen into the habit of doing.
But instead of purposeless, rambling thoughts, she was trying definitely to plan a search for work.Toward three in the morning she heard him tossing and muttering--for the wall between their rooms was merely plastered laths covered with paper.She tried his door; it was locked.She knocked, got no answer but incoherent ravings.She roused the office, and the night porter forced the door.Burlingham's gas was lighted; he was sitting up in bed--a haggard, disheveled, insane man, raving on and on--names of men and women she had never heard--oaths, disjointed sentences.
"Brain fever, I reckon," said the porter."I'll call a doctor."In a few minutes Susan was gladdened by the sight of a young man wearing the familiar pointed beard and bearing the familiar black bag.He made a careful examination, asked her many questions, finally said:
"Your father has typhoid, I fear.He must be taken to a hospital.""But we have very little money," said Susan.
"I understand," replied the doctor, marveling at the calmness of one so young."The hospital I mean is free.I'll send for an ambulance."While they were waiting beside Burlingham, whom the doctor had drugged into unconsciousness with a hypodermic, Susan said: "Can I go to the hospital and take care of him?""No," replied the doctor."You can only call and inquire how he is, until he's well enough to see you.""And how long will that be?"
"I can't say." He hadn't the courage to tell her it would be three weeks at least, perhaps six or seven.
He got leave of the ambulance surgeon for Susan to ride to the hospital, and he went along himself.As the ambulance sped through the dimly lighted streets with clanging bell and heavy pounding of the horse's hoofs on the granite pavement, Susan knelt beside Burlingham, holding one of his hot hands.She was remembering how she had said that she would die for him--and here it was he that was dying for her.And her heart was heavy with a load of guilt, the heaviest she was ever to feel in her life.
She could not know how misfortune is really the lot of human beings; it seemed to her that a special curse attended her, striking down all who befriended her.
They dashed up to great open doors of the hospital.Burlingham was lifted, was carried swiftly into the receiving room.Susan with tearless eyes bent over, embraced him lingeringly, kissed his fiery brow, his wasted cheeks.One of the surgeons in white duck touched her on the arm.
"We can't delay," he said.
"No indeed," she replied, instantly drawing back.
She watched the stretcher on wheels go noiselessly down the corridor toward the elevator and when it was gone she still continued to look."You can come at any hour to inquire," said the young doctor who had accompanied her."Now we'll go into the office and have the slip made out."They entered a small room, divided unequally by a barrier desk;behind it stood a lean, coffee-sallowed young man with a scrawny neck displayed to the uttermost by a standing collar scarcely taller than the band of a shirt.He directed at Susan one of those obtrusively shrewd glances which shallow people practice and affect to create the impression that they have a genius for character reading.He drew a pad of blank forms toward him, wiped a pen on the mat into which his mouse-colored hair was roached above his right temple."Well, miss, what's the patient's name?""Robert Burlingham."
"Age?"
"I don't know."
"About what?"
"I--I don't know.I guess he isn't very young.But I don't know.""Put down forty, Sim," said the doctor.
"Very well, Doctor Hamilton." Then to Susan: "Color white, Isuppose.Nativity?"
Susan recalled that she had heard him speak of Liverpool as his birthplace."English," said she.
"Profession?"
"Actor."
"Residence?"
"He hasn't any.It was sunk at Jeffersonville.We stop at the Walnut Street House.""Walnut Street House.Was he married or single?""Single." Then she recalled some of the disconnected ravings.
"I--I--don't know."
"Single," said the clerk."No, I guess I'll put it widower.Next friend or relative?""I am."
"Daughter.First name?"
"I am not his daughter."
"Oh, niece.Full name, please."
